Alfred Knox

Major-General Sir Alfred William Fortescue Knox (30 October 1870 – 9 March 1964) was an Ulster-Scots career officer in the British Army and later a Conservative Party politician.

Early life Knox was born at Shimnah House in Newcastle, County Down, the son of Vesey Edmund Knox and Margaret Clarissa Garrett. Edmund Vesey Knox and Gen. Sir Harry Knox were his brothers. His great-grandfather was Hon. Vesey Knox, third son of Thomas Knox, 1st Viscount Northland of Dungannon, and brother of Thomas Knox, 1st Earl of Ranfurly (1754–1840); Maj.-Gen. Hon. John Knox (1758–1800), Governor of Jamaica; William Knox (1762–1831), Bishop of Derry; George Knox (1765–1827), MP for Dublin University; Charles Knox (1770–1825), Archdeacon of Armagh; and Edmund Knox (1772–1849), Bishop of Limerick.

He was educated at Saint Columba's College, Dublin. He was adjutant to the Southern Waziristan Militia, and as such took part in operations in Waziristan under Major-General Charles Egerton in summer 1902, for which he was mentioned in despatches.

In 1911, Knox was appointed the British Military Attaché in then Russian Empire. A fluent speaker of Russian, he became a liaison officer to the Imperial Russian Army during First World War. During the 1917 Bolshevik coup in Russia he observed the Bolsheviks' taking of the Winter Palace on 7 November (25 October Old Style) 1917 .

He wrote:

During the Russian Civil War, he was the head of the British Mission (Britmis) and notional Chef d'Arrière of the White Army in Siberia under Admiral Kolchak. He barely intervened in the combat operations, as Kolchak was unwilling to listen to his advice and to accept demands about a Russian Constituent Assembly after the war.

R. H. Bruce Lockhart praised him highly. "Up to the revolution no man took a saner view of the military situation on the Eastern front and no foreign observer supplied his Government with more reliable information."

In 1921 Knox, who retired from the army in July 1920 with the honorary rank of major general, published his memoirs, With the Russian Army: 1914–1917. In this book he also tells the story of heroine Elsa Brändström.

Political career At the 1924 general election, Knox was elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Wycombe, defeating the sitting Liberal MP Lady Terrington. He held his seat during the 1929 general election and through subsequent general elections, serving in the House of Commons until the 1945 general election. In 1934, Knox argued against Indian self-government by stating "India, diverse in races and creed and united only by Britain, is not ready for democracy." His parliamentary questions mainly concerned the Stalinist Soviet Union and the threat of Hitler as well as the rearmament of Britain during the interwar period. Knox remained a strong opponent of Communism throughout his career and following the 1939 Soviet invasion of Finland during World War II, he campaigned to give military support to the Finns.

Personal life In 1915, he married Edith Mary Boyle (died 1959), the widow of Richard Boyle, daughter of Col. Frederick John Colin Halkett, and granddaughter of Sir Colin Halkett.

After a short illness, he died on 9 March 1964 at King Edward VII Hospital, Windsor.