Learning to Fight: Military Innovation and Change in the British Army, 1914-1918

Cambridge Military Histories

by Aimée Fox

Learning, innovation and adaptation are not concepts that we necessarily associate with the British army of the First World War. Yet the need to learn from mistakes, to exploit new opportunities and to adapt to complex situations are enduring and timeless. This revealing work is the first institutional examination of the army's process for learning during the First World War. Drawing on organisational learning and management theories, Aimée Fox critiques existing approaches to military learning in wartime. Focused around a series of case studies, the book ranges across multiple operational theatres and positions the army within a broader context in terms of its relationships with allies and civilians to reveal that learning was more complex and thoroughgoing than initially thought. It grapples with the army's failings and shortcomings, explores its successes and acknowledges the inherent difficulties of learning in a desperate and lethally competitive environment.

Genres: History, Military Fiction, World War I

290 pages, Hardcover

First published January 31, 2018

About the author

Aimée Fox is a Lecturer in Defence Studies at King's College London.

Reviews

[Shrike58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this monograph, Prof. Fox has set herself a major challenge, that is to convince the likely skeptical reader that the British Army of the Great War actually did have a lot of potential for intellectual vibrancy, and was not simply a collection of social clubs mostly obsessed with preserving their inherent self-supposed sense of being an elite. Such is the lingering bitterness over the cost in blood for said army to achieve operational and organizational competence.

On the whole, I have to admit that Fox does go a long way to making her point, as the crux of the issue is that while the corporate outlook of the pre-1914 British officer was that they regarded formal doctrine as problematic, as it suggested cookie-cutter solutions to challenges requiring tailor-made solutions, they were also open to adaptation on demand. There was also a growing recognition that the fielding of an effective mass army was going to require a great deal more managerial expertise then had been readily available.

What this winds up meaning is that Fox is really examining the processes by which the British practiced the enculturation of the mass of "temporary gentlemen" who were the new company-grade officers. Followed by the training of those officers as the new mid-grade military managers. Every means known to man was embraced at one time or another, but a lot of of the work was accomplished by osmosis and a firm encouragement of getting with the program, helped by the existential urgency of the moment. A lot of this feels like a study of the sociology of small groups.

The question I find myself being begged here is what is the real purpose of formal doctrine, and the strong general staff that goes a long with that. Dr. Fox is not here to excuse and gloss-over the more bone-headed members of the British officer corps, but to use the German Imperial Army as a foil, doctrine and the rise of the staff officer were part and parcel of saving the dull, but high-caste, commander from themselves; the British were very loathed to constrain independence of command. From there, it also makes one wonder about the path by which one gets from the pragmatic and "amateur" British officer corps of 1914-18, to the very top-down British army of WWII.

Food for thought for the advanced student of the British military. For most readers this is more of a 3.5.