Gen. French’s Retirement.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4627, 7 May 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

Gen. French’s Retirement.

An incident in the life of General French in 1 c 93, when he was forty-one years of age, makes strange reading in view of his brilliant achievements during the South African campaign, and the tremendous responsibility which now rests upon his shoulders in the present great war. In the year mentioned Colonel French (as he then was) was actually retired 'on half-pay, in spite of his brilliant work in the Soudan and the skill he had displayed, both in England and in India, in regard to the reorganizing of cavalry training. This retirement on half-pay was in accordance with the rules of the Army, which allows the middle-aged officer to make way for youth. But, as Mr. Cecil Chisholm remarks, in his authentic biography of Sir John French (Jenkins), “ the spectacle of a French dispatched into obscurity at the ripe age of fortyone has its tragic as well as its comicside.”

For two years Sir John French was actually in despair ns to his career. Then his old chief in India, Sir Geo rye Luck, one of 'the most brilliant of ravalry trainers, was brought-back from India to institute certain reforms, and the first thing ho insisted upon was a revised cavalry drill book; and it was Colonel French who was ultimately called in from his retirement and installed in the Horse Guards for the purpose of writing it. The result was a masterpiece of lucid explanation and terse precision, and no sooner was the book issued than the authorities were- asking who was to carry out the drastic alterations recommended. Many suggestions were made, but it was ultimately decided that no man was more fitted for the task of reorganizing the British cavalry than Colonel French, who had written the drill book which had attracted so much attention. And thus it came about that French, the man whom Britain is depending upon at the present time, was finally recalled and ensconced at the War Office as Assistant AdjutantGeneral of Cavalry.