Horace Smith-Dorrien

General Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien, (26 May 1858 – 12 August 1930) was a British Army General. One of the few British survivors of the Battle of Isandlwana as a young officer, he also distinguished himself in the Second Boer War. Smith-Dorrien held senior commands in the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) during the First World War. He commanded II Corps at the Battle of Mons, the first major action fought by the BEF, and the Battle of Le Cateau, where he fought a vigorous and successful defensive action contrary to the wishes of the Commander-in-Chief Sir John French, with whom he had had a personality clash dating back some years. In the spring of 1915 he commanded the Second Army at the Second Battle of Ypres. He was relieved of command by French for requesting permission to retreat from the Ypres Salient to a more defensible position. Early life Horace Smith-Dorrien was born at Haresfoot, a house near Berkhamsted, in the county of Hertfordshire to Colonel Robert Algernon Smith-Dorrien and Mary Ann Drever. He was the twelfth child of sixteen; his eldest brother was Thomas Smith-Dorrien-Smith, the Lord Proprietor of the Isles of Scilly from 1872 until 1918. Another elder brother was Rear-Admiral Arthur Hale Smith-Dorrien. He was educated at Harrow and on 26 February 1876 entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Career On graduation from the Royal Military College in 1877 he had hoped to receive an infantry commission with the 95th Rifle Brigade, but instead received one with the 95th (Derbyshire) Regiment of Foot, later to become the Sherwood Foresters.