Sir John French: An Authentic Biography

After two days in the mining city, Lord Roberts' triumphant forces moved on their way to Pretoria. French's next task was to cut the railway communications to the north of Pretoria. In carrying this out he made a wide detour to the west, where his cavalry found themselves in a treacherous country of kopjes, scrub and menacing gorges, a type of country most dangerous to mounted men. Anxiously he pushed forward to reach open country before nightfall (of June 2). But the Boers were before him. A sudden hail of Mauser bullets and shells announced an ambush. But French was undismayed. "Quietly, in complete mastery of the situation, General French gave his orders. 'Make room for the guns,' passed down the line; and like a fire engine to the rescue, up dashed a section of horse artillery and a pom-pom."[14] Very quickly the enemy was beaten off, in spite of the fatigue of a thirty-two mile march. No further resistance was met with as the men passed through the rich, orange-growing country round Pretoria. On June 4, French had completed his enveloping movement, and taken up his position to the north of the town. In the afternoon the cavalrymen learnt, with no little chagrin, that Lord Roberts had already entered Pretoria.

When the efforts to negotiate peace with Botha had failed, French was instructed by Lord Roberts to push the Boers east by a turning movement on their flank, which he would follow by the usual frontal attack on foot. So energetic were the Boers in harassing Lord Roberts' force, that drastic action had become necessary. It proved to be one of the most difficult enterprises that the cavalry had undertaken.

As usually happened the Boers were securely ensconced on ridges, the chief of which was known as Diamond Hill, while our men were condemned to work round from a level plain open to the enemy's fire. In order not to become a series of conspicuous targets, the cavalrymen were forced to dismount and fight their way up to the ridges on foot. For two days they fought gallantly against a steady fire, until the infantry's attack on the enemy's other flank gave French his chance to drive them out. For a third time the plight of his horses finally forbade his taking full advantage of his success. The Boers were driven back, but without being severely punished. The ubiquitous De Wet, need one add, showed a clean pair of heels.

In July, French was in command of the forces operating in Eastern Transvaal. There followed a long and arduous march towards the east which, after the capture of Middleburg, ended in the surrender of Barberton. It was in the beginning of September that French turned his attention to the enemy's forces collected round the latter town. He commenced his operations by circulating reports of an intended action in the opposite direction. While the Boers prepared to meet this he was able to reach Carolina with comparative ease. Here he remained for three days in order to prepare for a flanking movement against Barberton. As he must cut himself off entirely from sources of supply, such preparation was very necessary. French was about to attempt one of the most daring achievements of his career. He was going to take mounted men over a miniature Alps. The Boers were prepared for his attacking Barberton from every direction save one. They never supposed for a moment that the British troops would attempt to force the Nelshoogte Pass. For what did it mean? The scaling of precipitous heights, and the passage along narrow ledges of men, horses and guns. It would have been a difficult task for mountaineers, far less for heavily burdened cavalrymen.

French, however, was determined to do the impossible "once more." He would repeat the miracle of Coles Kop on a titanic scale. Accordingly, after a day's hard fighting, he rested his men for a night near the entrance to the pass. On the following morning, the enemy having disappeared, the advance was sounded. Up a narrow path, whose gradient was frequently one in four, the men crawled, often on hands and knees, while their horses stumbled on behind. Frequently they were scaling towering crags several hundred feet in height, from which there was sometimes a sheer fall of over a thousand feet. In teams of sixteen the oxen panted, struggled and frequently perished in the attempt to drag the heavy guns up the fearful incline. Only a man of indomitable courage would have attempted such a feat. But French lost not a single man in the process. Perhaps the division's perfect belief in his luck did something towards nerving the men for the ordeal.

The top of the pass once reached, French determined to make a sudden descent on Barberton. Taking a leaf out of the Boers' book, he left the whole of his baggage behind to lighten the horses, and rushed his men towards the town. On descending the other side of the pass the soldiers had still to lead their horses, who were as often on their haunches as their feet. Barberton and the Boers saw the oncoming of the British force with blank amazement. It was the last thing in the world they expected. The Boer Commando in possession, six hundred strong, had just time to escape from one end of the town as French entered it at the other.

Enraged at the surprise that had been sprung on them, the Boers commenced sniping the town from various vantage points in the vicinity. But French knew how to treat the sniper. The following notice was immediately dashed off by the local printing press and posted all over the town.

The sniping stopped forthwith.

One of the first things that French did was to go and personally rescue his old enemy, Schoeman, from the local jail. That worthy, having surrendered, had come into bad odour with his fellow countrymen. In consequence he had been incarcerated at Barberton. For once the unfortunate Schoeman was glad to see the face of his old enemy again!

French rested his forces in Barberton for three weeks, leaving the town on October 3. The march back to Pretoria was, if anything, more trying than the adventurous dash to Barberton had been. Apart from the trying climb over the heights of the Kaapsche Hoop, and the eternal sniping of the Boers, the weather now brought new sufferings. The men were exhausted by days of heat, and soaked by nights of torrential rain. It was a thoroughly tired and jaded force which finally reached Pretoria on November 3.

One incident of that trying march shows how ably French dealt with Boer bluff. The enemy had made prisoner a captain of the R.A.M.C, and sent a message that they would shoot him unless General French pledged his word that he would burn no Boer farms. French replied that unless the captured medical officer were brought into the British camp next morning, he would burn the town of Bethel to the ground; and, if he were shot, ten Boer prisoners would be similarly put to death. The doctor was brought into camp next morning.

In inspecting the cavalry on their return, Lord Roberts expressed his high appreciation of French's work and informed him that, while retaining his cavalry command, he had been appointed to the command of Johannesburg and district.

At the end of the month Lord Roberts returned to England to take command of the Home Forces; and several months elapsed before French was able actively to take up that long rounding-up of the Boers which Kitchener was now planning in such elaborate detail. During the early part of 1901 he was able to clear the Boers out of the central district of Cape Colony. On June 8 he took supreme command of the operations in that Colony, and by November he had confined the enemy to its north-eastern and south-western extremities.

Not until Midsummer, 1902, was French able to return home. Before that he had spent some time recruiting his health in Cape Town. Very eager were the loyal citizens to fête the most successful of all the British Generals. But French would have no banqueting on his account. The war, he characteristically explained, was not yet ended, and so long as it was in progress he was not inclined to accept any public hospitality.

Anything like show or ostentation is foreign to French's whole nature. If there are few stories of his exploits in South Africa, there lies the reason. He is far too modest a man to prepare bons mots or pretty jeux d'esprit for public consumption. Also he is by nature a silent man. His silence is not the detached, Olympian and rather ominous silence of Kitchener. It proceeds simply from a natural modesty and reticence, which reinforce his habitual tendency to "think things over." He is the type of man whom hostesses have to "draw out"; he never talks either on himself, the army or any other subject. To "do his job" better than anybody else in the world could do it is enough for French; chatter about it he leaves to less busy people.

His habitual taciturnity, curiously enough, is one of the traits which endears him to the army. For French's silence has no trait of churlishness. It is the silence of a man utterly absorbed in the task before him, the man whom Tommy Atkins admires. "If the British soldier likes one thing in a General more than another," wrote a soldier who served with French in South Africa, "it is the golden gift of silence, especially when joined to straight action, just to distinguish him from the old women of both sexes. Whenever French penned a dispatch, or an order, or a proclamation, he wasted no ink and strained no pen nibs; but he never penned anything if there was a way of doing the thing himself."[15]

In South Africa he earned the title of "the shirt-sleeved General,"—a soubriquet that conveys a subtle compliment from Tommy's point of view. Actually French was often to be seen walking about in camp during his heavy marches in shirt-sleeves. One afternoon a correspondent rode up to the lines, and seeing a soldier sitting on a bundle of hay, smoking a dilapidated looking old briar pipe, asked where the General was. "The old man is somewhere about," coolly replied the soldier. "Well, just hold my horse while I go and search for him." "Certainly, sir," and the smoker rose obediently and took the bridle. "Can you tell me where the General is?" inquired the correspondent of a staff officer further down the line. "General French? oh, he's somewhere about. Why, there he is, holding that horse's head!" And the officer pointed directly to the smoker, still tranquilly pulling at his pipe, and holding the horse! Needless to say "Uncle French" and his men hugely enjoyed the correspondent's awakening.

Such a man is bound to be the idol of the ranks. "What a good leader General French is," wrote Driver Payne, of the Royal Horse Artillery, to a friend. "He seems so cool at excitable moments; he does not lose his head and rush his men into danger. In fact, he always looks before he leaps, and when he does leap, he makes us move—and the Boers too." Perhaps French was best summed-up one day by a trooper whom, in a curt word, he had just sentenced to barracks for some offence. "The General don't bark much," he remarked, "but, crikey, don't he know how to bite!"

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IXToC

Work at Home and Resignation

With Lord Kitchener, General French had a wonderful welcome on his return from South Africa. The former had certainly added a few leaves to his laurel wreath, but French brought back a complete new crown of his own. His return home in July was a triumphal progress. At Southampton, in replying to congratulations, he paid a fine tribute to his men.

French's hatred of ostentation in any form prevented him from allowing Society to fête him to its heart's content. He was the most retiring of lions; and, like Kitchener, he allowed London to idolise him only at a distance. A knighthood was one reward of his services; and after a brief rest he was back at Aldershot as Lieutenant-General in command.

For the first time French found himself in command of all arms of the service in time of peace. After his arrival, instruction was driven at high pressure. No sooner had he arrived than he turned out the whole of his command—"just to see how they looked!" Such a thing had scarcely ever happened before; and the order sent desolation to the hearts of some of the officers. For it meant that the whole force, every man, horse and gun had to turn out forthwith, in full marching order, and ready for action. After the first feverish digging out of accoutrements and tents, however, the men became hardened to these sudden alarums and excursions. They became a part of the programme.

The cavalry especially was trained to an extraordinary degree of perfection. The most rigorous methods in use abroad were used and bettered. The result was the production of a body of men who, like Wellington's heroes of Torres Vedras, "were ready to go anywhere and do anything."

In December, 1907, French was appointed Inspector-General of the Forces. In this extremely exacting office, his qualities of thoroughness and grip had splendid scope. A glance at his comments discloses the high standard of excellence which he exacted from every branch of the service. Only the other day timid folk were bewailing his methods at manœuvres. Four horses had succumbed to a gruelling day of fierce exertion. But French expressed himself as "well pleased." One does not remember his ever going farther up the giddy incline of the superlatives. Probably his exacting eye never yet met the corps of his dream. He had a terrible word with which he was wont to emphasise the fact of disenchantment. How often did one read "General French expressed himself as 'fairly' well pleased with what he saw"? A withering qualitative. French was determined to infuse the whole army with his own professional love of efficiency. To that end he phrased his judgments with extraordinary care. His remarks were as nicely aimed and as carefully timed as his cavalry charges. Nor did they lack shattering force on occasion.

After five years of "tuning up" the army, French took command of its administration. In 1912 he was appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff, a body formed on the lines of the efficient German General Staff. Of the nature and value of the reforms instituted under his direction it is too early yet to speak. Suffice it to say that in the European War they have met the almost intolerable strain with signal success. For once we presented to the Continent the unparalleled spectacle of a War Office "ready for action."

In particular Sir John French encouraged originality of thought among his officers by frankly seeking critical contributions for a new service journal, and by putting various opportunities for individual enterprise in their way.

In the midst of these invaluable if slightly uncongenial administrative activities, Sir John French was brought to a tragic standstill. A political intrigue cut across his soldier's life, and ended its usefulness for the time being. At this early date it is extremely difficult to disentangle the rights and wrongs of the Gough incident. But there is no need to enter into the political aspect of the case here. Suffice it to deplore the sticky mess of party politics which threatened to gulf a great career.

In the month of March the Government believed that they had serious reason to expect disturbance in Ireland. Accordingly, General Sir Arthur Paget was summoned to the War Office to consult his military chiefs. Apparently, General Paget was instructed—so far as can be gathered in the absence of documentary evidence—to lay before his officers a certain choice of action. He accordingly called a meeting of his officers, whom he informed that "Active operations were to be begun against Ulster; that he expected the country to be in a blaze by Saturday (March 21); and that he was instructed by the War Office to allow officers domiciled in Ulster to disappear, but as regards others that any who resigned would be dismissed." The officers were given two hours to make their decision. Out of a total of 72 officers in the Brigade, 59 "would, respectfully, and under protest," prefer to be dismissed, while five claimed exemption on the ground of being domiciled in Ulster.

A few days later it was explained on behalf of the Government that no operations were intended against Ulster, and that through "an honest misunderstanding" General Paget had misinterpreted his instructions. Brigadier-General Gough was therefore asked to return to his command, finally obtaining a written undertaking, signed by the Secretary of State for War, that the troops would not be used in Ulster. In addition to Colonel Seely's signature, that of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (Sir John French) and of the Adjutant-General (Sir J.S. Ewart) appeared on the memorandum.

Now it transpired that two important paragraphs of the memorandum were written by Colonel Seely, but presumably they were not sanctioned by the Cabinet. The paragraphs in question ran: "His Majesty's Government must retain their right to use all the forces of the Crown in Ireland, or elsewhere, to maintain law and order, and to support the Civil Power in the ordinary execution of its duty.

"But they had no intention whatever of taking advantage of this right to crush political opposition to the policy or principles of the Home Rule Bill."

As they stand these two paragraphs are a trifle ambiguous. The fact apparently occurred to General Gough. For he asked Sir John French explicitly whether they could be taken to mean that he could not be called upon to order his brigade to take part in the coercion of Ulster to the Home Rule Bill. Sir John French wrote across the note that this was his belief. On the strength of this General Gough returned to his command.

When the facts of the case were known, the Government were severely criticised by the Labour and the Nationalist parties. In replying to these criticisms, on Wednesday, this pledge was declared to be "not operative." As the result, Colonel Seely, who had signed the assurance, threatened resignation. On Friday, March 26, it was known that both Sir John French and Sir J.S. Ewart had resigned their positions. Every effort was made to induce these distinguished officers to reconsider their decision, but without avail. To remain in office would mean repudiating their pledged word. To this course no possible pressure could induce Sir John French to agree. He persisted in his resignation: and the Prime Minister solved a very dangerous situation by himself taking up the office of Minister of War, which Colonel Seely had now resigned.

So Sir John French went for a second time into retirement. Nothing less could be expected of one whose views on discipline are so extremely strict and whose ideals of loyalty are notoriously so high. To have remained in office would have been to impair the authority of the Imperial General Staff, quite apart from failing in loyalty to a pledged word. For all these reasons Sir John French chose eclipse rather than dishonour.

Unquestionably he viewed the impasse purely from the military point of view. His dislike of anything like politics in the army is well known. Mr. Asquith's famous dictum on taking up the office of Secretary for War is an echo of General French's invariable advice to his officers—"You will hear no politics from me, and I expect to hear none from you."

What his attitude towards the officers at the Curragh was in the first instance, is a matter of mere surmise. It has been said that he would personally have dealt very sharply with those concerned. But such statements obviously lack authority. Sir John French is much too discreet an officer to babble his views abroad on such a point. All we know is that at the time he strongly deprecated politics in the army in several speeches of considerable force. A psychological problem in army feeling was closely bound up with the issue. It is enough to emphasise the fact that Sir John French is himself no politician and did what he did because his honour demanded nothing less.

For four months the most energetic man in the Army was able to rusticate. Actually nothing ever fell out more happily than this enforced holiday. His duties during the past few years had necessarily been extremely exhausting. He had rarely had time for the rest and relaxation that make for physical and mental freshness. Now he gave himself to the walking, the riding and the yachting he so keenly enjoys, and so rarely indulges in. For the General has, at least, taken the love of the water from his otherwise tedious days in the Navy. He is an expert yachtsman and has explored a large part of the British coast at one time or another. Riding and hunting are, however, the only sports he now takes very seriously. He rides a great deal during his busiest days at home, running down from London to the Manor at Waltham Cross for the purpose when occasion permits.

Until the beginning of August, Sir John French was able to revel in his new found freedom. When the call came, it found him feeling better and fitter than he had done for years. Perhaps even political intrigue serves a purpose in the game of the War Gods.

CHAPTER XToC

His Belief in Cavalry

It does not necessarily follow that because a man is a great cavalry leader, he therefore has ideas on the subject of cavalry. To the popular mind cavalry suggests clouds of dust and a clatter of hoofs, the flashing of swords, followed by the crash and sound of an engagement. The man who would conduct this imagined spectacle satisfactorily would therefore be dependent rather on the timely uprush of the spirit than on the mechanical certainty of the mind. He would need to act by inspiration and impulse, rather than by cold thought. Quite obviously some other and less resplendent being would have to time the rise of his curtain in the theatre of war. He would be the last man whom one would figure, like Kipling's successful General, "worrying himself bald" over a map and compasses.

But the popular version does less than justice to the modern cavalry leader in general and to French in particular. We have seen him as a subaltern poring over his books before his colleagues were out of bed. We have seen him varying the monotony of War Office administration by solving problems in tactics. Indubitably he is a student: incidentally he is an innovator. This fact of mental duality raises him in a moment out of the ruck of mere cavalry experts—of both sorts. On the one hand he is not a competent machine working out other people's ideas in the field of battle: on the other he is no blundering theorist whose ideas crumple into ineffectual dust under the stress of actual warfare. He can carry out with the ardour of the soldier the schemes which he has formulated with the cold cunning of the strategist. It is difficult indeed to say in which field of cavalry work he more greatly excels—that of theory or practice. We shall see later that he possesses qualities altogether apart from those of the theoriser or the man of action. Suffice it now to glance at the astonishingly complete theory of cavalry on which his marvellous execution is founded.

One reaches the bedrock of French's curiously sane conception of war when one asks him to define war. In dealing with those gentlemen who tell us that the Boer War was fought under such abnormal conditions that it is useless as a ground-work for conclusions as to future wars, he uttered a memorable retort. "All wars are abnormal," he observed, "because there is no such thing as normal war."[16] There we have one of the axioms both of his theory and of his practice. There can be no fixed conditions, and so there can be no final theories as to the conduct of warfare. Theory is simply a means to an end. And the successful general is he who most ably adapts the general body of theory suitable for all cases to the particular campaign on which he is engaged.

Broadly, however, French has very clearly defined what he considers to be the use and the abuse of cavalry. After the Boer War, as is well known, opinion on the subject of the future of the mounted arm was bitterly divided. There were those who saw in French's success a justification for the cavalrymen of the old school, armed cap à pie. There were others who, like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, saw the end of their day approaching. The author of The Great Boer War says of the charge before Kimberley: "It appears to have been one of the very few occasions during the campaign when that obsolete and absurd weapon the sword was anything but a dead weight to its bearer." And again: "The war has been a cruel one for the cavalry.... It is difficult to say that cavalry, as cavalry, have justified their existence. In the opinion of many the tendency of the future will be to convert the whole forces into mounted infantry.... A little training in taking cover, leggings instead of boots, and a rifle instead of a carbine, would give us a formidable force of 20,000 men who could do all that our cavalry does, and a great deal more besides.... The lesson both of the South African and of the American Civil War is that the light horseman who is trained to fight on foot is the type of the future."[17] This is the opinion of a very competent civilian who deeply studied the South African campaign. But it is the opinion of a civilian.

On the other hand many experts, most of them military men, insist that the day of shock tactics is far from done. They instance the charge before Kimberley as a case in point. Obviously all the elements of disaster were there. Only a brilliant use of the traditional cavalry attack saved the situation—and Kimberley. Situations of that sort are bound to arise again. How is the mounted infantryman, lacking the elan and spirit of the cavalryman, to meet the situation?

French takes an attitude somewhat midway between these two extremes. He, of all men, has developed cavalry most successfully on what might be called mounted infantry lines. That is to say, he has taught his men to fight on foot, to take cover at every opportunity, and to master the whole art of reconnaissance. But at the same time, he objects to extremist[18] views as to the abolition of the cavalry spirit. "One or two distinguished foreign soldiers who have publicly commented upon that campaign have said that what is termed the 'Cavalry Spirit' is opposed to the idea of dismounted action. They hold that the cavalry disdain to dismount, and they see in riding the end instead of the means. They consider that events in the Far East teach us that we must render our cavalry less devoted to 'manœuvres' and to 'tournaments,' in order to enable them to fit themselves to take part in modern fighting; that the times have come when the methods of warfare should be changed; and that the cavalry must determine to defeat the enemy by dismounted action entirely.

"I cannot speak with any certainty as to what has happened in European Armies, but as regards the British Cavalry, I am absolutely convinced that the Cavalry Spirit is, and may be encouraged to the utmost, without in the least degree prejudicing either training in dismounted duties or the acquirement of such tactical knowledge on the part of leaders as will enable them to discern when and where to resort to dismounted methods.

"How, I ask, can the Cavalry perform its rôle in war until the enemy's Cavalry is defeated and paralysed? I challenge any Cavalry officer, British or foreign, to deny the principle that Cavalry, acting as such against its own Arm, can never attain complete success unless it is proficient in shock tactics.

"Cavalry soldiers must, of course, learn to be expert rifle shots, but the attainment of this desirable object will be brought no nearer by ignoring the horse, the sword or the lance. On the contrary, the elan and dash which perfection in Cavalry manœuvres imparts to large bodies of horsemen will be of inestimable value in their employment as mounted rifle-men when the field is laid open to their enterprise in this rôle by the defeat of the hostile Cavalry. That the Cavalry on both sides in the recent war did not distinguish themselves or their Arm, is an undoubted fact, but the reason is quite apparent. On the Japanese side they were indifferently mounted, the riding was not good, and they were very inferior in numbers, and hence were only enabled to fulfil generally the rôle of Divisional Cavalry, which they appear to have done very well. The cause of failure on the Russian side is to be found in the fact that for years they have been trained on exactly the same principles which these writers now advocate. They were devoid of real Cavalry training, they thought of nothing but getting off their horses and shooting; hence they lamentably failed in enterprises which demanded, before all, a display of the highest form of Cavalry spirit."

On the other hand Sir John French protests against the tendency to ultra-caution in handling cavalry at manœuvres. The cavalry charge is always a risk. The risk taken by the Field-Marshal, for instance, when he ordered the famous charge which won him the way to Kimberley, would certainly have been regarded as fatal at official manœuvres. It is absurd, he insists, that the umpires should call on cavalry to surrender the moment that they come face to face with an infantry fire. Such a moment may be the cavalry's great opportunity.

Many of the modern armies, he holds, are suffering from cavalry without confidence. And there is abundant evidence to justify the charge. Bernhardi has pointed out that the phenomenal successes of the German cavalry in the war of 1870-1 were due not to its own extraordinary valour, but to the absence of opposition on the part of the French. Von Moltke made a similar criticism (which Sir John French approves) on the Prussian cavalry after the war of 1866. "Our cavalry failed," he wrote, "perhaps not so much in actual capacity as in self-confidence. All its initiative had been destroyed at manœuvres, where criticism and blame had been almost synonymous, and it therefore shirked independent bold action, and kept far in the rear, and as much as possible out of sight."

French, in fact, is convinced that the "cavalry battle" is by no means a thing of the past. Until the enemy's cavalry is overthrown, the work of the mounted infantryman cannot begin. So long as opposing countries train efficient cavalry, the clash of the rival horsemen is the inevitable preliminary of any campaign.

At the same time his views on the specialisation of training are far from extreme. The cavalry spirit must be encouraged: but it must not be permitted to overshadow that wider camaraderie which is the Army spirit. "It is not only possible but necessary," he says, "to preach the Army spirit, or, in other words, the close comradeship of all arms in battle, and at the same time to develop the highest qualities and the special attributes of each branch. The particular spirit which we seek to encourage is different for each arm. Were we to seek to endow cavalry with the tenacity and stiffness of infantry, or to take from the mounted arm the mobility and the cult of the offensive which are the breath of its life, we should ruin not only the cavalry, but the Army besides. Those who scoff at the spirit, whether of cavalry, of artillery, or of infantry, are people who have had no practical experience of the actual training of troops in peace, or of the personal leadership in war. Such men are blind guides indeed."[19]

For cavalry, then, Sir John French sees a brilliant future. "The opinion which I hold and have often expressed is that the true rôle of cavalry on the battlefield is to reconnoitre, to deceive and to support. If the enemy's cavalry has been overthrown, the rôle of reconnaissance will have been rendered easier. In the rôles of deception and support, such an immense and fruitful field of usefulness and enterprise is laid open to a cavalry division which has thought out and practised these rôles in its peace training, and is accustomed to act in large bodies dismounted, that I cannot bring myself to believe that any equivalent for such manifest advantages can be found even in the most successful raid against the enemy's communications by mounted troops."[20]

How brilliantly Sir John French trained his men to accomplish these multiple activities, recent history has shown. We may note in passing, however, that mechanics have now divested the cavalry of one of their chief functions. The aeroplane is now the eye of the army and the strategical rôle of the cavalry is no more. The mounted arm will almost certainly now be confined to screening operations and to shock tactics, after the opposing armies have come into touch with one another. History, therefore, has obviously justified Sir John French in his championship of the cavalry spirit. Without it his horsemen would have been no match for the German cavalry. Thanks to their training, they "went through the Uhlans like brown paper" in General Sir Philip Chetwode's historic phrase.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XIToC

The Modern Marlborough

On August 4, Great Britain woke up to find herself engaged in one of the most terrific contests in history. Out of an assassination at Serajevo had sprung a European war. In demanding apologies for the death of its Archduke, Austria-Hungary, with the connivance of Germany, refused to be conciliated with the most adequate apologies offered by Servia. The result was a protest from Russia, which would doubtless have allayed the situation, but for the aggressive attitude dictated to Vienna from Berlin. In the sequel Great Britain found herself arrayed with Russia and France against the Austro-Germanic forces.

The question arose as to who should lead the English expeditionary force so sorely needed to stem the tide of the German legions as it rolled over an outraged Belgium and an unprepared France. There was never any doubt as to whom the great task should be entrusted. Sir John French was obviously the man for the task.

Fate pointed to him not only as the greatest active military leader in this country, but as the one man possessing the peculiar qualities called for in this campaign. There may be more brilliant intellects in the army, but there is no other such leader of men. This campaign was bound to be a long, a hazardous and a delicate enterprise. It called for a man of extraordinary grip and pertinacity of purpose. These qualities French possesses to a marked degree. He has also the power of sensing ability in other men. In South Africa he was able to surround himself with one of the ablest General Staffs in Europe. French's extraordinary rapidity of thought, his lightning decisions, and his masterly grip of the most complex situation, allied with lieutenants competent to undertake the most difficult operations which he may suggest, provides a combination probably unequalled in history.

In another respect French is peculiarly suited to the onerous task imposed upon him. His innate sense of loyalty makes him a colleague of rare qualities. On the face of it the British commander's position called for very great tact. It was delicate almost to a distressing degree. Allied commanders have always to struggle with the teasing element of friction. Sir John French eliminated that at the outset. Even more difficult was the problem of seniority. General Joffre, who is French's superior, is his inferior in rank, not being a Field-Marshal. Here was a situation teeming with difficulties. The slightest clumsiness on the British Commander's part would have caused a crisis. There were no crises, because French is a diplomatist as well as a soldier.

No sooner had the British army fairly landed on French soil than it was faced with the worst trial of war—a prolonged and perilous retreat before overwhelming odds. But Sir John French knew all that was to be known of the scientific retreat. Had he not seen it thirty years ago on an Egyptian desert, and practised its every form time and again on the African veldt? In four days the British force covered 60 miles in orderly and aggressive retreat, without once giving way to confusion or disorder. The men who had been with French in South Africa, General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien and General Sir Douglas Haig, had the situation in hand from the first. The retreat was a triumph for the British army, and particularly for the cavalry which French had trained. Nor was its route that desired by the German Headquarters Staff. Through the vigour of his cavalry charges, French was able to dictate his own line of retreat. He had held his position long enough to save the French left wing; and he had retreated in order before a force five times that of his own.