Leading from the Front: The 'Service Members' in Parliament, the Armed Forces, and British Politics during the Great War
Leading from the Front: The 'Service Members' in Parliament, the Armed Forces, and British Politics during the Great War
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前线领导：第一次世界大战期间议会、武装部队和英国政治中的“军人”
DOI：
10.1093/ehr/cev118
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发表时间：
2015
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Johnson M
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Johnson M
在英国，人们普遍认为第一次世界大战是一场为政府的平民和宪法标准而进行的斗争，反对“普鲁士军国主义”的邪恶。然而，英国政治阶层本身绝不是一个纯粹的“平民”种姓。在战争期间，264名议员-约占下议院议员的40%-自愿在武装部队服役。这些人在议会和军队中都占据着独特而有争议的地位。共同的兵役经历可以为来自敌对政党的议员提供一个共同的身份，甚至是共同行动的基础，这些人中的许多人来支持威斯敏斯特的一个明显的"军事"议程。与此同时，战斗议员可以充当议会监督和控制军事机构的代理人。然而，这些“服务成员”的重要性不仅在军民关系领域是显而易见的，本文探讨了服务成员试图要求一个特殊的政治权威作为“代表”的武装部队在下议院的意义和后果，提供一个重要的新视角战时英国辩论的代议制政治的运作，政治公民的性质，以及议会作为一个机构的权威。
The Great War was widely seen in Britain as a struggle for civilian and constitutional standards of government against the evils of ‘Prussian militarism’. Yet the British political class itself was by no means a purely ‘civilian’ caste. During the war 264 MPs—some 40 per cent of the membership of the House of Commons—volunteered to serve in the armed forces. These men occupied a unique and controversial position both within Parliament and in the forces. A shared experience of military service could provide a common identity, and even a basis for common action, for MPs from rival parties, and many of these men came to support an apparently ‘military’ agenda at Westminster. At the same time, fighting MPs could act as agents of parliamentary oversight and control over the military establishment. Yet the importance of these ‘Service Members’ was not only evident in the realm of civil–military relations, and this article explores the significance and consequences of attempts by Service Members to claim a special political authority as the ‘representatives’ of the armed forces in the House of Commons, to offer an important new perspective on wartime British debates about the workings of representative politics, the nature of political citizenship, and the authority of Parliament as an institution.