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This thesis studies the performance of Eighth Army in the North African campaign of the Second World War and makes the case that morale was a decisive factor in defeat and victory. Utilizing sources that have been mostly untapped in studying the campaign, it argues that a morale crisis played a major role in the desert defeats and that a morale turnaround was responsible in large measure for the victory at El Alamein. In exploring the complex inter-relationship between weaponry and morale, it argues that weapons were a crucial element in maintaining morale in the desert. It also makes the case that Montgomery did not win the battle of EI Alamein simply because he had more weapons and men, but because he understood that essentially technology influenced morale and was not a battle-winning factor on its own. The thesis examines the extent to which the morale of Eighth Army was affected by the quality of its manpower at troop and officer level and traces the effects of Adam's initiatives on morale. It also investigates the impact that the complex of welfare and education initiatives spearheaded by Adam, Willans and Williams had on troop morale. In exploring the role that leadership played in determining morale, the thesis shows that Montgomery concentrated on five critical elements of leadership that directly impinged on morale: clarity of direction, communication with the troops, the cOI~mander's image, the handling of formations, and training. The thesis questions the ability of primary group theory to provide an allencompassing explanation of battle morale and motivation in the desert. It suggests instead that other motivational factors such as discipline, ideology, training, success in battle, confidence in weapons and leadership capability were at least as important in explaining the changing morale climate throughout the campaign.

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This dissertation concerns two very different representations of the war in Bosnia 1992-95, labelled here as <i>Complexity </i>and<i> Simplicity</i>. The former represented the Balkans in general and Bosnia in particular as places with a troubled and violent history, populated by people predisposed to ethnic violence, for whom the international community could do little and from whom it would do well to stay away from. The latter represented the war as the result of political choices made by politicians in Serbia. Although these two paradigms have been identified and examined before, existing explanations for such disparate interpretations of the war in Bosnia remain unsatisfactory. This dissertation focuses on British accounts of the war. It assesses the processes by which those representations were produced, and why <i>Simplicity</i> failed to overturn the <i>complex</i> consensus in Britain during the period. That assessment involves the description and documentation of the functional constraints and political agenda of those who witnessed or analysed the war. In addition, this research draws on the work of Vesna Goldsworthy to examine the cultural and literary factors that influenced British writers and speakers when representing Bosnia. Chapter one is a treatment of the representation of the battle for Sarajevo as disseminated by the UN. Chapter two analyses the <i>simple</i> work of those journalists who challenged the UN representation of the battle for Sarajevo. Chapter three assesses the ways in which intelligence was gathered and mismanaged away from the very public contest seen in Sarajevo, and in the first two chapters. Chapter four examines the role of the British army in representing the war, and chapter five with the ways in which the war correspondents and defence writers portrayed the British military deployment to Bosnia and the larger war in that country. Lastly, chapter six concerns the enunciation and defence of government policy in the House of Commons, as well as the ways in which <i>simple</i> opposition to that policy was organised and effectively sabotaged.