The Evolution of the Division in British Military History

Dec 2007, Vol. 152, No. 6
By Ashley Jackson

This article charts the evolution of the division as an organizational unit of the British Army. Surprisingly, there have been no significant studies devoted to this topic, and information must be gleaned from a range of sources relating to the history of the British Army. The division, as a major unit of military organization, is a worthwhile subject for study, particularly because so many of the challenges facing Western armies in the twenty-first century are not approached with the division as the main unit, a sharp reversal of the situation throughout the Cold War decades. Whilst some Western militaries retain the capability to launch divisions into conventional battle, business in Afghanistan, Iraq, and many other parts of the world, is conducted at lower levels of organization, such as the brigade and the battlegroup. As this article shows, however, the division has faded in and out of importance in the last two hundred years depending on the type of war faced; in Britain’s case, divisions assumed great importance during times of mass conventional war, though in the lengthy periods in between, the division was little more than an organizational unit.

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