John Edward Bernard Seely, 1st Baron Mottistone

John Edward Bernard Seely, 1st Baron Mottistone, (31 May 1868 – 7 November 1947), also known as Jack Seely, was a British Army general and politician. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1904 and a Liberal MP from 1904 to 1922 and from 1923 to 1924. He was Secretary of State for War for the two years prior to the First World War, before being forced to resign as a result of the Curragh Incident. He led one of the last great cavalry charges in history at the Battle of Moreuil Wood on his war horse Warrior in March 1918. Seely was a great friend of Winston Churchill and the only former cabinet minister to go to the front in 1914 and still be there four years later.

Background

Seely was born at Brookhill Hall in the village of Pinxton in Derbyshire on 31 May 1868.Matthew 2004, pp. 674–6. He was the seventh child, and fourth son, of Sir Charles Seely, 1st Baronet (1833–1915).

Seely was a member of a family of politicians, industrialists and significant landowners. His grandfather Charles Seely (1803–1887) was a noted Radical Member of Parliament and philanthropist and was famous for hosting Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian revolutionary hero, in London and the Isle of Wight in 1864. Seely's father as well as his brother Sir Charles Seely, 2nd Baronet, were also MPs, as would later be his nephew Sir Hugh Seely, 3rd Baronet and 1st Baron Sherwood, who became Under-Secretary of State for Air during the Second World War.

The family had homes in Nottinghamshire and the Isle of Wight as well as extensive property in London. He is still associated with the Isle of Wight, where he spent his holidays whilst growing up. His aunt's husband, Colonel Henry Gore-Browne, won the Victoria Cross during the Indian Mutiny. Gore-Browne was manager of the extensive Seely estates on the Isle of Wight. Queen Victoria lived nearby at her favourite residence, Osborne House.

Early life

He was educated at Harrow School, where he fagged for Stanley Baldwin. He also met Winston Churchill, who became a lifelong friend. He then studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1887–90.

Seely served in the Hampshire Yeomanry, in which he was commissioned as a second lieutenant, while still an undergraduate, on 7 December 1889. He was promoted to lieutenant on 23 December 1891 and to captain on 31 May 1892.

He joined the Inner Temple and was called to the Bar in 1897.

Second Boer War

Following the outbreak of the Second Boer War he was commissioned as a captain in the Imperial Yeomanry on 7 February 1900, having succeeded in arranging transport to South Africa for his squadron the same week, with the assistance of his uncle Sir Francis Evans, 1st Baronet, chairman of the Union Castle Line. He is remembered in South Africa as the commander that placed the 14-year-old Japie Greyling (1890-1954) against a wall in front of a firing squad, threatening to have him executed if he did not provide information about the Boer forces in the area. The boy refused to cooperate, and was freed. Several memorials still exist in South Africa today, attesting to the remarkable story.

He served bravely, if a little insubordinately. He was mentioned in despatches and awarded a medal with four clasps, as well as the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in November 1900.

Early political career

Whilst still on active service in South Africa during the Boer War, Seely was elected Member of Parliament for the Isle of Wight as a Conservative at a by-election in May 1900 and re-elected at the "Khaki" General Election that autumn.

On 10 August 1901, he was promoted to the rank of major in the yeomanry, with the honorary rank of captain in the Army from 10 July. Seely was appointed a deputy lieutenant of the Isle of Wight in 1902.

Along with Winston Churchill and Lord Hugh Cecil he attacked the Balfour government's neglect of the Army. He was a strong believer in free trade and was unhappy with the Unionist (Conservative) Party's increasing support for Tariff Reform (protectionism). He also opposed the Balfour government's support for the use of Chinese Slavery in South Africa. He left the Conservative Party in March 1904 mainly over these two issues and challenged the Conservative Party to oppose him running as an Independent Conservative at the 1904 Isle of Wight by-election. They declined and he was returned unopposed.

He was narrowly elected Liberal MP for Liverpool Abercromby at the 1906 general election.

Seely was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Hampshire Yeomanry on 20 June 1907, and to colonel on 31 March 1908; he was therefore known as "Colonel Seely" during his time as a politician before the First World War.

Under-Secretary of State

In 1908, the new Prime Minister H. H. Asquith appointed him Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, in place of Winston Churchill who had been promoted to the Cabinet. According to the ''Dictionary of National Biography'', "Since his chief, Lord Crewe, was in the Lords, important work fell to the under-secretary, in particular the South Africa Act 1909, which brought about the Union of South Africa." He became a member of the Privy Council in 1909. Seely was also amongst those Liberals who strongly supported Lloyd George's budgets of 1909 and 1910.

Seely was defeated for Abercromby at the January 1910 general election and returned to Parliament for Ilkeston in Derbyshire at a by-election in March 1910, holding that seat until 1922. In October 1910, he was awarded the Territorial Decoration.

Secretary of State for War

Appointment and policies

Seely then served as Under-Secretary of State for War from 1911 to 1912. As a yeomanry colonel, he did not support conscription, which General Henry Wilson favoured. "Ye Gods" was how Wilson greeted his appointment in his diary.Jeffery 2006, pp. 109–10.

Seely was already a member of the Committee of Imperial Defence. In June 1912, apparently on Churchill's suggestion, Seely was promoted to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for War, in succession to Haldane. He held the post until 1914. With Sir John French he was responsible for the invitation to General Foch to attend the Army Manoeuvres of 1912 and was active in preparing the army for war with Germany. Seely supported General Wilson when he gave evidence to the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) in November 1912 that the presence of the British Expeditionary Force on the continent would have a decisive effect in any future war. The mobility of the proposed Expeditionary Force, and in particular the development of a Flying Corps (the origin of the modern Royal Air Force) were his special interests. According to ''The Times'', these developments played a significant role in the victory during World War I.

In April 1913 Seely told the House of Commons that the Territorial Force could see off an invasion by 70,000 men and that the General Staff opposed conscription. Sir John French (Chief of the Imperial General Staff) obtained a partial retraction after Wilson had threatened that he and his two fellow Directors at the War Office would resign in protest at the "lie", but Wilson felt that French's recent promotion to Field Marshal had made him reluctant to clash with Liberal Ministers. During the CID "Invasion Inquiry" (debates of 1913–14 as to whether some British regular divisions should be retained at home to defeat a potential invasion), Seely lobbied in vain for all six divisions to be sent to France in the event of war. French became very friendly with Seely when his first wife died in childbirth in August 1913.

Curragh incident

With Irish Home Rule due to become law in 1914, and the Cabinet contemplating some kind of military action against the Ulster Volunteers who wanted no part of it, French and Seely summoned Paget (Commander-in-Chief, Ireland) to the War Office for talks, whilst Seely wrote to the Prime Minister (24 October 1913) about the potential use of General Macready, who had experience of peacekeeping in the South Wales coalfields in 1910, and had been consulted by Birrell (Chief Secretary for Ireland) about the use of troops in the 1912 Belfast riots. In October 1913 Seely sent him to report on the police in Belfast and Dublin.

There was more discussion about the Army's stance over Home Rule ''outside'' the Army than within it. Seely spoke to the assembled Commanders-in-Chief of the Army's six Regional Commands, to remind them of their responsibility to uphold the civil power. They met at the War Office on 16 December 1913 with French and the Adjutant-General Spencer Ewart present. He assured them that the Army would not be called upon for "some outrageous action, for instance, to massacre a demonstration of Orangemen", but nonetheless officers could not "pick and choose" which lawful orders they would obey, and that any officer who attempted to resign on the issue should instead be dismissed. This did not stop tensions about the Army's role from growing.

By March 1914 intelligence reported that the Ulster Volunteers, now 100,000 strong, might be about to seize the ammunition at Carrickfergus Castle, and political negotiations were deadlocked as the Ulster Protestant leader Edward Carson was demanding that Ulster have a complete, not just temporary, opt-out from Home Rule. Seely was on the five-man Cabinet Committee on Ireland (along with Crewe, Simon, Birrell and Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty)). General Paget, who was reluctant to move in case it exacerbated the crisis, was summoned to London. On 14 March 1914 the Committee warned Paget of the perceived need to occupy the arms depots to prevent the Ulster Volunteers from doing so. Seely repeatedly assured French of the accuracy of intelligence that Ulster Volunteers might march on Dublin. No trace of Seely's intelligence survives. It has been suggested, e.g. by Sir James Fergusson, that the move to deploy troops may have been a "plot" by Churchill and Seely to goad Ulster into a rebellion which could then be put down, although this view is not universally held. Carson departed London for Ulster on 19 March, amidst talk that he was to form a provisional government.

No written orders had been issued to Paget. It had been agreed that officers domiciled in Ulster would be allowed to "disappear" for the duration of the crisis, with no blot on their career records, but that other officers who objected were to be dismissed rather than being permitted to resign. Although the ODNB concurs that Seely was foolish in effectively giving ''any'' officers discretion over which orders to obey, he was keen to keep Paget on the government's side and maintain the unity of the Army. The move to deploy troops resulted in the Curragh incident of 20 March, in which Hubert Gough and many other officers threatened to resign. The elderly Field-Marshal Roberts, whom Seely had told the King was "at the bottom" of the matter, thought Seely "drunk with power".

The peccant paragraphs

On the morning of Monday 23 March, Seely had a meeting with Gough, with Paget, French and Spencer Ewart in attendance. Seely, who – by Gough's account – attempted unsuccessfully to browbeat him by staring at him, accepted French's suggestion that a written document from the Army Council might help to convince Gough's officers.Holmes 2004, pp. 184–8. Seely took over a draft document to a Cabinet meeting for approval. Seely had to leave the meeting for an audience with the King, and in his absence the Cabinet agreed a text, stating that the Army Council were satisfied that the incident had been a misunderstanding, and that it was "the duty of all soldiers to obey lawful commands".

Seely, assisted by Viscount Morley, later added two paragraphs, stating that the Crown had the right to use force in Ireland or elsewhere, but had no intention of doing so "to crush political opposition to the policy or principles of the Home Rule Bill". This was initialled by Seely, French and Ewart and then given to Gough. It is unclear whether this – amending a Cabinet document without Cabinet approval – was an honest blunder on Seely's part or whether he was encouraged to do so and then made a scapegoat.

Gough, on the advice of Maj-Gen Wilson, then insisted on adding another paragraph clarifying that the Army would not be used to enforce Home Rule ''on Ulster'', with which French concurred in writing. Seely had not been consulted about this second assurance.

Asquith publicly repudiated the "peccant paragraphs" (25 March). Talk of a government "plot" was now widespread amongst the Opposition. Seely accepted the blame in the House of Commons on 25 March and offered to resign to protect French and Ewart; Asquith initially refused to accept his resignation, despite writing to Venetia Stanley that he blamed the crisis on "Paget's tactless blundering" and "Seely's clumsy phrases". The Conservative MP WAS Hewins wrote in his diary that "Winston is a criminal lunatic and Seely a fool" (26 March 1914). By 30 March it was clear that Asquith, to his regret, would now have to insist that Seely resign, along with French and Ewart. Seely remained a member of the CID, and it is unclear whether or when he might have been restored to the Cabinet had war not soon broken out.

First World War

Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, Seely was recalled to active duty as a special-service officer. Seely served for near the entirety of the First World War, with few breaks, leaving London on 11 August 1914 to take up a post on Sir John French's staff. On a liaison mission between the French Fifth Army and Haig's I Corps (31 August 1914 – during the period when Sir John French's retreat had opened up a gap in the Allied line), he claimed to have been almost captured in the fog, but to have bluffed his way past a German cavalry patrol by calling out (in German) that he was a member of the Great General Staff.

In October 1914, Seely was dispatched to Belgium to participate in the Siege of Antwerp. Initially acting as an observer, Seely temporarily joined the staff of Archibald Paris, the commander of the British Royal Naval Division, which had been deployed to the city under orders from First Lord Winston Churchill. Seely's Orderly Officer in the Siege of Antwerp was Archibald Alexander Gordon, alias Major Gordon, who with him surveyed the British and Belgian frontlines. When the situation became critical, Seely contacted Lord Kitchener by phone and later received orders for a massive evacuation of the British forces to Ostend. Once it became clear Antwerp was going to capitulate to the Germans, Seely assisted with the evacuation of the Royal Naval Division.

On 28 January 1915, Seely was given command of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade, with the temporary rank of brigadier-general and the substantive rank of colonel. He was mentioned in despatches five times, further enhancing his reputation for bravery. He was known as "the Luckiest Man in the Army" and was the subject of many apocryphal stories, such as that he recommended his soldier servant for a Victoria Cross for having stood never less than twenty yards ''behind'' him during an engagement.

On 1 January 1916, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB). During the advance to the Hindenburg Line in spring 1917, Seely, whose brigade was attached to Fourth Army, commandeered infantry from XV Corps to form an ''ad hoc'' combat group to capture Équancourt

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