General Smuts assumed the portfolio of Colonial Secretary in General
Botha's Ministry, and continued the work of national reconstruction and
reconciliation between the two races and was largely responsible for the
holding of the conferences on closer union which eventually culminated
in the National Convention at which the South Africa Act, the
Constitution of the Union, was framed.
He held successively the portfolios of Defence, the Interior, Mines, and
Finance in General Botha's First Union Cabinet, and amongst other
legislative activities was responsible for the South African Defence
Act, the machinery of which was severely tested in the Syndicalist
strikes at Johannesburg of 1913 and 1914, and the unfortunate rebellion
in the latter portion of that year and also the campaign in South West
Africa.
In March, 1916, Lieut.-General Smuts arrived in British East Africa and
assumed command of the East African Expeditionary Force upon the
pressing request of the Imperial Government and in succession to General
Smith-Dorrien, who had been compelled to relinquish the command owing to
a severe illness. Within a year he had driven the German troops from
British territory, reduced them by two-thirds, and penned them into the
southern and south-western malarial area with its one healthy spot at
Mahenge.
General Smuts is still a young man, though he has had exceptional
experience. A scholar by taste, a lawyer by profession, and perforce a
soldier, he represents a unique figure in the Empire. The boldness and
energy of his leading as a General seem to suggest the born commander.
As Statesman, his conceptions reveal an intuitive grasp of the
fundamental ideals that must guide the present and inspire the future.
In Monthly Parts, Price 2/- net.
Parts I.-V. in Volume form, with extra matter, 15/- net.
The Western Front
DRAWINGS BY MUIRHEAD BONE
"They illustrate admirably the daily life of the troops under my
command."
--F.M. SIR DOUGLAS HAIG, K.T.
SOME RECENT PRESS NOTICES:
"It is a matter for thankfulness that the authorities were able
to secure the services of so distinguished an artist as Mr.
Muirhead Bone to depict for us the conditions in the war zone of
the Western Front. To give not only the thing seen but the
spirit lying within it, that is the province of the imaginative
and selective artist. And that is what Mr. Bone has done with a
measure of success that almost defies exaggerated praise. He
brings to his task the technique of a master and the vision of a
true artist."--_Daily Telegraph._
"Mr. Muirhead Bone has clearly justified the action of H.M.
Government in employing him as an official artistic chronicler
of the greatest of all wars."--_Burlington Magazine._
"Mr. Muirhead Bone's vigorous drawings of the toil and moil of
British warfare and all its circumstantial splendour and
squalor stand in no further need of commendation.... It is a
noble and enduring achievement.... These two drawings alone
assure Lieutenant Bone's place among the immortals."--_Morning
Post._
"Mr. Bone's drawings convey an extraordinary idea of the
abomination and desolation caused by shell fire."--_Field._
"The drawings are of endless interest in their subjects and
excite a natural wonder at the artist's remarkable fertility
and versatility. It is impossible to overestimate the value of
these drawings as a record of the actualities of the
war."--_Scotsman._
"The selection of Mr. Bone is triumphantly justified by
his terrific Tank drawing, which no one's romantic
exaggeration--not Doré's or Hugo's even--could have made more
overwhelming in its onset or more deadly."--_Daily Chronicle._
"Whether it be a speaking drawing of a road liable to be
shelled, or a V.A.D. rest station, or German prisoners coming
down from the front, or, again, the finished sketch of Amiens
Cathedral with the aeroplanes round the spire, or a hospital
ship scene at the quayside, all give a permanent impression of
war scenes and war conditions which can hardly be too highly
commended."--_Bookseller._
"Among the little aristocracy of war pictures, destined to have
permanent value both as history and as art, must certainly be
placed the drawings of Mr. Muirhead Bone."--_Coventry_ Herald.
"The Work grows on us."--_Liverpool Post._
"In selecting Mr. Muirhead Bone for the task of depicting the
varied scenes of activity on the British Front in France and
Flanders, the Government have shown a very wise choice, which
has been justified by the excellent series of drawings now
being published."--_Broad Arrow._
"It cannot be too strongly said that no mere photographic
record can ever approach the great work Mr. Bone is doing in
these sketches.--_Montrose Standard._"
"The Series will certainly be greatly prized."--_Army and Navy
Gazette._
"An eloquent pencil, a dashing stroke, guided by a discerning
brain, and the art of perspective are the requisites for a
successful portrayal of the varied scenes of every battlefield,
and these qualities Mr. Bone possesses to
admiration."--_Aberdeen Journal._
"Of all the records of the war up to date this publication
alone conveys something of the impressiveness that fighting on
the present scale might be expected to give."--_Manchester
Weekly Times._
"Mr. Bone's work was needed. Now that I have seen his picture
books I know more about the war. A poet with a line of verse, a
cunning draughtsman with a few strokes of the pencil on paper,
can tell you what you will never learn from Blue Books and
histories. I begin to understand this tremendous war."--The
Londoner in the _Evening News_.
"Among the drawings are some of extraordinary power and
interest made by the artist in British munition
factories."--_Westminster Gazette._
"Dozens of Artists have drawn ships. Mr. Bone has interpreted
them. He has done the Fleet a great service in bringing it thus
intimately to the Landsmen. The drawings will rank for all time
among the world's greatest treasures in nautical
art."--_Country Life._
"Will take a foremost place among the permanent records of the
war."--_Manchester Guardian._
"Mr. Bone has the eye to see, the imagination to realise, and
the hand to present."--_The Times._
Mr. Muirhead Bone's drawings are reproduced in the following form, apart
from "The Western Front" publication:--
WAR DRAWINGS
Size 20 by 15 inches.
Ten plates in each part, 10/6 net.
MUNITION DRAWINGS
Size 31½ by 22 inches.
Six plates in portfolio, 20/- net.
WITH THE GRAND FLEET
Size 31½ by 22 inches.
Six plates in portfolio, 20/- net.
"TANKS"
Size 28 by 20¼ inches.
Single plate, 5/- net.
Further particulars of these publications will be sent on application to
"COUNTRY LIFE," LTD., 20, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London, W.C.
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.--STURDEE, 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 GODFREY 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 associated 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 passed, 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 passed. The cloud
which had overhung our Army had lifted. The light began to shine 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 circumstances Sir John French landed
with his staff. The Allies were groping in the dark and the British Army
was cast for a rôle 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 rôle 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.
They had scarcely any cover; but when the bombardment was over the quiet
orders were instantly obeyed and the men met the enemy as though on
manoeuvres. Dispositions had been carefully made and the Germans met a
deadly check. But this skill and courage was called upon more
searchingly in the retreat which followed. The Germans seemed to be
round both their wings. Indeed the first few days were fought in
certainly what must have appeared to be partial envelopment. Le Cateau
was a rearguard battle, such as perhaps has never been fought in history
before. The men were too tired to do anything but put their fortunes to
the final test; and, though overwhelmed by shrapnel, they won through.
Courage alone cannot explain such a feat. Experience and the coolness
that is born of it only explains half; the skill of the commanders could
alone have justified the decision to stand at such hazards and could
alone have brought the men through them. Le Cateau was won by the better
troops. The British were moved back; but the check they administered
gave them breathing space for the future.
The proportions of the force they had to meet were now clearer to the
British commanders. By the Marne they had taken a surer measure. On the
Aisne they put their judgment to the test and the successes of the First
Corps in winning to the crest of the ridge, but lately cleared by the
French, shewed that their reading of the situation was correct. Yet they
were still to go through the final ordeal. They were taken north and set
to tasks that were again incommensurate with their force. The army was
still smaller than that of Belgium; and yet they were encouraged to look
forward to Bruges, whence great German reinforcements were at that
moment hastening south. Part of the army was falling back towards Ypres,
and before this peaceful old Belgian town one of the decisive battles of
history gradually emerged.
How the British Army survived Ypres is one of the mysteries upon which
time can throw little light. But how it saved Ypres and survived at the
same time can only be known from an investigation into the courage and
surpassing skill of the splendid organism which had our honour in its
keeping. The endurance under a ceaseless battering, the repeated
readjustments that were necessitated by the mere weight of the
onslaught, the mere mechanism of carrying on from day to day under such
a strain can only be explained by a tribute to skilful handling that
needs no emphasis. Officers acted with an insistent recognition of the
issues at stake. The line, momentarily breached at Gheluvelt, was
immediately restored before the orders of the supreme command could
direct the operation. But this was only one great example of the skill
that found expression everywhere and all the time.
Many of these generals, whose lives shine but vaguely through the facts
which outline them, fought through these days of trial. All of them had
other and stranger experience under other suns; but the experience they
had garnered met its supreme test in the first phase of the war. When it
had passed the barque of the army had ridden the troubled waters and was
safe in harbour with only its terrible wounds to bear witness to the
ordeal it had survived. Some of the commanders were fighting in other
climes and came to the decisive theatre of the war when the great crisis
had passed. They and all are part of the country's patrimony, part of
its insurance of victory. They form a striking _ensemble_. Guardsmen
some of them, with the halo which surrounds that name since the war
began; engineers others, with the cool and calculating craftsmanship of
their kind; others, again, of the artillery with bitter memories of the
numerical weakness of their arm in the hour of trial and yet remembering
fierce and glorious hours at Le Cateau, where they stood to the service
of their guns and did the work of ten times their number. And there is
not wanting a representative of the newest arm--the air service, which
have many things to teach soldiers yet.
They are one in that goodly fellowship of great soldiers who have come
through the fire of the fiercest battles in the world's history. We can
glimpse their metal in their actions. We have recently seen how potent
still is the skill which directs in the face of all scientific and
mechanical development of the war. It is natural for us who read daily
the record of our soldiers to be more conscious of their small failures,
than of their great success. But trace the broad lines of the war,
retread those trampled roads of northern France once more behind the
armies these men led, remember their mastery in the darkest days and
their record becomes luminous with the assurance of final victory.
I
FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH OF YPRES, K.P., G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O.,
K.C.M.G.
LORD FRENCH'S name will descend to posterity as the leader of the
British Expeditionary Force. Were all his other great services to his
country reckoned as naught, his name would live for ever by reason of
the German Emperor's vainglorious allusion to "French's contemptible
little army." For, as long as the British Empire shall endure, men will
hold in honour "the old Contemptibles," who shattered for ever an
Emperor's dreams of world supremacy and made his boast recoil upon his
head.
John Denton Pinkstone French comes of one of the most ancient Irish
families, the Frenches of Galway and Roscommon, of whom Lord French of
French Park, Roscommon, is the head. The Field-Marshal is fifth in
descent from John French, M.P., who fought in the army of William III.
and commanded a troop of Enniskillen Dragoons at Aughrim in 1689. His
grandfather left Ireland at the beginning of the XIXth century and
settled in Kent at Ripple Vale, near Deal, where, on September 28th,
1852, Lord French of Ypres was born.
Lord French's father was Captain John French, R.N., who retired from the
service with the rank of Post Captain and died when the boy, his only
son, was but two years old. Upon his mother, a Scottish lady, a Miss
Eccles from the neighbourhood of Glasgow, devolved the upbringing of the
infant son and his five sisters. After a brief sojourn at Harrow, the
boy was sent to Eastman's School at Portsmouth to prepare for the Navy.
In 1866, in his fourteenth year, he entered the "Britannia," and thence
passed out as a midshipman.
At the age of 18, young John French sought the advice of a family friend
and decided to make the change which was destined to alter the whole
course of his life. He entered the militia and spent two years in the
Garrison Artillery at Ipswich (1871 to 1873). Then he passed into the
regular army, being gazetted, at the age of 21, to the 8th Hussars, with
whom, however, he remained only a short time, transferring, after a few
weeks, to the 19th Hussars, the regiment with which he passed the first
half of his life as a soldier.
In 1880 Captain French became Adjutant of the Northumberland Yeomanry,
and was thus, to his great disappointment, prevented from accompanying
his regiment, the 19th, to Egypt in 1882. However, his chance came two
years later when he went out as second in command of the 19th to join
Wolseley's Nile Expedition. French was at Abu Klea and in the subsequent
desperate fighting, and he was actually the first man of the column
to learn, from the lips of Stuart Wortley, of the fall of Khartum and
the death of Gordon. For his good work in Egypt French was mentioned in
despatches and returned to England as Lieutenant-Colonel.
[Illustration: FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH]
Five years of garrison duty followed. In 1891 Col. French took the 19th
Hussars out to India, being stationed first at Secunderabad and
afterwards at Bangalore. In 1893 he returned to England and retired on
half-pay. In the following year he was entrusted with the compilation of
the Cavalry Drill-book, and 1895 found him installed at the War Office
as Deputy-Adjutant-General under Sir Redvers Buller.
From now on French rose rapidly in his profession. As commander of the
2nd Cavalry Brigade at Canterbury (1897), and the 1st Cavalry Brigade at
Aldershot (1898), he had ample scope to elaborate his theories on
cavalry training. None was more tenacious than French of maintaining the
"cavalry spirit" in the British Cavalry, but he had recognized in Egypt
the advantages of teaching the cavalry to fight dismounted as well. His
theories were violently combated, but his justification was at hand. The
time was approaching when he was to burst into prominence as England's
main hope in South Africa.
Lord French was given command of the cavalry in Natal, and landed in
South Africa on October 12th, 1899, the day after the declaration of
war. He returned to England in July, 1902, with an almost unbroken
record of successes in the campaign to his name.
His next command was the 1st Army Corps at Aldershot. Here for five
years he worked at high pressure with the watch-word of "Efficiency."
From Aldershot French was summoned by Lord Haldane, then Secretary of
State for War, and given the appointment of Inspector-General of the
Forces. In this post he laid the bases of the Expeditionary Force and of
the Territorial Army which was to prove its valuable auxiliary in the
years to come. In 1911 he was appointed Chief of the Imperial General
Staff and held this appointment until 1914, when he resigned.
From his retirement he was summoned to take command of the Expeditionary
Force. He left London on the afternoon of Friday, August 14th, and
landed in France that evening. For sixteen months he remained at the
head of the British Army in France, which he watched expand from the
four Divisions of the Retreat from Mons into a vast army of a million
men. In December, 1915, he was recalled to take up the post of
Commander-in-Chief of the Home Forces. At the New Year, 1916, he was
created a Viscount.
In the title he assumed the Field-Marshal has commemorated the sternest
battle he fought across the Channel. Ypres was the supreme test. When
the full history of the war comes to be written, the Empire will realize
how much it owes its security to the high patriotism and indomitable
tenacity of the Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Force.
II
LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR WILLIAM PULTENEY, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., D.S.O.