Generals of the British Army Part 4

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2.

_Uniform with this publication._

Admirals of the British Navy

PORTRAITS BY FRANCIS DODD

_INTRODUCTION_

I.--JELLICOE, ADMIRAL SIR JOHN R., G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O.

II.--ADMIRAL SIR CECIL BURNEY, G.C.M.G., K.C.B.

III.--MADDEN, VICE-ADMIRAL SIR C. E., K.C.B., K.C.M.G., C.V.O.

IV.--St.u.r.dEE, VICE-ADMIRAL SIR F. C. D., K.C.B., K.C.M.G., C.V.O.

V.--BACON, VICE-ADMIRAL SIR R. H. S., K.C.B., K.C.V.O., D.S.O.

VI.--de ROBECK, REAR-ADMIRAL SIR J. M., K.C.B.

VII.--NAPIER, VICE-ADMIRAL T. D. W., C.B., M.V.O.

VIII.--BROCK, REAR-ADMIRAL SIR OSMOND de B., K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G.

IX.--HALSEY, REAR-ADMIRAL LIONEL, C.B., C.M.G.

X.--PAKENHAM, REAR-ADMIRAL SIR W. C., K.C.B., K.C.V.O.

XI.--PAINE, COMMODORE G.o.dFREY M., C.B., M.V.O.

XII.--TYRWHITT, COMMODORE SIR R. Y., K.C.B., D.S.O.

Hudson & Kearns, Ltd., Printers, Hatfield Street, London, S.E. 1.

Contents of this Issue.

_INTRODUCTION._

I.--FRENCH, FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT, K.P., G.C.B., O.M.

II.--PULTENEY, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR WILLIAM, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., D.S.O.

III.--HAKING, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR R. C. B., K.C.B.

IV.--FERGUSSON, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR CHARLES, BART., K.C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O.

V.--FOWKE, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR GEORGE H., K.C.B., K.C.M.G.

VI.--HUNTER-WESTON, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR A., K.C.B., D.S.O.

VII.--JACOB, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR C. W., K.C.B.

VIII.--HOLLAND, MAJOR-GEN. SIR A. E. A., K.C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O.

IX.--MAXSE, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR IVOR, K.C.B., C.V.O., D.S.O.

X.--MORLAND, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR T. L. N., K.C.B., K.C.M.G., D.S.O.

XI.--TRENCHARD, MAJOR-GEN. SIR H. M., K.C.B., D.S.O.

XII.--FANSHAWE, LIEUT.-GEN. SIR E. A., K.C.B.

INTRODUCTION.

PART II.

The central figure of this second portrait gallery of British Generals is that of Lord French, who gives a unity and atmosphere to the collection. The phase of the War he represents is quite distinct, indeed unique. The Army with which his name will ever be a.s.sociated was an admittedly incomparable force, and many of the Generals whose portraits are to be found here went through the greatest ordeal of our history with him.

There have been many crises in the war. There will yet be others. But none can compare with that first four months in which the first issue was victory or defeat, and the second the coast or annihilation. Earlier wars have given a phraseology that endures till now of the processes by which campaigns are won. Armies are "decimated," and the term is taken to be synonymous with defeat. But this term is wholly inadequate to describe the price at which Sir John French and his troops redeemed the Channel coast. Little of the first Army was left when the first four months had pa.s.sed, but the Kaiser's legions had not secured a decision; they had been cheated of the coast; and they had learned a lesson which will endure.

But at the end of this episode the great crisis had pa.s.sed. The cloud which had overhung our Army had lifted. The light began to s.h.i.+ne and anxious eyes could dimly see the promise of a fairer day. It is the first days of the war when the British troops went blithely to their awful tryst that must ever be the fire and inspiration of the generations to come. They are still more obscure than any other period of the war and they were more highly charged with emotion than perhaps any days can be expected to equal, unless it be those last days when the Allied troops shall drive the enemy from the field.

The Germans had secretly concentrated behind their screen of cavalry in Belgium. Sordets' cavalry had made a gallant raid through the country without gaining any sure information of where the main enemy forces lay.

The French had made tentative moves eastward without finding any great force in their path. So the third week of the war dawned with no trustworthy evidence of the existence of that huge force that was to make its gallop to Paris. In such circ.u.mstances Sir John French landed with his staff. The Allies were groping in the dark and the British Army was cast for a role that it never had a chance of performing. Suddenly the German force emerged from behind its concealing curtain of horse.

Without any trace of hesitation it moved westward over Belgium.

Everything was in its place. Uniforms were new and fresh. Every scientific aid was in use, and the whole superstructure of the Allied strategy began to disappear. But _only the superstructure_.

It seems strange now to state that the role of the British Army was to outflank the German right wing. With our present knowledge of the sequence of events it is difficult to think that it was ever possible.

The German Army had been trained for speed, and the German policy was based on getting in the first blow. When it fell it found the Allies unprepared. A full half-million picked German troops marched across Belgium on the 20th and 21st of August; but when the first encounters began on the Sambre the British Armies were not in their positions. The first Allied plan was already impracticable before the British Army took its place about Mons and prepared to give battle. The Sambre line could be no longer maintained; but the British commander, not yet notified of the fact, set himself to the forlorn hope of forbidding the advance of an army many times greater than his own force.

The Battle of Mons was decided before it had begun; and the troops who were compelled to retreat had planned quite another sort of episode. Sir John French and his Generals had to retire in haste from the peril of being surrounded and cut off.

At some phases of long drawn out war of positions it was forgotten that the Army which first took the field had to face the war of movements, and that only their astounding skill and courage enabled them to cope with it in its worst aspect. German generals have recently proclaimed their belief that the British Army will not be able to succeed in open warfare. Bernhardi even said that he doubted if the troops could face a European army. But this latter statement was made before the war, and it has perished in the light of numerous German defeats. The former can never survive our recollection of the conduct of the most difficult operations in open warfare by Sir John French and his Generals. An enforced retreat is a more searching test of military skill than any that is known to soldiers, and it was such an experience that met the British Army on the threshold of the War.

At Mons the Army made retreat possible. The battle was not of long duration; but it was sufficient to put an end to Bernhardi's hopes. The fierce onset of the Germans was broken by the amazing skill and coolness of a numerically inferior army, provided with hardly any of the instruments which were to give the tone to the war. Yet the few British machine guns and the incomparable riflemen inflicted losses that had never been expected by the enemy. German officers have explained their amazement at seeing the cool unhurried firing after the troops had been hammered time and again with an overwhelming weight of artillery.