JOHN FRENCH, 1ST EARL OF YPRES

Field Marshal 'John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres' KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, ADC, PC (28 September 1852 - 22 May 1925) was a British officer serving as the first Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in World War I.

Contents

Early life

Career

World War I

Later life

Ranks

Further reading

Books by French

Other books

See also

French in popular culture

External links

Early life

Born in Ripple in Kent (where he is also buried), the son of Commander John French, an officer in the Royal Navy.
His sister was the suffragette and Sinn Fein member Charlotte Despard. She would remain highly critical of her brother throughout his career.
He joined the Navy in 1866. After attending the Eastman’s Naval Academy in Portsmouth he transferred, however, to the British Army in 1874.

Career

French took part in the Sudan expedition 1884-1885 and then received quick promotion. He commanded the 19th Hussars in 1889-1893 and then was made Assistant Adjutant-General 1893-1897. In 1897, he received command of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade which he exchanged two years later for the 1st Cavalry Brigade with which he took part in the Second Boer War 1899-1902.
After the war, he was Commander-in-Chief at Aldershot 1901-1907 after which tenure he was promoted to full general and made Inspector-General of the Army (1907-1912). In 1911 he was made an ADC General to H.M. the King.
From March 1912 to April 1914, he served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff but resigned following the Curragh Mutiny and was made again Inspector-General of the Army in which post he served at the outbreak of the war.

World War I

French was the natural choice as Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in August 1914.
A man of hot temper, he argued with the Cabinet against Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener and General Sir Douglas Haig that the BEF should be deployed in Belgium, rather than Amiens, where both Haig and Kitchener believed it would be well placed to deliver a vigorous counter attack once the route of German advance was known. Kitchener argued that the placement of the BEF at Mons would result in having to abandon its position and much of its supplies almost immediately as the Belgian Army would be unable to hold its ground versus the Germans; given the solid belief in fortresses at the time, it is not surprising that French and the British cabinet disagreed with Kitchener on this issue.
After the BEF's first battles at Mons and Le Cateau, where as Kitchener predicted, it had to retreat from its position to avoid the danger of being flanked when the Belgian position failed, French was increasingly indecisive and more concerned with preserving his troops, even suggesting removing them to the Channel Ports, than aiding the French. He began a tentative withdrawal which threatened to break the line between French and Belgian armies and needed an unwanted emergency meeting with Kitchener on September 2 1914 to re-organise his thinking and direct the counter-offensive at the First Battle of the Marne. French was particularly upset by the fact that Kitchener arrived wearing his field marshal's uniform, he felt Kitchener was implying that he was French's superior and not simply a cabinet member, a fact he mentioned in a letter to Sir Winston Churchill. No one knows exactly what was said during the meeting, as neither man kept any record, but French became increasingly antagonistic towards Kitchener in the following months.
During the First Battle of Mons, French issued a series of hasty orders to abandon positions and equipment which were ignored by his sub-ordinate in charge of the II Corps of the BEF, General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien. Smith-Dorrien instead mounted a vigorous defensive action, relieving the pressure and allowing the troops to re-organise, gather up their supplies and make a comfortable fighting withdrawal. Smith-Dorrien also ignored other orders from French which he considered to be unrealistic. Smith-Dorrien was removed from command after advocating a tactical withdrawal away from German lines at Ypres, following the first use of poison gas by German troops. Several days after this, French accepted the advice of General Plumer to perform a withdrawal almost identical to the one Smith-Dorrien had recommended.
French remained in command as major trenching began and oversaw the fighting at Neuve Chapelle and Ypres that finally destroyed the last of the original BEF. In 1915, he declined to co-operate with the French and after the failures at Aubers Ridge and, at Loos, the British offensive operations were almost halted. In December 1915, he was replaced by General Sir Douglas Haig.
French returned to England to be appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British Home Forces in December 1915 and oversaw the suppression of the Irish uprising in 1916. In January 1916, he was created '1st Viscount French of Ypres and of High Lake' in the County of Roscommon.

Later life

In May 1918, he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant and Governor-General of Ireland.
In 1919 he was targeted unsuccessfully by the nascent Irish Republican Army for assassination. He kept the post until his retirement in April 1921.
In May 1922 he was elevated to '1st Earl of Ypres'.

Ranks

★ Midshipman (1868)

★ Lieutenant (1874)

★ Captain (October 1880)

★ Colonel (August 1895)

★ Brigadier-General (1897)

★ Major-General (1899)

★ Lieutenant-General (August 1902)

★ General (February 1907)

★ Field-Marshal (3 June 1913)

Further reading

Books by French

★ ''Report of General Sir John French upon his inspection of the Canadian Military Forces'' (Ottawa, 1910)

★ ''The despatches of Sir John French: I Mons, II the Marne, III The Aisne, IV Flanders'' (Chapman & Hall, London, 1914)

★ ''The despatches of Lord French...And a complete list of the officers and men mentioned'' (Chapman & Hall, London, 1917)

★ ''The German and small nations: an interview with Lord French'' (J J Keliher & Co, London, 1917)

★ ''1914'' (Constable & Co, London, 1919)

★ ''Some war diaries, addresses and correspondence'', edited by Maj The Hon Edward Gerald French (son) (Herbert Jenkins, London, 1937)

Other books

★ Cassar, George H. ''The Tragedy of Sir John French'' (University of Delaware Press, 1985) ISBN 0-87413-241-X

★ Chisholm, Cecil ''Sir John French: an authentic biography'' (Herbert Jenkins, London, 1915) — also available from Project Gutenberg

★ Clark, Alan ''The Donkeys - a history of the BEF in 1915'' Hutchison and Co, 1961. A scathing attack on the military competence, intelligence, and character of John French.

★ Dodsworth, Francis ''Major General J D P French'' (Soldiers of the Queen Library, London, 1900)

★ French, Edward Gerald (son) ''The Life of Field Marshal Sir John French, First Earl of Ypres'' (Cassell & Co, London, 1931)

★ French, Edward Gerald (son) ''French replies to Haig'' (Hutchinson & Co, London, 1936)

★ French, Edward Gerald (son) ''The Kitchener-French dispute: a last word'' (William Maclellan, Glasgow, 1960)

★ Goldmann, Charles Sydney ''With General French and the cavalry in South Africa'' (Macmillan & Co, London, 1902)

★ Holmes, Richard ''The Little Field Marshal: A Life of Sir John French'' Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004 ISBN 0-297-84614-0 — Well-received modern biography.

★ Jerrold, Walter Copeland ''Field Marshal Sir John French: the story of his life and battles'' (W A Hammond, London, 1915)

★ Maydon, John George ''French's Cavalry campaign in South Africa'' (C A Pearson, London, 1901)

★ Napier, Robert M ''Sir John French and Sir John Jellicoe: their lives and careers'' (Patriotic Publishing Co, London, 1914)

★ Rae, Archibald ''General French and Admiral Jellicoe'' (Collins, London, 1914)

★ Wallace, Richard Horatio Edgar ''Field Marshal Sir John French and his campaign'' (George Newnes, London, 1914)

★ Wallace, Richard Horatio Edgar ''The standard history of the war, comprising the official despatches from General French and staff, with descriptive narrative'' (four volumes, George Newnes, London, 1914-1915)

See also

★ Gheluvelt Park – a public park in Worcester which he opened on 17 June 1922

★ Army Manoeuvres of 1913

★ Saint George's Memorial Church, Ypres

French in popular culture

★ Field Marshal French was played by Sir Laurence Olivier in Richard Attenborough's World War I satire film ''Oh! What A Lovely War'' (1969).

External links

★ National Portrait Gallery

★ Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives FRENCH, Sir John Denton Pinkstone, (1852-1925), 1st Earl of Ypres, Field Marshal