Committee of Imperial Defense

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The Committee of Imperial Defense ( CID ) was an important body of the British government from 1904 to 1939. Made up of top politicians and military leaders, it was the control center of the British Empire's strategic defense policy during the period from the end of the Second Boer War to the beginning of the Second World War .

Emergence

The origins of the Committee of Imperial Defense can be dated to the 1890s. In 1890 the Hartington Commission (after Spencer Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington ) proposed the formation of a Naval and Military Council , which, under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, should include the relevant ministers of the Admiralty and the War Office and their main military advisers. Previously, during the Balkan crisis of the late 1870s, it had a ad hoc formed Colonial Defense Committee , where that was, however, soon abolished. Meetings of a Joint Naval and Military Committee on Defense took place from 1891.

In 1895, under the influence of the Franco-Russian alliance , the British Salisbury cabinet created its own permanent Defense Committee under Spencer Cavendish, now Lord Devonshire, which is considered to be the forerunner of the Committee of Imperial Defense. However, this did not include the Prime Minister or representatives of the Foreign Office and Colonial Office and had no clearly defined tasks. It was not until Salisbury's successor, Arthur Balfour , Prime Minister from 1902, that the Defense Committee was reconstituted under the impression of the Boer War that had just ended. The idea for this came from Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster , who took over the office of Minister of War in 1903 and who originally had a counterpart to the German General Staff in mind.

The first meeting of the renamed Joint Committee took place on December 18, 1902 in the office of the Privy Council and was still dominated by the military chiefs of the armed forces. Behind the scenes, Lord Esher's influence on King Edward VII ensured that the previous position of Commander-in-Chief of the British Army came under fire. Esher wanted to replace this with an Army Council modeled on the Admiralty.

At the turn of the year 1903/04 Esher completed the report named after him, which provided for the reorganization of the top military organization. The prime minister was to become chairman and the only permanent member of the Reich Defense Committee, with a secretariat to assist him. The other participants in the meetings (ministers and the military) should be determined by the Prime Minister depending on the issues at stake, and there should be sub-committees on certain questions to which representatives of the Dominions could also be invited. The post of Commander-in-Chief of the Army was replaced by a Chief of the General Staff at the beginning of 1904 when Lord Roberts left . The War Office should also be fundamentally reformed. On May 4, 1904, the CID was officially founded. First Chief of Staff of the Army was Sir Neville Lyttelton , first Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defense Sir George Clarke . Most of Esher's recommendations were only implemented in the course of the Haldane reforms (after Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane , Minister of War from 1905 to 1912).

Tasks and sub-committees

The task of the CID was to plan the coordination of the defense of the British Empire. To this end, it formulated principles of defense policy, made suggestions to the cabinet and individual ministries for dealing with specific problems, and prepared detailed plans for the military and civilian authorities in the event of war. It maintained a number of sub-committees to deal with individual complexes of questions.

Before the First World War , the CID had four permanent sub-committees:

  • Colonial Defense Committee , later Oversea Defense Committee
  • Home Ports Defense Committee (from 1909)
  • Committee on the Co-ordination of Departmental Action on the Outbreak of War (from 1911), and
  • Air Committee (from 1912)

The main secretary of the CID was Maurice Hankey , who took over the office in 1912 and held it until 1938. During the war, the CID played a subordinate role and was covered over by the War Cabinet (whose secretary was also Hankey). The committee met twice in 1920, then only regularly from 1922.

After the First World War, many other sub-committees were added, including:

  • Imperial Communications Committee (1920)
  • Chiefs of Staff Committee (1923)
  • Standing Inter-departmental Committee on National Service (1923)
  • Oil Board (1925)

The Chiefs of Staff Committee was the most important of these committees and had other sub-committees:

  • Joint Planning Committee (1927)
  • Joint Intelligence Committee (1932)
  • Deputy Chiefs of Staff Committee (1936)

In the interwar period , the CID developed, among other things, the Singapore strategy, which was valid until 1941 . The post of Minister for Co-ordination of Defense , created in 1936, was associated with the deputy chairmanship of the CID. When the Second World War began in 1939, most of the committees were transferred to the control of the War Cabinet, and the CID was no longer revitalized after the Second World War.

Historical Section

The CID also maintained a Historical Section , which published works on the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War ( History of the Great War ) , among other things .

literature

  • John Ehrman: Cabinet Government and War, 1890-1940. Cambridge University Press, 1958.
  • David French, Brian Holden Reid (Eds.): The British General Staff: Reform and Innovation, 1890-1939. Frank Cass, 2002.
  • Franklyn Arthur Johnson: Defense by Committee: The British Committee of Imperial Defense, 1885-1959. Oxford University Press, 1960.
  • Greg Kennedy (Ed.): British Imperial Defense: The Old World Order, 1856–1956. Taylor & Francis, London 2008.
  • Paul Smith (Ed.): Government and Armed Forces in Britain, 1856–1990. Hambledon Press, 1996.
  • Andrew S. Thompson: Imperial Britain: The Empire in British Politics, c. 1880-1932. Routledge, 2014.

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