Sir John French Part 9

I write these few lines to tell you how much I admire your husband's Dispatch, and how proud I am of the splendid work done by the troops under his command. When the whole story of the war comes to be known, the masterly way in which the Retreat from Mons--under vastly superior numbers--was carried out, will be remembered as one of the finest military exploits ever achieved....[21]

I trust you will continue to get good news of Sir John, and that you are keeping well yourself. With kindest regards, in which Lady Roberts and my daughters join,

Believe me, Yours sincerely, (_Signed_) ROBERTS, (F.-M.).

That was only the first chapter in the story of his new achievements.

The authentic history of his latest successes remains to be written.

The French, however, were not wrong in dubbing the British Field-Marshal "the modern Marlborough." For French belongs to the same dogged, cautious school as Marlborough and Wellington. His genius is one of those which include an infinite capacity for taking pains.

Indeed his thoroughness is more than Teutonic. In this war, French has, so far, found no Napoleon to fight. It is, indeed, questionable whether the Germans have a commander of his excellence on the field.

But the preparations of the German Headquarters Staff may be admitted to be Napoleonic in their elaborate and far-seeing perfection. Yet time and again, as in the Napoleonic wars, they have gone down before a British General who unites the dash of von Roon with the caution and the prescience of Moltke.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] Published by courtesy of Lady French and Earl Roberts.

CHAPTER XII

FRENCH, THE MAN

A Typical Englishman--Fighting at School--Napoleon Worship--"A Great Reporter"--Halting Speeches and Polished Prose. A South African Coincidence--Mrs. Despard and the Newsboy--The Happy Warrior.

So far, this book has necessarily been chiefly a record of events.

That was inevitable, for the man of action writes his story in deeds.

Nor was there ever a great soldier who made less clamour in the world of newspapers than General French. He has never adopted the studied reticence of Kitchener nor yet the chill aloofness of certain of his colleagues. War correspondents are not anathema to him; neither does he shudder at the sight of the reporter's pencil. Yet, somehow, few anecdotes cl.u.s.ter round his name.

Perhaps that is because his modesty is not a pose, although it has become almost a tradition. It is simply a natural trait in a modest and rather retiring disposition. French simply will not be talked about--and there is an end of the matter.

If one were asked to describe the man, one might best answer that he is the Englishman to the _n_th. degree. It is usual to find that the man of extraordinary merit is in some degree a contrast with and a criticism of the mere average mortal of his set. The dour urbanity of Kitchener, for instance, is Oriental rather than English, and contrasts strangely with the choleric tradition of the army officer.

So the infinite alertness and constant good humour of Roberts has a quality of Latin _esprit_ very foreign to the English temperament. But there are no such peculiarities about French. He is the very essence of healthy normality.

Yet, although of Celtic descent, he is essentially English. He has not hacked his way to fame in the manner of the Scot, nor has he leapt upon her pedestal with the boisterous humour of the Irishman. He has got there in the dogged but sporting English way, taking Fortune's gifts when they came, but never pushing or scrambling for them when they were out of reach.

One catches the spirit of the man in the schoolboy. When he first went to school at Harrow, the boys, knowing that sisters had been responsible for his education, were prepared to take it out of him.

But as French was ready to fight at the slightest provocation, and equally ready to swear eternal friendship when the fight was done, he quickly won his way through respect to popularity.

[Page Heading: AN ADMIRER OF NAPOLEON]

Despite this quality, the steadfast object of his admiration has been one of the most abnormal and theatrical figures in history--Napoleon.

It is, however, Napoleon the soldier and not the personality that has attracted French, who, by the way, possesses a wonderful collection of Napoleonic relics. He sees Napoleon as the greatest strategist the world has known. As such the Corsican claims his unstinted admiration: but there his admiration stops. For French is altogether humane. There is nothing of the iron heel about either his methods or his manners.

His extreme parsimony of life we have seen as the cause of the only criticism which has ever been levelled against him.

By a strange coincidence, however, his worship of Napoleon has proved itself invaluable in an unexpected way. In following Napoleon's campaigns out in detail, French had traversed every inch of Waterloo, and much of the Belgian battle-ground in the European war. There can be little doubt that the success of some of his work has been due to his detailed knowledge of the scene of operations.

Inevitably, perhaps, French suggests Napoleon in certain subtle traits of character rather than in personality. His rapidity of thought, for instance, has probably rarely been equalled, since Napoleon set Europe by the ears. An officer under his command in South Africa, has recorded how, day after day, for weeks on end, French would answer the most intricate questions on policy and tactics over the telephone with scarcely a moment's delay. Such inhuman speed and accuracy of decision link French with the greatest commanders of history.

There is just a suggestion of Napoleon too, in his habitual att.i.tudes.

He usually stands with legs wide apart and arms folded either across his chest or clasped behind his back. But the perfect cheerfulness of his smile banishes any fear of Corsican churlishness of manner. It is very certain that French is not feared by his staff: he is worshipped by them. The reason for that is not far to seek. Although his temper is irascible, it is not enduring. Often it will flash out in wrathful words, but the storm is quickly over. Men of this choleric temper are always beloved, for good humour inevitably underlies the ebullitions of so light a rage. They never nurse hatreds nor brood over trifles.

Also they are healthily impervious to the wiles of flattery or the snare of favouritism. There is nothing of the jealous and erratic genius about French. To read his dispatches is to find praise lavishly given to subordinates but no mention of self. For he looks after his a.s.sistants and leaves his own record to fate. He has, indeed, mastered the art of being great enough to allow others to be great. Hence the excellence which always marks his General Staff.

[Page Heading: THE SOLDIERS' IDOL]

Such qualities must inevitably endear a General to his officers, to the men who have to bear the brunt of their Chief's personality. But do they appeal to the private? Both Napoleon and Wellington indubitably took immense pains to surround themselves with a shroud of mystery. Under their dark mantles, the ranks must feel, lay buried the talisman of success. We know that his officers found "the sight of Wellington's long nose on a frosty morning worth another ten thousand men" to them. Sir John French has cultivated neither a nose, nor a frown, nor even a chin. How does he manage to be the idol of his men?

it may be asked. Simply and solely by being himself. Without any of the meretricious arts of the personality-monger, he has impressed his personality on the troops in a most memorable way. This is largely due to the impression of quiet confidence which he always gives. You feel you are safe with French. Nothing, you know, will ever upset the cool sanity of his reasoning, the balanced decision of his judgments. This impression of certainly is strengthened by the distinctly masterful carriage of the man. His short, stocky figure, like General Grant's, suggests that fatigue is unknown to him. This is indeed the case. The story has often been told of how the General and his staff once decided, after an exhausting day, to spend the night in a lonely farm in South Africa. The house only boasted one bed, which was of course, reserved for the General. But French insisted on a tired member of his staff occupying the solitary mattress, and wrapping himself up in a rug, went contentedly to sleep on the floor.

His mind is as tireless as his body. The operations round Colesberg could only have been undertaken in their complicated entirety by a General who did not know what mental fatigue meant. This physical and mental fitness French has most carefully studied to preserve. At one time, several years ago, he feared a tendency to avoirdupois, and instantly undertook a stern but successful bulk-reducing regimen.

Apropos the regimen there is a story. Just before the present war, a bulky package was one day delivered to him at his club. French opened it negligently, expecting to discover the inevitable knick-knack of doubtful utility. But this was not the usual gift. It was a package of weight-reducing preparations.

[Page Heading: AN INDEPENDENT THINKER]

French's mind, however, is original as well as tireless. Just there lies the unique quality of his gifts. The art of war is necessarily one of the most highly systematised and therefore the most hide-bound in the world. No man is more perilously in danger of having his mind swathed in red tape and numbed by discipline than the soldier. In modern times the tendency to employ ma.s.ses has not lessened the tendency to stereotype habits of thought. The danger of the mechanical soldier is stressed by no one more forcibly than by General von Bernhardi. He holds that a self-reliant personality is as essential as a profound knowledge of generalship to the modern commander. French possesses both. Although profoundly versed in all the doctrines of the schoolmen, he is never afraid to jump over the traces where they would lead to a precipice. He has never been hampered, as so many soldiers are, by his studies. Knowledge he has always used as a means to an end, which is its proper vocation. To this independence of mind, as to nothing else, may be attributed his phenomenal success amid the abnormal conditions of Boer warfare. Where the books end, French's active mind begins to construct its own "way out" of the corner.

The Boers were indeed the first to admit his superiority to the other English officers, if not to themselves. De Wet was once asked in the early stages of the war how long he expected to avoid capture. He replied, with a smile, that it all depended on which General was dispatched to run him down. When a certain name was mentioned, the reply was "Till eternity." General B---- was next mentioned. "About two years," was the verdict. "And General French?" "Two weeks,"

admitted De Wet.

French has, of course, never accepted social life in this country on its face value. The young officer who was studying when his friends were at polo or tennis, was under no illusions as to the havoc which an over-accentuation of the sporting and social side of life was playing with the officers' work. Nowadays, like Kitchener, he is bent on producing the professional and weeding out the "drawing-room"

soldier. No wonder that his favourite authors are those acutest critics of English social life and English foibles, d.i.c.kens and Thackeray. The former's "Bleak House" and the latter's "Book of Sn.o.bs" are the two books he places first in his affections.

[Page Heading: A GREAT REPORTER]

He is himself a writer of parts. We are, ourselves, so close to the event he describes, that we are perhaps unable to appreciate the literary excellence of the despatches which French has sent us on the operations in France. A Chicago paper hails him, however, as "a great reporter." "No one can read his reports," the writer remarks, "without being struck with his weighty lucidity, his calm mastery of the important facts, the total absence of any attempt at 'effect,' and the remarkably suggestive bits of pertinent description."

Undoubtedly, the Americans are right--provided that these dispatches were actually penned by the General himself.

His speeches may be obvious and even trite; his letters may lack any flavour of personality; but these dispatches are literature. Like his hero Napoleon, like Caesar and Wellington, Sir John French has forged a literary style for himself. There is nothing amateurish or journalistic about his communications from the front. The dispatch from Mons, for instance, is a masterpiece of lucid and incisive English. It might well be printed in our school-histories, not merely as a vivid historic doc.u.ment, but as a model of English prose.

Not that Sir John French's style is an accident. Like most of the other successes of his career, it is the result of design. The man who laboriously "crammed" tactics laboured equally hard over the art of writing. The many prefaces which he has written to famous books on strategy and war bear traces of the most careful preparation.

Apart from his dispatches, however, French has written some virile, telling English in his prefaces to several books on cavalry and on military history. The most interesting is that which he wrote for Captain Frederick von Herbert's _The Defence of Plevna_. He prefaces it with a dramatic little coincidence of war capitally told. "During the last year of the South African War, while directing the operations in Cape Colony, I found myself, late one afternoon in February, 1902, at the north end of the railway bridge over the Orange River at Bethulie, strangely attracted by the appearance of a well-constructed and cleverly hidden covered field work, which formed an important part of the 'Bridge head.' Being somewhat pressed for time I rode on and directed my aide-de-camp to go down into the fort, look round it, and then catch me up. He shortly overtook me with an urgent request to return and inspect it myself. I did so, and was very much struck, not only with the construction of the work and its excellent siting, but also with all the defence arrangements at that point of the river.

Whilst I was in the fort the officer in charge arrived and reported himself. Expressing my strong approval of all I had seen, I remarked that it brought back to my mind a book I had read and re-read, and indeed studied with great care and a.s.siduity--a book called _The Defence of Plevna_, by a certain Lieutenant von Herbert, whom, to my regret, I had never met. 'I am von Herbert, and I wrote the book you speak of,' was the reply of the officer to whom I spoke."[22]

[Page Heading: OSMAN PASHA]

Osman Pasha was a soldier after French's own heart. Indeed, his tenacity was probably equal to that of his critic. Hence this fine tribute: "The great soldier who defended Plevna refused to acknowledge such a word as defeat. When things were at their worst his outward demeanour was calmest and most confident. There was no hysterical shrieking for supports or reinforcements. These might have reached him, but through treacherous jealousy he was betrayed and left to his own resources. In spite of this no thought of capitulation or retreat ever entered the mind of Osman Pasha...."[23] What a wonderful little cameo of courage!

One wonders whether the school-boy who sent French the following letter on his return from South Africa knew the quality of his writing.

"MY DEAR FRENCH,--You are a great British General. I want your autograph, but, whatever you do, don't let your secretary write it."

I have said that Sir John French is the average Englishman in an accentuated degree. How then does he regard war? If the plain truth be told, we are not at heart a martial nation. We have made war when we have been compelled to it by the threat of an Armada or the menace of a Napoleon. But we have not cultivated war, at least since our wode days, as a pastime and a profession. Nor is French that abnormal being, an Englishman governed by the blood l.u.s.t. Mrs. Despard has said that in reality he regards war as a hideous outrage. He has no delusions as to the glory of war. By no chance could he be ranked among the romanticist of the battlefield. That, perhaps, is why he never is, never has been, ruthless or remorseless with the men whom he commands.

[Page Heading: FRENCH AND THE SUFFOLKS]

If ever French had cause for anger, it was over the unlucky incident of the Suffolks, the one failure unwarrantably attributed to his ever victorious arms. Yet he was the one officer who softened the bitterness of that reverse to the men. He met the regiment in the Transvaal just eight months after the disaster. His speech to the troops, as reported in at least one paper, is well worthy of preservation. After referring to his pleasure in meeting them all again, he said: "What you did at Colesberg is still fresh in my recollection ... but what I wish especially to recall is the sad event of the night of January 5th and 6th, and to express my sympathy with you on the loss of your gallant leader, Colonel Watson, who on that night showed splendid qualities as a n.o.ble and able officer. Now, it has come to my knowledge that there has been spread about an idea that that event cast discredit of some sort upon this gallant regiment. I want you all to banish any such thought from your minds as utterly untrue. You took part ... in a night operation of extreme difficulty on a pitch dark night, and did all in your power to make it a success.

So do not let any false idea get into your minds. Think rather that what took place brings honour to your regiment, and add this event to the long list of honours it has won in the past. I want you all to bear in mind about such night operations, that they can never be a certain success, and because they sometimes fail it does not, therefore, bring discredit on those who attempted to carry them out.