Major General Charles Howard Foulkes (1875-1969) was an engineer in the British Army. He saw service in World War I and, following the first German use of gas on 22 April 1915 at Ypres, became Britain's chief advisor on gas warfare . He also advised on the use of gas to suppress the uprisings in Afghanistan (1919) and Waziristan (1920), but mercifully gas was never deployed in these conflicts.

Biography

• Born in India, 1875
• Commissioned into the British Army as 2nd Lt, Royal Engineers, 1894
• Sierra Leone, West Africa, 1897-1899
• Boer War, 1899-1900
• Assistant commander on the Anglo-French Boundary Commission , Northern Nigeria, 1902-1904
• Kano-Sokoto expedition , Nigeria 1903
• Appointed Capt and married Dorothea Oakey, 1904
• Command of the Ordnance Survey of Scotland , 1904-1909
• Command of 31 (Fortress) Company, Ceylon, 1909-1912
• Command of 'L' Company, Royal Engineers' Depot, Chatham, 1913
• Appointed Major, 1914
• Western Front, World War I, 1914-1918
  • Commander, 11 (Field) Company, First Battle of Ypres 1914
  • Appointed Gas Adviser, 1915
  • Command of Special Brigade , and Director of Gas Services, 1917
  • President of the Chemical Warfare Committee, 1918
• North West Frontier Province, India, 1919-1920
  • Afghan War 1919
  • Waziristan 1919-1920
• Appointed Lt Col, Commander, Royal Engineers in Fermoy, Ireland and Director of Irish Propaganda, 1921
• Commander, Royal Engineers in Northumbria, 1922
• Appointed Col and Deputy Chief Engineer, Southern Command, 1924
• Chief Engineer, Aldershot Command, 1926-1930
• Aide-de-camp to the King 1928
• Appointed Maj Gen, 1930
• Retired, 1930
• Publication of Gas! The Story of the Special Brigade, 1934
• Colonel Commandant, Royal Engineers, 1937-1945
• Publication of Commonsense and ARP, a practical guide for householders and business managers, 1939
• Awarded Gold Medal of the Institution of Royal Engineers , 1964
• Died in Hampshire, 1969

Source: Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives

Publications

• Foulkes, C.H., Gas! The Story of the Special Brigade (W Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1934)
• Foulkes, C.H., Commonsense and ARP, a practical guide for householders and business managers (C Arthur Pearson, London, 1939)