Sabian .Earth Astrology

Field Marshall Ferdinand Foch is credited with the man who ended the War to end all Wars — World War i in the Allies favour.  He was born on October 2, 1851 in Tarbes, France.  Tarbes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France and the capital of Bigorre. It has been a commune since 1790.  Tarbes was known as Turba or Tarba in Roman times and is part of the historical region of Gascony.

Marc Jones cites his time as 10 PM at night, but we found at 1 PM in the afternoon works far better.  This gives the Field Marshall an ascendant 0f 1.27 Capricorn, that  is represented by “three stained glass windows, with one damaged by bombardment.”  It memorializes his mark on history and the vision Foch had for the responsibility of exalting the abstract of peace over human greed.  It’s key word is commemoration, which is what the header image, and below in full aspect, honors.

                                                Delving in Foch

He is a Splay Temperament Type, always able like a cat to land on his feet as shown by Jupiter conjunct his Midheaven in the tenth house of Scorpio.  His Line of Efficiency is square showing that he was always looking for a way to get an advantage, that worked well as a military commander.  The lord of his ascendant Saturn is somewhat debilitated in the fourth house but it is buttressed by Uranus, independent thinking, and Pluto, transforming his environment.  Nonetheless Saturn is opposite Jupiter forming his line of motivation and its point focus is a weak Moon in Capricorn.  Mars too is not in a welcoming sign in Cancer and forms and opposition to the Moon.

So how did he pull this off?  Neptune is exalted in its lord of Pisces in the second house showing that his devout loyalty to his homeland.  It in turn is trine Jupiter in the midheaven giving him great adaptability and of course the trine works like a large magic net as it envelopes and protects him.  Finally the Mars opposition to his Ascendant mobilizes his will power and tenacity with a steely grit that feeds into a second grand Trine, this time in Earth.  So the two trines, one in water and the other in earth, should make water, but they in Foch’s case seem instead to be a fast moving flywheel that spins off all dirt, clutter and debris allowing his Mercury, the only unaspected planet in his chart, to work freely and without inencumbrance.

The son of a civil servant, his family had originally lived in Valentine, in the Comminges area to which he returned annually. As a young child, he was inspired by the stories of the campaigns of his maternal grandfather, who had been an officer during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, and by the age of six he was reading the descriptions of military battles he found in historical works.

In 1869 he entered the Jesuit school of Saint-Clément in Metz in order to prepare for the entrance examination for the Polytechnic School. In Metz the experience of France’s defeat in the Franco-German War left an indelible impression on him. In 1871, after the armistice, he was forced to live alongside the victorious German soldiers who were there as French Metz had become a German city. His pain and anger made him resolve to become a soldier and return Metz and the whole of the Lorraine region to France.

After the war Foch was showered with honours, including being made marshal of Great Britain and Poland. Metz and Lorraine were French again.  Foch is buried near Napoleon under the dome of the Church of Saint-Louis, in the Invalides in Paris.  The statue of the Field Marshall Foch in Grosvenor Square, London, England.