Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, CBE, DSO (3 March 1878 – 17 June 1967) was a British soldier, intelligence officer, and ornithologist. He had a decorated military career spanning Africa and the Middle East. He credited himself with creating and executing the 'Haversack Ruse' in October 1917, during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War, but his participation in this matter has since been refuted. While early biographies lionized Meinertzhagen as a master of military strategy and espionage, later works such as The Meinertzhagen Mystery present him as a fraud for fabricating stories of his feats and speculated that he murdered his wife, in addition to mass extrajudicial killings while in the colonial service. The discovery of stolen museum bird specimens resubmitted as original discoveries has raised serious doubts on the veracity of many of his ornithological records.
Background and youth Meinertzhagen was born into a wealthy, socially connected British family. His father, Daniel Meinertzhagen, was head of the Frederick Huth & Co. merchant-banking dynasty, which had an international reputation, that one biographer claimed in the introduction to his book was second in importance only to the Rothschilds. His mother was Georgina Potter, sister of Beatrice Webb, a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Meinertzhagen's surname derives from Meinerzhagen in Germany, the home of an ancestor. On his mother's side (the wealthy Potter family), he was of English descent. Among his relations were "many of Britain's titled, rich, and influential personages." Although he had his doubts, he also claimed to be a distant descendant of Philip III of Spain. His nephew, Daniel Meinertzhagen (1915–1991), was a chairman of Lazard. His niece, Teresa Georgina Mayor (1915–1996), married the 3rd Baron Rothschild. Young Richard was sent as a boarding student to Aysgarth School in the north of England, then was enrolled at Fonthill in Sussex, and finally at Harrow School, where his stay overlapped with that of Winston Churchill. In 1895, at the age of 18, he reluctantly obeyed his father's wishes to join the family bank as a clerk. He was assigned to offices in Cologne and Bremen. There, he picked up the German language, but remained uninterested in banking. After he returned to the bank's home office in England in 1897, he received his father's approval to join the Hampshire Yeomanry. In 1911, he married Armorel, the daughter of Colonel Herman Le Roy-Lewis, who commanded the Hampshire Yeomanry. Meinertzhagen's passion for bird-watching began as a child. His brother Daniel and he were encouraged by a family friend, the philosopher Herbert Spencer, who, like another family friend, Charles Darwin, was an ardent empiricist. Spencer would take young Richard and Daniel on walks around the family home of Mottisfont Abbey, urging them to observe and enquire on the habits of birds. Around 1887, they kept a pet sparrowhawk, which was taken to Hyde Park to let it prey on sparrows. The first serious ornithologist whom Richard met was Brian Hodgson. Daniel took an interest in bird illustration, which brought them in contact with Archibald Thorburn and led to an introduction to Joseph Wolf and G.E. Lodge. They had first met Richard Bowdler Sharpe at the Natural History Museum in 1886 and noted that he was very fond of encouraging children, showing them around the bird collections.
Military career Lacking the desire to make a career in merchant banking, Meinertzhagen took examinations for a commission in the British Army, and after training at Aldershot, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers on 18 January 1899. He was sent to India to join a battalion of his regiment. Other than routine regimental soldiering, he participated in big-game hunting, was promoted, sent on sick leave to England, and after recovery posted to the relocated battalion at Mandalay in Burma. He was promoted lieutenant on 8 February 1900. He then started his "zealous campaign" for a transfer to Africa, and in April 1902, was seconded for service with the Foreign Office, which attached him to the 3rd (East African) Battalion of the King's African Rifles. The following month, he finally arrived at Mombasa in British East Africa.
Kenya
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