Arthur Henry Seton Hart-Synnot CMG, DSO and Bar was a British Army general. He was educated at Clifton College and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
He was from a family with history of military service, his uncle Sir Reginald Hart had been awarded the Victoria Cross in Afghanistan.[1]
Contents |
Hart-Synnot had passed Staff College in 1899 and after the Boer War his career took the staff path, first as an Aide-de-Camp to his uncle,[2][3] and then serving in Japan in 1904 and Hong Kong between 1907–11.[1][4][5] He was promoted major in March 1909.[6] After a tour in Burma with his regiment (1911–13), he was appointed GSO2[7] at GHQ India on 27 October 1913, until October 1916, when he returned to Britain.[1] He deployed to France on New Year’s Day 1917, serving again as a GSO2[8][9][10] with the 17th and 40th Divisions. He became a temporary Brigadier when he was appointed to command 6th Infantry Brigade on 28 April 1918,[11] where he was severely wounded losing both legs.[1] In the 1918 King's Birthday Honours he was awarded a Bar to his DSO.[12] He was also made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur,[13] and awarded the French Croix de guerre.[14] He was placed on the half-pay list and retired as an honorary Brigadier in 1920 as a result of these wounds.[15][16]
He married his nurse Violet Drower who he met whilst convalescing.
The record of approximately 800 extant letters document an extended love affair with a Japanese woman. This correspondence was the subject of a 2006 biography, The Sword and the Blossom by Peter Pagnamenta.[17]