A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given.

The term General is used in two ways: as the generic title for all grades of general officer; and as a specific rank. Since the late twentieth century, the rank of General is usually the highest active rank of a military not at war.

All general officer ranks

The various grades of general officer are at the top of the rank structure. Lower-ranking officers are known as field officers or field-grade officers, and below them are company-grade officers. All officers who commanded more than a single regiment came to be known as "general officers". The word "general" is used in its ordinary sense in English (and other languages) as relating to larger, general, military units, rather than smaller units in particular.

Common systems

There are two common systems of general ranks.

Variations of one form, the old European system, were once used throughout Europe. It is used in the United Kingdom (although it did not originate there), from which it eventually spread to the Commonwealth and the United States of America. The General Officer ranks are named by prefixing General, as an adjective, with field officer ranks, although in some countries the highest general officers are titled Field Marshal or Marshal.

The other is derived from the French Revolution, where generals' ranks are named according to the unit they (theoretically) command.

Old European system {| style="border:1px solid #8888aa; background-color:#f7f8ff; padding:5px; font-size:95%; margin: 0px 12px 12px 0px;" |align="center"| Field Marshal or General Field Marshal |- |align="center"| ''Colonel General'' |- |align="center"| General or Captain General |- |align="center"| Lieutenant General |- |align="center"| Sergeant Major General or Major General |- |align="center"| ''Brigadier (General)'' |}

The system used either a ''brigadier general'' rank, or a ''colonel general'' rank (i.e. exclude one of the italicised ranks.)

The rank of field marshal was used by some countries as the highest rank, while in other countries it was used as a divisional or brigade rank. Many countries (notably pre-revolutionary France and eventually much of Latin America) actually used two brigade command ranks, which is why some countries now use two stars as their brigade general insignia. (Mexico and Argentina still use two brigade command ranks.)

In some nations (particularly in the Commonwealth), the equivalent to Brigadier General is Brigadier, which is not always considered by these armies to be a general officer rank, although it is always treated as equivalent to the rank of Brigadier General for comparative purposes. Unlike other general officers, the brigadier general rank is not derived from a ''field'' rank of brigadier.

The rank of ''major general'' is a shorter form of ''sergeant major general'', and is lower than lieutenant general as a lieutenant outranks a sergeant major, although outranked by a major.

French (Revolutionary) system {| style="border:1px solid #8888aa; background-color:#f7f8ff; padding:5px; font-size:95%; margin: 0px 12px 12px 0px;" |align="center"| Marshal |- |align="center"| Army General |- |align="center"| Corps General |- |align="center"| Divisional General |- |align="center"| Brigade General |} More information about this system can be found on the page: Général.

Other variations

Other nomenclatures for general officers include the titles and ranks:

Adjutant General

Commandant-General

Inspector General

Captain General

General-in-Chief

General of the Army (which is distinct from the title Army General)

General of the Air Force (USA only)

General of the Armies of the United States (of America), a title created for General John J. Pershing, and subsequently granted posthumously to George Washington.

General Admiral (German Navy)

Air General and Aviation General (Chilean Air Force; roughly equivalent to Air Chief Marshal and Air Vice-Marshal respectively)

Wing General and Group General (Mexican Air Force; roughly equivalent to Air Commodore and Acting Air Commodore respectively)

Lieutenant-Colonel General (A Serb rank immediately inferior to Colonel General, and roughly equivalent to Commonwealth/US Major General)

Director General (a common administrative term sometimes used as an appointment in military services)

Director General of National Defence (most senior rank in the Mexican Armed Forces)

Director of Intelligence Bureau (senior most 4 star Indian Police Service post in India)

Controller General (general officer rank in the French National Police)

Prefect General (the most senior rank of the Argentine Naval Prefecture)

Master-General of the Ordnance

In addition to militarily educated generals, there are also generals in medicine and engineering. The rank of most senior chaplain, Chaplain General, is also considered to be a general officer rank.

The specific General rank

In the Old European system, a General, without prefix or suffix (and sometimes referred to informally as a "full general"), is usually the most senior type of general, above Lieutenant General and directly below Field Marshal. Usually it is the most senior peace-time rank, with more senior ranks (for example, Field Marshal) being used only in wartime, or as honorary titles.

In some armies, however, the rank of Captain General, General of the Army, Army General or Colonel General occupied or occupies this position. Depending on circumstances and the army in question, these ranks may be considered to be equivalent to a full General or to a Field Marshal.

The rank of General came about as a "Captain-General", the captain of an army in general (i.e., the whole army). The rank of Captain-General began appearing around the time of the organization of professional armies in the 17th century. In most countries "Captain-General" contracted to just "General".

General ranks by country

The following articles deal with the rank of General, or its equivalent, as it is or was employed in the militaries of those countries.

General (Australia)

General (Canada)

Shang Jiang (China) - People's Republic of China (PRC) and Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan)

Kenraali (Finland)

Kindral (Estonia)

Général (France)

General (Germany)

Obergruppenführer (Nazi Germany, SS rank)

Strategos (Greece)

Aluf (Israel)

Generale (Italy)

Daejang (Korea - DPRK and ROK)

General (Mexico)

Generał (Poland)

Army General (Philippines)

Army General (Russia)

General (Sri Lanka)

General (Sweden)

General (Switzerland)

General (United Kingdom)

General (United States)

Army generals' insignia

Air force generals' insignia

Generals' insignia of disbanded armies

Air Force and Navy equivalents

Some countries (such as the United States) use the General Officer ranks for both the army and the air force; others only use the General Officer ranks for the army, while in the air force they use Air Officers as the equivalent of General Officers. They use the air force rank of Air Chief Marshal as the equivalent of the specific army rank of General. This latter group includes the British Royal Air Force and those based on it (e.g., India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Nigeria, etc.).

In most navies, Flag Officers are the equivalent of General Officers, and the naval rank of Admiral is equivalent to the specific army rank of General. A noteworthy historical exception was the Cromwellian naval rank ''General at sea''. In recent years in the American service there is a tendency to use ''Flag Officer'' and ''Flag Rank'' to refer to generals and admirals of the services collectively.

See also

Général

Generalissimo

List of comparative military ranks

List of Roman generals

Shogun

References

External links

Generals of World War II

Schema-root.org: US Generals News feeds for US Generals in the news

Marines.mil: General Officer Biographies Biographies of US Marine Corps General Officers

Bios & Information on Generals of Western History Information on 10 Generals who influenced Western History

Category:Generals Category:Military ranks

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Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938) is a British politician who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002, leading the union through the 1984–85 miners' strike, a key event in British labour and political history. He is the current leader of the Socialist Labour Party (SLP), which he founded in 1996.

Early life

Scargill was born in Worsbrough Dale, Barnsley, Yorkshire. His father, Harold, was a miner and a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. His mother Alice (née Pickering) was a professional cook. Arthur was much doted on by his parents as he was an only child, and his mother had previously been told that she was unable to have children . He did not take the Eleven plus exam, and went to Worsbrough Dale School (now called the Elmhirst School) leaving school at 15 to become a coal miner at Woolley Colliery from 1953, where he became the pit delegate ten years later. Scargill was a member of the Young Communist League from 1955 to 1962, and joined the Labour Party in 1962.

National Union of Mineworkers

Scargill became involved in the Yorkshire Left, a group of left-wing activists involved in the Yorkshire region of the NUM, its largest region. While still a working miner, he played an important role in the miners' strike of 1972, involved in the mass picket at Saltley Gate in Birmingham. Shortly afterward, he was elected to the full-time post of compensation agent in the Yorkshire NUM. A few months later, the President of the Yorkshire NUM died unexpectedly. Scargill was elected to this post in 1973 and continued in it until 1981. During his tenure he became popular with sections of the left and with his members, who saw him as honest, hard-working and genuinely concerned with their welfare. In 1973, he was instrumental in organising the miners' strike that brought down Edward Heath's Government in March 1974.

In the 1981 election for NUM President, Scargill secured around 70% of the vote. One of the main planks of his platform was to give more power to union conferences than to executive meetings, on the grounds that the former was more democratic. This had great implications for regional relations in the NUM; the executive was described as dominated by "Gormley's rotten boroughs", since every region - even quite small ones - had one delegate, and the larger regions had only a few more (Scotland and South Wales had two delegates each, Yorkshire had three).

Scargill was a very vocal opponent of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, and determined to use the union to oppose its policies, just as he had done with the Edward Heath government. He frequently appeared on television attacking the government and eventually led the union into the 1984–1985 miners' strike. This ended in a shattering defeat for the miners and saw a split in the union (see Union of Democratic Mineworkers).

In May 1985, two striking South Wales miners were sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of the murder of taxi driver David Wilkie, killed six months earlier when a concrete post was dropped on his car while driving a non-striking miner to work. Lawyer John Prosser QC, representing defendant Russell Shankland, claimed that Shankland and co-defendant Dean Hancock were victims in a "nation at war", and criticised Arthur Scargill as being a general at war who "stood outside the law" and left his defendant "outside the law".

Scargill, along with Labour MP Tony Benn, was actively involved in the campaign to free Shankland and Hancock from prison. The first round of their victory was achieved in October 1985, when their life sentences for murder were reduced to eight years for manslaughter on appeal. They were finally released from prison in November 1989.

After the miners' strike, he was elected to lifetime Presidency of the NUM by an overwhelming national majority, in a very controversial election where some of the alternative candidates claimed that they were given very little time to prepare.

The media characterised the strike as "Scargill's strike" and most people believed that he had been looking for an excuse for a strike since becoming union president. This portrayal may not be wholly accurate, as the strike began when miners walked out in Yorkshire rather than when Scargill called for action. Scargill's decision to not hold a ballot of members was seen as an erosion of democracy within the union, but the role of ballots in decision-making had been made very unclear after previous leader, Joe Gormley, had ignored two ballots over wage reforms, and his decisions had been upheld after appeals to court were made.

On the appointment of Ian MacGregor as head of the NCB in 1983, Scargill stated, "The policies of this government are clear - to destroy the coal industry and the NUM". During the strike itself, Scargill continued to claim that the government had a long-term strategy to destroy the industry by closing unprofitable pits, and that it listed pits it wanted to close each year. This was, however, denied by the government. He stepped down from leadership of the NUM at the end of July 2002, to become the Honorary President. He was succeeded by Ian Lavery.

On 25 August 2010, it was reported that Scargill had been told that he no longer qualified for membership of the National Union of Mineworkers. Scargill denies this and is pursuing legal action using solicitor Mark Stephens.

Socialist Labour Party

Scargill founded the Socialist Labour Party on 13 January 1996, although the party was launched officially on 4 May 1996, after the Labour Party abandoned the original wording of Clause IV - the nationalisation of key industries and utilities - in its constitution.

His breakaway party has had little success in the polls. He has contested two parliamentary elections. In the 1997 general election, he ran against Alan Howarth, a defector from the Conservative Party to Labour, who had been given the safe seat of Newport East to contest. In the 2001 general election, he ran against Peter Mandelson in Hartlepool. He lost on both occasions, winning just 2.4% of the vote in the Hartlepool election. In May 2009, he was the number one candidate for the Socialist Labour Party for one of London's seats in the European Parliament.

Scargill has become more politically outspoken since stepping down from the NUM presidency, and has gone on record as a supporter of Joseph Stalin, saying that the "ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin" explain the "real world". Scargill had long criticised Poland's Solidarity trade union movement for its ultimately successful attacks upon the communist system in Poland, which Scargill saw as 'deformed' but reformable.

Television

Scargill was portrayed by Peter Richardson in the 1988 comedy film ''The Strike''. In ''Citizen Smith'' he was to have been in the cabinet had Wolfie Smith taken power.

Music

Scargill is referred to in the 1984 song "Too Hot", from the album Word of Mouth by The Kinks: "Arthur's on the warpath/ Here he goes again!"

Elections

UK Parliament elections Socialist Labour Party (UK)Hartlepool (UK Parliament constituency)

Date of election !! Constituency !! Party !! Votes !! %
United Kingdom general election, 1997	1997	Newport East (UK Parliament constituency)>Newport East	SLP ||	1,952	5.2
United Kingdom general election, 2001	2001	Hartlepool ||	Socialist Labour Party (UK)>SLP	912	2.4

London Assembly elections (Entire London city)

17,401

Date of election !! Party !! Votes !! % !! Results !! Notes
London Assembly election, 2000	2000	Socialist Labour Party (UK)>SLP	|	1.0	Not elected	Multi-members party list

Welsh Assembly elections

Socialist Labour Party

Year !! Region !! Party !! Votes !! % !! Result
National Assembly for Wales election, 2003	2003	South Wales East (National Assembly for Wales electoral region)>South Wales East	SLP ||	3,695	2.2	Not elected

European Parliament elections

Socialist Labour Party (UK)London (European Parliament constituency)

Year !! Region !! Party !! Votes !! % !! Result !! Notes
European Parliament election, 1999 (United Kingdom)	1999	London (European Parliament constituency)>London	SLP ||	19,632	1.7	Not-elected	Multi-member constituency; party list
European Parliament election, 2009 (United Kingdom)	2009	London ||	Socialist Labour Party (UK)>SLP	15,306	0.9	Not-elected	Multi-member constituency; party list

References

External links

National Union of Mineworkers

Socialist Labour Party website

History of the Scargill family name

Barnsley Hall of Fame

Review of BBC Radio Play: "The Duel", by Michael Samuels - the struggle for control of the UK coal industry in 1984

Category:1938 births Category:Communist Party of Great Britain members Category:English miners Category:Leaders of British trade unions Category:Presidents of the National Union of Mineworkers Category:Leaders of political parties in the United Kingdom Category:Living people Category:Socialist Labour Party (UK) members Category:People from Barnsley Category:English trade unionists Category:English communists

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