John French, 1st Earl of Ypres

John French

John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres , KP , GCB , OM , GCVO , KCMG , PC (born September 28, 1852 in Ripple Vale , Kent , † May 22, 1925 in Deal , Kent) was a British field marshal .

Life

John French was born the son of Naval Officer William French and his wife Margaret Eccles. In 1854 the father died and the mother was treated for mental illness. Together with his older sister Charlotte , John French came to London in 1863 to live with relatives. As a suffragette and member of Sinn Féin, his sister took a critical stance on him throughout his career.

French joined the Royal Navy in 1866 and joined the British Army in the 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars in 1874 . In 1884/85 French took part with the 19th Royal Hussars in Operation Garnet Joseph Wolseleys in Sudan to save Gordon Pasha from the Mahdists . He excelled in the battle of Abu Klea . Four years later he was given command of this regiment as a lieutenant colonel. In 1895 he served for two years as Assistant Adjutant-General in the Army High Command. He then took over command of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade in Aldershot .

After the outbreak of the Boer War he took command of the cavalry in Natal as major general under George Stuart White . On October 21, 1899, he fought the Battle of ElandslaAGEN, one of the few battles in this conflict that the British had clearly won tactically. He then escaped from the besieged Ladysmith and was given command of the newly formed cavalry division in Lord Roberts ' army . With this he horrified the Kimberley garrison in February 1900 and took part in the subsequent Battle of Paardeberg . From October 1900 he commanded the Johannesburg district and from June 1901 he was military commander of the Cape Colony . While still in South Africa, he learned that he had been appointed as the commanding general of the 1st Army Corps and commander of the Aldershot garrison, succeeding Redvers Buller .

In the great maneuver of 1903, French commanded one of the two sides while Evelyn Wood led the other. In 1907 he became Inspector General and in 1912 Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS). In June 1913 he was appointed field marshal . As a result of the Curragh incident in the spring of 1914, he resigned from his post, but remained the first candidate for the leadership of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the event of war. After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, French became commander in chief of the BEF in France, whose deployment helped to decide the battle of the Marne . Because of his feeble and indecisive leadership he was blamed for the British failures and the high losses and replaced in December 1915 by his deputy and commander in chief of the 1st Army Douglas Haig .

After returning to England, French served as Commander of the Home Forces until 1918 and was then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the Lloyd George government until 1921 . After his retirement he was awarded a sum of £ 50,000 by Parliament.

John French was on 1 January 1916 as Viscount French of Ypres and of High Lake in the County of Roscommon to peer appointed and on June 5, 1922. Earl of Ypres levied. He died in Deal on May 22, 1925.

Works

• 1914 . Cassell, London 1919

literature

• George H. Cassar: The Tragedy of Sir John French. Associated University Presses, 1985. ISBN 0-87413-241-X .
• Gerald French: The life of Field-Marshal Sir John French, first earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG Cassell, London 1931 (the author is French's son)
• Gerald French: Some War Diaries, addresses, and correspondence of Field Marshal the Right Honble the Earl of Ypres. - London: Jenkins, 1937
• Richard Holmes: The Little Field Marshal. A Life of Sir John French . Cape, London 1981, ISBN 0-224-01575-3

Web links

Commons : John French, 1st Earl of Ypres  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• John French, 1st Earl of Ypres in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Newspaper article about John French, 1st Earl of Ypres in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Mr John French at Hansard (English)

predecessor	Office	successor
William Gustavus Nicholson	Chief of the Imperial General Staff 1912–1914	Charles Douglas
Office newly created	Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force 1914–1915	Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig
New title created	Viscount French 1916-1925	John French, 2nd Earl of Ypres
Ivor Guest, 1st Viscount Wimborne	Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1918–1921	Edmund FitzAlan-Howard, 1st Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent
New title created	Earl of Ypres 1922-1925	John French, 2nd Earl of Ypres