Louis Lipsett

Major-General Louis James Lipsett, (14 June 1874 – 14 October 1918) was a senior officer in the British Army and Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War. He commanded the 3rd Canadian Division during some of the bitterest battles of the war, taking over in 1916 after his predecessor, Malcolm Mercer, was killed. In 1918, Lipsett took command of the British 4th Division. Less than a month before the end of the war, during a reconnaissance mission observing German positions along the River Selle, Lipsett was killed. He was the last British general to be killed during the First World War.

A highly experienced officer, Lipsett had previously seen action in the Tirah Campaign and the Second Boer War with the British Army, serving as an officer with the Royal Irish Regiment. He was later instrumental in developing military training and education throughout Canada and expanding the shore defences of British Columbia, in response to the threat of the German East Asian Cruiser Squadron. An experienced and capable officer, Lipsett was popular with both his men and his superiors. His death was considered "a deplorable loss to the [4th] Division". and took ship to India where he served for the next five years, mainly with the 2nd Battalion of his regiment, on the Northwest Frontier, participating in the Tirah campaign against the Afridi.

In 1899 he and his regiment were ordered to South Africa for service in the Second Boer War. Although he did not serve in any significant actions Lipsett performed his duties well, in 1901 was promoted to captain and on his return to England in 1903 was recommended to attend the Staff College, Camberley. In 1905 he returned to South Africa as a staff officer (deputy-assistant adjutant and quartermaster general), to aid in the reconstitution of the colonial government, a task he performed until 1907, when he was posted back to his regiment and promoted from supernumerary captain to captain in March 1908. Based at Aldershot in Hampshire, Lipsett conducted both regimental business and operated as an aide-de-camp to the commander of the 2nd Division, Major General Theodore Edward Stephenson.

In July 1911, Lipsett responded to the call from the Colonial Office for young staff officers to operate in colonial military academies, as military education had been standardised throughout the British Empire in 1909. He instigated numerous new training courses and special schools, establishing close ties with the Canadian military establishment and personally training most of the next generation of Canadian staff officers and generals. The Canadian minister of militia and defence minister, Sir Sam Hughes, attempted to have him removed from the division in favour of Hughes' son Garnet, but Lipsett was so highly regarded in the Canadian military establishment that Lieutenant General Sir Julian Byng, commanding the Canadian Corps, overruled Hughes. soon after receiving the appointment, led his division through the worst of the campaigns in 1916, including extensive operations during the Battle of the Somme. He received two more promotions, to brevet colonel in January 1917 and to substantive lieutenant colonel in February, and in April Lipsett's division was instrumental in the Canadian success at the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The following September, however, the division took heavy casualties in bitter fighting at the Battle of Passchendaele. After each of these battles, Lipsett was forced to reconstitute and retrain his units with fresh drafts, so severe were the casualties his division took. By the time of August 1918, after the devastating German spring offensives earlier in the year, he was involved in the planning and execution of an assault on German positions by the entire Canadian Corps which is known as the Battle of Amiens which was completely successful and for which he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath.

Death Through the rest of August, he was engaged in combat with the 3rd Canadian Division. However, at the start of September, Lieutenant General Currie, Byng's successor as GOC Canadian Corps since June 1917, and Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, commander-in-chief (C-in-C) of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front, arranged his transfer to the command of the 4th Division of the BEF, taking over from Major General Torquil Matheson, in order that the Canadian Corps be entirely officered by Canadians. with his funeral attended by dozens of officers from the British and Canadian forces in France including Byng and Lipsett's close friend and corps commander, Currie. The burial party was provided by the unit he had entered the war in command of, the 8th Battalion, C.E.F., and amongst the mourners was the Edward, the Prince of Wales. After the war he was posthumously awarded the Officer of the Legion of Honour and the Croix de Guerre by the French government. The Imperial War Graves Commission headstone erected over Lipsett's grave bears the inscription: OUT OF THE STRESS OF THE DOING / INTO THE PEACE OF THE DONE.