William Pulteney (General)

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Portrait of Pulteney by Philip Alexius de László

Sir William Pulteney Pulteney GCVO , KCB , KCMG , DSO (born May 18, 1861 in Ashley , Northamptonshire , † November 14, 1941 in Stansted Mountfitchet , Essex ) was a British officer, last lieutenant-general in World War I , and gentleman usher of the Black Rod from 1920 to 1941.

Life

Pulteney was educated at Eton College and entered the Oxford Militia in 1878 before joining the Scots Guards in 1881 . In 1882 he served in the Egyptian expedition, where he took part in the battle of Tel-el-Kebir , among other things . In 1892 he was promoted to captain . From 1895 to 1897 he served in the Protectorate of Uganda and took part in two military expeditions, for the latter of which he received the Distinguished Service Order and was Mentioned in Despatches . As a major , he became Vice Consul in the Congo Free State in 1897 , which he remained until 1899. From 1899 to 1902 Pulteney served in the Second Boer War , in which he commanded the 1st Battalion of the Scots Guards and was again Mentioned in Despatches. He achieved the brevet rank of colonel in this campaign .

In 1904 Pulteney became regimental commander of the Scots Guards and was inducted into the Order of the Bath as a companion the following year . From 1908 to 1909 he commanded the 16th Infantry Brigade in the Irish Command and was promoted to major-general . In July 1910 he became Commander of the 6th Division of the Irish Command and held this post until 1914.

When the First World War broke out in August 1914, he received command of the III. Corps of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) with which he fought in the 1914 battles on the Marne and Aisne , the Race to the Sea and the First Battle of Flanders . In 1915 he took part in the Second Battle of Flanders . In 1916 the corps was used in the Battle of the Somme and in 1917 in the Third Battle of Flanders . Unlike other higher commanders of the original BEF, he never got beyond a corps command, although he was friends with the king. It also plays a role that he never attended military school or even staff college . He has been described by a subordinate, Major-General Charles Bonham Carter , as "the most completely ignorant general I served under during the war." His last command during the war was that of XXIII. Corps, which he kept until April 1919. In 1919 he was a member of the British military mission in the Japanese Empire and took his leave in 1920.

He then served as the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod until 1941 , the year he died at the age of 80.

literature

  • Francis Dodd: Generals of the British Army. Portraits in Color with Introductory and Biographical Notes. 1917 [?].

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Simon Robbins: British Generalship during the Great War: The Military Career of Sir Henry Horne (1861-1929). Ashgate Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-0-7546-6127-6 , p. 16.
  2. ^ John Bourne: Who's Who in World War I , Routledge, 2002, ISBN 1134767528 , p. 239.
  3. ↑ Quoted from THE Travers: How the War Was Won: Command and Technology in the British Army on the Western Front: 1917–1918. Routledge, 2002, ISBN 1-134-90269-7 , p. 6.
personal data
SURNAME Pulteney, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pulteney, Sir William Pulteney (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British general and gentleman usher of the Black Rod
DATE OF BIRTH May 18, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Ashley , Northamptonshire
DATE OF DEATH November 14, 1941
Place of death Stansted Mountfitchet , Essex