Brigadier-General Edgar William Cox (9 May 1882 – 26 August 1918) was a senior intelligence officer on the British General Staff throughout most of the First World War who drowned in suspicious circumstances whilst swimming in August 1918 shortly after the German successes in the Spring Offensive which drove the Allied armies back a large distance. Although officially an accident, suspicions of suicide surrounded his death, which occurred just days before the beginning of the Allied counterattack which would eventually defeat the German army.

Early career

Born to George and Louisa Cox of

Islington Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ar ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

in North London in May 1882, Edgar Cox was educated at Christ's Hospital in

Newgate Newgate was one of the historic seven gates of the London Wall around the City of London and one of the six which date back to Roman times. Newgate lay on the west side of the wall and the road issuing from it headed over the River Fleet to Mid ...

and on 21 December 1900 was commissioned as a junior officer into the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

. He came head of his class at the

Royal Military Academy at Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of Officer (armed forces), commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers o ...

and received several awards, both there and at the School of Military Engineering. After graduation he was in December 1902 sent to the British colony of

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...

to help delineate the boundary with neighbouring

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...

. This task occupied him until 1903, when he joined an Anglo-Portuguese boundary commission in

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

. In 1906 he left this post to conduct a three-year survey of the East African Protectorate (later to become

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). Back in Britain and serving at

Aldershot Aldershot () is a town in Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme northeast corner of the county, southwest of London. The area is administered by Rushmoor Borough Council. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Alders ...

barracks, he was promoted to captain, married the South African Nora and became a governor of his former school, which had by this time moved to Horsham. He also became a fellow of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

and was one of their delegates at the Paris International Map Conference in 1913. Between 1912 and 1914, Cox demonstrated a talent for staff work and was assigned to the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

as a staff officer (3rd class), gaining valuable experience in military intelligence and learning fluent French and German. His work was good enough that in August 1914 he was attached to the staff of Sir John French in charge of the British Expeditionary Force sent to France to counter the German invasion at the start of World War I.

First World War

In France he continued his staff duties under French throughout 1914 and 1915, participating in the planning and execution of several large offensives, but sharing in the reassignments at the start of 1916 following French's replacement by

Douglas Haig Field marshal (United Kingdom), Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, (; 19 June 1861 – 29 January 1928) was a senior Officer (armed forces), officer of the British Army. During the First World War, he commanded the British Expeditionar ...

, although he was compensated by a promotion to Major later in the year. During his service on the general staff he was awarded the

Distinguished Service Order The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly of other parts of the Commonwealth, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typ ...

and was admitted into the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...

with a Croix de Chevalier. He would later also be awarded the Belgian Order of the Crown and the Italian

Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus The Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus ( it, Ordine dei Santi Maurizio e Lazzaro) (abbreviated OSSML) is a Roman Catholic dynastic order of knighthood bestowed by the royal House of Savoy. It is the second-oldest order of knighthood in the wo ...

for his war service. Through 1916 and 1917 he served in the War Office as staff officer 2nd class to the Director of Military Intelligence and in January 1918 was recalled to France by Field Marshal Haig to take over his military intelligence department from Brigadier-General John Charteris. He was also given fast brevet promotions to Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel and Brigadier General to facilitate his position at this post. Within two months of his arrival, on 21 March, the Germans launched the surprise Operation Michael which recaptured all the ground gained during the

battle of the Somme The Battle of the Somme ( French: Bataille de la Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place bet ...

two years before and nearly drove a hole right through the Allied line. Two weeks later,

Operation Georgette The Battle of the Lys, also known as the Fourth Battle of Ypres, was fought from 7 to 29 April 1918 and was part of the German spring offensive in Flanders during the First World War. It was originally planned by General Erich Ludendorff as O ...

wiped out the British advances of the

Third Battle of Ypres 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 t ...

in 1917, seemingly undoing two years of bitter fighting in one blow.

Death

By the time the German Spring Offensive petered out in July 1918, they had reached the closest point to Paris of the entire war and had come close to breaking the Allied armies and winning the conflict. 850,000 British and French soldiers had been wounded killed or captured in just four months. Although the

Hundred Days Offensive The Hundred Days Offensive (8 August to 11 November 1918) was a series of massive Allies of World War I, Allied offensives that ended the First World War. Beginning with the Battle of Amiens (1918), Battle of Amiens (8–12 August) on the Wester ...

which would eventually defeat the German army began two weeks later, the damage to Edgar Cox was done. During the months of the Spring Offensive he had worked feverishly to discover the locations and details of the next attacks and had deteriorated both mentally and physically in the process. Cox was knocked out by the influenza pandemic for much of June and did not return to duty until mid-August.Harris 2008, p480 He had become a heavy smoker and by August was no longer eating or sleeping, suffering severely from nervous exhaustion. On 26 August 1918 he announced that he would go for a swim and was driven down to Berck Plage near GHQ at

Étaples Étaples or Étaples-sur-Mer (; vls, Stapel, lang; pcd, Étape) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. It is a fishing and leisure port on the Canche river. History Étaples takes its name from having been a medieval ...

. He entered the water alone and his body was recovered from the sea some time later. He was buried in

Étaples Military Cemetery Étaples Military Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Étaples, near Boulogne on the north-west coast of France. The cemetery holds over 11,500 dead from both World War I and World War II. History Étaples was the sce ...

with full military honours. Following his death, the Royal Geographic Society reported that the British nation in the First World War had ''"suffered no more grievous loss than in the death of General Cox",'' and that ''"He was one of those men, of whom there are very few, of whom nothing but praise was ever heard."''

Cause of death

Although officially his death was reported and recorded as an accident,P.23, ''Bloody Red Tabs'', Davies & Maddocks suspicions of suicide have remained given Cox's disturbed state of mind in the days before his fatal swim. The turmoil of this period was recorded by one of his subordinates, a junior officer named Howard Spring who would later become a famous novelist and who recounted the last days of Brigadier-General Cox in his autobiography ''In the meantime'':

Notes

References

* * Harris, J.P. ''Douglas Haig and the First World War''. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cox, Edgar William 1882 births 1918 deaths People from Islington (district) People educated at Christ's Hospital Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich Royal Engineers officers British Army generals of World War I Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society Deaths by drowning in France Companions of the Distinguished Service Order Recipients of the Order of the Crown (Belgium) Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Officers of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus Burials at Étaples Military Cemetery British military personnel killed in World War I British Army brigadiers Military personnel from Middlesex