Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside

Who was Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside?

Field Marshal William Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside GCB, CMG, DSO was a British military commander, who served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff during the first year of the Second World War.

Ironside joined the Royal Artillery in 1899, and served throughout the Second Boer War, followed by a brief period spying on the German colonial forces in South-West Africa. Returning to regular duty, he served on the staff of a Regular Army division during the first two years of the First World War, before being appointed on the staff of the newly raised 4th Canadian Division in 1916. In 1918 he was given command of a brigade on the Western Front, but was quickly promoted to command the Allied intervention force in northern Russia in 1919, then an Allied force occupying Turkey, and finally a British force in Persia in 1921. He was offered the post of the commander of British forces in Iraq, but was unable to take up the role due to injuries in a flying accident.

He returned to the Army as Commandant of the Staff College, Camberley, where he advocated the ideas of J. F. C. Fuller, a proponent of mechanisation.