Sir John French | Page 3

At an early age he was sent to a preparatory school at Harrow, which he left for Eastman's Naval College at Portsmouth. After the necessary "cramming" he passed the entrance examination to the Navy at the age of thirteen. In the following year (1866) he joined the Britannia as a cadet. Four years of strenuous naval work followed. But like another Field-Marshal-to-be, Sir Evelyn Wood, the boy was not apparently enamoured of the sea. As a result he decided to leave that branch of the service.
That action is typical of the man. He is ruthless with himself as well as with others. If the Navy were not to give scope for his ambition, then he must quit the Navy. Already, no doubt, his life-long hero, Napoleon, was kindling the young man's imagination. But the English Navy of those days gave little encouragement to the Napoleonic point of view. It was bound up with the sternest discipline and much red tape. If rumour speaks true young French was irritated by the almost despotic powers then possessed by certain naval officers. So he boldly decided at the age of eighteen to end one career and commence another.
To enter the sister service he had to stoop to what is dubbed the "back-door," in other words a commission in the militia. It seems rather remarkable that one of our most brilliant officers should have had this difficulty to face. Incidentally it is a curious sidelight on the system of competitive examinations. But there are several facts to remember. Sir John French's genius developed slowly. One does not figure him as ready, like Kitchener, at twenty-one, with a complete map of his career. In these days he was probably more interested in hunting than in soldiering. The man who is now proverbial for his devotion to the study of tactics was then very little of a book-worm. Indeed he seems to have shown no special intellectual or practical abilities until much later in life.
[Page Heading: THE "DUMPIES"]
In 1874 he was gazetted to the 8th Hussars, being transferred three weeks later to the 19th. At that time the 19th Hussars was scarcely a crack regiment. With two other regiments raised after the Indian mutiny it was nicknamed the "Dumpies," owing to the standard of height being lowered, and it had yet to earn the reputation which Barrow and French secured it. About John French the subaltern, as about John French the midshipman, history is silent. No fabulous legends have accumulated about him. Presumably the short, firmly-built young officer was regarded as normal and entirely de rigeur in his sporting propensities.
The subaltern of the 'eighties took himself much less seriously than his successor of today. The eternal drill and the occasional manoeuvres were conducted on well-worn and almost automatic principles. As a result, the younger officers found hunting and polo decidedly better sport. Few or none of them were military enthusiasts; and study did not enter largely into their programme. It entered into French's--but only in stray hours, often snatched by early rising, before the day's work--or sport--began.
Despite constant rumours to the contrary, there can be no question that French was a most spirited young officer and a thorough sportsman. He at once earned for himself the sobriquet of "Capt. X Trees," as a result of his being a "retired naval man." To this day among the very few remaining brother officers of his youth, he is still greeted as "Trees."
As might be expected, French showed no desire to pose as "the glass of fashion or the mould of form." He never attempted to cultivate the graces of the beau sabreur. His short square figure did not look well on horseback and probably never will. But he was admitted to be a capable horseman and to have "good hands." Although not keen on polo he was very fond of steeplechasing. Of his love for that sport there is ample proof in the fact that he trained and rode his own steeplechasers.
[Page Heading: A DIFFICULT TEAM]
One of his best horses was a mare called "Mrs. Gamp," which he lent on one occasion to a brother subaltern--now Colonel Charles E. Warde, M.P. for Mid-Kent. Riding with his own spurs on French's mare, Colonel Warde was one of three out of a field of four hundred to live through a Warde Union run which was responsible for the death of six hunters before the day was over.
Young French also became a very good whip. Along with Colonel H.M.A. Warde--now the Chief Constable of Kent--he had a thrilling adventure in coach driving. When the regiment first started a coach it was necessary to bring it from Dublin to the Curragh. The two subalterns, neither of whom had ever driven four horses before, commandeered four chargers belonging to brother officers. One of