George Macdonogh

Lieutenant General Sir George Mark Watson Macdonogh GBE, KCB, KCMG (4 March 1865 - 10 July 1942) was a British Army general officer. After early service in the Royal Engineers he became a staff officer prior to the outbreak of the First World War, and held a series of intelligence posts during the war.

Early career

Macdonogh joined the army in July 1884, receiving a commission in the Royal Engineers. He was promoted to captain in 1892, and attended the Staff College in 1896; he and James Edmonds, passed the entrance exam with sufficiently high marks that the publication of results had to be adjusted in order to conceal the margin between them and their classmates. During the course, finding it below his abilities, Macdonogh studied the law and was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn.

After a series of minor staff posts, he was appointed to the general staff in the War Office in 1906, rising to a colonelcy in 1912. He was responsible for the command of Section 5 of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, later to become MI5, which was charged with controlling enemy aliens in the event of a war. During the Curragh Incident in March 1914 he supported the use of force in Ulster, one of the few members of the general staff to do so.

First World War

On the outbreak of the First World War, he was assigned to the British Expeditionary Force as the senior officer in charge of intelligence, and promoted to brigadier-general in November 1914. After a year and a half working on operational intelligence, he was promoted to major-general and recalled to the War Office in January 1916, where he created MI7, intended to target German civilian morale.

His intelligence work was highly effective; by mid-1917 he had produced a German order of battle for the Western Front that was later found to be complete save for one misplaced unit, and in 1918 he successfully predicted the German Spring Offensive. However, his effectiveness was limited by personal conflicts; he was distrusted by Douglas Haig and by John Charteris, the senior intelligence commander, due to his Catholicism and a suspicion that he was too defeatist in his assessments of German strength.

Later career

Shortly before the end of the war, in September, he was promoted to Lieutenant-General and appointed Adjutant-General to the Forces, a post he held until September 1922. He retired from the Army in 1925, and began a business career. In later years, he was a commissioner of the Imperial War Graves Commission and the Royal Commission on Local Government. During the early years of the Second World War, he served on the central committee for price controls, and helped organise relief work for Finland.

References

• Ian F. W. Beckett (2004) "Macdonogh, Sir George Mark Watson (1865–1942)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edition, accessed 16 Oct 2008