Генерал-фельдмаршал Генри Мейтленд Уилсон: Өмірбаяны мен әскери жолы

British field marshal (1881–1964)
his uncle

Field Marshal Henry Maitland Wilson, 1st Baron Wilson, (5 September 1881 – 31 December 1964), also known as Jumbo Wilson, was a senior British Army officer of the 20th century. He saw active service in the Second Boer War and then during the First World War on the Somme and at Passchendaele. During the Second World War he served as General Officer Commanding in Chief (GOC in C) British Troops in Egypt, in which role he launched Operation Compass, attacking Italian forces with considerable success, in December 1940. He went on to be Military Governor of Cyrenaica in February 1941, commanding a Commonwealth expeditionary force to Greece in April 1941 and General Officer Commanding (GOC) British Forces in Palestine and Trans Jordan in May 1941. Wilson became GOC Ninth Army in Syria and Palestine in October 1941, GOC Persia and Iraq Command in August 1942 and GOC Middle East Command in February 1943. He was Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean from January 1944 and Chief of the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington D. C. from January 1945 until 1947.

Born in London, England, the son of Captain Arthur Maitland Wilson and his wife Harriet Wilson (née Kingscote), Wilson was educated at Eton College and Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the Rifle Brigade as a 2nd lieutenant on 10 March 1900. He served with the 2nd Battalion in South Africa in the Second Boer War, and having taken part in operations there in August 1900, was promoted to lieutenant on 18 March 1901. He was posted with his battalion to Egypt and then in 1907 to India. Wilson served in the First World War, being appointed brigade major of the 48th Brigade on 15 October 1914; having been promoted to the rank of acting major in December 1914 and then to the substantive rank of major on 15 September 1915, he was sent to France to serve on the Western Front in December 1915. He then became second in command of the 2nd Battalion, the Rifle Brigade at Aldershot in August 1923. Returning to be an instructor at Camberley in June 1930, Wilson spent 9 months on half pay in 1933. in which role he was also responsible for giving military advice for a range of countries from Abyssinia to the Persian Gulf. He made his HQ in Cairo and undertook successful negotiations with the Egyptian government at their summer quarters in Alexandria. The Treaty of 1936 called for the Egyptian army to fight under British command in the event of war and to supplement the limited force then at his disposal – an armoured division then being formed (later to be the 7th Armoured Division) and eight British battalions. He concentrated his defensive forces at Mersa Matruh some 100 miles from the border with Libya. Early in August, Sir Archibald Wavell was appointed Commander in Chief of the Middle East Command, and he sent reinforcements which had been sought by Wilson, initially the 4th Indian Infantry Division and advanced elements of 6th Australian Division and, as the buildup at Mersa Matruh continued, Richard O'Connor and his staff at 7th Infantry Division in Palestine were moved to Egypt to reinforce Wilson's command structure there. O'Connor's HQ, initially designated British 6th Infantry Division, was activated in November and became responsible for the troops at Mersa Matruh. It was redesignated Western Desert Force in June 1940. On 10 June 1940, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini declared war. Immediately Wilson's forces invaded Libya. However, their advance was reversed when on 17 June France sought an armistice and the Italians were able to move their forces from the Tunisian border in the West and reinforce with 4 divisions those that opposed Wilson in the East. The Italian forces invaded Egypt in September 1940, and advanced some 60 mile (97 km) to occupy Sidi Barrani. Wilson was facing very superior forces. He had 31,000 troops to the Italians' 80,000, 120 tanks against 275, and 120 artillery pieces against 250. He realised that the situation was one where the traditional text books would not provide a solution. As with other 1940s commanders he had been well schooled in strategy, and in thorough secrecy; he planned to disrupt the advance of the superior forces by attacking their extended lines at the right spots. After a conference with Anthony Eden and Wavell in October and rejecting Wavell's suggestion for a two pronged attack, Wilson launched Operation Compass on 7 December 1940. The strategy was outstandingly successful and very quickly the Italian forces were cut in half. While Operation Compass continued successfully in 1941 and resulted in the complete defeat of the Italian Army in North Africa, Wilson, who was already highly regarded by his First World War regimental colleague and now Secretary of State for War, Anthony Eden, had also won the confidence of Churchill himself. In a broadcast Churchill said, "General Wilson, who actually commands the Army of the Nile, was reputed to be one of our finest tacticians, and few will now deny him that quality." Wilson was recalled to Cairo in February 1941 where he was offered and accepted the position of Military Governor of Cyrenaica.

In May 1941, on his return from Greece, Wilson was appointed GOC British Forces in Palestine and Trans Jordan and oversaw the successful Syria Lebanon campaign, in which predominantly Australian, British, Indian, and Free French forces overcame Vichy French forces in fierce fighting. In July 1941 Churchill recommended Wilson to take command of the Western Desert Force to lead it in its upcoming offensive operation against the Afrika Korps, what would become Operation Crusader of November 1941, but General Sir Claude Auchinleck preferred instead Lieutenant General Sir Alan Cunningham. In October 1941 Wilson took command of the Ninth Army in Syria and Palestine and was appointed to the honorary title of Aide de Camp General to the King. Wilson enjoyed the confidence of Winston Churchill and he was Churchill's choice to succeed Auchinleck as commander of the Eighth Army in August 1942; however at the urging of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir Alan Brooke, General Sir Bernard Montgomery was appointed to the post. Instead, Wilson was appointed to command the newly created independent Persia and Iraq Command on 21 August 1942. This command, which had been part of Middle East Command, was created when it appeared that Germany, following successes in southern Russia, might invade Persia (Iran).

In February 1943, after Montgomery's success at Alamein and the expulsion of Axis forces from North Africa, Wilson was appointed Commander in Chief of the Middle East. Jumbo Wilson was keen to follow through with the deception plan Undercut, when unexpectedly the Germans decided to withdraw from Greece altogether. Although advised by Dudley Clarke that it might backfire and was unnecessary, Wilson was aware of the strategic complexities of the political situation. Every plan the General Staff had a shadow, integrated by 1944 with the American allies at all strategy levels; even to employ an actor imitating Monty arrive at Jumbo's HQ in Algiers.

In December 1944, following the death of Field Marshal Sir John Dill, Wilson was relieved as Supreme Commander, promoted to field marshal on 29 December 1944, and sent to Washington to be Chief of the British Joint Staff Mission, a post he took up in January 1945. From 1955 to 1960 he was Constable of the Tower of London. Wilson had married Hester Wykeham (1890–1979) in 1914 and had one son and a daughter. The son, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Maitland Wilson, accompanied his father in the Middle East during the Second World War as an intelligence officer. The son's memoirs, Where the Nazis Came, provide anecdotes and descriptions of important events in his father's war service. Never a rich man, when Field Marshal Lord Wilson died on 31 December 1964 in Chilton, Buckinghamshire,). He was buried at St. George's, Stowlangtoft, Suffolk and was succeeded in the barony by his only son Patrick.