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Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside
6 May 1880 – 22 September 1959
Field Marshal Lord Ironside
Nickname	Tiny
Place of birth	Edinburgh, Scotland
Place of death	Queen Alexandra Military Hospital, London
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1899 - 1941
Rank	Field Marshal
Commands	99th Infantry Brigade (1918) Allied Troops Archangel (1918 - 1919 Ismid Force (1920) North Persian Force (1921) Staff College, Camberley (1922 - 1926) 2nd Division (1926 - 1928) Meerut District, India Eastern District (1936 - 1938) Governor and C-in-C, Gibraltar (1938 - 1939) Inspector-General of Overseas Forces (1939) CIGS (1939 - 1940) C-in-C Home Forces
Battles/wars	South African War World War I North Russia Campaign World War II
Awards	[1]Mentioned in Despatches, DSO (1915), CMG (1918), KCB (1918), GCB (1938), created Baron Ironside of Archangel (1941), CBE (1952), Croix de Guerre avec Palme (2nd Class), Order of St. Vladimir, Croix d'Officier de la Légion d'Honneur, Grand Croix de la Légion d'Honneur (1946)

Field Marshal William Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside GCB, CBE, CMG, DSO (6 May 1880 - 22 September 1959) was a British soldier who played a significant role as commander of British forces in Persia in 1920-1921. He went on to serve as Chief of the Imperial General Staff during the early part of World War II.

He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the second child of Surgeon-Major William Ironside, and was educated at Tonbridge School, Kent. He was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1899. Later that year he was sent to South Africa and during the Second Boer War worked as a spy. These experiences later resulted in his being used as the model for Richard Hannay, a character in the novels of John Buchan.

He was promoted to captain in 1908 and on the outbreak of the First World War was sent to France, where he served on the Western Front. He fought at Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele and in 1918 reached the rank of colonel, in charge of the Machine Gun Corps.

Ironside was sent to Arkhangelsk in north-west Russia in 1918, and placed in command of the Allied army fighting against the Bolsheviks. The war, fought on permafrost, was very difficult and involved British, Canadian, French, Italian and American soldiers who were greatly outnumbered. Ironside was popular with his men, with stories, due to his large size, of having crushed a Boer soldier with his arms, in the Boer War. The Red Army managed eventually to gain a superior position in the Civil War and in autumn 1919 he was forced to abandon the White Army to their fate.

In 1920 he served with British forces in Izmit, Turkey. He commanded some 6,000 British troops in Persia (NORPERFORCE) with headquarters in Qazvin from 4 October 1920 to 18 February 1921. His four and a half months in Persia were known primarily for two accounts. First, his role in the discharge of more than a hundred Russian officers and NCOs of the Cossack Division and their replacement by Persians under the command of Reza Khan, founder of the Pahlavi dynasty; and second, his encouragement of Reza Khan's coup d'état of 1921. On each occasion Ironside acted on his own responsibility without authority from London. He distrusted Russian loyalties after the 1917 Revolution and with the assistance of Herman Norman, the British Minister in Tehran, persuaded the Shah to dismiss the Cossack Division's commanding officer, and every Russian under him. It was also Ironside who selected Lieutenant Colonel Reza Khan as the Russian's successor. The appointment was based on the advice of a British officer friend, attached to the Cossacks for a short time, and after several visits to their camp near Qazvin where he was much impressed by the Persian contingent. Ironside's decision "to let the Cossacks go" was, according to his diary, because he wanted a strong military commander in the capital to save the country from the Bolsheviks and chaos and safeguard the imminent withdrawal of NORPERFORCE from Persia. In return, Reza Khan promised not to hinder British withdrawal or depose the Shah.

Ironside was appointed head of Eastern Command in 1936 and served as governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar (1938-39).

Ironside became Chief of the Imperial General Staff in September 1939 when he replaced General Lord Gort who had been sent to France as head of the British Expeditionary Force at the outbreak of World War II. Ironside himself was sent to France in May 1940 to liaise with the BEF and the French in an attempt to halt the German advance. On May 20th, he had a lucky escape when his Calais hotel suffered a direct hit from a German bomb and he was blown out of bed. On his return to Britain, a German invasion of Britain seemed imminent, so Ironside was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Home Forces but was replaced in July that year. In 1941, he was raised to the peerage and retired from active service, although as a Field Marshal he remained in nominal service until his death.

Lord Ironside died in London on 22 September 1959.

Ironside (centre) with Polish chief of staff General Wacław Stachiewicz (left)

• High Road to Command: The Diaries of Major-Gen. Sir Edmund Ironside 1920–1922 Edmund Ironside, Cooper, 1972
• The British Field Marshals 1736-1997, Tony Heathcote, Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 1999, ISBN 0-85052-696-5

v • d • e Chiefs of the Imperial General Staff

Sir William Nicholson • Sir John French • Sir Charles Douglas • Sir James Murray • Sir Archibald Murray • Sir William Robertson • Sir Henry Wilson • Lord Cavan • Sir George Milne • Sir Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd • Sir Cyril Deverell • Lord Gort • Sir Edmund Ironside • Sir John Dill • Sir Alan Brooke • Viscount Montgomery • Sir William Slim • Sir John Harding • Sir Gerald Templer • Sir Francis Festing • Sir Richard Hull