The British Field Marshals, 1736-1997: A Biographical Dictionary

By T. A. Heathcote and Charles Guthrie

Whether any advantage or benefit will be drawn from the suspension or effective abolition of the rank of Field Marshal is debatable. What is certain, however, is that Dr. Tony Heathcotes idea of compiling a definitive biographical dictionary of holders of this illustrious rank since its introduction by George II in 1736, is opportune and inspired.Those readers who anticipate a dry recitation of bare facts and statistics are in for a disappointment. A reference work this may be but the author, by dint of his depth of knowledge, has created a shrewd and highly readable commentary as well.As General Sir Charles Guthrie (the first soldier to be denied promotion to Field Marshal on appointment to Chief of Defense Staff) observes in his Foreword, this book embraces the history of the British Army over the last 250-300 years. It covers not only the careers of key individuals but provides an understanding of their contribution to the successes and failures of our military past. The diversity of personalities, who have only the honor of wearing the coveted crossed batons in common, is fascinating. Alongside the household names of the great strategists and distinguished leaders lie little known and forgotten figures, who gained their exalted rank by either luck, accident of birth or diplomatic gesture.The British Field Marshals merits a place on the bookshelf of any military historian but is likely to be found on his or her bedside table. Whether or not the rank is ever resurrected, as it has been in the past and as many will hope it will be again, this delightful and useful book will remain the authoritative guide to all those who have held the highest military rank in the British Army.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781783461417

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PREFACE AND

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The aim of these biographies is to give an outline of the military careers of the field marshals of the British Army, with (so as to put the flesh of humanity on the dry bones of chronology) as much detail as space permits of their personal and private lives. Entries generally contain information relating to the dates and places of their subjects’ birth and death; their family background and the number of their siblings; their marriages and children; their education; the dates of their first commissions and subsequent promotions; their regimental and staff appointments; their campaigns and battles; their commands and their other public appointments. Regiments are recorded at length because, to a soldier, his regiment is his family writ large. The dates of peerages, baronetcies or knighthoods are given when their award resulted in a change of style or title. Other honours and awards, including degrees, civil distinctions, county lieutenancies or appointments of an honorary or largely ceremonial nature, are omitted, following the principle set out by W.S.Gilbert (himself a deputy lieutenant for Middlesex) in The Gondoliers. (On ev’ry side field marshals gleamed, small beer were Lords Lieutenant deemed.)

The presence of an officer in person in a battle, siege or other combat is indicated by the word at before the name or place of the engagement, the date of which is given in brackets. Numerals in bold within square brackets [nn] indicate the place of a field marshal in the seniority list (Table 1) which also gives the date when each field marshal was promoted to that rank. I have assumed a general knowledge on the part of the reader of the outcome and relative importance of battles and campaigns, of the organization of the army, and of the social, political and military history of the times in which the field marshals lived. To do otherwise would make this work not a set of biographies, but a history of the British Army and the British State in the story of which so many of the field marshals played an important part.

I take this opportunity of acknowledging my debt to everyone on whose help I have depended in writing this book, beginning with my much valued former colleague Matthew Midlane, Director of Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, for his kind sponsorship of my continued access to the RMAS Central Library. My thanks are also due to Diane Hiller and Sarah Oliver, of the RMAS Central Library, for their efficiency in supplying many of the publications on which I have relied in this work, and for their invariable helpfulness to all their readers. I also wish to express my gratitude to all those who have contributed their time or scholarship to my research or who have otherwise encouraged me by their interest in this project, including especially His Grace the Duke of Argyll; Professor Robert O’Neal, Chichele Professor of Military History, Oxford; Professor I.F.W. Beckett of the Department of History at Luton University; Dr Paul Harris of the Department of War Studies at the RMAS; Dr John Sweetman, late Head of Political and Social Studies, RMAS; Alastair Campbell of Airds, Unicorn Pursuivant at Inveraray Castle; the Reverend Canon Tim Sedgeley, Vicar of St Mary’s Church, Walton on Thames; Marjory Szurko, Librarian of Keble College, Oxford; Randolph Vine Esq, of the Huguenot Society, University College, London; Martine de Lee, Curator of the Staff College Collections, Camberley; Anne Ferguson, Media Resources Librarian at the RMAS; Tina Pittock, Curator of the Airborne Forces Museum, Aldershot; Angela Bolger, Curator of the Taplow Court Collection; G E Hughes Esq, Assistant Curator for Audley End, English Heritage; John A Flower Esq, of Penshurst; Colonel Gordon Spate, formerly TA Colonel for London and South East Districts, and to all those field marshals now on the retired or halfpay lists who were kind enough to comment on the relevant entries in this book while it was in preparation. I am especially grateful to Dr Gary Sheffield, Senior Lecturer in War Studies at the Joint Service Command and Staff College, Bracknell, for reading the work in draft and for making many valuable suggestions. All errors of fact or interpretation, however, are entirely those of the writer.

T.A.Heathcote.

Camberley, September, 1999

INTRODUCTION

In March 1995 the British Ministry of Defence received the report of an Independent Review of the Armed Forces’ Manpower, Career and Remuneration, headed by an eminent businessman, Sir Michael Betts. The Betts Report made a number of far-reaching recommendations, of which only one was implemented immediately. This was the proposal that the five-star ranks of field marshal and its equivalent in the other Armed Services should disappear, on the grounds that they were unnecessary in relation to the size of these forces and that none of the close allies of the United Kingdom used such ranks. In adopting this recommendation, the Ministry of Defence added the gloss that this rank was appropriate only for those who had commanded large armies in successful operations or who had been at the head of the British Army in a major war. The rank was not formally abolished, but officers were no longer to be promoted to it except in the event of a major war or other special circumstances.

Nevertheless, a study of the history of this rank in the British Army reveals that, in former times, neither the number nor even the existence of British field marshals depended upon the Army’s size. Likewise, high command in war (still less victory in battle) was not previously considered an essential qualification for promotion to this rank. In 1736, when the first two British field marshals were appointed, the British Army numbered some 60,000 regular soldiers. In 1995, it numbered about 112,000. The roll of the 138 British field marshals includes four British sovereigns, two British royal consorts, thirteen foreign monarchs (including six emperors, two of Japan, and one each of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Ethiopia, and seven kings, two each of the Belgians and of Nepal, and one each of Hanover, the Netherlands and Spain) and one marshal of France. One, Jan Smuts, was Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa and an officer of the South Africa Defence Force. Another, Sir Thomas Blamey, was a field marshal in the Australian Military Forces. Of the remaining 118, only thirty-eight held independent commands of any size in the field and only twelve were either Commanders-in-Chief of the British Army or Chiefs of the Imperial General Staff during a major war.

The word marshal is derived from the Germanic roots marho, horse (cf. mare) and skalko, servant. Like its Latin-derived cousin constable (comes stabuli, companion of the stable), its meaning has changed over the years and the title is now given to a variety of offices, ranging from those of distinguished military commanders at one extreme to police officers or stewards at the other. The first officer to be styled field marshal, in the sense of a general of the highest grade, was Count Johann Tilly von Tserclas, commander of the armies of the Catholic League and the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years War, who was appointed to this rank in 1607. The rank was introduced into the Swedish Army by Gustavus Adolphus in 1621, into the army of Brandenburg-Prussia by Frederick William, the Great Elector, in 1658 and into the Russian Army by Peter the Great in 1716. The rank of marshal or field marshal has been awarded at various times in the armies of Australia, Austria-Hungary, Bavaria, China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, the Soviet Union, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda, the Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Yugoslavia. Each army had its own standards for appointment to this rank, unrelated to the size of their forces, or to its existence in the armies of their close allies. The highest rank in the United States Army, General of the Army (analogous with Admiral of the Fleet) was not created until the Second World War. Like that of Marshal of France, the rank of General of the Army is reserved for generals who have commanded great armies with success in a major war.

The rank of field marshal was introduced into the British Army by King George II in January 1736, as a means of rewarding the services of his two most senior generals, the Earl of Orkney and the Duke of Argyll. In principle, the rank of field marshal was one bestowed by the monarch without regard to seniority, but in practice it was rare for this not to be taken into account. Of the first two British field marshals, Orkney, as the senior ranking general, was promoted two days ahead of Argyll, so ensuring that their relative positions in the Army List remained unchanged. It is conceivable that the introduction of this rank owed something to a desire on the part of the monarch to conciliate Argyll, a great Scottish nobleman whose support was of value to his government, and that Orkney was promoted so that Argyll could be given this new rank. Two more field marshals were created in July 1739, bringing the total in post to three, as Orkney had died in 1737. Viscount Cobham, the last survivor of these three, died in 1749. There were no field marshals in the British Army from then until November 1757, when the three most senior generals in the Amy were promoted to this rank, with the aim of recognizing the position of the third, Sir John Ligonier, as Commander-in-Chief. In 1763, when only one field marshal (Ligonier himself) was still alive, George III promoted the senior ranking general, Lord Tyrawley. He made no other such promotions in the first thirty years of his reign, so that after Tyrawley died in 1773 the rank of field marshal in the British Army was again left vacant. It was revived shortly after the beginning of the French Revolutionary War, when the three senior generals of the Army (of whom the second was the King’s brother, the Duke of Gloucester) were made field marshals in October 1793. None of these was expected to go on campaign, but the existence of the rank allowed the King’s second son, the Duke of York, to be promoted field marshal in 1795. Another seven generals were promoted in July 1796, bringing the number actually in post to nine (two of the three promoted in 1793 having by this time died). The number of field marshals then gradually declined until, in 1807, there were only two (the Duke of York and the Duke of Kent). This figure rose to three in June 1813, when Wellington received his baton. Wellington was the first to be awarded a baton of the modern pattern (designed by the Prince Regent himself) covered with red velvet and surmounted by a gold figure of St George slaying a dragon. Previously field marshals and other commanding generals, if they did so at all, had carried a plain baton of polished wood with yellow metal ferrules. George IV promoted the two senior generals in the Army to mark his accession in 1821, bringing the total in post to eight, of whom only three were not royal personages. William IV followed this precedent on his own accession in 1830, by which time both of those promoted by his predecessor in 1821 had died. In November 1846 the three senior generals in the Army were promoted to field marshal to celebrate the fifth birthday of the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII). As two of those promoted in 1830 had died, the number of nonroyal field marshals in post then amounted to three. Of these three, Sir George Nugent died in 1849, the Duke of Wellington died in 1852 and the Marquess of Anglesey died in April 1854. Until the promotion of Lord Raglan in November 1854, in recognition of his command in the Crimea, there were for a period of seven months only two field marshals in the British Army, neither of them professional soldiers (one was the Prince Consort and the other the King of the Netherlands). This was once more the case from Raglan’s death in July 1855 until October 1855, when the three senior generals in the Army were promoted to field marshal.

Thereafter the number of field marshals rose gradually, with four being created in January 1868 to mark the thirtieth anniversary of Victoria’s accession and three in June 1877 to mark her Golden Jubilee. The accessions of Edward VII and George V were also marked by the promotion on each occasion of their two senior generals. George V, Edward VIII and George VI all assumed the rank of field marshal on their respective accessions, though no previous British sovereigns (including George II, who appointed the first British field marshals and was himself a capable general) had thought it necessary to add to their royal dignities in this way. In August 1914 the British Army List contained twelve field marshals, including King George V, the Duke of Connaught and the Emperors of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Four field marshals received their promotion in 1919, in recognition of their services in the First World War, though three pre-war field marshals had died in the meantime. Between 1894 and 1925 the senior retired officer of the Indian Army was appointed a field marshal on the British half-pay list. In 1925 one field marshal’s post was created on the Indian establishment, in recognition of the Indian Army’s contribution to British victory in the First World War.

In September 1939 there were twelve British field marshals, comprising nine professional soldiers (including the Duke of Connaught) and four reigning or former monarchs (King George VI, the Duke of Windsor, the exiled King of Spain and the Emperor of Japan). In 1946, after the end of the Second World War, there were sixteen, made up of thirteen professional soldiers, King George VI, the Duke of Windsor and the Prime Minister of South Africa. The practice that thereafter developed of awarding (or at least offering) a baton to every officer who served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff (later Chief of the General Staff) resulted in one new field marshal being appointed, on average, every three years. In 1995, when it was decided that this practice would be discontinued, the total stood at eleven, made up of one regular officer in post and seven on retired or half-pay, two royal dukes and the King of Nepal (the first and only honorary British field marshal).

An analysis of the 138 brief lives that make up this book shows that the qualities and attributes that gained an officer promotion to the rank of field marshal in the British Army varied significantly over a period of two centuries. Napoleon, who declared that every soldier carried a marshal’s baton in his knapsack, would ask "Est-il heureux? (Is he lucky?) when any general was recommended to him. It is a truism that life is a lottery and that, in any profession, being in the right place at the right time is essential for success. Likewise, being in the wrong place at the wrong time means that an individual never has the chance to demonstrate his or her talent. In any walk of life it is often a matter of luck that an opportunity for promotion occurs. The occasion might arise either through some personal event, such as the misfortune of another, whose death or departure creates an unexpected vacancy, or through great impersonal developments, particularly, for the military, those resulting in war. At the personal level, luck might place an individual of proven worth and efficiency under a vindictive or unsympathetic senior at a critical time, so that the chance of a well-deserved promotion is lost. With equal caprice, it will allow others (sometimes of far lesser merit) to prosper through the operation of cronyism or similar vested interests. At the impersonal level, a soldier is more likely to rise in his profession if his star allows him to serve at a time when there are wars in which he may demonstrate his military virtues. Apart from luck, the innate qualities essential for success in a military career demonstrably include a robust constitution, energy and, above all, ambition, for, as Francis Bacon wrote, to take a soldier without ambition is to pull off his spurs". The evidence of these biographies suggests that, for men whose living lies in their swords, the prospect of the high pay and high offices that accompany high rank is a powerful incentive to ambition. This is not to say that the prospect of pecuniary benefit is the only spur to promotion. Every society offers a range of rewards to those who reach the peak of their profession. Even academics have been known to aspire to some recognition of their achievements. Military men have the added prospect of glory. In most countries there are significantly more statues of soldiers than of civilians.

To become a British field marshal an officer had, for the most part, to be lucky more in his battlefield survival than in his battlefield success. Of the 118 who served as regular officers in the British military, 107 stood up in battle to be shot at, most of them more than once, some of them many times. The palm for the greatest number of combats must go to Sir Henry Norman, who recorded his presence at some eighty engagements, ranging from pitched battles and sieges to skirmishes and affairs of outposts. The first field marshal to be appointed in the British Army, the Earl of Orkney, took part in his first active operations in Ireland in 1690. It is a reflection on the intractability of the Irish Question that the latest field marshal to be appointed in the British Army, Lord Inge, took part in his last active operations in Ireland in 1976. In the intervening period of almost three centuries British field marshals took part in some 320 recorded engagements in almost every campaign in which the British Army was involved and some in which it was not. The future King George VI served in the Royal Navy at the battle of Jutland and the future Duke of Edinburgh served at the battle of Cape Matapan. The Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria commanded in person at the battle of St Lucia (Verona) in 1848, as did the Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia at Amba Aradam in 1936. Jan Smuts, a future Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, fought against the British forces in the South African War. Six future field marshals fought under Marlborough at Malplaquet. Eleven were present at the storming of Badajoz and fifteen at Vittoria, where Wellington earned his baton. Ten served under Wellington at Waterloo. Sixteen served in the Crimea. A total of fifty-seven future field marshals received battlefield wounds, some losing a limb or the sight of an eye. Twenty-four were wounded on two or more occasions. Another eight became prisoners of war. At least three fought in duels.

In any of these encounters, the slightest deviation in the path of a blow or a missile could have ensured that the future field marshal never lived to gain his baton. Not only the violence of the enemy could bring a career to an early close; a soldier had also to contend with extremes of climate and with disease. A microbe could kill as surely as a musket and did not need a war in order to do so. Finally, in the period when promotion was determined by seniority and there was no fixed retirement age, a British general needed not only luck, but also longevity. Unless he was one of the few who were promoted regardless of seniority, in direct recognition of victory in battle, he had only to outlive his contemporaries in order to reach field marshal’s rank. Thus Sir George Howard, first commissioned at the age of five, finally became a field marshal at the age of 73. Twenty-three field marshals were promoted while in their eighties. The youngest non-royal field marshal was the Duke of Wellington, promoted at the age of 44 for his victories in the Peninsular War. The oldest was the Marquess of Drogheda, promoted at the age of 91 for his seniority in the Army List. Nevertheless, even after achieving his high rank, a field marshal did not become immune to the hazards of his profession. Lord Raglan died from the rigours of campaign while commanding his army before Sevastopol. Lord Kitchener was lost at sea with HMS Hampshire off the Hebrides. Sir Henry Wilson was shot dead by Irish extremists outside his own house in London.

Some of the sociological information revealed in these biographies merely confirms previous studies of officers of the British Army. Most were younger sons. Many came from the landed gentry, especially from families belonging to the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy, and several from the nobility. A high proportion were the sons of military officers, but two were the sons of bank managers, one of a saddler, one of a solicitor’s clerk and one of a village tailor. The details of regimental commissions show the extent to which officers moved between regiments to improve their career prospects. Other commissions show how officers could obtain extra-regimental promotion by brevet (to a titular but unpaid rank above that authorized by unit establishment) or by gaining a staff appointment (which carried extra pay). Many future field marshals obtained early promotion in these ways. These biographies also confirm the perception that an officer who serves with some kind of élite is more likely to be promoted than one who, while equally brave and efficient, remains in a less dashing branch. No officer reached the rank of field marshal other than from the cavalry, the Royal Armoured Corps, the Royal Artillery, the Royal Engineers or the infantry.

Students of social history will note that a good number of field marshals were married to women described as being of strong character or as contributing to their husbands’ official duties through their personal influence or contacts. In a number of cases these ladies married to disoblige their parents. It may also be noted that most field marshals married and many produced large families. Some field marshals had children from more than one marriage. Before the advent of modern anaesthetics and antiseptics most wives endured in childbed a greater certainty of pain and as great a risk of death as did their husbands in the battlefield. In the same way that many officers never lived to reach high rank, many officers’ wives, spirited or otherwise, never survived their last pregnancy to see their husbands achieve the honours to which they might have contributed. A noticeably high percentage of field marshals had mothers who were forceful characters, either married to weak husbands or widowed and left to bring up a young family single-handed. In respect of their own families, the lives of field marshals, like those of other men, demonstrate the truth of Bacon’s assertion that He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.

Other aspects of the field marshals’ lives may be less well known. Eighteen members of the British Royal Family became field marshals, either as sovereigns, consorts, princes or royal dukes. Four field marshals (Conway, Hardinge, Kitchener and Alexander) sat in Cabinet as Secretaries of State for departments normally headed by civilian politicians. One (the Duke of Wellington) was Prime Minister. Twentyone field marshals were members of the House of Commons at Westminster. Thirty-three held office as governor-generals, governors or high commissioners of self-governing dominions or other territories under British rule. Two field marshals (Jan Smuts and Sir Evelyn Wood) were qualified as barristers-at-law. Two more (Sir Thomas Blamey and Lord Byng) became policemen. Another (Chamberlain) was the inventor of snooker. Sir Evelyn Wood was injured by a giraffe and Sir Gerald Templer was wounded by a piano.

This dictionary of the British field marshals seeks to serve several readerships. To historians, it is presented as a work of synthesis rather than analysis, intended as a convenient reference book for use in further research. For cataloguers in museums, libraries, archives and art collections, it summarizes the field marshals’ careers and services. To those who simply enjoy military history, these brief biographies are offered to supplement an existing level of knowledge and to indicate further fields of study for exploration. Other writers or researchers may find, in the lives of these field marshals, ideas for fuller biographies, documentaries, screenplays or historical fiction, in which, indeed, many of them have already appeared. To soldiers of all kinds, past, present and future, regular or volunteer, it is meant as a roll call of those officers who reached the highest rank that the British Army had to offer.

THE FIELD MARSHALS’

BIOGRAPHIES

ADOLPHUS FREDERICK

HRH 1st Duke of Cambridge KG, GCB, GCMG, GCH

(1774–1850) [26]

Prince Adolphus Frederick, the tenth child and seventh son of King George III, was born in Buckingham Palace, London, on 24 February 1774 and was educated in England and Hanover, including a period at the University of Göttingen in 1786. During the French Revolutionary War he served under the command of his brother, the Duke of York [15], in the Flanders campaigns of 1793 and 1794, first as a volunteer and then as a colonel of the Hanoverian Guards. Adolphus Frederick became a lieutenant general on 24 August 1798 and was created Duke of Cambridge on 24 November 1801. He was appointed colonel-in-chief of the King’s German Legion in November 1803. The Duke of Cambridge was given command of the London Military District in 1804 and became colonel of the Coldstream Guards on 5 September 1805. He was promoted to general on 25 September 1803 and to field marshal (superseding forty generals senior to him) on 26 November 1813. Cambridge returned to Hanover in 1814 and, after the Electorate was raised to the status of a kingdom, was appointed Viceroy in November 1816. Despite his eccentric ways (among them the habit of speaking loudly and incessantly in conversation and repeating every comment three times) Cambridge proved himself to be a prudent ruler and conceded sufficient constitutional reforms to prevent Hanover being much affected by the revolutionary year of 1830. In June 1818, following the death of Princess Charlotte of Wales, Cambridge married Princess Augusta, third daughter of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. They produced three daughters and a son, George, [45] who was for a time George III’s only living legitimate grandchild. Cambridge was appointed colonel-in-chief of the 60th Rifles in January 1827. He remained Viceroy of Hanover until 1837, when his eldest surviving brother, the Duke of Cumberland [25], succeeded to the Hanoverian throne on the death of William IV. Cambridge and his family then returned to London. He died on 8 July 1850 and was buried at Kew.

ALBERT I

ALBERT LEOPOLD CLEMENT MARIE MEINRAD, HM

King of the Belgians, KG, GCB (1875–1934) [94]

Prince Albert, the second son of Phillipe, Count of Flanders and his countess, Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was born at Brussels on 8 April 1875. Count Phillipe was the younger brother of King Leopold II of the Belgians and had became heir to the throne on the death of the King’s only son, Leopold, Duke of Brabant, in 1869. When the Count’s elder son, Baudouin, died of influenza in 1891, Albert took his place in the line of succession. Albert attended the Ecole Royale Militaire at Brussels in 1891-92 and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Belgian Grenadiers in December 1892. Like many other princes, he relished his military service and the comradeship of his brother-officers. He reached the rank of major in 1896. Belgian public opinion had turned against Leopold II, partly because of misgovernment in the Congo Free State (of which he was the personal ruler before its transfer to the Belgian government in 1908) and partly because of his scandalous private life and consequent estrangement from his wife and daughters. The Count of Flanders having died in 1905, Leopold II was succeeded by Albert on 17 December 1909. Happily married with a wife and a young family, Albert was welcomed as a contrast from his unpopular uncle. He sought to reconcile the different social classes and language groups among his subjects, but opposed demands for an extension of the franchise, arguing that a wider spread of literacy should come first. In foreign policy he was primarily concerned to preserve Belgian neutrality in any war between Germany and France and continually urged on his ministers the need to improve the state of the nation’s defences. Albert refused to give up his constitutional position as commander-in-chief so as to allow this post to be held by a professional soldier, but supported a reorganization of the Army’s command system and the creation, in 1910, of a general staff.

With the outbreak of the First World War Albert responded to the German demand for free passage through Belgium by ordering general mobilization on 31 July 1914. He assumed personal command of the Belgian Army, but was unable to resist the overwhelming German advance. By mid-October 1914 the Belgian government controlled only a small corner of his kingdom around Nieuport, together with the area held by the British around Ypres. He established his military HQ on the Belgian coast at La Panne and gradually rebuilt the Belgian Army from an effective strength of 53,000 at the end of 1914 to 170.000 by early 1918. Albert remained on the Western Front throughout the war and made frequent visits to his troops in the trenches. He made ascents in observation balloons and flew in aeroplanes over the German lines, where he was the only C-in-C of the war to come under enemy fire. In August 1918 Albert told Marshal Foch [88], the Allied Supreme Commander, that the time was ripe for a limited Belgian offensive in West Flanders. Foch then offered him command of Army Group Flanders, to be made up of the 4th Belgian Division, three French divisions and the British Second Army. Previously Albert had kept his army as a single command and had refused to accept any kind of Allied control over his forces. In consequence, he was not invited to attend meetings of the Allied War Council at Versailles. Nevertheless, on 11 September 1918, he accepted Foch’s offer and, after joining the general Allied offensive two weeks later, reached Bruges late in October 1918.

In the post-war Treaty of Versailles Belgium’s interests tended to be overlooked by her larger allies. Throughout the war Albert took the position that he was fighting in response to his international obligation under the 1839 Treaty of London, which not only guaranteed Belgian neutrality but also required Belgium to defend it. He hoped to obtain some reward for this at German expense, but apart from a priority in the queue for reparations, gained nothing in Europe except for a small area of Wallonia that had been ceded to Prussia in 1815. Overseas, the German Central African colonies of Ruanda and Burundi, captured during the war by troops from the Belgian Congo, were awarded to Belgium as mandates from the League of Nations. In the post-war settlement Belgium was freed from the previous obligation of neutrality imposed by the Treaty of London. At home Albert was faced with the problems of rebuilding the Belgian economy and restoring the devastated battle zones. On his return to Brussels he proclaimed a new constitution with a democratic franchise. He denied that this was due to fear of popular revolution and declared that it reflected the wartime aspirations of his soldiers and people. He accepted the long-standing demand for a Flemish university, but tension continued between the Flemings and the French-speaking Walloons. The Depression of the 1930s caused much hardship, with the rise of National Socialism in Germany adding further uncertainty to the political scene.

In August 1915 King Albert became colonel-in-chief of the 5th (Princess Charlotte of Wales’s) Dragoon Guards, so renewing a family connection with this regiment established by his great-uncle, King Leopold I of the Belgians [28]. On 4 July 1921 he was appointed a British field marshal and thus became the second Belgian monarch to hold this rank. After the 5th Dragoon Guards were amalgamated with the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons in 1922 to form the 5th /6th Dragoons (later the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards), Albert remained in post as colonel-in-chief of the new regiment until his death. Always a keen sportsman, he sought relaxation from his official duties in outdoor pursuits, especially in rock-climbing. On 17 February 1934, climbing alone on the riverside cliffs at Marche-les-Dames, King Albert was killed in a fall. He was buried in the royal mausoleum at Laeken and was succeeded by his son, Leopold III.

ALBERT

FRANCIS ALBERT CHARLES AUGUSTUS EMMANUEL,

HRH Prince Consort, HSH Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,

Duke of Saxony, KG, KT, KP, GCB, GCMG, KSI

(1819–1861) [33]

Prince Albert, the second son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, was born at Schloss Rosenau, Coburg, on 26 August 1819. Following his parents’ separation and divorce amid allegations by the duchess that her husband abused her and by the duke that his wife was an adulteress, Albert spent much of his infancy in the custody of his paternal grandmother, the dowager duchess. This lady, together with her younger son, Leopold, future King of the Belgians [28], brought up Albert from an early age as a potential husband for Princess Victoria of Kent (heiress to the British throne), after the dynastic ambitions of their house were thwarted by the death of Leopold’s first wife, Princess Charlotte of Wales. Albert attended Bonn University in 1837–39 and, by King Leopold’s arrangement, visited Windsor in 1839. The young Victoria, Queen since 1837, fell in love with Albert, whose handsome appearance and charming manner made him an attractive match, and they were married on 10 February 1840. He went on to play an important part in the life of his adopted country, guiding the Queen’s political decisions, promoting science and industry (especially through the Great Exhibition of 1851) and taking an interest in social problems. He had to contend with the anti-foreign prejudices of his wife’s subjects and the opposition of her ministers, who resisted the Queen’s wish for him to be given the title Prince Consort until she eventually granted it by the use of her Royal Prerogative. His last act of statesmanship was to modify a draft despatch from London to Washington that might have brought the United Kingdom into the American Civil War on the Confederate side.

Albert was made a field marshal on 8 February 1840, two days before his wedding. At the end of April 1840 he was appointed colonel of the 11th Hussars, the regiment that had escorted him on his arrival at Dover and was then given the title Prince Albert’s Own. In 1843 Albert became colonel and captain general of the Honourable Artillery Company of London. At first he took little part in army affairs, other than by discouraging the practice of duelling among officers, though he took an interest in military uniform and helped design a more functional head-dress, the 1844 pattern shako (commonly dubbed the Albert pot). In 1850 the Duke of Wellington [24] urged Albert to take over from him as Commander-in-Chief. Albert felt unable to agree for constitutional reasons. He nevertheless thereafter made a serious study of the British Army and echoed Wellington’s opinion that it was not really an army at all, but a collection of regiments. During the Crimean War he advocated the use of the latest technology to improve the lot of the troops in the field and was responsible for the concept and design of the Victoria Cross. Albert was colonel of the Scots Fusilier Guards (later the Scots Guards) from 25 April 1842 and of the Grenadier Guards from 23 September 1842. He was also colonel-in-chief of the 60th Rifles from 15 August 1850 and of the Rifle Brigade from 23 September 1842. After his death the latter corps was given the additional title the Prince Consort’s Own. Prince Albert died at Windsor Castle, of a gastro-enteric affliction, on 14 December 1861 and was buried at Frogmore mausoleum.

ALEXANDER

The Honourable Sir HAROLD LEOFRIC GEORGE, Earl

Alexander of Tunis, KG, GCB, OM, GCMG, CSI, DSO, MC

(1891–1969) [113]

The Honourable Harold Alexander, third son of an Irish peer, the 4th Earl of Caledon, was born in Mayfair, London, on 10 December 1891. He was educated at Harrow School, where he joined the school’s unit of the Volunteer Force and rose to the rank of corporal. At school, Alexander was given the nickname Fat Boy, but, after joining the Army, was generally known to his contemporaries as Alex. He entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1910. Alexander became a cadet colour sergeant and passed out eighty-fifth in his batch of 172. He was commissioned on 23 September 1911 as a second lieutenant in the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, and then served in London at regimental duty, with promotion to lieutenant on 5 December 1912. At the beginning of the First World War in August 1914 Alexander served as a platoon commander in the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, during the retreat from Mons and at the first battle of Ypres, where he was wounded (1 November 1914). Invalided home, he was promoted to captain (temporary on 15 November 1914, substantive on 7 February 1915) in the newly-raised 2nd (Reserve) Battalion, Irish Guards. Alexander returned to the Western Front with this unit in August 1915 and was at Loos (25–30 September 1915), where he was awarded the MC. He was acting major and commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, as a battle casualty replacement, for ten days at the end of October 1915, before returning to the 2nd Battalion as a company officer.

During the battle of the Somme Alexander was awarded the DSO for his conduct on 15 September 1916. He was promoted to acting major on 10 December 1916, when he rejoined the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, as second-in-command. During May 1917 Alexander was once more this battalion’s acting CO. He became a substantive major on 1 August 1917 and was promoted to acting lieutenant colonel on appointment as commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, Irish Guards, on 15 October 1917. Alexander was slightly wounded in the third battle of Ypres (Passchendaele, 31 July–6 November 1917) and was at Bourlon Wood (27 November 1917) in the battle of Cambrai, where 320 of his 400-strong battalion became casualties. During the German offensive of Spring 1918 Alexander assumed acting command of the 4th Guards Brigade (23–30 March 1918). He commanded the 2nd Battalion, Irish Guards, at Hazebrouck (12–14 April 1918), where it suffered such heavy casualties that it undertook no further combat operations before hostilities ended on 11 November 1918.

After a period in London Alexander found employment in March 1919 with the Allied Relief Commission in a newly independent Poland. In May 1919 he moved on to the Allied Mission supervising the emergence of an independent Latvia. There he was given command of a force of ethnic Germans, whose communities had lived in Latvia for generations and who believed that they had the same right as the Latvian Balts to self-determination. Alexander became involved in a complicated series of operations in which troops of the German government, White Russians, Soviets and Baltic nationalists all took part. He was wounded by one of his own sentries on 9 October 1919, but recovered in time to wage a local campaign during the winter of 1919–1920. Alexander returned to the UK to become a substantive major and second-in-command of the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, at Aldershot in May 1920. He was given command of the battalion, with promotion to substantive lieutenant colonel, on 14 May 1922. Alexander took this unit overseas to join the Army of Occupation at Constantinople, from where it went to Gibraltar in October 1922 and London in April 1923. He commanded it until 1926, when he entered the Staff College, Camberley. After qualifying as a trained staff officer, Alexander was given promotion to colonel, back-dated to 14 May 1926. In March 1928 he became Officer Commanding the Irish Guards Regimental District and 140th (4th London) Infantry Brigade in the Territorial Army. Alexander spent 1930 as a student at the Imperial Defence College, London, and in January 1931 obtained a temporary appointment as General Staff Officer, Grade 2, in the Directorate of Military Training at the War Office. On 14 October 1931 he married the twenty-six-year old Lady Margaret Bingham, younger daughter of the 5th Earl of Lucan and great-granddaughter of the 3rd Earl of Lucan [63] who had commanded the Cavalry Division at Balaklava. They later had a family of two sons and two daughters.

Between 1932 and 1934 Alexander served as GSO 1 at HQ Northern Command, York. He was then appointed to command the Nowshera Brigade on the North-West Frontier of India, with promotion to temporary brigadier on 13 October 1934. During February-April 1935 Alexander commanded a punitive expedition against the Pathans in Malakand. In September 1935 he commanded his brigade in divisionalsized operations under Brigadier Claude Auchinleck [116], against the Mohmand Pathans. During this campaign, as in his previous wars, Alexander gained a reputation for always sharing the hardships and dangers of his men. He was noted as invariably reaching the mountain crests either with his troops or ahead of them. In a rare distinction for a middle-ranking officer of the British Army, Alexander was in 1935 appointed colonel of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Punjab Regiment, in the Indian Army. He returned to England to be GOC-in-C Aldershot Command, with promotion to major general on 16 October 1937.

On mobilization for the Second World War in September 1939 Alexander became GOC 1st Division in the British Expeditionary Force sent to France. When the German offensive began on 10 May 1940 Alexander led his division in the advance into Belgium and the subsequent retreat to Dunkirk, where he took over command of I Corps during the evacuation of the BEF and left, in the last destroyer, on 3 June 1940. On returning to the UK, he remained in command of I Corps, deployed along the coasts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, until 13 July 1940 when he became GOC-in-C Southern Command. Alexander was promoted to lieutenant general (acting from 13 July 1940, substantive from December 1940) and remained in Southern Command until February 1942. He was promoted to general on 17 January 1942, with the award of the KCB. Sir Harold Alexander was then ordered to take command of the British land forces in Burma, where the Japanese were pressing on with a successful offensive. Sir Archibald Wavell [111], C-in-C, India, ordered Alexander to hold Rangoon. Alexander was unable to do so and abandoned the city on 6–7 March 1942. During the British retreat he took personal control of parties of troops in various local engagements and narrowly escaped capture. In mid-March he handed over his command to Lieutenant General W. J. Slim [117], prior to becoming C-in-C of all Allied forces in Burma on 27 March 1942. Alexander decided that he could not hold Mandalay and ordered Slim to retreat to India.

Alexander was one of the few defeated British generals to retain the confidence of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill (a fellow Harrovian). He was recalled to the UK in July 1942 as commander-designate of the First Army in the Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa but, before this could take place, was appointed C-in-C Middle East. There his subordinates included General Sir Bernard Montgomery, the victor of El Alamein and commander of the Eighth Army. Alexander supported Montgomery and allowed him to claim sole credit for the subsequent British victories in North Africa. In February 1943 Alexander became commander of 18 Army Group and Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean. His capture of Tunis in May 1943 ended the Axis presence in Africa and was a victory of major strategic importance. He commanded the Allied invasions of Sicily in July 1943 and the Italian mainland in September 1943, where, at the end of 1943, he became commander of the Allied Group of Armies in Italy. Alexander made slow progress in the face of determined German resistance, difficult terrain, bad weather and the weakening of his forces in August 1944 by the diversion of French and American troops to southern France. Allied success was finally achieved on 29 April 1945 when he accepted the surrender of all enemy forces in northern Italy and the Tyrol. He was promoted to field marshal on 4 June 1944, handed over command in October 1945 and was raised to the peerage, becoming Viscount Alexander of Tunis, of Errigal, in January 1946.

Lord Alexander was appointed Governor-General of Canada in April 1946. He proved a popular and uncontroversial figure and fulfilled his duties with characteristic charm, establishing so successful a rapport with the Canadian people and government that his period of office, due to end in 1951, was extended by a further year. In 1952 Alexander was rewarded with the customary advancement of one rank in the peerage and became Earl Alexander of Tunis. On his return to the UK, he accepted the post of Minister of Defence in Churchill’s second ministry. This ministry was at this time a co-ordinating body, working alongside three separate service departments, each headed by a separate cabinet minister. Churchill, who had been Minister of Defence in