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Field Marshal Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, 1st Baronet (5 May 1864 – 22 June 1922) was one of the most senior British Army staff officers of the First World War and was briefly an Irish Unionist politician. Wilson served as Commandant of the Staff College, Camberley, and then as Director of Military Operations at the War Office, in which post he played a vital role in drawing up plans to deploy an Expeditionary Force to France in the event of war. During these years Wilson acquired a reputation as a political intriguer for his role in agitating for the introduction of conscription and in the Curragh Incident of 1914, when he encouraged senior officers to resign rather than enforce Home Rule in Ulster. As Sub Chief of Staff to the BEF, Wilson was Sir John French's most important advisor during the 1914 campaign, but his poor relations with Haig and Robertson saw him sidelined from top decision-making in the middle years of the war. He played an important role in Anglo-French military relations in 1915 and – after his only experience of field command as a corps commander in 1916〔 – again as an ally of the controversial General Nivelle in early 1917. Later in 1917 he was informal military advisor to the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and then British Permanent Military Representative at the Supreme War Council at Versailles. In 1918 Wilson served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff (professional head of the Army). He continued to hold this position after the war, a time when the Army was being sharply reduced in size whilst attempting to contain industrial unrest in the UK and nationalist unrest in Mesopotamia, Iraq and Egypt. He also played an important role in the Irish War of Independence. After retiring from the Army, Wilson served briefly as a Member of Parliament, and also as security advisor to the Northern Ireland government. He was assassinated on his own doorstep by two IRA gunmen in 1922 whilst returning home from unveiling a war memorial at Liverpool Street station. ==Family background== The Wilson family claimed to have arrived in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, with William of Orange in 1690, but may well have lived in the area prior to that. They prospered in the Belfast shipping business in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and following the Encumbered Estates Act of 1849 became landowners in counties Dublin, Westmeath and Longford. Wilson’s father James, the youngest of four sons, inherited Currygrane in Ballinalee, County Longford (1,200 acres, worth £835 in 1878), making him a middling landowner, more than a large farmer but not a “Big House” Ascendancy landlord; by 1901 the Currygrane estate had 49 Catholic and 13 Protestant (10 of them the Wilson family) inhabitants. James Wilson served as a High sheriff, a Justice of the peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Longford, there being no elected local government in Ireland until 1898, and he and his oldest son Jemmy attended Trinity College, Dublin. There is no record of Land League activity on the estate, and as late as the 1960s the IRA leader Sean MacEoin remembered the Wilsons as having been fair landlords and employers.〔Jeffery 2006, p2-3〕 The Wilsons also owned Frascati, an eighteenth century house at Blackrock, near Dublin.〔Jeffery 1985, p.1〕 Born at Currygrane, Henry Wilson was the second of James and Constance Wilson's four sons (he also had three sisters). He attended Marlborough public school between September 1877 and Easter 1880, before leaving for a crammer to prepare for the Army. One of Wilson’s younger brothers also became an army officer and the other a land agent.〔Jeffery 2006, p3-4, 11〕 Wilson spoke with an Irish accent and at times regarded himself as British, Irish or an Ulsterman. Like many Anglo-Irish or Scots of his era, he often referred to Britain as "England." He may well, like many Anglo-Irish, have played up his “Irishness” in England and regarded himself as more “Anglo-” whilst in Ireland, and may well also have agreed with his brother Jemmy that Ireland was not “homogenous” enough to be "a Nation." Wilson was also a devout member of the Church of Ireland, which evolved a distinctive Irish and Low Church identity after Disestablishment in 1869. Wilson was not an Orangeman, and did on occasion attend Roman Catholic services, but disliked “Romish” ritual, especially when practised by Anglican clergymen. He enjoyed good personal relations with Catholics, although there are unsubstantiated claims that he disliked George MacDonogh, and tried to block the promotion of William Hickie, as both men were Catholics.〔Jeffery 2006, pviii, 5–10〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sir Henry Wilson, 1st Baronet」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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