author
C. R. M. F. (Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser) Cruttwell
1887–1941
An Oxford historian of modern Europe, he is best known for his substantial history of the First World War and for a life shaped by scholarship, military service, and college leadership. His career also became unexpectedly tangled with Evelyn Waugh, whose long-running mockery helped keep his name in literary memory.
1 Audiobook
The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.)
by C. R. M. F. (Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser) Cruttwell
About the author
Born on 23 May 1887, Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell was a British historian and academic whose work focused on modern European history. He studied at Oxford, became a fellow of All Souls, and went on to teach at Hertford College, where he later served as dean and then principal.
Cruttwell served in the First World War, an experience that informed his best-known book, A History of the Great War, 1914–18. Alongside his writing on the war, he produced historical work on modern Europe and built a reputation as a serious scholar and teacher.
He died on 14 March 1941. Although remembered chiefly as a historian, he is also often mentioned in connection with Evelyn Waugh, who turned a personal dislike into a recurring literary joke; that odd afterlife has kept interest in Cruttwell alive alongside his academic work.