ABSTRACT
The Entente’s successful war effort in the Great War represented the triumph of improvisation in the face of novelty. As a joint endeavour, the coalition struggle was poorly managed until the final year of victory. France sought the dénouement in military victory, Britain in economic strangulation: two often incompatible methods that reflected the nations’ different histories. France feared defeat on its own soil, Britain on the high seas, and hence their broader strategic policies were frequently at variance. War aims too diverged, as each state looked to secure its own advantage in the post-war power vacuum which would follow the overthrow of Germany and its allies. Too often in the day-to-day formulation of policy personal differences and national rivalries undermined the effective pursuit of the common goal, the destruction of German power. Fortunately the Entente was to find two leaders, a British soldier-administrator and a French professor-general, who learned to look beyond limited national horizons. The thoughts and actions of Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, British secretary of state for war from August 1914 to June 1916, and General Ferdinand Foch, ultimately Allied generalissimo in 1918, furnished the Entente with the means and method of victory.
