British field-marshal, born on the 28th of September 1852. The son of a naval officer, he entered the Royal Navy, in which he served as cadet and midshipman from 1866 to 1870. Joining the militia he passed from this into the army in 1874 and was gazetted to the 19th Hussars. He married Eleanora, daughter of R. W. Selby Lowndes in 18S0. He served in the Nile expedition in 1884–85, and commanded his regiment from 1889 to 1893. After two years on the War Office staff he commanded a cavalry brigade from 1897 to 1809, and on the mobilization of the expeditionary force for South Africa in the latter year he was chosen to command the Cavalry Division and was promoted major-general. Pending the assembly of this, he served in Natal, where he commanded the troops on the field at Elandslaagte and took part in the early combats near Ladysmith, but he proceeded to Cape Colony just before the place was invested. After a few weeks in charge of the force at Colesberg, he led the cavalry during Lord Roberts’s advance from Cape Colony, relieved Kimberley, cut off the retreat of Cronje’s army, and occupied Bloemfontein. During the subsequent advance into the Transvaal he was in command of the left wing, and at a later stage of the victorious campaign he played a prominent part in the move from Pretoria to Komati Poort. For these services he was given the K.C.B. During most of the second phase of the struggle he was in command of the forces operating against the enemy in Cape Colony, and he was on the conclusion of hostilities promoted lieutenant-general and was given the K.C.M.G.
He commanded at Aldershot from 1902 to 1907, in which year he was promoted general, and he then became inspector-general of the Forces for five years. He was appointed chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1912 and was promoted field-marshal in 1913. In April 1914 he vacated the post of C.I.G.S., owing to military troubles in Ireland in connection with Ulster, but four months later he was chosen to take charge of the Expeditionary Force on the outbreak of the World War, and he commanded the British army on the western front from the outset of the struggle until the end of 1915. The chief events in France while he was in command were the retreat from Mons under circumstances of great difficulty; the battle of the Marne and subsequent advance to the Aisne; the transfer of the Expeditionary Force to Flanders; the desperate fighting in the autumn, generally called the First Battle of Ypres; the successful Neuve Chapelle offensive undertaken in March 1915; the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915; the abortive operations near Festubert embarked on a few days later; and the important victory won in September in the region of Loos. During the seventeen months that the field-marshal led the British troops in the field, these rose, excluding cavalry, from an original total of five divisions at the front to a total of thirty-four divisions; these he had organized as three armies. His forces up till the last three months suffered greatly from a lack of artillery ammunition, except during the opening weeks of the campaign; this hampered his operations to an extent not experienced by his successor. He resigned in December, Sir D. Haig taking his place, and he returned to England, to be raised to the peerage as Viscount French of Ypres and High Lake in recognition of his great services. He then became commander-in-chief in the United Kingdom, and he held that appointment until May 1918, when he was selected to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. This position he occupied under most trying conditions until early in 1921, the political state of the country growing worse and worse. On resigning he was rewarded with an earldom.
At the end of the war, Lord French published his personal narrative under the title, “1914.”
