-
General French is "fairly well pleased"--Strenuous
Manoeuvres--Chief of the Imperial General
Staff--Ulster and Resignation 97

CHAPTER X
HIS BELIEF IN CAVALRY

The Lessons of the Boer War--Cavalry _v_. Mounted
Infantry--A Plea for the Lance--The Cavalry
Spirit--Shock Tactics still Useful 106

CHAPTER XI
THE MODERN MARLBOROUGH

Europe's Need--The Plight of France--A Delicate
Situation--The Man of "Grip"--A Magnificent Retreat 116

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 121

Index 149

SIR JOHN FRENCH

CHAPTER I

EARLY DAYS

A Kentish Celt--A Rebellious Boy--Four Years in the
Navy--With the 19th Hussars--"Captain X Trees"--A Studious
Subaltern--Chafing at Home--The First Opportunity.

"If I don't end my days as a Field-Marshal it will not be for want of
trying, and--well, I'm jolly well going to do it." In these words,
uttered many years ago to a group of brother officers in the mess room
of the 19th Hussars, Sir John French quite unconsciously epitomised
his own character in a way no biographer can hope to equal. The
conversation had turned upon luck, a word that curiously enough was
later to be so intimately associated with French's name. One man had
stoutly proclaimed that all promotion was a matter of luck, and French
had claimed that only work and ability really counted in the end. Yet
"French's luck" has become almost a service proverb--for those who
have not closely studied his career. Luck is frequently a word used to
explain our own failure and another man's success.

Not that success and John French could ever have been strangers. There
are some happy natures whose destiny is never in doubt, Providence
having apparently planned it half a century ahead. Sir John French is
a striking instance of this. Destiny never had any doubt about the
man. He was born to be a fighter. On his father's side he comes of the
famous old Galway family of which Lord de Freyne, of French Park, Co.
Roscommon, is now the head. By tradition the Frenches are a naval
family, although there have been famous soldiers as well as famous
sailors amongst