Early Career

Born May 5th 1864, second son of James and Constance Wilson, of Currygrane, County Longford, Ireland. Attended Marlborough School. Failed twice for Woolwich and three times for Sandhurst in the years 1880-2. A very tall man, Wilson was gazetted a Lieutenant in the Longford Militia (the 6th Bn, the Rifle Brigade) - a back-door route to a military career. After a short period of training in Darmstadt, eventually transferred to the 1st RB. Received a serious eye wound while on active service in Burma; other injuries forced him to walk with a stick thereafter. Spent a period in the 'French' section of the Intelligence Department of the War Office. He spoke French and German quite fluently. By September 1st 1897, Wilson had achieved the rank of Brigade-Major to the 3rd Brigade at Aldershot.

During the war in South Africa, 1899-1902, the 3rd Brigade - renumbered the 4th (Light) Brigade for active service- took part in many actions in Natal, including The Tugela Heights, the Relief of Ladysmith, and the action of Laing's Neck. Wilson eventually spent time as assistant military secretary to the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Roberts; was awarded the DSO. He returned to England early in 1901. After more time at the War Office, Wilson was appointed to the temporary command of the 9th Provisional Battalion. On return to staff duties, he played a considerable part in compiling the new manual on Cavalry Training, and was deeply involved in the restructuring of military training generally. He '..left the War Office..without a single regret, except that of an incomplete and unsatisfied endeavour to get a number of useful and necessary reforms carried out'.

Early in 1907, Wilson was promoted to Brigadier-General, and became Commandant of the Staff College. During his time at Camberley, he took the opportunity to make study tours of the French north-eastern frontier, and struck up good relationships with many of the senior officers of the French Army, including Ferdinand Foch (who at the time was his equivalent at the French Staff College). Wilson was a great francophile, and encouraged a much increased unofficial dialogue with the French Army. In August 1910, he was succeeded at Camberley by 'Wully' Robertson, and took up the appointment as Director of Military Operations.

During his time as DMO, Wilson carried out numerous reforms and made significant progress countering what he perceived to be a lack of practical preparation for war. He met with Bethmann-Hollweg and Von Tirpitz during an official visit to Berlin - which was not long after followed by the Agadir crisis, when it became starkly clear that Germany was considering war. Invited to a special meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence on August 23rd, 1911 (three years to the day before the BEF came to blows with the German Army at Mons) Wilson presented his thoughts concerning a likely German attack in Europe, and how the BEF should be deployed. It was the first time that the planned six Divisions of the BEF were definitely placed on the left flank of the French Army. Wilson made a favourable impression, particularly on Churchill, Seely and Grey. Conversations with the French General Staff were stepped up. But in the meantime, by mid-1914 another crisis was developing - in Ireland.

Wilson and The Curragh Incident

The Government was considering using British troops in Ireland to suppress a growing, organised revolt by the Protestant community in the North against the Home Rule Bill. This was a most serious crisis, seemingly heading for a civil war. In Parliament, in the Army and in the country generally was a belief that the Government could not possibly deploy force to coerce the Ulster population into separating from Britain. Bonar Law, MP told Wilson that the House of Lords would bring in an amendment to the forthcoming Army Annual Bill to the effect that the army would not be used in this way. Bu shortly afterwards, it became clear that other senior politicians were planning to 'scatter troops all over Ulster, as though it were a Pontypool coal strike'. On July 20th, 1914, Wilson heard from General John Gough that his brother Hubert Gough, commanding the Cavalry Brigade stationed at The Curragh, had been ordered to either undertake operations against Ulster or be dismissed the service. Given two hours to decide, Gough had accepted dismissal. (Wilson and Gough were, of course, from Ireland themselves). By evening, all of the 50 officers of the 16th Lancers had resigned. The crisis rapidly escalated, with Wilson a leading voice in support of Gough. Seely resigned from the War Office, replaced by Asquith; Ewart resigned as CIGS, replaced by Sir Charles Douglas. Eventually the Government made sufficient promises that the army would not be used to quell a civil disturbance on British soil, and the crisis slowly abated. Wilson, Gough and many others became 'marked men' as a result of this incident, which had an important effect on relationships with the Government and the military hierarchy throughout the succeeding years.

The Great War

At the outbreak of the war, Wilson was still in place as DMO at the War Office. He attended the first War Council at 4pm on the 4th August 1914 : 'An historic meeting of men, mostly entirely ignorant of the subject' according to Wilson's diary. This Council endorsed the Wilson-inspired plans to send the BEF to France immediately, with Wilson himself in the unusual role of Sub-Chief of the General Staff. He disagreed at subsequent meetings with Kitchener, who proposed to keep a Division in England as a counter-measure to the feared invasion. This early tussle with the new War Minister - together with his reputation from the Curragh - had a serious effect on Wilson's career for the next two years. Wilson travelled with Sir John French to French GHQ on 15th August, and on to the infamous first meeting with Lanrezac. Wilson played a liaison role with the French HQs throughout the Retreat and the so-called Race to the Sea. In late December, a proposal to appoint Wilson to Chief of the General Staff to replace Murray was vetoed by both Asquith and Kitchener; he was hurt by Sir John French's acquiescence, the latter having promised him the post. Robertson was appointed CGS; Wilson became Principal Liaison Officer with the French Army. An uneasy relationship between the two was inevitable. Wilson was granted a Temporary Lieutenant-Generalship in the 1915 New Years Honours, but his name was struck from the list of proposed KCBs. He was, however, knighted on July 1st, 1915 at Buckingham Palace.

In December 1915, in the wake of the removal of Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief, to be replaced by Sir Douglas Haig, Wilson resigned his GHQ role. He had been given to understand that he was to be offered a Corps command. He duly took command of IV Corps on December 22nd, 1915, taking over from Rawlinson who was himself taking First Army over from Haig. Whilst under his command, the Corps had the misfortune of a suffering a surprise attack in front of Vimy Ridge, losing a significant position in terms of the mine saps which were at the time causing the Germans considerable difficulties. Wilson's fledgling reputation as a battle commander took a severe knock. His Corps remained on the relatively quiet Vimy front while the great Battle of the Somme unfolded during the Summer of 1916. He left command of the Corps on December 1st, 1916. For a man of his ambition, he must have been disappointed to have seen his peers and some juniors rising in rank and importance during 1916, while he still held only a Corps.

Wilson's next ventures included a mission to Russia, and - after the fall of Asquith and the creation of a coalition under David Lloyd George - a conference in Italy on the subject of Salonika, together with the new Prime Minister. At this time, Wilson began to win Lloyd George's admiration as a military man who would back his Eastern schemes. Lloyd George conspired to bring Nivelle to the highest command on the Western Front, subjugating Haig and the 'Westerners'. He appointed Wilson as Liaison Officer between the two men. Wilson remained in this position throughout the appalling period when the British were pushed into the costly Battle of Arras in support of Nivelle's disastrous attack on the Chemin des Dames, which almost broke the back of the French Army and at a stroke transferred the weight of responsibility for carrying on the war on the Western Front onto the BEF. He resigned the post on 26th June 1917, shortly after Plumer's resounding success at Messines.

After two idle months, Wilson was appointed to Eastern Command, in England. According to his biographer, Callwell, 'it suited him well...enabled him to keep in touch with his friends in the Cabinet, in the War Office, and his friends in Parliament.' While Haig was fighting Third Ypres, Wilson was intriguing in London. He was invited to accompany his 'friend' Lloyd George to the Rapallo Conference, where the decision was taken to commence a Supreme War Council. This Council would have a British Military Representative, who would of course not be Robertson, the CIGS who Lloyd George despised, but Wilson. Again Callwell: ' the Supreme War Council...was to a far greater extent his handiwork than it was ...of any other individual on the side of the Allies'.

It almost lost the war for the Allies.

After serious disagreements about the conduct of the war between Wilson and the BEF, and political manoeuvring which made it impossible for Robertson to stay on in the role, Wilson took over as Chief of the Imperial General Staff in February 1918. To borrow a phrase from a later era, he was now to 'reap the whirlwind'. The reduction in manpower on the Western Front, together with two recent extensions of the line occupied by the BEF, had placed Haig in a most dangerous situation. When the German Army struck on 21st March 1918 - an attack second in importance only to the initial attack in 1914, and much heavier in terms of weight of artillery - the British suffered huge losses, lost many miles of ground, and faced crisis. Hit hard again in Flanders in April, Haig had to call for all backs to the wall to defeat the onslaught. The crisis led to the creation of the Supreme Command of the Allied forces on the Western Front, under Foch. This was at Haig's urging, not Wilson's. The latter disagreed even with Foch's view of how to conduct war on the Western Front. Foch and Haig, together with a refreshed French Army pushed hard by Mangin and others, and a numerous if naive assistance from the new American Army, defeated the German Army on the Western Front between August and November 1918. Wilson, having achieved the pinnacle of the British Army, was left to the politics, while the two commanders got on with winning the war.

After the War

In February 1922 Wilson resigned as CIGS and became a Member of Parliament for the constituency of North Down in Ulster. On June 22nd of that year he was assassinated by shooting, in London, by two men connected with the Irish Republican Army.