Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Duff, Beauchamp
DUFF, Sir BEAUCHAMP (1855-1918), general, was born 17 February 1855, the second son of Garden William Duff, of Hatton Castle, Turriff, Aberdeenshire, by his wife, Douglas Isabella Maria, daughter of Beauchamp C. Urquhart, of Meldrum. He was educated at Trinity College, Glenalmond, and entered the Royal Artillery from Woolwich in 1874.
He served regimentally in the Afghan War of 1879-1880, and in 1881 entered the Bengal Staff Corps and was appointed to the 9th Bengal Infantry (afterwards the 9th Gurkha regiment) with which he did some years’ duty as lieutenant and captain. Having gone through the staff college course, passing out with distinction in 1889, he was appointed a deputy assistant adjutant-general in September 1891, and from that time his recognized abilities brought him almost uninterrupted employment in staff and administrative appointments, not, however, without the disadvantage arising from lack of regimental experience. He was a brigade-major in the small Isazai expedition of 1892, and with the escort sent to Waziristan on a delimitation commission in 1894; on that occasion a treacherous attack at Wana led to a punitive expedition in which he again served as brigade-major. He was twice mentioned in dispatches, and after promotion to major in 1894 was advanced to brevet lieutenant-colonel in 1895 in recognition of his services. Appointed in the same year military secretary to the commander-in-chief, Sir George Stuart White [q.v.], he held this post for more than three years, being made a C.I.E. in 1897, and promoted to substantive colonel in 1898. In January 1899 he became assistant military secretary for Indian affairs at the War Office, a post which had been created some years earlier to assist the War Office in the conduct of Indian business and to provide personal liaison with the India Office.
In September 1899, on the outbreak of war in South Africa, Duff went to Natal as military secretary to Sir George White, and served through the defence of Ladysmith. After the relief he served as assistant adjutant-general on Lord Roberts’s staff during operations in the Orange Free State, the Transvaal, and Cape Colony, until October 1900. These services brought him mention in dispatches, the C.B., and five clasps to the Queen’s medal (1901).
On his return to India Duff was deputy adjutant-general at head-quarters for eighteen months (1901-1902). He next held command of the Allahabad district as brigadier-general for some nine months, during part of which, however, he was acting as adjutant-general with the commander-in-chief, Lord Kitchener [q.v.]; he then succeeded to the substantive appointment of adjutant-general with the rank of major-general (June 1903). For more than six years he was Lord Kitchener’s right-hand man in working out his proposals for reorganization of the army in India and its preparation for war. He wrote with facility, and his experience, industry, and trustworthiness made him invaluable to his chief. In 1905 Lord Kitchener’s scheme abolishing the dual control by a military member of council and a commander-in-chief and substituting control by one person in both these capacities, was adopted by the government against Lord Curzon’s opposition; and Duff was appointed to the newly created post of chief of the staff (March 1906). In 1907 he was sent to England to give detailed explanations required by the secretary of state, Mr. (afterwards Viscount) Morley, regarding further proposals of Lord Kitchener for the reorganization of army commands. When Sir O’Moore Creagh succeeded Lord Kitchener as commander-in-chief (1909), Duff, who had been made K.C.V.O. in 1906 and K.C.B. in 1907, became secretary of the military department at the India Office. His success in this post was recognized by the grant of the K.C.S.I. in 1910, and he was promoted G.C.B. in 1911.
Creagh’s period of command (1909-1914) was one of quiescence and of rigid financial restriction by government both of the expansions not completed in Lord Kitchener’s time and of Creagh’s proposals for remedying deficiencies in equipment. In April 1913 a committee, of which Lord Nicholson [q.v.] was president and in which finance was represented by Sir William Meyer, reviewed the entire military organization of India, and deprecated any reforms which could not be introduced without additional expenditure; and it's recommendations to this effect were impressed on the government of India by a dispatch from the secretary of state. Thus, when Duff took over command from Creagh in March 1914, the army in India being equipped primarily for frontier warfare and the maintenance of internal security, was poorly prepared for the demands shortly afterwards made upon it. Within less than five months from his arrival in India Duff’s dual responsibilities as commander-in-chief and member of council under the changes of 1905 were intensified by the outbreak of war. He was at the same time deprived of the services of Sir William Birdwood, his secretary in the army department, who left India to command Australian troops in Egypt, and later in Gallipoli, and Flanders.
In response to urgent demands from the home government, large expeditions, fully organized and equipped, were quickly dispatched from India: to France and Egypt two mixed divisions and two divisions of cavalry, with four extra brigades of field artillery; to East Africa twelve battalions of infantry with auxiliary services. These were soon followed, for service in France and Egypt, by fifty-two British and Indian battalions and twenty batteries of artillery, to be replaced in India by territorial troops from England; while reinforcements for Aden and British Colonies absorbed nearly 6,000 additional troops from India. Before these demands had been fully met Turkey had entered the War (29 October 1914), and the home government ordered an expedition to be sent to Mesopotamia. By the end of November 1914 a fully equipped Indian division of all arms had been landed, and Basra, the base of future operations, had been captured. To equip so many expeditions India was depleted of her supplies and reserves, and for the replacement of them, especially of medical stores, she was almost entirely dependent on England. But the requirements of the War Office and Admiralty at home left little for India, and with the gradual extension of operations in Mesopotamia it became more and more difficult to keep up the necessary supplies, and the Indian reserves of medical personnel were exhausted.
The home government had enjoined ‘a safe game’ in Mesopotamia. The operations were at first strategically defensive, and the advance halted after successful operations resulting in the occupation of Nazariyeh, Kut el Amara, and Aziziyeh. The possibility of a further advance was, however, discussed in the summer and autumn of 1915. The value of a resounding blow against the Turks to set off against events in the Dardanelles was recognized in England and in India, but all agreed that to capture Bagdad and afterwards to be beaten back would be worse than never to have attacked it. Moreover, to hold it, an additional division, if not two, would be necessary. Duff advised against such an advance as unwise with existing forces, and in a draft telegram to the secretary of state, submitted to the viceroy, Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, he expressed doubt ‘whether in the present state of the river combined with our present insufficient number of light-draught steamers, we could adequately supply our troops there’ [Report, Mesopotamia Commission, pp. 22-3]. This doubt, however, was not communicated by the viceroy to the secretary of state, and the urgent need of greatly increased river transport for any further advance, for the conveyance of supplies and reinforcements, and for the evacuation of sick and wounded, seems never to have been realized by the government in England. In August 1915 a large supply of tugs and barges was ordered from England by the government of India on requisitions from Sir John Nixon [q.v.], commanding in Mesopotamia. These had to be built, and could not arrive in India for many months; but on 23 October the secretary of state telegraphed to the viceroy that Nixon might march on Bagdad if he was satisfied that the force which he had available was sufficient; and it was promised that a reinforcement of two divisions from France should be sent out as soon as possible. The telegram was sent on to Nixon, without comment, by Duff, who, whatever his doubts might be, seems to have considered that, when the government had decided on the advance, it was not for him to interfere with the man on the spot. Sir Charles Townshend, advancing under orders from Nixon, but against his own judgement and with anxious misgivings, met a largely reinforced Turkish army in a prepared position at Ctesiphon, and after severe engagements retreated fighting to Kut el Amara, where, after a gallant defence of nearly five months, he surrendered (29 April 1916). In the conveyance of the very numerous wounded and sick of Townshend’s force, and of the still greater numbers from the forces which successively attempted the relief of Kut el Amara in the face of great difficulties, the hopeless insufficiency of the river transport proved disastrous; it was also impossible to convey up the river large numbers of troops, guns, and supplies, which were waiting at Basra—instalments of the promised reinforcements.
The failure of the attempt on Bagdad, after the brilliant success of the earlier operations, and the reports of the sufferings of the sick and wounded, caused great excitement in England, and a royal commission was appointed in August 1916 to inquire into the origin, inception, and conduct of the operations in Mesopotamia, and the responsibility of the government departments concerned. Duff, who had received the G.C.S.I. in January 1916, was recalled from India in order to give evidence, and in consequence vacated his appointment as commander-in-chief. In December he underwent four days of examination and cross-examination. The commission’s report (17 May 1917) assigned to him a large share of blame, ranking him next after Sir John Nixon and Lord Hardinge, the viceroy, in the gradation of responsibility of officials in India for the shortcomings of the expedition. The main grounds of censure were: the shortage of medical personnel and supplies; the delay in investigating the unofficial reports of medical break-down, which were subsequently confirmed; the deficiency, after the offensive movement towards Bagdad, of transport by water for the greatly increased forces, and of provision for the sick and wounded. The commission also blamed Duff for not quitting his post and visiting Mesopotamia or Bombay in order to ascertain what was happening, though he appears to have felt himself bound to stay with the viceroy, having no deputy to leave in charge of the army department. The commission’s censures were, however, qualified in part by the statement that ‘the combination of duties of commander-in-chief and military member of council cannot adequately be performed by any one man in time of war’ [Report, p. 116]. Duff had, in fact, been set a task wellnigh impossible in the circumstances, and it is due to him to recognize—though he was too generous to avail himself of this defence—that in many matters he is shown to have suffered for the failures of subordinates. The Mesopotamian expedition differed from any war-scheme contemplated by previous Indian administrations, and in conjunction with so many other undertakings it involved difficulties which would have strained the most efficient organization.
Duff did not live to complete the defence which he proposed to write. From the spring of 1915 the mental strain of the war had gradually worn down his health, and he suffered much from sleeplessness. When he returned to England the effects were evident to those who had known him before 1914, He died in London 20 January 1918.
Duff married in India in 1877 Grace Maria, daughter of Oswald Wood, Indian civil service, of Glenalmond, Perthshire, and had two sons and one daughter; his daughter died in 1897, and the elder son, Captain Beauchamp Oswald Duff, fell in action near Ypres 7 November 1914.
[East India Army Administration. Correspondence presented to Parliament 1905-1906, Cd. 2572, 2615, 2718, 2842; Official Army Lists and India Office List; Naval and Military Dispatches, London Gazette, January—December, 1916; Mesopotamia Commission Report, 17 May 1917, Cd. 8610; Sir C. Townshend, My Campaign in Mesopotamia, 1920; personal knowledge.]