"The new risks to such a force under modern military conditions have also to be weighed. The risks that were incurred in 1914, in landing a field force of 100,000 men in a foreign land, were much less than would be run to-day—when it may have greater distances to cover, and when both railways and roads will lie under the menace of air attack. Broken communications are bad enough when an army is in its own territory, or one where it has complete control. In face of air attack it is impossible to ignore the risk of a field force being stranded with no prospect either of reaching the front or of maintaining itself. In such a plight it could do little for the defence of British interests and it would be more nuisance than a help to any ally... Before the idea of intervention by land is accepted as politically indispensable, there should be full acknowledgement of its unstable military foundations. It should also be made clear to any nation looking to British aid, whether under the old Locarno Treaty or under its possible successor, first, that they may get more value from increased air assistance, which would naturally become effective sooner, in place of a field force; secondly, that the dispatch of a field force cannot imply a willingness to reinforce it without limit, and to expend the massed man-power of this nation, fully engaged as it must be by sea and and in the air, and in factory and farm, in another four years' process of exploring by trial and error a problem which can be, and could have been, examined scientifically."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
B. H. Liddell Hart, 'The Army in War', The Times (3 November 1936), p. 17. His authorship is acknowledged in B. H. Liddell Hart, Memoirs, Vol. I (1965), pp. 380-381
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/British_Army
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
British Army
39 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by British Army →
Related Quotes
"No other troops in the world but German paratroops could have stood up to such an ordeal and then gone on fighting wi…"
"When I was eighteen, I joined the British army for four years. I served in Egypt and the western desert: Palestinian …"
"I returned last week...from visiting the Italian front. I was up with the Eighth Army, that Army which will always se…"
"We have in this country five or six generals, members of other nations, Czechs, Poles and French, all of them trained…"
"The Prime Minister must realise that in this country there is a taunt, on everyone's lips, that if Rommel had been in…"
"So long as I have any power at all I will never be a party to treating the Army in the future as it has been treated …"
"Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules. Of Hector and Lysander, and such great names as these. But of all the w…"
"The first thing you notice about Mumbai is the first thing you notice about every place the British once occupied, wh…"
"I have not time to say more but to beg you will give my duty to the Queen, and let her know Her army has had a Glorio…"
"Although small by European standards, the British Army was a professional army. The men signed on for a shilling a da…"