British Army Officer. He received notoriety during World War I as the commander of the British 5th Army fighting in the trenches of Belgium and France. In 1916 at the formation of the 5th Army he became the youngest British commander on the Western Front. He took part in the battles at Somme in 1916 and the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917, where he earned a reputation as a poor administrator, seemingly throwing caution to the wind, and a hard-nosed commander that was indifferent toward the common soldier's suffering. In the Third Battle of Ypres, the advance started the end of July 1917 and by November the German army had been pushed back only 5 miles with a lost of 325,000 men and no comparable damage to the German troops. He was a close colleague of the Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces, Field Marshall Douglas Haig, who believed Gough would be much more aggressive in battle than the cautious General George Plumer. In the early spring of 1918 he was compelled to withdraw with considerable loss under heavy German offensive. Although his skillful handling of the battle led to the eventual stemming of the German advance, the British government blamed him for the temporary German successes and insisted on his removal. On March 28, 1918 he was removed from command of the 5th Army and did not command again until after the end of World War I. He was partly a victim of circumstances and partly a victim of his own incompetent actions. Historians are divided in opinion about Gough with some labeling him as a “butcher among generals,” while others say he was a political scapegoat. Gough came from a long lineage of military men. His family was British Anglicans, yet had adopted Ireland as their homeland. He was the son of Sir Charles Gough and his wife Harriet Anastasia de le Poer. His father had distinguished himself at Lucknow, during the Indian Mutiny, by receiving the Victoria Cross. Since his younger brother, John Edmond, and his uncle, Hugh Gough, had received the Victoria Cross too, Gough naturally felt the pressure to gain this achievement. After graduating from Eton, at the age of seventeen, he entered the Royal Military College, which followed by joining the 16th Lancers in 1889. He served in the Malakand Field Force in Northwest India in 1897 and in the South Africa War from 1899 to 1902. He was described as being dashing and charismatic. As brigadier general commanding the 3rd Calvary Brigade of the British Army stationed at Curragh Camp in Ireland, he understood that the British Army may have to go against the militant Ulster community in a civil unrest forcing the Home Rule Act upon the Irish. Many of the British officers stationed at the camp were Irish. If the order was issued, they were told that they did not have to fight their fellow Irishman but could resign their commission, leave the military, and forfeit their pensions. As a Irishman, Gough tendered his resignation, as he was unwilling to initiate military action in Ulster. The reasoning was that this was a civil unrest and the police should manage this situation., not the military. By March 20, 1914, fifty-nine of Gough's 70 fellow officers insisted they too would resign if ordered north, thus delivering this ultimatum to General Arthur Paget. This was happening on the eve of World War I.All were summoned to London; there was no mutiny as no direct order was issued. Gough wanted a written assurance that the army would not be compelled to force Ulster to accept Home Rule. In the end Prime Minister Herbert Asquith would not allow army officers dictate policy, Secretary of State for War J.E.B. Seely was forced to resign over this matter, Paget's military career suffered, Home Rule was not forced, and Gough received recognition for his accomplishment. There are various versions of the actual events depending on the author of the writing. At the end of World War I, he had not advanced to the rank of Field Marshall or receive the Victoria Cross, but he received the award of Knight Grand Cross of Bath in 1937. During World War II as a neutral Irishman, he supported the British Fifth Army Comrades Association and led the Chelsea Home Guard. Gough was one of many World War I generals to write memoirs. In his case he would survive to write two, “Fifth Army” in 1931, which was his penning of a self-vindication, and “Soldiering On” in 1954, which gave his version of the Ulster saga. Decades later, comparing other military documents to his written words, his memory of what actually happen is in question at times. Being so young during the war, he was one of the longest-living of all World War I British commanders, dying at the age of 92 nearly fifty years after the war. The “London Times” obituary states he was cremated.