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{{for|the philosopher|John Gough (natural philosopher)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox military person
|name= Sir John Edmond Gough
|image= John Gough VC.jpg
|image_size= 200
|caption=
|birth_date= {{birth date|df=y|1871|10|25}}
|death_date= {{death date and age|df=y|1915|2|22|1871|10|25}}
|birth_place= [[Murree]], [[Punjab Province (British India)|Punjab]], [[British Raj|British India]] {{Small|(now [[Punjab, Pakistan]])}}
|death_place= [[Fauquissart]], France
|placeofburial= Estaires Communal Cemetery
|nickname=
|allegiance=
|branch= [[British Army]]
|serviceyears= 1891–1915
|rank= [[Brigadier General]]
|unit= [[Rifle Brigade]]
|commands=
|battles= [[Mahdist War]] [[1898 Occupation of Crete]] [[Second Boer War]] [[Third Somaliland Expedition]] [[First World War]]
|awards= [[Victoria Cross]] [[Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath]] [[Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George]] [[Mentioned in Despatches]]
|relations= [[Charles John Stanley Gough|Sir Charles Gough]] (father) [[Hugh Henry Gough|Sir Hugh Gough]] (uncle) [[Hubert Gough|Sir Hubert Gough]] (brother)
|laterwork=
}}
'''Sir John Edmond Gough''' {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|VC|KCB|CMG}} (25 October 1871 – 22 February 1915), was an early 20th century [[British Army]] General, and a recipient of the [[Victoria Cross]], the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] forces.

==Early military career==
Gough, known as "Johnnie", was the son of General [[Charles John Stanley Gough|Sir Charles Gough]], and nephew of General [[Hugh Henry Gough|Sir Hugh Gough]], both of whom won Victoria Crosses during the [[Indian Mutiny]] in 1857. This gave the family the rare distinction of holding the VC simultaneously by father, brother and (father's) son. He was also the younger brother of General [[Hubert Gough|Sir Hubert Gough]] (1870–1963), who led the [[British Fifth Army]] on the Western Front during the First World War.

Gough was commissioned a [[second lieutenant]] in the [[Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own)]] on 12 March 1891, and promoted to [[Lieutenant (British Army and Royal Marines)|lieutenant]] on 6 December 1893.<ref>Hart′s Army list, 1903</ref> He served in British Central Africa in 1896, the Sudan in 1898, and took part in the [[1898 Occupation of Crete|Occupation of Crete]] (1898–99). Promoted to [[Captain (BARM)|captain]] on 5 December 1898, he served in the [[Second Boer War]] from 1899 until 1902, and received a [[Brevet (military)|brevet]] rank of [[Major (British Army)|major]] on 29 November 1900. After the war ended in June 1902, Gough was among a number of officers who left [[Cape Town]] on the {{SS|Kildonan Castle||6}} in late July, arriving in [[Southampton]] the following month.<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Naval & Military intelligence |date=31 July 1902 |page=5 |issue=36834}}</ref> In late 1902 he left the United Kingdom for [[Berbera]], to be a Staff Officer in a Flying column in the [[Somaliland Field Force]], serving in [[British Somaliland]] during the [[Third Somaliland Expedition]].<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=The Somaliland Operations |date=31 October 1902 |page=5 |issue=36913}}</ref> He attended the Army Staff College at Camberley in 1904–05, was back in Somaliland in 1909, then returned to the college as an influential lecturer on war studies from 1909 to 1913.

===Award of the Victoria Cross===
Gough was 31 years old, and a brevet major in [[The Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort's Own)]] during the [[Third Somaliland Expedition]] when the following event took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

On 22 April 1903, Gough was in command of a column on the march which was attacked by an enemy force in superior numbers, that is the Darawiish army of [[Las Anod#Diiriye Guure|Diiriye Guure]]<ref name="scr">{{cite book |last1=Omar |first1=Mohamed |title=The Scramble in the Horn of Africa |date=2001 |page=402 |quote=This letter is sent by all the Dervishes, the Amir, and all the Dolbahanta to the Ruler of Berbera ... We are a Government, we have a Sultan, an Amir, and Chiefs, and subjects ... (reply) In his last letter the Mullah pretends to speak in the name of the Dervishes, their Amir (himself), and the Dolbahanta tribes. This letter shows his object is to establish himself as the Ruler of the Dolbahanta}}</ref> near [[Daratoleh]], British Somaliland. After conducting a successful defence, then a fighting withdrawal, Gough came back to help two captains ([[William George Walker]] and [[George Murray Rolland]]). The captains were helping a mortally wounded officer. They managed to get the wounded officer onto a camel, but then he was wounded again and died immediately. The two captains won the VC for their actions. However, Gough played down his own part in the event. It was not until late in the year that the true story came out indicating that Gough was equally deserving of recognition. He was subsequently awarded the Victoria Cross in January 1904.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=27636|page=331|date=15 January 1904}}</ref> The [[King Edward VII]] presented the medal to him at Buckingham Palace on 29 February 1904. He was appointed an [[Aide-de-Camp]] to the King in August 1907.

==Curragh Incident==
Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, Gough was Chief of Staff to Lieutenant-General [[Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig|Sir Douglas Haig]] at [[Aldershot Command]]. He played a role in the [[Curragh Incident]] in March 1914, in which [[Hubert Gough|his brother]] and other cavalry officers stationed in Ireland threatened to resign rather than coerce [[Ulster Protestants]] who had no wish to be part of an [[Home Rule Crisis|Irish state governed from Dublin]]. Gough accompanied his brother, who had been suspended from duty, to a meeting in London with the Adjutant-General [[Spencer Ewart|Ewart]] on the morning of Sunday 22 March 1914, where Hubert confirmed that he would have obeyed a direct order to move against the Ulster population.<ref>Holmes 2004, p.183-4.</ref> Johnnie was in the War Office on 23 March, when [[John French, 1st Earl of Ypres|French]] ([[Chief of the Imperial General Staff|CIGS]]) agreed to Hubert's demand that he amend a Cabinet document to promise that the British Army would not be used to enforce Irish Home Rule on Ulster. French may have been acting in the belief that the matter needed to be resolved quickly after learning from Haig that afternoon that all the officers of ''Aldershot'' Command would resign if Hubert were punished.<ref>Holmes 2004, p.188-9.</ref>

==First World War==
[[File:Haig Monro Gough Percival 1914 IWM Q 54992.jpg|thumb|John Gough, second from right, talking to Brigadier-General E M Percival. Also in picture are Lieutenant-General Douglas Haig and Major-General Charles Monro. France 1914]]
Gough went to France as a Brigadier-General in mid-August 1914 with the [[Kitchener's Army|British Expeditionary Force]], as Chief-of-Staff to Douglas Haig's I Corps. In early 1915 he continued as Haig's principal staff officer when Haig was given command of the newly created British First Army. By February 1915 whilst working on planning for the forthcoming attack at [[Neuve Chapelle]], Gough was chosen to command one of the British [[Kitchener's Army|New Army]] divisions. This appointment was due to commence sometime in March 1915 and would have entailed his promotion to the rank of [[Major-General]].

==Death==
On 20 February 1915 Gough was visiting his old Battalion, the 2nd Battalion, [[The Rifle Brigade]], in the line at [[Fauquissart]], about 3 km north of [[Neuve Chapelle]], about 2 km west of [[Aubers]] to luncheon at its H.Q.'s Officers' Mess before his imminent departure to the British Isles to assume the command of a new division.<ref>'Douglas Haig: War Diaries & Letters 1914-1918', by G. Sheffield & J. Bourne (Pub. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005).</ref> Whilst in the line he was hit in the [[abdomen]] by a chance ricochet of a German bullet which mortally wounded him. The event was an unlucky one as the bullet that struck him was thought to have been a single shot fired from approximately 1000 yards away from somewhere in the German lines. He was conveyed to the 25th Field Ambulance at nearby Estaires, about 7 km behind the front line, where he succumbed to the wound and died in the early morning of 22 February 1915.<ref>{{Lives of WWI | id= 1399392 | name= John Edmond Gough }}</ref> His body was buried that afternoon in Estaires Communal Cemetery, located 7 miles to the South-West of [[Armentières]], in Plot II, Row A, Grave No. 7.<ref>[http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/268209 CWGC entry]</ref> On 20 April 1915 Gough was posthumously knighted, being gazetted [[Order of the Bath|KCB]] on 22 April 1915.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Gazette hall of fame – John Gough |work=The Gazette |publisher=Government of the United Kingdom |url=https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/content/167 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140523011204/https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/content/167 |archivedate=2014-05-23 |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Assessments==
Gough was quoted as making a famous remark in November 1914 that was to be repeated as inspirational in the dark days of March 1918. "As he watched the enemy swarming over a low ridge one of his staff said the fight was decided. Gough turned with his eyes ablaze and exclaimed: 'God will never let those devils win.'" <ref>'Johnnie Gough, V.C.' by Ian F. W. Beckett (1989), p.194.</ref> "Through Johnnie's death Haig lost a sounding board which was highly constructive yet far from uncritical. Had Johnnie gone on to command a division then it seems almost certain that, as predicted by so many contemporaries, he would have risen much further in the army. Johnnie was a convinced 'westerner' in strategic terms and a 'fighting general'. The army high command's commitment to the Western Front and to strategic offensives on that front would not have changed had Johnnie lived, but as he had demonstrated in his Staff College days he was a supreme realist and the conduct of these offensives might well have been modified by his influence with and, especially, by his ability to relate to Douglas Haig."<ref>'Johnnie Gough, V.C.' by Ian F. W. Beckett (1989), p.208.</ref>

A contemporary, General [[George Barrow (Indian Army officer)|Sir George Barrow]], described John Gough as "a twentieth-century [[Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard|Chevalier Bayard]], had he lived he might have gone to the top of the British Army".<ref>Sheffield & Todman 2004, p.73-4.</ref> To some extent [[Hubert Gough]] replaced his brother as Haig's sounding board.<ref>Sheffield & Todman 2004, p.76.</ref>

==Memorials==
[[File:Memorial to John Gough in Winchester Cathedral.jpg|thumb|Memorial in [[Winchester Cathedral]]]]
There is a memorial to Gough in [[Winchester Cathedral]]; his Victoria Cross medal is displayed at the [[Royal Green Jackets (Rifles) Museum]], in [[Winchester]], England.

==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==References==
*{{Cite book|last=Holmes|first=Richard|title=The Little Field Marshal: A Life of Sir John French|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|year=2004|isbn=0-297-84614-0}}
* {{cite book| last1= Sheffield | first1= Gary | last2= Todman | first2=Dan|title= Command and Control on the Western Front |publisher= Spellmount |location = Stroud|year=2004|isbn=978-1-86227-420-4}}
*[[Irish Winners of the Victoria Cross]] (Richard Doherty & David Truesdale, 2000)
*''Johnnie Gough, VC'' (Ian F.W. Beckett, 1989)
*[http://www.cwgc.org Commonwealth War Graves Commission]
*[[Monuments to Courage]] (David Harvey, 1999)
*[[The Register of the Victoria Cross]] (This England, 1997)

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gough, John}}
[[Category:1871 births]]
[[Category:1915 deaths]]
[[Category:British Army generals of World War I]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of the Second Boer War]]
[[Category:British recipients of the Victoria Cross]]
[[Category:British military personnel killed in World War I]]
[[Category:Rifle Brigade officers]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of the Mahdist War]]
[[Category:British military personnel of the Third Somaliland Expedition]]
[[Category:People from Murree]]
[[Category:British military personnel of the 1898 Occupation of Crete]]
[[Category:British Army recipients of the Victoria Cross]]
[[Category:Irish recipients of the Victoria Cross]]
[[Category:British Army brigadiers]]
[[Category:Military personnel of British India]]
[[Category:Graduates of the Staff College, Camberley]]
[[Category:Academics of the Staff College, Camberley]]
[[Category:Burials in Hauts-de-France]]

John Gough (British Army officer) - Revision history

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