Commitment to the Continent: The Foreign Office, the War Office, and the British Field Force, 1934-1938

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despatching ground forces – the Field Force – to the continent constituted a cardinal element of British grand strategy from early 1934 to early 1938. In winter 1933-1934, through the Defence Requirements Sub-Committee [DRC], senior Foreign Office and Treasury officials, working with the Chiefs of Staff, advised the Cabinet to begin moderate rearmament – ultimately £52 million – with a deadline of 1939. Central to DRC recommendations was the Field Force to underwrite British maintaining the European balance of power through military support for France and the Low Countries to deter possible German aggression. When reporting in February 1934, the DRC identified two adversary Powers requiring improved British defences: Germany, the ‘ultimate potential enemy’, and Japan, of lesser importance. The War Office immediately began creating the Force, built around four divisions. In 1935, given the Abyssinian crisis, Italy joined the list of potential adversaries, and the Cabinet approved almost £400 million DRC-recommended additional defence spending, again, by 1939. The government guided by the Foreign Office monitored the balance; and War Office planning now centred on a 16-division Field Force. However, in May 1937, Neville Chamberlain rose to the premiership and initiated a defence review requiring more spending – £1.625 billion in two tranches: 1939 and 1941 – but eliminating the Field Force. Eschewing the balance, Britain would rely on powerful air and naval forces to maintain national and imperial security. However, after Germany’s conquest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and a darkened continental milieu, the Field Force was reborn to underpin British strategy.