Arming The Western Front

The First World War was above all a war of logistics. Whilst the conflict will forever be remembered for the mud and slaughter of the Western Front, it was a war won on the factory floor as much as the battlefield. Examining the war from an industrial perspective, Arming the Western Front examines how the British between 1900 and 1920 set about mobilising economic and human resources to meet the challenge of 'industrial war'. Beginning with an assessment of the run up to war, the book examines Edwardian business-state relations in terms of armament supply. It then outlines events during the first year of the war, taking a critical view of competing constructs of the war and considering how these influenced decision makers in both the private and public domains. This sets the framework for an examination of the response of business firms to the demand for 'shells more shells', and their varying ability to innovate and manage changing methods of production and organisation. The outcome, a central theme of the book, was a complex and evolving trade-off between the quantity and quality of munitions supply, an issue that became particularly acute during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. This deepened the economic and political tensions between the military, the Ministry of Munitions, and private engineering contractors as the pressure to increase output accelerated markedly in the search for victory on the western front. The Great War created a dual army, one in the field, the other at home producing munitions, and the final section of the book examines the tensions between the two as the country strove for final victory and faced the challenges of the transition to the peace time economy.

The First World War was above all a war of logistics. Whilst the conflict will forever be remembered for the mud and slaughter of the Western Front, it was a war won on the factory floor as much as the battlefield. Examining the war from an industrial perspective, Arming the Western Front examines how the British between 1900 and 1920 set about mobilising economic and human resources to meet the challenge of 'industrial war'. Beginning with an assessment of the run up to war, the book examines Edwardian business-state relations in terms of armament supply. It then outlines events during the first year of the war, taking a critical view of competing constructs of the war and considering how these influenced decision makers in both the private and public domains. This sets the framework for an examination of the response of business firms to the demand for 'shells more shells', and their varying ability to innovate and manage changing methods of production and organisation. The outcome, a central theme of the book, was a complex and evolving trade-off between the quantity and quality of munitions supply, an issue that became particularly acute during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. This deepened the economic and political tensions between the military, the Ministry of Munitions, and private engineering contractors as the pressure to increase output accelerated markedly in the search for victory on the western front. The Great War created a dual army, one in the field, the other at home producing munitions, and the final section of the book examines the tensions between the two as the country strove for final victory and faced the challenges of the transition to the peace time economy.

The First World War was above all a war of logistics. Whilst the conflict will forever be remembered for the mud and slaughter of the Western Front, it was a war won on the factory floor as much as the battlefield. Examining the war from an industrial perspective, Arming the Western Front examines how the British between 1900 and 1920 set about mobilising economic and human resources to meet the challenge of 'industrial war'. Beginning with an assessment of the run up to war, the book examines Edwardian business-state relations in terms of armament supply. It then outlines events during the first year of the war, taking a critical view of competing constructs of the war and considering how these influenced decision makers in both the private and public domains. This sets the framework for an examination of the response of business firms to the demand for 'shells more shells', and their varying ability to innovate and manage changing methods of production and organisation. The outcome, a central theme of the book, was a complex and evolving trade-off between the quantity and quality of munitions supply, an issue that became particularly acute during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. This deepened the economic and political tensions between the military, the Ministry of Munitions, and private engineering contractors as the pressure to increase output accelerated markedly in the search for victory on the western front. The Great War created a dual army, one in the field, the other at home producing munitions, and the final section of the book examines the tensions between the two as the country strove for final victory and faced the challenges of the transition to the peace time economy.

By the middle of 1918 the British Army had successfully mastered the concept of ’all arms’ warfare on the Western Front. This doctrine, integrating infantry, artillery, armoured vehicles and - crucially - air power, was to prove highly effective and formed the basis of major military operations for the next hundred years. Yet, whilst much has been written on the utilisation of ground forces, the air element still tends to be studied in isolation from the army as a whole. In order to move beyond the usual 'aircraft and aces' approach, this book explores the conceptual origins of the control of the air and the role of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) within the British army. In so doing it addresses four key themes. First, it explores and defines the most fundamental air power concept - the control of the air - by examining its conceptual origins before and during the First World War. Second, it moves beyond the popular history of air power during the First World War to reveal the complexity of the topic. Third, it reintegrates the study of air power during the First World War, specifically that of the RFC, into the strategic, operational, organisational, and intellectual contexts of the era, as well as embedding the study within the respective scholarly literatures of these contexts. Fourth, the book reinvigorates an entrenched historiography by challenging the usually critical interpretation of the RFC’s approach to the control of the air, providing new perspectives on air power during the First World War. This includes an exploration of the creation of the RAF and its impact on the development of air power concepts.

First published in 1982, this book remains the classic account of the arms trade in warlord China. The second edition includes a new preface that reframes the argument within the paradigm of critical militarism and state criminality. Arming the Chinese tells the story of the Western and Japanese merchants and governments who provided weapons to warlords for their expanding armies. Although the warlords were hearty individualists who retained control over domestic affairs and rarely relied on single foreign suppliers, the armaments trade, Chan argues, was a new form of imperialism, which perpetrated the continued Western and Japanese domination of China.

Arming the Irish Revolution is an in-depth investigation of the successes and failures of the militant Irish republican efforts to arm themselves. W. H. Kautt’s comprehensive account of Irish Republican Army (IRA) arms acquisition begins with its predecessors—the Irish Volunteers and the National Volunteers—and, counterintuitively, with their rivals, the pro-union Ulster Volunteer Force. After the 1916 Rising, Kautt details the functioning of the Quartermaster General Department of the Irish Volunteer General Headquarters in Dublin and basic arms acquisition in the early days of 1918 to 1919. He then closely examines rebel efforts at weapons and ammunition manufacturing and bombmaking and reveals that the ingenuity and resources poured into manufacturing were never able to become a primary source of weapons and ammunition. As the conflict grew in intensity and expanded, the rebels encountered increasing difficulty in obtaining and maintaining supplies of weapons and ammunition since modern weapons in a protracted conflict used more ammunition than previous generations of weapons and their complexity meant that the weapons could not be clandestinely produced within Ireland. Thus, as the rebels conducted campaigns that became difficult to combat, their greatest limiting factor was that most of their weapons and ammunition had to be imported. Arming the Irish Revolution is the first work of research and analysis to explore in detail the Irish work inside Britain to establish arms centers and to conduct arms operations and trafficking. It also examines the full extent of the overseas or foreign arms trade and the arms operations of the War of Independence, including the continuance into the truce and treaty eras and up to the outbreak of the Civil War (1922–1923)—all of which reveals how the rebel leaders ran complex, maturing, and capable smuggling and manufacturing enterprises worldwide under the noses of the police, customs, intelligence, and the military for years without getting caught. Quite apart from the battlefield these groups and their activities led to political consequences, playing no small part in producing what were real concessions from Lloyd George’s government. In the last chapter Kautt offers observations and conclusions about overall successes and failures that establishes Arming the Irish Revolution as a landmark study of insurgent or revolutionary arms acquisition in both Irish and military history.