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SIR JOHN FRENCH.

DISTINGUISHED RECORDS, FAMOUS CAVALRY LEADERWORK IN SOUTH AFRICA. , Sir John French, who has retired from the command of the British Expeditionary Forces in France and Flanders, and who becomes a viscount, and takes command of the troops in the United Kingdom, was born 63 years ago, at Ripple Vale, Kent. His first inclinations were towards the navy. In 1866 he joined H.M.S. Brittannia, and served as a naval cadet for one year. Eight years later he joined the army, and was gazetted to the Bth Hussars, from which he was shortly transferred to the 19th Hussars. With this regiment he did nearly all his early military service, and the only active service which he saw before being called upon to command a cavalry division in South Africa. But the two years’ fighting which he saw in the Soudan, 1884-85, gave him an insight into the working, and especially the staff - working, of cavalry in the field which has proved of the greatest value to him in later years. THE LADDER OF PROMOTION. During the years of peace and cavalry inactivity which succeeded the Soudan campaigns, Sir John French passed quietly up the slow ladder of regimental promotion. He served much of his time with his regiment in India, which for an observant and intelligent cavalry officer proved a fine field. But, in spite of it all, the reputa tion which he built up at Muridki camps at exercise as a cavalry brigadier was only a manoeuvre one. A succession of staff appointments at the War Office placed the command of an Aldershot cavalry brigade within his reach. He was appointed to the First Cavalry Brigade in 1899, and in the autumn of that year his chance came. Within 24 hours of landing in Natal he was in command of a force in touch with the enemy, and on October 21 he commanded at the brilliant little engagement at Elandslaagte. But though General French possessed the true qualities of a great cavalry leader, he had to learn to adapt cavalry trained entirely for shock tactics to undertake dismounted duties —in a word to make a cavalry regiment at a pinch cover the ground that would be assigned to three battalions. LESSONS IN CAVALRY TACTICS. General French received his first lesson at Lombard's Kop on October 30. But he was a man who could profit by experience. Almost by a miracle he was allowed to escape from the investment of Ladysmith, to be sent to Colesburg, where, through three trying months, he learned the great lessons in modern cavalry tactics, and adapted them with such ability that when the crucial moment came he was a master of the capabilities of mounted troops in the face of modern rifle fire. The successful relief of Kimberley was the first result, the heading off of Cronje'at Paardeberg the next, and he went steadily onward. At the close of the war he was appointed a general. From 1907 to 1911 he was Inspector General of the Forces, and in 1913 he became a field-marshal. In March, 1914, Sir John French resigned his position as InspectorGeneral in connection with the military crisis that arose over the Irish Home Rule question. When the present war broke out he was appointed commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force which was despatched across the Channel, in August, 1914.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19151230.2.16

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1491, 30 December 1915, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
560

SIR JOHN FRENCH. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1491, 30 December 1915, Page 4

SIR JOHN FRENCH. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1491, 30 December 1915, Page 4

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