FIELD-MARSHAL FRENCH.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 154, 10 March 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

FIELD-MARSHAL FRENCH.

It is a most difficult matter to get the correct proportion either of events or of characters in so great an epoch as this. It will be many years before the true scale will gradually be found. At the same time it can be said with absolute certainty that John French's name will go down to history as having been the General of our European armies during the sixteen months of greatest national pressure. We have much yet to do. but nothing in the future can be charged with the same possibilities of danger and even disaster as those operations of the past through which the returned General has successfully brought us . He has had the hard defensive and constructive period which covers the first half of the war. The present moment seems a fitting one for a short review of his work so far as a civilian observer is qualified to judge it. When a British army about 8,000 strong, with cavalry, guns, ambulances, and every accessory, lined up on the Mons Conde Canal and to the cost of Mons upon August 22. 1914, a very great work had already been done. War was declared upon the night of August 4, Here in less than three weeks from clays of peace, were two perfectly equipped army corps, with another division coming up m their rear at the critical point in Flanders It was a remarkable piece of organisation for which the War Office and transport service are to be thanked, but which could not have been done without great qualities upon the part of the Genera'. The inner history of every campaign in the past has shown the part which the General plays in suggesting, exhorting, and guiding before he finds things as he would have them. Before ever a shot had been fired' Sir John French had done good work for his country. THE BATTLE OF MONS. The batt'e of Mons followed an engagement of no great importance a; an action, but exceedingly important in its results. On the actual day of battle it cannot be said that more than three or four brigades were seriously engaged—all from the Second Army Corps. To understand Sir John's position we have to remember that the whole movement in which the British Army formed the left of the Allied line was an offensive movement to attack th c Germans and drive them out of Belgium. This was the reason bridges in front of the British were not destroyed. They would be needed for the advance. Two factors were responsible for the very serious position in which Sir John soon found himself and his army, both of them entirely beyond his control. The first was that before ever his battle began upon August 23 the French main army had been defeated at Charleroi upon August 22 and had been compelled to fall back, leaving his right wing exposed. The other was that instead of having to deal with the more fringe of the German line the force which was opposed to him was their true striking force, very numerous, very mobile, and altogether formidable. Under these really appalling circumstances surely the historian of the future cannot fail to admire Sir John's attitude. Over-haste and a daylight retirement might mean disaster. Delay was equally dangerous. With a cool avoidance of cither extreme, he began to fall back at night, preparing a second line of resistance for himself two days' march to the south, where he knew that his fresi division would be available-

The hero of the actual retreat must always lie Smith-Dorrien, a.s Ney is the hero of the retreat from Moscow, since in each case the actual pressure was born iiy the subordinate General I venture to prophesy that when all the facts are known, the retreat from Mens will grow rather than fade in the public estimation as a military ''eat. If, as seems probable, it was von Buclow'i men who overtook Haig at Landrccies on the 2.jthj and captured the biu'lmovs of the Ministers on the 27th, then tli.i whole of von Kluck's five corps were in full cry after our Second Army Corps, strengthened on the 25th by the 4th liivis'on. Sir .John French had hoped that the two British corps, separated in the retreat, would have reunited, upon the Le Cateau position, so that the centre of the Army, instead of its right wing, would have rested upon that town. The enemy's attacks and the blocked state of the roads prevented this junction, so that although Smith-Dorrien threw his cavalry out as far as Chatillon upon his right wing, he could not get into touch with the other corps. Thus, through entirely unavoidable circumstances, three British divisions were left in face, of certainly eight and probably ten German ones witii an overamstering arti'lery. Sir John very naturally desired to avoid the action, and to carry on until he could reach some good point for a rally. Smith-Dorrien, however, being in closer touch with the rearguards, came to th«» conclusion that a battle was the only means of drawing the troop?, together and preventing disintegration. The British .soldier lias always been better in a light than in a retreat. Too long a retirement with counter-attacks demoral'ses him. Sir ■'ohn had the wisdom to leave the matter to the judgment of bis subordinate, which was justified to the extent that tiie Army was safely withdrawn. There L- reason to believe that Sir John chivalrously desired to return and share the fortunes nf his endangered corps, but that Sir Horace witli conn! nobility, would not hear of it le-t"7\ngland> main hope should be involved in a disaster. A few days later the two corps reunited and the terrible danger Was pa-it. It should not hi- forgotten by us tb.it if die latter stages of the retreat were ias ; er than the early ones, the change was at least partlv due to i Lie chivalry of d'Amarl■•'-; ]i?t!o Frene'n arrow which threw itself across the ime of the Herman a Ivance near St f :; i,«in, and, at gn vioiis cost to itself, held it up for the greater pan of rt previous day. RALLYING AN ARMY. Sir John'* cheerful and imperturo able demeanor was cue of Ihe chit g« which held up the spirits of his troop*. An officer of the Fourth Division describes the surprise and consternation which filled his young soldiers as they saw the weary, battlo-stained men :rom Mons staggering through th"ir line-. They imacined that, -ome great disns'or bad occurred. "Presentlv.'" he adds, "we were all reassured by the pacing of a motor-car in whbh were Sir John and some members of hi- staff, Thev were chatting <V«rful!lv t<w-thor and their appearance put fresh heart int i all of us." S .eh are the inir,o:idcnli!l:.'i of warfare.

AN APPRECIATION.

By Sir A. Conan Doyle

It is a matter of history how the Army rallied, and how they turned on their pursuers at the Marne. Only an indomitable commander can keep so high a spirit in his troops. In the battle itself the honours fell to tho French, especially to Manoury's army upon our left, whose desperate engagement upon thc Ourcq may fairly bo placed among the most fateful actions in history. Sir John and his British played inside left to "tho Allied forward line, centre got most of the game. It was at the Aisne, however, that lie was again to the fore. Here Sir John was faced by the difficult question whether he should cross the river in pursuit of the enemy without having the means of knowing how far that enemy was about to make a serious stand. The .weather was so thick that no reconnaissance was of any avail, but if he waited the enemy might get a day or two of start for the border. He took the risk and found himself next day with an entrenched enemy in front of him and a deep river in his rear. It was a very serious situation, but it was saved by liis own indomitable coolness, and the tenacity of his troops. He was driven below ground and tiie war of trenches "A DIFFICULT OPERATION.

But the British Army, which had begun as left wing, was now rather in the position of centre forward. It was no slight task to get it back into position in the middle of the game. It was Sir John who saw that it both should and could be done. There followed the remarkable operation of the extraction of the Army and its reassembling in French Flanders. It has attracted the less notice because it was so deftly and successfully done. Had it been marred by a sudden German attack we should have realised more clearly what is at stake when you move such an army from within 200 yards of the enemy, with an open slope behind you and a few bridges which lie beneath his guns. Tiie movement was as bold as it was Successful. But fresh problems more difficult than ever faced the British commander. It had been hoped that he would find' himself with his Army outflanking the German line. ' So lie might had it not been for the fall of Antwerp. This catastrophe rc!eased at least two corps, which were strengthened by three, fresh reserve corps from Germany. These five corps swept across Belgium, took possession of the sea coast, and wottldl have driven straight for Calais had not the Belgian resistance upon the Yser and the magnificent stand of the Seventh British Division held them up. As the Seventh Division was on the eve of extermination, Sir John managed to get Haig with his Ist Corps to their aid. Then began that terrible fight which will be a classic in British histjrv. From Ypres, in the north, to Giveiichy in the south, the thin British Jinstrained and cracked before the tremendous weight which bulged and sagged hut never quite burst it. Sir John and his three hard-working assistants. Haig, Pulteney, and Smit'i-Dor-rien, were like u o many desr>:u-;teJ, ? overworked engineers holding up a dam which crumbled before the pressure of a flood. A crack was stopped here, and a rift there and yet again it was failing in another place. Anv plug would do for the leak, sometimes a Territorial regiment, sometimes dismounted troopers, sometimes n welcome handful of the little red legs of Joffre . They were breathless, fateful days, never realised bv the folk at home. On the terrible 31st of October. when the line was broken at Ypres and the Germans seemed for n moment to have won home, French, in person, was at Hooge under the screaming shells, working hard, with the gal'ant Haig. to build up that second line which rolled forward, lis the evening darkened and fell, exhausted but victorious, into the trendies that had seemed to be lost tor ever. On November 17 the worst was over and tiie trenches stretched, without break or change, from the Yser to the La Bassec Canal The first Battle of Ypres had occn won. TACTICS OF A NEW WARFARE. Tf Sir John was not ready for great enteiprises in he spring, it was through no fault of his. Hi, munitions were not yet sufficient. Yet he was stronger than of old, and he showed it by assuming the offensive. At Neuve Chapelle he took the initiative and in augment d the tactics of tiie new warfare by his method of secretly massing his artillery and opening a path for his infantry by a hurricane fire. For all their boasted science this was a lesson to the Germans;, who had never done it until Sir' John showed them the way. Everything was experimental, however, in such attacks, where the limits of what is possible could only be told by trying, since the conditions were so entirely new. That very slowness in the reserves which Sir John was inclined to blame as preventing him lrcm confirming his victory was in itself the result of operations conducted upon a field which is intersected with trenches, laced with barbed wire, and almost impassable to troops in reglar formations. Jioiiiis, barbed wire, ma hine-guns. and high explosives had profoundly modified the old warfare —especially to the General who led the attack. The next problem which fared Sir John was a most difficult one. and in none, as it appeal- to me. did he show such strength ni mind and inflexibility »_f purpose. His guns had been assembling in the southern area for n considerable attack when the second Battle of \ pres broke out m the north, and tiie- Germans, by the aid of their chemists rather than their soldiers, gamed some miirs of ground. Was Sir John to declare his own attack o |f and send his guns northwards? The Ypres salient wns in danger, but he would not change bjs plans. infantry he was ready to spare, but not the guns, nor would lie postpone his attack. I pnn .May 1 I it took place and ended on the lii-t day in i bloody repulse. On that v. ry day news was brought him that the cavalry who had been put in the place of the exhausted infantrv outside Ypres had. thorn-elves been' terribly punisho 1 md that the whole line of defence was worn to shreds. It must indeed have born a temptation to mm to submit to his failure in the south and to make surf of holding the line in the north. But his bulldog spirit would not have it ,-o. He left -.10 north to take t-ire of it-elf. arguing no doubt that if we were exhausted the German attack might be even more so. In this beseems to have been correct, since it was not renewed until the 21th. He in ilu meantime took a day I) -'c i lv hi'ii-eii from the blow he had n -e'ved and then attacked once more with ne.v troop- on a fre-h line, and at niirbt instead of day. for t"ii days h ■ bored his wav into the enemv's lite -. and when at la-t th ■ action lixz'ed out. he had gains of ground and of prisoners which converted a defeat into a suc-i ei«.