Джон Эдвард Бернард Сили, 1-й барон Моттистон: Жизнь и карьера

British soldier and politician (1868–1947)

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.

Seely was born at Brookhill Hall in the village of Pinxton in Derbyshire on 31 May 1868. He was the seventh child, and fourth son, of Sir Charles Seely, 1st Baronet (1833–1915). 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. 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 served bravely, if a little insubordinately.

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. 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.

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. 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.

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. 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. 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.

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. This did not stop tensions about the Army's role from growing. General Paget, who was reluctant to move in case it exacerbated the crisis, was summoned to London. 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.

On the morning of Monday 23 March, Seely had a meeting with Gough, with Paget, French and Spencer Ewart in attendance. 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 had not been consulted about this second assurance. 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". 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. 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. 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 appointed a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) on 1 January 1918. After being gassed in 1918, he returned to England, He was angry about the move. Seely had remained an MP throughout his military service in the First World War, and as a member of the Liberal faction which supported Lloyd George's coalition government, he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions on 10 July 1918, serving under Churchill (then Minister of Munitions). Belgium appointed him a Commander of the Order of the Crown, and France both appointed Seely a Commander of the Légion d'honneur and awarded him the Croix de guerre. He was appointed Under Secretary of State for Air and President of the Air Council in 1919, again under Winston Churchill (Secretary of State for War). However, he resigned both posts at the end of 1919 after the Government refused to create a Secretary of State for Air (as it later did). Like many Lloyd George Liberals, Seely lost his seat at Ilkeston at the November 1922 General Election. Seely was also a Colonel of the Territorial Army, an Honorary Colonel of 72nd (Hampshire), an Honorary Air Commander Auxiliary Air Force. Seely returned to Parliament as a member of the reunited Liberal Party for the Isle of Wight at the December 1923 General Election, which saw a hung Parliament in which the Liberals supported the first Labour Government under Ramsay MacDonald. In May 1924, however, Churchill (then out of Parliament, and who had recently left the Liberal Party to become an independent "Constitutionalist", prior to rejoining the Conservatives after his return to the Commons in 1924) listed Seely in a letter to Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin as one of his group of Liberal MPs who would vote against the Labour government, and a month later mentioned Seely as a likely Liberal Conservative. Indeed, according to historian Chris Wrigley, Seely's political trajectory was similar to that of Churchill's (i. e. a Conservative in 1900, joining the Liberals a few years later, then becoming a Conservative again in the 1920s). Seely lost his seat again at the 1924 General Election, at which the Liberals suffered heavy losses. In 1933, Lord Mottistone visited Berlin in his capacity as Chairman of the Air League, as a guest of Joachim von Ribbentrop. In 1935, he visited Nazi Germany again in his boat "Mayflower". His book, "Mayflower seeks the Truth", which according to the ODNB was "full of Nazi propaganda", was published in Germany in 1937. Plans for a British edition were shelved in 1938 as tensions mounted over Czechoslovakia.

Seely was a popular figure in the House of Commons. The Times called him a "Gallant Figure in War and Politics" and Lord Birkenhead wrote, "In fields of great and critical danger he has constantly over a long period of years displayed a cool valour which everybody in the world who knows the facts freely recognizes." Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies in the final year of the First World War, gave him a cigarette case inscribed, Au Ministre de 1912: au Vaillant de la Grande Guerre. A screen was erected in St. Peter and St. Paul's Church in Mottistone in his memory.

Seely married Emily Florence, daughter of Colonel Sir Henry George Louis Crichton, on 9 July 1895. They had three sons and four daughters. She died in August 1913. The present Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, Bob Seely, is his great great nephew.

According to the Sir Alfred Munnings Art Museum (Alfred Munnings was a former president of the Royal Academy of Arts and famous horse painter) "Without doubt his most important painting was that of General J. E. B. Seely (later Lord Mottistone) on his charger Warrior which led to his commission to paint the Earl of Athlone, brother of Queen Mary." Jack Seely was featured in the HBO film Into the Storm in 2009. At the end of the film Churchill reads a sympathetic post election note from his old friend Jack Seely: "I feel our world slipping away." Churchill thinks back: "I met him in South Africa, riding across the veldt. He was Col. Seely then. I saw him at the head of a column of British cavalry, riding twenty yards in front, on a black horse. I thought of him as the very symbol of British Imperial power." The Testimony Films 2012 documentary War Horse: The Real Story contained extensive discussion of the First World War service of Seely and his widely revered horse, Warrior. Warrior was adopted as his formation's mascot and had a reputation for bravery under fire. Warrior survived the war, dying in 1941 at the age of 33. In September 2014, the horse was posthumously awarded an honorary PDSA Dickin Medal for bravery.

Adventure (1930) featuring an introduction by Lord Birkenhead, praising his skill as a raconteur.