William Fenwick Williams

William Fenwick Williams, 1853

Sir William Fenwick Williams, 1st Baronet GCB (born December 4, 1800 in Annapolis , Nova Scotia , † July 26, 1883 in London ) was a British general and governor of Gibraltar . He commanded the defense of the Kars fortress during the Crimean War .

Life

William Fenwick Williams was the second son of General Thomas Williams, who was stationed in Canada . It entered the British Army's Royal Artillery as a Second Lieutenant in 1825 . In 1841 he was sent to Constantinople as a British advisor to the Ottoman Empire . In 1847 he was employed as an observer during the conflict with Persia in the Erzurum area.

During the Crimean War, Colonel Williams was commanded to Anatolia as a liaison officer to the British Commander-in-Chief Lord Raglan , where he accompanied the rank of Ferik ( Lieutenant General ) and Pasha in the Ottoman Army . In September 1854 he reached the most important city of the Ottomans in this area, the Kars fortress . In the months that followed, Williams prepared to defend the fortress in the event of a Russian attack. The Russian general Muravyov reached the fortress in 1855 with 40,000 men . The 30,000 defenders under Williams were able to repel the attack by the Russians. Therefore Muravyov besieged the fortress from the beginning of June to the end of November 1855. On November 29th, Williams finally had to capitulate due to the poor supply situation and Muravyov was able to take Kars. For the honorable defense of Kars, Williams was given the hereditary title of Baronet , of Kars, and he was made Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath .

In 1855, Williams was named major general and took command of the Woolwich garrison . Between October 12, 1860 and January 22, 1861, he was in the absence of the Governor General Sir. Edmund Head Assigned Administrator for Canada. From 1859 to 1865 he commanded the British troops in Canada as a general and was subsequently governor of Nova Scotia . In 1868 he was promoted to lieutenant general and chief of the Royal Artillery. 1870–1876 William Fenwick Williams was Governor of Gibraltar. In 1881 he became constable of the Tower of London .

literature

• Trevor Royle: Crimea, The great crimean was 1854-1856 . Abacus Books, London 2003, ISBN 0-349-11284-3
• Williams, Sir William Fenwick . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 28 : Vetch - Zymotic Diseases . London 1911, p. 683 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
• General William Fenwick Williams of Kars . In: The Gazebo . Issue 32, 1856, pp. 433-434 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

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predecessor	Office	successor
Richard Airey, 1st Baron Airey	Governor of Gibraltar 1870–1876	Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala