In the 1920s, during the interwar period, he was one of the military thinkers in various countries, like Heinz Guderian in Germany and Charles de Gaulle in France, who realised that technology and motorisation were changing the way that wars and battles were fought.

[2] Dorman-Smith gained his nickname "Chink" on his first night in the officers' mess when his fellow subaltern, Richard Vachell, noted his resemblance to the chinkara antelope mascot that the regiment had had to leave behind when they moved back to England from India.

Although he had received a shrapnel wound and four lesser injuries from rifle bullets, he organised, under heavy fire, a withdrawal of the survivors of his battalion, for which he was awarded one of the first batch of the Military Cross (MC).

He discovered that his childhood nurse had married the local IRA brigadier and on one occasion, helped her bury a cache of hand grenades on the grounds of Bellamont Forest prior to a raid by the Black and Tans but otherwise remained politically neutral.

[32] In 1924, he left his regiment to become an instructor at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where he became acquainted with Richard O'Connor; the duo went on a walking tour of the Austro-Italian Alps at the end of 1924.

[34] Many of Dorman-Smith's fellow students there included the future general officers of the Second World War, including Philip Christison, Evelyn Barker, Oliver Leese, Eric Hayes, John Hawkesworth, Ronald Penney, John Whiteley, Robert Bridgeman, 2nd Viscount Bridgeman, Eric Nares, Charles Norman, Stanley Kirby, Wilfrid Lloyd, Reginald Savory and Clement West.

[42] It was at that time Dorman-Smith began to clash with Alan Brooke, whom he viewed as the epitome of a traditional Royal Horse Artillery officer, with little interest in the requirements of modern mechanised warfare.

[43] After sixteen months, rather than the customary three years, Dorman-Smith was promoted to substantive lieutenant colonel on 26 April 1937[44] and was appointed Commanding Officer (CO) of the 1st Battalion of his regiment, now retitled the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, then serving in Egypt.

His assessment of the terrain was to colour his estimate of Neil Ritchie's generalship when facing Erwin Rommel's assault in mid-1942, and he seems to have realised that El Alamein was going to be the decisive battleground in Egypt.

[52] In October 1940, over a year after the outbreak of the Second World War, Wavell, the C-in-C of Middle East Command, asked Dorman-Smith to look into the feasibility of taking the offensive against the Italian forces who had invaded Egypt from Libya.

[53][52] Dorman-Smith is credited by historian Correlli Barnett[54] with planning Operation Compass and with the discovery of a gap in the Italian lines south of Sidi Barrani.

[57] In April 1941, he was temporarily appointed Brigadier General Staff (BGS) and watched from a distance while Erwin Rommel won back all the territory that O'Connor had gained and the Allied forces were pushed out of the Balkans and Greece.

[58] When the news arrived that Wavell was going to be replaced by Auchinleck as C-in-C in the Middle East in July, Dorman-Smith probably thought that he stood a chance of getting a permanent role closer to the action but no job offer was made.

[59] Despite this, Dorman-Smith accepted an offer from Auchinleck, to be appointed British Army liaison officer for Persia and Iraq – even though he realised it was a largely meaningless sinecure.

[60][58] After a few more unproductive months – during which time Dorman-Smith offered his resignation, which was rejected by Auchinleck – he worked on a proposal for a Higher Command School with Field Marshal Jan Smuts.

[62] Until 6 August 1942, when he was sacked, Dorman-Smith, a full colonel but holding the acting rank of major-general,[1] served as chief of staff to Auchinleck, the C-in-C Middle East.

Auchinleck took over command of the Eighth Army on 25 June after the failure of Ritchie to provide effective resistance to the Axis forces and took Dorman-Smith along to act as his staff officer.

Churchill and Alan Brooke, now the Chief of the General Staff, the professional head of the British Army, visited Cairo in August 1942 to take stock of the situation.

[63] The key moment of the entire desert war saw Dorman-Smith and Auchinleck finally stop the Axis assault in a few days of desperate fighting in the First Battle of El Alamein in and around Ruweisat Ridge in early July, with their direct and centralized control of the ragged Eighth Army.

[1] The brigade formed part of the 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division, a first line Territorial Army (TA) formation, commanded by Major-General Robert Ross.

To compound his misfortune, on 11 November 1943, Dorman-Smith learned that the new commander of XII Corps (under whose control the 53rd Division was then serving) was Lieutenant-General Neil Ritchie, who he had been critical of in North Africa.

Dorman-Smith's brigade spearheaded the 1st Division's advance up the western flank of Italy, along the way becoming engaged in numerous small-scale fights while trying to reach the River Tiber.

He did not inherit Bellamont Forest until his father died in March 1948 and his parents had long ceased to reside there, leading to the estate becoming run-down by the time he took it over but he had paid regular visits during the 20s and 30s.

During one of Dorman-Smith's stays, Éamon de Valera who seems to have been interested in learning of "Chink's" views on the state of the Irish army, made an informal and unannounced visit.

[78] In 1950, he joined Clann na Poblachta, a new party led by Seán MacBride, who had been an Irish Republican Army officer in Carlow during Dorman O'Gowan's posting there.

Daphne du Maurier, wife of his former Sandhurst adjutant Frederick "Boy" Browning, wrote a story about this side of his life, "A Border-Line Case".

Carver, however, points out that Montgomery did make a decisive alteration to this plan by bringing up troops that were to have been held in reserve in the Nile Delta to form a continuous line of defence.

[88] The effect of this was to reduce the need for mobility for which the British Army in terms of organisation, training and communications was not highly skilled − despite the efforts of people such as Dorman-Smith to reform it.

[91] He sued Churchill, forcing him to amend The Hinge of Fate, part of his history of the Second World War, so that an implied slur on the fighting mettle of Auchinleck was removed.

[98] That summer, in company with Dos Passos, Donald Ogden Stewart and Robert McAlmon, they visited the San Fermin festival in Pamplona in July and participated in the bull-running.