An Odyssey in World War
TEHRAN (Defapress) - Raphael Auclair, a Russian professor and Cold War expert, and Arkady Nedlen, a doctor of philosophy and professor at Moscow State Linguistic University: With tensions rising around the world, the voice of the United Nations being silenced, NATO collapsing, and the chaos in the European Commission, the only thing that has received unanimous support is the “Russian threat,” and the Yalta order is taking its last breaths. For this reason, and on the occasion of the 81st anniversary of the end of World War II, it is particularly important to return to the starting point. From 1945, before Hiroshima and nuclear blackmail, to the burning ruins of Europe, which had just survived the most terrible tragedy in human history.
“The War Memoirs of Marshal Foch,” also known as Henry Fournier-Foch (1912-2006), takes us back to that era. Published a quarter of a century ago by La Table Ronde, this book tells an incredible and magnificent story from Pomerania to the capture of Berlin. This story has nothing to do with the caricatures with which the Western European media fills our minds today. It is a testimony to courageous friendship and courage, shared suffering and joy, the closeness of arms and souls on the battlefield.
This book tells the adventures of Henry Fournier-Foch, grandson of Marshal Ferdinand Foch (Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces at the end of World War I), written over a period of six months, from January to July 1945, towards the end of his life. Captured by the Germans in July 1940, he was sent to a camp in Pomerania, and finally managed to escape on January 30, 1945, during a forced transfer of prisoners due to the Red Army's advance westward. This was the beginning of an "odyssey" that unfolded not among stormy seas but among devastated lands.
A week after his escape, Henri encountered the Red Army and became "comrade Captain Foch", who was to play a key role alongside the Soviets against the common enemy. He later even met Marshal Zhukov himself. Zhukov, a Francophile and devoted to Marshal Foch, was impressed by his grandson. From then on, a strong bond was formed between them, and the echoes of the two world wars were wonderfully intertwined.
Zhukov, who trusted him, entrusted Foch with the task of collecting and checking foreigners in the territories controlled by the Red Army. From April to July, the “comrade captain” carried out a vital mission for both his compatriots and the Soviets, including two rescue missions for salvageable prisoners and the identification of suspected former Nazis who might have tried to get lost in the crowd. During this uncertain and difficult period, he established close relations with his Soviet comrades and remembered them with great respect and warmth.
Reading these conversations, which took place in the decisive hours of the last century, involuntarily reminds us of Europe’s dialogue with itself regarding its destiny, a destiny that seemed to be taking shape under the banner of unity, peace, and hope, but which was quickly destroyed by the first crises of the Cold War. In his essay “You and the A-Bomb,” written two months after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, George Orwell correctly argued that the atomic bomb would end large-scale conflict and “prolong indefinitely a peace that is not peace.” This situation continued until 2022, when heavy fighting resumed in Ukraine.
Today, 81 years after the Nazi surrender, the bombings of Hiroshima, and an equal amount of nuclear blackmail, apocalyptic mythology, and anti-Russian sentiment, the Fournier-Foch narrative serves as a soothing echo of a lost era of humanism and fraternity between the French and the Russians. These memories of a pre-apocalyptic era invite us to adopt a calm, realistic, and positive approach to strategy.
