After the Battle of Loos, at which French's slow release of XI Corps from reserve was blamed for the failure to achieve a decisive breakthrough on the first day, H. H. Asquith, the British Prime Minister, demanded his resignation.

[20] While in Northumberland he missed out on active service: the 19th Hussars took part in the occupation of Egypt and Battle of Tel el-Kebir (13 September 1882) but French's applications to rejoin his regiment were rejected by the War Office.

[26] During the retreat back across the desert via Jakdul (the expedition had reached Khartoum too late to save Gordon) French led a rearguard of thirteen men, warding off Dervish attacks and impressing Redvers Buller and Sir Garnet Wolseley.

[7] In India serving initially at Secunderabad and Bangalore, French worked as a staff officer under Sir George Luck,[40] a noted trainer of cavalry, albeit with perhaps an excessive emphasis on parade-ground drill.

On 30 October his cavalry fought dismounted at Lombard's Kop north-east of Ladysmith; this was the right flank of three unsuccessful actions—the others being Nicholson's Nek and an infantry action at Long Hill in the centre which ended in near-rout—fought by White's troops on "Mournful Monday".

[67] Between Field Marshal Frederick Roberts' appointment as Commander-in-Chief on 17 December 1899 (following the defeats of Black Week) and arrival at Cape Town on 10 January, French was the only senior British commander to conduct active operations.

Although Schoeman's force had grown further in size, he had lost the confidence of his subordinates and, after a Boer council of war, fell back on a strong position surrounded by hills at Colesberg (29 December) just as French had been preparing to outflank him.

Kitchener, arriving in the evening, ordered French to seize Waterval Drift, another crossing a few miles to the northwest where he had left a brigade masking a small Boer force under Christiaan de Wet.

French wrote to Colonel Lonsdale Hale, former professor at Staff College (12 April 1900), for speaking out for the idea of cavalry against the "chatter and cackle" of its opponents, quoting the opinion of a German officer that Mounted Infantry were too poor at riding to fight effectively.

French correctly dismissed talk of victory as premature, and continued to spend much of his time inspecting remounts—the job of Director of Remounts at Stellenbosch had been given to an incompetent and manic depressive officer, who eventually shot himself.

[129] French may have privately shared the doubts which others had about his intellectual capacity, but Esher wrote of him that his grasp of strategy and tactics broadened, and, although naturally gregarious, he became more aloof and solitary as he prepared himself for high command.

[137] On 19 December 1905 and 6 January 1906, as a result of the First Moroccan Crisis, French was one of a four-man committee convened by Esher to discuss war planning: the options were purely naval operations, an amphibious landing in the Baltic, or a deployment of an expeditionary force to France.

Smith-Dorrien annoyed French by insisting that cavalry improve their musketry, abolishing the pickets which trawled the streets for drunken soldiers, more than doubling the number of playing fields available, cutting down trees, and building new and better barracks.

[182] On 19 March French was summoned to an emergency meeting at 10 Downing Street with Asquith, Seely, Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty), Birrell (Chief Secretary for Ireland) and Paget, where he was told that Carson, who had stormed out of a Commons debate, was expected to declare a provisional government in Ulster.

[232] Nonetheless a few hours after a meeting with Joffre, Sir John telegraphed him that the BEF would have to leave the line entirely and retreat behind the Seine for up to ten days to refit, tracing supply from St Nazaire and moving the forward base to Le Mans rather than Amiens.

Joffre agreed in principle, although he had private doubts about having no French troops between the BEF and the sea and later came to believe that this move had, by using up scarce rail capacity for ten days, prevented him from reinforcing Lille and had allowed the Germans to capture it.

French, having sent Wilson and Murray on ahead to raise support, himself lobbied the War Council (13 January), informing them that he expected only 5,000–8,000 casualties in his forthcoming offensive, and that the Germans were short of manpower and would have reached the end of their resources by November 1915.

[279] French breakfasted with Kitchener (31 March) who told him that he and Joffre were "on ... trial" over the next five weeks, and that the Allied governments would reinforce other theatres unless they made "substantial advances" and "br[oke] the German line".

[284] After Aubers Ridge Repington sent a telegram to The Times blaming lack of high explosive shell, which despite being heavily censored by Macdonogh was printed after Brinsley Fitzgerald assured him Sir John would approve.

He also noted (diary, 29 July) that the French were annoyed at British strikes and failure to bring in conscription, and might make a separate peace if Britain did not pull her weight, and may also have agreed to the attack because he had learned that his own job was under threat.

Haig then heard from Haking at 1.20 pm that the reserves were moving forward, but by the time the men, already exhausted from an overnight march in the rain, reached the front line through the chaos of the battlefield they were committed against strengthened German positions the following morning.

The British commanders at this time did not grasp that German tactical doctrine called for the second line of machine gun nests to be situated on the reverse slope of their hillside defenses; destroying them would need artillery with higher trajectories and shells with high explosives.

The body provided useful advice on commercial and industrial questions, and advised that Home Rule could work as a federation of separate assemblies in Belfast and Dublin (also French's view), but ceased to meet regularly after April 1919.

[344] The shooting deaths of two Catholic constables of the RIC in an ambush at Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary (21 January 1919) caused French to call off tentative talks between Haldane and the recently elected Irish Dáil.

[345] French and Macpherson wanted Sinn Féin declared illegal and pressed for a free hand to deal with the militants, although the issue received little priority while Lloyd George was at Versailles in the first half of 1919.

Despite a gift of £50,000 in 1916, and receiving field marshal's half pay, owning two properties in Ireland which he could not use left French again short of money, although he did not improve matters by staying often at the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris.

Churchill (in Great Contemporaries) wrote that French was "a natural soldier" who lacked Haig's attention to detail and endurance, but who had "deeper military insight" and "would never have run the British army into the same long drawn-out slaughters".

Holmes quotes with approval John Terraine's verdict that French was the most distinguished English cavalry leader since Oliver Cromwell,[382] and argues that although he did not achieve victory, his personality inspired the BEF in 1914.

[384] Ian Senior offers a critical view of French in 1914: although he was "essentially a generous and warm-hearted man" as seen in his pre-Marne meeting with Joffre, his excitable temperament, uncertain judgement based on rumour and personal experience and his tendency to over-exaggerate problems did not suit him to be in command of the army.

Ian Beckett argues that in this respect, and in his recognition of the importance of artillery as early as the Battle of the Aisne in September 1914, French's tactical views were "marginally more flexible" than those of Haig, who continued to nurse hopes of breakthrough and decisive victory until several years later.