page_title: Sir Henry Wilson, 1st Baronet
section_title: Chief of the Imperial General Staff: 1918
hierarchical_section_title: Sir Henry Wilson, 1st Baronet / First World War / Chief of the Imperial General Staff: 1918
caption_attribution_description: No 3912 Page169.
context_page_description: Field Marshal Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, 1st Baronet, GCB, DSO was one of the most senior British Army staff officers of the First World War and was briefly an Irish unionist politician.
  Wilson served as Commandant of the Staff College, Camberley, and then as Director of Military Operations at the War Office, in which post he played a vital role in drawing up plans to deploy an Expeditionary Force to France in the event of war. During these years Wilson acquired a reputation as a political intriguer for his role in agitating for the introduction of conscription and in the Curragh incident of 1914, when he encouraged senior officers to resign rather than move against the Ulster Volunteers.
  As Sub Chief of Staff to the British Expeditionary Force, Wilson was John French's most important advisor during the 1914 campaign, but his poor relations with Douglas Haig and William Robertson saw him sidelined from top decision-making in the middle years of the war. He played an important role in Anglo-French military relations in 1915 and – after his only experience of field command as a corps commander in 1916 – again as an ally of the controversial French General Robert Nivelle in early 1917.
caption: Wilson as depicted in a French publication in February 1918
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