Reporting the First World War: Charles Repington, The Times and the Great War(Cambridge Military Histories)

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.

Table of Contents:
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.

About the Author :
A. J. A. Morris is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Ulster. He has been a visiting professor in the United States, Canada and South Africa and was a Nuffield Research Fellow. His publications include Parliamentary Democracy in the Nineteenth Century (1967), Radicalism against War 1906-14: The Advocacy of Peace and Retrenchment (1972), Edwardian Radicalism (1974), C. P. Trevelyan: Portrait of a Radical (1976), The Scaremongers, 1896-1914: The Advocacy of War and Rearmament (1984) and The Letters of Lt Col. Charles Repington CMG: Military Correspondent of The Times (selected, edited and introduced, 1999). He has also contributed essays, articles and review essays to various volumes and academic journals, and has reviewed for the Times Literary Supplement and Political Quarterly. He was associate editor and research associate for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for ten years, contributing forty entries, including Repington's entry.

Review :
'This is a wonderfully well-informed account of Charles à Court Repington, the most important British military journalist of the early twentieth century and an unmatched observer of wartime military life and high politics. A. J. A. Morris's treatment of Repington is very good indeed, and adds a finely nuanced perspective to our understanding of the British experience of 1914–18, in particular the extraordinary military and political intrigues of those years.' Keith Jeffery, Queen's University Belfast 'If the name of Colonel Repington figures at all in recent histories of the First World War … it is as a journalistic gadfly whose attempts to influence British strategic policy were as irresponsible as they were ill-informed. This image Professor Morris has now finally laid to rest in this carefully documented and detailed study of Repington's entire career … From it, Repington emerges as one of the leading military thinkers of his generation who was immensely influential in the reforms of the British Army before the war as well as one of the best-informed and most sought-after observers of its conduct. His political, social and journalistic as well as military connections make his diaries a fascinating record of Edwardian society in its decline. It is a book that adds greatly to our understanding of the way in which Britain was governed during one of the greatest crises in our history.' Michael Howard, University of Oxford