Based on extensive and systematic archival research, this work offers an analysis of the British General Staff in the period up to the eve of World War II.
The editors and contributors have explored three broad themes. The first is the inception of the General Staff between the 1890s and 1914. The second is the role of personalities in extending the power and the authority of the General Staff over the Army as a whole. And the third is the influence that the General Staff was able to exert on the development of British strategic policy before the First and the Second World Wars. In particular, the book looks at the evolution of the General Staff's attitude towards the possibility that Britain might have to commit a mass army to the continent to fight in alliance with the French.
This collection of essays, written by some of the leading historians of the British Army, is a tribute to Brian Bond, the retired Professor of Military History in the Department of War Studies at King's College, London, from some of his many friends, former pupils and colleagues.