12 Facts About John Terraine

John Alfred Terraine was an English military historian, and a TV screenwriter.

John Terraine is best known as the lead screenwriter for the landmark 1960s BBC-TV documentary The Great War, about the First World War, and for his defence of British General Douglas Haig – who commanded the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front from late 1915 until the end of the war – against charges that he was "The Butcher of the Somme".

John Terraine found Mountbatten an impressive performer, but was intrigued by his "curious mix of boastfulness and diffidence".

John Terraine wrote and narrated The Mighty Continent, a 13-part BBC-TV history of Europe in the first three-quarters of the 20th century.

John Terraine had 16 books published, most of them dealing with aspects of the great European wars of the 20th century, and numerous articles and book reviews for The Daily Telegraph.

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In 1964 John Terraine edited a collection of diaries written by General James Lochhead Jack during the First World War, which became a best-seller in the United Kingdom.

John Terraine was the founding president of the Western Front Association from 1980 to 1997, after which he became its patron.

One obituarist wrote that for sheer scholarship, the quality and accessibility of his writing and for his debunking of historical myths, John Terraine was one of the outstanding military historians of the 20th century.

John Terraine was for many years a member of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies.

John Terraine was awarded the Institute's Chesney Gold Medal in 1982.

John Terraine was elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1987.

John Terraine was one of the outstanding military historians of the 20th century.