VISCOUNT FRENCH.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 March 1916, Page 6

VISCOUNT FRENCH.

HIS SUCCESS AND LIMITATIONS. In the course of an outspoken article on tlie retirement of Viscount French from France the New Statesman said:— Tlie reputation which lie earned in the South African War was well earned. It was a war peculiarly suited to his talents. He was a. cavalry officer, and on the veld mounted troops were the most important arm. He had an excellent "eye"—the power of rapidly taking in the military features of a visible situation and acting on them—and in the small-scale South African fighting "eye" was commonly the main thing. Tliese qualities, combined with -an average knowledge of British military theory and some special study of tlie war theatres in Belgium and North France, made him a suitable officer to command the little army of two corps which we originally sent to the Continent. The chief episodes in which that army and its earlier reinforcements figured were the fighting round St. Quentin in tlie retreat from Mons, the battles of the Marne and the Aisne, and 'the first defence of Ypres. Tlie credit for these must be divided by Sir, John French with his two army corps commanders, Sir H. Smith-Borrien and Sir Douglas Haig. It is beyond dispute that both these officers served with great distinction, but that is no reason for inferring that their Commander-in-Chief—-who always .acknowledged their work in the most generous term,s —was undeserving of the praise given to him. But after the Ypres battles the scale of the British Army was so vastly increased that the task of commanding it became totally different, not only in degree but in kind. The two corps had swelled to four corps, now they swelled to two armies, and ultimately to what are virtually four armies, the smallest larger than the original force and most of them over double its size. The Com-mander-in-Chief ceased to be a general in view of the firing line, relying on his eye and his prompt military intuition; he became the head of a great official hierarchy, sitting with maps in an office in a town a score of miles from tlie guns. What was wanted was a man of strong character and high intelligence, with enough knowledge of strategy to take the" best advice, enough knowledge of men to get the best advisers and organisers, and as much impsrviousness to personal and social considerations as is practicable in a body so honeycombed with them as the British Army. Sir John French was not such a man. He was neither a great brain, a great map strategist, a great organiser, nor even a man of that stern and impartial character which makes efficiency the one caro of the subordinates. The failure of sue- ' eessive British offensives has been due to many things, but the most careful student of the official despatches and the war correspondence can hardly escape the conclusion that on three occasions at least—at Neuve Chapelle, in the May i attack on the Aubers Ridge, and, above all, at Loos —dispositions for which the Commander-in-Chief was, or ought to have been personally responsible, were a large element in the failure. It is l;nown that at least two British generals of the highest standing, Generals Smith-Dor-rien and Willcoeks, voluntarily came home from France (neither was recalled) because they disagreed with Sir John French's tactical judgment over matters in which military opinions seeing to have been largely on their side. There have been repeated rumors of similar differences between him and some of tin highest French commanders, which have been far too persistent in well-informed quarters to be wholly ignored. The course of the campaign on our front might well have been much nion favorable if the commander-in-chief had been changed last April. The was certainly considered, but it was rendered impossible by a curious sequence of events. Just a Fter it was mooted Lord Northcliffe went out and stayed with Sir John French; and he wag followed (at a time when war correspondents were taboo) by two well-known Northcliffe journalists, who were the Comman-der-in-Chief's "personal guests." These gentlemen sent articles to their widelyread newspapers, which contained, first a series of personal glorifications of Sir John French, and secondly the charge (whether just, or not has never vet been fullv. established) that the War Office were' giving him fewer high-explosive shells than he asked for. The effect was to restore the Commander-in-Chief's credit, to destroy the Government's, and to make his recall impracticable.

Secretary of the Society for Psychical Research came to see me, and asked me if I knew of some other prediction for which the time or realisation had not yet come, but which was still waiting fulfilment. I thereupon sat down and wrote out the vision of Mn.thn of Kremna concerning the occupation of Serbia by a foreign army, put it in an envelope sealed it with my own seal, and gave it to the secretary to keep it in a pigeon-hole of the society until 1 invited him to open it. I cannot invite the secretary to do so at present because I wrote down certain other details in connection with the occupation of Serbia by a foreign army which were mentioned by Matha of Kremna as destined to happen, but which it would be inadvisable to publish now, as long as they are not fulfilled. •