Allegiance United Kingdom Service/branch British Army Died September 13, 1930 | Name Louis Bols Years of service 1887–1920 Rank Lieutenant-general | |
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Battles/wars Chitral Expedition
Second Boer War
World War I Awards Distinguished Service Order, Mentioned in dispatches Battles and wars Chitral Expedition, Second Boer War, World War I | ||
Lieutenant General Sir Louis Jean Bols (23 November 1867 – 13 September 1930, Bath) was a distinguished British military officer who served as Edmund Allenby's Third Army Chief of Staff on the Western front and Sinai and Palestine campaigns of World War I.
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Bols was born in Cape Town and educated at Lancing College in England.
Early military career
He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Devonshire Regiment on 5 February 1887, and was promoted to lieutenant on 22 September 1889. In 1891-92 he served in Burma, including operations in the Kachin Hills, and received the operational medal with clasp. In 1895 he served with the Chitral Relief Force under Sir Robert Low as adjutant and quartermaster at the British Military Depot. Promotion to captain followed on 18 January 1897, and he served as adjutant of the 2nd Battalion of his regiment from 17 February 1899.
Following the outbreak of the Second Boer War in late 1899, his battalion was sent to South Africa, where he served as adjutant of the battalion throughout the war. He was present at the battles of Colenso (15 December 1899), Vaal Krantz (5–7 February 1900), Tugela Heights and Pieter´s Hill (14–27 February 1900) and the Relief of Ladysmith (1 March 1900), and later in operations in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony. For his services in the war, he was twice mentioned in despatches, received the Queen's South Africa Medal and was appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). After peace was declared in May 1902, Bols left South Africa on board the SS Bavarian and arrived in the United Kingdom the following month.
First World War and Palestine
He commanded the Dorsetshire Regiment in the First World War.
From June 1919 – June 1920 he served as the Chief Administrator of Palestine, and signed over power to Herbert Samuel, the first British High Commissioner of Palestine, in an often-quoted document:
"Received from Major-General Sir Louis J. Bols K.C.B.—One Palestine, complete."Later life
In 1921 he was made Colonel of the Devonshire Regiment. From 1927 to his death he was Governor of Bermuda.
He died in 1930 in a Bath nursing home. He had married Augusta Blanche Strickland; their son was Major-General Eric Louis Bols,