from
Ross
Mallett's site. Born at St
Arnaud, Victoria on 23 September 1876, Cyril Brudenell Bingham White was
educated at Brisbane Central Boy's School and Eton Preparatory School,
Nundah. At the age of 15 he left to become a clerk at the Australian
Joint Stock Bank in Brisbane.
In 1897, White was commissioned into
the 2nd Queensland Regiment. The next year he passed an exam for a
commission in the Permanent Military Forces, in the Queensland
Artillery. White served briefly in the Boer War in 1902 as a junior
officer with the Commonwealth Light Horse. Then in 1904 he was appointed
aide-de-camp to Major General E. T. H. Hutton, GOC AMF. In this capacity
he toured Australia, and became familiar with the set up of the defence
establishment.
Hutton arranged for White to attend
the staff college at Camberley in England in 1906-7, the first
Australian to do so. On return to Australia in 1908 he was promoted to
captain and posted to the staff of the Chief of Intelligence, Colonel W.
T. Bridges. But he was there for only a few months before he was on his
way back to England on a four year exchange posting to the War Office.
Here, White became familiar with the workings of the British Army, and
developed considerable competence in staff work. White was recalled
early in 1911 to become Director of Military Operations, with the rank
of major. As such, he drew up the plans for an expeditionary force that
would eventually become the blueprint for the AIF.
Major White was acting Chief of Staff
when war broke out in 1914, in the absence of Colonel Legge, who still
en route from England. It fell to White to get approval for the country
to be placed on a war footing.
White developed his plan for an
expeditionary force into one for the creation of the first contingent of
20,000. When Bridges was appointed to command the AIF, White became his
chief of staff, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. White assisted
Bridges with the organisation and equipment of the force and its
despatch to Egypt. White assisted Bridges with the plans for the landing
at Anzac. In recognition of this service, White was awarded the DSO.
Like many, White was eventually evacuated sick from Gallipoli.
When he returned in October, White was
promoted to Brigadier General, becoming BGGS of ANZAC, under Lieutenant
General W. R. Birdwood. As such, his role was to plan the evacuation of
Anzac. This became the first operation of the whole campaign to go off
according to plan, and to be accomplished without loss.
When the ANZAC returned to Egypt, it
was White who planned the doubling of the AIF to four divisions.
Creating so many new units virtually from scratch was a magnificent
achievement of administration, but it could have been greater if White
had been less concerned about seniority and given his subordinates a
freer hand to select their own officers. He soon became BGGS of I Anzac
Corps, once again under Birdwood, who tended to delegate administrative
matters to his chief of staff. When I Anzac Corps moved to France, the
greatly increased complexity of warfare there threw an awesome burden
and responsibility on both men.
At Pozieres, White clashed with the
GOC-in-C of the BEF, General Sir Douglas Haig, over the arrangements for
the attack on the Pozieres Heights. White's systematic approach was
intended to avoid a repeat of the failure of the first attack on the
heights, but it was costly in that it subjected men to enemy artillery
for an unnecessarily long time. He also on occasion directed that the
line be held too heavily, which either resulted in unnecessary
casualties or his orders being overturned by subordinates.
On 1 January 1917, White was promoted
to Major General along with Hobbs, Holmes and Howse, making him the most
senior corps BGGS in France.
In the advance to the Hindenburg Line,
White clashed with Elliott and Gellibrand, the generals leading the
advance columns, over tactical matters such as the advisability of
double envelopment, which White had disparaged even before the war, only
to be proven spectacularly wrong. His insistence on halting each day on
prearranged lines on the map made some administrative but no tactical
sense, and was ignored by both brigadiers. At First Bullecourt, White
opposed the scheme for the attack, but was overruled. At the same time,
his planning was faulty, and again he showed no feel for the terrain to
be fought over. The arrangements for the Second Bullecourt battle a few
weeks later were little better. But at Third Ypres, White's planning was
better than ever, and complex reliefs and movements were carried out in
a flawless fashion.
In July 1917, Haig suggested to White
that he should be commanding the corps. Instead of backing his
government's policy that Australians should hold all major commands,
White gave a defence of Birdwood, an officer that Haig had less than
complete faith in. The probable result was that Haig became even more
convinced that Monash was a better choice for the job.
On 31 May 1918, Birdwood took over
command of the British Fifth Army, and he took White with him as his
Major General General Staff. Some journalists had intrigued to have
White given the corps command instead of Monash, but it seems unlikely
that a staff officer who had never commanded a unit of any size would
have been elevated over the heads of two more senior division
commanders. White certainly saw it that way.
On 21 November 1918, Monash met with
White and ordered him to return to Australia. A week later, he was
promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant general. This lapsed when
White returned to Australia in July 1919. He was made a Knight Commander
of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the 1919 New Years list. Later he
became a Knight Commander of the Victorian Order (KCVO) in 1920, and a
Knight Commander of the Bath (KCB) in 1927.
In January 1920, White, along with
Lieutenant Generals J. Monash, J. W. McCay, J. J. T. Hobbs and J. G.
Legge, was appointed to a committee chaired by H. G. Chauvel, to examine
the future structure of the army. It fell to White, who was appointed
Chief of the General Staff in June 1920, to implement the committee's
recommendations, but this proved next to impossible in the face of
defence cuts that were imposed in 1920 and 1922. In February 1920, he
was promoted to the substantive rank of major general, back dated to 1
January 1919. White resigned from the Army in 1923 to become the first
Chairman of the Public Service Board. He retired in 1928.
On 15 March 1940, White was recalled
to active duty, promoted to full general and reappointed as Chief of the
General Staff. He thus became only the third Australian to be promoted
to the rank of full general. His term of office was brief. Along with
nine others, White was killed in a plane crash near Canberra Airport on
13 August 1940.
After a funeral service at St Paul's
Cathedral in Melbourne and a procession down St Kilda Road, his body was
taken by train to a small cemetery at Buangor, Victoria, where he was
buried.
White is not an easy man to evaluate.
His lack of education was a tremendous handicap in grappling with the
complexities of modern warfare. Monash said of White: "He has never
been tested as a commander. As an interpreter of another man's policy he
has been brilliant indeed." This will probably be the verdict of
history; that White rose to the highest rank on his merit as a staff
officer.
Sources: Oxford Companion to Australian Military
History, pp. 667-669; Bean, C. E. W., Two Men I Knew.; Verney, Guy,
"General Sir Brudennell White" in Horner (ed), The Commanders |