Sir Harry Smith, 1st Baronet

Lieutenant-General Harry George Wakelyn Smith (28 June 1787-12 October 1860) was a notable English soldier and military commander of the early 19th century. Sir Harry (as he preferred to be known) is particularly remembered as the hero of the Battle of Aliwal (India) in 1846.

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 college also bears his name.

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. On the day following the storming of Badajoz (the 6th of April 1812) 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 (the 24th of 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.

He was also present at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Returning to Europe he was brigade-major at the battle of Waterloo; and in 1828 was ordered to the Cape of Good Hope, where he commanded a division in the Kaffir War 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 ness 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 Benjamir D'Urban, the high commissioner, the ministry in London reversec 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 Kaffirs and the Dutch; and numbers of the latter, largely in consequence of this policy of Lord Gleneig began the migration to the interior known as the great trek.

Harry Smith was now appointed deputy-adjutant-general o the forces in India, where he took part in the Gwalior campaign of 1843 (for which he received a K.C.B.) 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 Firuzshah, 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 the 28th of January 1846 he inflicted a crushing defeat on the Sikhs at Aliwal on the Sutlej.

At the battle of Sobraon on the 10th of 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.

In 1847 he returned to South Africa as governor of Cape Colony and high commissioner, to grapple with the difficulties he had foreseen eleven years before. He took command of an expedition to deal with the disaffected Boers in the Orange River Sovereignty, and fought the action of Boomplaats on the 29th of August 1848. In December 1850 war broke out with the Kaffirs; 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 Kaffirs had been completly 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).

His autobiography, first published posthumously in 1901, is regarded as a classic of love and war.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)