Charles à Court Repington

Charles à Court Repington
Born	29 January 1858(1858-01-29) Heytesbury, Wiltshire, England
Died	25 May 1925(1925-05-25) (aged 67) Hove, England
Nationality	British
Ethnicity	English
Occupation	War correspondent
Years active	1904–1925

Lieutenant Colonel Charles à Court Repington (29 January 1858 - 25 May 1925), CMG, was a British Army officer and war correspondent.

Biography

Charles Repington was born at Heytesbury, Wiltshire in 1858, where his father was a Conservative Party Member of Parliament. His family name was à Court; in his memoirs, Repington wrote: "The à Courts are Wiltshire folk, and in old days represented Heytesbury in Parliament... The name of Repington, under the terms of an old will, was assumed by all the à Courts in turn as they succeeded to the Amington Hall Estate, and I followed the rule when my father died in 1903."

Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, his military career began with service in the Rifle Brigade of the British Army in 1878. After serving in Afghanistan, Burma, and Sudan, he entered the Staff College at Camberley, where his classmates included Herbert Plumer and Horace Smith-Dorrien. On graduation, he served as a military attaché in Brussels and the Hague, following which he served as a staff officer during the Boer War in South Africa. What appeared to be a promising career was cut short during a posting to Egypt in 1902.

Repington had an affair with the wife of a British official, which became public, and he was reprimanded by senior military authorities. However, during the divorce proceedings, it was revealed that Repington had ignored warnings about his behaviour and had continued the affair. Repington was forced to resign his commission.

On returning to London, he took a position as a military correspondent with the Morning Post from 1902–1904, and The Times from 1904-1918. His coverage as a war correspondent in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 later appeared in book form as The War in the Far East. "Repington was a firm advocate of a strong national army (at the expense of the navy, much to the annoyance of Admiral Fisher). His journalism therefore tended to be geared towards propounding his belief in a firm national defensive policy."

During World War I he relied on his contacts in the British Army and the War Office for his information, and through his friendship with the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, Sir John French, Repington was able visit the Western Front in November 1914, at a time when most rival war correspondents were banned from France. During this visit, which occurred near the time of a major offensive at Artois, Sir John French, mentioned a shortage of artillery ammunition as the reason for the failure of the previous British attack at Neuve Chapelle in March 1915. Repington made the most of his private conversation, and the appearance his article in The Daily Mail, resulted in a political scandal leading to the forced resignation of both Sir John French and the War Minister, Lord Kitchener. Repington now had growing influence over military policy through the newspapers, but was banned from visiting the Western Front again until March 1916.

Repington resigned from The Times in January 1918 due to a dispute with its owner, Lord Radcliffe over the conduct of the war, and returned to The Morning Post; not long afterwards, he was found guilty under the Defence of the Realm Act of disclosing secret information in one of The Morning Post articles and was fined.

After the end of World War I, Repington joined the staff of the Daily Telegraph and subsequently published numerous books. These works, including The First World War in 1920 and After the War in 1922 were bestsellers, but cost Repington friendships for his apparent willingness to report what they considered to be private conversations.

Repington died on May 25, 1925 in Hove, England.

Honours

• Order of St Michael and St George, Companion
• Order of Leopold (Belgium), Commander
• Légion d'honneur (France), Officer

Selected works

Repington wrote several books, including

• 1905 - The War in the Far East
• 1919 - Vestigia, Reminiscences of Peace and War
• 1920 - The First World War, 1914-1918, Vol. I
• 1920 - The First World War, 1914-1918, Vol. II
• 1922 - After the War; London--Paris--Rome--Athens--Prague--Vienna--Budapest--Bucharest--Berlin--Sofia--Coblenz--New York--Washington; a Diary