Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Maurice, John Frederick
MAURICE, Sir JOHN FREDERICK (1841–1912), major-general, the eldest son of Frederick Denison Maurice [q. v.], was born in London 24 May 1841. He was educated privately, mainly at home, and was thus greatly influenced by the ideals and principles of his father and of the band of men with whom his father was associated. To this influence may be largely ascribed the intense hatred of any kind of injustice or unfairness, and the readiness to sacrifice his personal interests to a cause in which he believed, which always characterized him. It was entirely his own idea that instead of going to Cambridge he should become a soldier. He passed second into Addiscombe, where the artillery cadets for the East India Company's service were trained, just before the amalgamation of the company's forces with the Crown's led to the transfer of the Addiscombe cadets to Woolwich. From Woolwich he passed out into the Royal Artillery in 1862.
His service falls into three periods. Till 1873 he was at home, passing through the Staff College and becoming instructor in tactics at Sandhurst in 1872; between 1873 and 1885 his time was divided mainly between the War Office, where he did notable work in the intelligence department, and active service, in Ashanti (1873–1874), South Africa (1879–1880), Egypt (1882), and the Sudan (1884–1885); from 1885 till his retirement in 1903 he was in succession professor of military art and history at the Staff College, in command of an artillery brigade at Aldershot, of the artillery of the Eastern district, and, after his promotion to major-general in 1895, of the Woolwich district (1895–1902). In his period of active service he was closely associated with Viscount Wolseley [q.v.] to whom he acted as private secretary in Ashanti. The origin of his lifelong friendship with Wolseley lay in the episode which first brought Maurice into notice. While he was instructor at Sandhurst a prize of £100 was offered by the second Duke of Wellington for an essay upon the mode in which the British army could under modern conditions best meet a continental army in the open field. Nearly forty officers, including Wolseley, who was then a colonel, entered for the prize, and it was a great feather in Maurice's cap that, though only a subaltern, he should have carried off the prize with an essay which was at once recognized, by no one so cordially as by Wolseley himself, to be a really remarkable work. It gave evidence not only of great literary powers and much knowledge both of the theory of war and of contemporary military literature and thought, but also of real power of drawing new and instructive deductions. Most of the reforms in the army which were ultimately adopted in the beginning of the twentieth century were, if not actually advocated in this essay, based on the broad principles there laid down.
Maurice's active service was almost entirely upon the staff, though on several occasions he was able to give proof of his great personal courage and coolness under fire—Lord Wolseley once describing him as ‘the bravest man I have ever seen under fire’. In the operations against the stronghold of Sekukuni, a recalcitrant native chief in northern Transvaal, he was badly wounded when leading, with conspicuous gallantry, an attack by a contingent of native levies. He was able also to show that he possessed considerable practical ability and administrative capacity. The credit for the capture of Cetywayo was largely his, and in the Nile campaign he displayed much ingenuity and skill as an organizer; but it did not fall to his lot to hold actual command of any large unit in action. It is therefore as a military thinker and writer that his best work was done. He was closely associated with Lord Wolseley in advocating the numerous reforms of which the army of mid-Victorian days stood in so much need. As professor at the Staff College he struggled hard to improve the methods on which that institution was conducted, and had the satisfaction later on of seeing many of his ideas adopted. His writings did much to place before civilians, as well as soldiers and sailors, sound conceptions both of war and of the principles on which the military and naval organization of the Empire should be based. He was a rapid if not methodical worker, he immersed himself in the subjects with which he was dealing, and his literary activity was considerable and versatile.
Maurice's Military History of the Campaign of 1882 in Egypt (1888) was of much general interest as well as of professional value, his Balance of Military Power in Europe (1888) anticipated by some years many of the teachings of Admiral Mahan, and his Encyclopædia Britannica article on War, separately published in 1891, was a masterly analysis of the subject on non-technical lines. But it was remarkable that the man who had dealt so well with such subjects should have achieved a pronounced success in quite another literary sphere, the Life of Frederick Denison Maurice (1884) being acknowledged as a real contribution to the history of religious thought in England. His retirement gave him leisure to complete the work of editing the Diary of Sir John Moore (1904), his chief contribution to historical literature, a work marked by his characteristic enthusiasm, vigour, and power of presenting a case. In 1903 he was induced to undertake the production of the official History of the War in South Africa, 1899–1902 (1906–1910), a task originally accepted by Colonel G. F. R. Henderson [q.v.]. It was a difficult undertaking, not made easier by the various changes in the control of the army or by the change of government in 1906. Maurice found himself much handicapped by the limitations imposed on him and would have been glad to be relieved of the undertaking, but he felt compelled to continue with it. He had produced two volumes, and was engaged on the third when, in the autumn of 1907, his health broke down completely. He died at Camberley 11 January 1912, after a long illness patiently endured.
Maurice, who had been created K.C.B. in 1900, was appointed colonel commandant of the Royal Artillery in 1906, and in 1907 received from the Royal United Service Institution the Chesney memorial medal for his services to military literature. He married in 1869 Annie, daughter of R. A. FitzGerald, taxing officer to the courts in Dublin, and had eleven children. Four of his sons fought in the War of 1914–1918, the eldest, Major-General Sir Frederick Barton Maurice, K.C.M.G., being director of military operations, Imperial General Staff, from 1915 to 1918.
[Sir F. B. Maurice, Sir Frederick Maurice: A Record of his Work and Opinions, with Eight Essays on Discipline and National Efficiency, 1913; personal knowledge.]