Sir George Mark Watson Macdonogh (4 March 1865 – 10 July 1942) was a British Army

general officer A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

. After early service in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

he became a staff officer prior to the outbreak of the First World War. His main role in the war was as Director of Military Intelligence at the

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in 1916–18.

Early career

He was born on 4 March 1865, son of George Valentine MacDonogh, Deputy Inspector of the Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwich. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the

on 5 July 1884.Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
/ref> Ian Beckett comments that he had "considerable intellectual ability" but was "diffident and taciturn". He was promoted to

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on 22 October 1892. In 1896 he entered the

Staff College, Camberley Staff College, Camberley, Surrey, was a staff college for the British Army and the presidency armies of British India (later merged to form the Indian Army). It had its origins in the Royal Military College, High Wycombe, founded in 1799, which ...

by examination. The normal order of results was varied in order to conceal the fact that he and his contemporary James Edmonds were far ahead of the other entrants. Both men found their studies easy, and whilst Edmonds wrote a History of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

in his spare time MacDonogh studied law, qualifying as a

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in 1897. MacDonogh, who was fluent in several Scandinavian languages, married Aline Borgstrom of Helsingfors (

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

) on 8 November 1898. They had one son, who died of natural causes in 1915. From November 1898 to November 1899 he was deputy assistant adjutant general, Royal Engineers, in Dublin. From December 1899 to August 1903 he was secretary (brigade major) of the School of Military Engineering at

Chatham, Kent Chatham ( ) is a town within the Medway unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Kent, England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Gillingham, Rochester, Strood and Rainham. In 2020 it had a population of 80,596. Th ...

. He was promoted to

major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

on 1 April 1901. In September 1903 he was appointed deputy assistant quartermaster general for Thames District. On 27 October 1906 he was appointed as a staff captain in the

. On 1 January 1908 he was appointed a GSO2 at the War Office and on 22 January 1909 was promoted to lieutenant colonel. On 30 October 1912 he was promoted

colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...

. In December 1912 he was appointed a GSO1. He succeeded Edmonds as head of MO5, drafting measures to control aliens in the event of war. Henry Wilson, director of military operations, distrusted him as a convert from

Methodism Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. In March 1914 Macdonogh was one of the few officers in the War Office willing to coerce Protestant Ulster during the Curragh incident.

First World War and after

In August 1914 he was appointed a GSO1 (Intelligence) at British Expeditionary Force GHQ. On 10 December he was promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general, although this was later antedated to 7 November, and was assigned to the BEF's general staff. He performed distinguished service predicting enemy troop movements at the

First Battle of Ypres The First Battle of Ypres (, , – was a battle of the First World War, fought on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front around Ypres, in West Flanders, Belgium. The battle was part of the First Battle of Flanders, in which German A ...

and again predicting an enemy gas attack on the BEF's Second Army in December 1915. On Sir William Robertson's promotion from Chief of Staff BEF to CIGS, Macdonogh was brought back to London. On 3 January 1916 he was promoted to Director of Military Intelligence at the War Office, with the permanent rank of major-general. By May 1917 he had an accurate picture of the entire German Army in the west, except for a single

Landwehr ''Landwehr'' (), or ''Landeswehr'', is a German language term used in referring to certain national army, armies, or militias found in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe. In different context it refers to large-scale, low-strength fo ...

regiment. He helped to create the propaganda department MI7(b) which became very active from the summer of 1917. He conducted operations to reduce German domestic morale. Macdonogh was distrusted by Haig and Haig's intelligence adviser John Charteris, with whom he had an acrimonious correspondence. He presented figures to the War Cabinet in October 1917, pouring cold water on Haig's predictions that German manpower would be exhausted by the end of the year. An infamous entry in Haig's diary (15 October 1917) mentions that Macdonogh "is a Roman Catholic and is (perhaps unconsciously) influenced by information which reaches him from tainted (that is, Catholic) sources". He also predicted the date, time and location of the German March 1918 "

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" Offensive, as did Charteris. He was appointed Adjutant-General to the Forces on 11 January 1918, a post he held until September 1922. He was promoted to temporary

lieutenant-general Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the battlefield, who was normall ...

in January 1919. He was considered for the position of British liaison officer with the White Russian leader Admiral Kolchak, but not appointed. He was promoted to permanent lieutenant-general on 10 September 1922. He retired from the Army on 11 September 1925. He was appointed CB in 1915, KCMG in 1917, KCB in 1920 and GBE on retirement.

Post-military life

He served on the Royal Commission on Local Government 1923–1929. He held numerous directorships in business, banking and manufacturing, and was President of the Federation of British Industries in 1933–4. He was a Commissioner of the Imperial War Graves Commission. He was active in the London Zoological Society and the

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. During the

Winter War The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peac ...

of 1939–40, when Finland was being attacked by the USSR he was President of the Anglo-Finnish Society, Vice-President of the Finland Fund, and a member of the Finnish Aid Bureau in 1940. In 1939-41 he served on the Control Committee for Regulation of Prices.

Death

He died on 10 July 1942, at

Teddington Teddington is an affluent suburb of London in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Historically an Civil parish#ancient parishes, ancient parish in the county of Middlesex and situated close to the border with Surrey, the district became ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

. His estate was valued for probate at £53,784 1s 10d (over £2,000,000 at 2016 prices).

References

Sources

* , essay on Macdonogh written by Ian Beckett. * Ian F. W. Beckett (2004) "Macdonogh, Sir George Mark Watson (1865–1942)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Sept 2004
online edition, accessed 16 Oct 2008

National Archives for: "Macdonogh, Sir George Mark Watson (1865-1942) Knight Lieutenant General"
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