John Frederick Charles Fuller | |
---|---|
Nickname(s) | "Boney" |
Born |
Chichester, West Sussex, England |
1 September 1878
Died | 10 February 1966 Falmouth, Cornwall, England |
(aged 87)
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service/branch | British Army |
Years of service | 1899–1933 |
Rank | Major General |
Unit | Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry |
Battles/wars |
Second Boer War First World War |
Awards |
Companion of the Order of the Bath Commander of the Order of the British Empire Distinguished Service Order |
Other work | Military historian, occultist, author |
Major General John Frederick Charles "Boney" Fuller, CB, CBE, DSO (1 September 1878 – 10 February 1966) was a senior British Army officer, military historian, and strategist, notable as an early theorist of modern armoured warfare, including categorizing principles of warfare. With 45 books and many articles, he was a highly prolific author whose ideas reached army officers and the interested public. He explored the business of fighting, in terms of the relationship between warfare and social, political, and economic factors in the civilian sector. Fuller emphasized the potential of new weapons, especially tanks and aircraft, to stun a surprised enemy psychologically.
Fuller was highly controversial in British politics because of his support for the organized fascist movement. He was also an occultist and Thelemite who wrote a number of works on esotericism and mysticism.
Fuller was born in 1878 at Chichester in West Sussex, the son of an Anglican clergyman. After moving to Lausanne with his parents as a boy, he returned to England at the age of 11 without them; three years later, at "the somewhat advanced age of 14", he began attending Malvern College and, later trained for an army career at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from 1897 to 1898. His nickname of "Boney", which he was to retain, is said to have come either from an admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte, or from an imperious manner combined with military brilliance which resembled Napoleon's.