Brigadier

The rank of Brigadier or Brigadier General was a senior rank in some military organizations, typically a junior or quasi General rank, senior to a Colonel but below a Major General. It should be stressed that officers with the rank of Brigadier did not necessarily command Brigades, but brigade commanders could be referred to as "brigadier", even if they held a different rank.

Recorded usage
The earliest direct evidence for the rank of Brigadier dates from around the time of the Clone Wars, when it was borne by officers like Locus Geen, who led ground forces during the Coruscant Insurrection, and Gideon Tarkin, a member of a military family from Eriadu whose brother Wilhuff later became the feared Imperial Grand Moff of the Outland Regions. Little is known of the exact significance of the rank of Brigadier at this time, but it seems that it was confined to the non-clone units which came to augment the original Grand Army of the Republic over the course of the war, and Brigadier Tarkin is recorded as already holding his rank on his homeworld shortly before the Military Creation Act, making it probable (though not quite certain) that a rank of Brigadier was already in use with locally-based military forces within Republic space before the outbreak of the war.

Under the Empire, there are very few references to a rank of Brigadier, with the position of High Colonel being somewhat analogous. However, at least one officer bearing this title is known, Brigadier Nevar, who was aboard the AT-AT walker Blizzard 2 at the Battle of Hoth, and apparently assassinated shortly before it was destroyed by T-47 snowspeeders of the Rebel Alliance. If his rank really was as unusual as the dearth of references suggests, Nevar may have belonged to an arm of the military which differed from the line forces of the Imperial Army in its terminology, possibly the Stormtrooper Corps. Alternatively, he may have been a more senior General who was styled "brigadier" through leading a brigade-strength command.

In the New Republic, the rank of Brigadier was used within the military-style rank hierarchy of New Republic Intelligence, even though NRI is not known to have contained units designated as Brigades, or indeed to have had any higher hierarchy of general ranks. Brigadiers in Intell included Collomus, Colin Darkmere and former front-line soldier Bren Derlin.

It is not clear how widely used a rank of Brigadier was in the line military of the New Republic or Galactic Alliance, and by the time of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, the comparable position in some arms of the military was apparently Commander, the rank from which Eldo Davip was promoted to Major General. Only one certain instance is known of an officer in the New Republic Defense Force with a "Brigadier" rank, and this is a very puzzling oddity.

The problem of General A'baht
The Dornean naval commander Etahn A'baht is said to have held a rank of "Brigadier General" in New Republic service in 26 ABY, being addressed as "General A'baht" or "General". A'baht had long been known for using army-style general ranks in the manner of his own Dornean Navy rather than the standard flag ranks of the Fleet, but his status as "General" during the Black Fleet Crisis of 16-17 ABY was explicitly equivalent to that of an Admiral at the time, and as such, he outranked Admiral Tolokus, one of his task force commanders during the campaign.

The rank of Brigadier General, however, is one which we would expect to be below Admiral, equivalent to to the more junior Navy rank of Commodore. It is possible that A'baht's title was an attempt to create an army-style equivalent to alternative usage of Commodore as a very senior command title, bestowing authority superior to A'baht's former status as a C-1 grade flag officer and fleet commander. Alternatively, it may be that A'baht had transferred from the line military to New Republic Intelligence, and that his rank of Brigadier General was a grade in the NRI command structure&mdash;although not necessarily the equivalent of an army Brigadier.

Behind the scenes
In the real world, "Brigadier" and "Brigadier General" are equivalent ranks in the British and American armed forces. In the UK and other countries where the shorter "Brigadier" rank is used, officers of this rank are not regarded as true general officers, although their substantive rank is equivalent. Other variations on these ranks have existed historically and internationally; in the eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries, a "brigadier" in the British Army was simply a brigade commander, ranking either as a Lieutenant Colonel or a Major General, and in some South American air forces, a unique system is used whereby all general/flag ranks are variations on "Brigadier".

In particular, the Argentine Air Force rank of Brigadier-General, equivalent to a Lieutenant General or full General in the US Air Force, may provide a possible explanation for two confusing references in James Luceno's Agents of Chaos duology, aluded to above, where General Etahn A'baht's full rank is given as "Brigadier General".

All other explicit references to Brigadier ranks in Star Wars appear to use "Brigadier" rather than "Brigadier General", which according to real world usage, would suggest a senior field rank rather than a junior grade of general. However, Brigadier Locus Geen is called a "General" in the Dark Forces Saga online game scenario, and the Imperial officer identified as "Brig. Nevar" in the book Inside the Worlds of the Star Wars Trilogy&mdash;apparently the only reference to a "Brigadier" in the Imperial military&mdash;had originally been named as "General Nevar" in the Star Wars Customizable Card Game.

Since Geen was known as "Brigadier" after his retirement, then this is likely to have been his substantive rank, and the reference to him as a General probably reflects a perception, however vague, that he was a general officer at this rank; the same may also be true of Nevar, but it is also possible that he held a more senior General rank, and was styled "Brigadier" through leading a brigade-sized command, perhaps Blizzard Force itself. In neither case does the canon evidence seem quite strong enough to insist that "Brigadier" is used as an abbreviation for "Brigadier General", but the possibility cannot be ruled out.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Galaxies
 * The Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy
 * Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial
 * Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse