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Lieutenant General Sir Brian Gwynne Horrocks (7 September 1895 – 4 January 1985) was an officer of the British Army. He is chiefly remembered as the commander of XXX Corps in Operation Market Garden and other operations during the Second World War. He also served in the First World War and the Russian Civil War, was a prisoner of war twice, and competed in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Later he was a television presenter, authored books on military history, and was Black Rod in the House of Lords for 14 years. In 1940 Horrocks commanded a battalion during the Battle of France, the first time he served under Bernard Montgomery, the most prominent British commander of the war. Montgomery later identified Horrocks as one of his most able officers, appointing him to corps commands in both North Africa and Europe. In 1943, Horrocks was seriously wounded and took more than a year to recover before returning to command a corps in Europe. It is likely that this period out of action meant he missed out on promotion;〔Warner. ''Horrocks'', p. 77.〕 his contemporary corps commanders in North Africa, Oliver Leese and Miles Dempsey, went on to command at army level and above. Horrocks' wound caused continuing health problems and led to his early retirement from the army after the war. Since 1945, Horrocks has been regarded by some as one of the most successful British generals of the war, "a man who really led, a general who talked to everyone, down to the simplest private soldier", and the "''beau ideal'' of a corps commander". Dwight D. Eisenhower called him "the outstanding British general under Montgomery".〔Warner. ''Horrocks'', p. 72.〕 ==Early life and First World War== Horrocks was the only son of Colonel Sir William Horrocks, a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Educated at Uppingham School, an English public school, he entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1913.〔Warner. ''Horrocks'', pp. 3–6.〕 His score was sixth-lowest of the 167 successful applicants for cadetships—even after the addition of 200 bonus points for an Officer Training Corps (OTC) certificate, which not all the other candidates had. An unpromising student, he might not have received a commission at all but for the outbreak of the First World War. Commissioned on 8 August 1914 into the 1st Battalion of the Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex Regiment), Second Lieutenant Horrocks joined the British Expeditionary Force's retreat following its baptism of fire at the Battle of Mons. On 21 October, at the Battle of Armentières, his platoon was surrounded, and he was wounded and taken prisoner. Incarcerated in a military hospital, he was repeatedly interrogated by his German captors, who believed that the British Army were using expanding bullets in contravention of the 1899 Hague Convention. Horrocks' captors refused to change his clothes or sheets, and denied him and a fellow officer basic amenities. Both had temporarily lost the use of their legs, and were forced to crawl to the toilet, which caused Horrocks' wounds to become infected. However, conditions improved after his discharge and transfer to a prisoner of war camp. On his way to the camp, Horrocks befriended his German escort—he attributed their rapport to the mutual respect that front-line troops share. He was promoted to lieutenant on 18 December 1914, despite being in enemy hands, and often tried to escape, once coming within of the Dutch border before being recaptured. He was eventually placed in a compound for Russian officers, in the hope that the language barrier would hinder his escape attempts; Horrocks used the time to learn the Russian language. Years later, when working in the House of Commons, he surprised Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin by greeting them in their native tongue. In the latter part of the war he was held in Holzminden prisoner-of-war camp. His resistance in captivity would earn him the Military Cross, awarded in 1920 and backdated to 5 May 1919.〔 Repatriated at the end of the war, Horrocks had difficulty adapting to a peace-time routine. He went on sprees in London, spending four years of accumulated back-pay in six weeks. However, he returned to active service in 1919 when the War Office called for volunteers who knew Russian. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Brian Horrocks」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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