Born in Aberdeen in November 1866, the son of George Milne and Williamina Milne (née Panton), and educated at MacMillan's School in Aberdeen and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich,[2] which he entered in March 1884,[3] Milne was commissioned into the Royal Artillery on 16 September 1885.[4][3] He was initially posted to a battery at Trimulgherry in India and then joined a battery at Aldershot in 1889 before being posted back to India to a battery at Meerut in 1891.[5] Promoted to captain on 4 July 1895,[6] he joined the garrison artillery in Malta.[7] Next he was appointed battery captain at Hilsea and then attended the Staff College, Camberley in 1897.[7] There he became a friend of his classmate William Robertson.[8][9] He took part in the Nile Expedition in 1898, seeing action at Omdurman and scoring a direct hit on the Mahdi's tomb with his battery.[8] He served in the Second Boer War in South Africa, where he was appointed Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General on 18 February 1900,[10] and was promoted to major on 1 November 1900.[11] He was mentioned in despatches on 2 April 1901,[12] and awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in the South Africa Honours list published on 26 June 1902.[13] Following the end of the war in June 1902, Milne received the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel on 22 August 1902 (the honour was gazetted in the October 1902 South Africa honours list),[14] and returned to the United Kingdom on the SS Orotava which arrived at Southampton in early September.[15]
The British Government accepted the need to maintain a presence in Salonika to keep the French happy, but Robertson, who often communicated by secret letters and "R" telegrams to generals in the field, privately told Milne that he did not favour offensive operations. Milne broadly agreed with Robertson that any attempt to attack across the mountains to cut the Nis-Sofia-Constantinople railway was logistically impractical, although he did stress that his forces must either advance or retreat from the malaria-infested Struma Valley and that the Bulgarians might be beaten if pressed hard.[24] On 23 July he was told to "engag(e) the maximum of Bulgar forces" whilst the Romanians mobilised and attacked, followed by secret messages from Robertson that he should "guard against being committed for any serious action" until it was certain that Romania was coming in.[25][8] With Bulgaria seeming close to collapse in October and November 1916, Milne advised Robertson (5 November) that the Germans would do all they could to keep her in the war.[26]
The 60th (2/2nd London) Division was sent to Salonika in December.[27] Milne was promoted to permanent lieutenant general on 1 January 1917.[28] On 3 January 1917 Milne arrived at the Rome Conference independently of the French General Sarrail.[27] The official French record of the Rome Conference did not even mention Milne as a participant.[29] As a result of the Conference Milne was placed under Sarrail's command, with right of appeal to his own government – who overruled him when he protested against Sarrail's movement of a British brigade outside the British zone. This precedent was much discussed in the next few months when David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister, attempted to place the BEF on the Western Front under General Robert Nivelle.[30]
An allied cemetery at Thessaloniki (Salonika).
Milne undertook numerous offensives in support of his French and Serbian Allies with limited resources. His attack at Lake Doiran in spring 1917 cost 5,000 dead and seriously wounded, one quarter of all British casualties throughout the entire Salonika Campaign. Another British attack in the Struma Valley was more successful.[31] His troops were constantly suffering from malaria.[21] Milne was appointed a Grand Officer of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus by the King of Italy on 31 August 1917[32] and advanced to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 1 January 1918.[33] Although Milne was repulsed again at Lake Doiran in September 1918, French and Serbian units were successful in defeating the Bulgarian Army at the Battle of Dobro Pole which took place that same month.[2] Bulgaria then signed an armistice.[2]
Post-war
In September 1918, Milne became responsible for the military administration of a vast area around the Black Sea at a time of considerable internal disorder following the Russian Revolution and the start of the Turkish War of Independence.[21] Small British forces had twice occupied Baku on the Caspian, while an entire British division had occupied Batum on the Black Sea, supervising German and Turkish withdrawal. British (including Indian and some Arab) troops were in Persia (partly to protect the oilfields at Abadan) and larger British forces were also deployed in Mesopotamia and Syria.[34]
Milne toured the Caucasus in early 1919 and thought "the country and the inhabitants are equally loathsome" and that British withdrawal "would probably lead to anarchy" but "the world would (not) lose much if the whole of the country cut each other’s throats. They are certainly not worth the life of a single British soldier". At the end of August 1919 the British withdrew from Baku (the small British naval presence was also withdrawn from the Caspian Sea), leaving only 3 battalions at Batum. Lord Curzon, Foreign Secretary, wanted a British presence in the region, although to Curzon's fury (he thought it "abuse of authority") the CIGS, General Sir Henry Wilson (who had succeeded "Wully" Robertson in early 1918) gave Milne permission to withdraw if he deemed it necessary. After a British garrison at Enzeli (on the Persian Caspian coast) was taken prisoner by Bolshevik forces on 19 May 1920, Lloyd George finally insisted on a withdrawal from Batum early in June 1920. Financial retrenchment forced a British withdrawal from Persia in the spring of 1921.[35]
Promoted to full general on 26 April 1920,[42] he was appointed Lieutenant of the Tower of London on 15 December 1920[43] and General Officer Commanding Eastern Command on 1 June 1923.[44] Having been made aide-de-camp general to the King on 31 July 1923,[45] he became CIGS on 19 February 1926.[46] In that role he supported the publication of the study Mechanised and Armoured Formations (issued in 1929) and generally promoted the mechanisation of British land forces although limited practical progress was made during his term in office.[2] Having been advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in the New Year Honours 1927,[47] he was promoted to field marshal on 30 January 1928[48] before retiring in 1933.[49] On 26 January 1933 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Milne, of Salonika and of Rubislaw in the County of Aberdeen.[50]
