Davidson was born in Mauritius to George Walter Davidson, a merchant, and his wife Johanna, and some time before 1890 they moved back to England. From 1890 Davidson was educated at Harrow School, then at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, after he left Harrow in 1893.
Early military career
Group portrait of officers at the British Staff College at Camberley, England, 1906. Davidson, then a captain, is stood in the back row, first on the right.
After the end of the Boer War he returned to a regular posting with his regiment in August 1902,[4] and was appointed regimental Adjutant of the 1st Battalion on 3 September 1902.[5] He left South Africa with other men of his battalion on the SS Sardinia in September 1902.[6] Arriving at Malta the following month, he was engaged in Imperial garrison service there and at Crete before being accepted into the Staff College, Camberley in 1905. After graduation he served in a variety of positions as a staff officer, including as director of training at the War Office from 1908 to 1910, followed by two years as a staff major with the 5th Infantry Brigade. In 1912 he was transferred back to the Staff College, this time as an instructor.
Ahead of the German Michael offensive in March 1918 Davidson, who had been
promoted to major general in January 1917,
[8] advised General Sir Hubert Gough, commander of the BEF's Fifth Army, that he could overcome his lack of men by "skillful handling of rearguards". Gough was irritated by this.[9]
On 6 April, with the German Georgette Offensive imminent, he was sent on a mission to Beauvais to attempt to persuade Ferdinand Foch to take over the British line as far north as the Somme, to send French reserves behind British line at Vimy Ridge, or to conduct a major French offensive. Foch, concerned at the risk of a German attack in the French sector, refused, although he offered to participate in a joint Anglo-French offensive near Amiens.[10]
In the spring of 1918 Davidson[11] was promoted to control both Intelligence (formerly the empire of Haig's alleged eminence griseJohn Charteris and now under Brigadier General Edgar Cox), and Operations ("Oa", now under the future CIGS Brigadier General John Dill).[12]
Ahead of the Bluecher Offensive, Haig later claimed that he and Davidson had repeatedly warned of the dangers of a German attack along the Chemin des Dames, but that their warnings were brushed aside by Foch, Maxime Weygand and de Barescut. No evidence had been found to substantiate this claim.[13][14]
Davidson left the army in 1922, and immediately stood for Parliament as a Conservative. He was returned for Fareham, and took an active role in the House of Commons' Army Committee. He stood down from the Commons in 1931 to concentrate on his business interests, including a seat on the Vickers-Armstrongs board and a position as Chairman of the Bank of Australia between 1937 and 1945. In the early 1950s he published the book 'Haig: Master of the Field, comprising a defence of the British Army General Headquarters' conduct of the Western Front campaign in 1917–1918.[15]
Davidson died at the age of 78 at Daviot in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on 11 December 1954.[3]
^Both British and French intelligence had believed that German March offensive against British Fifth Army, which was far larger and more effective than had been predicted, might be a feint before a bigger attack in Champagne, whilst Haig was quicker than Foch to realise that the German offensive on the Chemin des Dames at the end of May was serious. See Harris 2008 p443, 447.
^'Haig: Master of the Field', by John Davidson (Pub. Peter Nevill, 1953).
Books
Harris, J. P. Douglas Haig and the First World War. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN978-0-521-89802-7
Kitchen, Martin (2001). The German Offensives of 1918. Stroud: Tempus. ISBN978-0-7524-1799-8.
