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V. The Issue of Army Reform in the Unionist Government, 1903–5
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 December 2010
Extract
By the end of the nineteenth century the British Cabinet system was still distinguished by autonomy among the great departments of state. It was especially true of the War Office and the Admiralty. The claim has sometimes been made that coherence in the making of naval and military policy was finally achieved with the Committee of Imperial Defence after its formation in 1903. J. P. Mackintosh has shown that the claim can no longer be sustained, that War Office and Admiralty continued to form their separate plans with little or no direction from the C.I.D. They could have been induced to co-operate on the highest level only through pressure from the Cabinet and the prime minister. Neither Campbell-Bannerman nor Asquith took much interest in defence, and while Arthur Balfour did, yet he lacked the qualities of an effective administrator.‘He did not turn to the departments and insist that the conclusions of the Committee should be the basis on which they worked.’
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References
1 Mackintosh, John P., ‘The Role of the Committee of Imperial Defence before 1914’, E.H.R. LXXVII (1962), 490–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also his The British Cabinet (London, 1962), pp. 253–4Google Scholar.
2 Report of a Committee on Reconstitution of the War Office, Parliamentary Papers (1904), VIIIGoogle Scholar [Cd. 1932].
3 Balfour to Esher, 14 Jan. 1904, and Esher to Balfour, 16 Jan. 1904, B.M. Add. MSS. 49718, Balfour Papers.
4 Clarke's correspondence with Balfour is in B.M. Add. MSS. 49700-2, Balfour Papers.
5 The schemes of Brodrick and Arnold-Forster are covered in Dunlop, John K., The Development of the British Army 1899-1914 (London, 1938).Google Scholar See also Arnold-Forster, Mary, Hugh Oakley Arnold-Forster (London, 1910), pp. 236–7; andGoogle Scholar, Arthur, Haliburton, Lord, Army Organization: The Arnold-Forster Scheme (London, 1905)Google Scholar.
6 Young, Kenneth, Arthur James Balfour (London, 1963), p. 229;Google Scholar, Esher, Journals and Letters, 11, 13Google Scholar; Sir Fitzroy, Almeric, Memoirs, 1, 123.Google Scholar
7 The correspondence is printed in Chilston, Viscount, Chief Whip (London, 1961), pp. 313–20Google Scholar.
8 Journals and Letters, II, 14.
9 B.M. Add. MSS. 49718, fos. 24-37.
10 15 Dec. 1903, ibid.
11 29 Feb. 1904, B.M. Add. MSS. 49722.
12 27 July 1904, B.M. Add. MSS. 49718.
13 Balfour to Arnold-Forster, 21 Jan. 1905, B.M. Add. MSS. 49723. This was the subcommittee of the C.I.D. for which Balfour himself wrote a detailed memo (Feb. 1905) on army organization which the Cabinet and the Army Council might study as a means ofreaching a compromise with Arnold-Forster. Balfour wrote: ‘Themain purpose for which the army exists is not the defence of these shores, but the protection of the outlying portions of the Empire, and notably of India. [We] exclude all question of home defence as subsidiary to the purpose for which the British Army is required’ (P.R.O./CAB 17/94).
14 See his Imperial Defence (London, 1898)Google Scholar , and My Working Life (London, 1927)Google Scholar.
15 Clarke's character and views are nowhere better revealed than in this correspondence with Chirol in B.M. Add. MSS. 50831-2, Sydenham Papers.
16 Esher to Balfour, 1 March 1904, B.M. Add. MSS. 49718.
17 Arnold-Forster to Balfour, 11 March 1904, B.M. Add. MSS. 49722.
18 B.M. Add. MSS. 49700, Balfour Papers.
19 14 Sept. 1905, B.M. Add. MSS. 50832, Sydenham Papers.
20 Clarke to Sandars, 30 March 1905, B.M. Add. MSS. 49701, Balfour Papers.
21 Arnold-Forster to Balfour, 31 Jan. and 3 Feb. 1905, B.M. Add. MSS. 49723.
22 Balfour to Arnold-Forster, 10 Feb. 1905, ibid.
23 Arnold-Forster to Balfour, 5 May 1904, B.M. Add. MSS. 49722.
24 Ibid.; Earl of Midleton, Records and Reactions 1856-1939 (London, 1939), pp. 89–91.
25 Clarke to Balfour, 28 Dec. 1904, B.M. Add. MSS. 49700.
26 Arnold-Forster to Sandars, 27 July 1904, B.M. Add. MSS. 49722.
27 Parliamentary Papers (1904), VIIIGoogle Scholar [Cd. 1932], 5.
28 Arnold-Forster to Balfour, 12 Dec. 1904, B.M. Add. MSS. 49722.
29 Sandars to Balfour, 14 Dec. 1904, B.M. Add. MSS. 49762.
30 Arnold-Forster to Balfour, 16 March 1905, B.M. Add. MSS. 49723.
31 P.R.O./CAB 17/94.
32 Clarke to Sandars, 10 July and 17 Nov. 1905, B.M. Add. MSS. 49701-2.
33 Balfour to Esher, 30 July 1904, B.M. Add. MSS. 49718.
34 Clarke to Balfour, 20 May 1906, B.M. Add. MSS. 49702. He was specifically giving his negative reaction to the beginning of Haldane's plan for submerging the Militia within theTerritorial army.