'Small Wars' and 'Imperial Policing': The British Army and the Theory and Practice of Colonial Warfare in the British Empire, 1919–1939

2014 ◽  
pp. 111-137
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
British Army ◽  
Small Wars ◽  
Colonial Warfare

Imperial Armies in the Period of Rearmament and Appeasement, 1933–1939

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas E. Delaney
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
British Army ◽  
General Staff ◽  
Far Eastern

European and Far Eastern threats made the 1930s more serious for the armies of the British Empire. In 1934, the Defence Requirements Sub-Committee (DRC) of the Committee of Imperial Defence recommended British measures to rearm and put the prospect of a continental commitment back to a place of prominence in British Army planning. But manpower problems continued to figure prominently in any general staff appreciation of possible army commitments, so Britain still looked to India and the dominions. The problem was that they were of very different attitudes politically, and generally unwilling to make commitments in advance of hostilities. Even so, generals across the empire had to plan for worst cases and they continued to pursue measures that would ensure reasonable cooperation when war came. Dominion and Indian officers still attended the staff colleges and the Imperial Defence College, and exchanges of periodical letters continued with renewed vigour.

From Small Wars to Guerrilla Warfare: Imperial School of British Military Thought During the Interbellum

2021 ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Stanislav Malkin
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Guerrilla Warfare ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
Guerilla Warfare ◽  
Small Wars ◽  
British Military ◽  
The Face ◽  
Colonial Order ◽  
The Military

The Interbellum era was marked by the competition of various interpretations of guerrilla warfare and small wars, which were a practical expression of rebel activity in the colonies and on the outskirts of the British Empire. Discussions in that regard reflected both theoretical and doctrinal contradictions and the bureaucratic rivalry between the departments responsible for its internal security and the confrontation between the military and civilian authorities over the boundaries of their responsibility to preserve colonial order. The evolution of the meaning of the concept of “guerilla warfare” within the British military thought in the first half of the 20th century is demonstrated by highlighting the stages of the process, historical reconstruction of the levels of discussion of this topic in a professional environment, and identifying the degree of mutual influence of its basic provisions in the face of budgetary constraints and new challenges to colonial rule after the First World War. This approach allowed to specify ideas about the place and role of the army in the functioning of the internal security system of the British Empire at the final stage of its existence. The analysis of the semantics and content of the “guerilla warfare” concept between two world wars makes it possible to apply a new approach to the issue of disagreements between the military and civilian authorities over the choice of the military and political course in the conflicts of this kind. Thus, the identified differences may be viewed as a result not of the bureaucratic differences only, but as the absence of the unified understanding of the “modern rebellion” problem among the military as itself.

William Boog Leishman: parasitologist and politician

Parasitology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 144 (12) ◽  
pp. 1582-1589 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. M. VINCENT
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Medical Officer ◽  
Early Research ◽  
Morbidity And Mortality ◽  
Causative Organism ◽  
British Army ◽  
Political Skills

SUMMARYFamous for the discovery of the parasite, Leishmania, named after him, and the invention of Leishman's stain, William Boog Leishman should perhaps be better known for his work in military and public health, particularly the prevention of typhoid. Leishman was a Medical Officer in the British Army from 1887 until his death in 1926. His early research was on diseases affecting troops posted to stations within the British Empire. He saw cases of Leishmaniasis while stationed in India, and was able to identify the causative organism from his detailed records of his observations. Leishman's most important contribution to public health, however, was his work with typhoid, a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the army. Leishman planned experiments and the collection of data to demonstrate the efficacy of anti-typhoid inoculation and, using his considerable political skills, advocated the adoption of the vaccine. He planned for the inoculation of troops in an emergency so, when war broke out in 1914, the vaccine was available to save thousands of lives. Leishman's colleagues and mentors included Ronald Ross and Almroth Wright. Leishman was less outspoken than either Ross or Wright; this paper shows how the different contributions of the three men overlapped.

Refabricating the Imperial Image on the Isle of Dogs: Modernist Design, British State Exhibitions and Colonial Policy 1924–1951

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 317-348
Author(s):  
Rhodri Windsor Liscombe
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Town Planning ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
International Expositions ◽  
Festival Of Britain ◽  
British State

Historical analysis of the 1951 Festival of Britain has tended to overlook its ideological genealogy, and also to give less consideration to the Exhibition of Architecture, Town Planning and Building Research at Lansbury in Poplar on the Isle of Dogs than to the architecture and displays at the South Bank site (Figs 1 and 2). That genealogy reflects an intersection between the formulation of colonial policy and the adaptation of Modern Movement theory and practice during the final phase of British imperialism. Consequently the purpose of this paper is to recover various aspects of this intersection, during the nearly three decades from the British Empire Exhibition of 1924. Focusing on design practice in the Empire, especially the national exhibition buildings erected at those major international expositions that led up to and culminated in the Festival of Britain, it also examines the wider representation of architectural and colonial development in professional media and public propaganda.

The Expansion of Politics as Control

2019 ◽  
pp. 33-66
Author(s):  
Pradip Ninan Thomas
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Specific Nature ◽  
Digital Surveillance ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Foucauldian Theory

This chapter begins with an introduction to surveillance as both theory and practice, beginning in the era of the British Empire, followed by Foucauldian theory and the specific nature of digital surveillance in contemporary India. It explores the State’s many investments in the surveillance of its citizens against the reality of insufficient legal support for privacy. It highlights the complexities and compulsions of Aadhaar as well as the geopolitics of surveillance and India’s surveillance partnerships with the USA. It also explores the ambiguities of e-governance, the politics of transactional efficiencies against the creeping power of ‘code’, as well as the persistence of caste and other markers of identity that have made a comeback in the context of a resurgent nationalism in India.

Select documents XLVI: ‘Unofficial emissaries’: British army boxers in the Irish Free State, 1926

1996 ◽  
Vol 30 (118) ◽  
pp. 206-222
Author(s):  
David Fitzpatrick
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Free State ◽  
Internal Stability ◽  
British Army ◽  
Economic Dependence ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Domestic Security ◽  
Fianna Fail ◽  
Irish Free State

By October 1926 the Irish Free State seemed to have emerged at last from the prolonged nightmare of the ‘Troubles’. Within three and a half years of the abandonment of armed insurrection by the republicans, Cosgrave’s government had proved unexpectedly effective in securing both internal stability and external reconciliation with its former antagonists. In May 1926 de Valera had committed his followers to parliamentary struggle by founding Fianna Fáil, thereby marginalising intransigent republicanism until it became a lingering irritant rather than an immediate menace to domestic security. The tripartite agreements of December 1925 had perpetuated partition and resolved some of the thorny fiscal problems raised by the Anglo-Irish treaty. The process of reconciliation with Britain was crowned during October and November 1926, when Kevin O’Higgins and the Irish delegation played a creative and enthusiastic role in remodelling the British Empire at the Imperial Conference in London. The consolidation of the Irish Free State as an autonomous dominion of twenty-six counties, comfortably acknowledging its strategic and economic dependence on Britain, seemed virtually assured.

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