Charles à Court Repington

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

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 a Courts in turn as they succeeded to the Amington Hall Estate, and I followed the rule when my father died in 1903."^[1]

His military career began with service in the Rifle Brigade in Afghanistan, Burma, and Sudan; he served as a staff officer during the Boer War. An affair with a fellow officer's wife was made public in 1902, and Colonel Repington was forced to resign his commission, whereupon he took a position as a military correspondent with The Times. "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."^[2] He resigned from The Times in January 1918 and joined The Morning Post; not long afterwards, he was found guilty of disclosing secret information and fined. After the armistice he joined The Daily Telegraph and began writing bestselling books about World War I.

[edit] Honours

He was Commander of the Order of Leopold (Belgium) and Officer of the Légion d'honneur (France).

[edit] 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

[edit] References