|
Major-General Charles Guinand Blackader CB, DSO (20 September 1869 – 2 April 1921) was a British Army officer of the First World War. He commanded an Indian brigade on the Western Front in 1915, and a Territorial brigade in Dublin during the Easter Rising of 1916, before being appointed to command the 38th (Welsh) Division on the Western Front, a position he held until retiring due to ill-health in May 1918. Originally joining the Army in 1888 as a junior officer in the Leicestershire Regiment, Blackader's first active posting was in the late 1890s, when he served on attachment to the West African Frontier Force, closely followed by service during the Boer War, where he commanded a company at the defence of Ladysmith. An efficient and well-regarded administrator, he commanded a series of detached stations in addition to his regimental duties for the next ten years, eventually rising to take command of the 2nd Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment, in 1912. On the outbreak of the First World War, he commanded his battalion on the Western Front as part of an Indian Army formation; when his superior officer was promoted in early 1915, Blackader succeeded him as commander of the brigade, and led it through the Battle of Neuve Chapelle and the Battle of Loos. After the Indian Army was withdrawn from France, Blackader was posted to a second-line Territorial Force brigade training in the United Kingdom. In 1916, it was sent to Dublin during the Easter Rising; following the Rising, Blackader presided over a number of the resulting courts-martial, including those of several of the signatories to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Later that year, he was ordered to France to take over command of the 38th (Welsh) Division, a New Army formation which had suffered heavy losses in the Battle of the Somme. He remained with the division for almost two years, helping retrain and reorganise it as an efficient fighting unit. The division would see significant successes in the Hundred Days Offensive of late 1918, but by this point Blackader was no longer in command; he had been invalided home earlier in the year. He died shortly after the war, in 1921, aged 51. ==Early life== Charles Guinand Blackader was born in Richmond, Surrey on 20 September 1869. His father, Charles George Blackader, was a teacher to a small number of boarding pupils; he had come from an Army family, and taught at Cheltenham College and Clifton College, Bristol, before moving to private tuition. His mother, Charlotte Guinand, was born in Germany; her family may have come from Alsace-Lorraine, as Blackader would later describe himself as half-French.〔Jenkins, p. 101.〕 During his childhood, the Blackaders moved from Richmond to Southampton, where his father headed the education department at the Hartley Institute, and then to Boulogne, where he taught at Beaurepaire School.〔Jenkins, p. 102; 〕 Returning from France in 1887, Blackader studied at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where he was regarded as a generally promising pupil; his marks were highest in administrative and academic subjects, but lower in drawing and physical education. He left Sandhurst in August 1888, and joined the 1st Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment, as a second lieutenant. The battalion sailed for a posting in Bermuda two weeks after his arrival; his departure was delayed, however, by remaining in London to marry. The ceremony took place on 2 October, at a registry office in Marylebone, and his biographer notes that it was "clearly in haste" - their first child was born six and a half months after the wedding.〔Jenkins, p. 102.〕 Such an early wedding was very unusual for a junior officer at this period; on average, army officers did not marry until their mid-thirties.〔French.〕 Blackader and his wife spent a year and a half in Bermuda, where their daughter Dorothy was born in April 1889, and moved to Nova Scotia when the battalion was transferred there in 1890; shortly after arrival, on 21 March, he was promoted to lieutenant on 21 March. Their second daughter Joan was born in April 1892, and a year later the battalion transferred again, this time to the West Indies; Blackader was appointed adjutant - the officer responsible for administration - to one wing of the battalion, a force of three companies stationed at Jamaica.〔Jenkins, pp. 102-3.〕 In late 1895, the battalion moved to South Africa, but shortly after arrival Blackader returned to England;〔Jenkins, p. 103.〕 he was promoted to captain in December. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Charles Blackader」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|