Herbert Plumer, 1st Viscount Plumer

The Viscount Plumer
Gen. Sir Herbert Plumer
Born	13 March 1857 Torquay, England
Died	16 July 1932 (aged 75)
Buried at	Westminster Abbey
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1876 - 1919
Rank	Field Marshal
Commands held	4th Brigade 10th Division 7th Division 5th Division Northern Command Second Army British Army of the Rhine
Battles/wars	Mahdist War Second Matabele War Second Boer War World War I
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 Grand Cordon, Order of the Rising Sun
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 British colonial official and soldier born in Torquay who commanded the British Second Army in World War I and later served as High Commissioner of the British Mandate for Palestine. The correct appellation of his viscountcy is that he was created Viscount Plumer of Messines. This commemorates, appropriately, his overall command of the extraordinary engineering feat of the explosive mine attacks under German trench positions in June 1917 (the enterprise started in December 1915).

Military career

Educated at Eton College and Sandhurst, Plumer was commissioned into the York and Lancaster Regiment in 1876.

From 1879 to 1886, an unusually long period, he was adjutant of his battalion, and in that capacity accompanied it to the Sudan in 1884 in the expedition under Sir Gerald Graham VC. Plumer was present at the battles of El Teb and Tamai, and was mentioned in Despatches. He spent from 1885–1887 at the Staff College, Camberley, before being appointed Deputy-Assistant Adjutant-General in Jersey from 1890 to 1893. He was gazetted major in February 1893. In 1896, Plumer was posted to southern Africa, when he "raised and commanded a corps of mounted rifles" during the Second Matabele War. He was again Mentioned in Despatches and a brevet Lieutenant-Colonelcy followed. He wrote about his experiences in his book With an Irregular Corps in Matabeleland.

After service in South Africa he was appointed Commander of the 4th Brigade within I Army Corps in 1902 before moving on to be General Officer Commanding 10th Division within IV Army Corps in 1903. In 1904 he became Quartermaster-General to the Forces, in 1906 he was made GOC 7th Division and in 1907 he became GOC 5th Division within Irish Command. Then in 1911 he was appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief for Northern Command.

World War One

Following the unexpected death of Sir James Grierson on his arrival in France in 1914, Plumer was considered for command of one of two BEF Corps alongside Haig. This position eventually went to Horace Smith-Dorrien.

After commanding V Corps in 1915, he led the Second Army in Flanders during World War I, during which he won an overwhelming victory over the German Army at the Battle of Messines in 1917, started with what was described as the loudest explosion in human history, created by the simultaneous explosion of 19 mines by the Royal Engineer tunnelling companies.

Wartime sketch of General Plumer

Plumer is generally regarded as one of the finest army commanders serving in France during World War I. Like the majority of generals on the Western Front he was from an infantry, as opposed to a cavalry background and deprecated the insistence on the value of the "breakthrough" and the effectiveness of cavalry to exploit the opening and reach the open country beyond the front line. As a career Infantry officer it could be argued that he understood somewhat better what could reasonably be expected of his troops bearing in mind the terrain, the weather and morale. Plumer, a meticulous planner, would often express the plans of his superiors as being too ambitious and more often than not, as seen at the Third Battle of Ypres, he would be proved to be right.

Plumer was very popular with the men gaining the affectionate nickname "old Plum" and "Daddy Plumer". He was a cliché of a General to look at; with a receding chin and a white moustache, his appearance suggested on the photographs of the day everything that he was not.

In November 1917 Plumer was sent to command British troops in Italy after the disaster at Caporetto.

Early in 1918, Plumer was sought by Lloyd George for the position of Chief of the Imperial General Staff as a replacement for William Robertson. He declined the position.

Plumer commanded British Second Army during the final stages of the war, during the German Spring offensive and the Hundred Days.

Plumer left no private papers and never having expressed a recorded opinion of the conduct of the war, the lengthy debate over the Generalship in World War I largely passed him by.

Alessio Ascalesi, the Archbishop of Naples, with Herbert Plumer, 1st Viscount Plumer, and Luigi Barlassina, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, on the right, 11 August 1926

Post World War I

Plumer became Commander of the British Army of the Rhine in 1918 and Governor of Malta in 1919. In September 1919, he was promoted field-marshal. and in October 1919, he was created Baron Plumer of Messines and of Bilton.

In 1925 he became High Commissioner of the British Mandate for Palestine. He resisted Arab pressure to reverse commitments made by the British in the Balfour Declaration. His three-year term as High Commissioner is generally noted as the calmest period during the British Mandate. He was replaced by Sir John Chancellor in 1928. In the King's Birthday Honours in June 1929, Plumer was created Viscount Plumer for his "long and distinguished public services".

He died in 1932. His body was cremated, his ashes later buried in Westminster Abbey next to those of Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby.

Honours

• 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
• Grand Cordon, Order of the Rising Sun, 1921.

See also

• Menin Gate

Further reading

• Harington, General Sir Charles Plumer of Messines Murray, 1935
• Powell, Geoffrey Plumer: The Soldier's General: A Biography of Field-Marshal Viscount Plumer of Messines Pen and Sword Books Ltd (19 July 1990) ISBN 0-85052-605-1 / Leo Cooper Ltd (Jan 2004) ISBN 1-84415-039-9
• Sykes, Frank W. With Plumer in Matabeleland: an account of the operations of the Matabeleland Relief Force during the rebellion of 1896 Constable & Co, London, 1897. Reprints: Rhodesiana Reprint Library, Vol 21, Books of Rhodesia, Bulawayo, 1972 and Negro Universities Press, 1969 ISBN 0-8371-1640-6.
• Yockelson, Mitchell A. (30 May 2008). Borrowed Soldiers: Americans under British Command, 1918. Foreword by John S. D. Eisenhower. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3919-7.

References

• "War Peers' Titles". The Times (Times Newspapers Ltd) (42237): 12. 22 October 1919.
• "King's Birth Honours". The Times (Times Newspapers Ltd) (45219): 10. 3 June 1929.
• "Lord Plumer (tribute)". The Times (Times Newspapers Ltd) (46188): 13. 18 July 1932.
• "Field-Marshal Lord Plumer: A Great Leader of Men (obituary)". The Times (Times Newspapers Ltd) (46188): 17. 18 July 1932.
• "Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives". Viscount Plumer. King's College London. 2008. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/locreg/PLUMER.shtml. Retrieved 5 July 2012.

External links

• National Portrait Gallery

Military offices
Preceded by Sir Ian Hamilton	Quartermaster-General to the Forces 1904–1905	Succeeded by Sir William Nicholson
Preceded by Gerald Morton	General Officer Commanding the 7th Division 1906–1907	Succeeded by Post Disbanded
Preceded by Henry Grant	General Officer Commanding the 5th Division 1907–1909	Succeeded by William Campbell
Preceded by Sir Laurence Oliphant	GOC-in-C Northern Command 1911–1914	Succeeded by Sir Henry Lawson
Preceded by New Post	GOC V Corps February 1915–May 1915	Succeeded by Edmund Allenby
Preceded by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien	Commander, British Second Army 1915–1917	Succeeded by Sir Henry Rawlinson
Preceded by New command	Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine 1918–1919	Succeeded by Sir William Robertson
Government offices
Preceded by The Lord Methuen	Governor of Malta 1919 – 1924	Succeeded by Sir Walter Congreve
Preceded by Sir Herbert Samuel	High Commissioner of Palestine 1925 – 1928	Succeeded by Sir Harry Luke
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Viscount Plumer 1929 – 1932	Succeeded by Thomas Plumer
Baron Plumer 1919 – 1932