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

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.

scholarly journals Church of England Army Chaplains in the First World War: Goodbye to ‘Goodbye to All That’

2011 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL SNAPE
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Western Front ◽  
The First World War ◽  
British Experience ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Army Chaplains ◽  
First World ◽  
The Church

The British experience of the First World War has given rise to a host of myths and misconceptions in both the folklore and the historiography of the war. The most damaging of these for the Church of England has been that its army chaplains skulked in the rear while a generation of British men fought and died in the trenches of the Western Front. This article exposes the falsity of this myth, tracing its origins to the inter-war boom in ‘war books’ and its longevity among ecclesiastical historians in particular to the pacifist sensitivities and flawed historiography of the 1960s and the 1970s.

De Brusselse vereniging De Veldbloem zoekt toenadering tot Hendrik Conscience. Twee pas ontdekte brieven

2011 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 276-289
Author(s):  
Luc Vandeweyer
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
De Man ◽  
First World

Het wordt in de historiografie van de Vlaamse beweging aanvaard dat Hendrik Conscience door de Brusselse progressieve vereniging ‘De Veldbloem’ in 1872 werd gevraagd om te kandideren voor de parlementaire verkiezingen. Conscience zou dat geweigerd hebben. Dit is uiteraard geen onbetekenend feit in de biografie van de man die ‘zijn volk leerde lezen’.Dit gegeven is terug te voeren op de geschriften van Antoon Jacob (°1889) van na de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Jacob werd beschouwd als een autoriteit inzake Conscience. Maar waar is het bewijs? Hij verwees daarbij naar “uitvoerige correspondentie” maar die is niet te vinden. Het ADVN slaagde erin om de archivalische nalatenschap van de in 1947 gestorven Jacob te verwerven. Daarin bleken heel wat brieven van en aan Conscience te zitten. De briefwisseling met ‘De Veldbloem’ was onderwerp van deze bijdrage. Daarin is geen spoor te vinden van de poging om Conscience op het politieke strijdtoneel te brengen in Brussel. Daarbij moet de vraag gesteld worden hoe Jacob deze archiefstukken verzamelde en wat ermee is gebeurd tijdens zijn turbulente leven en talrijke omzwervingen. Het is best mogelijk dat er een en ander is verloren gegaan. Toch is deze nalatenschap een belangrijke aanwinst voor de studie van de geschiedenis van de Vlaamse beweging en die van Conscience in het bijzonder. ________ The Brussels association ‘De Veldbloem’ seeks contact with Hendrik Conscience. Two recently discovered letters It is an accepted fact in the historiography of the Flemish Movement that the Brussels progressive Association ‘De Veldbloem’ [=the Wildflower] asked Hendrik Conscience in 1872 to be their candidate for the parliamentary elections. It is said that Hendrik Conscience refused the request. This is of course a very significant fact in the biography of the man ‘who taught his people to read.’ This information may be inferred from the writings of Antoon Jacob (°1889) from the period after the First World War. Jacob was regarded as an authority on Conscience. But where is the evidence of this? In his claim, he referred to ‘extensive correspondence’, but that correspondence is not extant. The ADVN managed to acquire the archival legacy of Jacob who died in 1947. It turned out that it included quite a number of letters to and from Conscience. The exchange of letters with ‘De Veldbloem’ was the subject of this contribution. It contains no trace of the attempt to bring Conscience into the political arena in Brussels. It raises the question how Jacob collected these archival documents and what happened to them during his turbulent life and his many peregrinations.  It is certainly possible that some documents have been lost. However, this legacy is still an important acquisition for the study of the history of the Flemish Movement and of Conscience in particular.

scholarly journals Information management in the Intelligence Branch of Britain’s War Office, 1873-1914: ‘All information flows toward it, or returns to it, in a form worked up into shape’

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-105
Author(s):  
Alistair Black
Keyword(s):  
Information Management ◽  
First World War ◽  
Information Flows ◽  
British Army ◽  
World War ◽  
Rational System ◽  
Strategic Intelligence ◽  
The First World War ◽  
National Archives ◽  
First World

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.

VI. Lord Bryce and the First World War

1967 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith G. Robbins
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Look Back ◽  
University Life ◽  
The Subject ◽  
First World ◽  
Life Politics

James Bryce considered that 1914 would be a satisfying year. He had just been created a viscount and, at the age of seventy-six, could look back on a career of distinction in university life, politics and diplomacy. He could continue to write books and indulge in correspondence with his friends. In fact, the books were not written and his correspondence became very practical. The tension in Europe in the summer of 1914 caused many people to ask him for advice on the best course of action. What, in particular, were Liberals to do? Some M.P.s were talking of peace demonstrations to keep Britain out of European war, but Bryce hesitated. On the evening of 31 July, the matter was discussed with J. A. Spender who noted that ‘… Bryce … strongly advised not to join this demonstration. He agreed that violation of Belgium would be casus belli.’ When Belgium was violated, Bryce was committed to the war but his commitment was reluctant, hesitant and with foreboding. The consequences of his decision are the subject of this article.

THE ROLE OF ENGLAND IN THE FORMATION OF THE PROTO-STATEHOOD OF THE IRAQI KURDS AFTER THE FIRST WORLD WAR (1918–1920) IN THE MANDATE TERRITORIES FORM

2020 ◽  
pp. 179-191
Author(s):  
Kirill V. Vertyaev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Iraqi Kurdistan ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Political Boundaries ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
First World

The article develops the stadial formation thesis of the proto-statehood among the Iraqi Kurds. The concept of national identity of the Iraqi Kurds remains the subject of a complex and long-lasting discussion. The main obstacle for the emergence of the Kurdish integral nationalism is still the fact that the Kurds speak different dialects of Kurdish language, and still maintain political and inter-clan conflicts over the distribution of power (not to mention the futility of any attempts to define political boundaries of Iraqi Kurdistan). Ironically, Great Britain faced practically the same contradictions during its occupation of Mesopotamia at the end of the WWI (following the Mudros armistice in October 1918), when British attempts to create an independent Kurdish state failed for a number of reasons, which are discussed in the article. In our opinion, this period was responsible for the formation of proto-statehood in Kurdish area (Kingdom of Kurdistan, for example, obtained classic characteristics of a chiefdom, but at the same time had a vivid anti-colonial, anti-imperialist orientation). The phenomenology of the British government’s political relations with such ‘quasi-states’ presents the subject for this article’s analysis.

scholarly journals The British Army and the First World War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Beckett ◽  
Timothy Bowman ◽  
Mark Connelly
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
British Army ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

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

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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