William Robertson (British Army Officer)

William Robertson (British Army Officer)

Field Marshal Sir William Robert Robertson, 1st Baronet, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, DSO (29 January 1860 – 12 February 1933) was a British Army officer who served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff ('CIGS' - professional Head of the British Army) from 1916 to 1918, during the First World War. As CIGS he was committed to a Western Front strategy focusing on Germany and was against what he saw as peripheral operations on other fronts. As CIGS Robertson had increasingly poor relations with Lloyd George, Secretary of State for War then Prime Minister, and threatened resignation at his attempt to subordinate the British forces to the French Commander-in-Chief, Robert Nivelle. In 1917 Robertson supported the continuation of the Third Ypres Offensive, at odds with Lloyd George's view that Britain's war effort ought to be focused on the other theatres until the arrival of sufficient US troops on the Western Front.

Robertson was the first and to date the only British Army soldier to rise from private soldier to field marshal.