JOHN DENTON PINKSTONE FRENCH
(John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres)
This is one of the most classic military quotations--one of the great examples of spin.
The French had made a series of major military misjudgments and blunders allowing the German troops to reach the interior of France and threaten to rout the French. General French’s forces were called upon to prevent such a rout and did so costing British casualties and diverting British Armies from their desired offensive operations. Then the British Expeditionary Force was again called upon to come to the aid of the French for the second time. General French pushed back but the British really had no other alternative lest their ally could be enfeebled for the rest of the war. The French military leadership and General Staff was terrible at that point.
Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, ADC, PC, known as Sir John French from 1901 to 1916, and as The Viscount French between 1916 and 1922, was a senior British Army officer. Born in Kent to an Anglo-Irish family, he saw brief service as a midshipman in the Royal Navy, before becoming a cavalry officer. He achieved rapid promotion and distinguished himself on the Gordon Relief Expedition. French had a considerable reputation as a womaniser throughout his life, and his career nearly ended when he was cited in the divorce of a brother officer while in India in the early 1890s.
