The British Army and the First World War

AbstractIntelligence has always been an aspect of organized warfare. It was not until 1873, however, that the British Army recognised this formally by establishing an explicitly named unit, under the auspices of the War Office, dedicated to the development of strategic intelligence: the Intelligence Branch. Based on documents held in the National Archives (UK), this study explores the ways in which the work of the Intelligence Branch developed before the First World War in response to imperial and foreign military challenges and the growing awareness of the importance of strategic intelligence and planning. The Branch’s steam-age origins should not disguise the intensity and sophistication of the information management that underpinned its operations. Attention is paid to the type of information management methods that were employed. The existence of a rational system of information management is revealed, consisting of planned phases for the collection, processing, storage, organisation, analysis and dissemination of information.

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A Nation in Arms: A Social Study of the British Army in the First World War.

Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews ◽

10.2307/2071282 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 135

Author(s):

D. E. Canjar ◽

Ian F. W. Beckett ◽

Keith Simpson

Keyword(s):

Social Study ◽

First World War ◽

British Army ◽

World War ◽

The First World War ◽

First World

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The Secret of Efficiency? Social Relations and Patronage in the British Army in the Era of the First World War*

The English Historical Review ◽

10.1093/ehr/ceaa258 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Aimée Fox

Keyword(s):

Social History ◽

Social Relations ◽

Armed Forces ◽

First World War ◽

British Army ◽

Hierarchical Systems ◽

World War ◽

The Social ◽

The First World War ◽

First World

Abstract In recent years, the social history of armed forces has done much to reconstruct the experience of soldiering. However, remarkably few studies focus explicitly upon the social and political relations that play a central role in how armies behave. This article aims to understand the British Army in the era of the First World War in terms of its informal and formal organisation, exploring and interrogating the connections and relationships between individuals and the structures within which they operate. Using the concept of patronage as a lens, it will demonstrate how social relationships were able to offer alternatives to purely hierarchical systems of administration. Rather than simple favouritism, for a variety of reasons these processes functioned along meritocratic lines, enabling the Army to adopt pragmatic and innovative solutions to the challenges of the First World War.

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The Clergy in Khaki: New Perspectives on British Army Chaplains in the First World War. Edited by Michael Snape and Edward Madigan. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 2013. xvi + 222 pp. $99.90 hardcover.

Church History ◽

10.1017/s0009640714002017 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 84 (1) ◽

pp. 267-270

Author(s):

Jonathan H. Ebel

Keyword(s):

First World War ◽

British Army ◽

World War ◽

The First World War ◽

Ashgate Publishing ◽

Army Chaplains ◽

First World

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British Army Chaplains and Capital Courts-Martial in the First World War

Studies in Church History ◽

10.1017/s0424208400002989 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 40 ◽

pp. 357-368

Author(s):

Michael Snape

Keyword(s):

First World War ◽

British Army ◽

World War ◽

Shell Shock ◽

Firing Squad ◽

The First World War ◽

The Subject ◽

British Experience ◽

Army Chaplains ◽

First World

Of all the dark legends which have arisen out of the British experience of the First World War, perhaps none is more compelling than the fate of more than three hundred British, Dominion and Colonial soldiers who were tried and executed for military offences during the course of the conflict. Controversial at the time, these executions were the subject of much debate and official scrutiny in the inter-war period and, even today, the subject continues to have a bitter and painful resonance. Led by the Shot at Dawn Campaign, pressure for the rehabilitation of these men continues and the case for a millennium pardon was marked in June 2001 by the opening of an emotive memorial to them at the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield. However, this paper is not concerned with the justice of the proceedings which led to the deaths of these men. Whether due legal process was followed or whether those executed were suffering from shell shock are difficult and probably unanswerable questions which I will leave to legal and to military historians. Instead of investigating the circumstances of the condemned, this paper turns the spotlight onto the circumstances and attitudes of men whose presence at military executions was as inevitable as that of the prisoner or the firing squad; namely, the commissioned chaplains of the British army.

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