Louis Félix Marie François Franchet d'Espèrey[b] (25 May 1856 – 8 July 1942) was a French general during World War I.

As commander of the large Allied army based at Salonika, he conducted the successful Macedonian campaign, which caused the collapse of the Southern Front and contributed to the armistice.

After being assigned to a regiment of Algerian Tirailleurs (native infantry), d'Espèrey served in French Indochina, in China (in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, during which his cousin the German plenipotentiary Clemens von Ketteler was killed); and subsequently in Morocco.

[2] At the Battle of Guise on 29 August, the day was won by a successful attack by his I Corps in the north: leading his men on horseback, he is said to have called out "how do you like this advance, Mr Staff College Professor?"

Edward Spears, then a lieutenant liaising between the BEF and the Fifth Army, wrote that he physically resembled a howitzer shell and of the "galvanic effect" that he had on his staff on taking command.

[7] On 4 September Joffre asked Franchet d'Espèrey and Ferdinand Foch, who was commanding the newly formed Ninth Army, if they would be willing to give battle in a day or two.

If not, he would retreat a little further, south of the Grand Morin with the Sixth and the BEF l, striking Alexander von Kluck's 1st Army in flank.

[9][10] When asked by Franchet d'Espèrey to be ready to attack on 6 September, General Hache of III Corps "looked as if he had been hit on the head with a club".

[14] Although it is often stated in history books that on 8 February 1919, Franchet d'Espèrey entered Istanbul on a white horse, emulating Mehmed II's entrance in 1453 after the Fall of Constantinople and thus signifying that Ottoman sovereignty over the imperial city was over, this has recently been shown to be a myth.

He was made a marshal of France on 19 February 1921 and was given the honorary title of Vojvoda (equivalent of Field-Marshal) by the Yugoslavian monarchy on 29 January 1921.

In 1924 Franchet d'Espèrey was appointed inspector-general of France's North African troops, who had made up a substantial portion of the French forces serving under him on the Macedonian Front.

He had drive and great energy and his victories against Bulgaria and the remnants of the German and Austro-Hungarian Armies were independent of the situation on the Western Front, demonstrated by the fact that they came before the main assault on the Hindenburg Line and against a still-capable army that offered strong resistance to the British and the Greeks in the Battle of Doiran.