Wolfe Murray becomes Chief of the Imperial General Staff

At the end of October 1914 General Sir James Wolfe Murray became Chief of the Imperial General Staff, replacing General Charles Douglas, who had died on 25 October. The British chronology of the war gives the date as 26 October. Other lists give the start of his tenure as 25 October, the day of his predecessor’s death, or as 30 October.

Wolfe Murray was born in 1853. He was an artillery officer and spent most of his career in staff and administrative work. He fought in the Second Boer War, in 1904–1907 was responsible for armament on the Army Council as Master-General of the Ordnance, and then commanded a division in India. In May 1914 he took command of the British forces in South Africa.

In his new post he had very little say. The Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, ran the army’s affairs personally and did not share power with the staff. Wolfe Murray, a courteous and meticulous man but timid in front of Kitchener and the politicians, did not try to change this. At meetings of the War Council he usually kept silent, leaving matters of strategy to the minister. According to accounts, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, gave him the mocking nickname “Sheep”.

The lack of an independent general staff was one of the weaknesses of British command in the first year of the war, as became apparent in the planning of the Dardanelles operation. On 26 September 1915 Wolfe Murray was replaced by General Sir Archibald Murray, and in December 1915 General William Robertson became chief of staff, securing far greater powers for the post. Wolfe Murray later took over Eastern Command in England. He died in 1919.