George Thesiger Major - General George Handcock Thesiger , CB , CMG ( 6 October 1868 – 27 September 1915 ) was a senior officer in the British Army during the First World War who was killed in action during the Battle of Loos by German shellfire . His career had encompassed military service in Egypt , South Africa , Ireland , British India and France and had been rewarded with membership in two chivalric orders . Early career . Thesiger was born in October 1868 into the Thesiger family , the son of Lieutenant General Charles Wemyss Thesiger and Charlotte Elizabeth Handcock . He was the middle of three children , with one older sister , Ethel Mary , and one younger brother , Gerald . He was the grandson of the politician Frederic Thesiger , 1st Baron Chelmsford and nephew of Major - General Frederic Thesiger and the judge Alfred Henry Thesiger . Thesiger was educated at Eton College before attending the Royal Military College , Sandhurst for training as an infantry officer . In 1890 , Thesiger was Gazetted into the Rifle Brigade as a junior officer aged 22 and served with his unit in England until 1898 , when the regiment was dispatched to Egypt . There the Rifle Brigade served on the Nile expedition under Horatio Kitchener during the Mahdist War and was present at the Battle of Omdurman which decided the campaign . The Rifle Brigade was then briefly stationed in Crete during operations to maintain peace between Turkish and Greek populations on the island . In October 1899 , Thesiger and the second battalion were sent for service in South Africa in the aftermath of the outbreak of the Second Boer War . There Thesiger saw action and was badly wounded during the battle at Wagon Hill during the Siege of Ladysmith on 6 January 1900 . He was mentioned in dispatches for his conduct during the engagement . Evacuated to Britain to recover from his wounds , Thesiger attended the Staff College and between 1902 and 1906 was in charge of musketry practice on Salisbury Plain , from there he moved to Ireland to work as Assistant Military Secretary to the GOC in Dublin until 1909 . From there he was assigned to colonial service as the Inspector General of the King ' s African Rifles and in 1913 was dispatched to India as a Lieutenant Colonel to command the 4th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade . In 1913 in reward for his distinguished service he was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George , and the following year was also made a Companion of the Order of the Bath . In 1902 , Thesiger married Frances Fremantle , daughter of General Fitzroy William Fremantle , and the couple had two children , daughter Oona Thesiger ( later Buckley ) and son Gerald Thesiger , who became a notable High Court Judge and minor politician . First World War . At the outbreak of the First World War , Thesiger and his men were still in India and so did not arrive in Europe until December 1914 when the campaign in France was already well advanced . In May 1915 he was promoted to ( temporary ) Brigadier - General and given command of the 2nd Infantry Brigade serving in the trenches during the spring of 1915 , where he was again mentioned in dispatches . On 27 August 1915 , due to the shortage of senior officers , Thesiger was again promoted to ( temporary ) Major - General and placed in charge of the 33rd Infantry Division , one of the new Kitchener Divisions . He was only in this position for just over a week when on 8 September 1915 he was again transferred to the 9th ( Scottish ) Division , another new division which he would command during the opening of the battle of Loos . Two days after the battle opened , Thesiger ' s division was suffering heavy casualties and reports were reaching divisional headquarters that the 73rd Infantry Brigade was on the verge of breaking . Thesiger immediately departed for the frontline to investigate the situation with his divisional staff and was touring a trench named Fosse 8 opposite the Hohenzollern Redoubt when the German artillery opened fire on the British positions . One of the first shells fired exploded directly in the trench occupied by the 26th Brigade where the party was sheltering , instantly killing Major General Thesiger and his aides Major Le Mottee and Lieutenant Burney . None of their bodies were removed from the battlefield as fighting continued for another day and consequently only Burney ' s remains were recovered — sometime later . General Thesiger ' s name is amongst the 20 , 000 recorded on the Loos Memorial to the missing .