French, Sir John

Freedom of Information Act, 80, 210 French, Sir John, 5, 15 Fries, General, 27 Fritzsche, Hans, 85—6 Frucht, Adolf-Henning, 223—5 fungu toxin, 78... 

LHMA, FOULKES 6/6, Papers relating to the Battle of Loos on 25 September 1915 and Sir John French s Dispatch (15 October 1915). 

Condemnation, however, proceeded hand in hand with imitation. Within twenty-four hours of the German gas attack, Sir John French wired an urgent demand to London Urge that immediate steps be taken to supply similar means of most effective kind for use by our troops. Also essential that our troops should be immediately provided with means of counteracting effect of enemy gases which should be suitable for use when on the move. Some of Britain s leading chemists joined the battle. In the United States, more than 10 percent of the country s chemists eventually would aid the work of the army s Chemical Warfare Service. 

Two days later, on 26 May, a strange figure clad in a uniform bearing tell-tale marks of long association with mud and barbed wire , a cap split by a shell splinter and a pistol strapped to his belt, appeared at the Advanced General Headquarters of the British Army at Hazebrouck. Major Charles Howard Foulkes of His Majesty s Royal Engineers had an appointment with General Robertson, Chief of Staff to Sir John French. It was an interview, Foulkes later recalled, of few words ... 

The metric system was invented in France, in the course of the French revolution. In 1790 Sir John Riggs Miller and the Bishop of Autum, Prince Talleyrand proposed that Great Britain and France should cooperate to equalize their weights and measures, by the introduction of the metric system. 

Military appreciation of chemical weapons varied considerably. In September 1914, Lieutenant-General the Earl of Dundonald apprised Lord Kitchener of the various plans left by his grandfather. Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane, for the use of sulphur dioxide clouds to drive an enemy from a fortified position. Kitchener at once discounted them as did Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson. Only Winston Churchill s imaginative interest kept the scheme alive, and eventually a modified version of Cochrane s proposal was put into practice, not as lethal gas clouds but as naval smoke screens. Even when line officers returned from France and inquired about the possibility of using stink bombs to dear enemy dug-outs, the response was unfavourable. Some lachrymatory substances were examined at the Imperial College of Sdence, and, unoffidally, stink bombs were offered to Sir John French in case the enemy resorted to similar methods. The Commander-in-Chief brusquely rejected the offer. ... 

On 23 April, Sir John French telegraphed to the War Office, requesting that respirators be supplied and that approval be given for the British to retaliate in kind. Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, replied the following day that... 

Since Berthollet, Gay-Lussac, Thenard, A.-F. de Fourcroy, and J.-A.-C. Chaptal all belonged to the French school founded by the illustrious Lavoisier, it was difficult for them to admit the existence of an acid that contained no oxygen, but nevertheless they soon had to yield to the convincing evidence presented by Sir Humphry (S, 41). Dr. John Murray in Edinburgh and Berzelius in Stockholm continued, however, for some time to regard chlorine as a compound. 

Charles II took much interest in Ic Febure s laboratory at St. James s Palace. In 1662 he took John Evelyn to see it and to meet, as Evelyn wrote in his Diary, Monsieur Lefevre, his chemist (and who had been my master in Paris), to see his accurate preparation for the composing Sir Walter Ralegh s rare cordial he made a learned discourse before his Majesty in French on each ingredient. Samuel Pepys also records in his famous Diary that he paid a visit in 1669 to the King s little elaboratory, under his closet [study], a pretty place and there saw a great many chemical glasses and things, but understood none of them. ... 

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