British Strategy and War Aims, 1914-1916

by David French

This book illustrates the relationship between British military policy and the development of British war aims during the opening years of the First World War. Basing his work on a wide range of unpublished documentary sources, David French reassesses for the benefit of students and scholars alike what was meant by 'a war of attrition'.

In 1914 the British government wished to stand aloof from the land war and to confine themselves to acting as the banker and supplier of the Entente alliance. They hoped that France and Russia would pay the blood tax of the continental land war whilst British traders waxed rich. Lord Kitchener was far more than an arresting face on a poster. He raised his New Armies in the expectation that by the time they were ready France and Russia would have exhausted Germany and Austria-Hungary and the British would be able to intervene decisively to end the war and to impose their peace terms on allies and enemies alike. But the allies' inability to stop the Central Powers from conquering much of Central and South Eastern Europe in 1915 meant that in 1916 British manpower was sucked remorselessly into the war on the Western front. The Battle of the Somme was a parody of Kitchener's concept of attrition.

Genres: History

291 pages, ebook

First published November 1, 1986

About the author

David French was born in Essex in 1954 and educated at the University of York and King's College London. After briefly holding teaching posts as North London Polytechnic, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and Herriot-Watt University, he spent twenty-seven years at University College London. The author of nine previous books, he is a former Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington DC, a recipient of the Arthur Goodzeit Prize of the New York Military Affairs Symposium, and a three-times winner of the Templer Medal awarded by the Society for Army Historical Research. He is now Professor Emeritus at UCL, a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Association, and a Vice-President of the Army Records Society.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Discussions of British strategy during the First World War usually frame it in terms of a debate between “Westerners,” or the politicians and generals who wanted to focus British military efforts on the fighting in France and Belgium, and “Easterners,” or the ones who sought to open up fronts elsewhere in the hope of breaking the grinding stalemate. In this book, the first of two volumes he wrote examining the development of British war aims and the ways British leaders sought to achieve them, David French rejects this framing as a distorted product of postwar memoirs from the major figures involved. Instead he views the debates as less a matter of “where” and more a question of “how”: namely, how the British could best accomplish their goals of maintaining the Entente and defeating Germany while ensuring that Britain would emerge from the war as the strongest of the belligerents. The hope was that by achieving these aims, Britain would be able to set the terms of the peace and maintain their position as the dominant power in the world.

To argue his case, French begins by examining prewar British policy and the main people involved in making it. Here his focus is on the Liberal government of H. H. Asquith, though he also notes the important role played by the civil servants in the Foreign Office in influencing what were at times sharp disagreements on how best to advance British interests in an increasingly polarized international environment. These debates were unresolved when the war broke out in August 1914, forcing policymakers to take decisions based more on the course of events. The figure of Lord Kitchener looms large in the book, as French sees his advocacy of the New Armies as key. Not only did this undermine the “business as usual” approach involving a war waged with the Royal Navy and financial subsidies that was favored by many politicians, but with the British army calculated to reach its maximum strength by early 1917 Kitchener believed it would then be in a decisive position to dictate terms to the exhausted participants on both sides of the struggle. Until then, it was a matter of playing for time to achieve this position.

After establishing Britain’s underlying approach to the war, French then examines the response of policymakers to events as they unfolded over the next two years. Here his focus is predominantly on the high politics and the strategic views of the major actors, addressing their interpretation of developments from the standpoint of British interests and their overall goals in the war. What emerges in these chapters is the gradual shift away from prewar strategies and assumptions, which were driven by the demands of a war increasingly different from the one the British expected to fight. Yet for all the numerous ad hoc adjustments, policy deviations, and failed efforts that the British undertook during this period, their strategic goals remained the same, serving as the lodestar guiding British decisions throughout the early years of the conflict.

Though French’s book covers ground that has long been trod upon by other scholars, the author succeeds in providing a provocatively fresh interpretation as to how British policymakers approached the war. While it suffers to a degree from a too-rigid exclusion of consideration of domestic considerations, such as home-front politics and morale, it’s easy to see why his book and his follow-up volume have become the starting point for anyone seeking to understand the development of British strategy in the First World War. Even if one disagrees with some of French’s conclusions, it’s a book no one interested in the subject can afford to ignore.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very clear and concise account of British war aims and strategy developed during the First World War, up to the formation of the Lloyd George coalition in December 1916.