Horace Smith-Dorrien

Horace Smith-Dorrien fought a battle in 1914 that probably saved the British Expeditionary Force and was sacked in 1915 for proposing a withdrawal that his successor carried out three days later. He was one of very few British officers to escape the field of Isandlwana in 1879, where a Zulu army destroyed a British column, and he served in Egypt, at Omdurman and in South Africa. In India before the war he was known for pushing musketry standards to a rate of fire that startled the Germans at Mons. He commanded II Corps in August 1914, and when the retreat from Mons had exhausted his men and the Germans were closing on his rearguard he disobeyed the spirit of his orders and stood at Le Cateau on 26 August, fighting a full-scale delaying action and then breaking contact. It cost him some 7,800 casualties and it bought the BEF the distance it needed. Sir John French, the commander-in-chief, had disliked him since a dispute over cavalry doctrine years earlier and never forgave the independence. At Second Ypres in April 1915, after the first German chlorine attack tore a gap in the line, Smith-Dorrien advised pulling back to a shorter and defensible position rather than counter-attacking into it. French removed him from command by telephone and replaced him with Plumer, who was ordered to make exactly the withdrawal his predecessor had recommended. He was sent to East Africa, fell ill with pneumonia before taking up the post, and never held a field command again. He died in a car accident in 1930.

• Lived: 1858 CE – 1930 CE
• Nationality: British
• Roles: military_leader