General Sir Mike Jackson, redoubtable and straight-talking former head of the British Army

General Sir Mike Jackson, who has died aged 80, was Chief of the General Staff from 2003 until 2006, having come to prominence as the formidable commander of Nato peacekeeping troops in the former Yugoslavia.

In 1995, following the Dayton Accord, which put an end to the three-and-a-half-year war in Bosnia, Jackson took charge of one of the three divisions of a multi-national implementation force, Ifor. Unlike its largely ineffectual predecessor Unprofor, it had no shortage of firepower and fewer restrictions on its rules of engagement.

Given responsibility for North-West Bosnia, Jackson stamped his authority on the Bosnian and Croat faction leaders from the outset. Summoned to a tented site astride the ceasefire line, they were made to listen while Jackson outlined the schedule for the effecting of the peace agreement. All the while, there could be heard the constant rumble of armoured vehicles outside, stage-managed by Jackson in order to drive home the message that he would brook no dissent.

Jackson was subsequently appointed to lead Nato’s Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC). By 1998, grim stories were emanating from the Kosovo region of the ethnic cleansing of Albanians by Serbian forces. Nato had no realistic alternative but to intervene, and ARRC established their headquarters under Jackson in a former shoe factory at Skopje, Macedonia.

Air strikes against the Serbs, including strategic targets in Serbia itself, began in March 1999 and continued for more than 70 days. Slobodan Milosevic, the president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, backed down and in June, after more than 100 hours of negotiation with the Serb generals in Kosovo, Jackson secured an undertaking enabling his Kosovo Force (Kfor) to enter the enclave as the Serbs withdrew.

Then, as Jackson prepared to advance, he learnt that Russia had sent armoured units to occupy the international airport at Pristina in an attempt to prevent Nato having sole authority over Kosovo. Jackson’s superior was the American General Wesley Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who ordered him to block the airport’s runway. Mindful of the potential for confrontation, Jackson refused, reportedly saying: “I’m not going to start the Third World War for you.”

Clark was an experienced political operator whom Jackson found too ready to interfere with his subordinates’ plans. Jackson himself was a forceful personality, quite prepared to speak his mind and to stand his ground, and possessed of a saturnine countenance and hard-bitten demeanour which – to the delight of the press – had won him the nickname “The Prince of Darkness”.

His refusal to bow to Clark brought him to the brink of resignation. He was supported, however, by the Defence Secretary, George Robertson, and by the Chief of the Defence Staff, Charles Guthrie, and in the event Jackson was able to establish cordial relations with his Russian counterpart, aided by the whisky in his hip flask.

Jackson went on to win the respect of Kosovars and Serbs alike by making it plain that Kfor’s mission was to bring security to all the people of the province and to assist in the rebuilding of its infrastructure. He said afterwards that the part that he had played in “nation building” had been as rewarding as anything in his career. He was awarded a DSO at the end of his tour.

Michael David Jackson, the son of an Army officer, was born in Sheffield on March 21 1944. Always known as Mike, he was educated at Stamford School and, after attending the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps.

He graduated from Birmingham University with an in-service degree in Russian Studies before serving on secondment with the 2nd Battalion Parachute Regiment (2 Para) in Hong Kong and Anguilla.

In 1970 he transferred from the Intelligence Corps to the Parachute Regiment and joined the 1st Battalion in Northern Ireland. The situation was deteriorating and, as unit press officer, he was on the streets a great deal, often crouching down with the soldiers to avoid bullets, bricks or petrol bombs.

After “Bloody Sunday” on January 30 1972, Jackson, then adjutant, had the task of interviewing all the company commanders in his battalion and obtaining signed statements. In the aftermath the violence escalated, and no sooner had 1 Para returned to Aldershot following their 18-month tour than they were recalled to Northern Ireland for a major operation to eliminate what had become no-go areas.

After a spell with 15 Para, a TA battalion, in 1976 he went to Staff College. As one of a small number of Russian speakers he was chosen to go on a trip to Moscow, where he visited Frunze, the Russian staff college. Jackson noticed that the British military attaché, who was one of their party and whose job it was to take every opportunity to find out as much as he could about the Soviet armed forces, was surreptitiously counting the coat hooks in the hall. One of the Russians spotted what he was doing at the same moment. “My dear Brigadier,” he said with a smile, “Five hundred and sixty-four.”

In 1977, Jackson took up an appointment as Chief of Staff of the Berlin Infantry Brigade. There were some amusing incidents. In the summer, in the countryside, young Germans like to wear little in the way of clothing. On one of their exercises, he and his men in camouflaged gear burst out of a wood to be confronted by a bevy of naked German girls playing volleyball. “Very good for morale,” he wrote later.

He was appointed MBE in 1979.

Jackson returned to Northern Ireland as a company commander in 2 Para. The South Armagh IRA specialised in long-range sniper fire on foot patrols and exploding roadside bombs by command wire or radio signals as the Security Force vehicles drove by. Travelling overland became so dangerous that the Army had to use helicopters to move troops and supply their bases.

In August 1979, a double ambush at Warrenpoint resulted in 18 deaths, the highest number of soldiers killed in a single incident during the Troubles. The majority of those killed were paratroopers. Jackson was among the first to arrive at the scene afterwards, and was deeply affected by the losses sustained there. He was awarded a Mention in Despatches for his service in the Province.

After a six-month course at the National Defence College he joined the Directing Staff at the Staff College, Camberley. His tour at Camberley included an attachment to the Ministry of Defence as Military Assistant during the Falklands conflict. It was an intelligence appointment, and he regretted not having taken part in the campaign itself.

In 1984 he took command of 1 Para, which was in the Allied Mobile Force (Land) role on Nato’s northern flank, involving winter warfare skills and ski-borne operations. On promotion to full colonel, he moved to the Joint Service Defence College, Greenwich, as the senior Army member of the Directing Staff. A personal report from this time described him as “quite a character, tall, dark, dashing, with a lived-in face and a touch of flamboyance.”

After the Higher Command and Staff Course at Camberley he went to Cambridge on a Service Fellowship. As the subject of his thesis he chose “Out of Area Operations”. The Cold War, he argued, was coming to an end. The British Army of the Rhine was losing its strategic significance and a shift in defence policy and planning was needed.

This had to take account of the increased likelihood of conflict outside the Nato area and also the requirement for careful calculation of the level of force to be used in sensitive operations. Jackson returned to Northern Ireland in 1990 to command 39 Infantry Brigade.

He was advanced to CBE in 1992, when he moved to the Ministry of Defence as Director General Personal Services (Army). The Government was anxious to cash in on the “peace dividend” brought about by the decline of the Soviet threat, and he argued strongly against some of the economies that were being imposed, notably the abolition of high-street recruiting offices and the decision to do away with military hospitals.

Jackson commanded the 3rd (UK) Division from 1994 to 1995. He was knighted in 1998 and appointed Commander in Chief UK Land Command in 2000.

In May that year the Sierra Leone government requested British help after a group styling themselves the Revolutionary United Front threatened to overrun the country. A UN contingent of around 17,000 soldiers showed itself to be ineffective and a force of about 600 men, mostly from 1 Para, was flown in and successfully restored order.

Another feature of Jackson’s time as C-in-C was the employment of servicemen to help with national emergencies. These included flooding, foot-and-mouth disease and strikes by fuel-tanker drivers and firefighters.

In 2003, Jackson became Chief of the General Staff (CGS), the professional head of the Army. The invasion of Iraq was imminent, and he was included in the Prime Minister’s discussion group and sometimes stood in for Admiral Sir Michael (later Lord) Boyce, the Chief of the Defence Staff, at meetings of the Cabinet sub-committee.

Yet perhaps the most controversial issue with which he had to deal as CGS was reforms to the Army, which led to the disappearance of a number of famous regiments. These were controversial, but larger regimental groupings and permanent bases were required to eliminate operational inefficiencies. This made him very unpopular, both with traditionalists and with politicians whose constituencies were recruiting grounds for the regiments affected.

To his lasting regret, Jackson never took part in the ultimate challenge for a soldier, a conventional war. He was appointed GCB in 2005, the year before he retired from the Army, and published an autobiography, Soldier, in 2007.

Jackson became a consultant on security and defence matters and was an outspoken critic of the Ministry of Defence. He claimed that it undervalued servicemen and their families, and that, especially during the Afghanistan conflict, it had come close to breaking the unspoken covenant between the Government and its Armed Forces, in which devotion to duty and the acceptance of self-sacrifice is rewarded by the proper provision of wages, accommodation, equipment and medical care.

Jackson could be tough with people when needed, but his arm was often around the shoulder of a subordinate, for he had great warmth and a generous heart. When the situation demanded, he had a robust tolerance for whisky: he was known for sitting down with officers or men, opening a bottle of Scotch (or Irish) and crunching up and throwing away the top – making it plain to all that the bottle was there to be drunk in its entirety.

Mike Jackson is survived by his wife Sarah, two sons and a daughter.

General Sir Mike Jackson, born March 21 1944, died October 15 2024