Harold Ruggles-Brise
Major-General Sir Harold Goodeve Ruggles-Brise was a British Army officer in the Second Boer War and First World War, and a good amateur cricketer.
Early life
Harold Ruggles-Brise was born in Essex in Spains Hall, Finchingfield on 17 March 1864, the fifth son of Sir Samuel Brise Ruggles-Brise, of Spains Hall, Essex, and his wife Marianne Weyland Bowyer-Smith, daughter of Sir Edward Bowyer-Smith, 10th Baronet, of Hill Hall, Essex.His eldest brothers were Archie and Evelyn. Unlike his elder brothers who went to Eton College, Harold was educated at Winchester College, where he was in the Rev J. T. Bramston's House, and where he "thrived at the school, becoming head of his house and Captain of the 1st XI, known as 'Lords', in 1882", and at Balliol College, Oxford. At Oxford, Ruggles-Brise obtained a Second Class in Classical Moderations, "long regarded as one of the hardest examinations in the world", and his cricket Blue in 1883.
Early military career
After Oxford, Ruggles-Brise entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, passing out in 1885, and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards in May 1885. After serving with the 2nd Battalion of his regiment, first at Chelsea Barracks, then from October 1886 at Richmond Barracks in Dublin, he served with the battalion, becoming the adjutant of the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards, from 1893–94, and as adjutant of the Guards Depot at Caterham in 1895.He then studied at the Staff College, Camberley, from 1897 to 1898, earning his psc. His fellow students there included many men who would later rise to prominence in the next few decades, the most notable among them being the future field marshal, "Wully" Robertson, Archibald Murray and George Barrow, both full generals, while Oliver Nugent, Colin Mackenzie and Henry Joseph Everett would all retire as major generals and Reginald Oxley and Frederick Lionel Banon as brigadier generals.
Second Boer War
Promoted to captain in October 1897, Ruggles-Brise served with the 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards at Gibraltar before being appointed brigade major to the infantry brigade at Gibraltar in March 1899. In October that year he and his brigadier, Sir Henry Colville, were transferred to Cape Colony as part of the troop build-up for the Second Boer War. Colville took command of the 1st (Guards) Brigade in Major-General Lord Methuen's 1st Division, with Ruggles-Brise as his brigade major.Advancing to relieve Kimberley at the beginning of the war, Methuen attempted a night attack at Belmont on 22/23 November 1899. He sent Colville off with his brigade to assault Gun Hill: although 'They were guided by my Brigade Major, Captain Ruggles-Brise, who led them to the exact spot', Colville admitted that he had miscalculated the distance, and that the commanding officer of the 3rd Grenadier Guards attacked the wrong hill. Neither error was Ruggles-Brise's fault and he received his first mention in dispatches for his work that night. He distinguished himself again at the Battle of Modder River and was present at the Battle of Magersfontein.
When Colville was promoted to command the 9th Division, Ruggles-Brise went with him as his deputy assistant adjutant general.
However, in May 1900, while Lord Roberts was closing in on Johannesburg, a yeomanry battalion under Colville's command was cut off and forced to surrender, Colville was made a scapegoat and sent home. Ruggles-Brise remained in South Africa until the end of the year, when he was re-appointed as brigade major in Home District.
School of Musketry
Ruggles-Brise was promoted brevet major on 9 November 1900, and became a regimental major by seniority on 11 October 1902. On 1 April 1903 he became brigade major of the Brigade of Guards, and simultaneously of the 9th Infantry Brigade.Promoted to [Lieutenant Colonel (United Kingdom)|colonel (United Kingdom)|lieutenant colonel] on 20 July 1907, Ruggles-Brise became commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards, taking over from Lieutenant Colonel Sir Charles Fergusson, which he commanded for the next four years.
After completing this term he was then briefly placed on half-pay. Having been promoted to colonel on 30 August 1911, he was next appointed commandant of the School of Musketry at Hythe in Kent, in succession to Colonel Walter Congreve, a Victoria Cross recipient who had been a contemporary at Sandhurst many years before. In 1909 the School of Musketry had advocated that each British infantry battalion should be equipped with six instead of two machine-guns. This had been turned down on grounds of cost, so the decision had been made to train the infantry in rapid-fire musketry to make up for the lack of automatic weapons. During Ruggles-Brises's command the school played a crucial role in training the instructors who in turn taught the British Regular Army to shoot so effectively that in the early part of the First World War German reports repeatedly credited them with possessing large numbers of machine guns. Conversely, Ruggles-Brise has been criticised for delaying the development of anti-aircraft machine-guns in 1912.
First World War
Brigade commander
Soon after the outbreak of the First World War, Ruggles-Brise was promoted to temporary brigadier general to command a brigade composed of the last three infantry battalions of the Regular Army left in Britain after the British Expeditionary Force went to France. They constituted the 20th Infantry Brigade which, together with the 21st and 22nd infantry brigades and supporting units, formed part of the 7th Division, commanded by Major General Thompson Capper, and assembled at Lyndhurst, Hampshire. Although not officially designated a Guards brigade, it did contain two Guards battalions.The 7th Division landed at Zeebrugge on 7 October 1914, intended to assist the Belgian Army in the defence of Antwerp. In the event all it could do was help to cover the Belgian retreat and then take up defensive positions at Ypres where they were joined by the rest of the BEF after the race to the Sea. Thereafter the 20th Brigade was engaged in heavy fighting at Langemarck and Gheluvelt during the First Battle of Ypres Like several other senior officers who got out among their units to exercise personal command during this confused fighting, Ruggles-Brise was wounded, having "sustained dreadful wounds to both arms and his shoulder blade and was stretchered back half dead, leaving Major Cator in command . In hindsight maybe he was lucky for his Irish Guards contemporary, Brigadier-General Charles FitzClarence VC, was killed outright nine days later when leading the 1st Guards Brigade in a counterattack at Veldhock". He was carried back 'half dead of a dreadful wound on a stretcher' on 2 November.
During his convalescence in England he reverted to his substantive rank of colonel and the half-pay list, but after returning to active duty in July 1915 he was once again made a temporary brigadier general and appointed brigadier general, general staff, at the Aldershot Training Centre, taking over from Brigadier General Cameron Shute.
The Bantams
On 25 September 1915, Ruggles-Brise was promoted to the temporary rank of major general and appointed to command the 40th Division. This was a new formation, one of the last of Kitchener's 'New Army' divisions, and by the time it was organised the flow of volunteers had slackened and the army had to reduce its height requirement for infantry in an effort to attract recruits. This led to the creation of so-called 'Bantam' battalions of smaller men. The 40th Division's 119th Brigade was the Welsh Bantam Brigade composed of 'well-knit, hardy Welshmen', but 'the men of the other two brigades contained a large proportion of under-developed and unfit men, and a drastic weeding-out became necessary'. 'It was estimated that only two serviceable battalions could be formed from the existing four in each brigade, consequently the 120th and 121st Brigades would each require two new battalions to complete it to war establishment. Early in 1916 Ruggles-Brise recommended that four new battalions should be sent, to prevent the departure of the division overseas being indefinitely postponed. The four battalions of 118th Brigade were transferred to complete his brigades. The reorganisation was completed in February 1916 and the division was fully mobilised by the end of May.The 40th Division under Ruggles-Brise embarked for France in early June and took its place on the Western Front to join in the continuous trench warfare. One of his brigades assisted another division in the Battle of the Ancre in November 1916, and the division followed up the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line in March 1917, but the whole division's first offensive actions came in April and May 1917. On 21, 24 and 25 April, the 40th Division captured 'Fifteen Ravine', Villers-Plouich and Beaucamp. Today, Fifteen Ravine British Cemetery stands in Farm Ravine, which was captured by the 12th Battalion, South Wales Borderers, while Villers-Plouich was captured by the 13th Battalion East Surrey Regiment.
Home defence
Ruggles-Brise was promoted to substantive major-general for "distinguished service in the field" on 3 June 1917. He relinquished command of the 40th Division to fellow guardsman Major-General John Ponsonby on 24 August 1917 and returned to England to take over command of the 73rd Division, a home defence formation stationed in Essex. Originally composed of men of the Territorial Force who had not volunteered for overseas service, this distinction had been swept away by the Military Service Act 1916, and the division's role had changed to fitness training to prepare these former home service men for drafting to fighting divisions. Towards the end of 1917 the War Office decided to disband the home service divisions, and the 73rd Division was progressively broken up between January and March 1918. Ruggles-Brise relinquished his command on 4 March.Haig's right-hand man
His next posting was as military secretary at the general headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force under the BEF's commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. After harsh criticism of GHQ's performance during the 1917 fighting, several of Haig's senior staff had been replaced by new men like Ruggles-Brise brought in. The military secretary was one of the C-in-C's closest assistants with particular responsibility for promotions and appointments. Ruggles-Brise arrived to take over from Lieutenant General Sir William Peyton in the middle of the German spring offensive of March 1918, and one of his first jobs was to inform the commander of the BEF's Fifth Army, General Sir Hubert Gough – in the midst of organising a counter-attack – that he was being replaced. Gough later recalled that Ruggles-Brise 'told me as nicely as he could'.Retirement
Ruggles-Brise continued as Haig's Military Secretary throughout the German offensives and then the Allies' victorious Hundred Days Offensive of 1918, which ultimately led to the armistice of 11 November 1918 and an end to the war. He finally relinquished the position on 13 April 1919. He then worked in the Military Secretary's Department in England until 3 September 1919, and retired from the army, after thirty-five years of service, on 10 March 1920.In retirement he devoted himself to soldiers' welfare, and was secretary of the Officers' Association.