Claude Stokes

Not to be confused with Claud Stokes.

Claude Stokes
CIE DSO OBE
Stokes at May 26 Celebration. 1919
Born
Claude Bayfield Stokes

(1875-10-27)27 October 1875
Mussoorie, North-Western Provinces, India
Died7 December 1948(1948-12-07) (aged 73)
South Kensington, London, England
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)Indian Army Officer and Diplomat
British Vice Consul in Nice
In office
1931–1940
British High Commissioner in Transcaucasia
In office
1920–1921
MonarchGeorge V
Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George
Preceded byOliver Wardrop
Succeeded byPosition abolished due to the occupation of Georgia

Colonel Claude Bayfield Stokes CIE DSO OBE (27 October 1875 – 7 December 1948) was an Indian Army officer and diplomat.[1][2] He served in India and was an intelligence officer with Dunsterforce during the First World War.

Stokes was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead and Sandhurst.[3] He was commissioned into the East Kent Regiment on 28 September 1895 and served on the North West Frontier 1897–98.[4] He transferred to the Indian Army 7 October 1897 and in July 1900 he joined the 3rd Skinner's Horse, a unit of the Indian Army.[5][4]

Stokes was appointed military attaché to Tehran from 1907 to 1911. During this period he supplied Edward Granville Browne with sensitive intelligence.[6] In 1908 he saved the life of Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, the Iranian linguist and Hassan Taqizadeh (a subsequent President of Iran), when he allowed him to take refuge in the British Legation compound.[7] He commanded the first detachment of the British Army to go to Baku arriving on 4 August 1918.[5]

He was appointed British High Commissioner in Transcaucasia, based in the Georgian capital of Tiflis, from 1920 to 1921.[8]

He retired from the Indian Army 1 October 1922.[9]

From 1931 to 1940 he was British Vice consul in Nice, France.[8]

Family life

Stokes had married Olga Postovsky in Turkey in the early 1920s and they had a daughter. Stokes died at 22B Roland Gardens in South Kensington London on 7 December 1948.[10]

References

  1. ^ Hui-Min Lo (1978), The Correspondence of G. E. Morrison 1912–1920, vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, p. 315, ISBN 9780521215619
  2. ^ Biography, Who's Who
  3. ^ "Who's Who".
  4. ^ a b January 1908 Indian Army List
  5. ^ a b "Dunsterforce – part 1". Retrieved 8 October 2013.
  6. ^ Mansour Bonakdarian (30 June 2006), Britain And the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906–1911, Syracuse University Press, ISBN 9780815630425, OCLC 63171146, OL 8049521M, 0815630425
  7. ^ Homa Katouzian (2012), Iran, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, OCLC 830085718, OL 25367437M
  8. ^ a b Halpern, Paul (2011). The Mediterranean Fleet, 1919–1929. Ashgate Publishing.
  9. ^ Indian Army List 1941 Supplement
  10. ^ "Deaths." Times [London, England] 8 Dec. 1948: 1. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 9 Oct. 2013.