Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/1187

Rh became commander in 1884. He then commanded a brigade and, in 1900, the 2nd Guard Cavalry Division. His brilliant capacities assured his rapid advancement. At the manoeuvres of 1890 he already commanded four cavalry divisions, and in 1895 he became Inspector-General of the Russian cavalry. He held this post for ten years, a period which is regarded as a bright epoch in the history of the Russian cavalry. With a firm hand he carried through the reform of the cavalry schools, the cavalry reserve, the cavalry remount service, and improved the method of instruction and direction of the cavalry units. In 1902 he was selected to command the Russian forces in case of a war with Germany. On the creation of the Council of National Defence in 1905, the Grand Duke was appointed its President, and the same year he received the command of the Guards and of the St. Petersburg Military District. In 1908 he left the Council of National Defence.

At the outbreak of the World War the Grand Duke was nominated to the Supreme Command of the Russian armies. Thus suddenly called on to assume the highest responsibility, the Grand Duke undertook it under particularly difficult conditions. He had to work with people with whom he had never worked before, and who were almost unknown to him. Since 1909 he had not taken part in the preparatory defence of the country; the principal work, after mobilization, the deployment of the armies, had been done without him, without his ideas. In fulfilling a plan not formed by himself he was at first overcome by the force of events. But in the later development of operations after the first battles his personal will and generalship were able to assert themselves, notably in the transfer of operations to the left bank of the Vistula in Oct. 1914. In the campaign of 1915, hampered as he was by the want of material resources, he was unable to maintain the front of the Narew-Vistula-San-Carpathians against the formidable effort of the Germans and Austrians, but, heavy as were the losses of the Russian army, he managed to withdraw it without anywhere incurring a Sedan, to a line which, substantially, it maintained throughout 1916 and 1917. In August 1915, the Tsar having assumed personal command on the main front, the Grand Duke was sent to the Caucasus as governor-general and commandcr-in-chicf. Here, with Yudenich's assistance, he carried out the successful offensive campaigns of Erzerum and Trebizond, and his work contributed greatly to relieve the situation of the Allies in the East. After the Revolution he retired to his villa in the Crimea, where he remained until its occupation by the Bolshevik forces in 1918. NICHOLSON, EDWARD WILLIAM BYRON (1849-1912), English scholar and librarian, was born at St. Helier March 16 1849. Educated at Tonbridge and Trinity College, Oxford, in 1873 he became librarian of the London Institution, and in 1877 founded the international conference of librarians and the Library Association. In 1882 he succeeded H. O. Coxe as Bodley's librarian. He published commentaries on the Gospel according to the Hebrews (1879) and St. Matthew (iSSi), Keltic Researches (1904), papers on philology, etc., and wrote the article " Mandeville " in the E.B. He died at Oxford March 7 1912. NICHOLSON, MEREDITH (1866- ), American writer, was born at Crawfordsville, Ind., Dec. 9 1866. He was educated in the public schools of Indianapolis, and for many years he was engaged in journalism in that city. His works include: The Hoosiers (1900); The Main Chance (1903); Zelda Damaron (1904); The House of a Thousand Candles (1905); The Port of Missing Men (1907); A Hoosier Chronicle (1912); The Provincial American (1912); Otherwise Phyllis (1913); The Madness of May (1917); The Valley of Democracy (1918); Lady Larkspur (1919); Blacksheep! Blacksheep! (1920); and TheMan in the Street (1921). NICHOLSON, WILLIAM (1872- ), English painter and engraver, was born at Newark Feb. 5 1872, and was educated at the Magnus school, Newark. He studied at the Academie Julien, Paris, and about 1894 began experimenting in wood engraving, producing some admirable work in that medium, characterized by the use of bold masses of black and white or of sombre greys and browns, relieved by touches of bright colour. In this manner he illustrated An Alphabet (1898); An Almanac of Twelve Sports (with Rudyard Kipling; 1898) ; London Types (with W. E. Henley; 1898); Characters of Romance (1900); A Square Book of Animals (with A. Waugh; 1900), and engraved some well-known portraits, including that of Queen Victoria. He also collaborated with James Pryde under the name of " The Beggarstaff Brothers " in designing some remarkable posters. To the set of lithographs entitled " Britain's Aims and Ideals," published during the World War, he contributed " The End of War." As a painter he is best known for his interiors and still-life pictures, such as " The Hundred Jugs " (1916), " Souvenirs de Babette," " Miss Simpson's Boots " and " The Striped Shawl "; but his work also includes landscapes for example " The Hill above Harlech" generally in a low key, and many portraits, including those of W. E. Henley, the painter's mother, Sir W. C. Pakenham (for the Imperial War Museum); Ursula Lutyens, and "The Girl with the Tattered Glove." He is represented in the Luxembourg, Paris; the Tate Gallery; the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; the Glasgow Gallery; and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. NICHOLSON, WILLIAM GUSTAVUS NICHOLSON, 1ST BARON (1845-1918), British field-marshal, was born March 2 1845, and joined the Royal Engineers in 1865. He served in the Afghan War, 1878-80, for which he was given a brevet majority, and he took part in the Egyptian campaign of 1882. For service on the staff in Burma in 1885-6 he was promoted brevet lieutenant- colonel, and he reached the rank of colonel in 1891. He next served as chief of the staff in the Tirah campaign, for which he received the K.C.B., and as adjutant-general in India. In 1899 he went out to South Africa as military secretary to Lord Roberts, but on arrival he was placed at the head of the transport service and was promoted major-general. He was appointed Director of Mobilization and Intelligence at the War Office in 1901 and was shortly afterwards promoted lieutenant-general; this position he held till early in 1904 when he went to the Far East as chief military attache with the Japanese forces. At the end of 1905 he was appointed quartermaster-general; in 1906 he was pro- moted general and in 1908 was transferred to the post of Chief of the Imperial General Staff, which he held during the impor- tant period of the Haldane reforms. He was promoted field-mar- shal in 1911 and, on vacating his appointment at the War Office in the following year, was raised to the peerage as Baron Nichol- son of Roundhay. In 1913 he went out to the East as chairman of a commission on Indian military expenditure, and in 1916-7 he was a member of the Dardanelles commission; this was his last public service. He died on Sept. 18 1918. Lord Nicholson was a man of high intellectual attainments and, although somewhat given to controversy, a successful military administrator. NIGERIA (see 19.677), the largest British possession in W. Africa, has an area of some 335,700 sq. m. and a population of approximately 17,000,000. The crown Colony of Nigeria, which was formerly known first as Lagos and later as the Colony of Southern Nigeria, has an area of 1,400 sq. m., the rest of the territory being the amalgamated Protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria which, with effect from Jan. i 1914, were brought under a single administration. The task of effecting this amalgamation was entrusted to Sir Frederick Lugard, who in 1912 was transferred from Hong-Kong for the purpose, and assumed charge of both Southern and Northern Nigeria, succeeding Sir Walter Egerton as governor of the former and Sir H. Hesketh Bell as governor of the latter. He bore, as personal to himself, the title of governor-general. Under the scheme of amalgamation, the Colony retained its status, but the authority of its Legislative Council was confined to the small area enclosed within the colonial boundaries, and a post of Administrator was created, the occupant of which was entrusted with the control of the Colony and its affairs under the direction of the governor-general. Mr. F. S. James was appointed to this office, but on his transfer in June 1916 to the post of Colonial Secretary, Straits Settlements, the appointment was not again filled, the duties attaching to it being thereafter discharged by the officer for the time being acting as lieutenant-governor of the Southern Provinces.

The Protectorate of Nigeria was divided into two groups of provinces, each group being placed under the immediate charge