Born in South West England in 1858, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles à Court Repington was forced to retire from the British Army in 1902 due to a scandalous affair with the wife of a fellow officer. Returning to London, he quickly pivoted to journalism and rose to prominence as one of the country’s leading military correspondents. But he is now known for something else: a seemingly simple yet historically significant conversation. On September 10th 1918, as recorded in his diary that evening, he met with a Harvard Professor to decide on a name for the ongoing global conflict—a name that would shape how the war was remembered and studied for generations.

The Diary Entry

Tuesday, Sept. 10.

I saw Major Johnstone, the Harvard Professor who is here to lay the bases of an American History. We discussed the right name of the war. I said that we called it now The War, but that this could not last. The Napoleonic War was The Great War. To call it The German War was too much flattery for the Boche. I suggested The World War as a shade better title, and finally we mutually agreed to call it The First World War in order to prevent the millennium folk from forgetting that the history of the world was the history of war.

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Further Reading

Charles à Court Repington’s wartime diary was published in 1920 by Houghton Mifflin Company, titled The First World War 1914-1918: Personal Experiences of Lieut.-Col. C. à Court Repington. Long out of print, it can now be read at the Internet Archive.

Also…

• On QI, David Mitchell once argued about the naming of the First World War (YouTube)
• Occurrences of the phrases “First World War,” “Second World War,” and “Third World War” in books since 1850
• Charles à Court Repington at Wikipedia