Reporting the First World War

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.

• 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.

'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