Few people have ever heard of him. Yet he was successively: Churchill`s chief staff officer throughout the Second World War; chief of staff to the last British viceroy of India during the Partition in 1947; a cabinet minister when Churchill returned to power in 1951; and finally, the first secretary general of NATO at the height of the Cold War. Just one of these appointments could be considered a notable lifetime achievement. Taken together they add up to a life that was far from ordinary. Yet there was even more about General Hastings `Pug` Ismay`s life that make it quite extraordinary.
Ismay`s childhood, though, was no more than unusual. He was a child of the Raj – that is to say of British rule in India. Born there in 1887 to British parents, his father was a member of the Indian Civil Service. Like the sons of many Anglo-Indians he was, at the age of eight, packed-off to boarding school in England, returning to his family only twice in the next ten years. Aged eighteen he went to the Royal Military College Sandhurst where he distinguished himself: in the end-of-course order of merit he came fourth out of one hundred and fifty.
Joining an Indian Army cavalry regiment stationed on the North West Frontier near the Khyber Pass, he was in battle at the early age of twenty. One of the Afghan tribes had made a series of cross-border raids and Ismay`s regiment was part of the force sent to sent to deal with them. He and his troop were quickly in the thick of it, fighting for their lives. The following year Ismay`s regiment was moved south to the Punjab, an altogether quieter area and he hankered after more excitement. In spring 1914 he volunteered for service in British Somaliland (modern day Somalia) where a violent insurgency was taking place, led by Mullah Mohammad Abdullah Hassan, dubbed by the British press `the Mad Mullah`.[i] The British were raising a counter-insurgency force mounted on camels – the Somaliland Camel Corps. There was one officer vacancy left. Ismay applied and got the job.
Within three months of arrival the force mounted an attack on one of the Mullah`s forts. Ismay was again to be in the thick of the fight. At the very forefront of the assault alongside two other officers, he was lucky to escape with his life: one of the officers was killed, the other seriously wounded. Over the next five years, the Camel Corps made further attacks on the Mullah and his dervishes. After two of these operations Ismay was awarded a Mention in Despatches. His time in Somaliland culminated just before his departure in the spring of 1920. Now a lieutenant colonel, commanding the Camel Corps, he led a major, arduous expedition which finally defeated the mullah`s forces and effectively spelt the end of `dervishism.` For his inspirational leadership, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.
Back with his regiment in India Ismay was sent to the Staff College at Quetta where he passed top of the course with an `Outstanding` report. He was to spend the next ten years in a series of prestigious staff appointments in Whitehall and in India before, in 1938, being appointed to be the secretary – effectively the director – of the Committee for Imperial Defence, responsible for national and imperial strategy, including the cross-government plans for transition to war.
When war came in September 1939 Ismay`s plans worked like clockwork. And when Winston Churchill succeeded Neville Chamberlain as prime minister in May 1940 and appointed himself minister of defence, he brought Ismay in as his chief staff officer, responsible both for providing advice and for implementing his decisions. Ismay became Churchill`s closest confidant and rarely left his side, whether in Britain or abroad at international conferences. Churchill later wrote of him, `we became hand in glove and much more.`[ii] Ismay was instrumental in conciliating the often-fractious relationship between the prime minister and the Service chiefs of staff and in preventing resignations which could have resulted in constitutional crises. He also played a major role in facilitating the sometimes-brittle Anglo-American partnership, establishing close personal relations with senior American figures, none more so than General Dwight D Eisenhower. And he played a major role in the direction of strategic deception operations such as those surrounding D-Day in June 1944. Churchill came to depend on him completely. One of the prime minister`s private secretaries later wrote that it was Ismay `to whom Churchill owed more, and admitted that he owed more, than to anybody else, military or civilian, in the whole of the war.`[iii]
At the end of 1946 Ismay retired, was awarded a peerage and was looking forward to a well-earned rest. However, when his former colleague and friend, Admiral Louis Mountbatten, was appointed to be the last viceroy of India to oversee the transfer of power Ismay agreed to accompany him as his chief of staff. Ismay was to be closely involved in the drama of Partition, both in its planning and implementation. He was assiduous in the almost-impossible task of drawing-up a plan which would be acceptable to all sides and indefatigable in seeking to mitigate the widespread and brutal violence which followed Partition in August 1947. In particular, he held lengthy meetings with the Indian leader Jawaharal Nehru and the Pakistani leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah. But to little avail. His letters home to his wife offer telling insights into his time in India, his views of the political leaders – and of Mountbatten.
On return from India Ismay`s life took several new turns. He was appointed chairman of the council which would oversee the Festival of Britain, due to take place in London and around the country in the summer of 1951. He also agreed to be member of the group formed by Churchill to provide him with material and comment for his memoirs – what became the six volumes of The Second World War. This became a major commitment. And when Churchill returned to power in October 1951 he appointed Ismay secretary of state for commonwealth relations.
Membership for the Cabinet was to be a short-term job for Ismay because in March 1952 he was appointed the first secretary general of NATO at its new headquarters in Paris. He was clear from the outset that his priority would be solidifying the foundations of the alliance, establishing the authority of his post, and building the cohesion and unity among the member nations on which its continuing existence would depend. He was steadfast throughout his tenure in emphasising the Soviet threat, particularly when some commentators were seeking to underplay it and question the need for the alliance. His five-year tenure as secretary general was a formative one for the alliance and fundamental to its successful development. His widely acknowledged success – at the time and to this day – owed much to his warmth of personality, his modesty and to all his skills as a mediator and conciliator that had proved his making throughout his career.
In retirement Ismay was to write his memoirs, published in 1960, and to provide one last service to the nation. In 1963 he agreed, along with his former wartime colleague, Sir Ian Jacob, to advise the government on proposals for the reorganisation of the higher management of national defence. The result was the highly influential Ismay-Jacob Report which, amongst other things, proposed the complete reorganisation of the Ministry of Defence and became the basis of the government White Paper published later that year.
In summary, the sheer number and breadth of achievements of one person in his lifetime is quite extraordinary. It was only possible by having an abundance of diverse talents in large measure and ones that matched the circumstances in which he was to find himself. The fact that that person is almost forgotten today is, if not extraordinary, highly surprising.
[i] Douglas Jardine, The Mad Mullah of Somaliland (London, H Jenkins, 1923), 53.
[ii] Winston Churchill, in Hastings Ismay, The Memoirs of General the Lord Ismay (London, Heineman, 1960), x.
[iii] John Colville, The Fringes of Power. Downing Street Diaries, 1939-1955 (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1985), 116.
John Kiszely is the author of General Hastings ‘Pug’ Ismay: Soldier, Statesman, Diplomat: A New Biography.
