Edgar William Cox

Brigadier-General Edgar William Cox (9 May 1882 – 26 August 1918) was a senior intelligence officer on the British General Staff throughout most of the First World War. He drowned in suspicious circumstances whilst swimming in August 1918 shortly after the German successes in the Spring Offensive, which drove the allied armies back a large distance. Although officially an accident, suspicions of suicide surrounded his death.

Early career Born to George and Louisa Cox of Islington, Middlesex, in North London on 9 May 1882, Edgar Cox was educated at Christ's Hospital in Newgate and on 21 December 1900 was commissioned as a junior officer into the Royal Engineers. He came head of his class at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and received several awards, both there and at the School of Military Engineering. After graduation he was in December 1902 sent to the British colony of Sierra Leone to help delineate the boundary with neighbouring Liberia, with the local rank of lieutenant while there. This task occupied him until 1903, when he joined an Anglo-Portuguese boundary commission in Angola. gaining valuable experience in military intelligence and learning fluent French and German.

First World War His work was good enough that in August 1914, when he was made a GSO3, he was attached to the staff of Field Marshal Sir John French, in charge of the British Expeditionary Force sent to France to counter the German invasion at the start of the First World War. He would later also be awarded the Belgian Order of the Crown and the Italian Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus for his war service. He was also given fast brevet promotions to lieutenant colonel, colonel and brigadier general to facilitate his position at this post. He had become a heavy smoker and by August was no longer eating or sleeping, suffering severely from nervous exhaustion. suspicions of suicide have remained given Cox's disturbed state of mind in the days before his fatal swim. The turmoil of this period was recorded by one of his subordinates, a junior officer named Howard Spring who would later become a famous novelist and who recounted the last days of Brigadier-General Cox in his autobiography In the meantime: