1st Edition
Orchestrating Warfighting A History of the British Army’s Corps and Divisions at War since 1914
Orchestrating Warfighting provides a detailed and wide-ranging examination of the employment of corps and divisions from the First World War through to the early twenty-first century.
Division and corps formations have been at the forefront of the British Army’s prosecution of war since 1914. They constituted the major command and organisational elements that underpinned the conduct of large-scale warfighting on land. Divisions and corps were of central importance to the conduct of the First and Second World Wars, the maintenance of a conventional deterrence posture during the Cold War, and were also employed in major confrontations since 1945, including the Korean War and two Gulf Wars. The British Army of the early twenty-first century still retains two divisional formations alongside the British-led Allied Rapid Reaction Corps within NATO.
Orchestrating Warfighting examines British, Dominion, and imperial corps and divisions, taking part in the total wars of the first half of the twentieth century and smaller scale conflicts since 1945. It throws new light on questions of command, generalship, and the management of battles and campaigns across a diverse range of theatres. Orchestrating Warfighting is of interest to historians of the British Army, operational military history, and modern war.
Introduction: The British Army’s Corps and Divisions at War since 1914: Histories of Command and the Operational Level of War
James E. Kitchen
1. The British Corps and Division in the Twentieth Century: Historical Evolution and Doctrinal Context
Paul Latawski
Part 1: The First World War
2. Imperial Warfighting: British and Empire Corps Command on the Western Front, 1914-18
Andy Simpson
3. The Indian Corps on the Western Front, 1914-15
Kaushik Roy
4. Engines of War: Supply and Transport in the Canadian Corps on the Western Front, 1914-16
Andrew Iarocci
5. British Army, Corps, and Divisional Command on the Somme: Planning and Executing the Attack on the Leipzig Salient, 3 July 1916
Stuart Mitchell
6. Almost a British Division? The New Zealand Division on the Western Front, 1916-18
Christopher Pugsley
7. ‘A sound and definite organization’: The Egyptian Expeditionary Force and Corps Planning for the Third Battle of Gaza, October-November 1917
James E. Kitchen
Part 2: The Second World War
8. Command in the 4th Indian Division in North Africa, 1940-43
Kaushik Roy
9. ‘A man’s first battle is always his best’: Douglas Wimberley, the 51st Highland Division, and the Battle of El Alamein
Christopher Mann
10. Indian Army Divisions in Italy, 1943-45
Alan Jeffreys
11. Freyberg and 2nd New Zealand Division
Christopher Pugsley
12. British and Canadian Corps Command during the 1944-45 North-West Europe Campaign
Stephen Ashley Hart
13. Corps Command in Fourteenth Army: IV (British) and XXXIII Indian Corps at the Battles of Imphal and Kohima
Tim Bean
14. Orchestrating the Oboe Concerto: Planning and Command in I Australian Corps for the Borneo Campaign
Garth Pratten
15. Corps Commanders in the British and Indian Armies, 1944-45
Mark Frost
Part 3: The Post-1945 Period
16. The British-led 1st Commonwealth Division in the Korean War, 1951-54
Paul Latawski
17. Divisional Operations in the Gulf Wars
Robert Johnson
18. The Future of the Divisional and Corps Echelon in British Warfighting
Jack Watling
Conclusion: Corps and Divisional Warfighting: Themes and Omissions
James E. Kitchen
Biography
Tim Bean is a Senior Lecturer in War Studies in the Department of War Studies, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, UK. He specialises in joint and combined operations with an emphasis on Headquarters South East Asia Command, 1943-45, and the Burma campaign in general.
Edward Flint is head of the Department of Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, UK. His research interests include defence, security, and strategy, with a particular focus on the evolving role of Civil Affairs and Military Government during military operations.
James E. Kitchen is a Senior Lecturer in War Studies in the Department of War Studies, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, UK. His research interests include the global dimensions of the First World War and colonial conflict in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Paul Latawski is a Senior Lecturer in War Studies in the Department of War Studies, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, UK. His research interests include post-1945 British contingency operations, the evolution of urban warfare, British Army doctrine, and the history of the Polish armed forces.
