The 'Service Members' in Parliament, the Armed Forces, and British Politics during the Great War

现代英国被普遍认为是一个卓越的文官立宪国家，在这个政体中，军事权力牢牢地从属于议会的文官权力。然而，英国的政治和军事精英，即使在许多同时代人认为是“民主”的时代，也从来没有构成两个完全独立和不同的种姓。我的研究通过对264名在第一次世界大战期间在武装部队服役的国会议员的研究来探讨这个问题。该项目超越了以往对英国军民关系的狭隘的、制度性的关注，包括对职业和政治文化的研究，也涉及了有关英国国家性质和军队在社会中的地位的重要问题。“服务成员”在军队、议会和更广泛的英国政治生活中占据了独特而有争议的地位。贵族士兵长期以来一直坐在上议院，但一个人是否可以同时是军官（因此是国王的仆人）和MP（因此是人民的仆人）的问题要棘手得多。现有的宪法先例似乎与第一次世界大战的空前条件基本无关，战时联合政府使正常的政治规则处于异常紧张的状态。在这种情况下，服兵役可以为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。到1915年，一个有影响力的军事议员游说团体，无论是统一党还是自由党，都在积极争取实行征兵制。我的研究探讨了服务成员的活动有助于打破传统政党政治的方式，以及这些议员在多大程度上构成了下议院的“军事”派系。服务成员的政治干预被证明是极具争议的。批评者谴责他们认为这是对世纪所谓民主政治的危险和不协调的“克伦威尔式”入侵。但是，战斗议员并没有简单地以牺牲文职控制为代价来推进军事机构的议程。战场上的军人经常利用议会特权绕过军事指挥系统，将对他们军事上级的批评意见发送给威斯敏斯特和白厅的政治同僚。正如一位下院议员宣称的那样：“我们是英国的苏维埃人民委员，利用新闻界、政纲、下议院和私人的赞赏--这让所有的布拉什赫特人感到愤怒和绝望。”因此，我的研究也探讨了新的方式，其中服务成员的工作，以维护议会权威的军事领导。最有争议的是，战斗国会议员谁参加了下议院在战争期间来确定自己作为政治“代表”的武装部队。他们这样做，不仅是充当最高统帅部的喉舌，而且是有意识地把他们对政治权威的要求押在他们“代表”普通士兵说话的权利上。在英国人口处于武装状态的比例达到前所未有的时候，这些主张深刻地影响了当代关于公民身份的性质、选举人的权利和议会的责任的辩论。到了1915年，即使是《泰晤士报》这样的当权派的支柱也认为，一个不包括士兵的下议院并不能真正代表国家，因此既不能指挥战争的进行，也不适合就任何其他重要问题立法--从税收到妇女的选举权。通过探讨这一有争议的辩论，我的研究深刻地挑战了关于20世纪世纪英国男性政治文化平民性质的假设。

Modern Britain has generally been regarded as a civilian and constitutional state par excellence, a polity in which military power was firmly subordinated to the civilian authority of Parliament. Yet the political and military elites in Britain, even in what many contemporaries regarded as a 'democratic' age, never constituted two wholly separate and distinct castes. My research explores this problem through a study of 264 Members of Parliament who served in the armed forces during the Great War. Transcending the narrow, institutional focus of previous work on British civil-military relations, this project comprises a study of professional and political cultures that also addresses important questions about the nature of the British state and the place of the armed forces within society.The 'Service Members' occupied a unique and controversial position in the armed forces, in Parliament, and in wider British political life. Ennobled soldiers had long sat in the House of Lords, but the question of whether an individual could simultaneously be an officer (and thus a servant of the crown) and an MP (and therefore a servant of the people) was far more problematic. Existing constitutional precedent appeared largely irrelevant to the unprecedented conditions of the Great War.Wartime coalition government placed the normal rules of politics under unusual strain. In these circumstances, military service could provide a common identity, and even a basis for common action, for MPs from rival parties. By 1915 an influential lobby of military MPs, both Unionist and Liberal, was campaigning energetically for the introduction of military conscription. My research explores the ways in which the activities of Service Members contributed to the breakdown of conventional party politics, and the extent to which these MPs came to constitute a 'military' faction in the House of Commons.Political interventions by Service Members proved highly controversial. Critics denounced what they regarded as a dangerous and incongruous 'Cromwellian' intrusion into the supposedly democratic politics of the twentieth century. But Fighting MPs did not work simply to advance the agenda of the military establishment at the expense of civilian control. Service Members in the field often used parliamentary privilege to circumvent the military chain of command, sending critical accounts of their military superiors to political colleagues in Westminster and Whitehall. As one MP declared, 'we were the British equivalent of the Soviet Commissars, using the Press, the platform, the House of Commons, and private appreciations - to the rage and despair of all Brasshattery'. My research therefore also explores the novel ways in which Service Members worked to assert parliamentary authority over the military leadership.Most controversially of all, Fighting MPs who attended the House of Commons during the War came to identify themselves as the political 'representatives' of the armed forces. In doing so they were not simply acting as mouthpieces for the high command, but were consciously staking their claim to political authority on their right to speak 'on behalf' of common soldiers. At a time when an unprecedented proportion of the British population was under arms, these claims profoundly influenced contemporary debates about the nature of citizenship, the rights of electors, and the responsibilities of Parliament. By 1915, even a pillar of the establishment such as 'The Times' was arguing that a House of Commons which did not include soldiers on its benches was not truly representative of the nation, and was therefore neither competent to direct the conduct of the war nor fit to legislate on any other question of importance - from taxation to the enfranchisement of women. By exploring this controversial debate, my research profoundly challenges assumptions about the civilian nature of male political culture in Britain during the twentieth century.