Major-General Sir Robert Fanshawe, KCB, DSO (5 November 1863 – 24 August 1946) was a British Army officer, who commanded the 48th (South Midland) Division from 1915 to 1918 during the First World War.

Fanshawe joined the Oxfordshire Light Infantry in 1883, and served with his regiment in India until the Second Boer War in the late 1880s, where he commanded a mobile column and was mentioned in despatches.

[9] He saw service at the relief of Kimberley and the Battle of Paardeberg (February 1900), where he was wounded in action;[10] later, in April 1900, he was made a deputy assistant adjutant general (DAAG) of the 6th Battalion of mounted infantry,[11][12] and on 2 September 1900 promoted to major.

[16] In September 1902 Fanshawe was posted to the staff of the 4th Division on Salisbury Plain as deputy assistant adjutant-general (DAAG),[17][18] after he received the brevet promotion to lieutenant colonel on 22 August 1902.

[11] Fanshawe spent a good deal of time visiting front-line units, where he "liked to drift into the trench in an old raincoat so that men were not intimidated"[30] and would sometimes venture out with a single escort to patrol no-man's land.

[34] The 48th Division was attacked on 15 June 1918 by the Austrians at the Second Battle of the Piave River; in keeping with the plan, leading elements fell back and a counter-attack was organised, recapturing the lost ground and stalling the offensive entirely.

[35] Whilst a success, this result was greeted with dismay by the commander of British forces in Italy, General The Earl of Cavan; he was a believer in a more traditional strongly held static line of defence and felt that Fanshawe did not need to have given up any ground at all.

[37] Francis Mackay wrote that it was the dismissal of a general who had a sound defensive plan applied by officers and men of high morale and confidence.

[11][42] Fanshawe retired from the army in August 1919; he later served as the honorary colonel of the 1st/7th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, a Territorial unit that had formed part of the 48th Division.