To End All Wars_ A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 - Adam Hochschild [62]
All this made no difference to his troops. They loved the short, buoyant field marshal, who wandered around his headquarters after hours in a blue dressing gown, whistling. Their confidence in him was not shared, however, by an ambitious subordinate, General Sir Douglas Haig. "In my own heart," Haig confided to his diary just a week after the war began, "I know that French is quite unfit for this great Command." He strategically voiced the same "grave doubts," he recorded, to someone he had lunch with that day, King George V.
The British Expeditionary Force included four infantry divisions of up to 18,000 men each, and one cavalry division of some 9,000 men. Officers' swords were freshly sharpened. Because of their horses, which had to be hoisted into and out of the holds of vessels in slings, the cavalry took up a disproportionately large amount of space in ships crossing the Channel, and then trains heading to the front. Newly landed in France, his bowlegged gait visible in newsreel films, French inspected two of his infantry units, which he thought looked "well and cheery." In Paris, shouts of " Vive l'Angleterre!" came from thousands of throats when he arrived at the Gare du Nord. President Poincaré was disappointed to discover, however, that despite his name, the jovial British commander spoke little French. (The field marshal himself believed otherwise. Reportedly, he was addressing one group of French officers when he heard several of them call out, "Traduisez!" [Translate!] He tried to explain that he was already speaking their language.)
While inspecting his units, French was happy to run across men who had served under him in the Sudan, India, and South Africa. His gray mustache and ruddy face became a familiar sight as he spoke before ranks of soldiers, sometimes supporting his short, 61-year-old figure by leaning on a gold-plated walking stick. Kitchener, who was receiving intelligence on a huge buildup of German troops, peppered French with anxious messages. But the field marshal was not worried. "I think I know the situation thoroughly," he replied, "and I regard it as quite favourable to us." After dining at the Ritz in Paris, Sir John noted in his diary, "The usual silly reports of French 'reverses' were going about. All quite untrue!"
In these early weeks he remained remarkably focused on the appearance of his troops—and little else. "I saw the 4th Brigade (Scott-Kerr) file by on the march," he recorded, "—they looked splendid." Among the soldiers marching past in that unit was George Cecil. His battalion had landed at Le Havre to cheers from local fishermen, marched through sunbaked cobblestone streets, then boarded a train for Belgium. Although George doubtless would have been deeply embarrassed, his mother had written to his commander, Brigadier General Robert Scott-Kerr. She was more fearful of her son's health, Violet Cecil told him, "than I am of the bullets," and asked that an older officer keep an eye on him. "At 18 to undergo such a strain as this campaign seems to me excessive," she complained. By August 23 his battalion had moved into position among the slag heaps and coal-mining machinery near Mons—sights that were surely as exotic to him as they were familiar to many of his unit's enlisted men. German observation planes could be seen in the sky and the roads were crowded with refugees. Charged with defending a bridge, George's company pulled up paving stones to build barriers against the German attack expected at any moment. In one of the weekly letters she dutifully wrote to his father, Edward, in Egypt, Violet passed on news from George: "He said that up to date it had all been the most glorious fun."
On the other side of the English Channel, a different sort of conflict