Frederick "Bobs" Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts (30 September 1832-14 November 1914) was a British Army Field Marshal who served as Commander-in-Chief, India from 1885 to 1893; Commander-in-Chief, Ireland from 1895 to 1900; Commander-in-Chief of British Forces in South Africa in 1900; and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces from 1900 to 1904. He fought in the Sepoy Rebellion, the Second Anglo-Afghan War, and the Second Boer War, and he was considered to be one of Britain's greatest generals of the late 20th century.
Biography[]
Frederick Roberts was born in Cawnpore, British India on 30 September 1832 to an Anglo-Irish family from County Waterford, Ireland. The son of an officer in the British East India Company, Frederick Roberts won a Victoria Cross during the suppression fo the Indian mutiny in 1857-58. In the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-80, his capture of the Afghan capital, Kabul, followed by a 300-mile march to defeat Afghan forces besieging the British at Kandahar, made him a national hero. British defeats at the hands of the Boers in 1899 saw the veteran Roberts, after two decades of peaceful senior command, sent back into the field to repeat the magic of Kandahar. His only son was killed at the Battle of Colenso shortly before he arrived in South Africa. Taking over from Redvers Buller as commander-in-chief in January 1900, Roberts benefited from large-scale reinforcements that made his task considerably easier. He was also lucky in his subordinates, with the experienced Herbert Kitchener as his chief-of-staff and John French as cavalry commander. Between them, they were mainly responsible for a key defeat of the Boers at Paardeberg in February. In just 10 months, Roberts presided over a total victory in the conventional war, from the relief of the sieges of Ladysmith, Mafeking, and Kimberley to the capture of the Boer capitals Bloemfontein and Pretoria. He handed over to Kitchener in November 1900, leaving his successor the unenviable task of suppressing the tenacious Boer guerrilla campaign.