John Charteris

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Charteris CMG , DSO , MP (born January 8, 1877 in Glasgow , † February 4, 1946 in Thorpe , Surrey ) was a British officer, most recently Brigadier-General of the British Army , who served as chief of military reconnaissance under Douglas during the First World War Haig , the Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front . After the war he was a unionist member of the House of Commons .

Life

Charteris was born to Matthew Charteris, Professor of Medicine at Glasgow University , and his wife Elizabeth (Greer). From his immediate family both the uncle Archibald Hamilton Charteris (1835-1908) and his brothers Archibald Hamilton (1874-1940) and Francis James (1875-1964) were also professors. John was educated at the Kelvinside Academy private school and studied mathematics and physics in Göttingen for a year before entering the Royal Military Academy Woolwich in 1893 . In March 1896 he received a patent from the Royal Engineers and then served in British India .

From 1907 to 1909 he attended the Indian Staff College in Quetta , which he graduated as a captain . As a young staff officer, he made the acquaintance of Douglas Haig, who was then chief of staff at the Commander in Chief in India Garrett O'Moore Creagh . Like Haig a Presbyterian and Freemason , he made a great impression on Haig through his in-depth education and became its military secretary when he took over the Aldershot garrison in 1912 . The established officers disparagingly referred to Haig's entourage brought from India as a “Hindoo gang” and Charteris in particular as “Haig's evil counselor”.

When Great Britain entered the First World War, Charteris accompanied the now commander of the I Corps Haig as an aide-de-camp to France. Although he had no previous experience in educational issues, Haig commissioned him in the fall of 1914 to set up an appropriate organization for the I Corps. His good knowledge of German and French suited him well. Various historians point out that it is likely that Charteris himself invented the legend of the "angel of Mons" who protected the British in the battle of Mons . His contemporary, journalist Philip Gibbs , pointed out that Lord Kitchener's- led War Office's refusal to officially accredit journalists encouraged such outlandish rumors and fantasies. Various other propaganda tales of this time, such as the one of the prisoner "crucified" by the Germans or that of the cadaver disposal agencies , are said to go back directly or indirectly to Charteris.

Charteris remained under Haig in his own capacity when he became Commander in Chief of the First Army and later the BEF, and was quickly promoted to the rank of general. He was considered a hard worker who did not spare his health, and his briefings about the German battle orders are generally said to have been fairly accurate and accurate. However, this was less true of his assessments of German morality and German recruiting potential, which were mostly overly optimistic and crossed with the more pessimistic assumptions of his superior in the War Office, Sir George Macdonogh . Haig defended his protégé against the frequent criticism by saying that such pessimism ultimately undermined the morale of the troops and thus did nothing to achieve victory. Historian Christopher Andrew believes that the poor planning and poor execution of the 1916 Battle of the Somme is at least partly due to the failure of Charteris, who led Haig to believe that a German collapse was expected before the end of the year.

In the Third Battle of Flanders and the Battle of Cambrai in 1917, the British did not achieve the breakthrough they had hoped for. After the latter, an official investigation was made and the War Minister Lord Derby asked Haig to remove Charteris. In January 1918 he was demoted to deputy transport manager in France and replaced by Edgar William Cox . Nevertheless, he continued to exert a not inconsiderable influence on Haig's assessments of the situation for the rest of the war.

After the end of the war, Charteris was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George at the New Year's ceremonies in 1919 , after having been the holder of the Distinguished Service Order since 1915 . After being used again in India and at the headquarters of the British Eastern Command , he left the Army in 1922.

Charteris was the Scottish Unionist Party MP for Dumfriesshire from 1924 to 1929 . After leaving Parliament, he worked as a writer, among other things, as Haig's biographer and with an autobiographical account of his wartime at the GHQ.

Charteris had three sons with his wife Noel Emily Beatrice Hodgson since 1913. He died in 1946 at the age of 69 and was buried in the Tinwald Kirk cemetery in Dumfriesshire.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Charteris, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Brigadier General and MP
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Glasgow
DATE OF DEATH February 4, 1946
Place of death Thorpe , Surrey