Reporting the First World War: Charles Repington, The Times and the Great War (Cambridge Military Histories)
Cambridge University Press, 12/17/2015
EAN 9781107105492, ISBN10: 1107105498
Hardcover, 408 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm
Language: English
Charles Repington was Britain's most influential military correspondent during the first two decades of the twentieth century. From 1914 to 1918, Repington's commentary in The Times, 'The War Day by Day', was read and discussed by opinion-shapers and decision-makers worldwide who sought to better understand the momentous events happening around them, and his subsequently published diaries offered a compelling portrait of England's governing class at war. This is the first major study of Repington's life and career from the Boer War to the end of the Great War. A. J. A. Morris presents unique insights into the conduct of the First World War and into leading figures in the British high command: French, Haig, Robertson, Wilson. The book offers modern readers a rewardingly fresh understanding of the conflict, and will appeal to scholars of the First World War and British political and military history of the period.
Introduction
Part I. The Years of Preparation, 1903–1914
1. A new profession
2. Kitchener's champion
3. Esher's War Office reforms
4. Arnold Forster lays the foundation for the General Staff
5. Anglo-French military conversations
6. Finding suitable generals
7. Invasion
8. Repington helps Haldane
9. Conscription
10. Northcliffe and The Times, Repington and the Army Review
11. The Curragh incident
12. Are the army and navy prepared for war?
Part II. The War Years, 1914–1918
13. The 1915 shells scandal
14. How do we secure the necessary troops?
15. Changing the Old Guard
16. The Somme
17. Repington leaves The Times
18. At odds with DORA
19. Repington discredited
20. A consummation devoutly to be wished
Part III. After the War, 1918–1925
21. Peace poses its own problems, 1918–1920
22. Last post, 1920–1925
23. A fractured reputation
Biographical notes
Source notes
Select bibliography
Index.