Lives of the First World War

Lieutenant Colonel Adrian Carton de Wiart 4th Dragoon Guards, attd as commanding officer 8th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment Lieutenant Colonel Carton de Wiart was awarded the Victoria Cross. Carton de Wiart was born in Belgium. He joined the British Army and fought during the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, sustaining a serious chest wound. On the outbreak of the First World War, Carton de Wiart was serving with the Somaliland Camel Corps and engaged in suppressing a rebellion by Mohammed bin Abdullah's Muslim forces. In an attack upon an enemy fort at Shimber Berris, Carton de Wiart was shot in the face, losing his left eye. He served on the Western Front from 1915, commanding three infantry battalions and a brigade. He was also seriously wounded seven times, losing his left hand in 1915. Carton de Wiart spent the interwar years in Poland, serving with the British Military Mission and escaping the country as it was overrun by German and Soviet forces in 1939.

Carton de Wiart in the Cairo Conference, behind Soong May-ling on the right. From left to right: Generalissamo Chiang Kai Shek, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Madame Chiang Kai Shek. Back row, Chinese Generals Chang Chen and Ling Wei; American Generals Somervell, Stilwell and Arnold; and senior British officers, Field Marshal Sir John Dill, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten.

British Generals 1939-1945 Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart VC (1880-1963): Portrait of General Carton de Wiart, seated, during the Three-Power conference in Cairo.