Table Of ContentBritain’s Two World Wars Against Germany
Britain’sroleandperformanceinthetwoworldwarscontinuestogenerate
considerable debate but the wars are rarely considered together. Leading
militaryhistorianBrianBondherechallengesthepopularviewoftheFirst
WorldWarascatastrophicandfutileincontrasttotheSecondWorldWar
as a well-conducted and victorious moral crusade. He focuses on the key
issues that have caused controversy and distortion, to demonstrate how
these views became deeply rooted in popular culture in the years since
1945.Theseissuesrangefrompolicyandstrategy,combatexperience,the
attritional strategies of naval blockade and strategic bombing to British
generalship and gains and losses in the aftermath of both wars. He also
considersthelearningprocessoftheBritishArmyinbothworldwars.He
boldlyconcludesthatinanumberofimportantrespectsBritainwasmore
successfulintheFirstWorldWarthanintheSecond.
Brian Bond is Emeritus Professor of Military History at King’s College
London and author of The Unquiet Western Front (2002) and Survivors
ofaKind:MemoirsoftheWesternFront(2008).
Britain’s Two World Wars
Against Germany
Myth, Memory and the Distortions of Hindsight
Brian Bond
UniversityPrintingHouse,Cambridgecb28bs,UnitedKingdom
CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof
education,learningandresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence.
www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107659131
©BrianBond2014
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2014
PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyClays,StIvesplc
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationdata
Bond,Brian.
Britain’stwoworldwarsagainstGermany:myth,memoryandthedistortionsof
hindsight/BrianBond.
pages cm
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
isbn978-1-107-00471-9(hardback)–isbn978-1-107-65913-1(paperback)
1.GreatBritain–History,Military–20thcentury. 2.WorldWar,1914–1918–
GreatBritain–Historiography. 3.WorldWar,1939–1945–GreatBritain–
Historiography. 4.GreatBritain–Foreignrelations–Germany. 5.Germany–
Foreignrelations–GreatBritain. I.Title.
da69.b65 2014
940.4(cid:2)0941–dc23 2014018298
isbn978-1-107-00471-9Hardback
isbn978-1-107-65913-1Paperback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof
urlsforexternalorthird-partyInternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,
anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,
accurateorappropriate.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
1
Thecreationofmythsafter1945 8
2
Britishpolicyandstrategy 25
3
Britishgeneralshipinthetwoworldwars 42
Atthesharpend:combatexperienceinthetwo
4
worldwars 62
5
AttritionintheFirstWorldWar:thenavalblockade 88
AttritionintheSecondWorldWar:thestrategic
6
bombingofGermany 100
ThetransformationofwarontheWesternFront,
7
1914–18 125
TheBritishArmy’slearningprocessintheSecond
8
WorldWar 144
vi / Contents
9
Afterthewars:Britain’sgainsandlosses 164
Appendix 177
Selectbibliography 179
Index 184
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many individuals have helped me indirectly in discussing the
themes of this book as it took shape, but for practical assistance or
advice I should particularly like to thank: Catherine Boylan, Jeremy
Crang,MichaelDockrill,SimonDoughty,ColinHook,HalikKochan-
ski, Sir Michael Howard, Andrew Lambert, Penny McLeish and Gary
Sheffield.
IfirstoutlinedmymainargumentsintheSakiDockrillMemo-
rial Lecture at King’s College, London in November 2011 and was
much encouraged by the positive response, especially from Philip Bell
andthelateM.R.D.Foot.
I am extremely grateful to Sebastian Cox for vetting my draft
chapter on strategic bombing and for giving me a copy of his unpub-
lished paper on Sir Arthur Harris. John Ellis has generously permitted
me to draw heavily on his book The Sharp End of War in my chap-
ter on front-line combat. I am, above all, indebted to John Bourne for
readingallthechapters,exceptthatonstrategicbombing,ataparticu-
larly difficult time for him, and providing me with a judicious mixture
of praise and criticism. I have done my best to take full advantage of
my readers’ expert help but am entirely responsible for any remaining
errorsoromissions.
Aswithallmypreviouspublications,mywifeMadeleinetyped
nearlyallthefirstdraftofthisbook,butwasobligedtostopwhenour
homewasflooded,firston29November2012andsecondly,andeven
more severely, on Boxing Day. In the ensuing chaos, which lasted for
fivemonths,Iwasveryfortunateindeedtofindanexcellentreplacement
viii / Acknowledgements
in our friend and neighbour, Emily McLeish, who re-typed the whole
work,includingtherevisedreferencesandtheindex.
Finally, my thanks are due to Michael Watson, History Pub-
lisher for Cambridge University Press, and his Assistant Editor, Kaiya
Shang.
Medmenham,Bucks.October2013
INTRODUCTION
In‘APersonalReflectionontheTwoWorldWars’JohnBourne
neatlycapturesthepublic’sviewofBritain’scontrastingrolesinthetwo
conflicts.
TheFirstWorldWarwasnotreallyaboutanything,ornotabout
anythingimportant;theSecondWorldWarwasaboutnational
survivalathomeandthedefeatofaviletyrannyabroad.TheFirst
WorldWarwashopelesslymismanagedbyincompetent
generals...comparedwiththeSecondWorldWargeneralswho
understoodtechnologyandfoughtwarsofmanoeuverthat
avoidedheavycasualties.1
Furthermore, he writes, ‘the outcome of the First World War was
futile...making another war inevitable; the outcome of the Second
World War, sanctified by the discovery of the Nazi death camps, was
notonlyamilitarybutalsoamoraltriumph’.2
As regards the experience of combat, the First World War,
invariably associated in popular mythology with the horror of the
trenches, is imagined as an unending hell on earth whereas the later
conflict, being more mobile and with far fewer British casualties, is
thoughttohavebeeneasier,oratleastmoretolerable.
1 PeterLiddle,JohnBourneandIanWhitehead(eds.),TheGreatWar,1914–1945,
Vol.I(HarperCollins,2000).SeeespeciallyJohnBourne,‘APersonalReflectionon
theTwoWorldWars’,p.17.
2 Ibid.
