Henry Hughes Wilson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, 1st Baronet, GCB, DSO, (May 5, 1864 – June 22, 1922) was a British field marshal and Conservative politician.
He was born in Currygrane, Ballinalee, County Longford, Ireland and was the second son of James and Constance Wilson, of Currygrane. He was educated at Marlborough College, and made unsuccessful attempts to get into the army colleges at Woolwich and Sandhurst between 1880 and 1882. In 1882, he succeeded in being commissioned as a lieutenant in the Longford militia (which was a militia battalion of The Rifle Brigade) and then transferred to a regular battalion.
He served in Burma where he received several serious wounds, including an eye wound and one which forced him to use a walking-stick for the rest of his life. He later worked in Intelligence Department of the War Office where his quite fluent French and German was useful.
In 1897, he became Brigade Major of the 3rd Brigade at Aldershot, and from 1899 to 1901 he saw active service during the Second Boer War with the 4th (Light) Brigade before becoming assistant military secretary to Lord Roberts and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.
He returned to England in 1901 and spent some time as commander of the 9th Provisional Battalion, and the rest as a staff officer. Promotion followed in 1907 when he became a Brigadier-General and commanded the Staff College at Camberley, Surrey until 1910, when he became Director of Military Operations at the British War Office.
In 1914, he surreptitiously supported British army officers who refused to lead troops against Ulster Unionists opponents of Third Irish Home Rule Bill in the Curragh Mutiny. This damaged his career and he was not appointed Chief of Staff to Sir John French. At the start of the First World War, he was liaison officer to the French Army but, due to his poor relations with Philippe Pétain, was replaced. From December 1915 until December 1916, he commanded IV Corps in France.
In September 1917, he took over the Eastern Command, which allowed him to live in London and worked closely with Prime Minister David Lloyd George. In February 1918, he was promoted to Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), effectively the head of the British army, and was the principal military adviser to Lloyd George in the last year of the First World War.
After the war, on July 3, 1919, he was promoted to British field marshal, awarded £10,000 by Parliament and made a baronet. At the Paris Peace Conference, he acted as Britain's chief military adviser but found himself in increasing disagreement with Lloyd George. He resigned from the army and became a Member of Parliament for North Down. A staunch Protestant, after 1921 he was Sir James Craig's parliament's military adviser. Despite this he always advised that Catholics should not be discriminated against.
On June 22, 1922, two English-born members of the IRA, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O'Sullivan, shot and killed Sir Henry Wilson as he returned to his Eaton Square home after unveiling a war memorial in Liverpool Street Station. Two policemen were also shot as the pair tried to make good their escape. They were then surrounded by a crowd and arrested by other policemen. They were hanged on August 10, 1922. The assassination may have been ordered by Michael Collins in retaliation for the continuing troubles in Northern Ireland.
[edit] References
- Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: His Life and Diaries by Major-General Sir C E Callwell, Cassell, 1927.
[edit] External links
| Military Offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Sir William Robertson |
Chief of the Imperial General Staff 1918–1922 |
Succeeded by: The Earl of Cavan |
Categories: Assassinated politicians | Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom | British Field Marshals | British murder victims | British Army World War I generals | Deaths by firearm | Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath | Companions of the Distinguished Service Order | 1864 births | 1922 deaths
