Generals of the British Army/Rawlinson, General Sir H. S.
GENERAL SIR HENRY RAWLINSON
III
GENERAL SIR HENRY SEYMOUR RAWLINSON,
BART., G.C.V.O., K.C.B.
SIR HENRY RAWLINSON was born on February 2Oth, 1864; the eldest son of Major-General Sir H. C. Rawlinson, Bart. He was educated at Eton and Sandhurst, and in February, 1884, entered the 6oth Rifles. After acting as A.D.C. for four years to Lord Roberts, then Commander-in-Chief in India, he served with the Mounted Infantry in the Burma campaign, 1888. He exchanged into the Coldstream Guards in 1891, was a Brigade Major at Aldershot from 1894 to 1896, and served in the Soudan Campaign of 1897-8 as D.A.A.G. to Lord Kitchener, being present at the Battles of Atbara and Omdurman. In the South African War he was through the siege of Ladysmith as A.A.G. to Sir George White, acted as A.A.G. to Lord Roberts' Army at Headquarters, and commanded with great distinction a Mobile Column during the last eighteen months of the war. As Column Commander he was more than once in action against the brilliant soldier who is now Lieut.-General Smuts. He was Commandant of the Staff College from 1903-6, commanded the 2nd Brigade at Aldershot 1907-10, and the 3rd Division at Salisbury Plain 1910-14.
On the outbreak of the European War he was given command of the 4th Division on the Aisne, and was then put in command of the new IV Corps which included the 7th Division and which landed in Flanders in the beginning of October, 1914. The exploits of the 7th Division form one of the most glorious pages in modern British military history. As all the world knows, it was compelled to fall back with the 3rd Cavalry Division towards Ypres, and on October i6th held the line east of Ypres running through Gheluvelt. On the 20th of the month Sir Douglas Haig's I Corps came into line on its left, and the First Battle of Ypres began. The story of its desperate fighting for Gheluvelt and then for the Klein Zillebeke ridge is familiar to all. The best account of the exploits of the 7th Division is to be found in an order issued by Major-General Capper who then commanded the Division and was later killed in action.
"After the deprivations and tensions of being pursued day and night by an infinitely stronger force, the Division had to pass through the worst ordeal of all. It was left to a little force of 30,000 to keep the German army at bay, while the other British Corps were being brought up from the Aisne. Here they clung like grim death with almost every man in the trench, holding a line which of necessity was a great deal too long a thin exhausted line—against which the pride of the German first line troops were hurling themselves with fury. The odds against them were about eight to one, and, when once the enemy found the range of a trench, the shells dropped into it from one end to the other with terrible effect. Yet the men stood firm, and defended Ypres in such a manner that a German officer afterwards described their action as a brilliant feat of arms, and said that they were under the impression that there had been four British Army Corps against them at this point. When the Division was afterwards withdrawn from the fighting line to refit, it was found that out of 400 officers who set out from England only 44 were left, and out of 12,000 men only 2,336."
At the Battle of Neuve Chapelle the IV Corps, including the yth and 8th Divisions, attacked on the afternoon of the first day on the left of the British front and incurred severe losses in that memorable action. The IV Corps was reconstituted after Neuve Chapelle under Sir Henry Rawlinson, and its three Divisions, the 1st, i5th, and 47th, played a conspicuous part in the Battle of Loos in September, 1915. It was the 1 5th Division which, it will be remembered, took the village of Loos and Hill 70, and advanced to the suburbs of Lens one of the most heroic episodes in the whole campaign.
In the spring of 1916 Sir Henry Rawlinson was appointed to the command of the new Fourth Army, which took its place in the line on the right of the old Third Army in the Somme area. He was in command of the whole front when the Battle of the Somme opened on July 1st, 1916. On the first two days of the battle he commanded the whole of the five Corps on that front, but handed over the two northern Corps to Sir Hubert Cough's reserve Fifth Army early in July. The Fourth Army line then ran southward from Thiepval to the junction with the French at Maricourt. Under his direction were fought the actions of July i4th and September i5th and 25th. Few British forces have had a harder task than to break the mighty defences of Contalmaison, High Wood, Delville Wood, and Guillemont.
When the German retreat began in the spring of 1917, Sir Henry Rawlinson led the southern part of the British advance. It was his men who entered Peronne and fought their way to the gates of St. Quentin.
The Commander of the Fourth Army is one of the most accomplished and highly trained of modern British Generals. He has mastered the learning of his profession, and has a perfect understanding of Staff work. But his knowledge is only a small part of the endowment which he brings to work in the field. He has that flair for the decisive moment which no training can give, and his high spirits, stout heart, and steady confidence in himself and his men have made him an ideal Commander, both for the tedious war of positions, and any future war of movement.