Beauchamp Duff

Beauchamp Duff around 1913

Sir Beauchamp Duff GCB , GCSI , KCVO , CIE , KStJ (born February 17, 1855 in Turriff , Scotland , † January 20, 1918 in London ) was a British general who held the post of Commander-in-Chief in India from 1914 to 1916 .

Life

Duff was born to Garden William Duff, 9th of Hatton and Douglas Isabella Maria Urquhart. He received his education at Trinity College, Glenalmond and the Royal Military Academy Woolwich , which he graduated in 1874. After joining the Royal Artillery , he married the daughter of an official in the administration of the Punjab in 1877. He and his wife had two sons and a daughter.

Duff served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War from 1878 to 1880 and joined the Indian Staff Corps in 1881 , whereupon he was assigned to the 9th Bengal Infantry (later 9th Gurkha Rifles ). From 1887 to 1889 he attended Staff College Camberley in the UK and reached first place in his senior class. On his return to India he was assigned to the headquarters of the British Indian Army . From 1891 to 1895 he was Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General . In 1892 he served as Brigade Major in the Isazai expedition and 1894/95 in the Waziristan expedition in which he for certification - Lieutenant Colonel rise and twice mentioned in dispatches was.

From 1895 to 1899, Duff served as the military secretary to three successive commanders in chief in India: George Stuart White , Charles Edward Nairne, and William Lockhart . In 1899 he was appointed Assistant Military Secretary for Indian Affairs in the London War Office , but instead went to South Africa with General White when he took command of the colony of Natal in September 1899 . He was on the staff of Whites in the Second Boer War at the siege of Ladysmith and took part in October 1899 in the Battle of Elandslaracht and the battle at Rietfontein. After the siege was lifted in early 1900, he joined Field Marshal Roberts ' staff as Assistant Adjutant-General, and in this function he participated in the campaign in the Transvaal. He was mentioned two more times in dispatches for his services in South Africa , was accepted as a Companion in the Order of the Bath and was awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal with five clips.

In early 1901, Duff returned to India, where he took over the post of Deputy Adjutant-General . In 1902 he took over command in the Allahabad district with the rank of brigadier general . After Lord Kitchener's appointment as Commander-in-Chief in India, he quickly rose to the highest positions: in 1903 he became Adjutant-General and in March 1906 Chief of the General Staff of the British Indian Army, combined with promotion to Lieutenant-General and accolade as KCVO. The following year he also became KCB.

After Kitchener's recall from India in 1909, Duff was appointed as Military Secretary in the London India Office and in 1910 appointed to the KCSI. He was promoted to full general in 1911 and was raised to the GCB at the coronation of George V. In 1913 he was appointed to succeed Garrett O'Moore Creaghs as the new Commander in Chief in India and took up his post in March 1914. He also became the king's aide de camp .

Duff was in a very important position as Commander-in-Chief in India when his country entered the First World War in August 1914 . In 1914 he was responsible for the establishment of the Indian Expeditionary Force A destined for use on the Western Front , as well as those of the Indian Expeditionary Force B and C , which were deployed in German East Africa and British East Africa . When the Ottoman Empire entered the war in the fall of 1914 , a brigade of what would later become the Indian Expeditionary Force D was already in the Persian Gulf in order to create a bridgehead in Ottoman Mesopotamia by landing at Fao . The Mesopotamia campaign that was opened was also to mark the end of Duff's tenure in India, as the British-Indian troops suffered a defeat after initial successes such as the capture of Basra during the Duff-authorized advance on Baghdad at the Battle of Ctesiphon in November 1915 and after After the siege of Kut at the end of April 1916, an entire division under Charles Townshend was captured by the Ottomans.

After an internal, high-level investigation into the campaign in Mesopotamia, Duff was removed from office on October 1, 1916, as was the viceroy Lord Hardinge . Duff did not recover from the disgrace of his impeachment and the publication of the commission report in the summer of 1917; he sought refuge in alcohol and committed suicide in January 1918 at the age of 62 years suicide .

literature

• NS Nash: Betrayal of an Army: Mesopotamia 1914-1916. Pen and Sword, 2016.

Web links

Commons : Beauchamp Duff  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Entry on thepeerage.com

predecessor	Office	successor
Garrett O'Moore Creagh	Commander in Chief in India 1914–1916	Charles Monro