Reporting the First World War Charles Repington, The Times and the Great War Cambridge Military Histories Series

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.

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.

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.