page_title: Horace Smith-Dorrien
section_title: India
hierarchical_section_title: Horace Smith-Dorrien / India
caption_attribution_description: Caricature of Gen HL Smith-Dorrien DSO. Caption read "Doreen".
context_page_description: General Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien, GCB, GCMG, DSO, ADC 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 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.
context_section_description: On 22 April 1901, he received orders to return to India where he was made Adjutant-General (6 November 1901) under Kitchener (who returned to India after the end of the Second Boer War, in late 1902). He was placed in command of the 4th (Quetta) Division in Baluchistan, a post he held from 30 June 1903 until 1907. He was raised to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1904 and promoted lieutenant general on 9 April 1906. He introduced the Staff Ride, erroneously attributed by Terraine to Haig. He also helped found the Staff College at Quetta in 1907.
  In the dispute between Kitchener and Lord Curzon over the role of the Military Member, Smith-Dorrien stayed neutral, torn between his relations with Kitchener and with the Military Member himself, Sir Arthur Power Palmer, who was his wife's uncle.
caption: Smith-Dorrien caricatured by Spy for Vanity Fair, 1901
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