Robert Fanshawe (British Army officer)

Major-General Sir Robert Fanshawe KCB, DSO (5 November 1863 – 24 August 1946) was a British Army general during the First World War, who commanded the 48th (South Midland) Division from 1915 to 1918. He was the youngest of three brothers (Edward, Hew, and Robert) who all rose to command divisions or corps during the war.

Fanshawe joined the Oxfordshire Light Infantry in 1883, and served with his regiment in India until the Boer War, where he commanded a mobile column and was mentioned in despatches. At the outbreak of the First World War he was on the staff of the British Expeditionary Force, and later commanded a regular brigade on the Western Front, before being promoted to divisional command in 1915. He commanded the 48th (South Midland) Division for three years, including service at the Somme, Ancre, Paaschendale, and on the Italian Front, before being removed from command after his corps commander objected to his defensive strategy. He was relegated to commanding a second-line home service division, and retired from the Army in 1918.

Early career
Fanshawe was born in 1863, the youngest son of the Reverend Henry Leighton Fanshawe, of Chilworth, Oxfordshire. After attending Marlborough College, Fanshawe joined the 2nd Battalion of the newly formed Oxfordshire Light Infantry, the former 52nd Foot, in 1883. He spent the next sixteen years with the regiment, primarily on service in India, including the Tirah Campaign of 1897–1898. He was the younger son of three brothers with significant military careers; Edward (b. 1859) joined the artillery and Hew (b. 1860) joined the cavalry, all three rising to command corps or divisions during the First World War.

He entered the Staff College, Camberley at the beginning of 1899, but following the outbreak of the Boer War, he was sent to South Africa that November, to serve on the Inspector-General's staff. He saw service at the Relief of Kimberley and the Battle of Paardeberg, where he was wounded; later, in April 1900, he was made adjutant of the 6th Battalion Mounted Infantry. In 1901, he took command of a mobile column, which he commanded to the end of the war. For his service in South Africa, he was mentioned in despatches twice and awarded the Distinguished Service Order.

In 1903, after the end of hostilities, he was posted to the staff of the 4th Division as deputy assistant adjutant-general, and returned to his regiment in 1903. He commanded the 2nd Battalion from 1907 to 1911, when he was promoted colonel and posted as chief of staff (GSO.1) to 1st Division.

First World War
At the outbreak of the First World War, Fanshawe's division was mobilised as part of the British Expeditionary Force for service in France. On 20 September, he was appointed to command 6th Infantry Brigade in 2nd Division, replacing Richard Hutton Davies, who had been invalided home due to stress.

He led 6th Brigade through the First Battle of Ypres and the Battle of Festubert in early 1915, where it played a key part in the initial successful night attack. In mid-June, he was promoted to take over the 48th (South Midland) Division, a Territorial Force unit, after its commander fell ill. He commanded the division at the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of the Ancre, and the Third Battle of Ypres, then on the Italian Front from late 1917 onwards, including the Austrian offensives of June 1918.

Fanshawe spent a good deal of time visiting front-line units, where he "liked to drift into the trench in an old raincoat so that men were not intimidated", and would sometimes venture out with a single escort to patrol no-man's land. More unusually, he had a habit of giving his soldiers chocolates when he met them returning from the lines or on inspections. Such behaviour scandalised his staff officers, who were privately disapproving of Fanshawe's informality with his troops, but it did not lead to the disapproval of his superiors; in September 1917, a confidential report by Ivor Maxse, his corps commander, had judged him to be "a good average divisional commander and trainer".

Fanshawe was strongly in favour of an elastic defence doctrine, where a lightly garrisoned front line would delay an enemy attack, and then a strong counterattack would recapture lost ground, and had been training 48th Division in this mould since he took command in 1915; the Italian theatre was the first opportunity to put this approach fully into practice. 48th Division was attacked on 15 June 1918 by strong Austrian forces at the Battle of the Piave River; in keeping with the plan, leading elements fell back and a counter-attack was organised, recapturing the lost ground and stalling the offensive entirely.

Whilst a success, this result was greeted with dismay by the corps commander, the Earl of Cavan; he was a strong believer in a more traditional strongly held static line of defence, and felt that Fanshawe did not need to have given up any ground at all. As a result, Fanshawe was quickly relieved of his command and ordered home, leaving Italy four days after the end of the battle, on 20 June.

He was later appointed to command the 69th Division on home service. Through the war, he was mentioned in despatches eight times, as well as knighted. He retired from the Army in August 1919; he later served as the honorary colonel of the 1st/7th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment. He died in 1946, aged eighty-three, after falling from his horse.