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_ Henry Macandrew _
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Introduction
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Major-General Sir Henry John Milnes Macandrew, (7 August 1866 - 16
July 1919) was a British Indian Army officer who fought in the Boer
War and First World War, rising to command cavalry divisions on the
Western Front and in the Sinai and Palestine campaign.
Predominantly serving in the cavalry and also as an intelligence
officer, Macandrew fought through the Tirah campaign in India in
1897 and 1898, and then served as a staff officer during the Boer
War, participating in several battles and receiving the
Distinguished Service Order. He was given command of the 5th Bengal
Cavalry in 1914, and upon the outbreak of the First World War
travelled to France as general staff officer grade 1 of the 1st
Indian Cavalry Division. Soon afterwards he was promoted to become
brigadier-general general staff for the Indian Cavalry Corps, with
which he participated in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.
Macandrew assumed command of the 2nd Indian Cavalry Division in
1916, leading it during the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of
Cambrai with limited success. In 1918 he was given command of the
newly created 5th Cavalry Division for service in the Sinai and
Palestine campaign. He commanded the division throughout the
campaign, including at the Capture of Damascus and the Battle of
Aleppo. In the spearhead of the advance, his division travelled 600
mi in thirty-eight days. Knighted in 1919, Macandrew stayed with
the 5th Cavalry Division at Aleppo. He died of wounds he received
in an accidental explosion of petrol fumes there later in the year.
Early service
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Henry John Milnes Macandrew was born on 7 August 1866, the son of
Sir Henry Macandrew of Aisthorpe, Inverness. Macandrew was educated
at the Inverness College before he joined the British Army on 6
August 1884 as a lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion, Cameron
Highlanders. He transferred to the Lincolnshire Regiment on 10
November 1886.
Macandrew began an eighteen-month period of probationary service in
the Bengal Staff Corps on 30 March 1888, serving as a squadron
officer in the 5th Bengal Cavalry of the British Indian Army. On 22
November 1889 he was admitted to the Bengal Staff Corps as a
lieutenant, having completed his probationary period, and continued
with the 5th Bengal Cavalry. On 13 May the following year he was
appointed as the regiment's adjutant.
Macandrew served as transport officer to Brigadier-General Alfred
Gaselee's 2nd Brigade in the Tirah campaign between 1897 and 1898,
and was promoted to captain on 10 November 1897. For his service in
this campaign, Macandrew was mentioned in despatches and awarded
the India Medal with two clasps.
Boer War
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Macandrew continued serving in India until 1900 when he was
transferred to South Africa to fight in the Boer War. From February
he operated in the Orange Free State with Kitchener's Horse. He was
present at the Battle of Paardeberg between 17 and 26 February, the
Battle of Poplar Grove on 7 March, and the Battle of Driefontein on
10 March. After several other skirmishes, Macandrew moved to serve
in the Transvaal in May, seeing action at the Battle of Doornkop on
29 May and being present at the occupation of Pretoria on 4 June.
Macandrew was subsequently appointed intelligence officer on the
Delagoa line, east of Pretoria, in July, in which role he continued
until September. At this stage he was assigned as the deputy
assistant adjutant-general intelligence (DAAGI) to Major-General
Ralph Arthur Penrhyn Clements's column, serving in the Transvaal
and to the west of Pretoria. On 29 November Macandrew was awarded
the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) "in recognition of services
during the operations in South Africa"; he continued as DAAGI into
1901, moving in February to serve Major-General Neville Lyttelton
in the same position.
Having served in operations in the Transvaal, Orange River Colony,
and Cape Colony, Macandrew was then promoted to serve Major-General
Bruce Hamilton as DAAGI army headquarters staff in May. He stayed
in this role until the end of the war, relinquishing his position
on 31 May 1902. For his services in the Boer War, Macandrew
received the Queen's South Africa Medal with four clasps, the
King's South Africa Medal with two clasps, and was mentioned in
despatches a further two times. He travelled to England where, on
24 October, Edward VII presented him with his DSO.
Return to India
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Macandrew's lengthy service as a staff officer during the Boer War
led him to be considered qualified for formal staff employment
after his return to India. On 2 May 1903, he was appointed a
station staff officer, 1st class, but he stayed in this position
for only a short while. He was instead appointed brigade major to
the Inspector-General of Cavalry in India, Major-General Douglas
Haig, on 16 November. Haig chose Macandrew because he had worked
with him in the Boer War and been impressed by his intelligence
work. The appointment was meant to be for only one year, but Haig
had Macandrew stay on until 1905. He was promoted to major on 10
November 1904.
After his appointment with Haig ended, Macandrew continued on as a
staff officer, becoming a deputy assistant quartermaster-general at
Headquarters, India, on 6 January 1906. Still with the 5th Bengal
Cavalry, Macandrew was subsequently promoted to lieutenant-colonel
on 10 November 1912 and assumed command of the regiment on 16
February 1914.
Staff work
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When the First World War began in the summer of 1914, Macandrew was
assigned to serve on the Western Front in France as a general staff
officer, grade 1 (GSO1) to Major-General Michael Rimington,
commander of the 1st Indian Cavalry Division. They arrived on 7
November and subsequently the Indian Cavalry Corps was formed on 18
December, with Rimington in command. He brought Macandrew, who was
promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general at the same
time, with him as his brigadier general, general staff (BGGS),
essentially his chief of staff, of the corps. In April 1915
Macandrew visited Haig, who was now a full general and in command
of the First Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), at his
headquarters; Macandrew criticised how his cavalry had been
utilised during the recent Battle of Neuve Chapelle and disagreed
with the view of other staff officers that the war would continue
and be won through trench warfare. He believed that the ability to
correctly utilise cavalry was a key facet to any successful general
officer.
Macandrew's position as a brigadier general was a temporary rank,
and he was still a substantive lieutenant colonel, until he was
promoted to brevet colonel on 3 June. The historian Simon Robbins
argues that Macandrew's staff work for the corps was sub-par, with
his requirement that all orders to divisions be personally approved
by him stifling initiative and creating backlogs. The historian
George Morton-Jack says that his work improved, and he succeeded in
creating an operational headquarters for the corps after an
"uncertain start".
Command
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Macandrew fell out with Rimington in September and left his staff
on 8 October. He thus relinquished his temporary rank of brigadier
general, reverting to his brevet colonelcy. Macandrew was still
well thought of by Haig, and the latter quickly appointed him to a
new command. On 16 November, he was re-promoted to temporary
brigadier general and given the 9th (Sirhind) Brigade, replacing
Major General William Walker after his promotion. He stayed with
the 9th only briefly, moving to the 53rd Infantry Brigade on 28
November. This brigade, part of the 18th (Eastern) Division, did
not participate in any battles during Macandrew's command.
Macandrew left the 53rd Brigade on 27 April 1916. He was promoted
to temporary major general on 7 May, and given command of the 2nd
Indian Cavalry Division at the behest of Haig, now commanding the
entire BEF. The division contained the 3rd (Ambala) Cavalry
Brigade, the 9th (Secunderabad) Cavalry Brigade and the Canadian
Cavalry Brigade. Each brigade was made up of four cavalry
regiments.
The Somme
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Macandrew participated in the Battle of the Somme in July; his
division was tasked by Fourth Army to advance through any gaps
created by its advance beginning on 1 July. Little occurred for the
cavalry in the next two weeks, before a push from Fourth Army on 14
July opened a route for the strategically important High Wood to be
taken. In mid-morning, Macandrew took his division forward to
capture High Wood, but the ground was too slippery and Macandrew
fell twice during the advance. It was called off and infantry were
brought in to make the attack instead.
The military historian Richard Holmes argues that the terrain
issues have been overstated at High Wood. He ascribes the failure
to poor communication at corps and army level, resulting in
Macandrew's force being sent in too late to be effective, and a
lack of brigade and divisional initiative which could have overcome
it. On 7 September the Cavalry Corps was re-established in France
and all the cavalry divisions were put under its orders. As this
occurred, Macandrew's division was renamed the 5th Cavalry
Division.
Macandrew was promoted to substantive major-general on 1 January
1917. The Germans began to retreat to the Hindenburg Line in March,
with the British following up behind them. The cavalry were very
active in the advance, with Haig particularly praising an action of
one of Macandrew's squadrons where, on 27 March, it drove the
Germans out of Villers-Faucon and several surrounding villages.
With the retreat having come to a halt, by June the 5th Cavalry
Division had returned to trench warfare, based around Le Verguier.
The obstacles put up by it were complimented by Lieutenant-General
Sir William Pulteney, commander of III Corps, as the best he had
seen in the country. In October the division travelled into Belgium
to take part in the Battle of Passchendaele but was not used.
Cambrai
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Macandrew's division next saw action on 20 November, with the start
of the Battle of Cambrai. The cavalry divisions were expected to
break through gaps in the German line caused by attacking British
infantry and tanks. The 5th Cavalry Division was allotted to cross
the Dunkirk-Scheldt Canal at Masnieres and Marcoing to capture
river crossings over the Sensée near Paillencourt. By the afternoon
Macandrew's brigades had reached both Masnieres and Marcoing, and
small parts of the division succeeded in crossing the canal.
Difficulties arose when parts of the attacking force failed to push
the Germans back. Logistically cumbersome, the cavalry was unable
to divert to other areas where gaps in the line had been made. The
5th Cavalry Division stayed near the canal overnight and in the
afternoon of 21 November again attempted to make crossings. These
were broken up by German counter-attacks and in the morning of 22
November the division was withdrawn to Fins.
The advance was called off on 27 November, although the cavalry saw
further service defending against the subsequent German
counter-attack. On 30 November, Macandrew's division returned to
Villers-Faucon, near where the Germans had attacked and retaken
Gauche Wood. Macandrew worked with the Guards Division and tank
support to push the Germans back out of the heavily defended wood,
succeeding on 1 December; it was intended to capture
Villers-Guislain beyond the wood as well, but this was not done
because of the heavy German defences around it, and the British
instead fortified Gauche Wood.
Macandrew, who had observed the 1st Cavalry Division as it failed
to break through during the earlier British advance, wrote a report
to Haig criticising the communications between the different
British units in the attack, and identified a lack of "vigour and
determination" in the cavalry brigade and regimental commanders.
Haig agreed with Macandrew's assessment. On 1 January 1918
Macandrew was created a Companion of the Order of the Bath.
Divisional reforms
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At conferences towards the end of 1917, Britain's Prime Minister
David Lloyd George, influenced by the failure at Cambrai, argued
that the continued use of cavalry on the Western Front was useless,
and that the cavalrymen would be of more use in other roles.
Internal army politics made it impossible for any cavalry division
to be outright disbanded, and instead on 13 January 1918 Haig was
ordered to send all his Indian cavalry to Palestine in return for
yeomanry that could be converted into machine gunners.
Simultaneous with this, Haig was reviewing the cavalry generals in
the army and on 15 January the commander of the Cavalry Corps,
Lieutenant-General Charles Kavanagh, requested that Macandrew stay
on the Western Front as commander of the 1st Cavalry Division
instead of going with his men to Palestine. When the German spring
offensive began in March, the commander of 1st Cavalry Division,
Major-General Richard Mullens, who Macandrew had been expected to
replace, did well enough that Haig decided not to fire him. As
such, in the same month, Macandrew travelled to Palestine with the
Indian portion of his division and the 1st Indian Cavalry Division,
which had since been renamed 4th Cavalry Division.
Palestine campaign
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Joining the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) for service in the
Sinai and Palestine campaign, Macandrew was initially going to take
over command of the Yeomanry Mounted Division as the previous
commander was forming the new XXIV Corps. On 29 March, the nascent
corps was dissolved and Macandrew's orders for the Yeomanry
Mounted Division were cancelled on 9 April.
Macandrew's men were used to form the new 1st and 2nd Mounted
Divisions, and he instead took command of the latter on 31 May. In
an attempt to continue the legacy of the Indian cavalry from the
Western Front, on 23 July the two divisions were respectively
renamed the 4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions. Macandrew's new division
consisted of the 13th and 14th Indian Cavalry Brigades and the 15th
(Imperial Service) Cavalry Brigade.
Jordan Valley
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The 5th Cavalry Division joined the Desert Mounted Corps (DMC) on 2
July. It then participated in the occupation of the Jordan Valley.
Macandrew, whose units were all equipped as traditional cavalry,
ordered his patrols to always charge upon sighting Ottoman Empire
soldiers. This had a negative effect on desertion rates amongst
Ottoman soldiers because they were too scared of Macandrew's
lancers to attempt to surrender to them.
A joint Ottoman-German force attacked a weak point of the British
line in the Jordan Valley on 14 July at the Battle of Abu Tellul,
being defeated by a counter-charge by the ANZAC Mounted Division.
While this attack was ongoing an Ottoman force of 1,200 cavalry
made contact with two of Macandrew's regiments, based between
Ghoraniyeh and the Dead Sea. With the British on the other side of
the River Jordan to the Turkish force, Brigadier-General Cyril
Harbord of the 15th suggested to Macandrew that his two regiments,
the Mysore and Jodhpore Lancers, could attack the Ottomans in a
pair of flanking manoeuvres. This Macandrew agreed to.
The Jodhpores crossed the Jordan at El Hinu to the south of the
Ottoman force while the Mysores did similarly to the north.
Supported by machine gun fire, both regiments charged portions of
the Ottoman force in the scrubland around the river. Over thirty
Turkish soldiers were killed in the charges with more captured
before the two Indian regiments withdrew, exhausted by the mid-day
heat. The Ottomans afterwards entrenched themselves along the
crossings of the river, but a portion of the 34th Poona Horse came
up as reinforcements and charged across a ford, forcing the
Ottomans to abandon their positions and ending the Battle of El
Hinu. The three Indian regiments killed around ninety Turkish
soldiers and took a further ninety-two prisoner, receiving in turn
eighty-one casualties.
Battle of Sharon
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General Sir Edmund Allenby, the commander-in-chief of the EEF,
began in July to plan to destroy the Ottoman Army Group F which
faced him in the Battle of Megiddo. XXI Corps was assigned to break
through the Ottoman defences around Sharon plain, which would allow
Macandrew's and two other divisions to charge into the flat terrain
beyond the defences and cut off the line of retreat of the Turkish
Seventh and Eighth Armies. To avoid alarming Ottoman intelligence,
the cavalry divisions formed up in secret behind XXI Corps, only
moving at night as they took their positions. By 17 September,
Macandrew's division was in place, hiding in an orange grove 8 mi
behind the front line. Macandrew's force was to advance behind the
attack of the 60th (2/2nd London) Division, attacking along the
coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and he spent the night sleeping at
the headquarters of Major-General John Shea, who commanded the 60th
and had served with Macandrew in the Indian cavalry.
XXI Corps' attack began in the night of 18 September. The push
forward was highly successful, with 60th Division capturing Tulkarm
in the early evening on 19 September. Macandrew's division had
passed through the Turkish lines in the morning and ran along the
beaches, hidden from Turkish fire by the cliffs. At around mid-day
the division began to engage Turkish defences as it charged across
Sharon plain; by 3 p.m. it had reached Liktera. The division rested
there for several hours while preparing to move on to fight the
pre-planned Battle of Nazareth in which elements of the division
were to make a raid on and then capture Nazareth. This was the
headquarters of the Ottoman commander-in-chief, General Otto Liman
von Sanders, with the goal of the attack being his capture. Slowed
by poor guides and long searches of small villages, the 13th
Brigade sent to Nazareth attacked only in the early morning of 20
September. It captured 1,200 Ottoman soldiers before it was forced
to withdraw; Macandrew was unable to send reinforcements because
his horses were too exhausted. Liman remained uncaptured, escaping
from Nazareth around an hour after Macandrew had ordered the
withdrawal of his force.
Macandrew's commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Chauvel, was
highly disappointed to not have captured Liman, although his
headquarters and communications had been almost completely
destroyed. Macandrew heightened this disappointment by arriving to
a meeting with Chauvel in Liman's staff car, only to announce that
Liman was not in it. Allenby later on removed the direct commander
of the operation, Brigadier-General Philip Kelly, from his command
because of the failure to capture Liman. Allenby decided on 22
September that the DMC would take Damascus, but to do this the port
of Haifa had to be taken to allow supplies to be landed for the
army. The 5th Cavalry Division was tasked with this, and to capture
Acre 10 mi further on. In the morning of 23 September Macandrew
ordered the 13th Brigade to capture Acre, which was done without
difficulty. 15th Brigade was tasked with the attack on Haifa, with
the 14th in reserve. The main attack on Haifa, orchestrated by
Harbord, began at 2 p.m. in concert with two flanking attacks.
Supported by machine gun fire, the cavalry squadrons completed the
attack by 3 p.m. having captured 687 German and Ottoman soldiers.
Capture of Damascus
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With around 40,000 enemy soldiers retreating between Haifa and
Damascus, the rate of the advance was increased by Allenby in order
to ensure that German and Turkish soldiers did not reform and
provide effective resistance to the British. Macandrew's division
was tasked with advancing on the most direct route to Damascus,
through the Golan Heights, following behind the Australian Mounted
Division (Ausdiv). The enemy units in front of them were the
remnants of Seventh and Eighth Armies. Having begun on 27
September, the 5th and Ausdiv reached Quneitra on 28 September. The
advance continued and on 30 September Macandrew's 14th Brigade
encountered an Ottoman column near Al-Kiswah; it captured the front
half of the column, around 2,000 men. The rear half of the column
turned around but was intercepted by the 13th and 15th Brigades,
which captured much of the rest and funnelled the survivors in the
direction of Ausdiv.
The DMC completed the encirclement of Damascus on 1 October, and
Chauvel ordered that the city was not to be entered until 2
October. Macandrew entered Damascus in mid-morning on 1 October
alongside the 14th Brigade and marched the length of the city.
Chauvel assumed temporary command of the city on 2 October and
Macandrew ordered his staff to not mention the incursion of the
previous day. The British subsequently organised a show of force,
with a column consisting of one unit from each regiment in the DMC
marching through the city. Chauvel headed the column, alongside
Macandrew and Major-Generals George Barrow and Henry Hodgson. This
calmed the agitated local population and stopped some incipient
looting.
The advance through Ottoman territory continued after this, with
the 5th Cavalry Division marching on 5 October. Travelling slowly
in the knowledge that the Ottoman armies had already left the area,
Macandrew occupied Rayak and Zahle on 6 October without resistance.
The division then began to advance on Homs, with Macandrew
splitting his division into two columns. They reached the city on
16 October to find it also bereft of defences, and Macandrew was
given a banquet by the local authorities. Illness had by this point
begun to take a heavy toll on Allenby's troops, with the division
following up behind Macandrew, the 4th Cavalry, having to stop its
advance because of the amount of disease in its ranks. 5th Division
was the healthiest remaining. With horse artillery, armoured cars,
and a Royal Air Force squadron also under his command, this meant
that Macandrew commanded the strongest column available to the
British, with 2,500 men.
Pursuit to Haritan
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Macandrew was given the task of capturing Aleppo, as part of the
Pursuit to Haritan. On 20 October Chauvel, worried that the
defending force at Aleppo would be too strong for Macandrew,
ordered him to halt his advance. Macandrew responded "Not
understood" and continued on, receiving the support of Allenby to
do so. He sent his armoured cars forward first, leaving Homs the
same day as Chauvel's order.
Having pushed the Ottoman rearguard away on 22 October, Macandrew
sent a request for surrender to Aleppo on the following day.
Mustafa Kemal Pasha, the commander, declined, saying he did not
"find it necessary to reply to your note". Macandrew overestimated
the condition of the Aleppo walls and defences, which had been
maintained poorly, and chose to surround the city with his force
rather than directly assault it. The 15th Brigade caught up with
the armoured cars on 25 October, but on the same day the allied
Arab force of Prince Faisal entered Aleppo and pushed the Ottomans
out, completing the Battle of Aleppo. Macandrew entered Aleppo in
the morning of 26 October, the same date he had planned to begin
his own attack.
On 26 October, the 15th Brigade advanced north to Haritan and
encountered a force of Ottoman soldiers that outnumbered them, with
around 3,400 men to Harbord's 500 from two understrength regiments.
Harbord attacked in the Charge at Haritan and was repulsed.
Macandrew relieved the 15th with the 14th Brigade on 27 October,
and the Ottoman force fell back to a strong defensive position with
around 7,000 men, outnumbering Macandrew's immediate force around
seven to one. The same day Ausdiv was ordered to reinforce
Macandrew and he settled to observe the enemy force until it
arrived. Before Ausdiv could complete its march the Armistice of
Mudros was signed on 31 October and hostilities ended. This
completed a campaign in which the 5th Cavalry Division had covered
around 600 mi in thirty-eight days.
Post-war and death
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Macandrew was mentioned in despatches several times for his
services during the First World War, bringing his total number of
mentions to eight. He also received the Order of the Nile from the
Sultanate of Egypt and was appointed colonel of the regiment to his
old unit, the 5th Bengal Cavalry, on 13 March 1919. Soon after
this, on 3 June, he was created a Knight Commander of the Order of
the Bath. He continued with his division through this period,
stationed at Aleppo. He was troubled by the increasing number of
cases of malaria and influenza in his unit and was himself weakened
by sickness. In early July he was smoking a cigarette in his
pyjamas when he entered a room where his uniform tunic was hanging
to dry, having been recently cleaned with petrol. The burning
cigarette ignited the petrol vapours, which exploded, severely
burning Macandrew.
Macandrew was taken to hospital, and while undergoing treatment for
his burns, died of heart failure on 16 July. He was buried in the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Beirut War Cemetery. The
military historian Cyril Falls describes Macandrew as a vigorous
and headstrong commander, arguing that at the time of his death he
had "lived to see his theories and the results of his life's work
put into practice, and left behind him a record of achievement
hardly equalled by any cavalryman of modern times".
An American cavalry officer attached as an observer to the British
Army in Palestine and Syria, Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Davis, later
opined that Macandrew was "very unassuming, with an easy, genial,
and most friendly manner ... that a very bold spirit lay behind
his placid, friendly manner was proved by the Aleppo operations".
Morton-Jack suggests that if Macandrew had not died prematurely his
good war record would have seen him go on to hold more senior
appointments within the British Indian Army, as other cavalry
officers such as Barrow and Douglas Baird did, both eventually
reaching the rank of general. Macandrew's insignia of the Order of
the Bath was presented by George V to his daughter Esther Macandrew
on 4 December 1919.
Personal life
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Macandrew married Esther Cooper in a ceremony officiated by George
James Cowley-Brown at St John's, Edinburgh on 9 August 1892. She
was the youngest daughter of Henry Ritchie Cooper, a justice of the
peace from Ballindalloch, Stirlingshire. Together the couple had
one son and one daughter. Macandrew, who lived in Aisthorpe, was an
enthusiastic horse rider in his spare time, riding both
cross-country and on the flat. He was a member of the Cavalry Club.
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