page_title: Ronald Wingate
section_title: First World War
hierarchical_section_title: Ronald Wingate / First World War
caption_attribution_description: Português: Grão-Duque Dmitri Pavlovich
context_page_description: Sir Ronald Evelyn Leslie Wingate, 2nd Baronet, CB, CMG, CIE, OBE was a British colonial administrator, soldier and author. Wingate was born in 1889 in Kensington, London, and educated at Bradfield College and Balliol College, Oxford before entering the Indian Civil Service. In the Civil Service, he served as an Assistant Commissioner in Punjab and the city magistrate of Delhi.
  During the First World War, Wingate was given a special assignment with the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force as an assistant political officer. After the war, he served as British Consul in Muscat, Oman, and helped to negotiate the Treaty of Seeb. He then briefly served in Kashmir before returning to Oman. After his second tour in Oman, Wingate held a variety of positions in British India, including service as the Acting Secretary of the Foreign and Political Department of the Indian Government and Commissioner of Baluchistan.
  At the outbreak of the Second World War, Wingate served with the Ministry of Economic Warfare in Africa and Southeast Asia. Then, in 1942, he joined the London Controlling Section, an organization within the War Cabinet devoted to military deception.
context_section_description: At the beginning of the First World War, Wingate immediately volunteered to serve in Europe, but like most other members of the ICS, he was turned down.  After the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the war, Wingate hoped that his Arabic language skills would result in a posting with the army, but he remained in India until 1917. In June 1917, after only a year in Delhi, Wingate joined the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force as an assistant political officer.    As a political officer, Wingate initially took part in administrative tasks, helping to rebuild a political system in areas conquered by the British. Wingate first worked to re-establish a customs system in liberated territories.  He then led the team of political officers in Najaf, where he worked to establish a police force and establish a basic system of taxation. Wingate also was responsible for entertaining notable Western guests who passed through Najaf, including Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia. During the war, Wingate also helped to negotiate British protectorates for the Gulf States.
  In addition to his work in traditional political matters, Wingate worked with Percy Cox, Gertrude Bell and other British agents on several special operations. Most notably, he helped to bribe a Turkish army officer who had cut off a British force near Kut and helped keep the Ottomans out of Najaf.  Wingate also helped to foil a plot by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) to promote an uprising in Najaf by ordering one of his aides to get the CUP agent drunk, leading him to reveal the details of the plot.
caption: Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, one of Wingate's guests in Najaf
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