William Forbes Gatacre

Sir William Forbes Gatacre KCB, DSO ( born December 3, 1843 in Herbert Shire Castle in Stirling, † January 18, 1906 near Gambella, Ethiopia ) was a British lieutenant-general. He fought in several British colonial wars, for example in the quelling of the Mahdi rebellion and the Boer War.

Life

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

When in 1898 the Anglo- Egyptian Nile Expeditionary Force was put down under Kitchener in their attempt the Mahdi uprising attacked by the Mahdists asked Evelyn Baring this, 1st Earl of Cromer to support a British brigade. The British government then draws together a brigade of troops of 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, at the Battle of Atbara. In July 1898 another British brigade was moved to the Sudan. The two brigades were the British Division increased with Gatacre as division commander. Gatacre commanded the division on September 2, 1898 in the Battle of Omdurman, in which the Mahdists were defeated.

From 1899 to 1902 Gatacre participated as a lieutenant general and commander of the 3rd Division at the Boer War. In December 1899 he was given the task of securing the south of the Orange Free State with his division the area. Gatacre but had to send troops into the also threatened by the Boers Natal. He therefore reached his application late and with reduced troop strength. Meanwhile, the Boers had already attacked from the Orange Free State the important railway junctions De Aar and Stormberg. Gatacre defeated the Boers on 10 December 1899 in the Battle of Stormberg.