Stanley Maude

Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude KCB CMG DSO (24 June 1864 – 18 November 1917) was a British Army officer.

[1] Maude was born in Gibraltar, the youngest son of General Sir Frederick Francis Maude, who had been awarded the Victoria Cross in 1855 during the Crimean War, and of Catherine Mary, née Bisshopp, daughter of Very Reverend Sir George Bisshopp, 9th Baronet, Dean of Lismore.

[2] Maude attended St Michael's School, Aldis House, Slough, and Eton College, where he was elected to Pop.

He returned to France in May and, in June, he was promoted to major general[15] and transferred to command the 33rd Division, a Kitchener's Army formation which was then still in training in Britain.

Despite being instructed to do no more than hold the existing line, Maude set about to re-organising and re-supplying his mixed British and Indian forces.

Basil Liddell Hart[18] later argued that Maude clearly "consciously or unconsciously" ignored his secret orders from Robertson not to attempt to take Baghdad.

[19] Robertson changed his mind when it seemed that the Russians might advance to Mosul, removing any Turkish threat to Mesopotamia, and authorised Maude to attack in December 1916.

Advancing up the Tigris and winning the battles of Mohammed Abdul Hassan, Hai and Dahra in January 1917, recapturing Kut in February 1917, he took Baghdad on 11 March 1917, shortly after his rank of lieutenant-general had been made permanent, "in recognition of his distinguished service in the field as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in Mesopotamia".

After a lull over the summer, in November 1917, whilst his forces were engaged at Ramadi and Tikrit, Maude contracted cholera (which some sources claim to have been caught from drinking unboiled milk[weasel words]) and died in the same house as German field marshal von der Goltz nineteen months earlier.

Lieutenant-General Sir Stanley Maude in 1917.
Memorial to Lieutenant-General Sir Stanley Maude at Brompton Cemetery , London.
Lieutenant-General Sir Stanley Maude leads Indian troops into Baghdad, March 1917.
Lieutenant-General Sir Stanley Maude's grave in 1918.
Equestrian statue in front of gated property
Sir Stanley Maude Memorial in Baghdad in about 1958