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{{Short description|British Army general}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2021}}
{{Infobox military person
|name= Lionel Dunsterville
|image= LCDunsterville.jpg
|image_size=
|alt=
|caption=
|nickname=
|birth_date= {{birth date|1865|11|09|df=yes}}
|birth_place= [[Lausanne]], [[Vaud]], Switzerland
|death_date= {{death date and age|1946|03|18|1865|11|09|df=yes}}
|death_place= [[Torquay]], [[Devon]], England
|placeofburial=
|allegiance= United Kingdom
|branch= [[British Indian Army]]
|serviceyears=
|rank= [[Major-general (United Kingdom)|Major General]]
|servicenumber=
|unit=
|commands= [[Dunsterforce]]
|battles= [[North-West Frontier (military history)|North-West Frontier]]<br/>[[First World War]]
|awards= [[Companion of the Order of the Bath]]<br/>[[Companion of the Order of the Star of India]]
|relations=
|laterwork=
}}
[[Major-general (United Kingdom)|Major General]] '''Lionel Charles Dunsterville''', {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100|sep=,|CB|CSI}} (9 November 1865 – 18 March 1946)<ref>[[:de:Lionel Dunsterville]]</ref> was a [[British Army]] officer, who led [[Dunsterforce]] across present-day [[Iraq]] and [[Iran]] towards the [[Caucasus]] and [[Baku]] during the [[World War I|First World War]].

==Early life==
Lionel Charles Dunsterville was born in [[Lausanne]], Switzerland on 9 November 1865, the son of Lieutenant General Lionel D'Arcy Dunsterville (1830–1912) of the Indian Army and his wife, Susan Ellen (1835–1875). He went to school with [[Rudyard Kipling]] and [[George Charles Beresford]] at [[United Services College|The United Services College]], a public school later absorbed into [[Haileybury and Imperial Service College]], which prepared British young men for careers in Her Majesty's Army. He served as the inspiration for the character "[[Stalky]]" in Kipling's collection of school stories ''[[Stalky & Co]]''. He was also uncle to [[H.D. Harvey-Kelly]], the first [[Royal Flying Corps]] pilot to land in France during the [[First World War]].

==Military career==
Dunsterville was commissioned into the [[British Army]] as a [[Lieutenant (British Army and Royal Marines)|lieutenant]] in the [[Sussex Regiment]] on 23 August 1884. He later transferred to the [[British Indian Army|Indian Army]], was promoted to [[Captain (BARM)|captain]] on 23 August 1895, and served on the [[North-West Frontier (military history)|North-West Frontier]] and in [[Waziristan]].<ref>Hart′s Army list, 1903</ref> As a railway staff officer he served in [[China]] during the [[Boxer Rebellion]] 1900–02, for which he was [[mentioned in despatches]] (by Major-General [[O'Moore Creagh]], commander of British forces in China after the end of the main hostilities),<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=27497 |date=21 November 1902 |page=7532}}</ref> and was promoted to [[Major (British Army and Royal Marines)|major]] on 23 August 1902.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=27495|page=7245|date=14 November 1902}}</ref>

[[File:Commodore Norris and General Dunsterforce.jpg|thumb|left|Major-General L. C. Dunsterville, GOC [[Dunsterforce]], with Commodore [[David Norris (Royal Navy officer)|D. T. Norris]] of the [[Royal Navy]] on the Caspian, 1918.]]

In the [[First World War]] Dunsterville held a posting in India. At the end of 1917 the army appointed Major-General Dunsterville to lead an Allied force ([[Dunsterforce]]) of fewer than 1,000 Australian, British, Canadian and New Zealand troops, drawn from the [[Mesopotamian Campaign|Mesopotamian]] and [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Fronts]], accompanied by armoured cars, from [[Hamadan]] in the Zagros Mountains of Persia for some 350 km across [[Greater Iran|Qajar Persia]]. His mission set out from Baghdad in January 1918, aiming to gather information, to train and command local forces, and to prevent the spread of German [[propaganda]].<ref>
[https://books.google.com/books?id=sZVN2MwWZVAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false The Azerbaijani Turks: power and identity under Russian rule, Audrey L. Altstadt]
</ref>
On his way to [[Bandar-e Anzali|Enzeli]] on the Persian Caspian coast he also fought [[Mirza Kuchik Khan]] and his [[Jungle Movement of Gilan|Jangali]] forces in [[Manjil]].

Dunsterville was assigned to re-inforce the defence of the key oil-field and port of [[Baku]] (in present-day [[Azerbaijan]]), held from 26 July 1918 by the anti-Soviet [[Centro Caspian Dictatorship]]. Dunsterforce personnel first arrived in Baku on 6 August 1918. However, the British and their allies had to abandon Baku on 14 September 1918 in the face of an onslaught by 14,000 [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] troops and Azerbaijani Generals like [[Ali-Agha Shikhlinski]] and Gaimmegam Hasan Bey, who [[Battle of Baku|took the city]] the next day. The [[Allies of World War I|Allies]] regained control of Baku within two months as a result of [[Armistice of Mudros|the Ottoman armistice]] of 30 October 1918.

Promoted to major general in 1918, Dunsterville died in 1946 at Torquay, Devon, England.

==Family==
Captain Lionel Charles Dunsterville of the Indian Staff Corps married Margaret Emily (known as "Daisie"), daughter of Captain John Walter Keyworth late 48th Regiment, in November 1897 at Bishopsteignton, Devon, England.

Their elder son, Lionel Walter Dunsterville, was born on 9 September 1902 at Tientsin, China; their younger son [[G. C. K. Dunsterville|Galfrid Charles Keyworth]] was born on 18 February 1905; and their daughter Susannah Margaret on 14 July 1911. Galfrid co-authored books on Venezuelan orchids with [[Leslie Andrew Garay|L. A. Garay]]. Susannah's first husband was the Swiss lawyer and diplomat [[August R. Lindt]], the son of a renowned chocolate manufacturer. Her second husband was Colditz escapee [[Damiaen Joan van Doorninck]], whom she met in Switzerland during the Second World War as a Resistance worker.

==Sources==
* [http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/dunsterville.htm Encyclopaedia of the First World War- Who's Who]

==References==
{{reflist}}
* {{cite book |series=Studies of nationalities |title=The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity under Russian Rule |last=Altstadt |first=A. L. |year=1992 |publisher=Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University |location=Stanford, CA |isbn=0-81799-181-6}}
* {{cite book |series=[[Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918]] |title=The A. I. F. in France: December 1917 – May 1918 |volume=V |chapter=Appendix 5: Australians in Mesopotamia |chapter-url=https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/RCDIG1069687/|last=Bean |first=C. E. W. |author-link=Charles Bean |year=1941 |orig-year=1937 |publisher=Angus & Robinson |location=Sydney, NSW |edition=8th, online [[Australian War Memorial]] |oclc=12752507}}
* {{cite book |last=Dunsterville C. B. |first=Major-General L. C. |author-link=Lionel Dunsterville |title=The Adventures of Dunsterforce |year=1920 |publisher=Edward Arnold |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/adventuresofduns00dunsrich |oclc=317431}}
* ''Stalky's Reminiscences'' by Major-General L. C. Dunsterville (London: 1928; re-issued under title ''Stalky's Adventures'' in 1941)
* ''Something of myself'' by Rudyard Kipling
* ''Stalky and Co.'' by Rudyard Kipling
* S. P. Menefee, "Dunsterville, Lionel Charles," in H. C. G. Mathews and Brian Harrison (eds.), ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', vol. 17 (2004): pp. 361–63.
* {{cite book |series=History of the Great War Based on Official Documents, Compiled at the Request of the Government of India, under the Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence |title=The Campaign in Mesopotamia 1914–1918 |volume=IV |others=Part V: The Campaign in Upper Mesopotamia, 1917–18, North-West Persia and the Caspian, 1918 |last=Moberly |first=F. J. |year=1997 |orig-year=1927 |publisher=[[HMSO]] |location=London |edition=Imperial War Museum and Battery Press repr. |isbn=0-89839-290-X}}
* {{cite book |series=History of the Great War based on Official Documents by Direction of the Committee of Imperial Defence |title=Operations in Persia 1914–1919 |last=Moberly |first=F. J. |year=1987 |orig-year=1929 |publisher=HMSO |location=London |edition=Imperial War Museum facsimile of the confidential 1929 |isbn=0-11-290453-X}}

==External links==
* {{FadedPage|id=Dunsterville, Lionel Charles|name=Lionel Charles Dunsterville|author=yes}}
* [https://archive.org/details/adventuresofduns00dunsrich The Adventures of Dunsterforce by L.C. Dunsterville]
* [http://www.gwpda.org/Dunsterville/Dunsterville_1917.html The Diaries of General Lionel Dunsterville]
* [https://archive.org/details/moreyarns00dunsuoft More Yarns by L.C. Dunsterville]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090305173628/http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/caj/documents/vol_08/iss_3/CAJ_vol8.3_13_e.pdf Dunsterforce: A Case Study of Coalition Warfare in the Middle East 1918–1919]

{{portal|World War I}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunsterville, Lionel}}
[[Category:1865 births]]
[[Category:Royal Sussex Regiment officers]]
[[Category:British military personnel of the Boxer Rebellion]]
[[Category:British military personnel of the Russian Civil War]]
[[Category:1946 deaths]]
[[Category:Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War]]
[[Category:British Indian Army generals]]
[[Category:Indian Army generals of World War I]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Bath]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Star of India]]
[[Category:People educated at United Services College]]
[[Category:People from Lausanne]]

Lionel Dunsterville - Revision history

Bot at 08:35, 29 October 2022