Maclean was born in Cairo to Major Charles Wilberforce Maclean QOCH (1875–1953), a member of the Scottish landed gentry serving in Egypt with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, and Frances Elaine Gladys Royle (12 June 1882 – 1954), the only daughter of George Royle, a Royal Navy officer, and Fannie Jane Longueville Snow.
1905
The couple wed on 12 July 1905 at St George's Parish, Hanover Square, Middlesex, London.
He was descended from the Macleans of Ardgour, a Sept of the Clan Maclean, whose chiefs have as their historic seat Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides.
He was brought up in Italy and educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he read Classics and History.
1911
Brigadier Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle Maclean, 1st Baronet, (11 March 1911 – 15 June 1996) was a British Army officer, writer and politician.
1933
He then studied in Germany before joining the Diplomatic Service in 1933.
1934
In 1934 Fitzroy Maclean was posted to the British Embassy in Paris.
1937
Bored with the pleasant but undemanding routine, he requested a posting to Moscow in 1937.
The two and a half years he spent in the Soviet Union formed the first third of his best known book, the autobiographical Eastern Approaches.
1939
Maclean was in Moscow until late 1939, and was present during the great Stalinist purges, observing the fates of Bukharin and other Russian revolutionaries.
Although he was stationed in the capital, Maclean travelled extensively, primarily by train, into remote regions of the USSR which were off limits to foreigners, and was shadowed by the NKVD as he did so.
When war broke out in 1939 Maclean was prevented from joining the military because of his position as a diplomat.
He was 2nd Secretary in the Foreign Office.
Therefore, he resigned from the Diplomatic Service "to go into politics".
After tendering his resignation he immediately took a taxi to the nearest recruiting office and enlisted as a private in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders.
1941
He was a Unionist Member of Parliament (MP) from 1941 to 1974 and was one of only two men who during the World War II enlisted in the British Army as a private and rose to the rank of brigadier, the other being future fellow Conservative MP Enoch Powell.
Maclean wrote several books, including Eastern Approaches, in which he recounted three extraordinary series of adventures: travelling, often incognito, in Soviet Central Asia; fighting in the Western Desert campaign, where he specialised in commando raids behind enemy lines; and living rough with Josip Broz Tito and his Yugoslav Partisans while commanding the Maclean Mission there.
It has been widely speculated that Ian Fleming used Maclean as one of his inspirations for James Bond.
He was soon promoted to lance corporal and was commissioned in 1941.
In that year he became the Conservative MP for Lancaster.
Maclean was elected as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Lancaster in the 1941 by-election.
1942
In North Africa in 1942, he distinguished himself in the early actions of the newly formed Special Air Service (SAS), where, with Ralph A. Bagnold, he developed ways of driving vehicles over the Libyan sand "seas".
Maclean was a brilliant practitioner in the T. E. Lawrence brand of fighting, and he reported directly to Winston Churchill in Cairo.
A letter of introduction from David Stirling said of him at the end of this period: "He has done well on our raids. Don't be taken in by his rather pompous manner or his slow way of speaking - he is OK."
Later that year he transferred to the Middle East as part of the Persia and Iraq Command.
He was "allotted a platoon of Seaforth Highlanders and instructed to kidnap" General Fazlollah Zahedi, the commander of the Persian forces in the Isfahan area.
Maclean captured him and smuggled him out by plane to internment in Palestine.
This incident soon led Hitler's government to withdraw support from its network in Persia.
1943
Churchill chose him to lead a liaison mission (Macmis) to central Yugoslavia in 1943.
Josip Broz Tito and his Partisans were emerging as a major obstacle to German control of the Balkans.
Little was known at the time about Tito: some suspected this was an acronym for a committee or that he might in fact be a young woman.
Maclean got to know Tito well, and later produced two biographies of him.
Maclean's relationship with Tito's Partisans was not always easy, partly because they were Communist, while he came from an upper class Scottish background, and had witnessed Stalinism in action (see above).
As Churchill personally told him, Maclean's mission was not to concern himself with how Yugoslavia was to be run after the war, but "simply to find out who was killing the most Germans and suggest means by which we could help them to kill more."
1944
In the late summer of 1944, together with Tito, he planned and implemented Operation Ratweek.
It was a major Allied bombing campaign in collaboration with the local Partisan troops in order to prevent German troops retreating back and reinforcing those in central and western Europe, thus prolonging the war.
His biography of Tito reveals the admiration he held for the Yugoslav leader and the Yugoslav Communist-led anti-fascist struggle.
He developed a great affection for Yugoslavia and its people and was later given permission to buy a house on the Dalmatian island of Korčula, Croatia.
Having been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1944, he received the Order of Kutuzov (Soviet Union) (which impressed the Soviet troops in Belgrade), and after the war the Croix de Guerre (France), and Order of the Partisan Star (Yugoslavia).
1947
He reached the rank of Brigadier during the war, and was promoted to the local rank of Major General on 16 June 1947.