ByngLIEUT.-GEN. THE HON. SIR JULIAN BYNG
Since then he has been one of the most brilliant among Corps Commanders. During the Battle of the Somme the Canadians foughton the right of Sir Hubert Gough's 5th Army and did notable work, taking Courcelette, and fighting many desperate actions on the Thiepval Ridge. During the long stormy winter their raids on the enemy line were among the most remarkable on the British front. More especially, they made the section north of Arras an unquiet place for the enemy. Their culminating achievement came at the Battle of Arras on April 9th, 1917, when they stormed in one stride four positions on the Vimy Ridge, and wrested from the enemy the key of the plain of Douai.
In June Sir Julian Byng succeeded General Allenby in command of the Third Army.
Sir Julian Byng has the appearance and manner of the cavalier of tradition. No more soldierly figure has appeared in the campaign. He has had the good fortune always to have fine troops to lead, and he is a fit leader for the best troops. He has become to the Canadians what General Birdwood is to the Anzacs—at once a trusted Commander and a well-beloved friend.
SIRWALTER CONGREVE, born in 1862, of Chartley and Congreve, County Stafford, was educated at Harrow and entered the Rifle Brigade in 1885. He became a Captain in 1893, and Brevet Lieut.-Colonel in 1901. During the South African War he won the Victoria Cross for an heroic attempt to save the guns at Colenso—the occasion on which Lord Roberts' only son won the same honour and lost his life.
During the war he received a brevet Lieut.-Colonelcy. He was Private Secretary and Assistant Military Secretary to Lord Kitchener when the latter was Commander-in-Chief at Pretoria.
After his return to England he became Commandant of the School of Musketry at Hythe, and, on the outbreak of the European War, went out in command of the 18th Infantry Brigade. From this he proceeded to the command of the 6th Division, with which he was present at the fighting at Hooge and Ypres in August and September, 1915.
At the Battle of the Somme he commanded the XIII Corps on the extreme British right in liaison with the French. He was responsible for the taking of Montauban, Bazentin and Longueval, and the desperate fighting around Guillemont. Ill-health compelled him to relinquish his command at the end of August, 1916, and, on his return, the XIII Corps was moved further to the left to Sir Hubert Gough's Army.
CongreveLIEUT.-GEN. SIR WALTER CONGREVE
General Congreve has been in command of the XIII Corps since November 15th, 1915. His son, Brevet-Major William Congreve, The Rifle Brigade, who fell at Longueval, July 22nd, 1916, at the age of 25,was universally recognised as the most promising of the younger British soldiers. In two years he had won a Brevet Majority, the D.S.O., the Military Cross, and the Cross of the Legion of Honour, and, after his death, he received the Victoria Cross. No family has a more splendid fighting record.
GENERALHALDANE was born on November 17th, 1862, of a well-known Scottish family which has given many distinguished members to the learned professions. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy and Sandhurst, and, in 1882, joined the Gordon Highlanders. He served in the Waziristan Campaign of 1894; the Chitral Campaign of 1895; the Tirah Campaign of 1897; and from 1896-99 he was A.D.C. to Sir William Lockhart. He received the D.S.O. for his work on the Indian frontier.
During the South African War he fought with the 2nd Gordon Highlanders at Elandslaagte, where he was severely wounded. He was in command of the armoured train which was captured at Chieveley on November 15th, 1899. The story of his escape from Pretoria after some months' imprisonment is one of the romances of the South African Campaign. He rejoined his battalion and was present at some of the later actions of the war, receiving a brevet Lieut.-Colonelcy.
During the Russo-Japanese War he was Military Attaché with the Japanese Army, and was present at the Battles of Liao-yang, Sha-Ho, and Mukden.
He went to France in August, 1914, in command of the 10th Infantry Brigade, which was part of the 4th Division in the III Corps. The Brigade arrived in time for the Battle of Le Cateau, and took part in all the subsequent fighting, being heavily engaged in the Armentières area during the First Battle of Ypres. General Haldane was one of the first Brigadiers to receive a Division. He succeeded Major-General Sir Hubert Hamilton in command of the 3rd Division in October, 1914,and remained with this famous Division till the Battle of the Somme. Its heaviest fighting took place in the summer of 1915 within the Ypres salient, and, in the spring of 1916, it was again engaged in the neighbourhood of St. Eloi and the Bluff at Ypres.
HaldaneLIEUT.-GEN. J. A. L. HALDANE
At the Battle of the Somme General Haldane took part in the great advance of July 14th, when the 3rd Division was brilliantly successful, carrying Bazentin le Grand, and sharing afterwards in the desperate fighting around Longueval and Delville Wood. In August he was promoted to the command of the VI Corps, and, during the winter, held a portion of the Arras front. The opportunity of the Corps came in the Battle of Arras on April 9th, 1917, when, advancing due east of the city, its three divisions carried all their objectives, including such formidable fortresses as the Harp and Railway Triangle, and made record captures of prisoners and guns.
Few British soldiers have had a more varied experience of warfare. He is a scholar in his profession, but his book knowledge is borne lightly, and he has shown himself in every crisis a leader of shrewd judgment and ample resource. He is still a young man, and, fine as his record has been, he is universally regarded as only at the outset of his career.
GENERALWATTS was born on February 14th, 1858, and entered the Army in 1880. He served in South Africa, where he received a brevet Lieut.-Colonelcy. He became Colonel of his regiment in 1908, and retired in 1914. On the outbreak of the European War he returned to service, and went with General Rawlinson to Flanders in October, 1914, in command of the 21st Brigade of the 7th Division.
With this Brigade, which has seen some of the most desperate fighting of the war, he fought at the first battle of Ypres. For three critical days the Brigade formed one of the three which checked the whole German advance; and then for nearly a fortnight it was in the centre of all the bitter fighting that was directed towards Ypres. When it was withdrawn it was but a shadow of the Brigade that had crossed Belgium before falling back on Ypres; but in the three weeks' battle it had won an imperishable name. General Watts fought with the Brigade on the left of the front at Neuve Chapelle and he also took part in the summer battles of 1915 at Festubert and Givenchy. With it he was engaged at Loos, where the Division saw some of the most severe fighting and where the Commander, General Capper, fell. General Watts succeeded to General Capper's command.
From the first day of the battle of the Somme the 7th Division, changed considerably in composition since the Autumn of 1914, played a notable part. It was they who took Mametz, and they fought through the whole of the first phase of the battle, crowning their achievement by the capture of Bazentin le Petit. The Division was present in most of the other great actions of the battle. In the spring of 1917 their General received the command of a corps.
WattssLIEUT.-GEN. H. E. WATTS
General Watts has a fighting reputation second to no one in the Army. The Campaign for him has been one long Malplaquet—a hard-fought soldiers' battle, and no man has known better how to elicit the inherent steadfastness of British troops. To have led first a Brigade and then a Division through some of the fiercest fights of all history is no small record for a man on the verge of sixty years.
GENERALSMUTS was born on May 24th, 1870, at Bovenplaats in the Malmesbury district of the Cape Colony, the residence of his father, Jacobus Abraham Smuts, who was for some time a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Cape. He was educated at Victoria College, Stellenbosch, and graduating with high honours in arts and science, passed as Ebden Scholar to Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1891.
He secured a double first in the Law Tripos, was called to the Bar and, returning to South Africa in 1895, was duly admitted to the Supreme Court at Cape Town, where he began to practice his profession. He was admitted to the Transvaal Bar in the following year, soon after the Jameson Raid. About this time he married Miss Sibylla Krige, of Stellenbosch, and settled in Johannesburg. He had already been mentioned as Dr. Leyds' successor to the post of State Secretary, when in 1898 he was offered and accepted the post of State Attorney. President Kruger's choice of so young a man was amply and speedily justified, and his reforming zeal exercised a formidable influence in the State.
It was in his capacity as State Attorney that he accompanied President Kruger, when the latter met Lord (then Sir Alfred) Milner at Bloemfontein, and took part in the negotiation with Mr. Conyngham Greene, the British Agent at Pretoria. The young advocate and statesman suddenly found his country confronted with war, and shortly after the Boer Commandos had taken the field he was attached to General Joubert as a legal adviser and administrative officer for the territory in Natal occupied by the Republican forces.
SmutsLIEUT.-GEN. THE RT. HON. JAN C. SMUTS
Eventually, after the occupation of Pretoria by the British armies, he received a command in the western Transvaal as Vecht-General under General de la Rey. He proved himself a dashing and skilful commander, and by the boldness of his movements in the Cape Colony, in the later stages of the war, created a feeling of nervousness in Lord Kitchener's main communications. He was in supreme command in the Cape and was applying himself to the reduction of Ookiep when the news of the opening of peace negotiations brought him back to the Transvaal. His was one of the strongest voices at Vereeniging in favour of peace when terms would still be obtainable, and when the Treaty was signed he returned to the practice of his old profession.
In the interval between Vereeniging and the grant of responsible government, he took a leading part with General Botha in restoring the moral of the Boer people, which had suffered severely in the disastrous war, and also in preparing them for self-government.
When, in 1907, responsible government was granted to the Transvaal, General Smuts assumed the portfolio of Colonial Secretary in General Botha's Ministry, and continued the work of national reconstruction and reconciliation between the two races and was largely responsible for the holding of the conferences on closer union which eventually culminated in the National Convention at which the South Africa Act, the Constitution of the Union, was framed.
He held successively the portfolios of Defence, the Interior, Mines, and Finance in General Botha's First Union Cabinet, and amongst other legislative activities was responsible for the South African Defence Act, the machinery of which was severely tested in the Syndicalist strikes at Johannesburg of 1913 and 1914, and the unfortunate rebellion in the latter portion of that year and also the campaign in South West Africa.
In March, 1916, Lieut.-General Smuts arrived in British East Africa and assumed command of the East African Expeditionary Force upon the pressing request of the Imperial Government and in succession to General Smith-Dorrien, who had been compelled to relinquish the command owing to a severe illness. Within a year he had driven the German troops from British territory, reduced them by two-thirds, and penned theminto the southern and south-western malarial area with its one healthy spot at Mahenge.
General Smuts is still a young man, though he has had exceptional experience. A scholar by taste, a lawyer by profession, and perforce a soldier, he represents a unique figure in the Empire. The boldness and energy of his leading as a General seem to suggest the born commander. As Statesman, his conceptions reveal an intuitive grasp of the fundamental ideals that must guide the present and inspire the future.
In Monthly Parts, Price 2/- net.Parts I.-V. in Volume form, with extra matter, 15/- net.The Western FrontDrawings by MUIRHEAD BONE"They illustrate admirably the daily life of the troops under my command."—F.M.Sir Douglas Haig, K.T.SOME RECENT PRESS NOTICES:"It is a matter for thankfulness that the authorities were able to secure the services of so distinguished an artist as Mr. Muirhead Bone to depict for us the conditions in the war zone of the Western Front. To give not only the thing seen but the spirit lying within it, that is the province of the imaginative and selective artist. And that is what Mr. Bone has done with a measure of success that almost defies exaggerated praise. He brings to his task the technique of a master and the vision of a true artist."—Daily Telegraph."Mr. Muirhead Bone has clearly justified the action of H.M. Government in employing him as an official artistic chronicler of the greatest of all wars."—Burlington Magazine."Mr. Muirhead Bone's vigorous drawings of the toil and moil of British warfare and all its circumstantial splendour and squalor stand in no further need of commendation.... It is a noble and enduring achievement.... These two drawings alone assure Lieutenant Bone's place among the immortals."—Morning Post."Mr. Bone's drawings convey an extraordinary idea of the abomination and desolation caused by shell fire."—Field."The drawings are of endless interest in their subjects and excite a natural wonder at the artist's remarkable fertility and versatility. It is impossible to overestimate the value of these drawings as a record of the actualities of the war."—Scotsman."The selection of Mr. Bone is triumphantly justified by his terrific Tank drawing, which no one's romantic exaggeration—not Doré's or Hugo's even—could have made more overwhelming in its onset or more deadly."—Daily Chronicle."Whether it be a speaking drawing of a road liable to be shelled, or a V.A.D. rest station, or German prisoners coming down from the front, or, again, the finished sketch of Amiens Cathedral with the aeroplanes round the spire, or a hospital ship scene at the quayside, all give a permanent impression of war scenes and war conditions which can hardly be too highly commended."—Bookseller."Among the little aristocracy of war pictures, destined to have permanent value both as history and as art, must certainly be placed the drawings of Mr. Muirhead Bone."—CoventryHerald."The Work grows on us."—Liverpool Post."In selecting Mr. Muirhead Bone for the task of depicting the varied scenes of activity on the British Front in France and Flanders, the Government have shown a very wise choice, which has been justified by the excellent series of drawings now being published."—Broad Arrow."It cannot be too strongly said that no mere photographic record can ever approach the great work Mr. Bone is doing in these sketches.—Montrose Standard.""The Series will certainly be greatly prized."—Army and Navy Gazette."An eloquent pencil, a dashing stroke, guided by a discerning brain, and the art of perspective are the requisites for a successful portrayal of the varied scenes of every battlefield, and these qualities Mr. Bone possesses to admiration."—Aberdeen Journal."Of all the records of the war up to date this publication alone conveys something of the impressiveness that fighting on the present scale might be expected to give."—Manchester Weekly Times."Mr. Bone's work was needed. Now that I have seen his picture books I know more about the war. A poet with a line of verse, a cunning draughtsman with a few strokes of the pencil on paper, can tell you what you will never learn from Blue Books and histories. I begin to understand this tremendous war."—The Londoner in theEvening News."Among the drawings are some of extraordinary power and interest made by the artist in British munition factories."—Westminster Gazette."Dozens of Artists have drawn ships. Mr. Bone has interpreted them. He has done the Fleet a great service in bringing it thus intimately to the Landsmen. The drawings will rank for all time among the world's greatest treasures in nautical art."—Country Life."Will take a foremost place among the permanent records of the war."—Manchester Guardian."Mr. Bone has the eye to see, the imagination to realise, and the hand to present."—The Times.Mr. Muirhead Bone's drawings are reproduced in the following form, apart from "The Western Front" publication:—WAR DRAWINGSSize 20 by 15 inches.Ten Plates in each part, 10/6 net.MUNITION DRAWINGSSize 31½ by 22 inches.Six Plates in portfolio, 20/- net.WITH THE GRAND FLEETSize 31½ by 22 inches.Six Plates in portfolio, 20/- net."TANKS"Size 28 by 20¼ inches.Single Plate, 5/- net.Further particulars of these publications will be sent on application to "Country Life,"Ltd., 20, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London, W.C. 2.
The Western FrontDrawings by MUIRHEAD BONE"They illustrate admirably the daily life of the troops under my command."—F.M.Sir Douglas Haig, K.T.
"They illustrate admirably the daily life of the troops under my command."
—F.M.Sir Douglas Haig, K.T.
SOME RECENT PRESS NOTICES:
"It is a matter for thankfulness that the authorities were able to secure the services of so distinguished an artist as Mr. Muirhead Bone to depict for us the conditions in the war zone of the Western Front. To give not only the thing seen but the spirit lying within it, that is the province of the imaginative and selective artist. And that is what Mr. Bone has done with a measure of success that almost defies exaggerated praise. He brings to his task the technique of a master and the vision of a true artist."—Daily Telegraph."Mr. Muirhead Bone has clearly justified the action of H.M. Government in employing him as an official artistic chronicler of the greatest of all wars."—Burlington Magazine."Mr. Muirhead Bone's vigorous drawings of the toil and moil of British warfare and all its circumstantial splendour and squalor stand in no further need of commendation.... It is a noble and enduring achievement.... These two drawings alone assure Lieutenant Bone's place among the immortals."—Morning Post."Mr. Bone's drawings convey an extraordinary idea of the abomination and desolation caused by shell fire."—Field."The drawings are of endless interest in their subjects and excite a natural wonder at the artist's remarkable fertility and versatility. It is impossible to overestimate the value of these drawings as a record of the actualities of the war."—Scotsman."The selection of Mr. Bone is triumphantly justified by his terrific Tank drawing, which no one's romantic exaggeration—not Doré's or Hugo's even—could have made more overwhelming in its onset or more deadly."—Daily Chronicle."Whether it be a speaking drawing of a road liable to be shelled, or a V.A.D. rest station, or German prisoners coming down from the front, or, again, the finished sketch of Amiens Cathedral with the aeroplanes round the spire, or a hospital ship scene at the quayside, all give a permanent impression of war scenes and war conditions which can hardly be too highly commended."—Bookseller."Among the little aristocracy of war pictures, destined to have permanent value both as history and as art, must certainly be placed the drawings of Mr. Muirhead Bone."—CoventryHerald."The Work grows on us."—Liverpool Post."In selecting Mr. Muirhead Bone for the task of depicting the varied scenes of activity on the British Front in France and Flanders, the Government have shown a very wise choice, which has been justified by the excellent series of drawings now being published."—Broad Arrow."It cannot be too strongly said that no mere photographic record can ever approach the great work Mr. Bone is doing in these sketches.—Montrose Standard.""The Series will certainly be greatly prized."—Army and Navy Gazette."An eloquent pencil, a dashing stroke, guided by a discerning brain, and the art of perspective are the requisites for a successful portrayal of the varied scenes of every battlefield, and these qualities Mr. Bone possesses to admiration."—Aberdeen Journal."Of all the records of the war up to date this publication alone conveys something of the impressiveness that fighting on the present scale might be expected to give."—Manchester Weekly Times."Mr. Bone's work was needed. Now that I have seen his picture books I know more about the war. A poet with a line of verse, a cunning draughtsman with a few strokes of the pencil on paper, can tell you what you will never learn from Blue Books and histories. I begin to understand this tremendous war."—The Londoner in theEvening News."Among the drawings are some of extraordinary power and interest made by the artist in British munition factories."—Westminster Gazette."Dozens of Artists have drawn ships. Mr. Bone has interpreted them. He has done the Fleet a great service in bringing it thus intimately to the Landsmen. The drawings will rank for all time among the world's greatest treasures in nautical art."—Country Life."Will take a foremost place among the permanent records of the war."—Manchester Guardian."Mr. Bone has the eye to see, the imagination to realise, and the hand to present."—The Times.
"It is a matter for thankfulness that the authorities were able to secure the services of so distinguished an artist as Mr. Muirhead Bone to depict for us the conditions in the war zone of the Western Front. To give not only the thing seen but the spirit lying within it, that is the province of the imaginative and selective artist. And that is what Mr. Bone has done with a measure of success that almost defies exaggerated praise. He brings to his task the technique of a master and the vision of a true artist."—Daily Telegraph.
"Mr. Muirhead Bone has clearly justified the action of H.M. Government in employing him as an official artistic chronicler of the greatest of all wars."—Burlington Magazine.
"Mr. Muirhead Bone's vigorous drawings of the toil and moil of British warfare and all its circumstantial splendour and squalor stand in no further need of commendation.... It is a noble and enduring achievement.... These two drawings alone assure Lieutenant Bone's place among the immortals."—Morning Post.
"Mr. Bone's drawings convey an extraordinary idea of the abomination and desolation caused by shell fire."—Field.
"The drawings are of endless interest in their subjects and excite a natural wonder at the artist's remarkable fertility and versatility. It is impossible to overestimate the value of these drawings as a record of the actualities of the war."—Scotsman.
"The selection of Mr. Bone is triumphantly justified by his terrific Tank drawing, which no one's romantic exaggeration—not Doré's or Hugo's even—could have made more overwhelming in its onset or more deadly."—Daily Chronicle.
"Whether it be a speaking drawing of a road liable to be shelled, or a V.A.D. rest station, or German prisoners coming down from the front, or, again, the finished sketch of Amiens Cathedral with the aeroplanes round the spire, or a hospital ship scene at the quayside, all give a permanent impression of war scenes and war conditions which can hardly be too highly commended."—Bookseller.
"Among the little aristocracy of war pictures, destined to have permanent value both as history and as art, must certainly be placed the drawings of Mr. Muirhead Bone."—CoventryHerald.
"The Work grows on us."—Liverpool Post.
"In selecting Mr. Muirhead Bone for the task of depicting the varied scenes of activity on the British Front in France and Flanders, the Government have shown a very wise choice, which has been justified by the excellent series of drawings now being published."—Broad Arrow.
"It cannot be too strongly said that no mere photographic record can ever approach the great work Mr. Bone is doing in these sketches.—Montrose Standard."
"The Series will certainly be greatly prized."—Army and Navy Gazette.
"An eloquent pencil, a dashing stroke, guided by a discerning brain, and the art of perspective are the requisites for a successful portrayal of the varied scenes of every battlefield, and these qualities Mr. Bone possesses to admiration."—Aberdeen Journal.
"Of all the records of the war up to date this publication alone conveys something of the impressiveness that fighting on the present scale might be expected to give."—Manchester Weekly Times.
"Mr. Bone's work was needed. Now that I have seen his picture books I know more about the war. A poet with a line of verse, a cunning draughtsman with a few strokes of the pencil on paper, can tell you what you will never learn from Blue Books and histories. I begin to understand this tremendous war."—The Londoner in theEvening News.
"Among the drawings are some of extraordinary power and interest made by the artist in British munition factories."—Westminster Gazette.
"Dozens of Artists have drawn ships. Mr. Bone has interpreted them. He has done the Fleet a great service in bringing it thus intimately to the Landsmen. The drawings will rank for all time among the world's greatest treasures in nautical art."—Country Life.
"Will take a foremost place among the permanent records of the war."—Manchester Guardian.
"Mr. Bone has the eye to see, the imagination to realise, and the hand to present."—The Times.
Mr. Muirhead Bone's drawings are reproduced in the following form, apart from "The Western Front" publication:—
Further particulars of these publications will be sent on application to "Country Life,"Ltd., 20, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London, W.C. 2.
Uniform with this publication.Admirals of the British NavyPortraits byFRANCIS DODDINTRODUCTIONI.—JELLICOE, ADMIRAL SIR JOHN R.,G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O.II.—ADMIRAL SIR CECIL BURNEY,G.C.M.G., K.C.B.III.—MADDEN, VICE-ADMIRAL SIR C. E.,K.C.B., K.C.M.G., C.V.O.IV.—STURDEE, VICE-ADMIRAL SIR F. C. D.,K.C.B., K.C.M.G., C.V.O.V.—BACON, VICE-ADMIRAL SIR R. H. S.,K.C.B., K.C.V.O., D.S.O.VI.—DEROBECK, REAR-ADMIRAL SIR J. M.,K.C.B.VII.—NAPIER, VICE-ADMIRAL T. D. W.,C.B., M.V.O.VIII.—BROCK, REAR-ADMIRAL SIR OSMONDde B.,K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G.IX.—HALSEY, REAR-ADMIRAL LIONEL,C.B., C.M.G.X.—PAKENHAM, REAR-ADMIRAL SIR W. C.,K.C.B., K.C.V.O.XI.—PAINE, COMMODORE GODFREY M.,C.B., M.V.O.XII.—TYRWHITT, COMMODORE SIR R. Y.,K.C.B., D.S.O.Hudson & Kearns, Ltd., Printers,Hatfield Street, London, S.E. 1.
Uniform with this publication.
Admirals of the British NavyPortraits byFRANCIS DODD
Hudson & Kearns, Ltd., Printers,Hatfield Street, London, S.E. 1.
Cover for Part Two
INTRODUCTION.I.—FRENCH, FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT,K.P., G.C.B., O.M.II.—PULTENEY, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR WILLIAM,K.C.B., K.C.M.G., D.S.O.III.—HAKING, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR R. C. B.,K.C.B.IV.—FERGUSSON, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR CHARLES,Bart.,K.C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O.V.—FOWKE, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR GEORGE H.,K.C.B., K.C.M.G.VI.—HUNTER-WESTON, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR A.,K.C.B., D.S.O.VII.—JACOB, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR C. W.,K.C.B.VIII.—HOLLAND, MAJOR-GEN. SIR A. E. A.,K.C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O.IX.—MAXSE, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR IVOR,K.C.B., C.V.O., D.S.O.X.—MORLAND, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR T. L. N.,K.C.B., K.C.M.G., D.S.O.XI.—TRENCHARD, MAJOR-GEN. SIR H. M.,K.C.B., D.S.O.XII.—FANSHAWE, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR E. A.,K.C.B.
PART II.
THEcentral figure of this second portrait gallery of British Generals is that of Lord French, who gives a unity and atmosphere to the collection. The phase of the War he represents is quite distinct, indeed unique. The Army with which his name will ever be associated was an admittedly incomparable force, and many of the Generals whose portraits are to be found here went through the greatest ordeal of our history with him.
There have been many crises in the war. There will yet be others. But none can compare with that first four months in which the first issue was victory or defeat, and the second the coast or annihilation. Earlier wars have given a phraseology that endures till now of the processes by which campaigns are won. Armies are "decimated," and the term is taken to be synonymous with defeat. But this term is wholly inadequate to describe the price at which Sir John French and his troops redeemed the Channel coast. Little of the first Army was left when the first four months had passed, but the Kaiser's legions had not secured a decision; they had been cheated of the coast; and they had learned a lesson which will endure.
But at the end of this episode the great crisis had passed. The cloud which had overhung our Army had lifted. The light began to shine and anxious eyes could dimly see the promise of a fairer day. It is the first days of the war when the British troops went blithely to their awful tryst that must ever be the fire and inspiration of the generations to come. They are still more obscure than any other period of the war and they were more highly charged with emotion than perhaps any days can be expected to equal, unless it be those last days when the Allied troops shall drive the enemy from the field.
The Germans had secretly concentrated behind their screen of cavalry in Belgium. Sordets' cavalry had made a gallant raid through the country without gaining any sure information of where the main enemy forces lay. The French had made tentative moves eastward without finding any great force in their path. So the third week of the war dawned with no trustworthy evidence of the existence of that huge force that was to make its gallop to Paris. In such circumstances Sir John French landed with his staff. The Allies were groping in the dark and the British Army was cast for a rôle that it never had a chance of performing. Suddenly the German force emerged from behind its concealing curtain of horse. Without any trace of hesitation it moved westward over Belgium. Everything was in its place. Uniforms were new and fresh. Every scientific aid was in use, and the whole superstructure of the Allied strategy began to disappear. Butonly the superstructure.
It seems strange now to state that the rôle of the British Army was to outflank the German right wing. With our present knowledge of the sequence of events it is difficult to think that it was ever possible. The German Army had been trained for speed, and the German policy was based on getting in the first blow. When it fell it found the Allies unprepared. A full half-million picked German troops marched across Belgium on the 20th and 21st of August; but when the first encounters began on the Sambre the British Armies were not in their positions. The first Allied plan was already impracticable before the British Army took its place about Mons and prepared to give battle. The Sambre line could be no longer maintained; but the British commander, not yet notified of the fact, set himself to the forlorn hope of forbidding the advance of an army many times greater than his own force.
The Battle of Mons was decided before it had begun; and the troops who were compelled to retreat had planned quite another sort of episode. Sir John French and his Generals had to retire in haste from the peril of being surrounded and cut off.
At some phases of long drawn out war of positions it was forgotten that the Army which first took the field had to face the war of movements, and that only their astounding skill and courage enabled them to copewith it in its worst aspect. German generals have recently proclaimed their belief that the British Army will not be able to succeed in open warfare. Bernhardi even said that he doubted if the troops could face a European army. But this latter statement was made before the war, and it has perished in the light of numerous German defeats. The former can never survive our recollection of the conduct of the most difficult operations in open warfare by Sir John French and his Generals. An enforced retreat is a more searching test of military skill than any that is known to soldiers, and it was such an experience that met the British Army on the threshold of the War.
At Mons the Army made retreat possible. The battle was not of long duration; but it was sufficient to put an end to Bernhardi's hopes. The fierce onset of the Germans was broken by the amazing skill and coolness of a numerically inferior army, provided with hardly any of the instruments which were to give the tone to the war. Yet the few British machine guns and the incomparable riflemen inflicted losses that had never been expected by the enemy. German officers have explained their amazement at seeing the cool unhurried firing after the troops had been hammered time and again with an overwhelming weight of artillery.
They had scarcely any cover; but when the bombardment was over the quiet orders were instantly obeyed and the men met the enemy as though on manœuvres. Dispositions had been carefully made and the Germans met a deadly check. But this skill and courage was called upon more searchingly in the retreat which followed. The Germans seemed to be round both their wings. Indeed the first few days were fought in certainly what must have appeared to be partial envelopment. Le Cateau was a rearguard battle, such as perhaps has never been fought in history before. The men were too tired to do anything but put their fortunes to the final test; and, though overwhelmed by shrapnel, they won through. Courage alone cannot explain such a feat. Experience and the coolness that is born of it only explains half; the skill of the commanders could alone have justified the decision to stand at such hazards and could alone have brought the men through them. Le Cateau was won by the better troops. The British were moved back; but the check they administered gave them breathing space for the future.
The proportions of the force they had to meet were now clearer to the British commanders. By the Marne they had taken a surer measure. On the Aisne they put their judgment to the test and the successes of the First Corps in winning to the crest of the ridge, but lately cleared by the French, shewed that their reading of the situation was correct. Yet they were still to go through the final ordeal. They were taken north and set to tasks that were again incommensurate with their force. The army was still smaller than that of Belgium; and yet they were encouraged to look forward to Bruges, whence great German reinforcements were at that moment hastening south. Part of the army was falling back towards Ypres, and before this peaceful old Belgian town one of the decisive battles of history gradually emerged.
How the British Army survived Ypres is one of the mysteries upon which time can throw little light. But how it saved Ypres and survived at the same time can only be known from an investigation into the courage and surpassing skill of the splendid organism which had our honour in its keeping. The endurance under a ceaseless battering, the repeated readjustments that were necessitated by the mere weight of the onslaught, the mere mechanism of carrying on from day to day under such a strain can only be explained by a tribute to skilful handling that needs no emphasis. Officers acted with an insistent recognition of the issues at stake. The line, momentarily breached at Gheluvelt, was immediately restored before the orders of the supreme command could direct the operation. But this was only one great example of the skill that found expression everywhere and all the time.
Many of these generals, whose lives shine but vaguely through the facts which outline them, fought through these days of trial. All of them had other and stranger experience under other suns; but the experience they had garnered met its supreme test in the first phase of the war. When it had passed the barque of the army had ridden the troubled waters and was safe in harbour with only its terrible wounds to bear witness to the ordeal it had survived. Some of the commanders were fighting in other climes and came to the decisive theatre of the war when the great crisis had passed. They and all are part of the country's patrimony, part of its insurance of victory. They form a strikingensemble. Guardsmen some of them, with the halo which surrounds that name sincethe war began; engineers others, with the cool and calculating craftsmanship of their kind; others, again, of the artillery with bitter memories of the numerical weakness of their arm in the hour of trial and yet remembering fierce and glorious hours at Le Cateau, where they stood to the service of their guns and did the work of ten times their number. And there is not wanting a representative of the newest arm—the air service, which have many things to teach soldiers yet.
They are one in that goodly fellowship of great soldiers who have come through the fire of the fiercest battles in the world's history. We can glimpse their metal in their actions. We have recently seen how potent still is the skill which directs in the face of all scientific and mechanical development of the war. It is natural for us who read daily the record of our soldiers to be more conscious of their small failures, than of their great success. But trace the broad lines of the war, retread those trampled roads of northern France once more behind the armies these men led, remember their mastery in the darkest days and their record becomes luminous with the assurance of final victory.
LORDFRENCH'S name will descend to posterity as the leader of the British Expeditionary Force. Were all his other great services to his country reckoned as naught, his name would live for ever by reason of the German Emperor's vainglorious allusion to "French's contemptible little army." For, as long as the British Empire shall endure, men will hold in honour "the old Contemptibles," who shattered for ever an Emperor's dreams of world supremacy and made his boast recoil upon his head.
John Denton Pinkstone French comes of one of the most ancient Irish families, the Frenches of Galway and Roscommon, of whom Lord French of French Park, Roscommon, is the head. The Field-Marshal is fifth in descent from John French, M.P., who fought in the army of William III. and commanded a troop of Enniskillen Dragoons at Aughrim in 1689. His grandfather left Ireland at the beginning of the XIXth century and settled in Kent at Ripple Vale, near Deal, where, on September 28th, 1852, Lord French of Ypres was born.
Lord French's father was Captain John French, R.N., who retired from the service with the rank of Post Captain and died when the boy, his only son, was but two years old. Upon his mother, a Scottish lady, a Miss Eccles from the neighbourhood of Glasgow, devolved the upbringing of the infant son and his five sisters. After a brief sojourn at Harrow, the boy was sent to Eastman's School at Portsmouth to prepare for the Navy. In 1866, in his fourteenth year, he entered the "Britannia," and thence passed out as a midshipman.
At the age of 18, young John French sought the advice of a family friend and decided to make the change which was destined to alter the whole course of his life. He entered the militia and spent two years in the Garrison Artillery at Ipswich (1871 to 1873). Then he passed into the regular army, being gazetted, at the age of 21, to the 8th Hussars, with whom, however, he remained only a short time, transferring, after a few weeks, to the 19th Hussars, the regiment with which he passed the first half of his life as a soldier.
In 1880 Captain French became Adjutant of the Northumberland Yeomanry, and was thus, to his great disappointment, prevented from accompanying his regiment, the 19th, to Egypt in 1882. However, his chance came two years later when he went out as second in command of the 19th to join Wolseley's Nile Expedition. French was at Abu Klea and in the subsequent desperate fighting, and he was actually thefirst man of the column to learn, from the lips of Stuart Wortley, of the fall of Khartum and the death of Gordon. For his good work in Egypt French was mentioned in despatches and returned to England as Lieutenant-Colonel.
FrenchFIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH
Five years of garrison duty followed. In 1891 Col. French took the 19th Hussars out to India, being stationed first at Secunderabad and afterwards at Bangalore. In 1893 he returned to England and retired on half-pay. In the following year he was entrusted with the compilation of the Cavalry Drill-book, and 1895 found him installed at the War Office as Deputy-Adjutant-General under Sir Redvers Buller.
From now on French rose rapidly in his profession. As commander of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade at Canterbury (1897), and the 1st Cavalry Brigade at Aldershot (1898), he had ample scope to elaborate his theories on cavalry training. None was more tenacious than French of maintaining the "cavalry spirit" in the British Cavalry, but he had recognized in Egypt the advantages of teaching the cavalry to fight dismounted as well. His theories were violently combated, but his justification was at hand. The time was approaching when he was to burst into prominence as England's main hope in South Africa.
Lord French was given command of the cavalry in Natal, and landed in South Africa on October 12th, 1899, the day after the declaration of war. He returned to England in July, 1902, with an almost unbroken record of successes in the campaign to his name.
His next command was the 1st Army Corps at Aldershot. Here for five years he worked at high pressure with the watch-word of "Efficiency." From Aldershot French was summoned by Lord Haldane, then Secretary of State for War, and given the appointment of Inspector-General of the Forces. In this post he laid the bases of the Expeditionary Force and of the Territorial Army which was to prove its valuable auxiliary in the years to come. In 1911 he was appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff and held this appointment until 1914, when he resigned.
From his retirement he was summoned to take command of the Expeditionary Force. He left London on the afternoon of Friday, August 14th, and landed in France that evening. For sixteen months he remained at the head of the British Army in France, which he watched expand from the four Divisions of the Retreat from Mons into a vast army of a million men. In December, 1915, he was recalled to take up the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Home Forces. At the New Year, 1916, he was created a Viscount.
In the title he assumed the Field-Marshal has commemorated the sternest battle he fought across the Channel. Ypres was the supreme test. When the full history of the war comes to be written, the Empire will realize how much it owes its security to the high patriotism and indomitable tenacity of the Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Force.
LIEUTENANT-GENERALSIR WILLIAM PULTENEY, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., D.S.O., was born on May 18th, 1861. He joined the Scots Guards from the Militia in 1881. In 1882 he served in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and was present at the action of Mahuta and the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, winning a medal with clasp and bronze star. He was promoted Captain, Scots Guards, in 1892. Employed under the Foreign Office in the Uganda Protectorate between 1895 and 1897, he saw service in the Unyoro Expedition of 1895, winning a medal, and in the Nandi Expedition of 1895-6. In the latter he was mentioned in despatches and gained the D.S.O.
In 1897 he became Major, and in the same year was made Vice-Consul to the Congo Free State, an office he held until 1899. He again saw active service in the South African War, 1899-1902. He was in the advance on Kimberley, and took part in the operations in the Orange Free State, Transvaal, Orange River Colony, and Cape Colony. In these operations he commanded the 1st Battalion of the Scots Guards in 1900, and later took command of a Column. He was mentioned in despatches, gained the brevet of Colonel, together with the Queen's Medal and six clasps and the King's Medal with two clasps. He became Colonel of the Scots Guards in 1904 and was given the C.B. in 1905. Between 1908 and 1909 he commanded the 16th Brigade in the Irish Command, and in the latter year was promoted Major-General. In July, 1910, he became General Officer in command of the 6th Division, Irish Command, holding this position until 1914.