General Sir Archibald James Murray, GCB, GCMG, CVO, DSO (23 April 1860 – 21 January 1945) was a British Army officer who served in the Second Boer War and the First World War. He was Chief of Staff to the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in August 1914 but appears to have suffered a physical breakdown in the retreat from Mons, and was required to step down from that position in January 1915. After serving as Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff for much of 1915, he was briefly Chief of the Imperial General Staff from September to December 1915. He was subsequently Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force from January 1916 to June 1917, in which role he laid the military foundation for the defeat and destruction of the Ottoman Empire in the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant.\n', '

Born the son of Charles Murray and Anne Murray (née Graves), and educated at Cheltenham College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Archibald Murray was commissioned into the 27th Regiment on 13 August 1879. He was appointed adjutant of his regiment on 12 February 1886. After promotion to captain on 1 July 1887 and taking part in the suppression of a Zulu uprising in 1888, he became adjutant of the 4th Battalion, the Bedfordshire Regiment on 15 December 1890. He attended Staff College, Camberley in 1897.\n', '

Promoted to major on 1 June 1898, Murray served in the Second Boer War as Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General for Intelligence in Natal from 9 October 1899 and then as chief of staff to the commander there. He took part in the withdrawal from Dundee and then the siege of Ladysmith in late 1899 and became senior staff officer to Sir Archibald Hunter, General Officer Commanding 10th Division, early in 1900. He was appointed Assistant Adjutant-General on 6 March 1900, promoted to lieutenant colonel on 29 October 1900 and awarded the Distinguished Service Order on 29 November 1900. He was again mentioned in despatches in February 1901.\n', '

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