Life AT War - Day by Day

14th August 1914

British Field Marshal John French and General Wilson have landed in France.


John French, at the outbreak of war, had been given command of the British Expeditionary Force but due to his erratic performance, in 1915 he was to be replaced by Haig. John was sent home for the remainder of the war but was given command of the British Home Front. Sir John French survived the war and died in 1925.
General Wilson was John's most important advisor throughout 1914. Unfortunately his poor relations with John's replacement Haig meant that he was often sidelined and was left out of the decision making through the middle war years. In 1917 Wilson became military advisor to the Prime Minister David Lloyd George. After the war, he became a security advisor to the Northern Ireland Government. Sir Henry Hughes Wilson was assassinated on his own doorstep by two IRA gunmen in 1922. He had been returning home after unveiling a war memorial at Liverpool Street Station. He had six wounds, two of them fatal.