He purchased the rank of
captain on 7 December 1870, shortly before the purchase of commissions was abolished, and passed into
Staff College, Camberley, in 1873. Between 1875 and 1879 he returned to Sandhurst as an instructor of surveying. He then returned to India with his regiment in 1880 and was promoted to
major on 23 March 1881. On 29 April 1882 he was promoted to
lieutenant-colonel and appointed to command a battalion on 28 June 1884 until he was made Deputy Quartermaster General in December 1885. After service in the
Hazara Expedition of 1888, and command of the Mandalay brigade during the
Tonhon expedition in Burma in 1889–90, While serving as a major-general in India in the early 1890s he was temporarily deranged by a jackal bite whilst hunting with the Bombay Jackal Club and he consequently barred his bungalow windows against jackals. In the following year he commanded the Third Brigade of the
Chitral Relief Force, and was mentioned in
Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Low's dispatch of 1 May 1895. As Chairman of the Bombay Plague Committee he prepared the 3 volume 1896-7
Report on the Bubonic Plague of Bombay. He returned home to command a brigade at
Aldershot Command in August 1897. Gatacre was selected to command the
British Army forces during the
reconquest of the Sudan, serving under
General Kitchener, Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Army. In the Sudan, he commanded the British Brigade at the
Battle of Atbara in April 1898, and a division of two British brigades at the
Battle of Omdurman. Returning to England, he served as General Officer Commanding
Eastern District from December 1898 to October 1899. At the outbreak of the
Second Boer War, Gatacre was placed at the head of the 3rd division, with the rank of lieutenant-general. He was the commanding general of the
Imperial forces at the
Battle of Stormberg, during
Black Week, in which 135 men were killed and 696 captured in an
ambush. Although General Sir
Redvers Buller, the British Commander-in-Chief in South Africa, publicly ascribed the defeat to bad luck only, and it was also suggested that his guides had been treacherous, Gatacre was blamed by many soldiers and commentators for the defeat. He was known for restless activity and for imposing needless marches and labour on his troops. He remained in command of the understrength 3rd Division, but after General
Lord Roberts replaced Buller as Commander-in-Chief, he was sidelined to various occupation and "mopping-up" duties. He was eventually relieved of command after failing to rescue the Royal Irish Rifles who surrendered to Orange Free State Commandant-General
Christiaan de Wet after a siege at
Reddersburg on 3 April 1900. His reputation, high after Omdurman, was diminished after Stormberg and subsequent action, He retired in 1904. In 1906 he embarked on a trading expedition through
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. He died of fever near
Gambela, Ethiopia, an Anglo-Sudanese enclave leased by Emperor
Menelik II, where Britain was in the process of establishing a port and a customs station. Gatacre had a reputation of working his men hard, with his energetic style of leadership leading to subordinate officers often resenting him for not letting them do their jobs in their own way. The ordinary soldiers called him "General Backacher" but recognised that his activities were generally benevolent and on the whole thought well of him. == Family==