Edwin Alderson

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Edwin Alderson about 1910

Sir Edwin Alfred Hervey Alderson KCB (born April 8, 1859 in Capel St. Mary , Suffolk ; † December 14, 1927 in Lowestoft ) was a British officer, most recently Lieutenant-General , who served as the first commandant of the Canadian Corps during World War I , until he, after being criticized for high losses among the troops entrusted to him, was replaced by Julian Byng in 1916 and deported to the post of inspector general.

Life

Alderson was the son of a career officer in the British Army . He attended Ipswich School and joined a militia artillery unit in 1876 at the age of 17. Two years later he switched to his father's regiment, the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment . With this he served in Nova Scotia , Gibraltar and finally in the colony of Natal in southern Africa. He became the custodian here Laing's Nek the Mounted Infantry been detached. He served in the First Boer War of 1881, in the war against Egypt in 1882 and later in Sudan , where he took part in the Mounted Camel Regiment in the Gordon Relief Expedition of 1884/85.

In 1886, Alderson was promoted to captain and served as an adjutant at Mounted Infantry Depot in Aldershot , Hampshire. In the same year he married the daughter of a clergyman. In 1890 he returned to his regular regiment, which he left in 1894 to attend Staff College . After the two-year course promoted to major , he went again to southern Africa, where he was involved in a leading position in the suppression of the Matabel revolt in 1896 . Back in England and as commander of the mounted infantry of the Aldershot garrison , he wrote his first book, With the Mounted Infantry and the Mashonaland Field Force, in 1896 , which described the war and the tactical use of mounted infantry. This was followed in 1898 by The Counter-attack and in 1900 Pink and Scarlet or Hunting as a School for Soldiering on the value of hunting for military training.

In the spring of 1900, after the Second Boer War broke out, Alderson returned to South Africa, where he initially served under his friend Edward Hutton , who commanded a mounted brigade of Empire troops here. Alderson later commanded various brigades himself and was involved in the relief of Kimberley and the battles of Paardeberg and Driefontein . His troops also took part in the occupation of the capitals of the Boer republics ( Bloemfontein and Pretoria ). Alderson, who also had Canadian units under his command, was supposed to take over the leadership of the Canadian militia in 1901 at the will of Lord Minto , the governor general, but this did not materialize. Instead, he returned to Aldershot, where he became Inspector General of Mounted Infantry. He had received the CB for his services in the Boer War , was Brevet - Colonel and Aide-de-camp of Queen Victoria .

Starting in 1903, Alderson commanded the 2nd Infantry Brigade in Aldershot for four years , was appointed major-general in 1906 and published his Lessons from 100 Notes Made in Peace and War in 1908 . Until 1912 the command of the 6th (Poona) Division of the British Indian Army joined. Subsequently set to half pay , he devoted himself to his hobbies, hunting and sailing, until he found new uses after the outbreak of the World War in 1914.

He was given command of the 1st Mounted Division formed in early August 1914 , which did not transfer to the continent but stayed in East Anglia . Soon, in September 1914, he was given a new assignment as commander of the Canadian Expeditionary Force . His previous experience with Canadian troops in South Africa played a role here. He quickly got into conflict with Sam Hughes , the Canadian Minister for Militia and Defense. On the one hand, these revolved around the inadequate equipment and training of the Canadian troops, and on the other hand, the selection of officers for the newly established units. The Ross rifle , for the introduction of which Hughes had personally campaigned, was rated by Alderson as unusable. The British army urgently needed fresh troops at this time, but this could not be implemented immediately due to the necessary training of the soldiers, mostly from militia units.

Alderson about 1915

After the formation of the Canadian Division , Alderson led it to France in February 1915. Relocated to the front near Ypres after a short period of acclimatization , the division bore the brunt of the defense on the first day of the Second Battle of Flanders (April 22, 1915), during which the neighboring French and Algerian units were directly exposed to the German chlorine gas attack and fled in large numbers. unless they were killed. For the Canadians this meant a doubling of their front width. In the following two days the division lost about half of its manpower, but was able to largely contain or slow down the German incursion. Alderson was subsequently held unfairly responsible for the heavy losses suffered by Hughes' agent in France, John Wallace Carson. In fact, these were due to a combination of difficult communication, idiosyncratic decisions by subordinate officers (including Hughes' son), and poor equipment - all of which were points for which Alderson was not to blame. The battle of Festubert in May 1915 did not improve the situation at all, again the division suffered heavy losses, this time over 2,200 men. However, Alderson still enjoyed the trust of Prime Minister Robert Borden and continued to lead the Canadian contingent on the Western Front, now known as the Canadian Corps , after the arrival of a second division .

At the beginning of 1916 the dispute with Hughes escalated into a deep crisis when Alderson recommended the takeover of the British Lee Enfield rifle and tried to support this with surveys of Canadian soldiers. Hughes was furious and personally attacked Alderson, aided by his seconds in France. After further high Canadian losses in the skirmishes around the crater near St. Eloi in April 1916, which were primarily due to the failure of high-ranking Canadian officers, Herbert Plumer , the Commander in Chief of the 2nd Army , intervened and demanded that the guilty be recalled. When they, with Hughes' backing, fended off such a move, Alderson, in turn, submitted a request for recall. The matter went up to the commander-in-chief of the British expeditionary army , Sir Douglas Haig, and relentlessly demonstrated the dependence of Great Britain on its Dominions , here Canada. Haig chose as calming and conciliatory a variant of the conflict settlement as possible by proposing Alderson as inspector general of the Canadian troops and recommending the highly competent Julian Byng as his successor. In return, he was able to push through the introduction of the Lee Enfield rifle in the CEF, just in time for the Battle of the Somme .

Alderson had not been informed in advance that his new post would be purely representative and when this happened he was offered a position as Inspector General of the British Army by the British, which he accepted. He remained in this post until 1920, when he retired from active service at the age of 61.

In retirement, Alderson acted as regiment chief of the Royal West Kent Regiment and was active in sports, including in the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club . He died in December 1927 after a heart attack. He was buried in Chesterton , Oxfordshire.

Evaluation and afterlife

Posthumously, Alderson's role and performance as commander of the CEF was rated rather positively, for example in his entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography , which emphasizes his conscientious fulfillment of duties and his popularity with the troops. He saw himself as the victim of political intrigues, especially through Sam Hughes, which had ruined his career. His almost two-year leadership of Canadian troops is still largely unknown in the Canadian population and is still outshone by the highly successful successors Julian Byng and Arthur Currie .

Alderson's surviving wife arranged for his records to become the property of the British state. They are now in the British Library and the National Archives of Zimbabwe .

A mountain peak in Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta was named after Alderson in 1915 .

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Alderson, Edwin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Alderson, Edwin Alfred Hervey (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Lieutenant General
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Capel St. Mary , Suffolk
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 1927
Place of death Lowestoft