Edward Montagu-Stuart-Wortley

Edward Montagu-Stuart-Wortley. Photography around 1900

Edward James Montagu-Stuart-Wortley CB , CMG , DSO , MVO (born July 31, 1857 in Wortley Hall in Wortley near Sheffield , † March 19, 1934 in Tangier ) was a British general. He fought in numerous wars in the British Empire towards the end of the 19th century , was involved in the Daily Telegraph affair and served as a division commander on the Western Front during the First World War .

Origin and youth

He was the second son of Francis Dudley Montagu-Stuart-Wortley , the second son of John Stuart-Wortley, 2nd Baron Wharncliffe , and his wife Elizabeth Valetta Martin , the eldest daughter of William Bennett Martin. His older brother Francis succeeded her uncle Edward Montagu-Granville-Stuart-Wortley as 2nd Earl of Wharncliffe in 1899 . Edward, known as Eddie , attended Eton College from 1866 , but five years later he left Eton , presumably for failure to pay school fees, and moved to Moore Abbey in County Kildare , where he was raised by his aunt Mary, wife of the 3rd Marquess of Drogheda has been.

Stuart Wortley's caricature by Leslie Ward in Vanity Fair magazine , 1899

Life

Military career overseas

Presumably through the mediation of his uncle, the 3rd Marquess of Drogheda , he joined the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps as an ensign in October 1877 and was transferred to India. During the Second Anglo-Afghan War he served in the Kurram Valley Force under Frederick Roberts in 1879 , where he participated in the conquest of Zawa . He was promoted to lieutenant in 1880 and transferred to South Africa in January 1881 after the outbreak of the first Boer War , where he was part of the Natal Field Force . In 1882 he was transferred to Egypt and served as aide-de-camp for General Baker Creed Russell , commander of the 1st Cavalry Brigade . In this capacity he took part in the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir . He then served briefly as the military secretary of Valentine Baker and then as aide-de-camp of General Evelyn Wood , the new sirdar of the Egyptian army. In 1884 he received his first command of his own as the leader of a 500-man Bedouin unit. He took part in the Gordon Relief Expedition , where he fought at the Battle of Abu Klea and Metemmeh , and was a member of the crew of the two steamboats that under Colonel Charles Wilson reached Khartoum two days after Gordon's death . Stuart-Wortley then stayed in Sudan and was part of the force that defeated the Mahdi’s army at the Battle of Ginnis in December 1885 .

He then became a military attaché to Henry Drummond Wolff's embassy in Turkey, and then returned to Egypt as an adjutant to Francis Grenfell , the new Sirdar. In 1886 he was promoted to captain on February 27 and then to major on March 1 . In the next few years he served in England, where he temporarily had to look after his alcoholic father. In 1889 he attended Staff College in Camberley , after which he served as a major in Malta from 1893 to 1896. In 1891 he had his distant cousin Louisa Beresford, Marchioness of Waterford , a daughter of Charles Stuart, 1st Baron Stuart de Rothesay , Highcliffe Castle in Dorset inherited.

With the resumption of fighting in Sudan, he was transferred to Egypt in 1896 and became deputy commander of a gunboat flotilla under Colin Richard Keppel . During the Battle of Omdurman , he again led an Arab trooper unit that supported the British. For his service he was made Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1896 , after the Battle of Omdurman he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order . In 1899 he volunteered for service in the 2nd Boer War in South Africa and served as an adjutant to Commander-in-Chief Redvers Buller . In Natal he set up a voluntary patient carrier corps with which he took part in the Battle of Colenso . In February 1900 he fought with a rifle unit during the Siege of Ladysmith and the Battle of Pieters Hill . He then led a battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, which was used against guerrilla fighters in the Orange Free State . Before the end of the war, he returned to England in November 1901 as a Brevet Lieutenant Colonel.

William II (front row, center) in front of Highcliffe Castle, to his left Stuart-Wortley

Use in Europe and involvement in the Daily Telegraph affair

After returning to England, he served as a military attaché in Paris from late 1901 to June 1904. After a visit from King Edward VII in May 1904 after completing the Entente cordiale , Stuart-Wortley became a member of the Royal Victorian Order . On his return to England he was promoted to colonel and was made an officer of the Legion of Honor in 1906 , but received only half pay until 1908 . Because of his tight financial situation, he had to rent out Highcliffe Castle. His guests included the Spanish King Alfonso XIII. , the opera singer Nellie Melba and, in November 1907, the German Kaiser Wilhelm II. After a one-week state visit to Great Britain, the Kaiser wanted to take a three-week vacation on the southern coast of England to relax. Stuart-Wortley was impressed by the Emperor's fondness for the English way of life. As a thank you for his hospitality, the Emperor Stuart-Wortley invited to the imperial maneuver in Alsace in September 1908 and awarded him the Order of the Red Eagle, 2nd class. During the imperial maneuver, Wilhelm II spoke again with Stuart-Wortley. Presumably to improve the strained German-British relations due to the naval rivalry, Stuart-Wortley, in consultation with Baron Burnham , editor of the Daily Telegraph , reported to journalist JB Firth on the content of the talks with the Kaiser during his vacation in Highcliffe. This resulted in a fictional interview with the German Kaiser, which Stuart-Wortley sent to the German government on September 23, 1908 with a request for approval. The manuscript was only superficially checked by the Reich government and then published in the Daily Telegraph on October 28, 1908, which led to the Daily Telegraph affair .

Stuart-Wortley became Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1907 and, in April 1908, Commander of the 10th Infantry Brigade stationed at Shorncliffe , Kent . From 1912 he received only half pay again, but was promoted to major general in 1913.

Use during the First World War

With the beginning of the First World War, Stuart-Wortley became commander of the 46th (North Midland) Division of the Territorial Forces , which was completely transferred to the Western Front in France as the first division of the Territorial Forces . King George V asked Stuart-Wortley for regular reports on their successes. Stuart-Wortley, with the approval of Generals John French and Horace Smith-Dorrien, sent letters to the king regularly until his division was to attack the Hohenzollern Redoubt and Fosse 8 during the Battle of Loos in October 1915 . Despite Stuart-Wortley's concerns, Douglas Haig , the commander of the 1st British Army , stuck to the attack plans, which ultimately led to heavy losses of over 4,000 men in the 46th Division. Although Stuart-Wortley did not mention the heavy losses in his letters and shortly afterwards completely stopped his reports to the King, he was henceforth branded in Haig's eyes. In 1916 the division was subordinated to the 3rd Army and suffered heavy losses again at the beginning of the summer battle on July 1st in the unsuccessful attack on Gommecourt . On July 4th, 3rd Army Commander Allenby set up a committee of inquiry into Stuart-Wortley's leadership. The committee found his troops lacking aggressiveness, and he was the only general to be held responsible for the heavy losses during the Summer Battle and removed from his command. He was transferred to Ireland as commander of the 65th Division until he resigned in March 1918. After that he received no further command and took his leave in July 1919.

Highcliff Castle, Stuart-Wortley's Castle in southern England. Photography around 1900

retirement

As a retired man, Stuart-Wortley still played a lot of sports and traveled a lot. He tried to justify himself through letters to Winston Churchill , David Lloyd George and others. His former subordinates portrayed him as a weak division commander, but most of all he served his life as a scapegoat for the high losses during the Summer Battle for which Haig, Allenby and other commanders were responsible. His career in the British Army , which was so splendid during the adventurous colonial wars of the late 19th century and in which he was celebrated as a hero, ended disappointingly in the reformed British Army of World War I.

Family and offspring

Stuart-Wortley married Violet Hunter Guthrie on February 5, 1891 , a daughter of Alexander Guthrie and Elinor Stirling . He had three children with her:

1. Nicholas Rothesay Stuart-Wortley (1892–1926) ∞ Marie Louise Edwardes
2. Louise Violet Beatrice Montagu-Stuart-Wortley (1893–1970) ∞ Percy Lytham Loraine, 12th Baronet
3. Elizabeth Valetta Montagu-Stuart-Wortley (1896–1978)
   1. ∞ Alastair Grant
   2. ∞ Montagu Henry Towneley-Bertie, 8th Earl of Abingdon , later also 13th Earl of Lindsey

literature

• Alan MacDonald, "A lack of offensive spirit?": The 46th (North Midland) Division at Gommecourt 1st July 1916. Iona, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9558119-0-6 .

Web links

• AJA Morris: Wortley, Edward James Montagu-Stuart- (1857-1934). 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 2004
• the Hon. Edward James Montagu-Stuart-Wortley 1857-1933. on: gommecourt.co.uk

Individual evidence

1. ^ Charles Roger Dod, Robert Phipps Dod: Dod's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage of Great Britain and Ireland, Including All the Titled Classes. 1924, p. 176.
2. ^ Alan MacDonald: "A lack of offensive spirit?": The 46th (North Midland) Division at Gommecourt 1st July 1916. Iona, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9558119-0-6 , p. 25.
3. ↑ Peter Winzen: The Empire on the Abyss: the Daily Telegraph Affair and the Hale Interview of 1908; Presentation and documentation. Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-08024-4 , p. 102.
4. ^ Alan MacDonald: "A lack of offensive spirit?": The 46th (North Midland) Division at Gommecourt 1st July 1916. Iona, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9558119-0-6 , pp. Viii
5. ^ Oxford DNB: Wortley, Edward James Montagu-Stuart. Retrieved September 21, 2014 .