Neill Malcolm

File:Unveiling of Jesselton War Memorial, by Major-General Sir Neill Malcolm, K.C.B., D.S.O. 8th May. 1923 (7930507734).jpg

Educated at St Peter's School, York, Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst,[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37730 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography] Malcolm was commissioned into the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders as a second lieutenant on 20 February 1889.{{cite web|url=http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/locreg/MALCOLM.shtml|title=Malcolm, Neill|publisher= Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070731083854/http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/locreg/MALCOLM.shtml|archive-date=31 July 2007}}

He was promoted to lieutenant on 23 August 1893. In 1896 he travelled with Capt. Montagu Sinclair Wellby across Tibet and northern China.{{cite book |last1=Wellby |first1=M. S. |title=Through Unknown Tibet |date=1898 |publisher=T. Fisher Unwin |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/throughunknownt00wellgoog/}} {{Cite newspaper The Times |title= Maj.-Gen. Sir Neill Malcolm - Wide Interests|author= Sir Hubert Gough|department= |date= 31 December 1953|page= 8|column= 5|url= https://www.thetimes.com/archive/article/1953-12-31/8/20.html}} {{cite journal |title=Journey of Capt. Wellby and Lieut. Malcolm across Tibet |journal=Geographical Journal |date=February 1897 |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=215–217 |doi=10.2307/1773509 |jstor=1773509 |bibcode=1897GeogJ...9..215. |url=https://archive.org/details/geographicaljou49britgoog/page/n243/mode/1up}} He served with the 2nd Battalion under Sir William Lockhart in the Tochi Field Force on the North West Frontier of India in 1897. Following a stint in Uganda, where he conducted operations in Shuli country, he was appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and promoted to captain on 21 December 1898.Hart's Army list, 1901

He served with the mounted infantry in the Second Boer War in South Africa from late 1899, and took part in the Battle of Paardeberg in February 1900, where he was severely wounded by a gunshot in his thigh.{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=The War – Casualties|date=2 March 1900 |page=7 |issue=36079}}

After his return to the United Kingdom, he was, in January 1902, seconded from his regiment in order to attend the Staff College, Camberley{{London Gazette|issue=27413|page=1541|date=4 March 1902}} and was later made a deputy assistant quartermaster general (DAQMG) at army headquarters in January 1906{{London Gazette|issue=27873|page=190|date=9 January 1906}} and secretary of the historical section of the committee of Imperial Defence in 1908. In December 1909 he was made a brevet lieutenant colonel.{{London Gazette|issue=28318|page=9594|date=17 December 1909}}

Promoted in August 1910 to major,{{London Gazette|issue=28408|page=6040|date=19 August 1910}} he later succeeded Charles Ross as a general staff officer, grade 2 (GSO2) at the Staff College, Camberley in January 1912, and which carried with it the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel.{{London Gazette|issue=28575|page=641|date=26 January 1912}}

He served in the First World War, which began in the summer of 1914, and saw him promoted to temporary lieutenant colonel again.{{London Gazette|issue=28875|page=6582|date=18 August 1914|supp=y}} He initially succeeded Hugh Jeudwine as a general staff officer, grade 1 (GSO1){{London Gazette|issue=29006|page=10667|date=11 December 1914|supp=y}} with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). He was seconded for service on the staff and became the 11th (Northern) Division's GSO1 in January 1915{{London Gazette|issue=29045|page=681|date=19 January 1915|supp=y}} and was promoted to brevet lieutenant colonel in February.{{London Gazette|issue=29074|page=1686|date=16 February 1915|supp=y}} He later served with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF), and then, promoted to brevet colonel,{{London Gazette|issue=29565|page=4428|date=2 May 1916|supp=y}} and later colonel,{{London Gazette|issue=29625|page=5986|date=16 June 1916}} as chief of staff to Hubert Gough's Fifth Army in France. He was then general officer commanding (GOC) of the 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division from December 1917, the 39th Division from 1918, and the 30th Division from later that year.

After the war Malcolm, who in January 1917 was promoted to major general,{{London Gazette|issue=29886|page=15|date=29 December 1916|supp=y}} was chief of the British military mission to Berlin from 1919 and then GOC Troops in the Straits Settlements in 1921 before being made a KCB in January 1922{{London Gazette|issue=32563|page=10712|date=30 December 1921|supp=y}} and finally retiring in 1924.

File:Monro inspecting 2nd division.jpg, with Colonel Neill Malcolm, inspecting troops of the 2nd Division on the march on the Western Front at some point in 1914.]]

It has been suggested that Malcolm, while in Berlin, provided the origin of the phrase 'stabbed in the back' to describe the reason for the German defeat. In the autumn of 1919, when Erich Ludendorff was dining with Malcolm, Malcolm asked Ludendorff why he thought Germany lost the war. Ludendorff replied with a list of excuses, including that the home front failed the army.{{cite journal | url=http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1938/spring/wheelerbennett-ludendorff-soldier/ | title=Ludendorff: The Soldier and the Politician | author=John W. Wheeler-Bennett | journal=The Virginia Quarterly Review |date=Spring 1938 | volume=14 | issue=2 | pages=187–202}}

Malcolm asked him: "Do you mean, General, that you were stabbed in the back?" Ludendorff's eyes lit up and he leapt upon the phrase like a dog on a bone. "Stabbed in the back?" he repeated. "Yes, that's it, exactly, we were stabbed in the back." And thus was born a legend which has never entirely perished.

In retirement he was President of the North Borneo Chartered Company from 1926 to 1946 and High Commissioner for German refugees from 1936 to 1938.

In May 1907 he married his cousin, Angela Malcolm; they had a daughter and two sons, one of whom was the British diplomat Dugald Malcolm.{{Cite web |title=Malcolm, Dugald, (22 Dec. 1917–16 Feb. 2000), HM Diplomatic Service, retired; Minister to the Holy See, 1975–77 |url=https://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540891.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-180240 |access-date=2022-09-06 |website=WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO |year=2007 |language=en |doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u180240|isbn=978-0-19-954089-1 }}

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• {{cite book|title=Bloody Red Tabs: General Officer Casualties of the Great War 1914–1918|last=Davies|first=Frank|year=1997|publisher=Pen & Sword Books|location=London|isbn=978-0-85052-463-5}}

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Category:1869 births

Category:1953 deaths

Category:British Army major generals

Category:British Army generals of World War I

Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath

Category:Companions of the Distinguished Service Order

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Category:Graduates of the Staff College, Camberley