Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, ADC, PC (28 September 1852 – 22 May 1925), known as The Viscount French between 1916 and 1922, was a British and Anglo-Irish officer. He distinguished himself commanding the Cavalry Division during the Second Boer War, became Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1912 but resigned over the Curragh Mutiny, and then served as the first Commander-in-Chief of the...
More
Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, ADC, PC (28 September 1852 – 22 May 1925), known as The Viscount French between 1916 and 1922, was a British and Anglo-Irish officer. He distinguished himself commanding the Cavalry Division during the Second Boer War, became Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1912 but resigned over the Curragh Mutiny, and then served as the first Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force for the first two years of World War I before becoming Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1918.
Born the son of Commander John Tracy William French RN (who died in 1854) and Margaret French, née Eccles (who died suffering from insanity in 1867), French was educated at a Harrow preparatory school and Eastman's naval academy at Portsmouth before joining the Royal Navy in 1866.
In 1869 he served as a midshipman on HMS Warrior, where it was discovered that he was acrophobic. After joining the Suffolk Artillery Militia in...
Less
