Britain’s Great War
The Great Fraud of 1914-18
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There have been some unfavorable political reviews from some British commentators about Russell Crowe’s film The Water Diviner, an account of Gallipoli. Mr. Crowe has been condemned for seeing the Turkish side of things and asking why Australia appeared on the shores of Gallipoli at all: “We should be mature enough as a nation to…
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One of the most important elements in preparing for a world war was the necessity of getting the rest of the Empire to embrace the grand strategy against Germany. Hankey’s strategy involved a full utilisation of the Empire in the War and this meant the innovation of informing the Dominion governments of the War Plan…
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From 1910 the task of planning for economic warfare passed from the Navy to Hankey in the Committee of Imperial Defence. And from this time Hankey launched a rival naval mobilisation plan against Haldane’s continental expedition plan that he had discovered. As part of this the CID undertook a series of inquiries involving a wide…
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After Asquith, the Liberal Imperialist, replaced Campbell-Bannerman, the Gladstonian, as Prime Minister, things began to change and the coordination that Hankey thought necessary was able to take place. This is when the Committee of Imperial Defence began to come into its own. Balfour, the founder of the CID and Leader of the Unionist Opposition, called…
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Hankey recounts that in December 1905 “a small group of naval and military officers began to meet informally at 2 Whitehall Gardens, to study the proper utilization of the forces of the United Kingdom in the event of our becoming involved, alongside of France, in a war with Germany.” (The Supreme Command, p.62) This was…
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In the series of lectures delivered by Hankey in 1945 to Trinity College Cambridge he said that “the Committee of Imperial Defence has been the main instrument of Government Control both for preparation for war in time of peace, and of Higher Command in time of war, although in the latter case under a different…
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Up until 1905 it had been the duty of commanders in the Royal Navy to watch Britain’s enemies’ fleets, and to bring them to action if they left harbour, and to take whatever measures they thought most proper for that purpose. The culmination of such work would be a big and decisive sea battle in…
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From 1901, during the Boer War, a Trade Division of the Naval Intelligence Department had been established to collect data on British shipping and cargoes to plan for defence of these in time of war. But from August 1906 when the Trade Division was taken over by Captain Henry Campbell it began to painstakingly collect…
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In the winter of 1906-7 Admiral Fisher appointed Maurice Hankey as secretary to a committee he established to work out a naval strategy for a war on Germany. Fisher did not generally like the idea of setting plans down in writing. He preferred to keep them in his own head – a thing that made…
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In ‘The Supreme Command’ Hankey was candid about how Britain prepared for the War it knew for a decade it was going to fight against Germany. Hankey’s account demonstrates that never in its history had Britain prepared for a war so thoroughly. Never had it committed such amounts of study, resources, time, effort and energy…
