Lancers. In the South African War he rose to be Military Secretary to Lord Kitchener, then Commander-in-Chief. In 1902 he was Assistant Military Secretary to the Commander-in-Chief in India, and three years later was again Lord Kitchener's Military Secretary. In 1909 he commanded a Brigade on the Indian Frontier. In 1912 he was Quartermaster-General in India, and later Secretary to the Government of India, Army Department, and Member of the Viceroy's Legislative Council.

He has seen many campaigns besides the present. Apart from South Africa he served in the Hazara Expedition of 1891, the Isazai Expedition of 1892, and the Tirah Campaign of 1897-98. In South Africa he was severely wounded, and five times mentioned in despatches. In 1908 he was the Chief Staff officer of the Mohmand Expedition.

In the present war he has won an almost legendary fame as Commander of the Anzac Corps. From that April day when they landed on the beaches above Gaba Tepe he was the inspiration of one of the hardest fought campaigns in all history. Wholly free from formality and red tape, and willing to find in every soldier a man and a brother, he could yet maintain a perfect battle discipline and keep the hearts of his men steady under the most desperate conditions. To his cool brain, also, were due[33]
[34]
[35] many of the details of the brilliant withdrawal from the Peninsula, which he carried out as Commander of the Dardanelles Army.

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR WILLIAM BIRDWOOD

The Anzac record on the Somme was equal to their record at Gallipoli. The capture of Pozières and Mouquet Farm was an Australian achievement, and Flers fell to the New Zealanders. Since then, both in the German Retreat and in the later stages of the Battle of Arras (especially in the Hindenburg line at Bullecourt), they have shown the same fury and steadiness in attack. An observer with them on the Somme has thus described their behaviour:

"Hour after hour, day and night, with increasing intensity as the time went on, the enemy rained heavy shell into the area. Now he would send them crashing in on a line south of the road—eight heavy shells at a time, minute after minute, followed by a burst of shrapnel. Now he would place a curtain straight across this valley or that till the sky and landscape were blotted out, except for fleeting glimpses seen as through a lift of fog.... Day and night the men worked through it, fighting the horrid machinery far over the horizon as if they were fighting Germans hand to hand; building up whatever it battered down; buried some of them, not once, but again and again and again. What is a barrage against such troops? They went through it as you would go through a summer shower, too proud to bend their heads, many of them, because their mates were looking. I am telling you of things I have seen. As one of the best of their officers said to me: 'I have to walk about as if I liked it; what else can you do when your own men teach you to?'"

VIII
GENERAL THE HON. SIR JULIAN HEDWORTH GEORGE BYNG, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., M.V.O.

SIR JULIAN BYNG was born on September 11th, 1862, the seventh son of the second Earl of Strafford. He joined the 10th Hussars in 1883, and served in the Soudan Expedition of 1884, being present at the actions of El Teb and Tamai. In South Africa he commanded a column with great distinction in the pursuit of De Wet, and finished the campaign with the rank of Colonel. One of his most successful actions was on the Vlei River, west of Reitz, where he surprised a Boer Commando and took a 15-pounder, two pom-poms, and many prisoners.

He landed in Belgium in October, 1914, in command of the 3rd Cavalry Division. He accompanied Rawlinson's 7th Division in its retreat from Antwerp to Ypres. The doings of the famous 3rd Cavalry Division are writ large in history, and in all the great drama of Ypres there was no finer incident than the charge of the Household Brigade at Klein Zillebeke on November 6th, 1914.

In May, 1915, General Byng succeeded General Allenby in command of the Cavalry Corps, and was responsible for the cavalry fighting in the later part of the Second Battle of Ypres. In August of that year he went to the Dardanelles to take over the command of the IX Corps, and was present during the later stages of that campaign and the famous withdrawal from the peninsula. In February, 1916, he returned to France to command the XVII Corps, and was transferred to the Canadian Corps on May 24th.