William Robertson (British Army Officer)
Field Marshal Sir William Robert Robertson, 1st Baronet, (29 January 1860 – 12 February 1933) was a British Army officer who served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) – the professional head of the British Army – from 1916 to 1918 during the First World War. As CIGS he was committed to a Western Front strategy focusing on Germany and was against what he saw as peripheral operations on other fronts. While CIGS, Robertson had increasingly poor relations with David Lloyd George, Secretary of State for War and then Prime Minister, and threatened resignation at Lloyd George's attempt to subordinate the British forces to the French Commander-in-Chief, Robert Nivelle. In 1917 Robertson supported the continuation of the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres) at odds with Lloyd George's view that Britain's war effort ought to be focused on the other theatres until the arrival of sufficient US troops on the Western Front. Robertson is the only ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Welbourn
Welbourn is a village and civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 647. The village is situated on the A607 road, south from Lincoln and north-west from Sleaford, and between the villages of Leadenham and Wellingore. To the east lies the course of Ermine Street, now the Viking Way. The name 'Welbourn' derives from the Old English ''wella-burna'' meaning 'stream with a spring'. The village church is St Chad's, part of the Loveden Deanery of the Diocese of Lincoln. The village public house is the Joiners Arms. At Castle Hill to the north of the village are the earthwork remains of Welbourn Castle, a medieval ringwork. The site was purchased in 1998 by Welbourn Parish Council, with the help of a grant from the Heritage Memorial Fund, and is now maintained as a scheduled monument and community open space. In 1598 Francis Trigge, Rector of Welbourn, arranged for a library to be set up in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Knight Grand Cross Of The Royal Victorian Order
The Royal Victorian Order (french: Ordre royal de Victoria) is a dynastic order of knighthood established in 1896 by Queen Victoria. It recognises distinguished personal service to the British monarch, Canadian monarch, Australian monarch, or New Zealand monarch, members of the monarch's family, or to any viceroy or senior representative of the monarch. The present monarch, King Charles III, is the sovereign of the order, the order's motto is ''Victoria'', and its official day is 20 June. The order's chapel is the Savoy Chapel in London. There is no limit on the number of individuals honoured at any grade, and admission remains at the sole discretion of the monarch, with each of the order's five grades and one medal with three levels representing different levels of service. While all those honoured may use the prescribed styles of the order – the top two grades grant titles of knighthood, and all grades accord distinct post-nominal letters – the Royal Victorian Order's p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Deene Park
Deene Park, the seat of the Brudenell family since 1514, is a country manor located northeast of Corby in the county of Northamptonshire, England. The hall itself is a Grade I listed building dating back to the 14th century which has been modified several times since then to create the current structure. Seven of the Brudenell family were Earls of Cardigan – the most notable being the 7th Earl who led the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava (1854). The 7th Earl died childless in 1868, and while the Earldom of Cardigan merged with the Marquessate of Ailesbury, the Deene Park estate passed, after the death in 1915 of his widow, to the descendants of his second cousin Ernest Brudenell-Bruce, 3rd Marquess of Ailesbury. The estate was inherited by its current owner, Robert Brudenell, in 2014; he is the son of Edmund and Marian Brudenell, who devoted their lives to the rehabilitation of Deene Park and are largely responsible for the estate's present appeara ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Charge Of The Light Brigade
The Charge of the Light Brigade was a failed military action involving the British light cavalry led by Lord Cardigan against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 in the Crimean War. Lord Raglan had intended to send the Light Brigade to prevent the Russians from removing captured guns from overrun Turkish positions, a task for which the light cavalry were well-suited. However, there was miscommunication in the chain of command and the Light Brigade was instead sent on a frontal assault against a different artillery battery, one well-prepared with excellent fields of defensive fire. The Light Brigade reached the battery under withering direct fire and scattered some of the gunners, but they were forced to retreat immediately, and the assault ended with very high British casualties and no decisive gains. The events were the subject of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's narrative poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1854), published just six weeks after the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Brudenell, 7th Earl Of Cardigan
Lieutenant-General James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, (16 October 1797 – 28 March 1868), styled as Lord Cardigan, was an officer in the British Army who commanded the Light Brigade during the Crimean War, leading its charge at the Battle of Balaclava. Throughout his life in politics and his long military career, he characterised the arrogant and extravagant aristocrat of the period. His progression through the Army was marked by many episodes of extraordinary incompetence, but also by generosity to the men under his command and genuine bravery. As a member of the landed aristocracy, he had actively and steadfastly opposed any political reform in Britain, but in the last year of his life, he relented and came to acknowledge that such reform would bring benefit to all classes of society. Biography Early life James Brudenell was born in what was, by the standards of the Brudenell family, a modest manor house at Hambleden, Buckinghamshire to Robert Brudene ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Adeline, Countess Of Cardigan And Lancastre
Adeline Louisa Maria, Countess of Cardigan and Lancastre (24 December 1824 – 25 May 1915) was the second wife of the English peer James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, and later the wife of the Portuguese nobleman Don António Manuel de Saldanha e Lancastre, Conde de Lancastre. She was the claimed author of scandalous memoirs, ''My Recollections'', published in 1909, under the name Adeline Louisa Maria de Horsey Cardigan and Lancastre, though strictly speaking she was not allowed by the rules governing the British peerage to join her former and current titles together. Her book detailed events and people coupled with gossip concerning the establishment of Victorian England. After her marriage to the Earl of Cardigan in 1858, Queen Victoria had refused to have her at court because Cardigan had left his first wife. Early life Adeline was born near Berkeley Square, London, the first child and only daughter of Admiral Spencer Horsey Kilderbee and his wife, Lady Louisa Maria Judit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rising From The Ranks
Rising from the ranks, through the ranks or commissioned from the ranks refers to enlisted soldiers being commissioned as officers. In class-conscious societies of the past, such as Britain during the Napoleonic Wars, for example, this was a relatively rare occurrence. Revolutionary and Napoleonic France Despite the nickname "the little corporal", Napoleon did not rise from the ranks. (He was commissioned a second lieutenant after graduating from military school.) However, he did famously state, "''Tout soldat français porte dans sa giberne le bâton de maréchal de France.''" ("Every French soldier carries the baton of a marshal of France in his cartridge bag.") That is, any soldier could attain such a lofty rank. And indeed, many seized the opportunities opened to them by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars to serve as such under his command, including: * Jean Bernadotte, later king of Sweden * Jean-Baptiste Bessières * Jean Lannes * François Joseph Lefebvre * André ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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American Expeditionary Forces
The American Expeditionary Forces (A. E. F.) was a formation of the United States Army on the Western Front of World War I. The A. E. F. was established on July 5, 1917, in France under the command of General John J. Pershing. It fought alongside French Army, British Army, Canadian Army, New Zealand Army and Australian Army units against the Imperial German Army. A small number of A. E. F. troops also fought alongside Italian Army units in that same year against the Austro-Hungarian Army. The A. E. F. helped the French Army on the Western Front during the Aisne Offensive (at the Battle of Château-Thierry and Battle of Belleau Wood) in the summer of 1918, and fought its major actions in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in the latter part of 1918. Formation President Woodrow Wilson initially planned to give command of the A. E. F. to Gen. Frederick Funston, but after Funston's sudden death, Wilson appointed Major General John J. Pershing in Ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of Passchendaele
The Third Battle of Ypres (german: link=no, Dritte Flandernschlacht; french: link=no, Troisième Bataille des Flandres; nl, Derde Slag om Ieper), also known as the Battle of Passchendaele (), was a campaign of the First World War, fought by the Allies against the German Empire. The battle took place on the Western Front, from July to November 1917, for control of the ridges south and east of the Belgian city of Ypres in West Flanders, as part of a strategy decided by the Allies at conferences in November 1916 and May 1917. Passchendaele lies on the last ridge east of Ypres, from Roulers (now Roeselare), a junction of the Bruges-(Brugge)-to-Kortrijk railway. The station at Roulers was on the main supply route of the German 4th Army. Once Passchendaele Ridge had been captured, the Allied advance was to continue to a line from Thourout (now Torhout) to Couckelaere (Koekelare). Further operations and a British supporting attack along the Belgian coast from Nieuport ( Nieuwpoo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert Nivelle
Robert Georges Nivelle (15 October 1856 – 22 March 1924) was a French artillery general officer who served in the Boxer Rebellion and the First World War. In May 1916, he succeeded Philippe Pétain as commander of the French Second Army in the Battle of Verdun, leading counter-offensives that rolled back the German forces in late 1916. During these actions he and General Charles Mangin were accused of wasting French lives. He gives his name to the Nivelle Offensive. Following the successes at Verdun, Nivelle was promoted to commander-in-chief of the French armies on the Western Front in December 1916, largely because of his persuasiveness with French and British political leaders, aided by his fluency in English. He was responsible for the Nivelle Offensive at the Chemin des Dames, which had aroused skepticism already in its planning stages. When the costly offensive failed to achieve a breakthrough on the Western Front, a major mutiny occurred, affecting roughly half the Fre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during the First World War, social reform policies including the National Insurance Act 1911, his role in the Paris Peace Conference, and negotiating the establishment of the Irish Free State. Early in his career, he was known for the disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales and support of Welsh devolution. He was the last Liberal Party prime minister; the party fell into third party status shortly after the end of his premiership. Lloyd George was born on 17 January 1863 in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, to Welsh parents. From around three months of age he was raised in Pembrokeshire and Llanystumdwy, Caernarfonshire, speaking Welsh. His father, a schoolmaster, died in 1864, and David was raised by his mother and her shoemaker brot ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Western Front (World War I)
The Western Front was one of the main theatres of war during the First World War. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The German advance was halted with the Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France, which changed little except during early 1917 and in 1918. Between 1915 and 1917 there were several offensives along this front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. Entrenchments, machine gun emplacements, barbed wire and artillery repeatedly inflicted severe casualties during attacks and counter-attacks and no significant advances were made. Among the most costly of these offensives were the Battle of Verdun, in 1916, with a combined 700,000 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |