25 Facts About Launcelot Kiggell

Launcelot Kiggell attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Royal Warwickshire Regiment of the British Army as a lieutenant on 10 May 1882.

Launcelot Kiggell attended the Staff College, Camberley from 1893 until December 1894.

Launcelot Kiggell was then an instructor at the RMC, Sandhurst from 1895 to 1897.

Launcelot Kiggell served in South Africa throughout the Second Boer War.

Launcelot Kiggell was promoted to brevet lieutenant colonel on 29 November 1900.

Launcelot Kiggell then served as assistant adjutant-general for Harrissmith District, then held the same post in Natal after the end of the war.

Launcelot Kiggell was mentioned in dispatches for his services during the war.

Launcelot Kiggell was promoted to substantive lieutenant colonel in January 1904, and from then until 1907 he was DAAG at the Staff College, during which he was promoted to brevet lieutenant colonel in April 1905.

Launcelot Kiggell wrote a revised edition of Edward Hamley's Operations of War.

Launcelot Kiggell was awarded a Companion of the Order of the Bath in June 1908.

Launcelot Kiggell was then promoted to temporary brigadier general in charge of administration at Scottish Command from March to October 1909.

Launcelot Kiggell was then director of staff duties at the War Office from 1909 to 1913, in succession to Haig, of whom he was something of a protege.

Launcelot Kiggell was considered as a successor for Henry Wilson as commandant of the Staff College in 1910, but the post went to Robertson; instead he succeeded Robertson as commandant in October 1913 and for which he was allowed to retain his temporary rank.

Launcelot Kiggell served in the First World War as director of military training at the War Office from 1914, and as director of home defence at the War Office from later that year until 1915.

Launcelot Kiggell was promoted to major general in October 1914.

Launcelot Kiggell served briefly as deputy chief of the imperial general staff at the end of 1915.

When General Sir Douglas Haig was promoted to commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force in December 1915, Kiggell was appointed chief of the general staff of the BEF, which saw him raised to the temporary rank of lieutenant general while serving in this position.

Sir Henry Wilson, liaising with French Grand Quartier General early in 1917, claimed that Launcelot Kiggell "hated the French".

Launcelot Kiggell is quoted, on seeing a flooded trench, as saying "Why wasn't I told it was like this".

Launcelot Kiggell was a scapegoat following the failure of Allied forces to achieve a decisive result at Passchendaele and the German counterattack which retook almost all the British gains at Cambrai.

Launcelot Kiggell was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in January 1918.

Launcelot Kiggell was Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey from 1918 until 1920, in which year he retired from the Army.

Launcelot Kiggell worked on the Official History of the Great War from 1920 to 1923, but had to give up the task on health grounds.

Launcelot Kiggell had married Eleanor Rose Field, daughter of a colonel, on 10 March 1888.

Launcelot Kiggell died, after a thirty-year retirement, at Felixstowe on 23 February 1954.