General Sir Charles Douglas dies
- Category:
- Military
- Date:
- 25 October 1914
- Author:
- Łukasz Skowroń
On 25 October 1914 General Sir Charles Douglas, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, that is, the most senior staff officer of the British Army, died at his home in Eaton Square in London. He was 64. He had been ill for some time, and his death was attributed to exhaustion and overwork in the first months of the war.
Douglas was born in 1850 in the Cape Colony. He served in a Highland regiment and fought in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, including the famous march from Kabul to Kandahar in 1880, as well as in the Sudan and in both Boer Wars. From 1904 to 1909 he was Adjutant-General, and from 1912 Inspector-General of the Home Forces.
He took up the post of Chief of the Imperial General Staff on 6 April 1914. He succeeded Field Marshal John French, who had resigned after the so-called Curragh incident, when a number of officers stationed in Ireland declared that they would not obey an order to use force against the Protestants of Ulster. Douglas was regarded as a conscientious and hard-working officer, but not an outstanding strategist.
After the outbreak of war his position proved weak. Many of the ablest officers of the General Staff had gone to France with the British Expeditionary Force, and the new Secretary of State for War, Lord Herbert Kitchener, took the most important decisions himself and treated the staff mainly as the executor of his instructions. Douglas, overwhelmed by his duties, worked beyond his strength and had little influence on the conduct of the war. He was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in London. He was succeeded by General Sir James Wolfe Murray.
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