Andrew Gilbert Wauchope

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AG Wauchope in the uniform of the »Black Watch« , colored reproduction of a cabinet photograph by JA Horsburgh, Edinburgh. In: Robinson, CN : Celebrities of the Army , London, [1900]

Andrew Gilbert Wauchope CMG CB (born July 5, 1846 in Niddrie , Midlothian , Scotland, † December 11, 1899 in Magersfontein , South Africa) was a Scottish-British general of the colonial wars.

Life

Early years

Andrew Gilbert, called "Andy", Wauchope was the second son of the Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenants Andrew Wauchope (1818–1874) from Niddrie Marischal, Midlothian , Scotland, and Frances Maria († June 26, 1858), daughter of Henry Lloyd Lloydsburg , County Tipperary . Scottish MP John Wauchope , known as "Wauchope the Covenanter", was his ancestor. His great uncle Robert Wauchope (1788-1862) was a naval officer and since 1846 an admiral .

Andy first attended Dr Ellenberger's Pestalozzian School in Worksop , Nottinghamshire , and from June 1858 the Stubbington House School in Gosport, Fareham, Hants, founded in 1841 by Rev. William Foster . Foster's School was a private school that prepared boys for entry into the Royal Navy . One of Wauchope's schoolmates, with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship, was the future Admiral Lord Charles Beresford .

In 1859 Andrew came as a midshipman on the training ship HMS Britannia (Portsmouth) and on October 5, 1860 as a midshipman on the HMS St George , where he made friends with Prince Alfred . Two years later, on July 3, 1862, he retired from the Navy to join the army.

Entry into the army and first war mission (Africa)

After studying with private tutors for three years, he received a position as ensign in the 42nd ( Royal Highland ) Foot Regiment ("The Black Watch") on November 21, 1865 - through purchase, as was customary at the time . On June 23, 1867 he became a lieutenant.

From April 5, 1870 to December 9, 1873, he served as a regimental adjutant in Aldershot and Devonport , but gave up this post to take part in Sir Garnet Wolseley's campaign against the Ashanti Kingdom in what is now Ghana (December 1873 to March 1874). As an officer in the combat group known as Russell's Regiment , recruited by Colonel (later Sir ) Baker Russel of Hausa , he was involved in several combat operations during their advance from the Pra River to Kumasi and was wounded twice, the second time seriously. He distinguished himself in such a way that he was mentioned by name in the war report.

After returning to Scotland, he became an adjutant in the regimental depot in Perth , until he went to Malta in March 1876 with his regiment as a shooting instructor ( musketry instructor ) .

Further missions (Cyprus, Egypt, Sudan)

From July 1878 to August 1880 Wauchope was - promoted to captain on September 14, 1878 - civilian government commissioner in the Papho district on the island of Cyprus , which the United Kingdom had taken over from the Sublime Porte in 1878 . There he built British administrative structures and fought the ubiquitous crime. On his return to England in 1880, he was made Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG, August 12, 1880).

He experienced the First Boer War ( Anglo-Transvaal War ) in 1881 in a staff deployment in the stage. In 1882 he took part with his regiment in Wolseley's campaign against Ahmed Urabi Pasha in Egypt. In the battle of Tel-el-Kebir (September 13, 1882) he was one of the first to reach the fortifications of Tel-el-Kebir.

Promoted to major on March 14, 1884 , he served in the same year as deputy assistant adjutant and quartermaster general under Sir Gerald Graham in Sudan (→ Mahdi Uprising ). In the battle of El Teb ( at-Taib ) he was again wounded and his services to recognizing May 21 Brevet appointed -Oberstleutnant.

From 1884 to 1885 he took part in the operation to save Gordon and relieve Khartoum , the so-called Nile or Gordon Relief Expedition . He was in the main force, the River Column , under Major-General William Earle . At Kirbekan he was seriously wounded on February 11, 1885 - for the third time.

Home leave (Scotland)

After the campaign was over, Wauchope went to Scotland to recover from his wounding. The administration of the family estates in Niddrie Marischal, Midlothian and Yetholm, which had fallen to him after the death of his older brother William John on November 28, 1882, also required his presence. Agriculture did not yield much, but the coal mines in Niddrie, whose products were in great demand in the age of industrialization, made Wauchope one of the richest men in Scotland.

Wauchope's popularity in Midlothian was so great that he ran twice for a seat in Parliament. In the general election of July 12, 1892, he could not assert himself as a candidate for the Liberal Unionist Party in Midlothian (Edinburghshire) against William Ewart Gladstone , but reduced his lead from 4631 votes to 690 votes. Gladstone did not attribute his defeat to Wauchope, but to "the Church". On June 19, 1899 Wauchope ran in the by-elections for South Edinburgh, but was subject to Arthur Dewar (later Lord Dewar).

On December 9, 1882, Wauchope married Elythea Ruth, daughter of the Baronet Sir Thomas Erskine, of Cambo , Fife , who died the year after next, on February 3, 1884, giving birth to twins. The two sons grew up with their grandparents in Cambo. In April 1887 they fell ill with scarlet fever ; one died, the other suffered lifelong damage.

Return to the army

Tomb for Andrew Wauchope in Matjiesfontein

Since May 21, 1888 Colonel and since May 25, 1889 Companion of the Order of the Bath , Wauchope returned in the autumn of 1892 to active military service. In 1894 he took command of the 2nd Battalion of the Black Watch, the former 73rd (Perthshire) Foot Regiment, of which he remained in command until August 1898.

In 1898 he led a brigade in Lord Kitchener's Nile campaign to suppress the Mahdi uprising . He took part in the Battle of Atbara and the Battle of Omdurman and was appointed Major General on November 16, 1898 . In April 1899 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh Law School (LL.D).

In the Second Boer War , which broke out in 1899 , Wauchope was given command of the third ( Highland ) Brigade (October 9, 1899), which was intended for use in the Transvaal . She was part of the troops led by Lord Methuen to bring relief to the besieged cities of Kimberley and Mafeking . After the battles at Belmont and Modder River (→ Battle of Modder River ) he led his regiment on a night march to Magersfontein (→ Battle of Magersfontein ). When attacking the Boer positions , Wauchope was killed at dawn on December 11, 1899 by one of the first volleys from the Boer trenches. His successor was Hector Archibald MacDonald .

On December 13th he was buried in Modder River, but a few days later he was reburied in the British garrison town of Matjiesfontein .

Since Wauchopes, who had been married to Jean, daughter of Sir William Muir, had remained childless in October 1893, Andrew was the last member of the family branch. He left behind his wife and sister, Harriet Elizabeth Frances Wauchope de Moleyns, Lady Ventry, († December 13, 1906). The 17th century mansion in Niddrie ( Niddrie House ) was sold to the city of Edinburgh after the widow's death, which fell into disrepair and finally demolished it in the 1960s. Today there are 'modern' social housing blocks there.

souvenir

In memory of General Wauchope, monuments have been erected in several locations: in Niddrie, the Presbyterial Church in York, Perth, Yetholm, St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh and the Church of New Craighall.

In the church of his home parish, Liberton Kirk , where Wauchope was very active, a stained glass window was unveiled on June 8, 1905, funded by donations from parishioners.

literature

  • Charles Napier Robinson : Celebrities of the Army , Newnes, London 1900
  • William Baird: General Wauchope , Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, Edinburgh 1901 (Reprint: Books for Libraries Press, Freeport, NY 1972, ISBN 978-0-8369-9094-2 ) ( online at archive.org)
  • Sir George Douglas: The Life of Major-General Wauchope , Hodder and Stoughton, London 1904 (Reprinted by Kessinger Pub., Whitefish, MT, May 2006, ISBN 978-1-4286-0456-8 ) ( online at archive.org)
  • Frederic Boase: Modern English Biography , Netherton & Worth, Truro 1892–1921
  • The Colonial Office List for 1900 , Harrison, London 1914
  • EI Carlyle: Wauchope, Andrew Gilbert (1846-1899). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of May 2006 (rev. Roger T. Stearn).
  • Edward Irving Carlyle :  Wauchope, Andrew Gilbert . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Suppl. 1, Volume 3:  How - Woodward. MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1901, pp 509 - 510 (English).

Remarks

  1. ↑ today a suburb of Edinburgh
  2. ↑ since 1962 at Ascot , Berkshire; meanwhile closed
  3. ↑ The polar explorer Robert Scott (1868–1912), who was killed on his South Polar expedition, attended the same school.
  4. ^ The famous "Forty Twa" regiment of the Napoleonic Wars; 1861 renamed The Royal Highland Regiment (The Black Watch) , 1881 united with the 73rd (Perthshire) Regiment of Foot to the Regiment Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) ; the regiment was part of the Highland Brigade .
  5. ↑ The so-called depot of a regiment was not a depot in the sense of a warehouse or equipment park, but the home garrison of a regiment where the replacement troops, i.e. H. the second battalion, not in use, was stationed.
  6. ↑ The 73rd regiment was formed when the 2nd battalion of the "Forty Twa" was reclassified in 1786 to a separate regiment, the 73rd (Highland) Regiment of Foot . In 1809 it lost its status as a highland regiment, in the course of the army reform of 1881 it was reunited as the 2nd battalion with the 42nd regiment, which became the 1st battalion, to form the new regiment The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) .
  7. ↑ consisting of: 2nd Black Watch, 1st Highland Light Infantry, 2nd Seaforths and 1st Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
  8. ↑ The reburial took place with the consent of the telegraphed widow, who did not know that Matjiesfontein was several hundred kilometers away from the battlefield and who probably did not distinguish the foreign, similar-sounding place names Magersfontein / Matjiesfontein in the excitement. When she found out, she did not want to be transferred again, and so it stayed that way.
personal data
SURNAME Wauchope, Andrew Gilbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wauchope, Andy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British general
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Niddrie , Midlothian , Scotland
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1899
Place of death Magersfontein , South Africa