The British Army and the First World War / Ian Beckett, University of Kent, Canterbury ; Timothy Bowman, University of Kent, Canterbury ; Mark Connelly, University of Kent, Canterbury.
Machine generated contents note: Introduction; 1. The pre-war army; 2. The Officer Corps; 3. A nation in arms: regulars, TF, volunteers and conscripts; 4. Citizen soldiers: discipline, morale and the experience of war; 5. British strategy and the British army; 6. The Western Front, 1914; 7. The Western Front, 1915; 8. The Western Front, 1916; 9. The Western Front, 1917; 10. The Western Front, 1918; 11. Beyond the Western Front; Conclusion; Select bibliography; Index.
Summary:
"This is a major new history of the British army during the Great War written by three leading military historians. Ian Beckett, Timothy Bowman and Mark Connelly survey operations on the Western Front and throughout the rest of the world as well as the army's social history, pre-war and wartime planning and strategy, the maintenance of discipline and morale and the lasting legacy of the First World War on the army's development. They assess the strengths and weaknesses of the army between 1914 and 1918, engaging with key debates around the adequacy of British generalship and whether or not there was a significant 'learning curve' in terms of the development of operational art during the course of the war. Their findings show how, despite limitations of initiative and innovation amongst the high command, the British army did succeed in developing the effective combined arms warfare necessary for victory in 1918"-- Provided by publisher. "Studies of the British army's role in the Great War started long before the Armistice as instant histories were produced of the great battles, but as might be expected these were driven by largely propagandist aims and so provided little in the way of analytical insight. During the 1920s the role of the BEF was covered in various works, but was mostly dominated by the view from the top, which occasionally took the form of overt point-scoring, as was most famously seen in the memoirs of Lord French and David Lloyd George"-- Provided by publisher.
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