Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:14:19.184Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The British Way in Warfare Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Hew Strachan
Hew Strachan
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the last fifteen years military history in Britain has gained considerably in respectability, both in the country at large and in academic circles specifically. But it still has problems of identity. On the one hand, military history can at last find itself judged as part of ‘total history’. But, on the other, its origins as the staple fodder of nineteenth-century military academies have bequeathed it a strong didactic flavour which has proved hard to shed. Military history and strategic theory do not yet stand in the same relationship to each other as, say, political history and political theory. Perhaps because in Britain there is still too little independent informed analysis of defence, military history can be employed in a dual role. The ‘lessons of history’ are stronger here than in any other area. However impeccable the motives of military historians, their work is too often used as a prescription for the future rather than as a study of the past.

Type
Historiographical Reviews
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , June 1983 , pp. 447 - 461
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The first draft of this paper was written in the wake of the June 1981 review, and presented to the Fitzwilliam college history society on 26 Jan. 1982. The Falklands crisis has given it added piquancy, without revising its conclusions.

2 Peter Hennessy and David Greenwood ‘Uncovering the real defence cuts’, The Times, 7 July 1981. But figures varied according to the manner in which they were presented. The United Kingdom defence programme: the way forward, June 1981, cmnd 8288, p. 10, gives a reduction from 59 destroyers to about 50. The Hermes was to be phased out, leaving only two carriers.

3 International institute for strategic studies, The military balance, 1981–82, p. 112.

4 Defence in the 1980s. Statement on the defence estimates 1980, cmnd 7826-I, pp. 39–42.

5 Henry, Leach, ‘British maritime forces: the future’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, CXXVII, 3 (1982), 13.Google Scholar

6 Statement on the defence estimates 1969, cmnd 3927, p. 9. The history of this process can be traced through Bartlett, C. J., The long retreat: a short history of British defence policy, 1945–1970 (London, 1972);CrossRefGoogle ScholarMartin, L. W., The long recessional (International institute for strategic studies, Adelphi paper no. 61, 1969);Google ScholarJohn, Baylis (ed.), British defence policy in a changing world (London, 1977).Google Scholar A provocative treatment of prevailing assumptions is Smith, Dan, The defence of the realm in the 1980s (London, 1980).Google Scholar On Denis Healey, Peter Nailor, ‘Denis Healey and rational decision-making in defence’, in Beckett, I. F. W. and John, Gooch, Politicians and defence: studies in the formulation of British defence policty (Manchester, 1981).Google Scholar

7 Lawrence, Freedman, ‘Britain's contribution to Nato’, International affairs, LIV, I (1978), 35.Google Scholar

8 Michael, Howard, The continental commitment (Harmondsworth, 1974), p. 149.Google Scholar

9 Ibid. p. 51.

10 Ibid. pp. 121–2.

11 Bond, Brian, British military policy between the two world wars (Oxford, 1980), p. 1.Google Scholar

12 Brian, Bond, ‘Dunkirk: myths and lessons’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, CXXVII, 3 (1982), 7.Google Scholar See also Brian, Bond, France and Belgium, 1939–1940 (London, 1975).Google Scholar

13 Times Literary Supplement, 16 April 1982, p. 428.

14 Hart, B. H. Liddell, The British way in warfare (London), 1933), p. 37.Google Scholar On Liddell, Hart, Brian, Bond, Liddell Hart: a study of his military thought (London, 1977);Google ScholarJay, Luvaas, The education of an army: British military thought, 1815–1940 (London, 1965), ch. 11.Google Scholar

15 Kennedy, Paul M., The rise and fall of British naval mastery (London, 1976), pp. 26–7.Google Scholar

16 Kennedy, Paul M., The realities behind diplomacy (Glasgow, 1981), p. 34.Google Scholar

17 Hart, B. H. Liddell, A history of the world war, 1914–1918 (London, 1934), pp. 587–8.Google Scholar

18 Kennedy, British naval mastery, p. 254.

19 Times Literary Supplement, 2 Jan. 1981, p. 3.

20 Stephen, Roskill, The strategy of sea power, its development and application (London, 1962), pp. 120–1.Google Scholar Arthur Marder's position is supportive, if more cautious, Marder, Arthur J., From the dreadnought to Scapa Flow. The Royal Navy in the Fisher era, 1904–1919 (5 vols., London, 1961–1970), III, 209–12.Google Scholar

21 Gerd, Hardach, The First World War,1914–1918 (London, 1977), p. 124.Google Scholar

22 Kennedy, British naval mastery, p. 259.

23 Ibid. p. xvii.

24 On the military view of war aims, see John, Gooch, ‘Soldiers, strategy and war aims in Britain, 1914–1918’, in Hunt, B. and Preston, A. (eds.) War aims and strategic planning in the Great War (London, 1977).Google Scholar

25 Terraine, John, To win a war, 1918 (London, 1978), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

26 For a more extended discussion of these points, see the present writer's review in Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, LIX, 3 (1981), 177–180, and subsequent correspondence, LX, I (1982), 50–6.Google Scholar

27 John Terraine, The smoke and the fire, p. 49.

28 Ibid, chapters V and VI.

29 Ibid. p. 37.

30 Correlli, Barnett, Britain and her army, 1509–1970 (London, 1970), p. xviii.Google Scholar

31 Ibid. p. xix.

32 Ibid. p. 187.

33 Ibid. p. 515.

34 Correlli, Barnett, The collapse of British power (London, 1972), p. 581.Google Scholar

35 Bond, , British military policy, p. 36.Google Scholar On the strength of imperialism, Darwin, John, ‘Imperialism in decline? Tendencies in British imperial policy between the wars’, Historical Journal, XXIII, 3 (1980), 657–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Tim, Travers, ‘The hidden army: structural problems in the British officer corps, 1900–1918’, Journal of Contemporary History, XVII, 3 (1982), 523–44.Google Scholar

37 On the tactical problems within the army, Shelford, Bidwell and Dominick, Graham, Fire-power: British army weapons and theories of war, 1904–1945 (London, 1982), pp. 145–6, 150–1.Google Scholar On the strategic consequences of tactical and technological change, and the consequent balance between the services, Smith, Malcolm S., ‘Rearmament and deterrence in Britain in the 1930s’, Journal of Strategic Studies, I, 3 (1978), 313–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the consequent confusion for the government, Shay, R. P., jr, British rearmament in the thirties: politics and profits (Princeton, 1977) esp. p. 282.Google Scholar

38 Barnett, Collapse of British power, p. 583.

39 Ibid. p. 50.

40 Ibid. p. 91.

41 John, Gallagher and Ronald, Robinson, ‘The imperialism of free trade’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, VI, I (1953), 1–15.Google Scholar

42 Barnett, Collapse of British power, p. 425.

43 Ibid. p. 433.

44 John, Cruickshank, Variations on catastrophe: some French responses to the Great War (Oxford, 1982).Google Scholar

45 It was published by Manchester university press, 1975, and also appeared in the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, CXXI, 3 (1976), 11–19.Google Scholar

46 The Times, 22 Dec. 1980.

47 Kennedy, Paul M. summarises these points in ‘Strategy versus finance in twentieth-century Great Britain’, International History Review, III, I (1981), 44–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Shay, , British rearmament in the thirties, pp. 286–8;Google ScholarPeden, G. C., British rearmament and the Treasury (Edinburgh, 1979), ch. 3;Google ScholarGustav, Schmidt, England in der Krise: Grundzüge und Grundlagen der britische Appeasement-Politik, 1930–1937 (Wiesbaden, 1981).Google ScholarMaurice, Cowling, The impact of Hitler. British politics and British policy, 1933–1940 (Cambridge, 1975) develops the argument for domestic political priorities.Google Scholar

48 Colomb's expression, Marder, Arthur J., British naval policy, 1880–1905. The anatomy of British sea power (London, 1941), p. 70.Google Scholar

49 Schurman, Donald M., The education of a navy; the development of British naval strategic thought, 1867–1914 (London, 1965);Google ScholarSchurman, Donald M., Julian S. Corbett, 1854–1922. Historian of British maritime policy from Drake to Jellicoe (London, 1981); Marder, From the dreadnought to Scapa Flow, I, 385.Google Scholar

50 John, Gooch, ‘The bolt from the blue’, in The prospect of war (London, 1981);Google ScholarMoon, H. R., ‘The invasion of the United Kingdom’, London university Ph.D. thesis, 1968;Google ScholarStrachan, H. F. A., ‘The pre-Crimean origins of reform in the British army’, Cambridge university Ph.D. thesis, 1977, chs. VI and VII.Google Scholar

51 Hamer, W. S., The British army, civil-military relations, 1885–1905 (Oxford, 1970), pp. 106–8.Google Scholar The idea was not new: see Hew Strachan ‘Lord Grey and imperial defence’, in Beckett and Gooch, Politicians and defence, p. 9. Ian Beckett, F. W. has promised a reconsideration of strategy at this period, ‘Edward Stanhope at the War Office, 1887–92’, Journal of Strategic Studies, V, 2 (1982), 306 n. 60.Google Scholar

52 John, Gooch, ‘Mr Haldane's army’, in The prospect of war, pp. 92–115;Google ScholarSpiers, Edward M., Haldane: an army reformer (Edinburgh, 1980).Google Scholar See also John, Gooch, The plans of war: the general staff and British military strategy c. 1900–1916 (London, 1974), pp. 106–7, 289–92;Google ScholarTrevor, Wilson, ‘Britain's “moral commitment” to France in August 1914’, History, LXIV, 212 (1979), 380–90.Google Scholar

53 Bond, , British military policy, pp. 198, 265–8;Google ScholarPratt, L. R., East of Malta, west of Suez. Britain's Mediterranean crisis, 1936–39 (Cambridge, 1975).Google Scholar

54 Hew, Strachan, ‘Soldiers, strategy and Sebastopol’, Historical Journal, XXI, 2 (1978), 303–25.Google Scholar

55 Richard, Holmes, The little field-marshal: Sir John French (London, 1981), pp. 260–3;Google ScholarMarder, , From the dreadnought to Scapa Flow, I, 345.Google Scholar

56 Robert, Blake (ed.), The private papers of Douglas Haig, 1914–1919 (London, 1952), pp. 228–9;Google ScholarJohn, Terraine, Douglas Haig, the educated soldier (London, 1963), pp. 250–1, 307.Google Scholar

57 Bond, British military polity, pp. 294–8.

58 Freedman, ‘Britain's contribution’, p. 44.

59 Hedley, Bull, ‘Force in international relations’, in Robert, O'Neill and Horner, D. M. (eds.), New directions in strategic thinking (London, 1981), p. 25.Google Scholar

60 Quoted in Geoffrey, Best, Humanity in warfare (London, 1980), p. 249.Google Scholar

61 On the ethical considerations, Barrie, Paskins and Michael, Dockrill, The ethics of war (London, 1979), esp. ch. 1.Google Scholar

62 The recent literature on these points includes Uri, Bialer, The shadow of the bomber: the fear of air attack and British politics, 1932–1939 (London, 1980);Google ScholarHyde, H. Montgomery, British air policy between the wars, 1918–1939 (London, 1976);Google ScholarPowers, Barry D., Strategy without slide-rule: British air strategy, 1914–1939 (London, 1976);Google ScholarMalcolm, Smith, ‘The Royal Air Force, air power and British foreign policy, 1932–37’, Journal of Contemporary History, XII, (1977), 153–74.Google Scholar