of pursuing a vigorous offensive under all circumstances
was largely responsible for the grievous casualties suf-
fered by the French infantry in the opening battles of
1914.”
References: Aston, Major-General Sir George, The Bi-
ography of the Late Marshal Foch (London: Hutchinson
& Company, 1929); Liddell Hart, B. H., Foch: Man of
Orléans, 2 vols. (London: Penguin, 1937); Foch, Ferdi-
nand, The Principles of War, translated by Hilaire Belloc
(London: Chapman & Hall, 1918); Marshall-Cornwall,
Sir James, Foch as Military Commander (London: Bats-
ford, 1972); Bruce, George, “Marne I,” in Collins Diction-
ary of Wars (Glasgow, Scotland: HarperCollins Publishers,
1995), 156; Gilbert, Martin, First World War (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994).
Franks, Tommy Ray (1945– ) American general
Little known until the 2001–02 war in Afghanistan,
Tommy Franks subsequently achieved worldwide re-
nown. He was born in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, on
17 June 1945 and became the adopted son of Ray and
Lorene Franks. Ray Franks worked in such disparate
fields as auto mechanics, banking, and farming. In 1954,
the Franks family moved from Oklahoma to Midland,
Texas, where Tommy Franks grew up. Coincidentally, he
went to school with (although did not personally know)
a girl named Laura Welch, who would later marry future
president George W. Bush.
Entering the U.S. military in 1967, Franks was
commissioned as a second lieutenant after he attended
the Artillery Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, Okla-
homa; after graduation, he was assigned as an assistant
executive officer at the base. He was then posted to the
9th Infantry Division and sent to Vietnam, where he
served as a forward observer and aerial observer with the
2nd Battalion, 4th Field Artillery. He also served as fire
support officer with the 5th Battalion (mechanized),
60th Infantry, before he left Vietnam in 1968. Return-
ing to Fort Sill, Franks commanded a cannon battery at
the Artillery Training Center.
In 1969, Franks was selected to take part in the
U.S. Army’s “Boot Strap Degree Completion Program,”
and he was sent to the University of Texas in Arling-
ton, where in 1971 he graduated with a bachelor’s de-
gree in business administration. After leaving college,
Franks spent time training in the U.S. Army’s Artillery
Advanced Course. In 1973, he was assigned to the 2nd
Armored Cavalry in West Germany, where he became
the commander of the 1st Squadron Howitzer Battery.
He later commanded the 84th Armored Engineer Com-
pany. After graduating from the Armed Forces Staff Col-
lege, in 1976 Franks was assigned to the Pentagon in
Washington, D.C., where he served in the Department
of Defense’s Investigations Division as an army inspector
general. The following year, he was posted to the Office
of the Chief of Staff of the Army, where he served as a
member of the Congressional Activities Team, coordi-
nating department policy on Capitol Hill and rising to
become executive assistant of the office.
In 1981, after five years in Washington, Franks was
reassigned back to West Germany, where he was made
commander of the 2nd Battalion, 78th Field Artillery
for a period of three years. In 1984, he returned to the
United States, where he attended the Army War College
at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Shippensburg University,
earning his M.S. degree in public administration from
the latter institution. Assigned to the III Corps at Fort
Hood, Texas, Franks served as a deputy assistant G3
until 1987, when he was named commander of the Di-
vision Artillery, 1st Cavalry Division.
During Operation Desert Storm, the 1990–91
military operation to eject Iraqi invasion forces from
Kuwait, Franks served as assistant division commander
(maneuver) of the 1st Cavalry Division. Following the
end of the conflict, he was named the assistant com-
mandant of the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Okla-
homa, where he had begun his military career. In 1992,
he was transferred to Fort Monroe, Virginia, where he
served as the first director of the Louisiana Maneuvers
Task Force, Office of Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, a posi-
tion he held until 1994. At that time, he was assigned to
South Korea, where he became the commander of the
Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces in Korea.
From March 1995 to May 1997, he commanded the
2nd Infantry (Warrior) Division in South Korea. On
30 May 1997, he was made commander of the U.S.
Third Army/Army Forces Central Command based in
Atlanta, Georgia, where he remained until 2000. On 6
July 2000, he was promoted to commander in chief of
the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) at
Fort MacDill, Florida; he served in this role until his
retirement on 7 July 2003.
On 11 September 2001, terrorists from the group
known as al-Qaeda (“The Base”), led by Muslim radi-FRAnkS, tommy RAy