The Viscount Plumer | |
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Plumer in 1917
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Born |
Kensington, London |
13 March 1857
Died | 16 July 1932 Knightsbridge, London |
(aged 75)
Buried at | Westminster Abbey |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service/branch | British Army |
Years of service | 1876–1919 |
Rank | Field Marshal |
Commands held |
British Army of the Rhine Second Army Northern Command 5th Division 7th Division 10th Division 4th Brigade |
Battles/wars |
Mahdist War Second Matabele War Second Boer War First World War |
Awards |
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire Mentioned in Despatches |
Other work | High Commissioner of Palestine |
Field Marshal Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer, 1st Viscount Plumer, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, GBE (13 March 1857 – 16 July 1932) was a senior British Army officer of the First World War. After commanding V Corps at the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915, he took command of the Second Army in May 1915 and in June 1917 won an overwhelming victory over the German Army at the Battle of Messines, which started with the simultaneous explosion of a series of mines placed by the Royal Engineers' tunnelling companies beneath German lines, which created 19 large craters and was described as the loudest explosion in human history. He later served as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine and then as Governor of Malta before becoming High Commissioner of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1925 and retiring in 1928.
Born the son of Hall Plumer and Louisa Alice Plumer (née Turnley) and educated at Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Plumer was commissioned as a lieutenant into the 65th Regiment of Foot on 11 September 1876. He joined his regiment in India and became adjutant of his battalion on 29 April 1879. Promoted to captain on 29 May 1882, he accompanied his battalion to the Sudan in 1884 as part of the Nile Expedition. Plumer was present at the battle of El Teb in February 1884 and the battle of Tamai in March 1884, and was mentioned in Despatches. He spent from 1886 to 1887 attending the Staff College, Camberley, before being appointed Deputy-Assistant Adjutant-General in Jersey on 7 May 1890. He was promoted to major on 22 January 1893 and posted to the 2nd Battalion the York and Lancaster Regiment before being appointed assistant military secretary to the General Officer Commanding Cape Colony in December 1895. He went to Southern Rhodesia in 1896 to disarm the local police force following the Jameson Raid and then later that year returned there to command the Matabele Relief Force during the Second Matabele War. He became deputy assistant adjutant-general at Aldershot with promotion to brevet lieutenant colonel on 8 May 1897.