A few days later it was explained on behalf of the Government that no operations were intended against Ulster, and that through “an honest misunderstanding” General Paget had misinterpreted his instructions.  Brigadier-General Gough was therefore asked to return to his command, finally obtaining a written undertaking, signed by the Secretary of State for War, that the troops would not be used in Ulster.  In addition to Colonel Seely’s signature, that of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (Sir John French) and of the Adjutant-General (Sir J.S.  Ewart) appeared on the memorandum.

Now it transpired that two important paragraphs of the memorandum were written by Colonel Seely, but presumably they were not sanctioned by the Cabinet.  The paragraphs in question ran:  “His Majesty’s Government must retain their right to use all the forces of the Crown in Ireland, or elsewhere, to maintain law and order, and to support the Civil Power in the ordinary execution of its duty.

“But they had no intention whatever of taking advantage of this right to crush political opposition to the policy or principles of the Home Rule Bill.”

As they stand these two paragraphs are a trifle ambiguous.  The fact apparently occurred to General Gough.  For he asked Sir John French explicitly whether they could be taken to mean that he could not be called upon to order his brigade to take part in the coercion of Ulster to the Home Rule Bill.  Sir John French wrote across the note that this was his belief.  On the strength of this General Gough returned to his command.

[Page Heading:  A QUESTION OF HONOUR]

When the facts of the case were known, the Government were severely criticised by the Labour and the Nationalist parties.  In replying to these criticisms, on Wednesday, this pledge was declared to be “not operative.”  As the result, Colonel Seely, who had signed the assurance, threatened resignation.  On Friday, March 26, it was known that both Sir John French and Sir J.S.  Ewart had resigned their positions.  Every effort was made to induce these distinguished officers to reconsider their decision, but without avail.  To remain in office would mean repudiating their pledged word.  To this course no possible pressure could induce Sir John French to agree.  He persisted in his resignation:  and the Prime Minister solved a very dangerous situation by himself taking up the office of Minister of War, which Colonel Seely had now resigned.

So Sir John French went for a second time into retirement.  Nothing less could be expected of one whose views on discipline are so extremely strict and whose ideals of loyalty are notoriously so high.  To have remained in office would have been to impair the authority of the Imperial General Staff, quite apart from failing in loyalty to a pledged word.  For all these reasons Sir John French chose eclipse rather than dishonour.

Unquestionably he viewed the impasse purely from the military point of view.  His dislike of anything like politics in the army is well known.  Mr. Asquith’s famous dictum on taking up the office of Secretary for War is an echo of General French’s invariable advice to his officers—­“You will hear no politics from me, and I expect to hear none from you.”