Charles Blackader Major - General Charles Guinand Blackader CB , DSO ( 20 September 1869 – 2 April 1921 ) was a British Army officer of the First World War . He commanded an Indian brigade on the Western Front in 1915 , and a Territorial brigade in Dublin during the Easter Rising of 1916 , before being appointed to command the 38th ( Welsh ) Division on the Western Front , a position he held until retiring due to ill - health in May 1918 . Originally joining the Army in 1888 as a junior officer in the Leicestershire Regiment , Blackader ' s first active posting was in the late 1890s , when he served on attachment to the West African Frontier Force , closely followed by service during the Boer War , where he commanded a company at the defence of Ladysmith . An efficient and well - regarded administrator , he commanded a series of detached stations in addition to his regimental duties for the next ten years , eventually rising to take command of the 2nd Battalion , Leicestershire Regiment , in 1912 . On the outbreak of the First World War , he commanded his battalion on the Western Front as part of an Indian Army formation ; when his superior officer was promoted in early 1915 , Blackader succeeded him as commander of the brigade , and led it through the Battle of Neuve Chapelle and the Battle of Loos . After the Indian Army was withdrawn from France , Blackader was posted to a second - line Territorial Force brigade training in the United Kingdom . In 1916 , it was sent to Dublin during the Easter Rising ; following the Rising , Blackader presided over a number of the resulting courts - martial , including those of several of the signatories to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic . Later that year , he was ordered to France to take over command of the 38th ( Welsh ) Division , a New Army formation which had suffered heavy losses in the Battle of the Somme . He remained with the division for almost two years , helping retrain and reorganise it as an efficient fighting unit . The division would see significant successes in the Hundred Days Offensive of late 1918 , but by this point Blackader was no longer in command ; he had been invalided home earlier in the year . He died shortly after the war , in 1921 , aged 51 . Early life . Charles Guinand Blackader was born in Richmond , Surrey on 20 September 1869 . His father , Charles George Blackader , was a teacher to a small number of boarding pupils ; he had come from an Army family , and taught at Cheltenham College and Clifton College , Bristol , before moving to private tuition . His mother , Charlotte Guinand , was born in Germany ; her family may have come from Alsace - Lorraine , as Blackader would later describe himself as half - French . During his childhood , the Blackaders moved from Richmond to Southampton , where his father headed the education department at the Hartley Institute , and then to Boulogne , where he taught at Beaurepaire School . Returning from France in 1887 , Blackader studied at the Royal Military College , Sandhurst , where he was regarded as a generally promising pupil ; his marks were highest in administrative and academic subjects , but lower in drawing and physical education . He left Sandhurst in August 1888 , and joined the 1st Battalion , Leicestershire Regiment , as a second lieutenant . The battalion sailed for a posting in Bermuda two weeks after his arrival ; his departure was delayed , however , by remaining in London to marry . The ceremony took place on 2 October , at a registry office in Marylebone , and his biographer notes that it was " clearly in haste " - their first child was born six and a half months after the wedding . Such an early wedding was very unusual for a junior officer at this period ; on average , army officers did not marry until their mid - thirties . Blackader and his wife spent a year and a half in Bermuda , where their daughter Dorothy was born in April 1889 , and moved to Nova Scotia when the battalion was transferred there in 1890 ; shortly after arrival , on 21 March , he was promoted to lieutenant on 21 March . Their second daughter Joan was born in April 1892 , and a year later the battalion transferred again , this time to the West Indies ; Blackader was appointed adjutant - the officer responsible for administration - to one wing of the battalion , a force of three companies stationed at Jamaica . In late 1895 , the battalion moved to South Africa , but shortly after arrival Blackader returned to England ; he was promoted to captain in December . West Africa and the Boer War . In late 1897 , Blackader was seconded for service in West Africa , as one of the officers recruited by Frederick Lugard for the newly raised West African Frontier Force . Blackader was attached to the 1st Battalion , under Thomas Pilcher , who described him as always " cheery and anxious to do his work " ; he threw himself fully into the organisation of the force , and within six months of his arrival the battalion was able to be deployed successfully on operations against local slave - traders . This was Blackader ' s first active service , and saw his first mention in despatches ; it also saw an early appearance of his skill for administration and management , which would mark much of his later career . He left West Africa in January 1899 , after a successful posting , but in ill - health ; a third of the officers sent with him had died while on secondment , and Blackader had contracted malaria as well as suffering an attack of dysentery . He spent six months on leave to recover , and then sailed to take command of a company of the 1st Leicesters , still stationed in South Africa . Blackader joined his company in Natal in early October 1899 . It saw action with the battalion within a few days of the outbreak of the Second Boer War , at the Battle of Talana Hill on the 20th October , and again at the Battle of Ladysmith on the 30th . Boer forces surrounded Ladysmith after the battle , and began a four - month siege . The battalion remained in the town , with the monotony broken by an occasional skirmish with the besiegers , until the relief column arrived at the end of February . Following the advance into Natal , they were stationed in Middelburg in October , for a second prolonged period of garrison duty broken by occasional raids . The battalion ' s area of responsibility was extended in April 1901 to take in Witbank , and Blackader was appointed commandant of the railway station and its associated collieries , with over 1 , 500 staff . Following the battalion ' s move up the railway line in July , Blackader was transferred to a new post at Balmoral ; as well as the railway station , he was made responsible for a civilian concentration camp outside the town . These camps were frequently crowded , unhealthy , and badly supplied ; few reports have survived on the Balmoral camp , however , and it is not clear how efficient or otherwise Blackader ' s administration was . Blackader had applied for a home posting in December 1900 , as adjutant to a battalion of volunteers ; this had been approved in August 1901 , subject to his being released from duties in South Africa . However , the transfer was delayed , and he did not leave for home until June 1902 , when he sailed with troops returning for the Coronation of Edward VII . He had been twice mentioned in despatches during the war , and awarded the Distinguished Service Order . Home service and India . In August 1902 , Blackader took up his appointment as adjutant of the 1st Volunteer Battalion , Leicestershire Regiment , where he would spend the next two years . This was primarily an administrative post - he was the senior regular officer attached to the battalion , and responsible for its organisation and training . At the end of his tenure he was promoted to major in September 1904 , and left for India a few months later to join the regular 1st Battalion . Shortly after his arrival , he was appointed to command the cantonment at the Purandhar Sanatorium , his fourth administrative posting in five years . He returned to England with the battalion at the end of 1906 , when it moved into camp at Shorncliffe . In the summer of 1907 , he applied to become Chief Constable of Leicester - a move which would have meant leaving the Army - but did not succeed ; the job went to John Hall - Dalwood , a lawyer and ex - Army officer who had made a career in the police . He settled into the undemanding life of a home posting , with an active social as well as sporting calendar ; he and Edward Challenor , a fellow officer in the battalion , won the garrison tennis cup two years running , and Blackader was recorded to have made a good showing at sports as diverse as billiards and soccer . Blackader had passed the exams for " tactical fitness for command " of a battalion in 1908 , and was given command of a battalion and promoted to lieutenant colonel in September 1912 . First World War . In August 1914 , on the outbreak of the First World War , Blackader was in India , commanding the 2nd Battalion of the Leicesters , which was mobilised for service as part of the Garhwal Brigade of the 7th ( Meerut ) Division . The division was sent to France as part of Indian Expeditionary Force A , seeing its first action in the trenches on 29 October . On 19 December a force under Blackader ' s command staged a successful attack on the German trenches , though the attack was overshadowed by the beginning of the German attack on Givenchy the following day , through which the Leicesters remained in reserve . Garhwal Brigade . Brigadier Keary , commanding the Garhwals , was promoted to command the Lahore Division in January 1915 , and on 8 January Blackader was given the temporary rank of Brigadier - General , assuming command of the Garhwal Brigade in his stead . The Garhwals led the first wave of the Indian Corps ' attack at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle on 10 March , Three of the attacking battalions reached their objectives , but one was delayed by strong resistance ; after clearing the last German trenches , the brigade halted to let the second wave pass through . In the attack , two men were awarded the Victoria Cross , and nine the Indian Order of Merit , and Blackader was commended by his corps commander , General Willcocks , who wrote that " I had learned to respect him and to trust in his judgement . The manner in which he handled his brigade at Neuve Chapelle was good to see , and his report . . . is written as brave and modest men write " . His force had taken heavy losses , however ; the trailing battalion on the flank , the 2 / 39th Garhwal Rifles , lost over half its men and all its officers . The brigade repulsed a heavy attack on the morning of 12 March , but settled into a relatively static position thereafter . On 9 May , the Garhwal Brigade was used as a second wave in the first attacks of the Battle of Aubers Ridge , without success ; they saw action again on the night of 15 May , where the leading battalions met heavy resistance and Blackader was forced to call off the attack . After Aubers Ridge , the corps was then rested in a quiet sector until September , when it deployed for the Battle of Loos . The initial attack was to be made by three divisions , with the Meerut Division leading the attack on the Indian front ; Blackader ' s brigade , with two Gurkha battalions and the 2nd Leicesters , was on its right flank . Whilst the attack successfully crossed no - man ' s land under cover of the barrage , the right flank of the brigade was caught up in defensive wire , and only one battalion successfully made their way into the German trenches ; the brigade lost momentum and dug in . The Indian Corps was withdrawn after Loos , and as a result this was Blackader ' s last major action in command of Indian troops ; by the end of November , the Meerut Division had left France . Ireland . He was transferred to command 177th Brigade of 59th ( 2nd North Midland ) Division in January 1916 . The 59th was a second - line Territorial Force division , formed from those Territorials and new volunteers who had not volunteered for overseas service . As a result , it was generally undermanned and underequipped , with priority given to equipping its first - line counterpart , and tasked mostly with home defence duties . The 177th Brigade had been formed as the duplicate of the Lincoln and Leicester Brigade , with two second - line battalions of the Lincolnshire Regiment and two of the Leicestershire Regiment . The 59th Division was rushed to Ireland in response to the Easter Rising of April 1916 , where Blackader ' s new brigade saw its first active service . Following the Rising , many of those believed by the British authorities to be responsible were tried by military courts ; ninety were sentenced to death , of whom fifteen were eventually executed . Blackader , as a senior officer , chaired a number of courts - martial , including those of Éamonn Ceannt , Thomas Clarke , Thomas MacDonagh , Patrick Pearse , and Joseph Plunkett , five of the seven signatories to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic . It appears that Blackader found this task difficult ; after Pearse ' s trial , he is reported to have commented that " I have just done one of the hardest tasks I have ever had to do . I have had to condemn to death one of the finest characters I have ever come across . There must be something very wrong in the state of things that makes a man like that a rebel . I don ' t wonder that his pupils adored him . " 38th ( Welsh ) Division . On 21 June , Blackader was ordered to leave the brigade and go to France ; he described the news of the unexpected posting as " like a bombshell " . On 9 July , when the " ignorant " Ivor Philipps was removed from command of 38th ( Welsh ) Division , which had failed in an attack in the early stages of the Battle of the Somme , Blackader was named as the preferred replacement by Henry Horne , the corps commander . He was overruled , however , with the command temporarily given to Herbert Watts , an experienced divisional commander . Under Watts , the division successfully took its objective , Mametz Wood , though with severe losses ; within a week , Watts was back in command of 7th Division and Blackader had taken permanent command . The division had been raised in the New Armies in 1914 with a strong sense of Liberal patronage , and many of its officers had been personally appointed by Lloyd George ; as a result , political convenience had often taken priority over military competence when selecting officers . Under Blackader , a new officer from outside the Welsh Liberal milieu and able to sack his subordinates as he saw fit , the division ' s standard improved significantly . It saw service at Pilckem Ridge in the early stages of the Third Battle of Ypres , but from September 1917 onwards it was kept on relatively quiet defensive sectors . The division trained through this period , and in April 1918 was able to mount a limited brigade - size attack , which whilst it involved heavy losses was a clear success in a way that would not have been possible two years earlier . In late May 1918 , Blackader was relieved of command and replaced by Thomas Cubitt , a younger officer . This was not apparently due to incompetence or age – Douglas Haig had described Blackader ' s achievements with 38th Division as " excellent " – but due to illness ; according to Gary Sheffield , he had fallen ill after " being licked by a rabid dog " . Under Cubitt ' s command , the 38th Division would build on its past training and fight through the Hundred Days Offensive with great success . In November 1918 , Blackader was appointed to command the Southern District in Ireland . For his service in the war , he was appointed an aide - de - camp to the King in 1916 , and made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1917 . He was also made a Commander of the Belgian Order of Leopold , and awarded both the Belgian and French Croix de Guerre . Blackader died on 2 April 1921 , at Queen Alexandra ' s Military Hospital , Millbank , survived by his wife and two daughters , and leaving a small estate of just under £450 . There is a memorial to him in the regimental chapel in Leicester Cathedral .