Major General Sir Lee Oliver Fitzmaurice Stack (15 May 1868 – 20 November 1924) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

officer and

Governor-General Governor-general (plural governors-general), or governor general (plural governors general), is the title of an official, most prominently associated with the British Empire. In the context of the governors-general and former British colonies, ...

of the

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ( ') was a condominium (international law), condominium of the United Kingdom and Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt between 1899 and 1956, corresponding mostly to the territory of present-day South Sudan and Sudan. Legally, sovereig ...

. On 19 November 1924, he was shot by assassins while driving through

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

, and died of his wounds the next day.

Early life

Born in

Darjeeling Darjeeling (, , ) is a city in the northernmost region of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of West Bengal. Located in the Eastern Himalayas, it has an average elevation of . To the west of Darjeeling lies the Koshi Pr ...

, India, Lee Stack was the son of the British Inspector-General of Police for Bengal. He was educated at

Clifton College Clifton College is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in the city of Bristol in South West England, founded in 1862 and offering both boarding school, boarding and day school for pupils aged 13–18. In its early years, unlike mo ...

and the

Royal Military College, Sandhurst The Royal Military College (RMC) was a United Kingdom, British military academy for training infantry and cavalry Officer (armed forces), officers of the British Army, British and British Indian Army, Indian Armies. It was founded in 1801 at Gre ...

Career

After service with the

Major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

Lee Stack was seconded to the

Egyptian Army The Egyptian Army (), officially the Egyptian Ground Forces (), is the land warfare branch (and largest service branch) of the Egyptian Armed Forces. Until the declaration of the Republic and the abolishment of the monarchy on 18 June 1953, it w ...

in 1899. In addition to regimental appointments he served as Military Secretary to

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

Sir Reginald Wingate. He received the Order of Osmanieh, third class, from the Khedive of Egypt in 1902. Stack left the army in 1910 but took up the position of Civil Secretary of the Sudan in 1913, based in

Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum is the capital city of Sudan as well as Khartoum State. With an estimated population of 7.1 million people, Greater Khartoum is the largest urban area in Sudan. Khartoum is located at the confluence of the White Nile – flo ...

. On the outbreak of war in 1914 he was granted the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel, and in 1917 that of major-general when he became Sirdar of the Egyptian Army, combining this appointment with that of Governor General of the Sudan.

Assassination

On 19 November 1924 Sir Lee Stack, accompanied by an aide de camp, was being driven from the Egyptian War Office in Cairo to his official residence. His car had halted in heavy traffic to give a tram car right of way when several Egyptian students grouped on the pavement fired a volley of revolver shots into the vehicle. Stack's driver, Frederick Hamilton March, although injured, was able to accelerate the car away from the scene of the shooting and reach the nearby residence of the British High Commissioner to Egypt. Stack suffered wounds to the hand, stomach, and foot. He died the next day.

Aftermath

The British High Commissioner Lord Allenby responded with anger, presenting a list of demands to the Egyptian government which included a public apology, an inquiry, suppression of demonstrations and payment of a fine. Furthermore, he demanded withdrawal of all Egyptian officers and Egyptian army units from the Sudan, an increase to the scope of an irrigation scheme in Gezira and laws to protect foreign investors in Egypt. Seven men convicted of involvement in the assassination were executed by hanging in 1925. Several were identified by a taxi driver whose vehicle they had commandeered to escape from the scene. The pistols used were identified through a pioneering instance of bullet examination by forensic scientist

Sydney Smith Sydney Smith (3 June 1771 – 22 February 1845) was an English wit, writer, and Anglican cleric. Besides his energetic parochial work, he was known for his writing and philosophy, founding the ''Edinburgh Review'', lecturing at the Royal Inst ...

. Sir Geoffrey Archer, formerly Governor of Uganda, took over as

Governor-General of the Sudan The governors of pre-independence Sudan were the colonial administrators responsible for the territory of Turco-Egyptian Sudan and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, an area equivalent to modern-day Sudan and South Sudan. List (Dates in italics indicat ...

in January 1925, the first time a civilian had held this office.

References

, - 1868 births 1924 deaths Military personnel of British India People murdered in 1924 Assassinated British military personnel Assassinated British politicians Border Regiment officers British Army major generals Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Deaths by firearm in Egypt Governors-general of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan People murdered in Egypt Murder in Sudan British people in colonial India Politicians assassinated in the 1920s British Army generals of World War I 19th-century British Army personnel {{UK-gov-bio-stub Military personnel from Darjeeling