William Robertson

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Field Marshal Sir William Robert Robertson, 1st Baronet, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, DSO (29 January 1860 – 12 February 1933) was a British Army officer who served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) – the professional head of the British Army – from 1916 to 1918 during the First World War. As CIGS he was committed to a Western Front strategy focusing on Germany. He had increasingly poor relations with David Lloyd George, Secretary of State for War and then Prime Minister. In 1917 Robertson supported the continuation of the Battle of Passchendaele at odds with Lloyd George's view that Britain's war effort ought to be focused on the other theatres until the arrival of sufficient US troops on the Western Front. Robertson is the only soldier in the history of the British Army to have risen from an enlisted rank to its highest rank of field marshal. William Robertson was born in Welbourn, Lincolnshire, to Thomas Charles Robertson, a tailor and postmaster, and Ann Dexter Robertson (née Beet). He was educated at the local church school and later earned 6d a week as a pupil-teacher. After leaving school in 1873, he became a garden boy in the village rectory, then in 1875 a footman in the Countess of Cardigan's household at Deene Park. He began his military career in November 1877 by enlisting for twelve years as a trooper in the 16th (The Queen's) Lancers. As he was three months short of the official minimum age of eighteen, at the behest of the recruiting sergeant he declared his age as eighteen years and two months, these extra five months becoming his "official" age throughout his time in the Army.