William Gatacre

Sir William F. Gatacre KCB

Sir William Forbes Gatacre KCB , DSO (born December 3, 1843 in Herbertshire Castle near Stirling , † January 18, 1906 near Gambella , Ethiopia ) was a British Lieutenant General . He fought in various British colonial wars, for example in the suppression of the Mahdi uprising and in the Boer War .

Life

Gatacre as division commander in South Africa from Celebrities of the Army , London 1900

Gatacre joined the British Army in 1862 and served in Burma in 1889/90 . He led a brigade on the British expedition to Chitral in 1895. In 1897 he commanded the 3rd Infantry Brigade in Aldershot .

When the Anglo-Egyptian Nile Expeditionary Force under Kitchener was attacked by the Mahdists in their attempt to put down the Mahdi uprising in 1898 , they asked Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer for support from a British brigade. The British government then put together a brigade of troops from the Royal Warwickshire Regiment , Lincoln Regiment and Cameron Highlanders , later the Seaforth Highlanders , under the leadership of Gatacre. On April 8, 1898, he led the brigade, on the left side of the Anglo-Egyptian order of battle, in the Battle of Atbara . In July 1898 another British brigade was transferred to Sudan. The two brigades were enlarged to form a British division , with Gatacre as division commander. Gatacre commanded this division on September 2, 1898 at the Battle of Omdurman , in which the Mahdists were defeated.

From 1899 to 1902 Gatacre took part in the Boer War as Lieutenant General and Commander of the 3rd Division . In December 1899 he had the task of securing the area south of the Orange Free State with his division . Gatacre had to send troops to Natal, which was also threatened by the Boers . He therefore reached his area of ​​operation late and with a reduced number of troops. In the meantime, Boers from the Orange Free State had already attacked the important railway junctions De Aar and Stormberg. Gatacre was defeated by the Boers on December 10, 1899 at the Battle of Stormberg .

literature

• Beatrix Wickens, Hon. Lady Gatacre: General Gatacre. The story of the life and services of Sir William Forbes Gatacre ... 1843-1906 ... . John Murray, London 1910.