General Sir Beauchamp Duff, GCB, GCSI, KCVO, CIE, KStJ (17 February 1855 – 20 January 1918) was a Scottish officer with a distinguished career in the British Indian Army.

Two years later, Duff married Grace Maria, daughter of Oswald Wood of the Punjab Uncovenanted Civil Service.

The change of designated name to 9th Gurkha Rifles much later was symbolic of the shifting priorities from a land based imperial defence force, to mobile more specialized mountain units.

[1] Duff was Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General at the Indian Army Headquarters from 1891 to 1895, then served as a Brigade Major on the Isazai Expedition during 1892.

He was again Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General during the Waziristan Expedition from 1894 to 1895, fighting in the action at Wano, twice mentioned in despatches, he was promoted brevet lieutenant colonel.

He was twice mentioned in despatches for the Boer War, was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath, and received the Queen's South Africa Medal with five clasps.

Following Kitchener's departure, Duff served as Secretary in the Military Department of the India Office from 1909, was promoted general in 1911, and created a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath at the Coronation of George V and Mary later that year.

In 1914, Duff was appointed as ADC General to the King, and was in this significant political role when the First World War broke out on 4 August.

Indian Viceroy Lord Hardinge asked Duff to make a military assessment as to the feasibility of an operation in Mesopotamia.

[5] The question remained however that Townshend wanted to retreat – Aziziyeh, was untenable, and in any event his decision concurred with Duff's instructions, not to over-extend supply lines.

Yet the chain of command remained confused: responsibility for reinforcements, which Townshend had refused from Nixon, would later be blamed on the Indian Commander-in-chief.

The march on Baghdad began well: 9,000 troops of the 6th Indian Division commanded by Major General Townshend in 1915 ended in catastrophe when the remnants of the British invasion force, cut down by heatstroke and disease, were defeated at Ctesiphon, and then surrounded in Kut El Amara.

In July, the reported lack of hospital and transports ships, nominally General Nixon's command responsibility, had not yet been discharged by Duff, as the Force D Medical staff were all under India.

However Conservative Lord President of the Privy Council, Bonar Law argued that any disclosure of Inquiry details during the war could only help the enemy and undermine morale.

Kitchener had reported in 1915 "if we lose it will be worse for India than any success of internal revolution or frontier attack... held unpatriotic in a private citizen ... and in men in the positions occupied by Lord Hardinge and Sir Beauchamp Duff it has been a calamity for England.

General Nixon, the Commander-in-Chief of the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, was also held responsible for the failed campaign "it looked as if India were trying to lay down a policy behind the back of the Secretary of State and the Cabinet.