Charles Doughty-Wylie

Charles Hotham Montagu Doughty-Wylie
Born	23 July 1868 Theberton, Suffolk
Died	25 April 1915(1915-04-25) (aged 46) Gallipoli, Ottoman Empire
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1889 - 1915
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel
Unit	Somaliland Camel Corps The Royal Welch Fusiliers
Battles/wars	Mahdist War Chitral Expedition 1898 Occupation of Crete Second Boer War Boxer Rebellion Third Somaliland Expedition First World War
Awards	Victoria Cross Companion of the Order of the Bath Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George Order of the Medjidie (Ottoman Empire)

Lieutenant Colonel Charles Hotham Montagu Doughty-Wylie VC CB CMG (23 July 1868 – 26 April 1915) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. Doughty-Wylie was also posthumously awarded the Order of the Medjidie from the very Ottoman Government he fought against.

Early life

A native of Suffolk, Doughty-Wylie was an 1889 graduate of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. His military career included the Chitral Expedition (1895), 1898 Occupation of Crete, the Mahdist War (1898–99), the Second Boer War, the Boxer Rebellion (1900) and Somaliland (1903–04) where he commanded a unit of the Somaliland Camel Corps.

Turkish Revolution

Colonel Doughty-Wylie was the British consul in Mersina, Ottoman Empire,^[1] during the Young Turk Revolution of 1909. Richard Bell-Davies (later a VC winner, then a lieutenant on the battleship HMS Swiftsure) met him at the time and gives an account in his autobiography Sailor in the Air (1967).

Massacres of Armenians started along with the revolution, and Bell-Davies says that it was largely due to the efforts of Doughty-Wylie that these were halted in Mersina. Doughty-Wylie then went to Adana, forty miles away. He persuaded the local Vali (Governor) to give him a small escort of Ottoman troops and a bugler and with these managed to restore order. Mrs. Doughty-Wylie turned part of the dragoman's house into a hospital for wounded Armenians. Bell-Davies says that by the time an armed party from Swiftsure arrived, Doughty-Wylie had again almost stopped the massacre single-handedly. Newspaper reports of the period record that Doughty-Wylie was shot in the arm, while trying to prevent these massacres.^[2]

Charles Hotham Montagu Doughty-Wylie was the recipient of the Order of the Medjidie from the Ottoman Government. He was awarded the Medjidie because of his work during the Balkan Wars when he served with the British Red Cross helping the Ottoman Military. He is the only soldier to have been awarded military honors by both the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire.^[3]

First World War

Doughty-Wylie was 46 years old, and a lieutenant colonel in The Royal Welch Fusiliers, British Army when, "owing to his great knowledge of things Turkish" according to Bell-Davies, he was attached to General Sir Ian Hamilton's headquarters staff of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force during the Battle of Gallipoli.

On 26 April 1915, following the landing at Cape Helles on the Gallipoli peninsula, during which the brigadier general and the brigade major had been killed, Lieutenant Colonel Doughty-Wylie and another officer (Garth Neville Walford) organized and made an attack through and on both sides of the village of Sedd-el-Bahr on the Old Fort at the top of the hill. The enemy's position was very strongly entrenched and defended, but mainly due to the initiative, skill and great gallantry of the two officers the attack was a complete success.

Both were killed in the moment of victory. Doughty-Wylie was shot in the face by sniper and died instantly. Doughty-Wylie is buried close to where he was killed. His grave is the only solitary British or Commonwealth war grave on the Gallipoli peninsula: The Turkish authorities moved the graves of all other foreign soldiers to the "V Beach" graves except for his.^[4]

His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum in Caernarfon Castle, Gwynedd, Wales.

Personal life

Doughty-Wylie, a married man, had an unconsummated affair with Gertrude Bell with whom he exchanged love letters from 1913-1915 until his death. Bell was an eminent English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist who explored, mapped in the region of Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia.^[5]

References

• Monuments To Courage (David Harvey, 1999)
• The Register of the Victoria Cross (This England, 1997)
• VCs of the First World War - Gallipoli (Stephen Snelling, 1995)

External links

• Charles Doughty-Wylie at Find a Grave