Paul Douglas
Douglas was born on March 26, 1892 in Salem, Massachusetts, the son of Annie (Smith) and James Howard Douglas. When he was four, his mother died of natural causes and his father remarried. His father was an abusive husband and his stepmother, unable to obtain a divorce, left her husband and took Douglas and his older brother to Onawa, Maine in Piscataquis County, where her brother and uncle had built a resort in the woods.
Charles W. H. Douglas
Douglas replaced Field Marshal Sir John French as Chief of the Imperial General Staff on 6 April 1914. Douglas served in that role during the First World War, which started in August 1914, but did not have any major impact on its conduct during the first three months, leaving strategic control to Field Marshal Lord Kitchener as War Minister. He became Aide-de-Camp General to the King on 30 June 1914.