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The Smith-Dorrien Elizabeth Cross Presentation
A reminder of the most famous Sherwood Forester and his three sons
By Major John Cotterill
On 6 June 2011 an Elizabeth Cross was presented by the Lord Lieutenant of Greater London to Mrs Carolann Smith–Dorrien
to commemorate the death in action of
her father Brigadier Peter Smith-Dorrien. This presentation was a reminder of the three remarkable sons of the most famous Sherwood Forester of them all – General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien. Although General Sir Horace is well known as the man who saved the British Army at Le Cateau in 1914 and was sacked for his pains (and who provided the driving force behind the construction of the Crich Memorial where he is commemorated) his three sons are not as well known as they deserve to be. Two of them followed their father into the Sherwood Foresters and the third was one of the few Brigadiers to be killed in action in the Second World War.
To start with the famous father,
General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien was commissioned into the 95th Derbyshire Regiment in 1876. He volunteered to serve as a staff officer in the Zulu War in 1879 and was one of the few survivors of the disaster as Isandhlwana, escaping by the skin of his teeth. Returning to the 95th (who were by now the Sherwood Foresters) he saw action in Egypt in 1882 and with the Mounted Infantry in the Sudan in 1885-6, where he won the DSO. After Staff College he served with his battalion in the Tirah expedition
of 1897 and commanded an Egyptian battalion at the Battle of Omdurman the following year. In the Second Boer War of 1899-1902 he commanded 1st Battalion
General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien
the Sherwood Foresters with such distinction that he was promoted Major General.
By 1914 General Sir Horace was commanding 2 Corps on the retreat from Mons. As a gap opened between his corps and Haig’s 1 Corps due to a lack of control by the British Army commander - General Sir John French, he decided, without orders to turn and give the pursuing Germans
a bloody nose rather than continuing to retreat. He uttered the fateful words “Very well gentlemen we will fight” on 26 August
1914. The delay he imposed on the enemy allowed the British Army to break clean
and, in the opinion of many, avoid disaster. He was promoted to command the 2nd British Army in December 1914 but his disobedience, however justified, rankled with French who had him sacked in 1915. He never uttered a word of complaint or attempted to justify his actions. After service as Governor of the Tower of London and Governor of Gibraltar he retired in 1923 and was Colonel of the Sherwood Foresters until his death in a car accident in 1930.
General Sir Horace had three sons; Grenfall born in 1904, Peter born in 1907 and David born in 1911. Grenfall joined
the KRRC as a regular officer. By 1944 he was a Brigadier commanding an infantry brigade of 56 London Division, which was fighting its way through the Gothic Line. On 13 September 1944 he was holding a “bonnet brief” stood by his jeep with his three battalion commanders in the village of Croce when the O Group was hit by German artillery fire. He was killed and now lies in Gradara CWGC Cemetery above
the Adriatic. He was one of only three Brigadiers killed in action by enemy ground forces during the Second World War.
Peter was a successful business man in London when war broke out in 1939. He joined the 5th Sherwood Foresters and saw action with them as a 33 year old Lieutenant during the Fall of France in 1940 before being evacuated through Cherbourg. After this his linguistic skills and the other qualities honed by 12 years as a businessman led to his meteoric rise through the ranks and his employment on special duties. He served in a political intelligence capacity in the invasion of Vichy French Syria in 1941 and Vichy French Madagascar in 1942.
In June 1943, Peter SMITH-DORRIEN married Cynthia Toulmin, in Cairo. A girl was born of the marriage on 13th January 1945. This was Carolann who received the Elizabeth Cross in memory of her father
on 6 June this year. By October 1943 he was an acting Colonel dealing with political and civilian affairs. The following month he was appointed to the British Military Liaison HQ to the Greek Government in Exile in Egypt. He may have had links to the Special Operations Executive (Middle East). On 1st January 1944, at the age of 37, he was appointed Brigadier (Liaison) to the Allied Military Liaison HQ to Greece. This capped a rise from 2nd Lieutenant to Brigadier in less than 5 years – particularly remarkable for a wartime commissioned officer.
Colonel Peter Smith-Dorrien and his wife in Cairo in 1943
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