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.Garfield, The Meinertzhagen Mystery, p. viii 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.Garfield, p. 70 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.Garfield, p. 46 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.Edinburgh Gazette, 25 February 1916, p. 329.Garfield, pp. 46-47.
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.Garfield, p. 50 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.Garfield, p. 56
Kenya
Meinertzhagen was assigned as a staff officer with the King's African Rifles (KAR). Again, he participated in big-game hunting, but "regarded himself as scientist-explorer first, and only incidentally as a soldier." His maps, landscapes, and wildlife drawings proved him an artist of exceptional talent. In 1903, he was delegated to conduct a wild animal census in the Serengeti and Athi plains.Garfield, p. 58
In 1902 and 1903 Meinertzhagen travelled through Northern Gikuyuland, probably on British imperial missions. During that time he named the site of modern day Nyeri Town after the local name of Nyeri Hill nearby. Later, after establishing relations with local chiefs, he got into an altercation because of the government taxes he imposed and his harassment of them. Meinertzhagen ordered his soldiers to burn Gikuyu villages in the night, without warning, killing more than a hundred people.
During Meinertzhagen's assignment to Africa, frequent native "risings and rebellions" occurred. By 1903 KAR's retaliatory ventures focused on confiscation of livestock, a highly effective form of punishment, and "the KAR had become accomplished cattle-rustlers". In 1904 Meinertzhagen took part in one such punitive expedition, commanded by a Captain Francis Arthur Dickinson of the 3rd KAR, in which more than 11,000 cattle were captured at the cost of 3 men killed and 33 wounded. The body count on the African side was estimated at 1,500 from the Kikuyu and Embu tribes.Garfield, p. 59
He was promoted to Captain in February 1905.Garfield, p. 60 In the Kenya Highlands that year Meinertzhagen ended the anti-colonial Nandi Resistance, by killing its leader, the Nandi Orkoiyot (spiritual leader) Koitalel Arap Samoei. He arranged a meeting to negotiate a truce by Koitalel's home on 19 October 1905, at which he planned to kill him. Meinertzhagen shot Koitalel at point-blank range while shaking his hand and his men killed Koitatlel's accompanying entourage, including most of his advisors. It is claimed that he also decapitated Koitalel and sent his head and some of Koitalel's body parts to England. Initially he was able to orchestrate a cover-up and was commended for the incident.Garfield, p. 68 However, after news of what had actually happened became public, Meinertzhagen claimed self-defence and eventually, after a third court of inquiry, he was cleared by the presiding officer, Brigadier William Manning. Meinertzhagen collected tribal artefacts after this revolt. Some of these items, including a walking stick and baton belonging to Koitalel, were returned to Kenya in 2006. Pressure from the Colonial Department on the War Office eventually brought about Meinertzhagen's removal from Africa, as "he had become a negative symbol" and on 28 May 1906 "he found himself on a ship being trundled back to England in disgrace and in disgust."Garfield, p. 69 Meinertzhagen spent 1902 to 1906 in East Africa earning £400 but returned from Africa earning £4000, the rest being earnings from hunting, largely from the sale of ivory.
South and East Africa Captain Meinertzhagen then spent the latter part of 1906 at "dreary administrative War Office desk jobs pushing papers." However, "... by making full use of his wide network of contacts in high places" he was able to rehabilitate himself and was assigned to the Fusiliers' Third Battalion in South Africa, arriving at Cape Town on 3 February 1907. He served there in 1908 and 1909, then on Mauritius. By 1913, he was again in India.
At the beginning of the First World War, he was posted to the intelligence staff of the British Indian Expeditionary Force. His map-making skills were much valued and recognized, though his assessments of the strength of the German Schutztruppe and other contributions to the conduct of the Battle of Tanga and the Battle of Kilimanjaro were complete failures.Garfield, p. 89 From January 1915 through August 1916, Meinertzhagen served as chief of British military intelligence for the East African theatre at Nairobi, rising to the rank of Major in September 1915.Garfield, p. 71
His diary record of this campaign contain harsh assessments of senior officers, of the role played by the Royal Navy, and of the quality of the Indian units sent to East Africa.Charles Miller, Battle for the Bundu – the First World War in East Africa, pp. 56–71; He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in February 1916Garfield, p. 116 after being nominated for it by Jan Christian Smuts, the new commanding general, "who took a liking to Meinertzhagen". In November of that year Smuts ordered him to be invalided home to England.Garfield, p. 119
Palestine campaign
During 1917, Meinertzhagen was transferred from East Africa to Deir el-Belah. He made contact with Nili, a Jewish spy network headed by the agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn. Meinertzhagen later asserted that he respected Aaronsohn more than anyone else he ever met. Among many other sources the pair was instrumental in contacting Jewish officers in the Ottoman army and attempting to effect their defection to the allies. A German Jewish doctor stationed at el-Afulah railway junction gave valuable reconnaissance reports on troop movements south. Meinertzhagen's department produced regular maps from the data showing the dispositions of enemy forces in the desert.R. M's Army Diary, 1899–1926, pp. 224–5; Sheffy, British Military Intelligence, pp. 269–73; J.D. Grainger, Palestine 1917, pp. 100–1 In October 1917, the Turks broke up the network by intercepting a carrier pigeon and subjecting the Jews to hideous torture. Aaron's 27-year-old sister Sarah, a key figure in the network, committed suicide in her home after torture. Meinertzhagen's sources of information dwindled to the occasional prisoner caught by patrols and deserters.
The 'Haversack Ruse' In October 1917; during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War, a haversack containing false British battle plans was allowed to fall into Ottoman military hands, allegedly bringing about the British victory in the Battle of Beersheba and Gaza.
The documents were taken to Kress von Kressenstein, who examined them and doubted their authenticity. According to an account by Turkish Colonel Hussein Husni, Chief of Staff of 7th Army, Meinertzhagen's German-sounding name caused confusion in the German and Turkish staff as to why a British officer would have a German name and added to the suspicion of the inauthenticity of the documents.Garfield, Brian; The Meinertzhagen Mystery, 2007; p. 28; Von Kressenstein later wrote that he did not believe the documents were real: No changes in German-Turkish positions took place in the weeks leading up to the British operations at Beersheba or Gaza, indicating that the ruse had no effect on the decision-making of the Turkish-German leadership. However, von Kressenstein was criticised for sending no significant reinforcements to Beersheba despite the deception being discovered.Garfield, Brian; The Meinertzhagen Mystery, 2007; p. 29;