Everything about Sir Harry Smith 1st Baronet totally explained
Lieutenant General Sir Henry George Wakelyn Smith, 1st Baronet of Aliwal GCB (
28 June 1787-
12 October 1860), known as
Sir Harry Smith, was a notable
English soldier and military commander in the
British Army of the early
19th century. He is particularly remembered as the hero of the
Battle of Aliwal (
India) in 1846.
Biography
He was born in
Whittlesey,
Cambridgeshire, the son of a surgeon. A chapel in the town's St Mary's church was restored in his memory in 1862, and a local community college also bears his name.[SirHarry Smith Community College]
Napoleonic Wars
Harry Smith—for throughout life he adopted the more familiar form of his Christian name—was educated privately and entered the army in 1805. His first active service was in
South America in 1806, but first came to prominence during the
Peninsular War in which he served from 1808 through to the end at the
Battle of Toulouse in 1814 with the
95th Rifles. On
7 April 1812 (the day following the
storming of Badajoz) a well-born
Spanish lady, whose entire property in the city had been destroyed, presented herself at the British lines seeking protection from the licence of the soldiery for herself and her sister, a child of fourteen, by whom she was accompanied. The latter, whose name was
Juana Maria de Los Dolores de León, had but recently emerged from a convent; but notwithstanding her years she was married to Harry Smith a few days later. She remained with him throughout the rest of the war, accompanying the baggage train, sleeping in the open on the field of battle, riding freely among the troops, and sharing all the privations of campaigning. Her beauty, courage, sound judgment and amiable character endeared her to the officers, including the
Duke of Wellington, who spoke of her familiarly as Juanita; and she was idolized by the soldiers.
At the close of the war Harry Smith volunteered for service in the
United States, where he was present at the
battle of Bladensburg on
24 August 1814, and witnessed the
burning of the capitol at Washington; which, as he said, "horrified us coming fresh from the duke's humane warfare in the south of
France."
Returning to
Europe he was
brigade major at the
Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
South Africa
In 1828 was ordered to the
Cape of Good Hope, where he commanded a division in the
Xhosa Wars of 1834-36. In 1835 he accomplished the feat of riding from
Cape Town to
Grahamstown, in less than six days; and having restored confidence among the whites by his energetic measures, he was appointed governor of the Province of
Queen Adelaide, where he gained unbounded influence over the native tribes, whom he vigorously set himself to civilize and benefit. But though supported by
Sir Benjamin D'Urban, the high commissioner, the ministry in
London reversed his policy and, to quote Smith's own words, directed the Province of Queen Adelaide to be restored to barbarism. Smith himself was removed from his command, his departure being deplored alike by the
Bantu and the
Dutch; and numbers of the latter, largely in consequence of this policy of
Lord Glenelg began the migration to the interior known as the
Great Trek.
India
Harry Smith was now appointed deputy-adjutant-general of the forces in
India, where he took part in the Gwalior campaign of 1843, for which he was appointed a
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) and the
First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845-46. He was in command of a division under
Sir Hugh Gough at the battles of
Mudki and
Ferozeshah, where he conspicuously distinguished himself, but was insufficiently supported by the commander-in-chief. After the second of these actions Sir Harry Smith was appointed to an independent command, and on
28 January 1846 he inflicted a crushing defeat on the
Sikhs at
Aliwal on the
Sutlej.
At the
battle of Sobraon on
10 February he again commanded a division under Gough. For the great victory of Aliwal he was awarded the thanks of
Parliament; and the speech of the Duke of Wellington was perhaps the warmest encomium ever bestowed by that great commander on a meritorious officer. Sir Harry was at the same time created a
baronet; and as a special distinction the words of Aliwal were by the patent appended to the title. He was promoted to
major-general on
9 November 1846.
Return to South Africa
In 1847 he returned to South Africa as governor of
Cape Colony and high commissioner, with the local rank of
lieutenant-general, to grapple with the difficulties he'd foreseen eleven years before. He took command of an expedition to deal with the disaffected
Boers in the
Orange River Sovereignty, and fought the
Battle of Boomplaats on the
29 August 1848 . In December 1850 war broke out with the
Xhosa and some of the
Khoikhoi; Sir Harry Smith was insufficiently supplied with troops from England; and though his conduct of the operations was warmly approved by the Duke of Wellington and other military authorities,
Lord Grey, in a dispatch never submitted to the queen, recalled him in 1852 before the Xhosa and Khoikhoi had been completely subdued. He protested strongly against the abandonment of the Orange River Sovereignty to the Boers, which was carried out two years after his departure, and he actively furthered the granting of responsible government to Cape Colony.
His wife Juana gave her name to
Ladysmith in
KwaZulu-Natal.
Harrismith in the
Free State was named after Smith himself (a further town,
Aliwal North in the
Eastern Cape, also marks Smith's connection with South Africa).
He was given brevet promotion to lieutenant-general on
20 June 1854.
His
autobiography, first published posthumously in 1901, is regarded as a classic of love and war.
The story of Harry Smith and his wife in the Peninsular Campaign and the Battle of Waterloo is affectionately and with much attention to historical detail narrated in
Georgette Heyer's meticulously researched historical novel
The Spanish Bride (1940)
Bibliography
- Harry Smith, "Autobiography", J. Murray, London, 1901
- Joseph H Lehmann, "Remember you're an Englishman": A Biography of Sir Harry Smith, 1787 - 1860, Jonathan Cape, London, 1977.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th to 14th editions, 1877 - 1977.
- Georgette Heyer, "The Spanish Bride", Heinemann, London, 1940
- Frank Welsh, "A History of South Africa", HarperCollins, 1998 ISBN 0-00-638421-8 (Ch. 8, pages 190-194)
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