Edward Montagu-Stuart-Wortley

Major General The Honourable Edward James Montagu-Stuart-Wortley, (31 July 1857 – 19 March 1934) was a senior British Army officer. He saw extensive active service in many parts of world, including Afghanistan, South Africa, Egypt, Turkey, Malta, Sudan, France and Ireland. He was the source of the "interview" with Kaiser Wilhelm II that was the basis of the Daily Telegraph Affair that weakened the Kaiser's political power in Germany. 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 Montagu-Stuart-Wortley served as Superintendent of Army Signalling for the Kurram Valley Field Force during the Second Anglo–Afghan War (1878–80). After the First Boer War broke out in December 1880, with the Boer Commandos in the Transvaal besieging British garrisons there, the Governor of Natal Sir George Pomeroy Colley raised the Natal Field Force; Montagu-Stuart-Wortley served with the Natal Field Force in the actions at Laing's Nek, Schuinshoogte and Majuba Hill. In 1881 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 and took part in the Abu Klea on 17 January 1885. In 1885 he accompanied Conservative 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 led his division at the Battle of Ginnis.