III
GENERAL SIR HENRY SEYMOUR RAWLINSON,
BART., G.C.V.O., K.C.B.
SIR HENRY RAWLINSON was born on February 2Oth, 1864; the eldest son of Major-General Sir H. C. Rawlinson, Bart. He was educated at Eton and Sandhurst, and in February, 1884, entered the 6oth Rifles. After acting as A.D.C. for four years to Lord Roberts, then Commander-in-Chief in India, he served with the Mounted Infantry in the Burma campaign, 1888. He exchanged into the Coldstream Guards in 1891, was a Brigade Major at Aldershot from 1894 to 1896, and served in the Soudan Campaign of 1897-8 as D.A.A.G. to Lord Kitchener, being present at the Battles of Atbara and Omdurman. In the South African War he was through the siege of Ladysmith as A.A.G. to Sir George White, acted as A.A.G. to Lord Roberts' Army at Headquarters, and commanded with great distinction a Mobile Column during the last eighteen months of the war. As Column Commander he was more than once in action against the brilliant soldier who is now Lieut.-General Smuts. He was Commandant of the Staff College from 1903-6, commanded the 2nd Brigade at Aldershot 1907-10, and the 3rd Division at Salisbury Plain 1910-14.
On the outbreak of the European War he was given command of the 4th Division on the Aisne, and was then put in command of the new IV Corps which included the 7th Division and which landed in Flanders in the beginning of October, 1914. The exploits of the 7th Division form one of the most glorious pages in modern British military history. As all the world knows, it was compelled to fall back with the 3rd Cavalry Division towards Ypres, and on October i6th held the line east of Ypres running through Gheluvelt. On the 20th of the month Sir Douglas Haig's I Corps came into line on its left, and the First Battle of Ypres began. The story of its desperate fighting for Gheluvelt and then for the Klein Zillebeke ridge is familiar to all. The best account of the exploits of the 7th Division is to be found in an order issued by Major-General Capper who then commanded the Division and was later killed in action.
"After the deprivations and tensions of being pursued day and night by an infinitely stronger force, the Division had to pass through the worst ordeal of all. It was left to a little force of 30,000 to keep the German army at bay, while the other British Corps were being brought up from the Aisne. Here they clung like grim death with almost every man in the
