Fanshawe joined the Oxfordshire Light Infantry in 1883, and served with his regiment in India until the Second Boer War in the late 1880s, where he commanded a mobile column and was mentioned in despatches. At the outbreak of the First World War he was on the staff of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), and later commanded a regular brigade on the Western Front, before being promoted to divisional command in 1915. He commanded the 48th (South Midland) Division for three years, including service at the Somme, Ancre, Passchendale, and on the Italian Front, before being removed from command after his corps commander objected to his defensive strategy. He was relegated to commanding a second-line home service division, and retired from the army in 1918.
Early military career
Fanshawe was born in 1863, the youngest son of the Reverend Henry Leighton Fanshawe, of Chilworth, Oxfordshire. He was the younger son of three brothers with significant military careers; Edward (b. 1859) joined the artillery and Hew (b. 1860) joined the cavalry, all three rising to command corps or divisions during the First World War.[4][5]
Following the end of the war in June 1902, Fanshawe returned to the United Kingdom in the SS Dunottar Castle, which arrived at Southampton the following month.[16] In September 1902 Fanshawe was posted to the staff of the 4th Division on Salisbury Plain as deputy assistant adjutant-general (DAAG),[17][18] after he received the brevet promotion to lieutenant colonel on 22 August 1902.[19] He returned to his regiment in 1903. Promoted to the full rank of lieutenant colonel in September 1907,[20] he became commanding officer (CO) of the regiment's 2nd Battalion from 1907 to 1911, during which he became a brevet colonel in March 1908.[21]
Fanshawe spent a good deal of time visiting front-line units, where he "liked to drift into the trench in an old raincoat so that men were not intimidated"[30] and would sometimes venture out with a single escort to patrol no-man's land.[1] More unusually, he had a habit of giving his soldiers chocolates when he met them returning from the lines or on inspections.[31][32] Such behaviour scandalised his staff officers, who were privately disapproving of Fanshawe's informality with his troops[31] but it did not lead to the disapproval of his superiors; in September 1917, a confidential report by Lieutenant-General Ivor Maxse, his corps commander, had judged him to be "a good average divisional commander and trainer".[33]
Fanshawe was strongly in favour of elastic defence, where a lightly garrisoned front line would delay an enemy attack, and then a strong counter-attack would recapture lost ground, and had been training 48th Division in this mould since he took command in 1915; the Italian theatre was the first opportunity to put this approach fully into practice.[34] The 48th Division was attacked on 15 June 1918 by the Austrians at the Second Battle of the Piave River; in keeping with the plan, leading elements fell back and a counter-attack was organised, recapturing the lost ground and stalling the offensive entirely.[35]
Whilst a success, this result was greeted with dismay by the commander of British forces in Italy, General The Earl of Cavan; he was a believer in a more traditional strongly held static line of defence and felt that Fanshawe did not need to have given up any ground at all.[35] Fanshawe was quickly relieved of his command and ordered home, leaving Italy four days after the end of the battle, on 20 June.[36] Major General Harold Walker arrived as Fanshawe's successor on 4 July.[37]
Francis Mackay wrote that it was the dismissal of a general who had a sound defensive plan applied by officers and men of high morale and confidence.
The Italians, senior partners at Asiago, frequently sacked senior officers who had suffered setbacks in battle. Lord Cavan, who succeeded General Sir Herbert Plumer as GOC of the British Forces in Italy in March 1918, may have played a political and unpleasant hand in dismissing Fanshawe.
Cavan thought that, after his briefing of 14 June, Fanshawe should have reinforced the front line in the face of an expected Austrian attack. Cavan had also failed to spot the weaknesses and did not change the battle disposition when he visited Fanshawe at his battle headquarters.
As a commander, Fanshawe allowed his troops to suffer unnecessary casualties, which, in 1918, was a cause for dismissal. This was due to an increasingly severe shortage of manpower that was beginning to affect operations.[38]
Despite preparations for a British attack, there was no British artillery support to stem the Austrian advance.[39]
MacKay also reports that the Official History[40] records that Fanshawe may have lost his grip on the battle on the morning of 15 June 1918.[39]
Fanshawe was respected throughout the 48th Division. Charles Carrington, a junior officer who served as an infantry platoon commander, described Fanshawe as "the kindest hearted old swashbuckler in the army."[41] He trained his commanders to use their initiative in the Battle of the Woods and Clouds, where lines of sight and communications were very limited. He left, uncomplainingly, gentlemanly to the end and did not see further active service. Nevertheless, there were many officers in the 48th Division who complained for years about his dishonourable treatment.[39]
Fanshawe was appointed to command the 69th Division on home service in November 1918, the same month as the armistice with Germany. Throughout the war, he had been mentioned in despatches eight times, as well as knighted in June 1917.[11][42]
After the war
Fanshawe retired from the army in August 1919; he later served as the honorary colonel of the 1st/7th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, a Territorial unit that had formed part of the 48th Division.[43] He died in 1946, aged eighty-three, after falling from his horse,[1] and is buried near Oxford.[39]
