Calling card of Maréchal Foch

This modest card, beige and unadorned, carries the weight of a continent in crisis. It bears the name of Ferdinand Foch, Marshal of France and Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during the final phase of the First World War. Yet it is not a medal, nor a proclamation—it is a calling card, the quiet emblem of presence, authority, and diplomacy.

Foch was not merely a strategist; he was a symbol of unity in a fractured Europe. Born in 1851 in Tarbes, in southern France, Foch distinguished himself through a brilliant academic and military career, culminating in his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces during World War I. His leadership during the final offensives of 1918 helped bring the war to its end, and his insistence on harsh terms at the Armistice would shape the uneasy peace that followed. His strategic vision, intellectual rigor, and ability to coordinate armies from different nations made him a symbol of Allied unity and determination.

This card, likely used in formal or diplomatic contexts, reflects the paradox of power in wartime: the need to command, and the need to be received.

It is a document of transition—between battlefield and negotiation table, between military grandeur and civilian protocol. In its simplicity lies its force: no embellishment, no rank beyond the title, no personal name beyond the role. It is not Foch the man, but Foch the function, the embodiment of Allied will.

A calling card is not a declaration—it is an invitation. This one, issued in the name of Maréchal Foch, speaks not of conquest but of presence. It is the distilled gesture of a man who held the fate of nations in his hand, yet understood the necessity of formality, of ritual, of being received.

In curating this piece, we do not present a relic of war, but a trace of diplomacy. It is the paper-thin threshold between command and courtesy.

Doktor Lazarus Archaeologist, Historian, Collector, Independent Curator

Quantity