William Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood

Who was William Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood?

Field Marshal William Riddell Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood, GCB GCSI GCMG GCVO CIE DSO was a British Army officer. He saw active service in the Second Boer War on the staff of Lord Kitchener. He saw action again in the First World War as Commander of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915, leading the landings on the peninsula and then the evacuation later in the year, before becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Fifth Army on the Western Front during the closing stages of the War. He went on to be General Officer Commanding the Northern Army in India in 1920 and Commander-in-Chief, India, in 1925.