A Woman and the War

by Countess of Frances Evelyn Maynard Greville Warwick

In the wide space that separates the Boer War from the great international conflict, we met very often; he was frequently our guest, and we visited him at Government House, Aldershot. I have had many opportunities of hearing his views of the world problem that confronts us now, for he had seen it coming nearer and nearer, and had laboured night and day to meet it. Other men had doubts; he found no room for any.

It was at Claridge's Hotel in town that we met during the Boer War. My eldest son, Guy, had then arrived at the ripe age of seventeen, and still at Eton, had sold all his personal effects, including his fur coat and jewellery given him by family and friends, to provide himself with the means of getting to the front and equipping himself when there. We only learned his intentions when it was too late to stop them, and I do not think that either my husband or myself was really anxious to keep him from serving his country. The only difficulty was to find him something useful to do, and Sir John French offered to take him on his staff as galloper.

I recall Lord French as I saw him at Claridge's—firm-mouthed, curt in manner, briefly incisive in speech, saying no more than was absolutely necessary, and looking at me with the curious glance that bespeaks the man of action who dreams and sees visions. A strong, resolute figure, with an iron will behind it, a human war machine in perfect order—that was my first impression.

Many of my soldier friends were with him in South Africa, where his gifts as a cavalry leader roused enthusiasm. Writing home from the front, they told me he had but one fault as a commanding officer—he could not realise that horses do not respond as readily as soldiers to human emotions. He could overdrive his men, and they did their utmost for him, as they did for another martinet, the late General Gatacre, because in each case they had implicit belief in their leader's direction and unbounded faith in his skill, but he over-worked his horses, and kept the remount department in despair.

He came back to England wearing all the laurels of a successful general, and I met him several times in town. "The dust of praise that is blown everywhere" was no more to John French than any other dust. He brushed it sharply away, and devoted all his leisure to considering the problems of the inevitable struggle with Germany. He believed then, with that curious gift of divination, that it must come, and he came near to fixing the date, for many years have passed since he assured me that it would not be later than 1915.

When the Entente Cordiale was in the air and there was a chance that Great Britain and France would work side by side, he was delighted. Such an arrangement was for him an ideal one, and he was, I may say, one of the first, if not the very first, of our leading military men who showed a full appreciation of its value. Unfortunately, though a well-educated and, in a strictly professional sense, a deeply read man, he had no knowledge of the French language, and he could not rest until that defect was remedied. So in the Summer of 1906—I think this was the year—he settled in the little village of La Boulé, near Rouen, and lived for three months in absolute retirement, mastering the language. He would not claim to have acquired the Parisian accent, but he can at least speak fluently.

We were motoring through France that summer and stayed in the little hotel he had chosen for his headquarters. He was extremely anxious to take me on a motor tour over the scene of Napoleon's last campaign, an ambition of long standing only now possible of fulfilment. We came very near to going with him, but unfortunately, something intervened. Even Lord French cannot make war anything but unspeakably horrible to me, but I am yet free to confess that his vast knowledge and soul-deep convictions make it fearfully interesting.

We could not manage the motor tour, which would have covered Waterloo, but later, when in Paris, I was able to put his views before the then Premier, M. Clemenceau, whom I knew well. I had a very long and intimate conversation about the Entente with the "Tiger," as they called him in France, and I remember how he wheeled round in his chair and said to me in the frank, outspoken way that his opponents hate and fear, "Lady Warwick, the Entente is of no use to us unless your country can put 400,000 soldiers into France in the hour of need." I may remark that the French army was not then in its present state of efficiency.

I pointed out that I was not in the confidence of our War Office, and that his application should be made to other quarters, and went on to ask him to meet General French to talk over the matters in question. "I'll do that with pleasure," said M. Clemenceau. "I regard your General French as one of the few soldiers who understand military problems from their roots upwards." So the two men met, and I think they liked and respected one another.