The British General Staff and the Coming of War, 1933–39

A General Staff has been described as ‘the brain of an army’. ¹ In the 1930s, the responsibilities of the General Staff in the British War Office included the formation of military policy, the collection and collation of military intelligence and, indeed, most aspects of the preparation of the army for war. ² The importance of the thought and action of this institution in the period between Hitler's becoming German Chancellor in January 1933 and the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 needs no emphasis.