page_title: Archibald Murray
section_title: Appointment
hierarchical_section_title: Archibald Murray / Chief of Staff, British Expeditionary Force, France and Belgium / Appointment
context_page_description: General Sir Archibald James Murray, GCB, GCMG, CVO, DSO was a British Army officer who served in the Second Boer War and the First World War. He was Chief of Staff to the British Expeditionary Force in August 1914 but appears to have suffered a physical breakdown in the retreat from Mons, and was required to step down from that position in January 1915. After serving as Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff for much of 1915, he was briefly Chief of the Imperial General Staff from September to December 1915. He was subsequently Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force from January 1916 to June 1917, in which role he laid the military foundation for the defeat and destruction of the Ottoman Empire in the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant.
context_section_description: When the First World War started in July 1914 Murray was not appointed QuarterMaster-General of the British Expeditionary Force as was originally intended. Instead he became Chief of Staff. Murray had already earned a high reputation as a staff officer in South Africa and under French at the War Office. It is sometimes claimed that Murray was given the position largely because French's initial choice for the post, Wilson, was vetoed because of his role in the Curragh Affair. Although this claim was made after the war by Edmonds, Kirke (in his memoir of Macdonogh) and Murray, there is no contemporary evidence, even in Wilson's diary, to confirm it (unlike January 1915, when Wilson was certainly blocked from succeeding Murray for political reasons).
  Wilson, Sir John French (BEF Commander-in-Chief) and Murray crossed to France on 14 August. The code books had been left behind in London, and Lieutenant Spears had to go back to London for another set. He returned to find Murray at Rheims trying to "unravel" the strategic situation of the German Empire's armies' invasion of France on a set of large maps spread out upon the floor of his hotel room, on all fours, dressed only in his "pants" (underwear), whilst chambermaids came and went.
caption: The Royal Fusiliers preparing for the Battle of Mons
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