Henry Maitland Wilson, 1st Baron Wilson
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| Henry Maitland Wilson | |
|---|---|
| 5 September 1881 – 31 December 1964 | |
 Henry Maitland Wilson, Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean. Italy, 30 April 1944 |
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| Nickname | Jumbo |
| Allegiance |  United Kingdom |
| Service/branch | British Army |
| Rank | Field Marshal |
| Battles/wars | Second Boer War |
| Awards | Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire Distinguished Service Order Mention in Despatches |
| Other work | Constable of the Tower of London |
Field Marshal Henry Maitland Wilson, 1st Baron Wilson, GCB, GBE, DSO (5 September 1881 – 31 December 1964), also known as "Jumbo" Wilson, saw active service in the Second Boer War and First World War, and became a senior British general in the Middle East and Mediterranean during the Second World War. Described as "dependable rather than brilliant"[citation needed], he enjoyed the confidence of Winston Churchill.
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[edit] Early life and military service
Wilson was the eldest son of the Suffolk landowner Capt Arthur Maitland Wilson, and his wife, Harriet Kingscote, a descendant of the 1st Earl Howe. He was educated at Eton College and after attending Sandhurst was commissioned in the Rifle Brigade in 1900, and served in South Africa in the Second Boer War, for which he was awarded the Queen's and King's medals each with two clasps.
Promoted captain in 1908 he served in Ireland, and in 1911 became Adjutant of the Oxford OTC. He was sent to France in 1914 as brigade major in the 16th Irish division. From 1915 his capabilities as a staff officer led to him being moved from regimental duties, firstly to become GSO 2 of the 41st Division on the Somme and of the XIX Corps at Passchendaele. In October 1917 he was appointed GSO 1 of the New Zealand Division. For his war service he was awarded the DSO in 1917 and was thrice mentioned in dispatches.
After being hand-picked for the first post-war staff course at Camberley, and a spell at Sandhurst, he returned to his own regiment. He then spent 3 years as chief umpire to the second division under General Philip Chetwode which greatly progressed his professional development. Next he took command of his regiment's first battalion and spent three years on the North-West Frontier. Here he spent time cultivating the tribesmen as well indulging his enjoyment of field sports.
Returning in the 1930s to be an instructor at Camberley, he had some periods on half pay. He was involved with the development of motorised infantry working with armoured forces, which led to the concept of the motor battalion.
[edit] Second World War
[edit] Egypt (1939 – 1941)
In June 1939 Wilson was appointed commander of the British and Commonwealth forces tasked with the defence of Egypt and the Sudan, and he was also responsible for giving military advice for a range of countries from Abyssinia to the Persian Gulf. He made his HQ in Cairo and undertook successful negotiations with the Egyptian government at their summer quarters in Alexandria. The Treaty of 1936 called for the Egyptian army to fight under British command in the event of war and to supplement the limited force then at his disposal — an armoured division then being formed (later to be the 7th Armoured Division) and 8 British battalions. He concentrated his defensive forces at Mersa Matruh some 100 miles from the border with Libya.
Early in August 1939 Wavell was appointed Commander-in-Chief Middle East, and he sent reinforcements which had been sought by Wilson, initially the 4th and 5th Indian Infantry Divisions, and, as the build up at Mersa Matruh continued, Richard O'Connor from the staff of the 8th Infantry Division in Palestine was appointed to reinforce Wilson's command structure there. When the war started, both Egypt and Italy unexpectedly declared non-belligerency. With fierce radio propaganda in the winter of 1939 the Germans sought to turn the Egyptians against the British. Wilson was responsible for securing the continued cooperation of the Egyptian leaders with his defensive build-up as he concentrated on building roads to supply his forward positions.
On 10 June 1940 Mussolini declared war. Immediately Wilson's forces invaded Libya. However, their advance was reversed when on 17 June France sought an armistice and the Italians where able to move their forces from the Tunisian border in the West and reinforce with 4 divisions those that opposed Wilson in the East. The Italian forces invaded Egypt in September 1940, and advanced some 60 miles to occupy Sidi Barrani. Wilson was facing very superior forces. He had 31,000 troops to the Italians' 80,000, 120 tanks against 275, and 120 artillery pieces against 250. He realised that the situation was one where the traditional text books would not provide a solution. As with other 1940s commanders he had been well-schooled in the strategy of the campaigns of Lee and Stonewall Jackson in Virginia, and with his field commanders, in particular O'Connor, and in thorough secrecy, he planned to disrupt the advance of the superior forces by attacking their extended lines at the right spots. After a conference with Eden and Wavell in October and rejecting Wavell's orders for a two-pronged attack, Wilson launched Operation Compass on 7 December 1940. The strategy was outstandingly successful and very quickly the Italian forces were cut in half.
Wilson oversaw the first stages of the campaign during which the British Army secured its first field victories of the war and advanced to the border with Libya. Wilson was able to deploy highly mobile motorised infantry in conjunction with armour which he had helped develop in the 1930s. This first land success was used by Churchill to boost home morale, and Wilson was awarded the K.C.B.
After the capture of Tobruk, Wilson was recalled to Cairo where he was offered and accepted the position of Military Governor of Cyrenaica. On 22 February 1941 within a few days of taking up this duty, he met with Wavell, Eden and Dill who were seeking a senior commander to lead reinforcements to Greece.
While Operation Compass continued successfully in 1941 and resulted in the complete defeat of the Italian Army in North Africa, Wilson, who was already highly regarded by his WWI regimental colleague and now Secretary of State for War, Anthony Eden, had also won the confidence of Churchill himself. In a broadcast Churchill said, "General Wilson, who commands the Army of the Nile, was reputed to be one of our finest tacticians, and few will now deny him that quality."
[edit] Greece (April 1941)
Wilson was appointed to lead a Commonwealth expeditionary force of two infantry divisions and an armoured brigade to help Greece resist Italy and the subsequent German invasion in April 1941. Although the Allied forces were hopelessly inadequate Churchill's War Cabinet had thought it important to provide support for the only country outside the Commonwealth which was resisting the Axis advance. Unsurprisingly, Wilson was forced to make a tactical withdrawal to Crete.
[edit] Syria, Iraq and Palestine (1941 – 1943)
In 1941, Wilson oversaw the successful Syria-Lebanon campaign, in which predominantly Australian, British, Indian, and Free French forces overcame Vichy French forces in fierce fighting. He was promoted to full General and made an OBE, and in December 1941 he took over command of the Ninth Army in Syria and Palestine.
As a solid, reliable and popular veteran officer, Wilson was Winston Churchill's choice to succeed General Sir Claude Auchinleck as commander of the Eighth Army in August 1942. However, at the urging of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir Alan Brooke, General Sir Bernard Montgomery was appointed instead (following Strafer Gott's death). Instead, Wilson was appointed to command the newly created independent Persia and Iraq Command, which included the Tenth Army under Quinan. This command, which had been part of Middle East Command was created when it appeared that Germany, following successes in southern Russia, might invade Persia (Iran).
[edit] C-in-C Middle East (1943 – 1944)
In 1943, after Montgomery's success at Alamein and the expulsion of Axis forces from North Africa, Wilson was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East. The Middle East was now comparatively removed from the main centres of fighting. However, on orders from London to create a diversion during the fighting in Italy, in September 1943 he organised an unsuccessful attempt to occupy the small Greek islands of Kos, Leros and Samos, which suffered large losses to German landings, and the campaign was greatly criticised in Britain.
Wilson succeeded Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower as the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean in January 1944. As such he exercised strategic control over the campaign in Italy. He strongly advocated the invasion of Germany via the Danube plain, but this did not take place when the armies in Italy were weakened to support other theatres of war.
[edit] Washington Mission (1945 – 1947)
In December 1944, following the death of Field Marshal Sir John Dill, he was sent to Washington as Chief of the British Joint Staff Mission: he was succeeded in the Mediterranean by Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander. Wilson was made a field marshal on 29 December 1944 and continued to serve as head of the British Joint Staff Mission until 1947, to the satisfaction of Britain and the United States. President Truman awarded him the Distinguished Service Medal in November 1945.
One of Wilson's most secret duties was as the British military representative on the Combined Policy Committee which dealt with the development, production and testing of the atom bomb. In Wilson's mind it was clear that the use of the bomb to bring the war in Japan to an end, would avoid the loss of large numbers of both allied and Japanese lives by avoiding a drawn-out conflict on the Japanese mainland.
When Wilson departed Washington on 22 April 1947, his old friend "Ike" came to see him off at the station. In September 1948 Eisenhower wrote the foreword to Wilson's book of wartime memoirs.
[edit] Post war
In January 1946 he was appointed ADC to the King and was then created Baron Wilson, of Libya and of Stowlangtoft in the County of Suffolk. From 1955 to 1960 he was Constable of the Tower of London. Wilson had married Hester Wykeham in 1914 and had one son and a daughter. The son, Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Maitland Wilson, accompanied his father in the Middle East during WWII, as an intelligence officer. The son's memoirs, Where the Nazis Came, provide anecdotes and descriptions of important events in his father's WWII service. Never a wealthy man, when Field Marshal Lord Wilson died his estate was probated at 2,952 pounds sterling. His only son Patrick succeeded him in the barony.
| Honorary titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Viscount Alanbrooke |
Constable of the Tower of London 1955 – 1960 |
Succeeded by Earl Alexander |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by New Creation |
Baron Wilson | Succeeded by Patrick Maitland Wilson |
[edit] References
- Gun, W.T.J.: A Fighting Ancestry. Letter in The Times (16 April 1941, p. 5)
- Hackett, J.W: Wilson, Henry Maitland in Dictionary of National Biography (1985)
- Obituary in The Times (1 January 1965)
- "One Of Our Finest Tacticians" in The Times (12 April 1941, p. 3)
- "Persia-Iraq command" in The Times (25 August 1942)
- Wilson, Henry Maitland: Eight Years Overseas, 1939 - 1947 pub: Hutchinson (1948)
- Wilson, Patrick Maitland: Where the Nazis Came ISBN 1-904244-23-8 (2002)
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