Sir Ian Hamilton

[Will O'Brien]

I was watching Timewatch, Gallipoli the First D-Day earlier this evening (yes the one on BBC 2 & starring our very own Paul Reed) & I noted the following comment being made.

Ian Hamilton was a career soldier who had been recommended twice for the Victoria Cross

Can anyone enlighten me as to when these recommendations were made & for what action.

I find it curious that a man so lambasted for his incompetence should have previously been a candidate for the VC.

[Chris_Baker]

Ian Hamilton was a very highly regarded soldier before the Great War. Too senior to be appointed to a Corps position under French in the BEF, he was instrumental in the early home organisation.

An officer of the Gordon Highlanders, he was first recommended for the VC for his part in the action at Majuba Hill in 1881, in which he was seriously wounded in the wrist. The recommendation was denied on the grounds that Hamilton was too young at 28.

The second was for his leadership of 7th Brigade at Elandslaagte in 1899. He was again denied the award, this time being too senior and too old, at 47.

A good read is John Lee's "A soldiers life", a bio of Hamilton. It is currently on sale in some discount book stores like The Works at a ridiculous £4 for the hardback.

Or you could look at this.

[michaeldr]

Just to expand a little on what Chris has already posted

The first recommendation was during the First Boer War. Hamilton was wounded and captured at Majuba Hill, but later the Boers let him go free as they did not expect him to survive. In fact his arm never fully recovered. The recommendation for the VC was disallowed by the army, who thought him too young and that he would have plenty of other opportunities to distinguish himself.

The second recommendation came during the Second Boer War for the action at Elandslaagte. "Sir John French personally recommended Hamilton for the VC for twice showing the way forward to the attacking infantry. Alas, while he had been too young and junior at Majuba, Hamilton was now too senior and it was considered undesirable to award the VC to a 'general officer.' (He was of course, a substantive colonel.) Lord Wolsely, then Commander-in-Chief, did not want to create a new precedent and declined to submit Hamilton's name to the Queen."

from 'A Soldier's Life' by John Lee

Regards

Michael D.R.

[Will O'Brien]

Chris & Michael

Thanks very much for that, most enlightening. We have a couple of discount bookshops in MK so I'll have to have a look for 'A soldiers Life'...............Chris I should have known you had a bio of Hamilton lurking on the mother site..........My new mantra...I will do a search before asking the question (repeat 3 times quickly whilst logging on! )

[armourersergeant]

Will,

I think it is important to understand that Bravery and competance do not necesserily go hand in hand.

Many VC winners do not go onto successful careers. Freyberg and Gort would be two that spring to mind.

Arm.

[ianw]

Take your point Arm. However, I think we might cut Freyberg some slack, if we are considering his performance in Crete where he was fighting with a number of well known disadvantages e.g protecting Enigma security. A great soldier who arguably "peaked" during the Great War.

[armourersergeant]

Ian

When i chose Freyberg I did deliberate using him but haver to confess that I did not readilly have other names to mind (which kills my point somewhat) . I agree Freyberg was perhaps hard done by History in many ways as he did good work through out the second world war.

Peaked during WW1 is not perhaps true but i get your point.

Arm.

[Will O'Brien]

I think it is important to understand that Bravery and competance do not necesserily go hand in hand.

Arm.......valid point, perhaps I should explain my comment from the original posting. Hamilton was obviously a brave man & as Chris has said in his post, a highly regarded soldier prior to WWI. Given these points I am surprised at the degree of criticism he subsequently received. I would have expected that criticism to be.......well a bit more balanced.

I've noted yours & Ian’s comments re Freyburg & Crete & whilst he certainly received criticism, it wasn't on the same scale as Hamilton over Gallipoli or as vitriolic.......I would suggest that Hamilton was handicapped by even more disadvantages not of his making than Freyburg was at Crete 25 years later.

[Frank_East]

Pleased you excused Freyberg.Unfortunately he is used as a scapegoat for the loss of Crete .

Had he been told "the horse is bound to win, it is doped" the outlook would have been different. The Enigma secrets were kept very close to Freyberg's chest. As far as he was concerned it was the "run of the mill" intelligence.He did not know they were intelliigence intercepts.Freyberg had already made his own preparations for the defence of Crete.

On the face of it, the German landings should have been repulsed but the Germans had the advantage of the surprise of using paratroopers for the first time to take strategic objectives.This was at the cost of a large number of German casualties that were inflicted by the British,ANZAC and Cretan irregular defenders, so much so that the Germans regarded the losses as too costly and never utilised a paratrooper force again in the Second War War.

One interesting fact of the battle for Crete is that the Germans lost over 150 Junkers 52s in the invasion which reduced their air transport arm availability for the invasion of Russia two months later.

Regards

Frank East

[armourersergeant]

I sometimes wonder about the 'right man wrong place' syndrome in regards to some generals through history. Hamilton would perhaps fall into this category and also Freyberg. But to me Smith-Dorrien would be the main misfourtanate in this category.

Regarding paratroops, the germans never really recovered from this and it is ironic when you consider that Airborne troops still had much to offer at this stage of the war!!!

Arm.

[tintin1689]

Sir Ian Hamilton was a highly competent soldier who unfortunately was too much of a gentleman to grab his ragbag of subordinates by the scruff of the neck and bang their heads together.

Gallipoli was doomed to failure. A maxim of war is "sudden, immediate, maximum" - well first the ships had a go, then some more ships, then some troops, them some more troops.The whole thing was telegraphed to the Turks and the rest is history.Hamilton made a good scapegoat.Both Kitchener and the Navy badly underestimated Turkish powers of resistance.

On top of that he had a poor staff and could never get the admin. staff and ops staff together.

The Suvla Bay episode could have succeeded, but is one of the most embarassing misfortunes of British arms - the conduct of Stopford and of Mahon is poor in the extreme. What was needed was some Napoleon or Rommel like figure who would jump in and take charge

Hamilton's real expertise in the tactical training of troops, like Buller in the Boer War (who was a gifted organiser, but poor tactician) both fell victim to the common fault of the British public service in believing that if a man is good at one thing he will be good at everything.

[michaeldr]

That the Dardanelles was a failure is beyond question, however whole libraries have been written on why and where the blame lies. Briefly, John Lee puts forward the following in explanation of Hamilton's position

Parliament got a fright and wanted someone's head. Thereafter all parties began to look after themselves and their reputations. Churchill and Hamilton worked together and at a dinner on 6th June 16 they realised for the first time that Kitchener had not revealed to the cabinet Hamilton's many cables requesting reinforcements and materiel. Kitchener's death meant that he could not be called upon to defend himself and Hamilton, still in awe of his old commander, did not wish to press his valid case against him. The cabinet, very anxious to protect itself, appointed no less a person than the Attorney-General F. E. Smith (later Lord Birkenhead) to represent Kitchener at the commission of enquiry. Smith even urged Hamilton to seek expert counsel for himself and when he declined to go against his old boss, Smith told him he might be sorry.

Hamilton's biggest weakness was that he was in awe of Kitchener and could not stand up to him, but in that respect he was no different from the government. Neither was he unique at that time, in his belief that the C-in-C should not interfere with his general's plans during a battle. But the two together have proved fatal for his reputation

Like Chris, I thoroughly recommend John Lee's book "A Soldier's Life"

Regards

Michael D.R.

[Ron]

I think Lee's view is probably correct. Although Hamilton was a brave soldier he was a very convntional general, believing that he should display full confidence in his subordinates even though they were not up to scratch. That was the gentlemanly way.

Ron

[trooper]

TinTin

I agree to some extent about what you say about Mahon and Stopford. Stopford given his past experience should never have been a Corps commander but in the case of Mahan there are perhaps some mitigating circumstances resulting from decisions made by Kichener and Hamilton.

1. Mahon was too senior to command a division but Kitchener let him go;

2. Kitchener would have been willing to let Mahon go as Corps commander but Hamilton objected because of something that had happened during the Boer War;

3. This resulted in very few officers to choose from who were senior to Mahon for Corps Commander, hence Stopford;

4. Mahon never commanded his whole divison at anytime during the Gallipoli campaign - the 29th Brigade was sent to Anzac presumably by Hamilton; 31 and half of 30 Brigade were under Hammersley's command during the critical period when Mahon should have been taking the heights and hence he was operating with only half of a Brigade rather than the full division he should have had;

5. The 10th (Irish) Division like many of the New Army Divisions were trained to expect trench warfare and had not been trained for the open warfare that initially presented itself at Suvla;

6. While Mahon refused to serve under de Lisle who was junior to him, it was for personal reasons, and although his decision was wrong he later served under Byng also his junior;

7. Mahon's performance as British Commander in Chief in Salonika showed that he had ability to command more troops than just a single division and therefore may have been an effective Corps commander at Gallipoli; he certainly would have been no worse than Stopford but he was denied the chance by Hamilton's apparent prejudice.

Trooper

[Will O'Brien]

I would like to thank everybody who has contributed to this thread so far. I have found the comments & opinions very informative.

[Guest Helberg]

Have any of you read Beevor's book on the battle for Crete? It's pretty harsh on Freyberg, blaming him for having totally exaggerated the threat from the sea (which was, after all, controlled by the Royal Navy) both before and after the actual invasion had begun. I'm not an expert on the Crete campaign, but I must say Beevor presents a convincing case against the general.

Another example of a VC-winner who was rather unsuccessful as a general is Lt.Gen Sir Phillip Neame.

[michaeldr]

As good a summary as any other on Hamilton at Gallipoli was given in the Final Report of Dardanelles Commission, 4 Dec 1917, as quoted by Lee;

"As regards Sir Ian Hamilton it is inevitable that the capabilities of a commander in war should be judged by the results he achieves, even though, if these results are disappointing, his failure may be due to causes for which he is only partly responsible...................We recognise Sir Ian Hamilton's personal gallantry and energy, his sanguine disposition, and his determination to win at all costs. We recognise also that the task entrusted to him was one of extreme difficulty, the more so as the authorities at home at first misconceived the nature and duration of the operations, and afterwards were slow to realise that to drive the Turks out of their entrenchments and occupy the heights commanding the Straits was a formidable and hazardous enterprise which demanded a concentration of force and effort. It must further be borne in mind that Lord Kitchener, whom Sir Ian Hamilton seems to have regarded as Commander-in-Chief, rather than as Secretary of State, pressed upon him the paramount importance, if it were by any means possible, of carrying out the task assigned to him. Though from time to time Sir Ian Hamilton represented the need of drafts, reinforcements, guns and munitions, which the Government found it impossible to supply, he was nevertheless always ready to renew the struggle with resources at his disposal, and to the last was confident of success. For this it would be hard to blame him; but viewing the Expedition in the light of events it would, in our opinion, have been well had he examined the situation as disclosed by the first landings in a more critical spirit, impartially weighed the probabilities of success and failure, having regard to resources in men and material which could be placed at his disposal, and submitted to the Secretary of State for War a comprehensive statement of the arguments for and against a continuance of the operations."

Compton Mackenzie writing in the 'Life at GHQ' chapter of his 'Gallipoli Memories' [published in 1929] has the following advice for armchair historians;

"We who now sit at ease, able to contemplate that tragedy from a remote tranquillity or to peruse it in the pages of a book, in pages that are so quickly turned over to ascertain what is coming, so easily turned back to find out what should have been done, we shall perhaps be wisest after the event if we bow before the ineluctable purpose of Destiny. It is in such a mood of humility that one who was there when that tragedy was being written day by day in blood sets it on record that for him with every diminishing year the figure of his Commander-in- Chief [sir Ian Hamilton, C-in-C, M.E.F.] grows larger not less."

Regards

Michael D.R.