British Expeditionary Force Research Articles

Lord Haldane and the July Crisis

ABSTRACT There are widely differing interpretations of Lord Haldane’s behaviour during the July crisis. To some historians, the Lord Chancellor was part of a group – alongside Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill – loyal to the Anglo-French entente cordiale, who supported British intervention. As a former Secretary of War, they also believe he was committed to the early despatch of a British Expeditionary Force to the continent. But some of his contemporaries suspected Haldane of ‘pro-Germanism’, believed that he strove to prevent Britain going to war, that he worked to forestall the despatch of troops to France and that he tried to block Lord Kitchener’s appointment to head the War Office. This essay reconsiders the issue, exploiting evidence unavailable to earlier writers – notably an unpublished memoir by Haldane’s close friend, the Librarian of the House of Lords, Edmund Gosse – and argues that, far from exhibiting sympathy for Germany in 1914, Haldane was at the forefront of those who pushed the Liberal government towards war, having decided, early in the July crisis, that Germany was determined to exploit the situation to tip the balance of power in its own favour. He also acted as an important emotional prop for Grey in the closing week of the crisis and foresaw that the war, far from being ‘over by Christmas’, was likely to last for years.

Provisioning the Requirement: Machine Gun Needs of the British Expeditionary Force in France, 1914-1916

At the outbreak of the First World War, the British Army was in the process of replacing its Maxim machine guns with the Vickers machine gun it had adopted in 1912. Although both weapons were of the same calibre and shared some common accessories, they were not wholly compatible. Furthermore, with the expansion of the British Expeditionary Force and the concomitant need to increase its automatic firepower, the introduction of more machine guns had to be managed with increased demand and complexity, with additional new models introduced as the war progressed. By analysing the war diaries of the lines of communication, this article evaluates the rollout of the Vickers and later models, and the implications their introduction had on logistics, personnel, and organisation across the Force. It is hoped this approach will offer an insight into the prioritisation and decision-making of this critical period, as well as an opportunity to understand the growing importance of the machine gun ahead of the formation of the Machine Gun Corps in October 1915.

A family at war: The life and times of Frank McLardy, pharmacist.

George Francis 'Frank' McLardy (1915-1981) was a pharmacist who lived in Formby in the 1930s. He came from an unremarkable lower middle-class family and enjoyed considerable success at school and later at technical college and pharmacy school. He became a qualified pharmacist just before the war broke. He volunteered for the army and was sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force. In France, he witnessed the collapse of the allied forces and was quickly captured. He spent the rest of the war in Poland and in Germany. This was the fate of many young men during the war. What makes McLardy's case unique is that, prior to the war, had a very active role in the Liverpool district of the British Union of Fascists and, while a prisoner of war (POW) he offered to work for the Germans against the Russians and visited POW camps recruiting British men for a unit which aimed to go to the eastern front and fight in German uniforms. Moreover, he did all this while still actively using his qualification as a pharmacist.

Images of Great Britain and the British in Russian society during the First World War

The aim of the article is to analyze the general ideas about Great Britain and the British as military allies of the bloc of Entente countries, which existed in Russian society during the First World War. Methods used in the research: the method of content analysis, historical-genetic and historical-comparative. Main results: the article examines the visions of the British, common among the Russian intelligentsia on the eve of the First World War, and the influence of previous historical experience on the formation of these visions. It is analyzed in what way Russians' ideas about Britain as an allied state were transformed during the course of hostilities. Attempts to carry out state actions to promote Britain in the Russian Empire are considered, in particular, the visit of Russian journalists to the British Isles in 1916.Journalistic notes and journalistic works resulting from this visit are examined. Concise conclusions: the experience of the First World War showed that the state propaganda of the Russian Empire paid much more attention to the formation of the image of the enemy. Conversely, efforts aimed at familiarizing Russian society with allies in the bloc of Entente countries were significantly less powerful. At the beginning of the First World War, most representatives of Russian society looked skeptically at Britain as an ally, taking to the attantion the country's lack of general mobilization and its desire to fight only at sea. The experience of the war showed that although general mobilization was not introduced in Great Britain, the number of the British Expeditionary Force in continental Europe increased tenfold due to volunteers who demonstrated high fighting qualities. Britain abandoned the strategy of war exclusively at sea, fulfilling the All-Allied obligations, the country learned to overcome the resource crisis that arose as a result of raids by German submarines on the routes connecting the British Isles with the colonies. It was these messages that Russian journalists and publicists tried to convey about Britain, in particular, the participants of the 1916 visit. However, the number of materials aimed at a mass reader, dedicated to allies in Russia was much less than articles dedicated to the enemy. Even at the end of the war, Russian society looked at the Western Front as an unknown war. Over time, this gave rise to the idea among Russian veterans during the years of the Civil War that Britain and France had failed to fulfill their duty as allies and were guilty of Russia. Practical meaning: the materials of the article can be used in the teaching of the basic course for students of the Faculty of History (Oles Honchar Dnipro National University) at the bachelor's level – “History of Western Europe and North America in modern times”. Originality: for the first time, attention is focused on the fact that the sphere of ideas about the Allies by the Entente bloc during the First World War directly influenced the events at the front and determined the narratives of the USSR and Russian emigration after the world carnage. Scientific novelty: for the first time, the change in perceptions of the British as allies of the Russian Empire (within the Entente countries) during the entire period of active hostilities during the First World War was analyzed. Type of article: descriptive and analytical.

The Asquith Cabinet and the Decision to Send an Expeditionary Force to France in 1914

ABSTRACT The decision to send the British Expeditionary Force to France has been much discussed from the perspective of its long-term military-strategic background. Yet where the eventual decision to despatch the Force in August 1914 is concerned, limited attention has been paid to the role of the British Cabinet, which gave political approval to the step. Some historians have highlighted a Cabinet decision of 1 August against sending the BEF abroad and pointed out that Prime Minister H.H. Asquith and two key ministerial allies – Lord Haldane and Sir Edward Grey – accepted it. No one has provided a full analysis of why this trio of ministers consistently stuck to their position over the following days. Nor does a full explanation exist of the Cabinet’s eventual agreement, on 6 August, to approve the despatch of the Force. This analysis addresses these questions, arguing that far from being some reluctant step forced on the interventionists by their anti-war colleagues, Asquith, Haldane, and Grey pre-emptively decided to delay the despatch of the BEF. They did this as a way of preventing the disintegration of the government, while leaving open the possibility that Britain would go to war.

Insurgent law: Bengal Regulation III and the Chin-Lushai expeditions (1872–1898)

AbstractThis article studies the adjudicatory practices deployed by colonial military and police forces during a series of punitive British expeditions in the eastern frontiers of British India and the northern reaches of British Burma, specifically the Lushai and Chin Hills in the late nineteenth century. It magnifies the lives, deaths, and afterlives of two ‘tribal’ chiefs of Lushai Hills. Among others, these figures were held responsible for a series of raids carried out in the settled British territories of the northeastern frontiers in the 1890s. After a few inconclusive skirmishes with the British expeditionary force, they were apprehended and imprisoned in a jail in Hazaribagh under the preventive detention act of Bengal Regulation III of 1818, which was reserved and designed to arrest political dissidents of the empire. After a few months, two of them, Liengpunga and Khalkam, were found hanging from the windows of their prison latrine. The British administration labelled these deaths as suicides and closed the cases. The article opens them up. In doing so, it narrates an oblique history of the Scheduled District Act of 1874 which removed hill districts from the jurisdictions of regular courts. By focusing on the historical imbrication of Bengal Regulation III of 1818 in the Scheduled District Act, the article highlights the punitive techniques embedded in the seeming protectionist impulse of the colonial state, something that persists in India's administration of the Northeast region. Closer to the concerns of this issue, it reflects on a legal genealogy of tribal subjects in South Asia.

Irish women’s wartime networks: care work and female agency on the first world war home front

ABSTRACT This article is a contribution to the growing body of literature that seeks to recover the experience of women on the Irish home front during the Great War. We focus specifically on women who were involved in unpaid wartime supply production and logistics in the vast imperial network of wartime relief crucial to the British war effort. This article draws upon recent scholarship on care work, arguing that the British Expeditionary Force as a micro economy relied on the unpaid labour of women, particularly women of the middle and upper classes, who were prevented by societal norms from participating in paid labour, to ensure the efficient flow of medical supplies. This unpaid work was largely carried out via the Irish War Hospital Supply Organisation (IWHSO), part of a UK-wide network established during the war to furnish troops with medical supplies which could not be met via regular military channels. We argue that this industrialised care work needs to be analysed within the larger context of a professionalisation of private networks and with a view to Ireland’s growing interconnectedness as a result of modernisation.

Британское гостеприимство — случай из истории публицистики времен Первой Мировой войны

<p>The trip of Imperial Russian journalists to Great Britain in 1916 (during the First World War) turned out to be a landmark in several senses at once. Firstly, according to the composition of the participants, the group included, for example, V.D. Nabokov, K.I. Chukovsky, V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, A.N. Tolstoy. Secondly, according to the historical context, in 1916 Russia and Great Britain were allies in the war, but only two years will pass, and the British expeditionary force will grapple with the troops of young Soviet Russia during the Intervention.</p>

«Война на полуострове»: англо-французское противостояние на Пиренеях в ходе Второй Столетней войны (1689–1815)

The article shows the Anglo-French confrontation on the Iberian Peninsula as an important stage of the Second Hundred years’ War. The example of remote action of the British expeditionary force demonstrates the «English style» of war: the operation of army troops with the active support of the Royal Navy. The author comes to the conclusion that the Pyrenean wars of the beginning of the XIX century have a certain significance in the system of Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE VEGETABLE SHOWS, ALLOTMENT CULTURE, AND LIFE BEHIND THE LINES DURING THE GREAT WAR

AbstractPopular perceptions of 1914–18 focus on the trenches. Yet, much of soldiers’ time was spent in rear areas and many men never reached the frontlines. By studying life behind the lines it is possible to offer new perspectives on the experience of the Great War. In August 1917 and 1918, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) took over the usually quiet paths and lawns of Le Havre's Jardin St Roche, which the mayor of the town had agreed to loan to the base commandant. Rather than engaging in battle with the enemy, BEF servicemen and Belgian military personnel, alongside French civilians, were displaying the fruits (and vegetables) of their more peaceful labours. As part of a programme encouraging the cultivation of unused land around the surrounding camps, a vegetable competition was organized in which it was onions, beets, and kale rather than bullets, grenades, and shells that were the produce of war. This article explores the ways in which the organization of these events can throw light on the broader history of the British Army during the First World War. In doing so, it provides novel insights into the functioning of the BEF and the experiences of the men serving in it.

СОВРЕМЕННИКИ ГРАЖДАНСКОЙ ВОЙНЫ В РОССИИ И ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛИ «ТУМАННОГО АЛЬБИОНА»: ХАРАКТЕР ОТНОШЕНИЙ, ОТРАЖЕННЫЙ В КИНОФОТОДОКУМЕНТАХ БРИТАНСКИХ ИНТЕРВЕНТОВ 1918–1919 ГГ.

Despite the British support of the Russian White movement during such events as the intervention and the Civil War in Russia, the effective actions of Albion towards the anti-Bolshevik forces can hardly be considered friendly. For centuries, Great Britain acted as an opponent of Russia, and only in the first half of the 20th century because of Kaiser and later fascist Germany threats Great Britain and Russia established short-term allied relations. The study of assessments connected with Great Britain standpoint of certain historical events in our country, as well as the historical experience of relations with this long-standing opponent of Russia made this article topical. In the article the author attempts to convey the nature of the difficult relationship between the contemporaries of the Russian Civil War and the British interventionists, based on visual history and such sources as film and photo documents of the British Expeditionary Forces in the period of 1918–1919. In order to understand the contradictory nature of relations with the British, Russian Republic (earlier the Russian Empire) previous allies, the author aims at showing the prerequisites for the invasion of the Entente countries and changes in the strategy of British political forces in relation to Russia. The study was carried out within the framework of such an interdisciplinary branch of science as «military anthropology», where the object of study is «a man in war». The article presents not only an overview of British film and photo documents, but also their attribution made with the definition of copyright holders, places and time of filming, accompanied with identifying the authors of the film and photo documents involved in creating a visual image of the Civil War in Russia. The study is based on the historical-comparative method, which made it possible to determine the differences between Russian-British relations during the Civil War in all territories of the presence of British interventionists — in the North, South and East of Russia.

“If Necessary for Years, If Necessary Alone”: History, Memory, and Fiction in Contemporary Representations of Dunkirk

A seemingly impossible task, the evacuation of the majority of the British Expeditionary Force (more than 300,000 men) from the shores of Dunkirk, besieged by the German forces, represented a symbol of hope in a moment in which the British Empire was suffering crushing defeats in Europe as well as in Asia. The myth of the ‘finest hour’ of the British people, both spontaneously generated from below and directed from above by the government, has been a central topic of the British propaganda during and after the war, and it still possesses a strongly evocative power over new generations of artists. In recent years, several movies (Atonement, 2007, Dunkirk, 2017, Darkest Hour, 2017) have represented the evacuation of Dunkirk, oscillating between propagandistic rhetoric and a problematization of the memory of the war. By analyzing these films, this article shows how post-war generations have appropriated the cultural memory of Dunkirk as a way of restaging an ideal of Britishness and at the same time as a controversial attempt to update it by highlighting the divisions of class and ideology among British society and the army.

Вклад американских и британских экспедиционных сил в формирование визуального образа Гражданской войны в России

Вклад американских и британских экспедиционных сил в формирование визуального образа Гражданской войны в России

The Key Role Played by WAAC British Post Office Female Staff in Army Signal Units on the Western Front, 1917–1920

There is a gaping void in the historiography of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), later called the Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps QMAAC), brought about by the absence of an informed understanding of the crucial role played by the young women seconded from British post office exchanges to serve as telephonists and telegraphists in France in 1917. Specifically attached to Royal Engineers’ signal units in British Expeditionary Force army bases and all three echelons of its General Headquarters, their arrival ensured the continued smooth operation of the army’s vital lines of communication. This article examines how their key role as professional technologists within a tightly secured military sector made a significant contribution to the final successful outcome of the conflict. Questions can be raised why their skills were never later addressed within the historiography, and it may be concluded that adequate recognition is long overdue.

Conscientious Objectors: men of Nottinghamshire who failed the call to arms, 1914-18

ABSTRACTThe First World War, 1914-1918, was sudden and took everyone by surprise. After the retreat of the British Expeditionary Force with great loss of life in August 1914, it became evident that many more men would be needed to fight. The Derby Scheme of 1915 for voluntary enlistment, failed to recruit enough men and in March 1916 the Liberal Government reluctantly introduced conscription under the Military Service Act. The majority of eligible men enlisted but some, Conscientious Objectors, refused on grounds of religion or political beliefs. Their only way to contest the call up was to go before a local Military Service Tribunal who would decide if they were eligible to be exempt, given a non-combatant role or ordered to join a regiment. Using local studies of the men who refused to fight, this article examines the extent of conscientious objection in Nottinghamshire.

Signal Failure: Communications in the British Expeditionary Force, September 1939–June 1940

The article examines the communication difficulties faced by the British Expeditionary Force during the France campaign of 1939–40 and determines the extent to which they were self-inflicted. Among the many assessments of the German invasion of May 1940 and associated collapse of the French, the British acceptance of long-standing deficiencies in vital systems has been overlooked. The Phoney War encouraged unrealistic expectation and insatiable demand, which compounded flawed equipment, personnel, and procedure. Opportunities to ease vulnerabilities, via efficiencies and best practice, were missed. Combat and, in particular, mobile operations, were the final straw, prompting immediate collapse and, eventually, evacuation.

The history, genome and biology of NCTC 30: a non-pandemic Vibrio cholerae isolate from World War One.

The sixth global cholera pandemic lasted from 1899 to 1923. However, despite widespread fear of the disease and of its negative effects on troop morale, very few soldiers in the British Expeditionary Forces contracted cholera between 1914 and 1918. Here, we have revived and sequenced the genome of NCTC 30, a 102-year-old Vibrio cholerae isolate, which we believe is the oldest publicly available live V. cholerae strain in existence. NCTC 30 was isolated in 1916 from a British soldier convalescent in Egypt. We found that this strain does not encode cholera toxin, thought to be necessary to cause cholera, and is not part of V. cholerae lineages responsible for the pandemic disease. We also show that NCTC 30, which predates the introduction of penicillin-based antibiotics, harbours a functional β-lactamase antibiotic resistance gene. Our data corroborate and provide molecular explanations for previous phenotypic studies of NCTC 30 and provide a new high-quality genome sequence for historical, non-pandemic V. cholerae.

The British army, information management and the First World War revolution in military affairs

ABSTRACTInformation Management (IM) – the systematic ordering, processing and channelling of information within organisations – forms a critical component of modern military command and control systems. As a subject of scholarly enquiry, however, the history of military IM has been relatively poorly served. Employing new and under-utilised archival sources, this article takes the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of the First World War as its case study and assesses the extent to which its IM system contributed to the emergence of the modern battlefield in 1918. It argues that the demands of fighting a modern war resulted in a general, but not universal, improvement in the BEF’s IM techniques, which in turn laid the groundwork, albeit in embryonic form, for the IM systems of modern armies.

Quarrying Companies Royal Engineers in World War I: a geologically constrained innovation to support British armies on the Western Front

Abstract Quarrying Companies were a new type of unit first raised within the Royal Engineers in World War I. Thirteen served in northern France, on the Western Front: two from late 1916 (198 and 199 Quarrying Companies) and 11 more from 1917 (320–329 and 348 Quarrying Companies). Recruited from Great Britain, Ireland and the Channel Island of Guernsey, each consisted of four officers and 264 soldiers; over 3000 men in total, assisted by c. 4000 less skilled labourers. They were used to support the British Expeditionary Force by providing ‘stone’, mostly from existing quarries near Marquise, NE of the port of Boulogne. There they excavated Devonian and Carboniferous ‘limestones’ in the Ferques Inlier, relatively strong rocks within a region of wide Mesozoic and Cenozoic outcrop. As the British Expeditionary Force expanded to a peak of five armies and c. 1.5 million troops, ‘stone’ was required for the enhancement or repair of the roads, railways and associated facilities that formed a crucial element of its infrastructure, essential for the efficient movement of soldiers and their copious supplies of food, stores and ammunition. The requirement ceased soon after the end of hostilities and all Quarrying Companies Royal Engineers were disbanded in 1919.

Tunnelling Companies Royal Engineers in World War II: excavation of bomb-proof facilities in France, Gibraltar, Malta and the UK

Abstract 170 Tunnelling Company Royal Engineers left England in January 1940 to excavate bomb-proof military headquarters in northern France. Expansion into companies 170, 171, 172 and 173 was delayed when the British Expeditionary Force was defeated and evacuated, but completed in England in July to excavate accommodation underground for regional headquarters and artillery batteries – mostly in Cretaceous chalk. Companies 178, 179 and 180 formed in England in May–June 1940, and 178 and 180 soon deployed to Gibraltar, joined by 170 in 1941 and successively by 1st and 2nd Tunnelling Companies Royal Canadian Engineers. They excavated a major complex of tunnels and chambers within Jurassic dolomitic limestone by October 1943 to help fortify the rocky peninsula, work completed by a single company (172) thereafter. Companies 183, 184 and 185 joined 179 in 1941 to emplace ‘Canadian pipe mines’ to inhibit the invasion of Britain. 173 served in Malta 1941–43, and 171 during 1943–45, excavating >50 bomb-proof facilities in Oligo-Miocene limestones, plus works to enhance the civilian water supply. By late 1943, all companies except 172 (Gibraltar) and 171 (Malta) were based in Britain. At least five were converted for general engineering use and no longer needed geological assistance.