The first independent air force, the Royal Air Force, was formed on 1 April 1918 during the First World War. It was a merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. Its leaders and personnel brought cultural predispositions with them from their former services. Unsurprisingly, many aspects of the new independent Service that they created were similar to those in the Royal Navy and British Army. Despite that, a distinctive RAF culture emerged within a short time frame. Many elements of that culture have subsequently been emulated by other nations as they formed their own independent air forces. Those who serve or have served in the RAF intuitively know the power of its culture. RAF life is an immersive experience that evokes a range of assumptions, beliefs and emotions that can deeply affect combat performance. Despite this, little academic study of RAF culture has been conducted. This thesis will examine the history of the RAF from a new social angle. It will establish why its culture is so important and why RAF culture became so distinctive given its very traditional foundations.

This is a study of the British 8th Infantry Division on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918. It is set in the context of the dominant historiography of the last thirty years – that the BEF’s experiences on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918 were subject to a ‘learning curve’, that it learnt in a progressive fashion how to fight a skilled enemy. This process meant that the organisation was more effective by its end. The questions asked about operational effectiveness are informed by this debate. It also seeks to illuminate and carry the debate forward by an examination of the Division at various phases of its wartime experiences. The study utilises official documentation, including war diaries and after –action reports, the private papers of individuals who served with the Division and correspondence with the Official Historian. The study suggests that 8th Division underwent a learning process, progressively improving. However, this process was not constant being affected by casualties, terrain, changes in personnel and command style and the tasks faced. The study argues that by the end of the war, 8th Division, using devolved initiative, was able to employ the sophisticated use of all arms to overcome the enemy.

This thesis examines the strategic leadership, and the high level direction, of the Royal Air Force’s contribution to the strategic air offensive against Germany. It takes the conceptual thinking, the organisational aspects and the leadership required to bring it into being, from its inception in the First World War through to 1945. The thesis uses modern understanding of strategic (or senior) leadership as an analytical tool. The realm of strategic leadership is complex, and ambiguous, and the senior leaders required high levels of intellectual capacity to cope with the survival of the force and its subsequent rapid to meet the rising threat from Germany. The senior leaders, political and military, acknowledged that their methods of warfare must be just, and the thesis examines the legality and morality of the planning and conduct of the offensive. A key facet of strategic leadership is the setting of the vision and purpose of the enterprise and the thesis examines the challenges that arose from the competing views on how the offensive should be waged. Genuine strategic leadership requires dexterity in working at the interfaces with other organisations, or Allies, and the thesis examines the complexities of the Combined Bomber Offensive and Overlord.

Contemporary debates about military technologies have tended to overlook important interjections from feminist security scholars. These interjections have drawn attention to the myriad ways in which gender functions in the development and deployment of technologies in warfare, so that the technology is perceived as either having 'feminizing' or 'masculinizing' effects. However, the accounts offered in support of these arguments include data which does not ‘fit’ with the narrative of either/or masculinization/feminization. This thesis is that 'Haunting' provides an important lens through which the interaction between, and co-constitution of, gender and military technologies can be more adequately explored. Supplementing the 'ghost hunt' with 'queer logic' to draw the concerns of Haunting (the complexity of personhood, in/(hyper)visibility, disturbed temporality and power) in conversation with feminist scholarship, the thesis reveal military technologies as simultaneously destabilizing and (re)inscribing dominant discourses of military masculinity. At its core this thesis argues that Haunting as a theoretical framework and methodology gives us access to, and a means of understanding, data that centres nuance, details and specificity which is fundamental to social research.

Periods of operational deployment contain unique experiences for military servicemen and servicewomen. Previous research has focused on the experiences of regular personnel and their families. Given the increased presence of reservists in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the proposals to include military servicewomen in frontline combat roles, further exploration of the needs of these populations is required. This thesis increases understanding of military identity and culture at a time when the number of servicewomen and reservists requiring care from the National Health Service is likely to increase significantly. Chapter one is a critical review of the qualitative research exploring military servicewomen’s experiences of deployment. Database and manual searches resulted in 13 studies being included in the review. Military servicewomen described experiencing widespread gender-based discrimination implicitly supported by a patriarchal military culture that eroded their military and feminine identities. The findings revealed that this has significant implications for their long-term wellbeing. The review highlights the need for radical culture change in the military that continues to view women as counter to the revered masculinity viewed as a requirement for combat. Suggestions for future research are discussed. Chapter two is a qualitative research study that explored reservists’ lived experiences of deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, the study provides an in-depth account of the shifting identities of the reservists as they transition from civilian to soldier and back to civilian following deployment. The study reveals how their military identities are formed and crystallised by the deployment experience, leaving them detached from their former civilian selves. Implications for clinical practice and suggestions for future research are discussed. Chapter three is a reflective account exploring the integration of contextual identities within diverse roles. It explores the parallels between the research subject and the multiple roles of the clinical psychologist.

The Roman ability to project their power and defend their empire was based on the empire having the capability to maintain a standing army. This thesis is an examination of the commissariat that supplied this army since without logistical support such an army could not survive. The basic question under consideration is how well the commissariat functioned in late antiquity, the period when it was in its most developed and best documented state. When considering the commissariat of late antiquity it is important to understand what came before and how this system came into being. Of particular importance is the office of praetorian prefect, which went from being an imperial deputy with both military and judicial functions during the Principate to the chief administrative office in the late Roman state. Once this question has been addressed it is possible to look at the late Roman commissariat. The process of supply had several different stages, from raising supplies to their storage, transport, and distribution. All of these elements must be addressed separately. The system of supply in late antiquity was not static and there were several modifications to the system over the three centuries covered, most notably the creation of new positions at the top of the supply system. Determining the quality of the commissariat from this requires contrasting the twin considerations of effectiveness and efficiency – the ability to reliably provide supplies for the army and the expenditure of the minimum amount of resources necessary towards that goal. The detailed analysis provided in this thesis supports the conclusion that the late Roman army was, in general, effectively supplied. The issue of efficiency is more difficult to assess, but it is clear that there were many areas of great inefficiency within the Roman system. This in turn implies that the emperors prioritized effectiveness over efficiency – a conclusion consistent with the importance of the army to the emperors’ position.

From the end of the Second World War historians have sought to answer one of its most intriguing questions: to what - and to whom - did the Wehrmacht owe its shocking initial operational successes? What was the nature of German strategic and operational perceptions, and were they new — or even, as some researchers have suggested, 'revolutionary'? Was German post-1918 military culture conducive to a thorough investigation of past mistakes, a re-evaluation of traditional notions, and the pursuit of new ideas? In reality the Reichswehr officer corps jealously defended its inherited conceptual boundaries, retreated ever-deeper into a one-dimensional self-perception and strategic outlook, and offered conceptually ossified solutions to the Republic's pressing security problems. German officers, convinced that their doctrine and military world-view were flawless, never challenged the axioms and values that had brought army and nation to catastrophe in 1918: extreme warfare, culminating in the most destructive and eventually self-destructive actions; extremes of risk-taking; the endless pursuit of annihilational battles that dictated the reduction of strategy to meticulous operational and tactical planning; the trust in 'spiritual superiority' to overcome enemy advantages in material and manpower; ruthlessness; and an exaggerated drive for action at all costs. Idiosyncratic operational planning that was at times completely detached from strategic reality completed the picture of a military organisation unable to renew itself. No comprehensive analysis has yet convincingly explained this astonishing continuity, or linked it to the allegedly innovative operational theory and doctrine that evolved in the second half of the 1930s. The concept of military and organisational culture can however provide the necessary theoretical foundations for understanding both that continuity and the doctrinal shape that it assumed in the imminence of the Second World War. It can explain - as this thesis demonstrates - the disastrous and seemingly inexplicable wrong-headedness of a group of otherwise highly intelligent men.

This is a study of the importance and significance of community identity to a fighting unit in the First World War. It is an analysis of the relevance of the local communities to the unit and its combat effectiveness; the role played by the unit in the local communities’ involvement in the War; and the post-War ramifications of this relationship. In focusing on 1/7th Battalion Kings Liverpool Regiment, a Territorial battalion based in Bootle, Southport and the surrounding area of south west Lancashire, the thesis follows a typical Territorial unit and its home towns from recruitment and establishment to demobilisation and beyond. A wide range of primary sources have been examined including local newspapers, local Council records, official War Diaries of the various units, battle reports and private papers of several of the combatants. In developing existing historiography the study is also believed to present new perspectives on several aspects of the War including the Lusitania riots; the battles of Festubert, 1915, and Givenchy, 1918; and the role of charities in post-War reconstruction work. It also raises general issues about the role of the Territorial Force and draws attention to several gaps in the social and military historiography of the War. The thesis concludes that local and community identity contributed significantly towards the 1/7th Kings’ morale, organisation and hence battle effectiveness. This contribution initially stemmed from the local recruits themselves but was actively nurtured and encouraged by commanders at Battalion, Brigade and Divisional level throughout the War. It also establishes that by putting the local Battalion at the centre of its concerns, the rather disparate communities were able to organise, coalesce and maximise their War effort and support. Finally, it demonstrates in the post-War years, that, despite the fluctuations in this mutually important relationship, the local identification with the Battalion was maintained in memorialisation, remembrance and reconstruction.

One of three core arguments presented in this thesis suggests that many people accepted the view that Trident was a necessary contributor to national security. The promise of sustained employment in Scotland was a second reason to accept Trident. Finally, the Scottish people did not actively oppose Trident because they had become familiar with Polaris. Chapter One discusses the experiences of Strathclyde communities and those local governments near Faslane and Coulport. Chapter Two is concerned with the experiences of Fife communities and those local governments in proximity to Rosyth Royal Dockyard. The third chapter will discuss the Scottish political dimensions of Trident and evaluates the pressures that the disarmament issue implied for the various parties. Chapter Four reveals the various reactions of seven components within Scottish civil society to Trident's procurement. Chapter Five investigates the disarmament movement's experience with Trident in Scotland. Chapter Six presents the conclusions of this study. Official printed sources employed in this thesis include Defence Committee reports, Notices of Proposed Development and case-studies from the National Audit Office. Other documents included Strathclyde Region Council's 1983 Coulport Inquiry, and literature from the SCND, the Nuclear Free Local Authorities and the Scottish Trades Union Congress. This research also uses council minutes, environmental impact assessments and several hundred clippings from local newspapers. Furthermore, oral and written testimony served to fill numerous historical gaps. Numerous interviews and correspondences involved government officials, British MPs and MSPs, members of the Scottish media and the STUC, Faslane shop stewards, along with members of Scotland's religious community, the disarmament movement and everyday citizens.

This thesis examines the nature of war and its impact on society in the English civil war, known as the Barons’ War, which was waged from1264-67 between King Henry III and a baronial opposition led by Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. This is the first dedicated major study of the civil war as a war rather than as a political or constitutional event. While several of the war’s important campaigns have received individual study, the broader issues of the war, like the state and use of castles and town defences, guerrilla warfare and the impact of these on society have not received the same attention. Military history in general has received comparatively little study from the early to mid-thirteenth century and this thesis seeks to examine potential military developments between the civil war of 1215-17; the wars of Edward I in the late-thirteenth century and the Barons’ War’s possible impact upon these. Chapter one contextualizes the military experience and the types of men engaged in the civil war; the methods of recruitment and the general ‘customs of war’. This discussion will inform the discussion in the rest of the thesis. While castles were a crucial aspect of medieval warfare their role in 1263-1267 remains little studied, despite a considerable body of surviving documentation relating to them. Chapter two will therefore focus on the role, state and struggle for control of castles, particularly royal castles on the eve of the war. Chapter three will examine their use and effectiveness in warfare, the techniques and problems of besieging them and, in particular, will utilize a number of illustrative case studies of major sieges in the conflict. The fourth chapter will examine the previously unexamined role of town defences in the war, particularly their state and effectiveness. In chapter five, the thesis will bring a fresh focus by discussing the use of the wilderness by both sides as a tool of resistance, with its principal focus on the war waged by the Disinherited after the battle of Evesham until 1267 and its impact and significance. The final chapter examines the nature of warfare at a very local level, exploring how the issues and events described in the former chapters impacted on communities and also more local participation in waging war as well as examining the blurred lines between warfare and crime. The appendices include a discussion of the involvement of Robert de Ferrers, earl of Derby in the largely unexplored events of the siege of Gloucester in 1264.