MARSHALL, Lt Gen Sir William Raine (1865-1939)

Letters from Marshall to his brother, John Eden Marshall (1864-1937), the Hon Mr Justice Marshall, Judge in Egyptian Court of Appeal, written throughout World War One, including chatty, if brief, descriptions of his service in Gallipoli, Salonika and Mesopotamia, where he became Commander in Chief of the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force in Nov 1917, 1915-1919. The great bulk of the letters are therefore written from Mesopotamia, 1916-1919, and include Marshall's descriptions of the second Battle of Kut el Amara, Dec 1916; the advance to and the fall of Baghdad, Mar 1917, with impressions of the city; the Battle of Band-i-Adhaim, 30 Apr 1917; the building of railways and improvement of communications along the British front line; commentary on the progress of the war on the Western, Eastern and Southern fronts; commentary on the progress of the British forces under Gen Sir Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby on the Palestine front, 1917-1919; the clearance of Jebel Hamrin and the River Diyala, Mesopotamia, Oct 1917; the 'Dunsterforce' operation in Persia, 1918; the advance up the Euphrates and the taking of Hit and Khan Baghdadi, Mar-May 1918; the final offensive on the Tigris, Oct-Nov 1918, culminating in the signing of an armistice with the Turks on 30 Oct, 1918.

Born 1865; educated Repton and Royal Military College, Sandhurst; Lt in Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regt), 1886; Capt, 1893; served North West Frontier, India, with Malakand Frontier Force (attached to The Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment)) and Tirah Expeditionary Force (with Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regt)), 1897-1898; Brevet Maj, 1900; served Second Boer War, South Africa, with mounted infantry and in command of a mobile column, 1900-1902; Brevet Lt Col, 1902; Brevet Lt Col, 1904; Assistant Commandant, School of Instruction for Mounted Infantry, Longmoor, Hampshire, 1911; Lt Col, 1912; served World War One, 1914-1918; Commander 1 Bn Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regt), France, 1914-1915; temporary Brig, 1915; Commander 87 Infantry Bde, 29 Div, Gallipoli, 1915-1916; successively commanded 42, 29 and 53 Divs, Gallipoli, where he was present at original landing and final evacuation, 1915-1916; Maj Gen, 1915; Commander 27 Div in Salonika, Greece, 1916; temporary Lt Gen, 1916-1918; Commander 3 Indian Army Corps, Mesopotamia, 1916-1917; General Officer Commanding in Chief, Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force, 1917-1919; Lt Gen, 1919; General Officer Commanding in Chief, Southern Command, India, 1919-1923; retired pay, 1924; Col of Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regt), 1930-1935; died 1939.

Arranged chronologically.

Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.

Presented to the Centre by the family in 1966.

Summary guide entry on-line at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iss/archives/cats/, and detailed catalogue available in hard copy in the Centre's reading room.

Marshall's insignia and medals are housed in the Sherwood Foresters Museum, The Castle, Nottingham.

Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, attention of the Director of Archive Services.

There is some correspondence with Marshall in the papers of Maj Gen Frederick Barton Maurice (Ref: GB 99 KCLMA Maurice FB).