Sir Aylmer Gould Hunter-Weston ; "The Butcher of Helles"

Sir Aylmer Gould Hunter-Weston (1864–18 March 1940) was a British general who served in the First World War. At the outbreak of the war in 1914 he commanded a brigade on the Western Front.

When the Battle of Gallipoli commenced in March 1915 Hunter-Weston was promoted to the command of the British 29th Division which was to make the landing at Cape Helles near the entrance to the Dardanelles.

The Dardanelles (Turkish: Çanakkale Boğazı), formerly Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara.

The VIII Corps was first formed at Gallipoli during World War I.

As the campaign proceeded and more reinforcements were dispatched to Helles, Hunter-Weston's responsibilities grew until on May 24 he was promoted to lieutenant general and given command of the British VIII Corps. The British VIII Corps was an army corps formation that existed during World War I and World War II.

The main British battle front was at Cape Helles on the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula. The British 29th Division, known as the Incomparable Division, was a First World War regular army infantry division formed in early 1915 by combining various units that had been acting as garrisons about the British Empire.

In June the Manchesters, Lancashire Territorials and Worcesters broke through nearly to Krithia, which would have forced a massive Turkish retreat, but Hunter-Weston reinforced the stationary Royal Naval Division, not the advancing units.

Hunter-Weston. a martinet who was strangely enough very popular with his men, collapsed in July, leaving behind an army utterly exhausted and incapable of further offensive action. More detail

He was invalided from Gallipoli in July, supposedly from nervous exhaustion, and returned to England. In October 1916 he was elected to the House of Commons as the member for North Ayrshire.

Hunter-Weston returned to command the VIII Corps when it was re-established in France in 1916. At the launch of the Somme Offensive on July 1, 1916 it was Hunter-Weston's divisions which suffered the worst casualties and failed to capture any of their objectives.

Nicknamed 'Hunter-Bunter', Hunter-Weston was a classic example of the British "donkey" general — he was also referred to as "The Butcher of Helles" for his utter disregard for the welfare of his troops and his incompetent battle plans. Hunter-Weston was an advocate of the broad frontal assault made in daylight. When his plan of attack for the Second Battle of Krithia failed on the first day, he proceeded to repeat the plan on the second and third days.

He claimed he was "blooding the pups" when he made the inexperienced 156th Brigade of the British 52nd (Lowland) Division attack without artillery support during the Battle of Gully Ravine. Half the brigade became casualties of which over a third were killed.

Text from Wikipedia