Edward James Montagu - Stuart - Wortley Major General The Hon . Edward James Montagu - Stuart - Wortley ( 31 July 1857 – 19 March 1934 ) was a general of the King ' s Royal Rifle Corps that served the British Army from 1877 to 1919 . He saw extensive active service in many fields including Afghanistan , South Africa , Egypt , Turkey , Malta , Sudan , France and Ireland . During the First World War he was controversially dismissed after the Battle of the Somme due to the failure of his division ' s diversionary attack . Early life . Wortley was born on 31 July 1857 , the second son of Francis Dudley Montagu - Stuart - Wortley , grandson of John Stuart - Wortley - Mackenzie , 2nd Baron Wharncliffe and nephew of Edward Montagu - Stuart - Wortley - Mackenzie , 1st Earl of Wharncliffe . He attended Eton College from 1866 and gained a commission in the King ' s Royal Rifle Corps ( 60th Foot ) on 13 October 1877 . Imperial wars . In 1879 during the Second Anglo – Afghan War ( 1878 - 1880 ) he was the Superintendant of Army Signalling for the Kurram Field Force . The First Boer War broke out in December 1880 with the Boer Commando ' s in the Transvaal besieging British garrisons there . The Governor of Natal Sir George Pomeroy Colley raised the Natal Field Force in which Stuart - Wortley took part in the actions at Laing ' s Nek , Schuinshoogte and Majuba Hill . The following year he acted as a Military Secretary to General Valentine Baker who at that time was in command of the Egyptian police and then during the Anglo - Egyptian War was Aide - de - Camp to Major General Sir Evelyn Wood . In 1884 - ' 85 he took part in the Nile Expedition to relieve General Gordon who was besieged in Khartoum . On 17 January 1885 their desert column of approximately 1 , 400 camel borne troops was attacked at Abu Klea by a much larger force of approximately 13 , 000 Sudanese . The battle only lasted about 15 minutes and the attackers were repelled . After crossing the Bayuda Desert some British officers , Stuart - Wortley among them , plus some indigenous troops embarked on two Nile steamers and made a dash for Khartoum . They arrived there on 28 January 1885 , two days after the town had been taken by the besiegers led by the Madhdi . Between 5000 and 10 . 000 citizens of Khartoum had been massacred by the Mahdi ' s men , as well as most of the garrison , including Gordon . In 1885 he accompanied Tory politician Sir Henry Drummond Wolff to Constantinople as a Military attaché . Later that year he was appointed as Deputy Assistant Adjutant General to Sir Francis Grenfell as he lead his division at the Battle of Ginnis . After attending Staff College , Camberley in 1889 he would become a Brigade Major serving in Malta from 1893 to 1896 . He was promoted to the substantive rank of Major 4 April 1894 . Lord Kitchener lead a second Nile Campaign from 1896 where Wortley - Stuart was second in command of a gunboat flotilla and later led a band of Arab irregulars who secured the east bank of the Nile in the battle of Omdurman . For his services in this campaign he would receive a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George ( CMG ) in 1896 and a Distinguished Service Order ( DSO ) in 1897 . During the Second Boer War Wortley - Stuart commanded a composite battalion of the King ' s Royal Rifles Corps and Rifle Brigade ( Prince Consort ' s Own ) at the Battle of the Tugela Heights , assisting in the Relief of Ladysmith . In July 1901 , he received the promotion to Lieutenant - colonel , and was appointed a Military attaché to Paris , a post he would hold for three years . In the summer of 1907 Kaiser Wilhelm rented Wortley - Stuart ' s home Highcliffe Castle whilst he recovered from an acute throat trouble . In return for his hospitality Edward was given 2 stained glass windows for the castle and invited to visit the German Army ' s manoeuvres at Alsace the next year . He was then also rewarded with a Second Class Order of the Red Eagle . Between 1908 to 1912 he commanded the 10th Infantry Brigade at Shorncliffe Army Camp and in 1914 became the commanding officer of the 46th ( North Midland ) Division Territorial Force . First World War . On 1 June 1914 , during World War I , Major General Montagu - Stuart - Wortley became GOC of the 46th ( North Midland ) Division , a Territorial Force division . In October 1915 , the Division saw action in France during the Battle of Loos when it made a costly attack against the Hohenzollern Redoubt . Wortley proposed a bombing attack , but was overruled and ordered to go ahead with a frontal attack by General Richard Haking ( his Corps commander ) . In the event , the attack was a disastrous failure and the Division lost 180 officers and 3 , 583 men killed wounded or missing . The action was described in the Official History as a ‘ tragic waste of infantry ’ . Wortley incurred Haig ' s displeasure by writing regularly to King George V about the activities of the 46th Division ( despite having the permission of Sir John French to do so ) . This and the disagreement with Haking about the Hohenzollern Redoubt attack left Wortley as a " marked man " against whom Haig conspired " . At the time opening of the Somme , he was a few weeks short of his 59th birthday , but in ill - health , suffering from sciatica . Despite his experience , he was " past his fighting best " and his fitness for operational command was questionable . One officer later described him in 1916 as : As part of General Sir Edmund Allenby ' s Third Army , the 46th Division was involved in the diversion at Gommecourt on the first day on the Somme , 1 July 1916 . The initial assault at 7 . 30am had failed completely and Montagu - Stuart - Wortley was called upon to renew the attack at midday , the neighbouring 56th Division having made good progress and needing support . With no artillery preparation or smoke screen , it was clear to Montagu Stuart - Wortley that there was no prospect of success so at 3 . 30pm he ordered a token effort to be made by two companies . In the end only one platoon went over with only one man surviving unscathed . The division ' s attack failed completely and it had the distinction of suffering the lowest casualties , 2 455 killed , wounded and missing , of all 13 British divisions involved on the day . In the opinion of the VII Corps commander , Lieutenant General Thomas D ' Oyly Snow : General Allenby ordered a Court of Inquiry but on 5 July , before it had even delivered its findings , he sacked Montagu - Stuart - Wortley . Given that Montagu Stuart - Wortley ' s orders prior to the attack had been " to occupy the ground that is won by the artillery " his dismissal remains a subject of controversy . According to Alan MacDonald , " the Division and its General were made scapegoats for the failure of a fatally flawed concept dreamt up by higher authority - the diversionary attack at Gommecourt " . Later life . Upon his return he was given command of the 65th Division in Ireland until March 1919 . He retired from service on the 31st July 1919 . He made several appeals to the hierarchy about his perceived mistreatment by General Haig but the stain on his name remained . He died 19 March 1934 at age 76 . Personal life . Edward married Violet Hunter Guthrie on the 5th of February 1891 ; she was the daughter of James Alexander Guthrie , 4th Baron of Craigie and her sister Rose Ellinor Guthrie was married to General the Hon Sir Cecil Edward Bingham . They had two children Major Nicholas Rothesay Stuart - Wortley ( 1892 - 1926 ) and Elizabeth Valetta Montagu - Stuart - Wortley ( 1896 - 1978 ) . Edward ' s older brother the Hon Sir Francis Montagu - Stuart - Wortley - Mackenzie succeeded to the Earldom of Wharncliffe and his younger brother the Hon Sir Alan Richard Montagu - Stuart - Wortley became a Lieutenant - general in the British Army serving throughout World War I .