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INTRODUCTION

Historically speaking, theinter-war period is aninteresting period inthe development of tech-

nology on the battlefield. Thetechnological innovations that occurredduring the first three decades of thiscentury, paved the way for a new style of warfare. This new style of warfare,brought on by mechanization, would beone of highly mobile forces doing battleagainst each other in a fast-paced andfar-reaching battlefield. Militaryhistorians John Keegan and RichardHolmes note that, on the eve of theSecond World War, the combatants wereabout to take part in a war thatemployed:

tanks, tactical aircraft, self-propelled artillery [and] motorizedinfantry. [T]hese elements ofmachine-age warfare were to investits operations with the rapidity and

reach not seen since the irruptionsof Genghis Khan in the thirteenthcentury.1

For the most part, the British Armytook the advent of mechanizationseriously, especially during the period justfollowing the end of World War One andthe period just before the outbreak of World War Two. Even during the worldwide depression of the 1930s, theBritish Army continued to develop itsmechanized doctrine. In short, this essay

will examine Britains mechani-zationdoctrine during the inter-war period; andin doing so, it will compare theirdoctrinal developments to those of theirAllies and Germany during this period. Inessence British mechanization doctrinedeveloped in three stages. Stage One1918 to 1928when Great Britain tookthe initial steps in the process tomechanizing its forces from its lessonslearned out of the Great War. StageTwo1928 to 1934when, primarily

because of the worldwide depression andwar complacency, Great Britains effortsto modernize its Army were seriouslyhampered. Stage Three1934 to 1939when, because of impending war clouds,Great Britain was forced into a rapidprocess of mechanizing its forces.2

STAGE ONE

At the end of the Great War, manybelieved that the world had fought itslast major conflict. The death toll and thesheer terror of some of the weapons that were used made most people feel thatanother war like it was surely unthinkable.However, the real distaste for the Great War was in its relentless trench warfareand its painstaking longevity. Althoughboth the Allies and the Germansexperimented with various forms of moremobile styles of warfare in the closingmonths of the Great War, neither sidereally carried on with these innovations inthe years immediately following the war.The German offensives of March to May

1918 were both initially promising, butdue to limited national resources, longlines of communications and the enteringof 1.5 million Americans into combataction, Operations Michael andGeorge soon grounded to a halt.Although the Germans did not have tanksin these offensives, they did demonstratethat a force composed of lightly equippedand highly mobile infantry forces mixedwith close support artillery and low-flyingaircraft was a highly effective one.3 On theother hand, the French, the British and

even the Canadians also showed that theywere interested in breaking the deadlock,and their solution was to add tanks to aforce that also had motorized infantry,close support artillery and ground attackaircraft working in close cooperation. Inboth Soissons and Cambrai, the Allies were mildly successful as they tested outthe tank in offensive operations. At thesetwo battles they correctly massed theirtanks for the value of shock action, butthey failed to coordinate the use of

intimate infantry support. Many of thetanks arrived on objectives withoutinfantry and they were at the mercy of theenemy infantry. However, it was at Amiensin August 1918 where the Allies routedthe Germans by massing tanks, infantry,artillery and aircraft into an offensiveconcentrated onto their weak areas. TheBritish freely admit that this tactic wasmimicked from the successes of theGerman offensive, Operation Michael,only a few months before.4 With theadvent of the successful coordinated useof the tank, motorized infantry and theaircraft, the age of mechanization hadentered the battlefield.

At the close of the war, the processof improving the mechanization ofarmies was almost a dead issue. Most ofEurope was in ruins and most nationaltreasuries had been exhausted, if not inserious debt. Casualty lists werestaggering and poverty lines weregrowing. In an effort to cut costs and usemoney elsewhere, most governments

were looking at ways to stand down asmuch of its military as possible; GreatBritain was no different. However, whilemost people in Great Britain concen-trated on how to recover from theaftermath of the Great War, two Britishtheorists, J.F.C. Fuller and Basil LiddellHart, concentrated on how to fight thenext war. Soon after the end of theGreat War, both theorists had formedthe opinion that the mechanization ofthe Army was the only way for a militaryto have success in future European wars.

Their view on mechanization translatedinto the mobility of an armythe morean army was mechanized, the more it was capable of mobility and success.5

Both Fuller and Liddell Hart agreed ona number of key theoretical pointsconcerning mechanized doctrine andthe mobility of an army. First, theyagreed that a mobile defence was thebest form of defence. Secondly, theyagreed that the enemy should bedislocated but not necessarily be

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destroyed. Finally, they agreed that thepursuit was very important to theannihilation of the enemy.6 Wherethey differed was at the strategic level.Liddell Hart believed that with thespeed and mobility of a mechanizedarmy, it could thrust deep into anenemys lines and psychologically

dislocate the enemys command. Fullerbelieved that the employment ofmechanized forces would guar-anteevictory at the operational, not strategic,level. Fuller theorized that his opera-tional level of warfare would give way todecisive, set-piece battles.7

It is primarily due to the pressure thatthese two fine theorists made on the Armyand government of Great Britain, thatBritain began experi-menting withmechanized tactics. Great Britains

Experimental Mechanized Force Trials ofthe 1920s were highly successful and each year they inched the British Army closerand closer to the ideas that theorists likeFuller and Liddell Hart had dreamed.Although the organization was not usingany newer, more revolutionary equipmentthan it possessed at the end of the Great War, it was developing doctrine. It waslearning to conduct operations in an all-arms effort. It was learning to conducthighly mobile operations. But, most of allthis force was learning to manoeuvre in astrategic and not just a tactical manner.8 By

1928 the British Army was slowly, butpositively, building a mechanized Armyand it had the tactical doctrine toback it up.

Compared to other major powers,Great Britains small steps were leaps-and-bounds in front of the rest of them.During this stage only the Americansappeared to be joining in on the processof mechanizing its Army. Similar to theBritish, they were conducting trials.However, the big difference between the

two was that the American doctrine wasfocused on the defence of North America, and not Europe. Hence, theydesigned their mechanized forcesaround lightly armoured mechanizedcavalry who could take over the role ofthe horse. American mechanized units,almost entirely composed of cavalrytroops, were designed principally toperform reconnaissance functions, notcoordinated all-arms attacks on theenemy.9 During this period, the French

and Russians concentrated on rebuil-ding their respective armies. Theformer, having taken the wrong lessonsfrom the Great War, chose to concen-trate on the development of theartillery; whereas, the latter was simplynot well organized. The fallout of therevolution and the continual purges

downgraded their capabilities. As forGermany, she was still trying just tosurvive at this point.10

STAGE TWO

At the end of 1928 the finances ofmost nations were at a breakingpoint. By the time the worldwide effectsof the Wall Street Crash were beingfelt by developed nations, the world hadbegun to enter the era of the GreatDepression. As the depression hit, most

nations began making massive cuts totheir defence budgets. The relativepeace of the last ten years had deludednations into believing that they wouldnever again have to fight a war on thescale of the Great War.11

The feelings were not muchdifferent in Great Britain. As a result ofdefence cuts, Great Britain hadretarded its tank growth and the overalldevelopment of its mechanized Army.To this point essentially, Great Britainhad envisaged (and envisaged only) the

developing of three basic tanks. Thefirst was a fast and lightly armouredlight tank for reconnaissance andscreening tasks. The second was a fairlyfast and more heavily armouredmedium tank for long-range strategictasks such as penetration and tank-to-tank combat. The third tank was to be aslow, very heavy infantry tank for closesupport of the infantry. The key to thisnew mechanized Army was their Armysselection of the medium tank. Althoughthe British government had developed

a superior medium tank at the Vickersfactory and its replacement the SixteenTonner, neither was ever good enough. As improvements were made to them,they soon became too costly to produce.In 1932, the projects to build either a Vickers or Sixteen Tonner wereabandoned. Hence, the most importantpart of a new mechanized Army inGreat Britainthat of the mediumtankwas to be shelved for acheaper, inferior model.12 With their

abandonment, the British would proveunable to develop a good all-purposemedium tank.13

The defence cuts of this period alsoaffected the development of other trackedvehicles. The cuts also meant that very fewmechanized carriers or tracked artillery

pieces were being developed orconstructed.14 The one bright spot duringthis period was that the British continuedto experiment with brigade-sizemechanized formations. The effect of thedefence cuts on these exercises had madeit very difficult for the British Army todevelop mechanized doctrine above thetactical level. Still, their tactical doctrinewas being defined. The exercises had ledthem to a few solid conclusions aboutactical mechanized doctrine. Firstly, theyconcluded that any operation beyond a

tactical level required detailed logisticaconsiderations. Secondly, they concludedthat tanks were best used independently tostrike at the enemy in wide manoeuvresThirdly, they concluded that tanks fighbetter when they are massed. It was withthese conclusions in mind that GreaBritain then decided to form anindependent armoured brigade toaugment its mechanized brigade.15

Compared to the other major powerduring this period, Great Britain hadprobably done more than any of them to

define low-level mechanized doctrineHowever, it was in the technological arenathat they began to slip well behind twoother nations. The abandonment of themedium tank and the slow down intracked vehicle development had put theBritish at a disadvantage to Germany andRussia. Forbidden, under the Treaty ofVersailles, from possessing military aircrafand most types of armoured vehicle(s)the Germans were experimenting withmechanization, the rapid movement oftroops and tank-infantry-aircraf

cooperation.16 During this period, theymade formal agreements to shareinformation with Russia. The Germansbenefited from the Russians ideas onchassis designs and the Russians benefitedfrom the Germans gun technologyRussian chassis designs could be seen inthe Panzer III and IV tanks and the PzkwIIItroop carrier, while German guntechnology was evident in the T34.17 TheGermans and the Russians were fasdeveloping superior tanks and

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mechanized vehicles to those of GreatBritain. France was simply disinterestedin building a mechanized Army. In theUnited States, they were going throughmany of the same deliberations GreatBritain had already been through,except that they had now turned theirattention almost entirely toward

the acceptance of the light tank toperform the nations primary taskthatof the defenceof North America. TheAmerican doctrine called for fast, lightlyarmoured tanks to execute high-speedcavalry missions. Although the Americans did not opt for mediumtanks, they did recognize three veryimportant points about mechanizedwarfare. One, that there was a need formechanized infantry to affordprotection to the tanks against anti-tankfire. Two, that supporting artillery

formations need to be as mobile as theforce they are supporting. Three, thatsupply and support troops had tobecome more mobile.18 However, theAmericans, like the British, did not havethe large numbers of mechanized forcesthat Germany and Russia were amassingduring this period.

STAGE THREE

As the year 1934 started to unfold,Britain began to realize thatGermany and Russia were rearming

themselves at a rapid rate. In the case ofGermany, contrary to the Treaty ofVersailles, they were quickly establishingan Army with a strong mechanizedorganization. It was not long before theBritish realized that they had to step-upthe rearmament process and that theyhad to concentrate on building amechanized Army. To build thismechanized Army the British had, tothis point, only envisaged two types oftankslight and medium; and thedesigning of an acceptable medium

tank was still marred by technicalproblems. The Army, through its tankdesigners, had built two mediumtanksthe A9 and the A10but bothof these tanks proved to have

mechanical problems. Neither tank

could satisfactorily operate with the

required 30mm of protective armour

(30mm was required at that time to

defeat the effect of German anti-tank

weapons). With no other option

available, the slow A9, with its heavy

armour, became the medium tank for

the British Army. The British Armywasforced, for the short-term, to use the A9as a multi-purpose medium tank in bothmedium and infantry (heavy) tasks.However, the technical problems thathounded medium tank developmentforced the British to pursue two

separate tanks for these taskstheinfantry or heavy tank for the infantrytask and the cruiser tank for themedium task. The improved A9 laterwould take on the role as just a cruisertank, as the British soon pressed twonew tanksthe A11and the A12intodevelopment as infantry tanks. Thesetankswere heavily armoured andextremely slow, but in a defensive role,they proved to be the most effectivefighting vehicle in the first yearsofthe war.19

Realizing that they were possibly onthe brink of war, the British completedtheir defining of tactical doctrine andstarted experimenting with formationslarger than a mechanized or armouredbrigade. Although the British realizedthe importance of forming mechanizedand armoured brigades and divisions,they were quite concerned with the rolethat cavalry units would play in the newmechanized British Army. The horsesimply had no role in a mechanized army.The easy solution would have been simply

to get rid of the cavalry in favour offorming mechanized infantry units fromexisting infantry units, and armouredunits from the existing Royal Tank Corps.However, as the cavalry was an establishedpart of the Army and British society, theirdissolution would cause major problemsto the Army preparing to go to war. Thus,the cavalry with all its social influencecould not be destroyed. Rather it wasassigned roles similar to the Royal TankCorps and provided the British Army witha much-needed nucleus of tank units.

Based on the exercises and trials that theBritish Army had been conducting, itbegan organizing itself into Mobile(Mechanized Infantry) Brigades using theinfantry brigade formations and into Armoured Brigades based on the RoyalTank Corps and established cavalrybrigades. By the outbreak of war, GreatBritain was not ready numerically ortechnically to take on the moremechanized German Army, but it hadunderstood that it needed to start

organizing itself into mechanized andarmoured divisions to counter thethreat.20

During this period, the UnitedStates had experimented witharmoured-heavy organizations, but theyhad decided to stay with their previous

choice and continue with their use oflightly armoured cavalry forces tosustain their primary role of the defenceof North America. Whereas the Britishplaced tank units inside theirmechanized formations and placedinfantry units inside their armouredformations, the Americans con-tinuedto tactically organize their mechanizedinfantry and armoured cavalry intoseparate units that rarely exercisedtogether. This major fault in Americandoctrine would later be paid with

American lives at the battle of KasserinePass which saw Americans not only failto mass their tanks, but also allow theirinfantry and tanks to be separated. Poortank-infantry cooperation training wasthe culprit.21 Indeed, the mostimportant lesson that the British hadlearned was to conduct the Second World War without the horse. Thissomewhat minor detail would be asaving point in the later portions of the war. At the start of the war, all majorpowers, including Germany, were stillusing horses for mobility. The inclusion

of the horse into the organization ofmodern armies would assist in theirdownfall. The Americans soon came toshare this British view on the exclusionof horses. The Germans, the Russiansand the French saw the horse as asupplement, and not a detriment, tomobile operations. Horses weregenerally used as a replacement tomechanization for those units thatcould not become or remainmechanized. As the war progressed theRussians and French (after 1944) saw

the horse as more of a hindrance tomechanized operations, whereas, theGermans saw the horse as a means ofdelivering a limited degree of mobilityto units that were no longer capable ofbeing mechanized. Indeed, in the earlystages of World War Two, the Germansattacked Poland with large numbers ofhorses in logistical support units. Theless grandiose Spanish Civil War hadhelped to confirm a great number oflessons for the Germans; however, the

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one exception was that it wronglyconfirmed to the Germans that theycould continue to use horses in someroles in their mechanized Army. As theBritish had already seen on exercises onSalisbury Plain, the horse was not asdependable as the truck or themechanized support vehicle.22

CONCLUSION

The British Army has been criticizedfor not being pre-pared to enter theSecond World War as a modernmechanized Army that did not employmodern mechanized doctrine. This is nottotally true. Indeed, the British Army, likethe French and the American armies,could not compete with the vast resourcesor political impetus that was driving theeffort of mechanization of the German

and Russian armies during the latterstages of the inter-war years. Hence, theBritish, Americanand French withouttheir allies, were numerically inferior toeither Germany or Russia. Additionally,defence cuts led to the retardation of thetank and mechanized vehicleprogrammes. The defence cuts had adirect result on the technological shortfallof the mechanized doctrine in the BritishArmy.23 However, the British Army led the

way in developing mechanized doctrineIn many ways it has been demonstratedthat the Germans so-called blitzkriegtactics were merely adopted from theBritish successes at Cambrai and Amiens,and from the lessons that the British hadlearned from their experimentalmechanization trials of the 1920s and

1930s.24

During the period 1918-1928 theBritish Army carried on using andexpanding the lessons it had learned fromthe Great War. They had developedsuperb mechanized doctrine at the tacticallevel. Early on, they had learned theimportance of tank-infantry cooperationand the need to mass tanks for an assault.During the period 1928-1934 the British Armys technological superiority overother nations faded as defence cuts

became more and more severe. Thiseffected the development of theirmechanized doctrine; they were unable tosubstantially advance doctrine without thepractical application of modern tanks andmechanized vehicles. The hardest hit areawas the development of a suitable mediumtankone that had both sufficient anti-tank protection and great speed. Themedium tank, as we now know, is the pivotpoint of any mechanized army. So, for the

British to abandon the development of asuitable medium tank was a recipe fordisaster. Luckily for the British, theirdoctrine survived. Although they werebehind the Germans numerically, at thebeginning of the war they were able toweather out the first few years of warbywhich time a suitable medium tank could

be mass-produced and put into serviceThe doctrine of the British Army duringthe period 1934-1939 was one of creating aproper mechanized Army. First, theyimproved their doctrine to include theestablishment of armoured andmechanized divisions. Second, theydesigned training to include closecooperation between the infantry, armourartillery and Air Force. Third, theyrealized the value of a mobile servicesupport element to accompany armouredand mechanized formations. Finally, they

mechanized all combat arm elements ofthese formations.

Was the British Army reanumerically or technically to start theSecond World War? No. Was the British Army ready doctrinally? The answewould have to be a resounding yes.

ENDNOTES

1. John Keegan and Richard Holmes, Soldiers: A History of Men in Battle(New York: Viking, 1986), p. 16.2. J.P. Harris, British Armour and Rearmament in the 1930s, TheJournal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 11:2 (1988), pp. 220-221. It should be notedthat Harris states that the retardation stage lasted until 1936. Whereas, in Azat Gat, Liddell Harts Theory of Armoured Warfare: Revising the

Revolutionists, The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 19:1 (March 1996), p

20 he shows that it ended in 1934 when the British Army seriously beganto look at mechanized forces.3. Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations thatChanged the Course of History(Markham, Canada: Viking, 1988), pp. 162-163.4. Keegan and Holmes, pp. 123-126.5. Brian Holden Reid, J.F.C. Fuller and B.H. Liddell Hart: AComparison, Military Review, May 1990, p. 69.6. Reid, p. 70.7. Reid, pp. 69-70 and Gat, p. 4.8. Gat, pp. 6-8.9. John T. Hendrix, The Inter-war Army and Mechanization: TheAmerican Approach, The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 16. No. 1 (March1993), p. 76-78.10. Holmes, pp. 166 and 168.11. Harris 1988, p. 221.

12. Harris 1988, pp. 221-222.13. Harris 1988, p. 226.14. Harris 1988, p. 222.15. Gat, pp. 6-8.16. Richard Simpkin, Tank Warfare(London: Brassey, 1979), pp. 33-3417, Simpkin, pp. 29 and 34 and Harris, pp. 227-228.18. Hendrix, pp. 79-80.19. Harris 1988, pp. 222, 224-225.20. Harris 1988, pp. 230-232.21. Hendrix, pp. 75 and 85-86.22. Harris 1988, pp. 230-231 and 236-237.23. Harris 1988, p. 239.24. J.P. Harris, Debate: The Myth of Blitzkrieg, War in History(1995)Vol. 2:3, pp. 339 and 341.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Major Cliff Jamieson has recently completed aBachelor of Military Arts and Science degree at the RoyalMilitary College of Canada. His service has included tourswith all three battalions of Princess Patricias CanadianLight Infantry in Canada, Germany and Cyprus. He wasone of the first Canadian officers deployed to the formerYugoslavia in 1992, where he was the Aide-de-camp to theCommander Sector West. On returning to Canada in1993 he was employed as an arms control inspector forone year before returning to regimental duty. He alsoserved as a military observer in the Iraqi desert withUNIKOM, followed by a tour with the Directorate ofArmy Training. Major Jamieson is currently employed asthe Staff Officer to the Chief of Staff, Land Force WesternArea in Edmonton, Alberta