Archibald Murray
Sir Archibald James Murray, was a British Army officer who served in the Second Boer War and the First World War. He was chief of staff to the British Expeditionary Force in August 1914 but appears to have suffered a physical breakdown in the retreat from Mons, and was required to step down from that position in January 1915. After serving as Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff for much of 1915, he was briefly Chief of the Imperial General Staff from September to December 1915. He was subsequently Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force from January 1916 to June 1917, in which role he laid the military foundation for the defeat and destruction of the Ottoman Empire in the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant.
Military career
Born the son of Charles Murray and his wife Anne Graves, and educated at Cheltenham College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Archibald James Murray was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the 27th Regiment of Foot, later the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, on 13 August 1879.He was appointed adjutant of his regiment on 12 February 1886. After promotion to captain on 1 July 1887 and taking part in the suppression of a Zulu uprising in 1888, he became adjutant of the 4th Battalion, the Bedfordshire Regiment on 15 December 1890.
Murray attended the Staff College, Camberley from 1897 to 1898 and was promoted while there to major on 1 June 1898. He served in the Second Boer War as deputy assistant adjutant general for intelligence in Natal from 9 October 1899 and then as chief of staff to the commander there. He took part in the withdrawal from Dundee and then the siege of Ladysmith in late 1899 and became senior staff officer to Sir Archibald Hunter, general officer commanding of the 10th Division, early in 1900. He was appointed an assistant adjutant general on 6 March 1900, promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 29 October 1900 and awarded the Distinguished Service Order on 29 November 1900. He was again mentioned in despatches in February 1901.
Murray was appointed commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, stationed in India, in October 1901, but never took up this position. He was deployed to Northern Transvaal in February 1902 where he was seriously wounded in April and mentioned in despatches once more in July. After the end of hostilities in South Africa, he returned to England in June 1902, and became assistant adjutant general at Headquarters 1st Division at Aldershot on 3 November 1902. Promoted to colonel on 29 October 1903, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 1904 Birthday Honours and, promoted in November 1905 to the temporary rank of brigadier general, upon being made BGGS of Aldershot Command, became a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order on 12 June 1907.
Murray became director of military training, "a key posting in an army that was undergoing substantive reform", at the War Office, in succession to Major-General Douglas Haig, on 9 November 1907 and, having been promoted to major-general on 13 July 1910, he was advanced to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the June 1911 Coronation Honours. He also took part in the procession for the coronation of King George V on 22 June 1911. Murray became inspector of infantry on 9 December 1912. At the General Staff Conference in January 1914 he rejected proposals to adopt what he saw as a stereotyped French fire-and-movement doctrine. He then served as General officer commanding of the 2nd Division from 1 February 1914, taking over this post from Major-General Henry Merrick Lawson.
Chief of Staff, British Expeditionary Force, France and Belgium
Appointment
When the First World War started in July 1914 Murray was not appointed quartermaster general of the British Expeditionary Force as was originally intended. Instead he became chief of staff. He was promoted to temporary lieutenant-general on 5 August. Murray had already earned a high reputation as a staff officer in South Africa and under Sir John French, the BEF's commander, at the War Office. It is sometimes claimed that Murray was given the position largely because French's initial choice for the post, Henry Hughes Wilson, was vetoed because of his role in the Curragh incident. Although this claim was made after the war by James Edward Edmonds, Walter Kirke and Murray, there is no contemporary evidence, even in Wilson's diary, to confirm it. J. M. Bourne, however, offers another explanation:Wilson, Sir John French and Murray crossed to France on 14 August. The code books had been left behind in London, and Lieutenant Edward Spears had to go back to London for another set. He returned to find Murray at Rheims trying to "unravel" the strategic situation of the German Empire's armies' invasion of France on a set of large maps spread out upon the floor of his hotel room, on all fours, dressed only in his "pants", whilst chambermaids came and went.
Retreat from Mons
During the retreat of August 1914 the BEF staff, who had not rehearsed their roles, performed poorly. French was a dynamic leader but no manager. William Robertson and Walter Kirke recorded that Murray knew little of the plans which Wilson had drawn up with the French and had to work with a staff "almost entirely staffed from the Directorate" who were used to working with Wilson. This staff included Colonel George Harper.Murray summoned the Corps Chiefs of Staff at around 1am on 24 August, and ordered them to retreat, but gave them no detailed plans, leaving them to work out the details themselves. French agreed to Douglas Haig's request that I Corps retreat east of the Forest of Mormal without, apparently, Horace Smith-Dorrien being asked or informed. On 24 August Harper refused to do anything for Murray, so that Lord Loch had to write messages even though it was not his job. Loch wrote in his diary for that day that Murray was "by nature petulant" and "difficult to work with". Murray and his staff were working flat out in intense heat at Bavay, and recorded that he had passed 24 hours without undressing or sleeping. Smith-Dorrien visited GHQ to request detailed orders on the evening of 24 August, and had to bully Murray into issuing orders for II Corps to retreat to Le Cateau.
Murray noted in his diary that GHQ had moved back from Le Cateau to St Quentin and that I Corps was being heavily engaged by night – making no mention of what II Corps were up to. When 4th Division arrived Thomas Snow's orders were to help prepare a defensive position on the Cambrai-Le Cateau position, as GHQ had no idea of the seriousness of the situation facing II Corps. 4th Division was eventually able to participate in the Battle of Le Cateau. The news that Smith-Dorrien planned to stand and fight at Le Cateau reached GHQ at 5 am on 26 August – French was woken from his sleep, and insisting that Murray not be woken, sent Smith-Dorrien an ambiguous message that he had "a free hand as to the method" by which he fell back, which Smith-Dorrien took as permission to fight.
Murray appears to have suffered some kind of physical collapse round about this time, although the details differ between different eyewitness accounts. Wilson recorded that Murray had "completely broken down", had been given "morphia or some other drug" which made him incapable of work and when told of Smith-Dorrien's decision to stand and fight "promptly got a fainting fit". Spears' recollection was that Murray had collapsed with a weak pulse, but did not actually faint, when told earlier during the same night that the Germans had fallen upon Haig's I Corps at Landrecies. Spears wrote that Murray was too ill to attend the meeting of Sir John French with Joseph Joffre and Charles Lanrezac on 26 August, although John Terraine has him attending this meeting. Nevil Macready later recorded that Murray fainted at his desk whilst working at Noyon.
Wilson returned to GHQ on 29 August from a visit to Joffre to find – he said – "a perfect debacle" with "Murray leading the fright".
Autumn 1914
On 4 September Murray had an important meeting with Joseph Gallieni and Michel Maunoury to discuss the planned Allied counterattack which would become the First Battle of the Marne. Murray had no idea when French, who was out visiting British I Corps, was to return and was unwilling to make any decision in his absence. After a three-hour meeting a provisional agreement was drawn up; the French came away with the impression that the British would not cooperate and that Murray had "une grande repugnance" for them, but he did in fact pass the plans along to French. Whilst this was going on, Wilson was negotiating separate plans with Louis Franchet d'Esperey.Wilson noted that French and Murray "were out motoring and playing the ass all day". He had to intercede to prevent French from sacking Harper but a week later recorded, that Murray and Harper argued constantly. After a month Murray was still talking of "my men" and "s men" which Wilson thought "rather sad" and "deplorable". Wilson thought French and Murray were "between them quite unable to size up a position or to act with constancy for 24 hours"
Murray complained to Victor Huguet about Wilson, but also told Wilson that French was getting "more unreasonable" and asked Wilson whether he should resign; Wilson informed William Lambton, French's secretary, of both of these incidents. Murray also complained and threatened to resign when Wilson amended one of his orders without telling him. Murray later wrote "Why did I stay with War Office clique when I knew I was not wanted? I wanted to see Sir John through. I had been so many years with him, and knew better than anyone how his health, temper and temperament rendered him unfit, in my opinion, for the crisis we had to face.... the senior members entirely ignored me, as far as possible, continually thwarted me, even altered my instructions." He also said that Wilson's disloyalty had left him the impossible job of managing French alone. Henry Rawlinson noted in his diary that Murray became "a cipher at GHQ", was disliked by his subordinates and that French often ignored his staff "chiefly because Murray is incapable of managing them and getting any good work out of them". James Edward Edmonds later said that Murray sometimes falsified the timing of orders, but he was given away by the time stamp which the duty clerk placed on them.