Cet ouvrage a été publié avec le concours et le ... - Cour de France.fr

social and economic effects of the creation of a mass army from
scratch 11 . Peter Simkins’s essay in A Nation in Arms concentrated
upon the relationship between soldiers and civilians in both Britain
and France and, happily, this interesting theme is now to be taken
up by doctoral research at Leeds by Craig Gibson on the British as
an army of occupation in France and Belgium.
Together with A Nation in Arms, these more recent studies not
only provide a general guide to the social and other consequences
of massive wartime expansion but also a context for the more
detailed examination of individual units. These appear particularly
important given that it is now generally accepted that no unit was
the same and that the individual’s experience consequently varied
enormously. While some of those accounts of Pals battalions to
which reference has been made do fulfil partly the function of
building the data base for unit individualities, more scholarly studies
are still needed along the lines of those on the Hull Pals, the Leeds
Rifles and the Kensingtons 12 . Currently, Helen McCarthy is
undertaking such a study at Cambridge on the Territorials in
Liverpool. Moreover, it should be noted that, while other aspects of
military participation such as the Volunteer Training Corps, the
Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps and even the recruitment of blacks
into the army have been covered 13 , one large void left by A Nation
in Arms which still requires to be filled, is the study of conscripts
other than conscientious objectors. One paper in 1990 did attempt
to provide a general framework for such a study but, as yet, there is
only one doctoral thesis, which simply does not display a sufficient
understanding either of the army in general or of the distinctions to
be drawn between Derbyites, youths coming of military age post-
1916 and what might be termed genuine conscripts 14 . Hopefully,
the gap will be rectified by the projected collaboration of John Lee,
Gary Sheffield and Peter Simkins on a book provisionally titled
Haig’s Army.
A fuller knowledge of the role of conscripts is important if a
proper understanding of morale and discipline is to be achieved.
Rather as in the case with the emphasis upon the Somme in terms
11 Harold Pollins, Jews in the British Army in the First World War, dans «The Jewish Journal of
Sociology», vol. 37, N°2/1995, p. 100-111; Jay Winter, The Great War and the British People,
London, 1986; Keith Grieves, The Politics of Manpower, 1914-18, Manchester, 1988; F. W. Perry, The
Commonwealth Armies, Manchester, 1988; Peter Simkins, Kitchener’s Army, Manchester, 1988.
12 Patricia Morris, Leeds and the Amateur Military Tradition: The Leeds Rifles and their Antecedents,
1859-198, Unpub. Ph.D., Leeds, 1983, 2 vols.; Gary Sheffield, The Effect of War Service on the 22nd
Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (Kensingtons), 1914-18 with Special Reference to Morale, Discipline and the
Officer/Man relationship, Unpub. MA, Leeds, 1984; B. S. Barnes, This Righteous War, Huddersfield,
1990. The latter is based on the original Hull M.Phil.
13 Beckett and Simpson, Nation in Arms, p. 14-17; David Killingray, All the King’s Men: Blacks in the
British Army in the First World War, dans R. Lotz and I. Pegg (eds.), Under the Imperial Carpet,
Crawley, 1986, p. 164-181.
14 Ian Beckett, The Real Unknown Army: British Conscripts, 1916-19, dans J-J. Becker and S. Audoin-
Rouzeau (eds.), Les Sociétés européennes et la guerre de 1914-18, Paris, 1990, p. 339-356; Ilana Betel,
Experience into Identity: The Writings of British Conscripts, 1916-18, Unpub. Ph.D., London, 1991.
138