French Appreciation.
172
The Ypres Times.
By GENERAL VICOMTE DE LA PANOUSE, Military Attaché, French Embassy.
I am very grateful to the Ypres League for having been good enough to ask me to
contribute a short article on Lord Ypres. I shall always remember with deep gratitude
the sincere friendship which this great general at all times showed my country, and his
kindness to me personally.
I have neither the authority nor the ability to express an opinion on the military
qualities which Field Marshal the Earl of Ypres displayed in the course of his military
career, particularly in the Great War, but I should like to record my relations with the
man who was to command the greatest army which the British Empire had ever at any
one time concentrated in the same field of operations.
I had the honour of being introduced to Sir John French at the beginning of 1912,
when I succeeded Colonel (now General) Huguet at the French Embassy.
He was then Commander-in-Chief designate of the Expeditionary Force. The duties
of his high office absorbed the whole of his interest because war with Germany was an
eventuality which he frequently envisaged, and he realised the necessity of preparing the
divisions placed under his orders for a European war, so different from the Colonial
operations in which the British army was engaged during last century. He therefore set
to work to equip the Expeditionary Force with the most modern weapons of war and means
of transport, which he knew would be of capital importance in an armed conflict in the
twentieth century.
I shall divulge no secret by stating that, with the authority of their respective
Governments, the English and French General Staffs had studied various problems of
co-operation on the Continent. When I took up my duties in London I continued the
work begun by my predecessor and was called upon to consider at close range these
questions with Sir J ohn and his General Staff. No words of mine can adequately describe
the interest which he took in this work and the loyalty with which he followed it up. His
sympathies with France and her army were already well known. He attended the French
manoeuvres several times, and in 1913 I had the honour to conduct him to the camp at
Chalons where a division commanded by General Hache (who had on his staff Brigadier-
General de Maud'Huy) was operating. These generals distinguished themselves later,
especially during the first operations of the War.
The year 1914 saw the execution of the preliminary plans made by our respective
General Staffs.
On July 30th the British Cabinet, after a lengthy meeting, expressed the opinion
that nobody in England could consider that Great Britain's treaties or obligations were
involved at the stage which the European crisis had then reached. Being anxious to
obtain more exact information with regard to the intentions of the Government, I asked
for an interview with Sir John French, of whose personal friendship with the Prime
Minister (Mr. Asquith), Lord Haldane, and Mr. Winston Churchill, I was aware. The
Field Marshal received me at once at his mansion in Lancaster Gate. There I found
him in his spacious study surrounded by maps spread over the tables. He received me
with his usual urbanity, but I am bound to admit that his confidential communications
fell far short of my expectations. He did not hide from me the fact that the British
Government still appeared undecided about entering into the threatened conflict. I was,
therefore, unable to give M. Paul Cambon any satisfactory information.
On the following morning Germany delivered her double ultimatum in Paris and
St. Petersburg, but the British Government still confined itself to giving France an
assurance that Great Britain would oppose any attack on the French Channel and coast.
