LIEUT.-GEN. SIR WALTER CONGREVE
General Congreve has been in command of the XIII Corps since November 15th, 1915. His son, Brevet-Major William Congreve, The Rifle Brigade, who fell at Longueval, July 22nd, 1916, at the age of 25, was universally recognised as the most promising of the younger British soldiers. In two years he had won a Brevet Majority, the D.S.O., the Military Cross, and the Cross of the Legion of Honour, and, after his death, he received the Victoria Cross. No family has a more splendid fighting record.
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LIEUT.-GENERAL JAMES AYLMER LOWTHORPE HALDANE, C.B., D.S.O.
GENERAL HALDANE was born on November 17th, 1862, of a well-known Scottish family which has given many distinguished members to the learned professions. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy and Sandhurst, and, in 1882, joined the Gordon Highlanders. He served in the Waziristan Campaign of 1894; the Chitral Campaign of 1895; the Tirah Campaign of 1897; and from 1896-99 he was A.D.C. to Sir William Lockhart. He received the D.S.O. for his work on the Indian frontier.
During the South African War he fought with the 2nd Gordon Highlanders at Elandslaagte, where he was severely wounded. He was in command of the armoured train which was captured at Chieveley on November 15th, 1899. The story of his escape from Pretoria after some months' imprisonment is one of the romances of the South African Campaign. He rejoined his battalion and was present at some of the later actions of the war, receiving a brevet Lieut.-Colonelcy.
During the Russo-Japanese War he was Military Attaché with the Japanese Army, and was present at the Battles of Liao-yang, Sha-Ho, and Mukden.
He went to France in August, 1914, in command of the 10th Infantry Brigade, which was part of the 4th Division in the III Corps. The Brigade arrived in time for the Battle of Le Cateau, and took part in all the subsequent fighting, being heavily engaged in the Armentières area during the First Battle of Ypres. General Haldane was one of the first Brigadiers to receive a Division. He succeeded Major-General Sir Hubert Hamilton in command of the 3rd Division in October, 1914, and remained with this famous Division till the Battle of the Somme. Its heaviest fighting took place in the summer of 1915 within the Ypres salient, and, in the spring of 1916, it was again engaged in the neighbourhood of St. Eloi and the Bluff at Ypres.