Talk:John French, 1st Earl of Ypres

message: John French was born in Ripple, Kent - see for example this reference. Also, there is no such place as Ripple Vale in Kent... Sliggy 18:22, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untitled 

message: There is a discussion going on here whether or not the first sentence of a biographical article should contain the full name of the individual and include any post nominal initials (eg. VC, KCB, OBE) or whether these should be relegated to later in the article. I have tried to point out that this is standard style and part of their full titles but there are “readability” concerns. This arose because of the Richard O’Connor featured article and one possible solution, a biobox, is now in place on that page. Please make your opinions known.Dabbler 12:27, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Style issue discussion 

message: The article says that it was Sept. 1915 *and* Dec. 1915, which seems wrong.  Anybody know?  --Andersonblog 01:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: December. Nunquam Dormio 08:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of French's relief 

message: I'm quite sure he's descended from the de Freyne French's of Frenchpark?  Anyone else know of this? --Counter-revolutionary (talk) 00:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, Sir John was from a cadet branch of the family - his grandfather Fleming French moved back to England in the eighteenth century and died at Ripple in 1818. Sir John regarded himself as "Irish" and bought land in what he regarded as his ancestral home after WW1, but because of the political situation was never able to live there.Paulturtle (talk) 13:13, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Family 

message: The details of the Ashtown Ambush, while colorful and informative, tend to veer off course from the essentials of this subject.  It may be better that the Ambush stand alone in its own article.
Awabrams (talk) 17:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. I have removed some of the material which was either unsourced or not directly relevant. Dormskirk (talk) 21:37, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Context of content 

message: In the book "To End All Wars", the author Adam Hoshschild describes John French as an arrogant incompetent soldier, who only because of personal relationships got command. Whom only because of avoiding bad publicity wasn't demoted, but taken away from the battle side and sent to a fancy post. Why is nothing about it in this article?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by MEMORIO (talk • contribs) 15:26, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably because it sounds like an opinion rather than fact and therefore would not comply with WP:NPOV. Dormskirk (talk) 20:34, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military Career 

message: In the official London Gazette of 6 September 1918 (see here), he is listed as follows: Field-Marshal The Right Honourable John Denton Pinkstone, Viscount French, K.P., G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., K.C.M.G.  This shows that he had already been awarded the G.C.V.O., whereas the start of the Wikipedia article only shows him as a K.C.V.O. recipient. I will therefore update the start of the Wikipedia article to show him as a G.C.V.O. recipient. Since the London Gazette lists him as Field-Marshal The Right Honourable, I will add The Right Honourable to the top of the infobox, which is the norm in infoboxes for peers. Also, the start of the Wikipedia article has incorrect piped links to the Canadian versions of 2 post-nominals, so I will correct those. -- Blairall (talk) 21:43, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: As per my comments below, I have almost no interest in "gongs" and a certain detached amusement at the way in which generals and civil servants bicker about being awarded a rank commensurate with their services. However, I appreciate they are of interest to others. A quick perusal of the article reveals that he started getting them on his return from the Boer War and was upgraded to GCVO in 1907, coinciding (whether exactly or more-or-less) with his promotion to Inspector-General of the Army.Paulturtle (talk) 11:58, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Honours 

message: Following on from the discussion above.
As discussed, I'm happy to be proved wrong but I doubt there is anything significant to be found on Sir John's role in the Boer War, the Edwardian Army or the Irish War of Independence, other than the odd index entry here and there. I dare say somebody may have written a PhD thesis on Sir John's role in one of these but we don't really need to go looking for it.
Spears' classic Liaison 1914 and John Terraine's short classic if somewhat dated 1960s work on 1914 (Mons to the Marne) have been gone through, as have the works on the Marne which came out a couple of years ago (Ian Senior, Max Hastings). I don't really think the British Official History is going to say anything which hasn't already been channelled by Terraine and Holmes.
For "new" stuff:
Amongst biographies there is Cassar and also his ODNB entry, which from memory is by Ian Beckett.
Travers The Killing Ground remains a classic. Heavily reliant on bitchy stories told to one another by people like Liddell Hart, Edmonds etc in the 1930s. The gossip does not bear the weight of theory which Travers erects on it, but even where exaggerated cannot be dismissed altogether. Most of the stories about Sir John will doubtless show him as a petulant and peevish man.
Nick Lloyd's 2006 book on Loos discussed above. This will have quite a bit of material on how Kitchener was clipping his wings by the second half of 1915 - he was pretty much ordered to undertake the Loos offensive - and his shaky grip on power by then.
Philpott's 1996 work on the British obsession with Antwerp and the Low Countries during WW1. Philpott is also apparently editing an edition of Sir John's War Diaries, but that is obviously not yet out.
Can have a plough through some books on War Grand Strategy: Paul Guinn's 1960s classic 1960s book and Volume I of David French (no relation) but I doubt this will shed much light as it was mostly above Sir John's pay grade and is going to be full of stuff about the Dardanelles and Salonika.
Elizabeth Greenhalgh's books – Victory Through Coalition and Foch in Command will be worth a plough through. She relies heavily on French sources so provides a refreshingly different perspective to the standard British milhist.
Roy Prete' work on 1914. Again, a Commonwealth historian working from French sources. I think I used this a bit but did not plough through it completely.
There are a few books about the structure of the BEF but most of these don't really impinge on Sir John. They are relevant to, say, Robertson who as Chief of Staff BEF in 1915 (before he got promoted to CIGS at the end of the year) presided over the growth of the organisation.
We are talking here about taking the granularity of the article - which is already beyond an introductory level, although it does have an introduction to keep it accessible to the general reader who wants a quick overview - up another notch. I am not promising that this is necessarily going to happen any time soon.Paulturtle (talk) 14:23, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand that the kind of work you're talking about is going to take some time and a good amount of effort on your part, and I very much appreciate your beginning to think about possible other sources which can be utilized.  That's a good start. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:43, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further Development 

message: An editor has tagged the page as "too long to read and navigate comfortable". I am removing the tag as I think, in this case, the length is not unreasonable and fragmenting the flow of the article would be unhelpful. I happy to consider proposals from a willing editor as to how they propose to spilt it. Dormskirk (talk) 09:38, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately at over 29k words of readable prose, the length is entirely unreasonable - see WP:SIZE and WP:SUMMARY. The article would benefit from significant summarization to make it more accessible to the general readership. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:48, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: As already indicated above, I disagree. Are you prepared to do the work to condense it? If not this seems to be a case of WP:DRIVEBY and the tag should not be readded. Dormskirk (talk) 15:09, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I am absolutely willing to work on it. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:23, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Great. In which case that's fine. Please go-ahead. Many thanks, Dormskirk (talk) 15:27, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too long?