Lieutenant General Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...

Sir John Panton Kiszely, (born 2 April 1948) is a retired senior

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

officer who was director general of the

Defence Academy of the United Kingdom The Defence Academy of the United Kingdom provides higher education for personnel in the British Armed Forces, Civil Service, other government departments and service personnel from other nations. The Director General of the Defence Academy is ...

from 2005 to 2008. He is a former national president of

The Royal British Legion The Royal British Legion (RBL), formerly the British Legion, is a British charity providing financial, social and emotional support to members and veterans of the British Armed Forces, their families and dependants, as well as all others in n ...

Early life

The son of Dr John Kiszely and Mrs Kiszely, Kiszely was educated at Marlborough College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst before being commissioned into the

Scots Guards The Scots Guards (SG) is one of the five Foot Guards regiments of the British Army. Its origins are as the personal bodyguard of King Charles I of England and Scotland. Its lineage can be traced back to 1642, although it was only placed on the E ...

as a second lieutenant on 20 December 1968.

Military career

Kiszely served with the regiment as a platoon commander, company commander and commanding officer in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Germany, Cyprus and the Falkland Islands.Oxford Leverhulme Biography
Kiszely was awarded the

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC ...

for an action during the Battle of Mount Tumbledown during the Falklands War, where he led an attack in close quarter battle against determined resistance through the Argentine position which drove them from the summit. Kiszely became commanding officer of 1st Battalion the

in 1986 and, following various other military appointments, took command of

7th Armoured Brigade 7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube. As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has greatly symbolic associations in religion, mythology, s ...

in early 1993. In 1996 he was appointed General Officer Commanding

1st (UK) Armoured Division The 1st (United Kingdom) Division, formerly known as the 1st (United Kingdom) Armoured Division and the 1st Division, is a division of the British Army. Divisional history (1809–1959) The 1st Division was formed following the disbandment o ...

and served as commander of the Multi-National Division (South-West) in Bosnia. In September 1998 Kiszely was appointed assistant chief of defence staff (resource and plans) at the Ministry of Defence. In 2002 he was appointed Commander of Regional Forces at

Land Command Land Command (or 'HQ Land') was a military command and part of the structure of the British Army from 1995 to 2008. Its headquarters was at Erskine Barracks, at Fugglestone St Peter, some four kilometres northwest of Salisbury in Wiltshire. It a ...

and, in 2004, he was deployed as senior British military representative and deputy commanding general, Multinational Force, Iraq. In 2005 he took up his post as director general of the

Defence Academy A military academy or service academy is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps. It normally provides education in a military environment, the exact definition depending on the country concerned. ...

. He retired from this post on 30 May 2008.

Later life

On 14 December 2009, Kiszely gave evidence to The Iraq Inquiry in which he claimed that American officials had refused to admit that they were dealing with an insurgency in Iraq. In December 2008, Kiszely was appointed national president of

. He took over the role from Air Marshal

Ian Macfadyen Sir Ian David Macfadyen, (born 19 February 1942) is a senior Royal Air Force officer, a former Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man (2000–05) and Constable and Governor of Windsor Castle (2009–14). RAF career Born the son of Air Marshal ...

, who recommended him for the post. In an October 2012 article, the '' Sunday Times'' alleged that Kiszely was among several retired military leaders who had offered to lobby and influence MPs and government defence ministers on behalf of arms firms. When the Royal British Legion announced it was setting up an inquiry into Kiszely's behaviour, he resigned, admitting that he had made "exaggerated and foolish claims" and therefore it would be "inappropriate" for him to keep his role at the legion. However, he claimed that he had not broken Whitehall rules. Defence secretary

Philip Hammond Philip Hammond, Baron Hammond of Runnymede (born 4 December 1955) is a British politician and life peer who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2016 to 2019, Foreign Secretary from 2014 to 2016, and Defence Secretary from 2011 to 2014. ...

said that the allegations against Kiszely and others are damaging and that he may restrict the access that former officers have to current staff. "If they're abusing that access for commercial purposes then we will have to tighten it up or maybe even shut it down," he said. However, he argued that former military officers did not have influence on how the Ministry of Defence spends taxpayers' money. The Ministry of Defence said it would investigate whether Kiszely and other former generals implicated by the investigation had broken any rules and if so, what punishment was appropriate. In 2017, Kiszely wrote the book, Anatomy of a Campaign: The British fiasco in Norway, 1940. It was published by the Cambridge University Press and won the inaugural Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History.

Family

Kiszely is married with three children.

References

, - , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Kiszely, John 1948 births British Army lieutenant generals British Army personnel of the Falklands War Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Recipients of the Military Cross Recipients of the Commendation for Valuable Service Deputy Lieutenants of Gloucestershire Foreign recipients of the Legion of Merit People educated at Marlborough College Living people Scots Guards officers Graduates of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst English people of Hungarian descent Herschell family