Edward Fanshawe ( British Army officer ) Lieutenant - General Sir Edward Arthur Fanshawe KCB ( 4 April 1859 – 13 November 1952 ) was a British Army general of the First World War , who commanded the 11th ( Northern ) Division at Gallipoli and the V Corps on the Western Front during the Battle of the Somme , the Third Battle of Ypres , and the 1918 Spring Offensive . He was the second eldest of four brothers Henry Leighton Fanshawe , the eldest , ( Edward ) , Hew , and Robert ) and he , together with the last two , all rose to command divisions or corps during the war . Early career . Fanshawe was born in 1859 , the son of the Reverend Henry Leighton Fanshawe , of Chilworth , Oxfordshire . He attended Winchester College and the Royal Military Academy , Woolwich , then joined the Royal Artillery in 1878 . He was the eldest of three brothers with significant military careers ; Hew ( b . 1860 ) joined the cavalry and Robert ( b . 1863 ) joined the infantry , all three rising to command corps or divisions during the First World War . He married Rose Higginson , daughter of Sir James Higginson , in 1893 ; they had three sons . He served in the Second Anglo - Afghan War in 1878 - 80 and the Sudan expedition of 1885 , rising steadily through the ranks thereafter ; captain in 1886 , major in 1896 , lieutenant - colonel in 1903 , and colonel in 1908 . In 1909 he was appointed to command the artillery in one of the regular divisions garrisoned in Ireland ; whilst serving there , he was personally commended by the King for saving an artilleryman from being crushed by a cavalry parade in Dublin . In 1913 , he was transferred to command the divisional artillery in the Wessex Division of the Territorial Force . First World War . At the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 , Fanshawe remained with the Wessex Division when it mobilised . The division was earmarked for service in India ; however , before it sailed , Fanshawe was ordered to the Continent to join the British Expeditionary Force , where he became the Commander , Royal Artillery for 1st Division . He succeeded N . D . Findlay , who had been killed by shellfire on 10 September at the Battle of the Marne . He remained with the division through the winter of 1914 - 1915 . He was promoted to major - general and recalled home in mid - 1915 to command the newly formed 31st Division of the New Army , but was transferred in August to take over the 11th ( Northern ) Division , which had been sent to Gallipoli in the Mediterranean . He remained with the division through the evacuation of the Dardanelles until , shortly after it arrived in France in July 1916 , he was promoted to command V Corps . The corps had previously been commanded by his younger brother Hew , until he had been removed from command as a result of political manoeuvering following the failure of the attack on St . Eloi in late March 1916 . V Corps was holding a position in the Ypres salient at the time Fanshawe took command , but in August it was transferred south , to support the Somme Offensive . In the final phase of the Somme fighting , at the Battle of the Ancre in November , he commanded an attack which captured Beaumont Hamel , one of the initial objectives of the offensive more than three months earlier . He was knighted the following year . He remained with the corps through 1917 , where it fought at the Third Battle of Ypres , and into 1918 , where it began the year holding an exposed salient on the boundary between Third and Fifth Armies . It was heavily attacked in Operation Michael , the first phase of the German Spring Offensive of March 1918 , and both it and the neighbouring VII Corps were forced to retreat , leaving a gap in the British lines . The responsibility for this was a matter of historical dispute for some decades , but the response at the time was unambiguous ; both Fanshawe and the commander of VII Corps , Walter Congreve , were removed from command . In August 1918 he was appointed to command XXIII Corps , and shortly thereafter transferred to command the garrison on the Firth of Forth , a posting which he held until after the end of the war . Retirement . He was formally confirmed in the permanent rank of lieutenant - general in 1919 , and retired from the Army in 1923 . He then served in the ceremonial position of colonel commandant of the Royal Artillery from 1923 to 1929 , and of the Royal Horse Artillery from 1930 to 1934 . References .