General Sir Mike Jackson obituary

Known for his grizzled features, no-nonsense manner and gravelly voice, General Sir Mike Jackson, who has died aged 80 of prostate cancer, became not only the most recognisable British soldier since Field Marshal Montgomery, but could have been drawn from central casting.

Tall, cadaverous and with a craggy face – even the bags under his eyes had bags, it was said, at least until he had them lifted, not for vanity but to improve his eyesight – he looked like the sort of man who could face down enemies whether in Kosovo or Iraq, as indeed he did.

Jackson, always known as Mike, or Jacko, to his troops, served during a 40-year career in just about every conflict that the British army has been engaged in since the 1960s: Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan; with the exception of the Falklands war, in which he served behind a desk back in Whitehall.

He was on the scene of Bloody Sunday as a relatively junior officer of the Parachute Regiment in Derry in January 1972, when troops of the regiment killed 13 unarmed civilians on a civil rights protest march. And 25 years later, as a Nato commander, he refused his US superior’s command to block a runway in Pristina to prevent Russian forces landing, telling him bluntly: “Sir, I’m not going to start World War Three for you.”

However, Jackson was more sensitive than his image conveyed, with a marked intelligence and diplomatic subtlety, though that did not prevent him from speaking his mind robustly, especially after his retirement.

Born in Sheffield a few weeks before D-day, he was the son of Ivy (nee Bower), who worked at the city’s museum, and George, a former Household Cavalry trooper with a commission in the Royal Army Service Corps. From the age of eight, he was a boarder at Stamford school, Lincolnshire, where he served in the cadet force and failed to shine academically except for languages, including Russian.

Instead of university, he went to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, then offering a two-year officer training course, and on being commissioned chose in 1963 to join the Intelligence Corps, where he might use his languages. He subsequently took a Russian studies degree at Birmingham University.

As part of his induction into the corps Jackson was required to serve for a year with an infantry battalion, choosing the Parachute Regiment and transferring to the unit in 1970 as it offered better officer career prospects. Within two years he became adjutant of the 1st brigade, and it was as a captain in Derry, seconded to the brigade commander Derek Wilford and acting part time as a press officer, that he witnessed the shootings of the demonstrators.

Jackson was convinced that the troops had been fired on first, but admitted in his memoirs that the situation had been confused: “I hated the thought that our soldiers might have lost control … I found it difficult to accept that there could have been any mass breach of discipline.” When the Saville report into the killings was published in 2010 he made an apology.

After attending the Army staff college, Jackson served as an infantry brigade major in Berlin (1977-78). Back in Northern Ireland in 1979 during the Troubles, he was a company commander and soon on the scene of the killing of 18 soldiers at Warrenpoint, County Down. He was seconded to the staff of the college (1981-83), and appointed as a military assistant in intelligence at the Ministry of Defence during the Falklands war (1982).

In 1984 he took command of the first battalion of the Parachute Regiment, which went to Norway for winter warfare exercises with Nato. Following time at the Higher Command staff course and six months as a defence fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge (1989), he returned once more to Northern Ireland as commander of an infantry brigade in Belfast (1990-92) as talks were getting under way and the army’s role was to serve as back-up to the civilian police.

Posting to Nato as a major general followed, coinciding with the Balkans conflict (1995-96). He was in charge of the Implementation Force, IFOR, overseeing the ceasefire and the beginnings of reconstruction and facing down the leaderships on both sides, including the Serb commander Ratko Mladić, “a brutal, boastful and manipulative thug”, who was somewhat cowed by Jackson’s strategy of moving armoured vehicles constantly outside their meeting to demonstrate the potential fire power at his disposal.

His success in this role led to his appointment as commander of Nato’s rapid reaction force in Kosovo, as Serb and Kosovan forces faced off in 1999. It led to his famous clash with the US general Wesley Clark, his superior as Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

That happened as the Russian president Boris Yeltsin promised Russian troops to help keep the peace, which was suspected as an attempt to aid the Serbs and muscle in on Nato’s effort. With Russian troops making towards Pristina, the Kosovan capital, Clark ordered Jackson to block the airport runway. The move would have led to a direct confrontation and Jackson refused.

He told him: “Sir, I am a three- star general, you can’t give me orders like this. I have my own judgment of the situation and I believe this order is outside our mandate.” The British government backed him, and Clark conceded.

After the Russians arrived Jackson secured amicable relations with their commander Viktor Zavarzin, partly through his ability to speak Russian and largely through shared quantities of whisky and vodka.

His diplomatic success hinged on his even-handedness towards both Serbs and Kosovans, defusing tensions, providing security for both sides and starting the rebuilding process. The Balkans conflict brought him recognition in Britain as a capable soldier, direct and engaging, even archetypical as a military man, in interviews and broadcasts. He had the support of his men, too, who jokily declared themselves followers of the Prince of Darkness until their T-shirts were deemed inappropriate.

He returned to Britain as commander-in-chief, land forces, and then in 2003 chief of the general staff during the Iraq invasion, highly critical of the lack of planning for the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein and tough on discipline, for officers as well as the troops they commanded.

His more lasting influence however lay in the reorganisation of the army’s infantry battalions, partly to save money, but also to account for the military’s changing role. Historic regiments were merged, larger units were created and bases were reordered to reduce operational inefficiencies.

Jackson retired in 2006, laden with honours: an MBE in 1979, CBE 1992, DSO in 1999, knighthood 1998 and knight grand cross, the highest military honour, in 2005. He published his autobiography, Soldier, in 2007 and continued to make regular appearances in interviews and documentaries.

He was married twice, first to Jennifer Savery, with whom he had two children, Amanda and Mark. After their divorce, in 1985, he married Sarah Coombe, with whom he had a son, Tom. She and his children survive him.

• Mike (Michael David) Jackson, military commander, born 21 March 1944; died 15 October 2024