User:Berkeley Vincent/Sir Berkeley Vincent

BRIGADIER-GENERAL SIR BERKELEY VINCENT
Brigadier-General Sir Berkeley Vincent was the eldest son of Colonel Arthur Hare Vincent (1840-1916) of Summerhill, co. Clare, Ireland, by his first wife, Elizabeth Rose Manson (1836-1879). Educated at Wellington College (1885-1889), and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich (1889-91), Sir Berkeley was first Commissioned as an officer of the British army in the Royal Regiment of Artillery as Second Lieutenant Berkeley Vincent, R.A. in July 1891, aged 19. In a career lasting 33 years, he spent 26 of these years abroad, and over 13 of them on active service, retiring as Officer Commanding Military Forces in Iraq 1922-1924.

The Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5
In 1903, as a promising officer of the Royal Artillery, with campaign experience in China (1900-1) and South Africa (1901-2),Captain Berkeley Vincent, R.A. was selected to represent the artillery as a "Language Officer", to be attached to the Japanese Army for two years in order to learn Japanese. This scheme was initiated following the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902, because, while officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy could speak English having been trained by the Royal Navy, it was found that officers of the Japanese Army could only communicate with Europeans in French or German, having themselves been trained by these armies. In the event, therefore, of British and Japanese forces engaging together to fight a common enemy according to the provisions of the new treaty, there was the problem that the armies of both nations would not be able to communicate with one another. In 1904, war broke out between Japan and Russia over control of Korea and Manchuria. Captain Vincent, R.A. found himself attached to the Japanese First Army and was to witness much of the subsequent fighting in 1904 and 1905.