British way of warfare

Gallipoli. Matters were no more advanced by the Norwegian campaign in 1940. However, amphibious operations became a major feature of the Second World War and investment in commando carriers and specialist landing craft after 1957 for the East of Suez role raised British capability for combined operations to new levels of efficiency. Once more there is no clear trend here from a naval to an air or nuclear phase in the British way of warfare. 

The biggest break in the British way of warfare in the first half of the twentieth century related to the balance between loans or subsidies, and supplies, for allies on the one hand, and the size of the army on the other. In the First World War Britain not only adopted her traditional role of paymaster of the Allied coalition but she also put an army of unprecedented size into the field. The attempt to do both was beyond her economic power, and the role of paymaster had to be ceded to the United States in 1917. The loss of wealth left Britain in no position to be a major source of subsidies if she was also to maintain substantial armed forces of her own again. 

Hart, Basil Liddell, The British Way of Warfare, London Faber and Faber, 1932. 

Britain never again enjoyed the advantage of huge balance-of-payments surpluses that had marked the pre-1914 period. Victory had been achieved by a combination of Britain s traditional way of warfare -blockade, loans or subsidies to allies and maritime operations - and an unprecedented continental commitment, but it came at the price of a permanent weakening of British power. 

Warfare Service, for comment and recommendation. Porter s reply concurred in the views and apprehensions expressed by Mr. McCloy and summarized certain specific steps considered necessary by way of preparation for gas warfare by the United Nations. Some of these measures were already under study by WPD. Porter now advanced a proposal that the chemical warfare needs of all the United Nations be surveyed to determine what assistance the United States should and could provide. "In most of our military preparations, he said, "we shall, for some time to come, be forced to follow a pacemaker. With the vast chemical industry of the United States and the highly trained scientific and technical men connected with it, we should be able to be ready for all-out gas warfare, if required, in a relatively short time, and in this particular do the pacemaking ourselves. As a result of the McCloy memorandum and General Porter s recommendations, the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4, and the Assistant Chief of Staff, WPD, were directed to determine the requirements in chemical weapons and ammunition adequate to meet the needs of the United Nations in the event of gas warfare. In addition, the Under Secretary of War, Mr. Robert P. Patterson, was requested to investigate current British and American production plans to learn what increase should be provided to meet the possible needs of the United Nations. ... 

Although amphibious operations had long been a feature of British warfare, lack of co-operation between the army and navy in the Edwardian period meant that Britain was not well prepared to exploit sea power in this way in the First World War, as was demonstrated at... 

From 1942. onwards the British and the Americans pooled their resources on biological warfare in much the same way as they did on the atomic bomb. In the spring of 1942, for example, an American liaison officer arrived at Porton Down. American officers attended the trials on Gruinard and even made a film of the successful experiment. (The film is still held in Porton s archives.)... 

The Geneva Protocol had laid down firm controls over the use of gas in war. But the use of chemical weapons, like tear gas, by domestic police forces was a matter purely for national governments. Both the United States and Britain had established factories to manufacture CN gas after the First World War, and the British were soon using the gas against rioters in the colonies. The weapon which replaced it, and was used in Vietnam, CS gas,55 provides a nearperfect example of the way in which British chemical warfare research, despite its commitment to purely defensive uses, came to be applied to war. 

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