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Managing Deadlock: Organisational Development in the British First Army, 1915 Emir Patrick James Watt Doctor of Philosophy University of Edinburgh 2017 1 DECLARATION I declare that this thesis has been composed solely by myself and that it has not been submitted, in whole or in part, in any previous application for a degree. Except where stated otherwise by reference or acknowledgement, the work presented is entirely my own. Patrick Watt 25 August 2017 2 ABSTRACT In terms of the British Army in the Great War, the study of whether or how the army learned has become the dominant historiographical theme in the past thirty years. Previous studies have often viewed learning and institutional change through the lens of the ‘learning curve’, a concept which emphasises that the high command of the British Army learned to win the war through a combination of trial and error in battle planning, and through careful consideration of their collective and individual experiences. This thesis demonstrates that in order to understand the complexities of institutional change in the Great War, we must look beyond ill-defined concepts such as the learning curve and adopt a more rigid framework. This thesis examines institutional change in the British First Army in the 1915 campaign on the western front. It applies concepts more commonly found in business studies, such as organisational culture, knowledge management and organisational memory, to understand how the First Army developed as an institution in 1915. It presents a five- stage model – termed the Organisational Development Model – which demonstrates how the high command of the First Army considered their experiences and changed their operational practices in response. This thesis finds that the ‘war managers’ decision- making was affected by a number of institutional and personal ‘inputs’ which shaped their approach to understanding warfare. This thesis examines the manner in which new knowledge was created and collated in the immediate post-battle period, before studying 3 how the war managers considered new information, disseminated it across the force and institutionalised it in the organisation’s formal practices, structures and routines. In a broad sense, this thesis does three things. First, by examining how the army learned it moves beyond standard narratives of learning in the British Army in the Great War and highlights the complex interplay between personal and institutional learning processes. Second, by focusing on institutional change in the 1915 campaign, it sheds new light on an understudied yet crucial part of the British war experience. Finally, in creating the Organisational Development Model, it provides a robust platform on which future research can be built. 4 LAY SUMMARY My thesis examines institutional change and organisational learning in the British First Army on the western front in the 1915 campaign. It employs concepts more commonly associated with Business Studies, such as ‘organisational culture’, ‘knowledge management’ and ‘organisational forgetting’, to understand how the First Army learned as an institution. Rather than focussing on what the institution learned, my thesis concentrates on how it learned from its experiences of battle. To do this, I studied the decision-making of key war managers, the methods used to create, collate and consider new knowledge, and the means the army used to disseminate and institutionalise relevant information across the force. My thesis presents the first model, termed the Organisational Development Model, which demonstrates how learning occurred in the British Army of the Great War. In doing so, it further demonstrates that concepts from outside the field of history can be used to gain a better understanding of conflicts in the past. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis has benefitted from the advice and guidance of many individuals. In the first place, I would like to thank my supervisors, Professor Ewen Cameron of the University of Edinburgh and Dr Stuart Allan of National Museums Scotland. Their support, both for my thesis and in other areas of academic life, has been constant, and I have benefitted greatly from their vast knowledge of the Great War and the British Army. Their feedback continuously challenged me to think in different ways and this thesis is all the better for their input. This thesis benefitted greatly from financial assistance from a number of sources. I was twice the recipient of the University of Edinburgh’s Professor James F. McMillan Scholarship and was fortunate to be awarded the Simon Fennell Award for PhD Research, a bursary from the Agnes Parry History Fund, three grants from the Research Student Support Fund, and two grants from the Centre for the Study of Modern Conflict, which supported numerous research trips. Furthermore, I would also like to thank the trustees of the Scottish International Education Trust for the award of two generous bursaries; the Western Front Association for the award of a PhD scholarship; the Society for Army Historical Research for the award of a Major University Research Grant; and the Douglas Haig Fellowship for the Haig’s Scholar’s Award for 2014. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance provided by the staff of the following archives and museums: the National Library of Scotland; the National Archives of the 6 United Kingdom; the National Records of Scotland; the Department of Documents at the Imperial War Museum; the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King’s College; Leeds University Special Collections Department; Churchill Archive Centre in Cambridge; Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department; the National Army Museum; the National War Museum of Scotland; and a number of regimental archives across the country. I have also benefitted from the advice of a number of individuals over the course of my doctorate. While there are too many names to list in full, I would like to offer particular thanks to Dr Malcolm Craig, Dr Jeremy Crang, Dr Aimee Fox-Godden, Euan Loarridge, Dr Simon Robbins, Blythe Robertson, and the staff and postgraduate community of the Centre for the Study of Modern Conflict and the wider research community in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. Furthermore, I would to offer special thanks to Duncan Rogers of Helion & Co. publishers who kindly allowed me to reproduce maps from Courage without Glory: The British Army on the Western Front, 1915. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my family. I began my doctoral study at the University of Edinburgh when my daughter Ayla was a toddler and now she is almost five years old, telling me what to do and being a big help with her baby brother, Kerim. Connect Four tournaments, building lego palaces and creating fashion shows for all her princesses have provided the perfect distraction from the study of the Great War. My doctoral research would not have been possible without the support, 7 both financial and moral, of my parents-in-law Beyza and Cuneyd Zapsu, and my mother, Trish, who now doesn’t even pretend to listen to me talk about the war. Also my extended family, Ayse, Elif, Muzo and my wonderful nieces and nephew who have had to put up with my grumpy face when things didn’t go quite as planned. My biggest thanks go to my wife, Hande, who first suggested that I undertake a PhD and who has encouraged and supported me from the start. I feel safe in the belief that if I fall into a knowledge trap I will have her by my side, always. 8 MANAGING DEADLOCK: ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE BRITISH FIRST ARMY, 1915 Contents page List of Figures and Tables 12 List of Abbreviations 14 List of Maps 16 Introduction: Learning as Institutional Change 23 • Historiography of Learning in the BEF 30 • A New Approach to Learning 39 • Sources 49 • Structure 52 Chapter One: Analysing Frameworks for Organisational Development 58 • Institutional Structure 60 • Organisational Memory 82 • Knowledge-Transfer in the BEF Hierarchy 97 • Anglo-French Framework for Knowledge-Transfer 108 • Conclusion 114 9 Chapter Two: Organisational Development at the Operational Level 118 • Identifying Organisational Learning Inputs 120 • Self-Identification of Lessons 137 • Top-Down Data Collection 157 • Transfer of Lessons from GHQ 164 • Conclusion 174 Chapter Three: Organisational Development at the Tactical Level 177 • Tactical Data Creation and Knowledge-Transfer 180 • Technological Adaptation 189 • Structural Changes at the Tactical Level 196 • Conclusion 205 Chapter Four: Leadership and Managing the Loss of Knowledge 207 • Organisational Development and Knowledge Management 211 • First Army’s War