Army officers, historians and journalists : the emergence, expansion and diversification of British military history, 1854-1914

Dighton, A

Abstract

At the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, Britain had only one military academy which taught Military History, the subject was overlooked at universities, few historians wrote on the topic and the government had not yet sanctioned the writing of official history. Yet, by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the situation was radically different. Not only had Military History come to play an important role in army education, there were several universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, which taught the subject, while the Committee of Imperial Defence had created a ‘Historical Section’ dedicated to the writing of officially authorised histories. Despite this dramatic transformation, the development of British Military History during this period has hitherto not been considered by scholars as a subject worthy of serious investigation. The meagre research which has been conducted on the subject has been limited in terms of its scope and use of primary sources. This thesis will attempt to fill this gap in the historiography by analysing the emergence, expansion and diversification of British Military History between 1854 and 1914. It will examine the different factors which led to the expansion of Military History: the need for improved military education, the requirement to collate information on recent wars, commercial opportunism, the desire to influence public perceptions and the discovery of Military History as a subject worthy of historical research.

Citation

Dighton, A. (in press). Army officers, historians and journalists : the emergence, expansion and diversification of British military history, 1854-1914. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Acceptance Date: Dec 16, 2015
• Deposit Date: Jun 21, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 31, 2019