Who's Who - Hubert Lyautey
Sir George Mark Watson MacDonogh
(1865-1942) served with British military intelligence during World War One.
MacDonogh was commissioned into the British Army with the Royal Engineers in 1884. Having reach the rank of Colonel MacDonogh became a staff officer in 1912. With Britain's entry into the First World War MacDonogh travelled to France in the company of the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, Sir John French.
In France MacDonogh was French's Chief Intelligence Officer. Undeniably brilliant, MacDonogh's religion - he was a Roman Catholic - nevertheless brought him numerous enemies, including the then-corps commander Sir Douglas Haig. Again, MacDonogh's penchant for conservatism in his intelligence reporting frustrated those who regarded him as something of a doom merchant.
Even so, MacDonogh survived Sir William Robertson's purge of French's staff upon the former's arrival as Chief of the General Staff in January 1915. Robertson quickly came to value MacDonogh's reliable services. Thus when Robertson returned to London from France in December 1915 he was accompanied by the somewhat shy MacDonogh, now as Director of Military Intelligence (and promoted to Major-General).
Once Haig was appointed BEF Commander-in-Chief he tended to regard MacDonogh's advice with some disdain, preferring instead to rely upon the rather more optimistic (and rather less accurate) pronouncements of his new Chief Intelligence Officer, John Charteris.
MacDonogh was knighted in 1917. Following the armistice he became Adjutant-General and received a promotion to Lieutenant-General in 1919.
He died in 1942.
Around one million Indian troops served in WW1, of which some 100,000 were either killed or wounded.
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