Imagining War – Elizabeth Kier (1)

In the 1930s, General Gamelin pressured British civilian and military leaders to design a small but highly mobile expeditionary force to fill the gap in the French order of battle. If military organizations prefer offensive doc- trines and use their adoption to gain more resources, we would have ex- pected the British army to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the French request to push its government to create this offensive force.

But what happened? The British army leadership ignored French de- mands and persisted in its preference for a defensive doctrine.65 Still more puzzling for a functional analysis of military organizations is the British army’s general reluctance to request more resources. Not only did the army staff forfeit an ideal justification for more resources by scorning the offensive potential of mechanization, but it also exhibited a reluctance to demand greater resources that belies the standard view of organizational interests.

Surprising as it may seem, the Cabinet did not reaffirm the Ten-Year Rule over the shrill objections of British military leaders. The chiefs of staff quietly accepted the limitations imposed on them in the 1928 budget and commented that otherwise the burden of national defense “would be well-nigh insupportable.” Commenting on the reticence of the military services, a historian noted: “One is left with the impression that, even had the money been saved on social services in the 1920s, there would not have been adequate pressure from any quar- ter to divert the savings so achieved to national defense.”70 The services’ budget requests were also modest in the 1930s.

The pro- grams adopted after the Defence Requirements Committee debate in the Cabinet were less than thought necessary by the Foreign Office, but they exceeded what the services considered sufficient.71 Throughout the process, Sir Robert Vansittart, the representative of the Foreign Office, chided the service’s budgetary passivity, but the service chiefs disregarded Vansittart’s pressure and continued to request modest resources.72 For ex- ample, the chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd, resisted Fisher and Vansittart’s pressure. Re- questing additional funding, the head of the army explained, “would unbalance the Report as between various items and as between three services.”73 The former chief of naval staff, Admiral Sir Ernie Chatfield, acknowledged the services’ passivity: “So brow-beaten had been the then Staff for the last decade, so little sympathy had they received, so hope- less did the struggle appear that there was a feeling, even in my commit- tee, that it was almost improper to be too insistent, to make more than the most moderate demands.”74 The British military’s intelligence reports on German military power again show the chiefs of staff’s reluctance to lobby for greater resources.

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Domestic Sources of Foreign Economic Policy during the Interwar Years by Beth A. Simmons IMAGINING WAR F R E N C H AND BRITISH MILITARY D O C T R I N E BETWEEN THE WARS Elizabeth Kiev P R I N C E T O N U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS P R I N C E T O N , NEW JERSEY Copyright © 1997 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex All Rights Reserved Second printing, and first paperback printing, 1999 Paperback ISBN 0-691-00531-1 The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows Kier, Elizabeth, 1958— Imagining war : French and British military doctrine between the wars I Elizabeth Kier.

p. cm.—(Princeton studies in international history and politics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-01191-5 1. Military doctrine—France. 2. Military doctrine— Great Britain. 3. Political stability—France. 4. Political stability—Great Britain. 5. France—Politics and government— 1914-1940. 6. Great Britain—Politics and government— 1910-1936. I.Title H. Series.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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• Language: English (en)

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