Cooperation between the French and British armies was severely hampered by a lack of linguistic competence among British and French officers.
General Henry Wilson, a staff officer acting as a liaison officer to the French Army, had been said to declare that he saw 'no reason for an officer knowing any language except his own'.
According to one story, when Field Marshal Sir John French, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force at the start of the First World War, had spoken (then as a general) from a prepared French text at manoeuvres in France in 1910, his accent was so bad that his listeners thought he was speaking in English.

During the First World War, British soldiers unable to pronounce French words came up with their own (often humorous) versions of place names – the town of Ypres (Ieper in Flemish) was known as 'Wipers'.
Yet French place names were also a problem for senior officers.
In the spring of 1915, Spears was ordered to pronounce French place names in an English way otherwise General Robertson, the new Chief of Staff, would not be able to understand them.

On the French side, few of the commanders spoke good English with the exception of Generals Nivelle and Ferdinand Foch.
It was in this linguistic fog that the bilingual young subaltern, made his mark.
Although only a junior officer (a lieutenant of Hussars), he would get to know senior British and French military and political figures (Churchill, French, Haig, Joffre, Pétain, Reynaud, Robertson etc.)
 – a fact that would stand him in good stead during later life.
Cooperation between the French and British armies was severely hampered by a lack of linguistic competence among British and French officers. General Henry Wilson, a staff officer acting as a liaison officer to the French Army, had been said to declare that he saw 'no reason for an officer knowing any language except his own'. According to one story, when Field Marshal Sir John French, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force at the start of the First World War, had spoken (then as a general) from a prepared French text at manoeuvres in France in 1910, his accent was so bad that his listeners thought he was speaking in English.
During the First World War, British soldiers unable to pronounce French words came up with their own (often humorous) versions of place names – the town of Ypres (Ieper in Flemish) was known as 'Wipers'. Yet French place names were also a problem for senior officers. In the spring of 1915, Spears was ordered to pronounce French place names in an English way otherwise General Robertson, the new Chief of Staff, would not be able to understand them.
On the French side, few of the commanders spoke good English with the exception of Generals Nivelle and Ferdinand Foch. It was in this linguistic fog that the bilingual young subaltern, made his mark. Although only a junior officer (a lieutenant of Hussars), he would get to know senior British and French military and political figures (Churchill, French, Haig, Joffre, Pétain, Reynaud, Robertson etc.)  – a fact that would stand him in good stead during later life.
Edward Spears