British field-marshal. Having distinguished himself in the Sudan and the Second Boer War (1899), he was appointed commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France (1914). Under instructions from Lord Kitchener he opposed the German advance through Belgium and Flanders. He and his armies were ill-equipped for the kind of trench warfare in which they found themselves involved, and in December 1915 French resigned in favour of Sir Douglas Haig. At the Irish Easter Rising in 1916 French dispatched two divisions to suppress the uprising. He served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1918–21) at a time when outrages and reprisals were widespread.