Raymond de Candolle

Raymond Charles Pyramus de Candolle (1864–1935) was a railway engineer and a Major General for the British Army. After graduating in engineering at Cambridge University in 1885, he joined James Livesey & Son (railway engineering contractors) and undertook railway building assignments in Mexico, Spain, China and Argentina, where he became Director of the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railways (BAGS) in 1907. During the First World War he was recruited as Brigadier-General and was sent to Romania, Russia and Anatolia on a series of railway-related missions. Later, he was sent to Russia again in 1917 to sort out the Trans-Siberian Railway. Raymond was promoted to Major-General and Director General of Mesopotamian Transportation in 1918. He was one of the British representatives at the Paris peace conference in 1919.

Biography - Early life
Raymond Charles Pyramus de Candolle (1864–1935) was the great grandson of the renowned Swiss Botanist Pyramus de Candolle. The de Candolle family lived in Geneva and another of its leading lights, his brother Richard Émile Augustin de Candolle, became British Consul there; but Raymond studied at Cambridge University and felt himself to be thoroughly British, despite his cosmopolitan background. He graduated in 1886 and developed an interest in railways.

Professional life
De Candolle's first major assignment was the task of modernizing the railway network in Mexico. By 1891, he was back in London and had been promoted as assistant to one of the partners in Livesey & Son, Brodie Henderson, a major railway contractor. Following this assignment, he was sent abroad for other projects: in 1896, the West Galicia Railway in Spain; in 1904, a line connecting Beijing to the coalfields; and in 1908, to Argentina and the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway, which was his main concern until the outbreak of the First World War.

In 1902 he received the Imperial Service Medal for his work in South America.

British Army
During WW1, railways were the key to the supply issues of the Eastern Front.

His skills as an engineer as well as his knowledge of French quickly led him to be appointed liaison officer to the French general Berthelot, then leading the French army corps in Romania. As Brigadier-General, in 1916 Raymond de Candolle headed the railway mission to Romania to fix the narrow-gauge railway line across Bessarabia from Odessa. He would stay for a time in the Balkans before being transferred further east, to Ataman Aleksei Kaledine, general of the White armies. Raymond de Candolle, who was to briefly act as consul, would represent the British crown in Rostov, located 170 kilometers from Novocherkassk, the political center where Kaledine had his headquarters and his Volunteer Army.

He returned to Russia in 1917 to sort out the Trans-Siberian Railway. George Hill, Joseph Boyle and de Candolle all shared an uncharacteristic response to Lenin's seizure of power. They believed that, 'co-operation with the Bolsheviks was the best means of serving the allied cause'. De Candolle was considered the most capable British railway man in Russia.

Following the Sykes-Picot agreement for the partition of the Middle East in 1916, Raymond was promoted to Major-General and Director General of Mesopotamian Transportation in 1918 and was assigned to restructure the region's transport.

Later, de Candolle became Manager of the Ottoman Railway Company in 1922. Sent there by Downing Street, he witnessed first hand the final outcome of the Greco-Turkish War and the Burning of Smyrna. He and his then wife Beatrix de Candolle were instrumental in the evacuation of British citizens and other nationalities on the King George V. De Candolle went to Constantinople once he had negotiated the security of the railway with Mustafa Kemal.

Later life
Raymond was appointed to a number of League of Nations committees dealing with the development of international transportation. He was a key spokesman in the Permanent Committee for transport by Rail, and became involved with railway disputes in Czechoslovakia and opium production in Persia. His most active participation eventually centred around the development of transport by container.

He remained secretive and modest about his interventions. When asked by Ian Fleming to talk about his career, he responded: "I am only mysterious because I am not famous enough to be talked about. My ancestors did mysterious things with plants, and everybody talked about them. A little bit like a child, I decided to build railways, and it also proved to be quite exciting."

Raymond de Candolle C.B., C.E., died on 25 January 1935, aged 71, at the Almonds Hotel, London.