Part 2 (2/2)
GENERAL HALDANE was born on November 17th, 1862, of a well-known Scottish family which has given many distinguished members to the learned professions. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy and Sandhurst, and, in 1882, joined the Gordon Highlanders. He served in the Waziristan Campaign of 1894; the Chitral Campaign of 1895; the Tirah Campaign of 1897; and from 1896-99 he was A.D.C. to Sir William Lockhart. He received the D.S.O. for his work on the Indian frontier.
During the South African War he fought with the 2nd Gordon Highlanders at Elandslaagte, where he was severely wounded. He was in command of the armoured train which was captured at Chieveley on November 15th, 1899.
The story of his escape from Pretoria after some months' imprisonment is one of the romances of the South African Campaign. He rejoined his battalion and was present at some of the later actions of the war, receiving a brevet Lieut.-Colonelcy.
During the Russo-j.a.panese War he was Military Attache with the j.a.panese Army, and was present at the Battles of Liao-yang, Sha-Ho, and Mukden.
He went to France in August, 1914, in command of the 10th Infantry Brigade, which was part of the 4th Division in the III Corps. The Brigade arrived in time for the Battle of Le Cateau, and took part in all the subsequent fighting, being heavily engaged in the Armentieres area during the First Battle of Ypres. General Haldane was one of the first Brigadiers to receive a Division. He succeeded Major-General Sir Hubert Hamilton in command of the 3rd Division in October, 1914, and remained with this famous Division till the Battle of the Somme. Its heaviest fighting took place in the summer of 1915 within the Ypres salient, and, in the spring of 1916, it was again engaged in the neighbourhood of St. Eloi and the Bluff at Ypres.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LIEUT.-GEN. J. A. L. HALDANE]
At the Battle of the Somme General Haldane took part in the great advance of July 14th, when the 3rd Division was brilliantly successful, carrying Bazentin le Grand, and sharing afterwards in the desperate fighting around Longueval and Delville Wood. In August he was promoted to the command of the VI Corps, and, during the winter, held a portion of the Arras front. The opportunity of the Corps came in the Battle of Arras on April 9th, 1917, when, advancing due east of the city, its three divisions carried all their objectives, including such formidable fortresses as the Harp and Railway Triangle, and made record captures of prisoners and guns.
Few British soldiers have had a more varied experience of warfare. He is a scholar in his profession, but his book knowledge is borne lightly, and he has shown himself in every crisis a leader of shrewd judgment and ample resource. He is still a young man, and, fine as his record has been, he is universally regarded as only at the outset of his career.
XI
LIEUT.-GENERAL H. E. WATTS, C.B., C.M.G.
GENERAL WATTS was born on February 14th, 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 21st Brigade of the 7th 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 7th 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 Pet.i.t. 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LIEUT.-GEN. H. E. WATTS]
General Watts has a fighting reputation second to no one in the Army.
The Campaign for him has been one long Malplaquet--a hard-fought soldiers' battle, and no man has known better how to elicit the inherent steadfastness of British troops. To have led first a Brigade and then a Division through some of the fiercest fights of all history is no small record for a man on the verge of sixty years.
XII
LIEUT.-GENERAL THE RT. HON. JAN CHRISTIAAN s.m.u.tS, P.C., K.C., M.L.A.
COMPANION OF HONOUR
GENERAL s.m.u.tS was born on May 24th, 1870, at Bovenplaats in the Malmesbury district of the Cape Colony, the residence of his father, Jacobus Abraham s.m.u.ts, who was for some time a member of the Legislative a.s.sembly of the Cape. He was educated at Victoria College, Stellenbosch, and graduating with high honours in arts and science, pa.s.sed as Ebden Scholar to Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1891.
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