Early Army Life
Edmonds was educated at King's College School, London and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Edmonds passed into the Royal Military Academy with the highest marks instructors could remember, he won the Sword of Honour for the 'Best Gentleman Cadet' and was commissioned into the Corps of Royal Engineers in 1881. In the Royal Engineers his intellect earned him the nickname Archimedes.
Edmonds possessed a considerable intellect and was fluent in many European and Asian languages. In 1896 he entered the Staff College at Camberley, achieving the highest score of his class on the entrance exam, double that of classmate Douglas Haig who would later become commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) during the First World War. Also in the 1896 class was Edmund Allenby, who would lead British forces in Palestine during 1917–18, and William Robertson who became Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1916.
Read more about this topic: James Edward Edmonds
Famous quotes containing the words early, army and/or life:
“To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candour never waited to be asked for its opinion.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“I was interested to see how a pioneer lived on this side of the country. His life is in some respects more adventurous than that of his brother in the West; for he contends with winter as well as the wilderness, and there is a greater interval of time at least between him and the army which is to follow. Here immigration is a tide which may ebb when it has swept away the pines; there it is not a tide, but an inundation, and roads and other improvements come steadily rushing after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)