Managing Armageddon The science of transportation and the British Expeditionary Force, 1900-1918 Christopher Phillips Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of History January 2015 i The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2015 The University of Leeds and Christopher Phillips The right of Christopher Phillips to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ii Acknowledgements This thesis has benefitted from the support, advice and guidance of many people, in many ways, and at many times. My supervisors at the University of Leeds, Professor Holger Afflerbach and Professor Alison Fell, have provided their knowledge and expertise throughout the duration of this project. Their input has greatly improved the final thesis from the initial proposal. I thank them both, as well as Dr Jessica Meyer, Dr Dominic Berry, Philippa Read and all those who have contributed to the Legacies of War project and associated seminar series. The Faculty of Arts at the University of Leeds provided financial assistance through the grant of a PhD Studentship in First World War Studies. The genesis of this project took place at the University of Birmingham, encouraged by Professor John Bourne, Professor Pete Simkins and in particular Rob Thompson. My thanks to each of them, and to all staff and students involved in the Centre for First World War Studies, in particular Aimée Fox-Godden for her friendship and support as this project has rumbled on in parallel with her own. I would also like to extend my appreciation to the staff and archivists at the following repositories for their assistance and professional approach to enquiries: the Brotherton Library, Leeds; the Greenlands Academic Resource Centre; the Imperial War Museum; Keele University Library; Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives; the National Archives; the National Library of Scotland; Nuffield College, Oxford; the Houses of Parliament; the Royal Engineers Museum; and the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. I am also grateful to the following for their advice with regard to identifying useful sources and for answering specialist railway enquiries: Dr David Turner; Jim Greaves of the South-Eastern and Chatham Railway Society; Keith Muston of the South-Western Circle; Dave Harris and Peter Witts of the Midland Railway Study Centre; and Michael Weatherburn. My thanks also go to Dr Steven Gray and Dr Simone Pelizza for providing me with access to their doctoral research. Material contained within this thesis has been shared with and modified as a result of discussions at a number of academic conferences. I am grateful to the organizers of: ‘in:flux’; ‘Food and the First World War’; the Association of Business Historians’ ‘Slaven Doctoral Workshop’; and the British Commission iii for Military History’s ‘New Research in Military History’, and to all those who attended these events and passed on their comments and observations on this work. I have also been lucky enough to receive the support of many others who have, knowingly and unknowingly, contributed to the production of this thesis: Edison Haywood, Dr Vincent Hiribarren, James Hyde, Dr Henry Irving, Dr Rachael Johnson, Steve King, Claire Martin, Mikaela Moscou, Rosie Pickard, Phil Smith, Danielle Sprecher and Mark Walmsley have all ensured that the researching and writing of this thesis has been a pleasurable experience. My warmest gratitude is reserved for my family, however. My brother Andrew, his partner Helen and baby Jessica; to Claire for her affection and encouragement; and to my mother Diane for her constant moral and financial support both before and during my doctoral studies. Without her this project could not have been undertaken, let alone brought to completion. This thesis is dedicated to her, and to her late mother and father, Ethel and Frederick Quinton. iv Abstract At its most fundamental level, the First World War in northern Europe was fought between two competing industrial systems. The efficient production and delivery of materials from the factory to the front lines played a critical role in deciding the outcome of the conflict. This thesis examines the management of the second of those factors, the provision of a flexible, effective logistics organization in the rear of the British Expeditionary Force [BEF] on the Western Front. The thesis draws upon war diaries generated by the administrative departments, and the personal papers of individuals concerned with maintaining the supply lines of the BEF and ensuring that the BEF’s ‘tail’ continued to wag. It reverses historiographical trends which have stressed the influence of the war upon the societies which fought it, to instead emphasize the manner in which highly-skilled experts from some of Britain’s largest and most complex businesses were able to contribute recognizable industrial techniques and working methods to improve the efficiency of the BEF’s transportation infrastructure and the operations systems employed upon it. This thesis rejects post-war claims, most vociferously asserted by David Lloyd George, as to the obstinacy and insularity of the British Army as an institution. The administrative success of the BEF was the result of civil-military combination and cooperation. The most famous manifestation of this process, the appointment by Lloyd George of Sir Eric Geddes to the position of Director-General of Military Railways during the Battle of the Somme, was not unique. This thesis argues that the British Army actively sought out and engaged with transport experts both prior to and during the war, a practice which consolidated a longstanding, triangular, working relationship between the British Army, the State, and the prominent railway companies of late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain. v Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... ii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ iv Contents ........................................................................................................................................ v List of tables ................................................................................................................................ vii List of illustrations and maps ..................................................................................................... viii List of abbreviations used in the text ........................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 Part 1: Preparing for Armageddon ......................................................................................... 16 1.1: The ‘greatest single business concern in the country’: National efficiency and the political reorganization of the British Army, 1900-1914 ....................................................... 19 1.2: Readying the rapier: Producing the mobilization scheme of the British Expeditionary Force ....................................................................................................................................... 41 1.3: From paper to practice: The deployment of the British Expeditionary Force ................. 62 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 91 Part 2: Expanding Armageddon .............................................................................................. 93 2.1: The clash of arms and the British Expeditionary Force’s logistical organization ........... 96 2.2: Early experiments in civil-military cooperation: The South-Eastern and Chatham Railway at the port of Boulogne ........................................................................................... 112 2.3: The Directorate of Inland Water Transport: An overshadowed civil-military initiative 130 2.4: The Battle of the Somme: A logistical assessment ....................................................... 148 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 164 Part 3: Unleashing Armageddon ........................................................................................... 167 3.1: Sir Eric Geddes .............................................................................................................. 169 3.2: A ‘civilianizing’ mission? Civil-military relations and the birth of the Directorate- General of Transportation ..................................................................................................... 188 3.3: Remembering the third ‘M’: The application of civilian business methods on the Western Front, 1916-1918 .................................................................................................... 216 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................