Evelyn Henry Wood

Evelyn Wood from Celebrities of the Army , London 1900

Sir Evelyn Henry Wood VC , GCB , GCMG (born February 9, 1838 in Cressing , Braintree (Essex) , † December 2, 1919 in Harlow (Essex) ) British Field Marshal ; Sirdar ( Commander in Chief ) of the Egyptian Army and later Quartermaster General and Adjutant General of the British Army .

In his time Evelyn Wood was - alongside Roberts , Kitchener , Gordon and Wolseley - one of the most important officers in the British Army and significantly involved in the military conquest of the Victorian colonial empire . He distinguished himself as a 16-year-old midshipman in the Crimea, earned the Victoria Cross when the uprising in India was put down , fought on the Gold Coast , in South Africa , Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudanbefore eventually rising to the top of the British armed forces. He was appointed field marshal in 1903 and wrote several military-historical and autobiographical works, some of which are still published today.

Life

Origin and youth

Evelyn Wood in 1852

Evelyn Wood was born on February 9, 1838, in the Cressing Rectory, where his father, Reverend Sir John Page Wood (1796–1866), 2nd Baronet and former chaplain and private secretary to Queen Caroline , was vicar . Evelyn's mother was Emma Caroline Michell, daughter of the naval officer Sampson Michell (1755-1809), who in 1783 was 'loaned' to Portugal and in 1807 became commander in chief of the Portuguese navy. Her brother was Sir Frederick Thomas Michell , KCB (1788–1873), Admiral in the British Navy.

The Woods were not wealthy, but not without influence because of their family ties. The paternal grandfather, Sir Matthew Wood (1768-1843), was High Sheriff from 1809 to 1810 and Lord Mayor of London in 1816 and 1817 . He had represented the City of London in the House of Commons nine times in a row and had been made a baronet by Queen Victoria in 1837 . His son, Evelyn's uncle Sir William Page Wood , later Lord Hatherley , became Lord Chancellor under Gladstone in 1868 . Another uncle, Western Wood, also sat in Parliament for the City of London .

The Woods had thirteen children, six of whom died in infancy. Evelyn was the youngest of the sons and the second youngest child. His younger sister, born in 1845, was Katharine O'Shea , lover and wife of Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell . After upbringing and training at Marlborough College in Wiltshire , a boarding school founded in 1843 specifically for the sons of Anglican clergy , Evelyn entered the Royal Navy on April 15, 1852 as a 13-year-old midshipman .

War in the Crimea

Wood, as the cornet of the 13th Light Dragoons , 1855

In 1854 the young midshipman Evelyn Wood belonged to the crew of the liner HMS Queen and participated as a member of the naval brigade ( Naval Brigade ) in the Crimean War against Russia, in which the United Kingdom in March d. J. had entered on the side of the Ottoman Empire .

The so-called naval or sailor brigade was put together in September 1854 from crew members of the British warships lying off the Crimean peninsula , because the need arose to bring ship guns ashore and use them as siege artillery from there . The sailors and marines provided the gun operators.

Wood took part in the Battle of Inkerman and the Siege of Sevastopol . On June 18, 1855, the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo , he accompanied the Deputy Commander of the Naval Brigade, Captain William Peel R.N. , who led a group with scaling ladders, in the unsuccessful assault on the Redan (a bastion of the fortifications of Sebastopol) and was seriously wounded. A piece of shrapnel struck him below the left elbow joint and splintered the bone. The army surgeon initially wanted to amputate the forearm, but Wood refused and was sent back to England to recover. Since a ground use was more to his taste than life on board, joined Wood on September 7, 1855 the 13th light dragoons ( 13th Light Dragoons ). He did not get his position as a cornet - as was customary at the time - through purchase , but because of his services in the Crimea. A letter of recommendation from his former commander in chief, Lord Raglan , had paved the way for him. When he reported to the 13th Light Dragoons garrison in Dorchester, his arm was still in a sling.

After his wound had healed - he had removed several fragments of bone with his own hand - Wood was sent back to Crimea at the end of 1855, now as a cavalryman. He arrived in Scutari (now a part of Istanbul ) on January 22nd, 1856 , contracted typhus and was in the hospital within a few weeks. His condition was so bad that he was expected to die soon and his parents were notified. His mother, who immediately went to Scutari, took her son to England. His condition improved during the journey home.

Midshipman Wood was mentioned twice in the war report during the Crimean War and received several awards. At the age of seventeen he received the Turkish and British Crimean Medals ( Crimean War Medal ) with two clasps ("Inkerman" and "Sebastopol"), became a Knight of the Legion of Honor and a member of the 5th class of the Turkish Medjidie Order . For the Victoria Cross, created in 1856 , the highest British honor for bravery, he was proposed as the third of seven members of the naval brigade, but had not received it. The exact reason for this is not known. Wood himself suspected that the Admiralty did not want to bestow such an important medal on any sailor who had left the Navy. Even the personal intervention of the Commander in Chief of the British Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Lord Lyons , could not change that decision.

Wood published his memories of the Crimean War, based on his daily diary, in his book The Crimea (London, 1896) 40 years later .

In the Indian uprising

Victoria Cross

On February 1, 1856 Wood was promoted to lieutenant of the 13th Dragoons (his uncle William had bought him the job) and switched to the 17th Light Dragoons (Lancers) on October 9, 1857 , because they were about to embark for India . The Sepoy uprising broke out there in May and quickly expanded into a popular uprising. The regiment arrived in India in December and was operational by May 1858, when the uprising was almost crushed.

Even after the British Parliament passed the Government of India Act in August 1858 in anticipation of an imminent victory , groups of rioters continued the fight. Lieutenant Wood led a night attack by 15 Uhlans and a guide against 80 insurgents in the jungle of Sironji. He was able to surprise his enemies, kill some of them, steal their weapons and free three prisoners. For this attack on October 19, 1858, Wood was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award in Great Britain for outstanding bravery in the face of the enemy. After the Sepoy Rebellion, Wood switched to infantry and in 1861 became a captain in the 73rd Highlanders (Black Watch) . From 1863 to 1864 he attended Staff College Camberley . In 1867 he married the sister of the 4th Viscount Southwell , Mary Pauline Southwell.

Africa - wars against Ashanti, Zulu and Boers

Wood as Brevet Colonel in the Zulu War

From 1873 to 1874 Wood participated in the Gold Coast at war Ashanti under Garnet Joseph Wolseley part. Wood was one of the 35 officers Wolseley had selected for this mission and who later formed the so-called Ashanti ring (the group gained significant influence on the Victorian British Army through mutual support and assumed the leading positions by the end of the century). Wood formed Wood's Regiment in Africa , an indigenous organization.

From 1879 to 1882 there were several assignments in South Africa . In 1879 he fought in the Zulu War . At the beginning of the campaign, he led the left of the three British detachments that advanced from Utrecht towards Khambula. While the middle and right departments of the British were pushed back after the disaster at Isandhlwana , Wood's department stood alone in Zululand. Wood defeated a Zulu force of 25,000 men with 2,000 men in the Battle of Kambula on March 29. In the second invasion and the decisive battle at Ulundi , he took part as commander of the flying corps . For his service in the Zulu War he was awarded the Bath Order and made Brigadier General.

In 1881 he was promoted to major general and served in the First Boer War (1881). There he became governor and commander in chief of the British troops in Natal after the death of General Colley . For this he was awarded the Order of St. Michael and St. George .

Sirdar of the Egyptian Army

In 1882 he commanded a brigade in the Anglo-Egyptian War , again under Wolseley .

In the course of the occupation of Egypt by Wolseley in 1882, the Egyptian army was crushed in the battle of Tel-el-Kebir . It was then rebuilt under the command of a British commander in chief , the Sirdar . From 1883 to 1885 Wood was the first British sirdar in the Egyptian army. During this time he began to build the Egyptian army, which was later victorious under Lord Kitchener in the suppression of the Mahdi uprising in Sudan . Wood received an annual salary of £ 5,000  .

On January 26, 1884, Wood, Gordon Pascha , Evelyn Baring and Giegler Pascha met the former slave trader Al-Zubayr Rahma to urge him to cooperate against the Mahdi uprising and to offer him the position of governor. The establishment of Zubayr was rejected by the government in London, which did not want to see a former slave trader at the head of Sudan.

Woods Egyptian army played at Wolseley's Nile Expedition in Sudan to rescue Gordon Pasha and for relief of Khartoum by the Mahdi's no active role. It merely secured their withdrawal. After the British troops left, however, she took on the main role in defending against the Mahdists.

Use in the home

Woods grave in Aldershot

In 1886 he returned to Great Britain where he was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1890 and made the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath . First he served as Quartermaster General in the War Department and from 1889 to 1893 he commanded the Aldershot garrison . From 1895 on, Wood was commanding general of the II Army Corps , which was renamed the Southern Command in 1903 . In the great maneuver of 1903, Wood commanded one of the two sides while John French , who later became Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in World War I , led the other side. On April 8, 1903, he was appointed Field Marshal and in 1907 he was made Colonel of Honor of the Royal Horse Guards . From 1911 to 1919 he was constable of the Tower of London .

Off-duty

Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood died on December 2, 1919 in Harlow , Essex and was taken to Aldershot Military Cemetery with his wife, The Hon. Mary Paulina Southwell, who died in 1891 and with whom he had six children - three sons and three daughters buried in Hampshire . His Victoria Cross is now in the National Army Museum in Chelsea , London .

Works

• Soldier in Zululand War - London: Vanity Fair , 1879
• The Crimea in 1854 and 1894 - London: Chapman & Hall, 1896 <reprint Cranbury, NJ: Scholar's Bookshelf, 2005 - ISBN 0945726511 >
• The Cavalry in the Waterloo Campaign - London: Sampson Low, 1895 <reprint Macmillan Education Australia Pty Ltd., 1998, ISBN 0000051217 and Worley Publications 1999, ISBN 1869804511 >
• Achievements of Cavalry - London: George Bell & Sons, 1897
• From Midshipman to Field Marshal - 2 volumes, London: Methuen & Co., 1906 and more often; <reprint Naval & Military Press, Uckfield, East Sussex, UK, 2001; ISBN 1843421593 > (Autobiography, German: From Naval Cadet to Field Marshal , Berlin: Sigismund, 1910)
• The Revolt in Hindustan 1857-59 . - London: Methuen & Co., 1908
• British Battles on Land and Sea: With a History of the Fighting Services and Notes By the Editor - London: Cassell & Co., 1915
• Our Fighting Services and How They Made the Empire - London: Cassell & Co., 1916
• Winnowed Memories - London: Cassell & Co., 1917

literature

Biographical

• Charles Williams: The Life of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Evelyn Wood VC - London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1892
• Cdr. Charles N. Robinson, RN, (Ed.): Celebrities of the Army. - London: George Newnes Limited, [um 1900/02] (72 colored portraits and short biographies of leading generals in the army, published every fortnight as 6 penny individual portraits)
• Encyclopaedia Britannica , 11th Edition, 1910-1911
• The Register of the Victoria Cross. - Cheltenham: This England Books, 1981 and more - ISBN 0906324076
• Byron Farwell: Eminent Victorian Soldiers: Seekers of Glory. - WW Norton & Company, 1988 - ISBN 0393305333
• David Harvey: Monuments To Courage: Victoria Cross Headstones & Memorials. - Uckfield, Sussex: Naval & Military Press, 1999 - ISBN 1843423561
• Stephen Manning: Evelyn Wood VC. Pillar of Empire. - Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword, 2007 - ISBN 1844156540

General information about the colonial wars

• Donald Featherstone: Victorian Colonial Warfare. Africa. From the Campaigns against the Kaffirs to the South African War . Cassell, London 1992, ISBN 0-304-34174-6 .
• Ian Knight: Zulu War . Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2004, ISBN 1-84176-858-8 .
• Leigh Maxwell: The Ashanti Ring. Sir Garnet Wolseley's Campaigns 1870-1882 . Leo Cooper et al., London 1985, ISBN 0-436-27447-7 .

Web links

Commons : Evelyn Wood  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

predecessor	Office	successor
-	Sirdar of the Egyptian Army 1883 - 1885	Francis Grenfell