Arthur Paget (British Army officer)

British Army general (1851–1928)

General Sir Arthur Henry Fitzroy Paget, (1 March 1851 – 8 December 1928) was a soldier who reached the rank of General and served as Commander in Chief, Ireland, where he was partly responsible for the Curragh Incident.

Paget was the son of Lord Alfred Paget; his paternal grandfather was Henry William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey. His mother Cecilia (d. 1914) was the second daughter and co heiress of George Thomas Wyndham of Cromer Hall in Norfolk. Paget was born in Berkeley Square, London, on 1 March 1851, the eldest son of six sons and six daughters. Among his siblings were Gerald Cecil Stewart Paget (grandfather of Percy Bernard, 5th Earl of Bandon), Sydney Augustus Paget, Almeric Hugh Paget, 1st Baron Queenborough, and Alexandra Harriet Paget (wife of Edward Colebrooke, 1st Baron Colebrooke). Paget returned to regimental duty in the UK. Paget was also present at the Battle of Magersfontein. He received command of the new 20th Brigade (part of 1st Division) on promotion to major general on 1 April 1900.

The King wanted Paget to return to South Africa. He was also appointed CB and CVO. In 1910 he was appointed a special ambassador to carry the news of King George V's accession to foreign courts. In September 1910 Sir John French declared that Sir Charles Douglas and Paget would 'command armies under him'. With Irish Home Rule due to become law in 1914, the Cabinet were beginning to contemplate some kind of military action against the Ulster Volunteers who wanted no part of it. French (CIGS) and Seely (Secretary of State for War) summoned Paget to the War Office for talks. Paget's letter (19 October 1913) suggests that he wanted "partial mobilisation". The following spring, Paget was sent a letter by the secretary of the Army Council warning that "evil disposed persons" might attempt to seize weapons. Paget reported that he was drawing up plans to protect arms depots as ordered, but warning that large scale troop movements would exacerbate the situation. Ian Beckett describes his response as "tentative". Another, hurried, meeting was held on the night of 19 March after Sir Edward Carson's dramatic departure from the Commons, amid rumours that he intended to declare a provisional government upon reaching Belfast. In Dublin the next morning (Friday 20 March), Paget addressed senior officers at his headquarters. Three different accounts (written by Paget, Fergusson (GOC 5th Division) and Gough in his 1954 memoirs Soldiering On) exist, but it is clear that Paget exacerbated the situation. Paget claimed that with French's assistance he had obtained "concessions" from Seely, namely that officers who lived in Ulster would be permitted to "disappear" for the duration, but that other officers who refused to serve against Ulster would be dismissed rather than being permitted to resign. By Gough's account, he said that "active operations were to commence against Ulster" and that Gough – who had a family connection to Ulster but did not actually live there – could expect no mercy from his "old friend at the War Office" (French, Paget and Ewart had actually (on 19 March) agreed that officers with "direct family connections" to Ulster should be left behind). In effectively offering his officers an ultimatum, Paget was acting foolishly, as the majority would probably have obeyed if simply ordered north. Paget is reported to have ended the meeting by ordering his officers to speak to their subordinates and then report back. Gough did not attend the second meeting in the afternoon, at which Paget confirmed that the purpose of the move was to overawe Ulster rather than fight, but at which he claimed that the orders had the King's personal sanction. The elderly Field Marshal Roberts later learned from an interview with Seely (21 March) that Paget had been acting without authority in talking of "active operations" and in giving officers a chance to discuss hypothetical orders and attempt to resign. This news helped persuade Hubert Gough to remain in the Army, albeit with a written guarantee (which the government then repudiated) that the Army would not be used against Ulster. Paget was, in the end, able to conduct the precautionary moves planned on 18 and 19 March. He continued to serve during the war, although not in France. Despite being fit for service, on the outbreak of war Paget was relegated to command of First Army of Central Force, for defence against invasion. Sir John French blocked Paget from being given command of the new BEF III Corps (it went to Pulteney) in October 1914, or being appointed British representative at French GQG. Kitchener was concerned at the limited information he was receiving from Major General John Hanbury Williams, his representative at the Russian High Command STAVKA (at this stage it was still hoped that Russia would defeat the Central Powers in Poland and Galicia and march on Berlin). He considered sending Paget, either in Hanbury Williams' place or as senior both to Hanbury Williams and to Alfred Knox the military attaché in Petrograd. He interviewed Paget and informed Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey of his decision (13 October 1914), and that Paget was persona grata with the Tsar. Kitchener abandoned his plans two days later after he received a message from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Sazonov, via Ambassador George Buchanan, that this would sour relations with the Russian Commander in Chief Grand Duke Nicholas, who would regard this as an attempt to strong arm him. French tried to obtain a BEF Army command for him in June 1915 (Richard Holmes wrote that French remained fond of him but insisted on his suitability despite "impressive evidence to the contrary"). Paget retired in 1918. Scornful of formal study of war, he once remarked that he 'lived history rather than read it' (The Times, 10 Dec 1928). daughter of Massachusetts hotel proprietors Paran Stevens and Marietta Reed Stevens. She was a major beneficiary of her father's estate, which was the subject of thirty years' litigation after his death in 1872. Albert Edward Sydney Louis Paget (1879–1917), who was unmarried. He died on active service from the effects of poison gas in August 1917. Arthur Wyndham Louis Paget (1888–1966), who married Rosemary Victoria Lowry Corry, daughter of Brig. Gen. Noel Armar Lowry Corry. Reginald Scudamore George Paget (1888–1931), who married Minnie Louise Claussenius, an actress whose stage name was Jane Field.