At the start of 1939, the British Army was, as it traditionally always had been, a small volunteer professional army. At the beginning of the Second World War on 1 September 1939, the British Army was small in comparison with those of its enemies, as it had been at the beginning of the First World War in 1914. It also quickly became evident that the initial structure and manpower of the British Army was woefully unprepared and ill-equipped for a war with multiple enemies on multiple fronts. During the early war years, mainly from 1940 to 1942, the British Army suffered defeat in almost every theatre of war in which it was deployed.
From late 1942 onwards, starting with the Second Battle of El Alamein, the British Army's fortunes changed and it rarely suffered another defeat. While there are a number of reasons for this shift, not least the entrance of both the Soviet Union and the United States in 1941, as well as the cracking of the Enigma code that same year, an important factor was the stronger British Army. This included better equipment, leadership, training, better military intelligence and mass conscription that allowed the army to expand. During the course of the war, eight men would be promoted to the rank of Field Marshal, the army's highest rank. By the end of the Second World War in September 1945, over 3.5 million men and women had served in the British Army, which had suffered around 720,000 casualties throughout the conflict.
Background
The main British Army campaigns in the course of the Second World War The British Army was called on to fight around the world, starting with campaigns in Europe in 1940. After the Dunkirk evacuation of Allied Forces from France (May–June 1940), the army fought in the Mediterranean and Middle East theatres, and in the Burma Campaign. After a series of setbacks, retreats and evacuations, the British Army and its Allies eventually gained the upper hand. This began with victory in the Tunisian Campaign in North Africa in May 1943, followed by Italy being forced to surrender after the invasions of Sicily and the Italian mainland in 1943. In 1944 the British Army returned to France and with its Allies drove the German Army back into Germany. Meanwhile, in East Asia the Japanese Army were driven back by the Allies from the Indian border into eastern Burma. In 1945 both the German and Japanese Armies were defeated and surrendered within months of each other.
Impact of the First World War High losses had been sustained by the British Army during the First World War and many soldiers returned embittered by their experiences. The British people had also suffered economic hardships after the war and with the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s had contributed to a widespread antipathy to involvement in another war. One of the results was the adoption of a doctrine of casualty avoidance, as the British Army knew that British society, and the soldiers themselves, would never again allow them to recklessly throw away lives. The British Army had analysed the lessons of the First World War and developed them into an inter-war doctrine, at the same time trying to predict how advances in weapons and technology might affect any future war.
Developments were constrained by the Treasury. In 1919, the Ten Year Rule was introduced, which stipulated that the British Armed Forces should draft their estimates "on the assumption that the British Empire would not be engaged in any great war during the next ten years". In 1928, Winston Churchill, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 6 November 1924 to 4 June 1929 (and who later became Prime Minister), successfully urged the British Government to make the Rule self-perpetuating so that it was in force unless specifically countermanded (Cabinet abandoned the rule in 1932)
In the 1920s, and much of the 1930s, the General Staff tried to establish a small mechanized professional army, using the Experimental Mechanized Force as a prototype. The structure of the British Army had been organized to sacrifice firepower for mobility and removed from its commanders the fire support weapons that were needed to advance over the battlefield. The army had been equipped and trained to win quick victories using superior mechanised mobility and technology rather than manpower. It also adopted a conservative tendency to consolidate gains on the battlefield rather than aggressively exploiting successes. However, with the lack of any identified threat, the Army's main function was to garrison the British Empire.
During this time, the army suffered from a lack of funding. The Royal Navy, being the first line of defence, received the major proportion of the defence budget. Second priority was the creation of a bomber force for the Royal Air Force (RAF) to retaliate against the expected attacks on British cities. The development of radar in 1935, which had the ability to track enemy aircraft, resulted in additional funding being provided for the RAF to build a fighter aircraft force. The army's shortage of funds, and no requirement for large armoured forces to police the Empire, was reflected in the fact that no large-scale armoured formations were formed until 1938. The effectiveness of the British Army was also hampered by the doctrine of casualty avoidance.
Alan Brooke the CIGS from November 1941 complained several times in the earlier entries in his private diary about the lack of suitable officers for command positions, which he puts down to high losses in the First World War
It is lamentable how poor we are regards Army and Corps Commanders. We ought to remove several, but heaven knows where we shall find anything much better. Postwar addition: This shortage of real leaders was a constant source of anxiety to me during the war. I came to the conclusion that it was due to the cream of the manhood having been lost in the First World War. It was the real leaders, in the shape of platoon, company and battalion commanders, who were killed off. These were the men we were short of now. I found this shortage of leaders of quality applied to all three fighting services, and later I was able to observe that the same failing prevailed among politician and diplomats. (8 October 1941) Most of the morning was spent sorting out and adjusting senior officers .... There were at least 3 Corps Commanders that must be changed, and possibly 4! .... The dearth of suitable higher commanders is lamentable. I cannot quite make out to what it must be attributed. The only thing I feel can account for it is the fact that the flower of our manhood was wiped out some 20 years ago and it is just some of those that we lost then that we require now.(23 October 1941) Furthermore (the situation) is made worse by the lack of good military commanders. Half our Corps and Divisional Commanders are totally unfit for their appointments, and yet if I were to sack them I could find no better! They lack character, imagination, drive and power of leadership. The reason for this state of affairs is to be found in the losses we sustained in the last war of all our best officers, who should now be our senior commanders. I wonder if we shall muddle through this time .... (31 March 1942)
Organisation
At the beginning of the war, the War Cabinet was in overall command of all three branches of the armed forces: the army, navy and air force. When Churchill was elected Prime Minister in May 1940, he formed an additional Inner War Cabinet in which he could act directly with the military commanders, who together formed the Chief of Staffs Committee. Overall command of the British Army was vested in the Army Council, which consisted of a number of civilian and military members, seven (later ten) in total. These included: The Secretary of State for War, Secretaries of State and members of the Civil Service. Although all orders were given in the name of the Army Council and not by a single person, the Secretary of State for War was solely responsible to the War Cabinet for all Army matters.
Recruiting At the outbreak of the Second World War, only two armoured divisions (the 1st and 7th) had been formed, in comparison to the seven armoured divisions of the German Army. In September 1939, the British Army had a total of 892,697 officers and men in both the full-time regular army and part-time Territorial Army (TA). The regular army could muster 224,000 men, who were supported by a reserve of 173,700 men. Of the regular army reservists, only 3,700 men were fully trained and the remainder had been in civilian life for up to 13 years. However, much of the regular army was in India or scattered in small garrisons around the world, so additional forces had to be built up at home. In March 1939, it was decided to double the size of the Territorial Army, and in May with the Military Training Act 1939 conscription for the male population between the age of 20 to 22 was reintroduced.
In April 1939, an additional 34,500 men had been conscripted into the regular army and had only completed their basic training on the eve of war. The regular army was built around 30 cavalry or armoured regiments and 140 infantry battalions. The Territorial Army numbered 438,100, with a reserve of around 20,750 men.
When the UK declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, the National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939 was rushed through Parliament that required all fit men between the ages of 18 and 41 years to register for training (except for those in exempted industries and occupations).
The total strength of the Army on September 3, 1939 was 1,065,000 and by the summer of 1944 almost 1/3 of the able-bodied male population was serving in the three branches of the armed forces. The size of the British Army peaked in June 1945, at 2.9 million men. By the end of the Second World War some three million people had served.
In 1944, the United Kingdom was facing severe manpower shortages. By May 1944, it was estimated that the British Army's strength in December 1944 would be 100,000 less than it was at the end of 1943. Although casualties in the Normandy Campaign, the main effort of the British Army in 1944, were actually lower than anticipated, losses from all causes were still higher than could be replaced. Two infantry divisions and a brigade (59th and 50th divisions and 70th Brigade) were disbanded to provide replacements for other British divisions in the 21st Army Group and all men being called up to the Army were trained as infantrymen.
Furthermore, 35,000 men from the RAF Regiment and the Royal Artillery were transferred to the infantry and were retrained as rifle infantrymen, where the majority of combat casualties fell.
In addition, in the Eighth Army fighting in the Italian Campaign of the Mediterranean theatre several units, mainly infantry, were also disbanded to provide replacements, including the 1st Armoured Division and several other smaller units, such as the 168th Brigade, had to be reduced to cadre, and several other units had to be amalgamated.
The process of allocating men would remain ad hoc at the start of the war. The army would be without the quotas of men required from skilled professions and trades, which modern warfare demanded. With the British Army being the least popular service compared to the Royal Navy and RAF, a higher proportion of army recruits were said to be dull and backwards. The following memorandum to the executive committee of the Army Council highlighted the growing concern.
"The British Army is wasting manpower in this war almost as badly as it did in the last war. A man is posted to a Corps almost entirely on the demand of the moment and without any effort at personal selection by proper tests."