#ferdinand foch

[nobeerreviews]

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.

-- Ferdinand Foch

[empirearchives]

5 May 1921 was the centenary of the death of Napoleon. Marshal Foch, who led French forces to victory in World War I just a few years earlier, presented the Emperor’s sword in front of his tomb. In his eulogy, he said, “Sire, you can sleep in peace.”

At the end of his life, in a book of interviews published after his death, Marshal Foch confided his opinions on Napoleon: Fondation Napoléon

In it, he says that Napoleon’s civil and military achievements were due to “very simple, very clear principles, handled by Napoleon with dizzying mastery and virtuosity.”

[plaques-memoire]

Plaque en hommage à : Ferdinand Foch

Type : Lieu de résidence

Adresse : 5bis rue du Maréchal Foch, 45000 Orléans, France

Date de pose : Inconnue

Texte : A la mémoire du maréchal Foch qui habita cette maison de 1906 à 1908, colonel chef d'état-major puis général de brigade, commt. l'artillerie du 5e corps

Quelques précisions : Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929) est un militaire français, ayant été élevé à la dignité de Maréchal de France, notamment suite à ses actions durant la Première Guerre mondiale. Il est ainsi l'un des commandants de l'armée française durant la célèbre bataille de la Marne (1914) à l'issue de laquelle les Alliés remportent une victoire décisive, ainsi que pendant la première bataille d'Ypres. Des défaites militaires ternissent ensuite son prestige, mais il reste toutefois à des positions de commandement militaire (il est souvent en compétition ou en désaccord avec Philippe Pétain) qui lui permettent d'être l'architecte de la victoire décisive contre les Allemands en 1918. Sa santé décline à la fin des années 1920, jusqu'à son décès. Ayant reçu de multiples décorations militaires, en France comme à l'étranger (dont la Grand-Croix de la Légion d'honneur), il reçoit après sa mort de très nombreux hommages. La rue d'Orléans où est située cette plaque commémorative porte d'ailleurs son nom. D'autres plaques commémoratives en son honneur peuvent être trouvées à France, en particulier à Paris et à Lyon.

[chasseurdefer]

“My center is giving way , my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack.”

Ferdinand Foch

[elisabeth515]

FROM THE SOUTH TO THE FRONT INTO NO MAN’S LAND

FROM A FARM TO THE END OF THE ROAD

SON OF FRANCE HE IS THE FIRST ON THE FRONTLINE

COMING HOME

COMING HOME

LET HIS STORY BE KNOWN

(Look at them🥺🥺🥺; found this on the internet)

Finally a song celebrating the shrimp-sized guy who was rejected by the army, showed up anyway, deserted on purpose to be sent to the frontline, and once there did all kinds of unbelievable shit, holding a trench alone, saving his officers, taking over a thousand prisoners by himself during the war, and ending the war still a simple soldier.

And then went back home to mend roads and be a fireman.

@elisabeth515 thanks for telling me about it!

[lolochaponnay]

[dixvinsblog]

On veut des noms – Jean Paul Clair ( de Felix Faure à Ferdinand Foch )

FAURE Félix (1841–1899) FAURE Félix (1841–1899) : Président de la République qui tomba raide mort dans l’exercice de ses fonctions… personnelles. Léo Campion a déclaré « Il voulut être César. Mais il ne fut que Pompée. » FELLER Joachim (1638-1691) : Ecrivain, poète, bibliothécaire. Il est mort pendant son sommeil, mais d’une manière plutôt inhabituelle, somnambule, il est tombé par la…

[eleemosynecdoche]

Getting into necromancy so I can call up Erich von Ludendorff's soul from whatever hell he's in and read Gundam Wing slashfic I find-and-replaced his and Luigi Cadorna's names into at him. Maybe extend it further to Gundam SEED slashfic and add Ferdinand Foch and Douglas Haig's names to the mix.

I take this as a dare, and I shan't be thought a coward.

[macrodatum]

red fish, blue fish.

At first Mark wasn't interested in naming his betta fish (mostly they existed to give him something to take care of without too much investment), but when Ricken suggested naming them after his favourite activists on Twitter months after Mark adopted them, he finally bit the bullet. His red betta fish is named Commander Ferdinand Foch, and is fondly referred to as "Ferdie". Ferdie is named after a professor of military history, strategy, and general tactics who served in World War I, and whose planned Grand Offensive ultimately led to the Armistice on the 11th of November, 1918. His blue betta fish is named "Buddy", because she's Mark's little buddy.

[cherry-posts]

“Die mächtigste Waffe der Welt ist die brennende menschliche Seele.”

— Ferdinand Foch

[dweemeister]

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022, Germany)

As a film buff, I retain a preference to reading a book first before seeing its adaptation. But with how many movies I see in a year – sometimes not realizing that a movie is a literary adaptation before starting it – and given how many original source materials are out-of-print or little-read (let alone how slow a reader I am), this is often too difficult a proposition. I make an attempt, however possible, to learn about the themes of an adapted book I was not able to read before heading into a film write-up. Strict fidelity to the text is not a requirement; yet a film adaptation should adhere to the spirit of the text. Any significant changes to that requires the change be done with artistic intelligence and sensitivity. Especially when the adapted book in question is significant in a peoples’ or a nation’s consciousness. Published in 1929, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is a landmark novel in anti-war literature and remains – for its depiction of World War I on the bodies and minds of the young men sent to fight it – an important part of modern Germany’s sociopolitical identity.

Lewis Milestone’s 1930 film adaptation at Universal with Lew Ayres was the first cinematic masterpiece following the introduction of synchronized sound and the era of the silent film. Now steps in Edward Berger’s German-language adaptation for Netflix, starring Felix Kammerer, in hopes of reminding viewers that Im Westen nichts Neues (roughly “Nothing New in the West”) is, despite its universal appeal, fundamentally a German story.  Berger’s All Quiet is a stupendous technical masterpiece – harrowing visual and sound effects, overflowing with blood and mud. It is among the most technically accomplished war movies this side of Saving Private Ryan (1998). Along the way, Berger’s All Quiet tries for too much, and betrays the characterizations and the intent of Remarque’s novel. With some of its violent scenes shot too aesthetically pleasing alongside an offensive and disrespectful electronic score, 2022’s All Quiet casts the French civilians and soldiers as “the enemy” rather than fellow victims. It veers perilously close to fetishizing the violence within.

Before a brief synopsis, it seems appropriate to reproduce Remarque’s epigraph to All Quiet on the Western Front here:

This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.

It is 1917, and the Great War has been plodding along for three years. Along with his friends Ludwig Behm (Adrian Grünewald), Albert Kropp (Aaron Hilmer), and Franz Müller (Koritz Klaus), student Paul Bäumer (Kammerer) enlists in the Imperial German Army. They all receive uniforms that, unbeknownst to them, belonged to German soldiers killed in action. Skipping almost entirely over basic training, Paul and his friends deploy to the Western Front, on the French side of the Belgium/France border. There, they befriend Stanislaus “Kat” Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch) and Tjaden Stackfleet (Edin Hasanovic), who are several years older and have been fighting since close to the war’s beginning. These young men muddle on in drenched trenches, freezing weather, and their comrades’ horrific deaths. Parallel to the plight of Paul and his fellow soldiers is German politician Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl), who secretly travels by train to the Forest of Compiègne to negotiate with French General Ferdinand Foch (Thibault de Montalembert) an armistice.

Also featuring in this film are Devid Striesow as the so-villainous-he-must-be-a-moustache-twirler General Friedrichs, as well as Andreas Döhler and Sebastian Hülk as two German officers.

This All Quiet on the Western Front occasionally frames its violent scenes as too painterly, the combat infrequently choreographed too closely to action movies (e.g., 2017’s Dunkirk is sometimes more of a suspense movie than it is a war movie and Sam Mendes’ 1917 from 2019 is an aesthetic challenge and action movie first, war film second). The opening moments are a dolly shot that linger over a patchwork of corpses strewn about No Man’s Land, with the dull rattle of machine gun fire occasionally disturbing the soil. There is an almost gawking approach to how cinematographer James Friend hovers over the bodies. One character’s death is shrouded in a blinding angelic light – applying too picturesque a technique for a non-fantastical moment.  Some exceptions to this voyeuristic, perhaps fetishistic approach to framing warfare appears, including the frightening emergence of French tanks through a cloud of gas. Berger succeeds in displaying war for all its brutality. The film’s sheen, however, comes off as too aggressive and its camerawork reflecting a Netflix-esque polish.

The most glaring misstep from the screenplay by Berger, Ian Stokell, and Lesley Paterson is to include any perspectives not involving Paul and his most immediate comrades. Depicting the insights of Erzberger, Foch, and the fictional General Friedrichs removes one of the central pillars of why All Quiet on the Western Front was such a revolutionary piece of literature. Remarque’s novel, at a time when “anti-war” narrative art was in its infancy, was one of the first war narratives that concentrated entirely on common soldiers – not the officers that commanded them or the politicians that guided them.

Before focusing on Paul and his friends, let us get the officers and politicians out of the way first. The insertion of the armistice negotiations and Gen. Friedrichs’ beliefs over politicians selling the Germany army out – more on this fiction shortly – stunts Paul and his friends’ respective character growths. And despite a decent performance from Brühl, these scenes (except for the final time the elite appear) play out repetitively: Erzberger pleads to Foch for a ceasefire, Foch demands a conditional surrender that will heavily punish Germany, and Erzberger mulls over the terms of surrender. This is all distracting from the common soldiers’ experiences, and provides as much cinematic or educational value as an amateur historical reenactment.

Berger’s stated justification for including these scenes – and letting them drag on too long in the film’s second half – is reasonable. Over the last decade, the actions of far right political groups in Germany have become more visible. These contemporary groups espouse the myths that some in 1920s and ‘30s Germany used to justify the nation’s actions leading up to World War II – all which monolithized and exploited German WWI trauma to serve repugnant purposes. The emotional imbalance of the Erzberger*/Foch scenes paints France and the Allies as an unforgiving “other”, as well as the war’s eventual “victors” (the Allies did prevail in WWI, but Remarque sees no winners in warfare).  For a work never meant to be an accusation and written in between the World Wars, the proto-fascist Gen. Friedrichs spits out an early form of the stab-in-the-back conspiracy theory‡. His behavior and appearance, eerily reminiscent of Allied propaganda of Germans as “the Hun”, casts him as the film’s obvious villain. These decisions all provide Berger’s All Quiet with a juxtaposition of morality more appropriate in a WWII movie than one for the Great War.

Beyond the implications of historical morality, Berger, Stokell, and Paterson’s screenplay undermines, at almost every juncture, Remarque’s critiques of the nationalism that began World War I. The decision to have Paul and his friends join the military in 1917 rather than 1914 (as it is in the book) makes it more difficult to have Paul and his friends to have conversations about the nature and the origins of this war. Instead, the screenplay keeps such dialogue to a minimum. As a result, Berger relies on cinematographer James Friend (in his first motion picture of note) to show us close-ups of Paul’s face to reveal his thoughts. In his film debut, Felix Kammerer is doing all he can with his facial and physical acting, but after a certain point this take on Paul results in him being an empty vessel.

Indeed, in Remarque’s book, Paul Bäumer is very much a reactive rather than proactive character. But that does not mean he is without deep introspection, as he is in this 2022 adaptation. Rather than someone who slowly realizes the nationalistic folly of WWI (“We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from true, we had suddenly learned to see.”), muses on how wars begin, and is anything but resigned to war’s inevitability, Kammerer’s Paul emotes and says nothing about these aspects of the war. Any critique from nationalism comes not from Paul in this adaptation, but from Gen. Friedrichs’ cartoonishly villainous behavior and Paul’s teachers in the film’s opening minutes. Paul and his friends are no battlefield geniuses, nor are they intellectuals. But the monotony of war – in the absence and presence of violence – grants them knowledge no classroom can give, wisdom that no elder can impart.

Berger, Stokell, and Paterson have the gall to delete entirely arguably the most critical passage in the book: Paul’s return home after being granted time for rest and recreation. After a lengthy spell fighting in the trenches, Paul’s leave completes his development as a naïve and adventure-seeking student to a detached, disillusioned man. Nationalism manipulates his father and others – mostly older men – into believing the justness of the conflict, that serving one’s country in warfare is glorious.

By contrast, Lewis Milestone’s 1930 adaptation takes Paul’s reunion with his teacher a step further than the book. In that version, instead of a chance encounter at a parade ground, Paul visits his teacher during class, with his newest students a rapt audience. The scene that follows is not subtle. But in the context of Milestone’s adaptation, the film earns it. As Paul, Lew Ayres refuses to gift his former teacher the heroic narrative he requests – paraphrasing Horace, decrying nationalism, and simply stating: “We try not to be killed; sometimes we are. That’s all.” One figures these are the words, delivered in sullen fury, by WWI’s veterans. Berger’s adaptation again leans too heavily on Kammerer to relate any semblance of the above ideas. There is no analogue scene to juxtapose the behavioral and psychological differences between battlefront and homefront, no character or even a faraway figure for Paul to verbally challenge. Kammerer’s Paul does undergo a behavioral and cognitive shift by the conclusion of 2022’s All Quiet. Yet, his transformation is not nearly as dramatic as the narrative needs it to be. These failures all stem from a screenplay that might as well have been titled something else. It is damningly incurious about Paul and his friends.

Major movie studio film scores are moving in a particular direction: amelodic, electronic, experimental, metallic, and minimalistic. It seems, by how awards voting bodies and audiences are reacting to such music, what I am about to write paints me more of an outlier than ever.

Composer Volker Bertelmann (also known as his stage name Hauschka; 2016’s Lion) concocts an anachronistic score that includes all these elements. Devoid entirely of recognizable melody (droning strings), Bertelmann’s score has one repetitive three-note idea – I refuse to call this a motif, as it lacks any sense of development from its first to final appearances – that damages and dominates the movie. Inserted in strangely timed moments and meant to intensify dread, Bertelmann’s idea begins from the root note (B♭), up a minor third (D♭), then descends a minor sixth (F). Bertelmann plays these three notes fortissimo, with synthesizer mimicking blaring brass – trust me, you know the sound and you may know its worst practitioners. When recurring underneath the strings, the idea modulates. Memorable as it may be, this metallic sound is more appropriate for hyping young men before a battle or at a rave rather than suggesting dread. Even worse: this is disruptive music. There is a healthy balance to when music should or should not accompany the imagery onscreen. One should notice music in a movie, and it should empower – but not completely overshadow – the emotions and ideas in respect to a certain scene. Bertelmann’s interruptions appear mostly in calms before the proverbial storms. These are the moments the characters and the audience should collect themselves before the killing restarts. Thus, his three-note idea abuses and instantly overstays its welcome.

Is there a place for such colorless, obnoxious, and offensively manipulative music in film? Certainly. Just not in anything entitled All Quiet on the Western Front.

On its surface, a German-language film adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front would restore a cultural and linguistic authenticity to Remarque’s text, one of the most important literary works in German history. To some extent, Berger succeeds. His All Quiet is a technical wonder, but its human interest is nil. Remarque’s prose is not the most accomplished, but his subjective descriptions of trench warfare and his characters’ philosophizing in moments of boredom and quiet were unlike anything almost any Western reader ever encountered. We, the readers, grow alongside Paul and his friends. In 1930, the viewers saw a small group of friends – Milestone’s adaptation is unique in that Paul does not truly emerge as the main character until halfway through the film – see their youth and optimism pummeled away with each shelling and charge. A humanity remains, but tenuously. Berger’s adaptation treads an easier path by inserting a reenactment of the armistice negotiations and expediting Paul’s characterization by immediately dismantling his inwardness and sense of hope.

As a document of a generation’s experiences, a critique of that era’s nationalism that led to the conflict, and a common soldier’s processing of the war’s origin and purpose, this is a poor adaptation of Remarque’s novel. It clears the hurdle in anti-war narratives by decrying warfare as ugly. Beyond this basic expectation, it accomplishes little else.

My rating: 6/10

* Erzberger was assassinated by the far-right terrorist organization Organisation Consul (OC) in 1921. The group was disbanded the year after, but its former members were absorbed into the Nazi Party’s Schutzstaffel (SS).

‡ This conspiracy theory was primarily associated with Jews, but the Nazis also extended it to the political elite that negotiated the surrender. And as if it weren’t obvious enough, one of our German characters is stabbed in the back in the film’s concluding minutes.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[scotland-wolves]

"The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire." -Ferdinand Foch

[riflerhymeswithtrifle]

Another long ass post analyzing an aspect of All Quiet on the Western Front (2022):

One thing I really like about AQOTWF (that maybe not many understand) is the attention the production team put into food. For me there are two things they tried to tell us with all those shots and scenes focused on food:

First, we are clearly showed how the soldiers were starving, to the point in which they had to find ways of providing food for themselves on their own. They even kept just a little bit of bread in their pockets to have portions in the future (when Paul wakes from his first night and Kat shares him some bread, you can see they both put it in their pockets instead of eating it all. My guess is they where saving it for later, since they knew they wouldn't be provided a lot of food. God, we even see Kat grabbing some crumbs from the mud just to eat as much as possible). With some takes we also see how poor the little food they had was.

Second, we are shown the difference between the ones who lead the war and the ones fighting in it. While the General Friedrich is drinking wine and eating grotesquely with Brixdorf at a table, Kat is fighting with a man to have a portion of soup (which ingredients are water and a potatoe). While General Ferdinand Foch complains about his food not being "fresh", Paul and Kat have to be satiated with muddy water they find at the trenches and two eggs they stole from a farm.

For me, this is a way of symbolism on how the ones financiating and seeing the war just as a conflict never experience the real atrocities of war (we can even see that Erzberger, the only one in that wagon who represents a real understanding of war, gives a massive side eye to his partner when he is eating and making noises, which is also a symbolism).

But this is just what I think and understand from this aspect of the movie.

Plus opinion on the food thing: Kat saying "Soon we'll be home, then we can eat what we want... Whatever we want" is one of the saddest things.

[bgallen]

"For months we have slept under the guns … We cannot comprehend the stillness.”

On the personal train carriage of General Ferdinand Foch, deep in the Forest of Compiègne, four representatives from the German Empire and four leaders of the Allied Powers met to discuss the terms of an armistice. After three days, on the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 the Armistice went into effect. Thus ending four years of unprecedented death and destruction, the Great War was finally over. Today, 105 years after this moment in history, that so drastically effected the lives of millions upon millions, we observe it as Veteran’s Day in America. Veteran’s Day is a day that we remember all of the veterans, in all of their capacities, who have served our nation. Veterans Day is a day to remember those veterans who have passed, yet even more importantly, to remember those who are living.

 I listened to a great podcast this week from History That Doesn’t Suck. Professor Greg Jackson does an incredible job telling the story of the Armistice in such an interesting way, yet still including all of the names and facts that are important. Episode 146 is titled, The Armistice of November 11, 1918. It’s a little over an hour long but so worth your time.

Armistice Day 1918: 100 Years of Heroes - YouTube, video of various American troops celebrating the armistice around the world in 1918.

They Shall Not Grow Old – New Trailer – Now Playing In Theaters - YouTube, this documentary is incredible.

1918 Peerless Quartet - Goodbye France - YouTube, this song came out in 1918.

1919 Nicholas Orlando - Till We Meet Again (Charles Hart & Harry MacDonough, vocal) - YouTube, this is a favorite of mine – I didn’t realize that it was written during The Great War!

Armistice Day 1918 (1918) - YouTube, oh my the confetti being thrown at 0:18!

“This Veterans Day, may we honor the incredible faith that our veterans hold, not just in our country but in all of us.  They are the solid-steel backbone of our Nation, and we must endeavor to continue being worthy of their sacrifices by working toward a more perfect Union and protecting the freedoms that they have fought to defend. In respect and recognition of the contributions our veterans and their families, caregivers, and survivors have made to the cause of peace and freedom around the world, the Congress has provided (5 U.S.C. 6103(a)) that November 11 of each year shall be set aside as a legal public holiday to honor our Nation’s veterans.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim November 11, 2023, as Veterans Day.  I encourage all Americans to recognize the valor, courage, and sacrifice of these patriots through appropriate ceremonies and private prayers and by observing two minutes of silence for our Nation’s veterans.  I also call upon Federal, State, and local officials to display the flag of the United States of America and to participate in patriotic activities in their communities.”

 I hope that your weekend is enjoyable, fun, restful, active – whatever you need it to be. And remember our veterans.  

[chasseurdefer]

“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”

Ferdinand Foch

[wocado]

The Human Soul on Fire Poster

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