Guest blog: Sir Francis Bertie meets Sir John French and Lord Kitchener in Paris

Rummaging in my library, I found the following blog-post left by my predecessor, with remarkable prescience, to be posted exactly 100 years later! It recounts a dramatic meeting that really did take place in the Residence on 1 September 1914 directly related to the conduct of the War, and in which my predecessor took a courageous stand. As he recounts…

What a day it has been! I am leaving this blog post so that when the internet has been invented 100 years from now my successor can post it on their blog.

I already had enough difficulties. With the German armies advancing on Paris, all the Embassies here are preparing to evacuate to Bordeaux. Sir John French, the Commander of the British Expeditionary Force, has been having a very hard time of it, and I’ve been giving him all the support I can.  Since he and the BEF landed in France two weeks ago, they have been constantly retreating alongside the French forces under the onslaught of the German invasion.

Sir J French has been under constant pressure from the politicians (Kitchener, the Minister for War, in particular) to stand and fight. Of course the BEF can only do this if the French forces stand firm as well. Sir John French has insisted on retaining the right to decide with the French generals when to halt the retreat. He privately thinks it will be when the fighting reaches the River Marne, where the Allied forces can stop the German advance and defend Paris

These tensions blazed into a huge row today in my House.  Overnight I received a telegram informing me that Kitchener was on his way here for a conference with Sir J French and asking me to fix this.  In response to my summons, a very irritated Gen French came down to Paris from his HQ. We first had a positive military meeting with French Ministers.

Kitchener then arrived in time for lunch, arrayed in the uniform of a Field Marshal! When he began to talk as if he was Commander in Chief, and suggested that he would go up to the front line to inspect the troops, poor Gen French blew up.   He protested that this would undermine his authority and was quite intolerable.

I fully agreed with Gen French and decided this was an important enough point of principle that I was going to lay my job on the line.  So I asked for a private word with the Minister of War and told him that I was not prepared to see Gen French’s authority undermined in this way.  It would send the message to the French military and public opinion that HMG no longer had confidence in the Commander of the BEF. I told Kitchener that I would send a telegram to the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, explaining the situation and the position I had taken and asking for instructions. I wrote it there and then and showed it to Kitchener. Given his famous temper this was quite a risk!

When Kitchener realised I wasn’t bluffing, he did not object to my sending the telegram, which I did. I think by this stage he was beginning to feel he had overplayed his hand.  He went into another room and had another angry exchange with Sir J French, who then said he had to go back to his HQ to fight the war. During the evening, Kitchener decided to drop his idea of visiting the troops and to return to London. Grey later telegraphed to say he agreed Kitchener should come home, so backing me up. Phew!

To round off a memorable day, a German aircraft flew over us in the evening and dropped a bomb on the Place de la Concorde.

I like to think that by putting my foot down, I helped to preserve Sir J French’s authority and prevent a lasting rift between him and Kitchener. The irony is that, a few days later, the British and French Armies did take their stand on the Marne, halt the German advance and save Paris.

Sir Francis Bertie
British Ambassador to Paris
September 1914