George Henry Fowke

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Lieutenant-General Sir George Henry Fowke (1864-1936) was a British Army general, who served on the staff of the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War.

He joined the Royal Engineers in 1884, and saw service in the South African War at the Defence of Ladysmith, where he was mentioned in despatches.^[1] After the end of the war, he was appointed as Director of Public Works in the Transvaal and was a member of the Transvaal Legislative Council from 1902 to 1904. During the Russo-Japanese War he was an observer attached to the Japanese Army in Manchuria, and then lectured on fortifications at the School of Military Engineering. He was appointed the Assistant Adjutant General for the Royal Engineers in 1910, and then the Inspector of the Royal Engineers in 1913.

On the outbreak of the First World War, he was appointed to the post of Brigadier-General Royal Engineers in the BEF, the senior engineering advisor. As the war settled into a stalemate it became apparent that the Royal Engineers would play a significant role in trench warfare, and the position was changed to Chief Engineer and then to Engineer-in-Chief in 1915. In February 1916 he was promoted to hold the post of Adjutant-General of the Expeditionary Force, and succeeded as Engineer-in-Chief by S. R. Rice. He held this post until the end of the war, and retired from the Army in 1922.