John French, 1st Earl of Ypres

Who was John French, 1st Earl of Ypres?

Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, ADC, PC, known as The Viscount French between 1916 and 1922, was an Anglo-Irish officer in the British Army. 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 serving as Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, then becoming Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1918, a position which he held throughout much of the Irish War of Independence.