Arthur Corbett-Smith

Born in 1879 and died in 1945, Arthur Corbett-Smith is best remembered as a British army officer who wrote from direct experience of the opening campaigns of the First World War. Sources describe him as a major in the British Army, connected with the Royal Horse Artillery or Royal Field Artillery, and his best-known books include The Retreat from Mons (1916) and The Marne and After (1917).

What makes his work stand out is its eyewitness quality. Modern listings and library records repeatedly note that he was present during the events he described, which gives his wartime writing an immediacy that still appeals to readers interested in memoir, military history, and the lived experience of 1914.

Corbett-Smith also had a second life beyond military writing. Archival and broadcasting sources identify him as a later BBC station director in Cardiff, and he contributed writing to The Radio Times. That mix of soldier, author, and early broadcaster gives him a small but distinctive place in both First World War literature and the early history of British radio.