List of generals of the British Empire who died during the First World War

This list includes all officers of general rank who are listed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) as having died while serving with British Empire forces during the First World War. During this period general officers were those who held the rank of field marshal, general, lieutenant-general, major-general, or brigadier-general and generally commanded units of brigade size or larger.

A popular view arose in post-war years that British general officers were detached from the fighting in châteaux far behind the front line. This view has been criticised as a misconception by some military historians. In 1995, British military historians Frank Davis and Graham Maddocks compiled, in the book Bloody Red Tabs, a list of 78 general officers that they considered to have been killed as a result of active service. This list provided below includes officers who died from all causes and so is broader than Davis and Maddocks' list. It includes 123 officers who died between the British entry into the war, 4 August 1914, and the armistice of 11 November 1918. Listed separately are 34 who died between the armistice and 31 August 1921 which was defined by an act of British parliament as the formal end of the war.

Background

General officer ranks in the armies of the British Empire of the First World War were, in descending order of seniority: field marshal, general, lieutenant-general, major-general, and brigadier-general. Field marshal was usually an honorary appointment, with the most senior active duty officers being generals. Generals typically commanded field armies, lieutenant-generals corps, major-generals divisions, and brigadier-generals brigades. Other generals served in staff roles.

At the start of the war the British Army contained 9 field marshals, 19 generals, 28 lieutenant-generals, 114 major-generals, and 180 brigadier-generals. At the end of the war in 1918, the expansion of the army had seen this rise to 8 field marshals, 29 generals, 47 lieutenant-generals, 219 major-generals, and 600 brigadier-generals.

The armies of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, all of which were dominions of the British Empire, were generally much smaller than the British Army in 1914. The Indian Army, based in and recruiting from British-administered India, was comparable in size. All of the British Empire armies expanded greatly during the war and by 1918 some 80 British Empire divisions were in the field.

At the start of the war most of the senior commanders in the dominion armies were British officers provided on loan. The South African army was an exception, containing only five British officers in 1914 and fought throughout the war largely under command of South African officers and generals. During the war the other dominion armies introduced policies that sought to increase the number of senior commanders drawn from dominion personnel as they became more experienced, although British officers continued to serve in their armies until the end of the war. During the war senior officers of the Indian Army with full right to command were exclusively white, Indian officers were not permitted to command white troops until after the war.

Châteaux generals view

There has long been a view that British generals of the First World War were isolated from their men, issuing orders from châteaux far behind the front line with little thought for the reality in the trenches. This view has been criticised by Davis and Maddocks among others. The role of the general officers was not to oversee troops directly but to maintain a headquarters from which they could receive information and direct the battle. In the early months of the war casualties among British general officers were high; indeed in a period of nine days in late September and early October 1914 eight generals were killed, wounded, or captured, a considerable loss of leadership and command experience. On 3 October 1915 following the loss of three division commanders killed in action in a week, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff Lieutenant-General William Robertson ordered corps and division commanders of the armies on the Western Front not to expose themselves to danger during battle.

One of the most prominent persons to propagate the "chateau generals" view, was wartime Prime Minister David Lloyd George in his 1933 War Memoirs. The view was advocated by Alan Clark's 1961 book The Donkeys and the 1964 BBC documentary series The Great War.

Since the 1980s military historians including Shelford Bidwell, Tim Travers, John Terraine, and Williamson Murray have stated that rather than being châteaux generals who hid in the rear, the British Army leadership of the war were creative innovators, keen to overcome the stalemate of trench warfare.

Causes of death

Historians Frank Davis and Graham Maddocks published, in 1995, Bloody Red Tabs, that attempted to list all British Empire generals who had been killed in action, died of wounds, or died as a result of active service during the war. They found 78 general officers in these categories. Although Maddocks and Davis could not find a conclusive cause of death in some cases they assessed that 34 of the deaths were caused by artillery fire, 22 by small arms fire, three from drowning, four from accidents, and one from cholera. None of the generals were killed in their châteaux (though two were wounded non-fatally there). The proportion of deaths by shell fire is lower than that for British Army casualties as a whole and a disproportionate number of generals were killed by small arms fire, indicating a presence in the front lines. A further 146 generals were either wounded or taken prisoner during the war.

Comparisons British historians of economics Roy Bailey and Timothy Hatton and Canadian health historian Kris Inwood in a 2003 study found that of all those that served in the British Army during the war around 11% died. They found that the average rate of death for officers was higher than for those serving in other positions throughout the war: officers were 1.85 times more likely to die than other ranks. Taking those that joined the British Army in 1914, 74% of officers and 85% of other ranks survived to the end of the conflict in 1918.

French Marshal Ferdinand Foch listed 41 of his generals killed in action during the war, whose names were engraved on a memorial at Les Invalides. A wider listing of all those mort pour la France by Gerard Gehin for Le Souvenir français gives 81 generals. French historian Laurent Guillemot working from a definition similar to Foch gives numbers of 76 British, 42 French, 2 Belgian, 2 Italian, and 2 Romanian generals killed on the Allied side and around 70 German, 40 Austro-Hungarian, and 1 Ottoman on the Central Powers side. The American Battle Monuments Commission records three generals (all brigadier generals) in its listing of First World War deaths; one died during the war in 1918, one in 1919 and one in 1923.

Inclusion criteria The Commonwealth War Graves Commission was formed during the war as the Imperial War Graves Commission to maintain records and graves of all known war dead from the Imperial armed forces. Their records list all those known to have "died while serving in the Commonwealth forces during the war" while on "active service" from any cause. They also list those who died after discharge from the armed forces where that death was a result of wounds, accident or disease contracted on active service or from a disease that was aggravated by active service. Their definition of "active service" includes all officers in full-time service in the armed forces and those in part-time service if they were on active duty at the time of their death. Their records include other general officers not listed by Davis and Maddocks.

+Table key† Indicates the officer is listed in Bloody Red Tabs

Pre-armistice deaths Field Marshals Image NameBranchCommandDate of deathPlace of deathCause of deathRef.British ArmyColonel-in-Chief of Overseas and Indian Forces in the United Kingdom14 November 1914Saint-Omer, FranceIllnessIndian Army5 April 1916Bracknell, United KingdomIllness†British ArmySecretary of State for War5 June 1916Off Mainland, Orkney, Atlantic OceanKilled in action

Generals Image NameBranchCommandDate of deathPlace of deathCause of deathRef.British ArmyChief of the Imperial General Staff25 October 1914London, United KingdomIllness

Lieutenant-Generals Image NameBranchCommandDate of deathPlace of deathCause of deathRef.British ArmyII Corps17 August 1914Near Amiens, FranceIllnessBritish ArmyThird Army27 October 1914London, United KingdomIllness†British Army1st Division10 April 1915London, United KingdomWounds received†British Army57th (2nd West Lancashire) Division21 June 1917Estaires, FranceWounds receivedIndian ArmyIndian Medical Service21 October 1917Simla, IndiaIllness†British ArmyMesopotamian Expeditionary Force18 November 1917Baghdad, MesopotamiaIllness

Major-Generals Image NameBranchCommandDate of deathPlace of deathCause of deathRef.†British Army3rd Division14 October 1914La Couture, FranceKilled in actionBritish Army13th (Western) Division5 November 1914Whimple, United KingdomSuicideBritish ArmySouth Midland Division29 July 1915London, United KingdomIllness†Australian Army1st Division18 May 1915HMHS Gascon, Mediterranean SeaWounds receivedIndian ArmyIndian Army Remount Department26 August 1915Colombo, CeylonIllnessIndian ArmyBengal Staff Corps10 September 1915St Leonards-on-Sea, United Kingdom†British Army7th Division27 September 1915Loos, FranceWounds received†British Army9th (Scottish) Division27 September 1915Auchy-les-Mines, FranceKilled in action†British Army12th (Eastern) Division2 October 1915Mazingarbe, FranceKilled in action†Canadian Expeditionary Force3rd Canadian Division3 June 1916Mount Sorrel, BelgiumKilled in action†British Army34th Division22 July 1916Mametz, FranceKilled in actionReserve of OfficersBritish Remount Commission in North America20 August 1916Montreal, CanadaIllnessBritish ArmyAssistant Quartermaster General, Dublin District8 September 1916Hove, United Kingdom†Australian Army4th Division2 July 1917Messines, BelgiumWounds received†British Army39th Division29 March 1918Ignaucourt, FranceKilled in actionBritish ArmyIn hospital, former commander 20th (Light) Division9 May 1918London, United KingdomSuicideBritish ArmyRetired due to ill health contracted on service, formerly Deputy Director Medical Services of Southern Command23 August 1918Lochboisdale, United KingdomIllness†Canadian Expeditionary Force4th Division14 October 1918Haspres, FranceKilled in action

Brigadier-Generals