Snow was then promoted to major-general in March 1910 and became the general officer commanding (GOC) of the 4th Division, then serving in Eastern Command, in early 1911.[4] In 1912, as GOC of the 4th Division, Snow took part in the Army Manoeuvres of 1912, the last major manoeuvres before the First World War, as part of the 'Blue Force' under Sir James Grierson which gained a clear 'victory' over the 'Red Force' of Douglas Haig. According to James Edmonds, who served under Snow, his only practice at division command was three or four days at army manoeuvres, which were not practical as General Sir Charles Douglas, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) from April 1914, had forbidden retreats to be practised.[7] However, he also concentrated on making junior officers critique one another's performance, and on night moves, march discipline and concealment from the air. He drew up Standing Orders for War, which were used by other divisions in 1914.[1]
First World War
1914
On the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Snow was still in command of 4th Division,[4] which was initially deployed for home defence on the eastern coast, headquartered in Suffolk.[8] Although Snow had written the Eastern Command's Defence Scheme for event of war as a staff officer years before, he recalled he found that "very few people knew, or cared, that such a scheme existed and the chaos on the East Coast was appalling".[9]
When the division arrived at the front (25 August) Snow's orders were to help prepare a defensive position on the Cambrai-Le Cateau position, as General Headquarters (GHQ) had no idea of the seriousness of the situation facing II Corps (this being at a time when I and II Corps were retreating on opposite sides of the Forest of Mormal, and the British Expeditionary Force's Chief of Staff, Archibald Murray, was about to collapse from strain and overwork).[10] Snow was in time to take part in the Battle of Le Cateau. The 4th Division covered the left flank of II Corps and he was one of those who urged Smith-Dorrien to stand and fight.[1] The diary of Lieutenant-General Horace Smith-Dorrien, the GOC of II Corps, recorded:
I learned in the course of the morning that the 4th Division (General Snow, now Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas D'Oyly Snow) had reached Le Cateau from England, and was delighted to hear that the Chief [that is, Field MarshalSir John French, commanding the BEF] had immediately pushed it out to Solesmes, about seven miles north-west of Le Cateau, to cover the retirement of the Cavalry and 3rd Division.
Snow's division retired after the battle but GHQ and the French were left with an exaggerated impression of the losses suffered at Le Cateau. Henry Wilson, BEF Sub Chief of Staff, issued the infamous "sauve qui peut" order (27 August), (addressed from "Henry to Snowball") ordering Snow to dump unnecessary ammunition and officers' kits so that tired and wounded soldiers could be carried. Smith-Dorrien was later rebuked by Field Marshal French for countermanding the order.[11] Snow later wrote "the retreat of 1914 was not, as is now imagined, a great military achievement, but rather a badly bungled affair only prevented from being a disaster of the first magnitude by the grit displayed by the officers and the men".[12]
Brigadier-General Aylmer Haldane, who commanded the 10th Brigade under Snow in 1914, was highly critical of him, although he also thought many other officers of the division not up to the standards of competence required in war. By September 1914 three out of four battalion COs had been "sent home" and Snow was lucky to retain his command.[13] Snow later revisited some places from the Great Retreat from Mons with Haldane, who recorded in his diary on 10 November 1917: "Though he is an old friend of mine I have never felt the same towards him since that time ... when he showed what a poor spirited man he was when troublous times were upon us".[14]
In September, during the First Battle of the Marne, Snow was hospitalised, badly injured with a cracked pelvis, after his horse fell and rolled on him. In November, after partially recovering (he required further treatment for the rest of the war), he took command of the 27th Division,[4] then being raised at Winchester for deployment to the front at the end of the year.[15] The division consisted of regulars returning from overseas.[1]
VII Corps delivered an attack upon the German-held trench fortress of the Gommecourt salient on 1 July 1916, as a part of the opening of the Battle of the Somme offensive. The object was to pinch off the salient and beat off counter-attacks, whilst also serving as a diversion from the main offensive further south.[1] Snow did not think Gommecourt a good place for a feint and protested to the Third Army HQ but GHQ insisted the attack go ahead.[19][20] Edmonds later wrote that Snow was more scared of Haig and of Allenby, his army commander, than he was of the enemy.[1][21]
A senior officer of the 46th (North Midland) Division later wrote that Snow "had purposely taken no care" to keep preparations secret. He was hampered by the fact that most of the German artillery was hidden behind Gommecourt Wood, out of range of all but the heaviest British guns, whilst there was insufficient British artillery (sixteen 18-pounder field guns and four 4.5 howitzers per brigade). The 56th (1/1st London) Division captured the German first trench system on the south side of the German salient before being beaten back. The 46th Division's attack, on the northern side, failed. The latter failure was blamed on Edward James Montagu-Stuart-Wortley, GOC 46th Division, who was later sacked – although there was a consensus that he was a poor general, he may also have been something of a scapegoat to protect Snow (or even the Army commander, Allenby), as competent senior commanders were in short supply and corps commanders were seldom sacked at this stage of the war.[20] After the war Snow wrote that the Gommecourt salient had proven stronger than anticipated.[20]
1917
In 1917 Snow took part in the offensives at the Battle of Arras in the spring (his corps fought on the right, or southern, flank of Lieutenant General Sir Julian Byng's Third Army) and the Battle of Cambrai in November.[1] At Cambrai VII Corps were on the right flank and at one point it was suggested that they might be placed under French command if the French joined in the offensive. This did not happen.[22]
Despite being in pain from his injured pelvis, Snow surveyed his positions from Ronssoy-Epehy Ridge each day and warned his superiors that a German counter-attack was brewing for 29 or 30 November. They were still preoccupied with the attack at Bourlon Wood on the left and did not believe – wrongly – that the Germans had sufficient reserves left after the recent Battle of Passchendaele to mount a big attack.[23] At 7:00 p.m. on 28 November his chief of staff, Brigadier-General John Burnett-Stuart, telephoned Byng's chief of staff, Major-General Louis Vaughan, to request reinforcements and was told that the Guards Division could soon be sent. When the counter-attack came, the Guards Division had already been committed to III Corps.[24]
Bryn Hammond describes Snow at Cambrai as a "safe pair of hands" on account of his experience but also "tired and relatively old" at the age of 59.[25] After criticism of British leadership during the German counter-attack, and along with several other BEF corps commanders, he was replaced largely on grounds of age on 2 January 1918.[18][26] He returned to England, being appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief for Western Command.[4] He was promoted to substantive lieutenant general[27] and appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in recognition of his services on the Western Front.[1] He had also been mentioned in dispatches six times, appointed a Commander of the Legion of Honour by the French Government and made a Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold from Belgium.[28]
Post-war life
Snow retired from the army in September 1919.[1][29] He was also Colonel of the Suffolk Regiment from 1918 to 1919 and Colonel of the Somerset Light Infantry from 1919 to 1929.[30] Snow became largely confined to a bath chair and moved from Blandford to Kensington. He devoted much of his time to charitable work and became chairman of the Crippled Boys' Home for Training.[1] Snow died at his home in Kensington Gate, London, on 30 August 1940, aged 82.[1] His wealth was £15,531.95 (over £750,000 at 2016 prices).[1][31]
^Snow & Pottle, pp. 9–12. Ministers had long argued about whether to send four, five or six infantry divisions to the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). In the end four were sent, and Snow's 4th Division was one of those which Lord Kitchener, contrary to the wishes of Henry Wilson, initially retained in the United Kingdom in the unlikely case of a German invasion.
^Ronald Skirth; Jon Snow (16 April 2010), Duncan Barrett (ed.), The Reluctant Tommy: An Extraordinary Memoir of the First World War, Macmillan, ISBN978-0-230-74673-2
Simpson, Andy (2006). Directing Operations: British Corps Command on the Western Front 1914–18. Stroud: Spellmount. ISBN1-86227-292-1.
Snow, Dan; Pottle, Mark, eds. (2011). The Confusion of Command, The War Memoirs of Lieutenant General Sir Thomas D'Oyly Snow, 1914–1915. London: Frontline Books. ISBN978-1-84832-575-3.
