Old War Office Building, seen from
Whitehall, London - the former location of the War Office
The
War Office was a department of the
British Government, responsible for the
administration of the
British Army
between the 17th century and 1963, when its functions were
transferred to the
Ministry of Defence.
The name
"War Office" is also often given to the former home of the
department, the Old War Office Building on Horse Guards Avenue,
London
.
History
The War
Office developed from the Council of
War, an ad hoc grouping of the King and his senior
military commanders which oversaw England
's frequent
wars and campaigns. A number of older institutions, notably
the
Board of Ordnance (which dates
from the 15th century), were merged to form the War Office. It
worked alongside the
Admiralty,
responsible for the
Royal Navy, and the
(much later)
Air Ministry, which
oversaw the
Royal Air Force. Its
foundation has traditionally been ascribed to
William Blathwayt, who on his appointment
as
Secretary at War in 1684 greatly
expanded the remit of his office to cover general day-to-day
administration of the Army.
The
department had several London homes until it settled at Horse
Guards
in Whitehall
in 1722, where it was to remain until 1858.
Horse Guards and the War Office became virtually synonymous
(indeed, Horse Guards is still the official headquarters of the
Army).
The
War Office moved to Cumberland House
, Pall Mall
for the last half of the 19th century before
finally moving to purpose-built accommodation in what is now known
as the Old War Office
Building.
The management of the War Office was initially headed by the
curiously-named
Secretary at War,
whose role had originated under King
Charles II of England as the secretary
to the
Commander-in-Chief of the
British Army. The first War Office Secretary at War is usually
said to have been William Blathwayt, though he had two predecessors
in the post. It was, however, a fairly minor government post which
dealt with the minutiae of administration rather than grand
strategy.
Issues of strategic policy during wartime
were managed by the Northern and
Southern Departments (the
predecessors of today's Foreign Office
and Home
Office).
From 1704 to 1855, the post of Secretary was filled by a minister
of the second rank, although he occasionally sat in the Cabinet.
Many of the responsibilities were transferred to the
Secretary of State for War
following the creation of that more senior post in 1794. The post
of Secretary at War was merged with that of the Secretary of State
for War in 1855 and was abolished altogether in 1863. The Secretary
of State for War was also responsible, between 1801 and 1854, for
Britain's colonies (when the post was known as the Secretary of
State for War and Colonies). This responsibility ceased with the
establishment of the
Colonial
Office.
The disastrous campaigns of the
Crimean
War led to the consolidation of all administrative duties in
1855 under the Secretary of State for War, a
Cabinet post. He was not, however,
solely responsible for the Army; the Commander-in-Chief held a
virtually equal level of responsibility. This was reduced in theory
by
the reforms introduced by
Edward
Cardwell in 1870, which subordinated the Commander-in-Chief to
the Secretary for War. In practice, however, a huge amount of
influence was retained by the exceedingly conservative
Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal
Prince George, 2nd Duke of
Cambridge, who held the post between 1856–1895. His resistance
to reform caused military efficiency to lag well behind Britain's
rivals, a problem which became painfully obvious during the
Second Boer War.
The situation was only remedied in 1904 when the post of
Commander-in-Chief was abolished and replaced with that of the
Chief of the
General Staff and in turn was replaced by the position of
Chief of the
Imperial General Staff in 1908. An
Army Council was created along similar
lines to the
Board of Admiralty,
chaired by the Secretary of State for War, and an
Imperial General Staff was
established to coordinate Army administration.
The management of the War Office was undermined by persistent
clashes between the civilian and military sides of the
organisation. The government of
Herbert
Asquith attempted to resolve this during the
First World War by appointing
Lord Kitchener as
Secretary for War, making him the first and only soldier to hold
the post. This did not prove a happy experience; under his tenure,
the Imperial General Staff was virtually dismantled. Its role was
effectively replaced by the Committee of Imperial Defence,
established in 1902 to discuss wider defence issues.
The War Office declined greatly in importance after the First World
War, a fact illustrated by the drastic reductions in its staff
numbers during the inter-war period. On
1
April 1920, it employed 7,434 civilian
staff; this had shrunk to 3,872 by
1 April
1930. Its responsibilities and funding were
also reduced. In 1936, the government of
Neville Chamberlain appointed a Minister
for Co-ordination of Defence, who worked outside of the War Office.
When
Winston Churchill became
Prime Minister in 1940, he bypassed the War Office altogether and
appointed himself Minister of Defence (though there was, curiously,
no
ministry of
defence until 1947).
Clement Attlee continued this
arrangement when he came to power in 1945 but appointed a Minister
of Defence for the first time in 1947. In 1964, the present form of
the Ministry of Defence was established, unifying the War Office,
Admiralty, and Air Ministry.
The records of the War Office are kept by The
National Archives under their code
WO.
Old War Office Building
View of the Old War Office Building looking south along Whitehall,
London
Between
1906 and its abolition in 1964, the War Office was based in a
massive neo-Baroque building,
completed in 1906, located on Horse Guards Avenue in Whitehall, London. It
contains about a thousand rooms across seven floors, linked by 2½
miles of corridors. The construction of the War Office building
took five years to complete at what was then a huge cost of over
£1.2 million.
The building is somewhat oddly shaped, forming a
trapezium shape in order to maximise the usage of
the irregularly shaped plot of land on which it was built. Its four
distinctive domes were designed as a decorative means of disguising
the building's shape.
The building is still used by the
Ministry of Defence and
is not currently open to the public.
War Office Departments
See also
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