The 52nd (lowland) division in the great war, 1914-1918

Forrest, C

Abstract

The historiography on the conduct of British military operations, 1914-1918, is
geographically narrow in focus, concentrating predominately on the actions and performance
of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France and Belgium. This thesis will, to an
extent, attempt to fill this gap in British military history by examining the military
experience of one territorial division, the 52nd Lowland, which fought in three separate
theatres: Gallipoli (June 1915- January 1916), Egypt and Palestine (February 1916 - March
1918), and the Western Front (April - November 1918). It will seek to answer one principal
question, namely: how, and to what extent, did the military effectiveness of the 52nd
(Lowland) Division improve during the First World War? However, in order to provide a
coherent and differentiated approach to answering this question, five sub-questions will also
be posed, relating to infantry tactics and techniques, training, morale and unit cohesion,
combined arms warfare and the operational context in which the division was employed.
These questions, in addition to other issues such as the division's Scottish identity, will help
focus attention on the complexity of the 'learning curve' on which the division found itself.
As such, the experience of the 52nd (Lowland) Division provides an ideal case study by
which it can be ascertained whether the learning process of the British Army in the First
World War was centralised, and hence 'universal', or whether the tactics of units outside the
Western Front developed independently of the BEF.

Citation

Forrest, C. The 52nd (lowland) division in the great war, 1914-1918. (Thesis). Salford : University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Oct 3, 2012
• Award Date: Jan 1, 2009