1. John Charteris's uncle was Archibald Hamilton Charteris, Professor of Liberal Criticism at the University of Edinburgh and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
20 Facts About John Charteris
1. 2.
John Charteris received his early formal education at Kelvinside Academy from 1886 to 1891, then spent a year studying mathematics and physics at Gottingen University in Germany.
3.
John Charteris was fluent in the French and German languages.
4.
John Charteris entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in December 1893, and on graduating received a commission into the Royal Engineers in March 1896, and was sent to Asia, where he joined the British Imperial Indian Army.
5.
John Charteris entered Staff College, Quetta in 1907, and was the outstanding graduate of his year in 1909.
6.
When Haig was appointed to Corps Command at Aldershot in 1912, as Assistant Military Secretary Captain John Charteris was one of the trusted officers who found a place in his retinue.
7.
John Charteris remained in Haig's retinue engaged in this work when I Corps was enlarged and converted into the BEF's First Army in December 1914, and then on to the BEF's General Headquarters, when Haig was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the BEF in December 1915, where Charteris was promoted by Haig to the temporary rank of brigadier-general in January 1916 at 38 years of age.
8.
John Charteris was brash, untidy, and liked to start the day with a brandy and soda.
9.
John Charteris was a sort of licensed jester amidst Haig's staid inner circle.
10.
John Charteris was sometimes described as Haig's "evil counsellor", and has been blamed by some historians for Haig's errors, with the accusation that he had a propensity in intelligence briefings to provide assessments of the German situation that gave Haig what he wanted to hear.
11.
John Charteris produced reports of poor German morale based on interviews with prisoners, and of German manpower shortages based on statistical analysis of their paybooks, which gave a German soldier's age and year of callup.
12.
However, the historian John Bourne has stated that Charteris was methodical and hardworking.
13.
Bourne argues that although John Charteris was wrong about the wider issues of German morale and manpower, he was effective at predicting enemy troop deployments, immediate plans and tactical changes.
14.
John Charteris relinquished this position, and his temporary brigadier general's rank, in September 1918.
15.
John Charteris was associated with some notable allied propaganda and disinformation successes, such as "the master hoax" of World War I, being the story of the existence of a German corpse factory Kadaververwertungsanstalt, in which the Germans supposedly rendered their own dead soldiers into fats.
16.
Nevertheless, this fake diary, which John Charteris claimed still existed when he made the comments has never been found.
17.
John Charteris was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1919.
18.
John Charteris served as Director of Movements and Quartering in India from 1920 to 1921, then as Deputy Adjutant- and Quartermaster-General of Eastern Command from 1921 to 1922.
19.
John Charteris had not kept a diary at the time so 'At GHQ' consisted of papers, notes and letters from the time re-written into diary form.
20.
John Charteris's body was buried in the graveyard of Tinwald Kirk, in Dumfries and Galloway, which displays a memorial stained glass window to his memory.