Liddell Hart, Basil Henry, Sir (1895-1970)

Dates

• Existence: 1895 - 1970

Biography

Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart was born on October 31, 1895 in Paris. He received his formal academic education at St Paul's School in London and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.During World War I, Hart volunteered for the British Army, where he became an officer in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and served with the regiment on the Western Front. After the war he transferred to the Royal Army Educational Corps, where he prepared a new edition of the Infantry Training Manual. He retired from the Army in 1927 after which he turned to writing full time as a correspondent for the "Morning Post," the "Daily Telegraph" and the "The Times." In the mid to late twenties Liddell Hart wrote a series of histories of major military figures. In the late 1930s and during World War II, British Prime Minister Chamberlain placed Liddell Hart in a position of influence behind British grand strategy including the reorganization of the British Army for the defense of the British Empire. After the war, Liddell Hart was responsible for extensive interviews and debriefs for several high-ranking German generals, who were held by the Allies as prisoners-of-war. He provided commentary on their outlook which was published as "The Other Side of the Hill" and "The German Generals Talk" in 1948. He was also a proponent of the West German rearmament and the moral rehabilitation of the German Wehrmacht, as well as being responsible for the creation of the "Rommel myth." He died on January 29, 1970.

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