Page 344 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

344 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

Strategic command
The British War Council was formed on the outbreak of war to take over responsibil-
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ity for the conduct of the war from Cabinet. Subsuming the functions of the Committee
of Imperial Defence, its role was to coordinate British strategy (both military and naval)
and provide advice to the Prime Minister. It was an important body, with an important
role in the direction of joint operations. But according to its secretary, Lieutenant-Colo-
nel Maurice Hankey, the War Council, which should have arrived at its own conclusions,
relied entirely on pre-digested and under-scrutinised evidence from the War Office and
Admiralty. This was less than ideal for many reasons, least of which was the overbear-
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ing nature of the departmental heads, and the lack of consultation, and therefore ‘joint-
ness’, between the services.
As Secretary of State for War, and therefore the political head of the army, Lord
Kitchener should have concerned himself with the political machinations of the War Of-
fice. Instead, he regularly took matters into his own hands, and made decisions without
consulting his military experts. According to Richard Haldane, who had been Secre-
12
tary of State for War from 1905 to 1912, by shutting out his advisors in this fashion,
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Kitchener’s decisions were not ‘thrashed about’ or debated. The result was that the War
Office ‘revolved around [Kitchener’s] sense of priorities and whims’, and operations,
such as the Gallipoli campaign, were not subjected to the opinions and influence of the
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military’s experts in London.
It was a similar story at the Admiralty. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston
Churchill, was reluctant to call meetings of his naval experts. Without such meetings, the
sea lords, who were responsible for the Royal Navy’s strategic planning, ‘were never’,
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according to one sea lord, ‘informed of what was going on’. Another complained to a
British Royal Commission that they ‘basically knew nothing of the operations’ beyond
what they heard as rumour and gossip. Again, this was largely the result of the person-
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ality of the departmental head. Like Kitchener, Churchill dominated his department. Be-
cause of this, plans were not subject to widespread expert scrutiny, and, as a result, were
too often uninformed and inadequate. The situation improved under Arthur Balfour, who

10 Edward Spiers, ‘Gallipoli’, in Brian Bond (ed.), The First World War and British Military History, Clarendon
Press, London, 1991, p. 176.
11 Evidence of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Maurice Hankey to the Dardanelles Commission, 19 September 1916,
The National Archives, UK (herein TNA): CAB 19/33, pp. 14-15.
12 Tim Coates (ed.), Lord Kitchener and Winston Churchill: the Dardanelles Commission, Part I, 1914-15, The
Stationary Office, London, 2000, pp. 44-46.
13 Evidence of The Right Hon. Viscount Haldane of Cloan to the Dardanelles Commission, 18 October 1916,
TNA: CAB 19/33, p. 263.
14 Robert Rhodes James, Gallipoli, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1965, p. 217.
15 Evidence of Admiral Frederick C.T. Tudor to the Dardanelles Commission, 10 October 1916, TNA: CAB
19/33, pp. 178-181.
16 Evidence of Commodore Cecil F. Lambert to the Dardanelles Commission, 10 October 1915, TNA: CAB
19/33, p. 184.