Alfred Knox

This article is about the British general and politician. For the British codebreaker and classical scholar, see Dilly Knox.

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox
Born	30 October 1870
Died	9 March 1964
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Rank	Major-General
Battles/wars	First World War
Other work	Member of Parliament

Major-General Sir Alfred William Fortescue Knox (30 October 1870 – 9 March 1964) was a career British military officer and later a Conservative Party politician.

Born in Ulster, he joined the British Army and was posted to India.

In 1911 General Knox was appointed the British Military Attaché in Russia, where he served as a spy. A fluent speaker of Russian, he became a liaison officer to the Imperial Russian Army during First World War. He is depicted in the classic novel August 1914 by Solzhenitsyn as a somewhat troublesome attache as General Samsonov attempts to lead his army through East Prussia. During the October Revolution in Russia he observed the Bolsheviks taking the Winter Palace on November 7th, 1917:

"The garrison of the Palace originally consisted of about 2,000 all told, including detachments from junker and ensign schools, three squadrons of Cossacks, a company of volunteers and a company from the Women’s Battalion. It had six guns and one armoured car, the crew of which, however, declared that it had only come 'to guard the art treasures of the Palace and was otherwise neutral!'

The garrison had dwindled owing to desertions, for there were no provisions and it had been practically starved for two days. There was no strong man to take command and to enforce discipline. No one had any stomach for fighting; and some of the ensigns even borrowed great coats of soldier pattern from the women to enable them to escape unobserved.

The greater part of the junkers of the Mikhail Artillery School returned to their school, taking with them four out of their six guns. Then the Cossacks left, declaring themselves opposed to bloodshed! At 10 p.m. a large part of the ensigns left, leaving few defenders except the ensigns of the Engineering School and the company of women."

In 1921 Knox published his memoirs, With the Russian Army: 1914-1917. In this book he also tells the story of heroine Elsa Brändström.

Politics

At the 1924 general election, he was elected as a Tory Member of Parliament (MP) for Wycombe, defeating the sitting Liberal MP Lady Terrington. He held his seat during the 1929 general election and through subsequent general elections, serving in the House of Commons until the 1945 general election. His parliamentary questions mainly concerned the Soviet Union and the threat of Hitler as well as the rearmament of Britain during the inter-war period. In 1934, Knox argued against Indian Independence by stating "India, diverse in races and creed and united only by Britain, is not ready for democracy." Knox remained a strong opponent of Communism throughout his career and following the Soviet invasion of Finland, campaigned to give military support to the Finns.

External links

• Works by Alfred Knox at Internet Archive
• Alfred Knox
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "W" (part 5)
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Alfred Knox

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Lady Terrington	Member of Parliament for Wycombe 1924–1945	Succeeded by John Haire