XI LIEUT.-GENERAL H. E. WATTS, C.B., C.M.G. GENERAL WATTS was born on February i4th, 1858, and entered the Army in 1880. He served in South Africa, where he received a brevet Lieut.-Colonelcy. He became Colonel of his regiment in 1908, and retired in 1914. On the outbreak of the European War he returned to service, and went with General Rawlinson to Flanders in October, 1914, in command of the 2ist Brigade of the yth Division. With this Brigade, which has seen some of the most desperate fighting of the war, he fought at the first battle of Ypres. For three critical days the Brigade formed one of the three which checked the whole German advance ; and then for nearly a fortnight it was in the centre of all the bitter fighting that was directed towards Ypres. When it was withdrawn it was but a shadow of the Brigade that had crossed Belgium before falling back on Ypres ; but in the three weeks' battle it had won an imperishable name. General Watts fought with the Brigade on the left of the front at Neuve Chapelle and he also took part in the summer battles of 1915 at Festubert and Givenchy. With it he was engaged at Loos, where the Division saw some of the most severe fighting and where the Commander, General Capper, fell. General Watts succeeded to General Capper's command. From the first day of the battle of the Somme the yth Division, changed considerably in composition since the Autumn of 1914, played a notable part. It was they who took Mametz, and they fought through the whole of the first phase of the battle, crowning their achievement by the capture of Bazentin le Petit. The Division was present in most of the other great actions of the battle. In the spring of 1917 their General received the command of a corps.
