Military Spectacle in Interwar Britain: Militarism, Propaganda, and the Shadows of World War

This dissertation examines major military displays in interwar Britain. Military displays include military parades, tattoos, air shows, reviews, pageants, navy weeks, and other derivations. I use evidence from archives, newspapers, and published sources to analyze their production and reception. The Royal Navy, the British Army, and the Royal Air Force succeeded in creating extraordinarily popular shows, but these shows did little to promote a grounded understanding of each service's role in past or future wars. The Royal Navy and the British Army, in particular, struggled to make ships or soldiers look less like interesting symbols of the past and more like vital components of Britain's defense in the next war. Airplanes, however, benefited from being a relatively new technology upon which hopes and fears could be projected. In addition, air power, which represented the “totalizing” nature of modern war by further eliminating distinctions between civilians and combatants, benefited from the simultaneous decline of “civilianism” in the interwar period. The decline of “civilianism” coincided with the broader decline of traditional liberalism that only accelerated after the Great War. Long associated with Britain's liberal past, the Royal Navy confronted a less congenial environment when it reasserted its claim as the nation's “Senior Service.” The RAF's displays at Hendon and Empire Air Day benefited from, and contributed to, the “air-mindedness” of the British public and an exaggerated sense of air power's transformative nature. These aerial displays failed, however, to teach the public about official RAF doctrine, which centered on a counter-offensive bombing strategy. The military displays of the era served as important sites of discourse and their reception indicates a robust, open political culture. Still, they ultimately must be counted among the most important sources of misinformation during the interwar period regarding Britain's national defense