Field Marshal Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer, KG, GCB, GCMG, KBE, DSO (11 September 1898 – 25 October 1979) was a senior British Army officer.

Some historians have described his methods as a successful example of a "hearts and minds" campaign, while other scholars have dismissed this as a myth due to his over-reliance on population control and coercion.

[15][16] In contrast to his time at Wellington, Templer greatly enjoyed Sandhurst, and later wrote with amusement that he "was a completely undistinguished cadet from every point of view and passed out – nobody failed at that stage of the First World War because we were so badly needed as cannon fodder – in July 1916, a couple of months before my eighteenth birthday".

[17] Due to his age, however, he was unable to serve overseas and was sent to the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion in Buncrana in Inishowen, on the north coast of County Donegal, in Ulster, Ireland.

[23] He wrote, many years later, "I still sometimes in my sleep at night hear the screams of the wounded horses, galloping on the ground, tripping over barbed wire, and treading on their own guts.

[24] He remained in the army during the interwar period and served with his battalion, still the 1st Irish Fusiliers, after briefly returning to England, in operations in Persia (now Iran) and Iraq in 1919–20 as part of a multi-national attempt to prevent the spread of bolshevism, which was followed by service in Egypt.

[35][36] His experience in Palestine had a profound impact on him, as he said in 1970 in a BBC interview, "I've felt terribly strongly all my life, from my youth, on racial and religious clashes – ever since my boyhood in Ireland.

[37] In July 1937 he left Palestine and returned to England, where he became GSO2 of the 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division, a Territorial Army (TA) formation, where he came to the attention of senior officers.

[38] In April 1938 Templer transferred back as a captain in the Royal Irish Fusiliers, although he remained seconded for staff duties.

The German Army attacked in the West on 10 May 1940, although Templer himself was then on leave but was back in France and discovered Mason-MacFarlane was in Brussels, with the intelligence staff moving behind him but was a long distance from GHQ BEF, resulting in poor communications.

The task was made more difficult by the lack of rifles and other necessary equipment but Templer tried his best to train his men instil in them a regimental pride.

[48] In early November he was given the command of the 210th Independent Infantry Brigade (Home), composed of five battalions, all less than six months old, in Dorset, with responsibility for the defence of the coast in the event of a German invasion between Lyme Regis and Poole.

[49][44][41] The brigade was then serving under V Corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery, one of Templer's instructors at the Staff College, who thought highly of him and the two, who shared similar outlooks on training and waging war, established a close working relationship.

In early March 1942 Schreiber was promoted to command of "Force 110", later redesignated as the First Army, and V Corps passed to Lieutenant-General Charles Allfrey.

[53] Templer became General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 47th (London) Infantry Division, based in Winchester, Hampshire as an acting major-general on 10 April 1942, serving under V Corps.

To this end, in July, he approached General Sir Bernard Paget, the Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces (and formerly one of Templer's instructors at the Staff College), and offered to give up his rank of acting lieutenant-general so that he could command a division on active service.

[61] The division, a first-line TA formation, with the 167th, 168th and 169th Infantry Brigades and supporting troops, along with the 201st Guards Brigade under Brigadier Julian Gascoigne temporarily attached, had taken part in the Allied invasion of Italy at Salerno the month before as part of British X Corps, under Lieutenant-General Richard McCreery (a fellow student of Templer's at the Staff College in the late 1920s), and had suffered heavy casualties, and the division was still understrength.

[63] Promoted to major-general on 17 April 1945,[64] he spent the rest of the war on intelligence duties in 21st Army Group HQ as well as briefly heading the German Directorate of the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

[65] On 17 October 1946, Templer was awarded the Legion of Merit in the Degree of Commander by the President of the United States for his conduct during the war.

[69] He first came to public notice in 1945 while acting as Director of the Military Government in the British Zone of Germany, when he fired the mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, for "laziness and inefficiency".

[70][71] Templer became Director of Military Intelligence at the War Office in March 1946, then Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff in February 1948.

[78] On 22 January 1952, Winston Churchill appointed Templer British High Commissioner for Malaya to deal with the Malayan Emergency.

[81] Templer famously remarked that, "The answer [to the uprising] lies not in pouring more troops into the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the people.

Crops grown by the communists in response to these measures were sprayed with herbicide and defoliants (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid), the practice of which prepared the way for American use of Agent Orange in Vietnam.

[85] In private correspondences with Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttleton, Templer defended the practice of British troops employing Dayak headhunters to cut the heads off suspected MNLA guerillas.

[88] Although Templer's actions were successful in helping to defeat the MNLA, they required the use of many controversial strategies, including the continued use of internment camps known as "New Villages", the forced relocation of ethnic minorities,[5] forced conscription,[3] collective punishment against civilians,[3] the hiring of specialist headhunters to decapitate suspected communists,[3][6][7][8] herbicidal warfare through the use of Agent Orange,[3][9] and the widespread killing of livestock and destruction of food crops to deprive the MNLA of resources.

[91] They also named after him Templer's Park, a nature reserve established in 1955 in Rawang, as well as the Selangor state assembly constituency surrounding it.

[92] Advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in the Queen's Birthday Honours 1955,[93] Templer was appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff on 29 September 1955.

[99] The Malaysian Government conferred on him the award of Grand Commander of the Order of the Defender of the Realm, which carries with it the title Tun, on 13 October 1960.