The Audit of War: The Illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Nation

Pride and the Fall #2

by Correlli Barnett

Correlli Barnett described his Audit or War as an 'operational study' to 'uncover the causes of Britain's protracted decline as an industrial country since the Second World War.' First published in 1986, the book swiftly became one of the most controversial and influential historical works of its time.'[The Audit of War] argued that British industry during the Second World War was scandalously inefficient, a situation Barnett blamed on an establishment more concerned with welfare than with industry, technology or the capacity of the nation to fight a war... Alan Clark records approvingly that Mrs Thatcher herself read it...' David Edgerton, London Review of Books'A stimulating polemic.' Times Literary Supplement'A formidable book, essential reading.' Asa Briggs, Financial Times

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, British Literature, World War II, 20th Century, Military Fiction

1359 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 6, 1986

About the author

A freelance historian and writer, Correlli Barnett was educated at Trinity school and Exeter College, Oxford, where he took a degree in modern history. After national service in the Intelligence Corps from 1945 to 1948, Barnett worked for the North Thames Gas Board until 1957, then in public relations until 1963. He was historical consultant and part author of the BBC series 'The Great War' and won the 1964 Screen Writers' Guild Award for best British television documentary script.

Reviews

[Peter Kirsop]

This is a most uneven book, one of the reviewers says it was written in a rage, and perhaps that explains it.
I think his central thrust is right- that British politicians from Lloyd George (and before) to Thatcher have wasted their opportunities to modernise British industry and that much of that is due to the British cult of 'classicism' in education.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Firstly, the formatting for Kindle made it very difficult to read a few pages of the book and practically all of the bibliography.
Secondly, I was unable to obtain Books 1, 3, or 4 in this series, despite very much wanting to. However, reading this one (#2) first, is fine since it isn’t a fiction series.
Thirdly, Barnett’s bias as a Conservative and an Oxford man is clear from the way he constantly disparages the working people of Britain, particularly the trade unions, whom he attacks savagely throughout.

That being said, I still award this the maximum five stars because as a work of history it is supreme. I’ve never before read such an eloquent and data infused work which describes Britain’s fall. This is absolutely essential reading for any business leader, politician, economist, historian, or student in Britain or the nations which today still represent her ‘competition’ in the world markets.

Regarding Barnett’s ‘Tory’ bias, it is essentially this: he blames the restrictive practice of the trade unions for being one of the major brakes on industrial modernization. Yet, he never empathizes with the plight of the working man, despite constantly acknowledging that their origin in Georgian and Victorian coalmines and factories represents a major reason for Britain’s backwardness. He correctly asserts that the British working man’s attitude is political and informed by what his grandfather and father taught him, but he stops short of truly understanding why the British worker was so antagonistic to its bosses and governments and therefore refused to co-operate. In my view, it is because the legacy of the Georgian and Victorian bosses was one of extreme abuse. To the British working class, their war was therefore always with their own bosses. Restrictive practice was their only defence, their way of protecting themselves from unemployment and destitution. Barnett’s states that money was always the deciding factor when it came time to invest: British business simply would not spend it, whether on better pay and conditions for their workers, or on upgraded plant and machinery. “What they saw as assets were in fact liabilities.” Their idea of maintaining profits was to simply pay lower wages or prolong the life of already decrepit machinery. An example is the productivity of the coal mines during World War 2. The government extorted the mine bosses to achieve greater output, a request passed on to the miners themselves with such little effect that the opposite was achieved: production actually decreased. In my view the reason for this is simple: to these miners, the Germans were not their enemy, and they didn’t really care. To them the main war was always with their own bosses, the ruling classes, the Oxbridge men who had been abusing them for generations. To be now asked to work even harder to provide extra energy for a fight they didn’t ask for, a fight which was about which empire could dominate the globe, a fight which once again pitted working men against each other, was an insult.

In 2024 Britain is still a nation where the boss and the working man are not friends and never could be. They attend different schools, live in different areas, and have vastly different experiences of life. The ruling classes are still primarily educated in the classics, the literature and history of faraway places thousands of years ago, which is almost entirely irrelevant. This is in contrast to practically all of Britain’s competitors, as it was in 1980, 1940, 1910, 1880, and so on. Barnett’s final chapter on education explains also the church’s role in making sure religious instruction took up an untenable part of the curriculum, to the detriment of technical training and preparation for industry. To his credit he does mention the particular college of Oxford and Cambridge that all the leading men of the time attended, highlighting how hidebound Britain is.

Finally, regarding New Jerusalem, he criticizes it throughout. Not because he didn’t want the British people to have decent housing, full employment, and a National Health Service; but because according to the figures, the lavish expenditure on those things massively outweighed investment in education, new industrial facilities, research and development; so much so that it produced a situation in which Britain was then unable to pay for it all. Britain was writing cheques without the means to pay for them, rather than building up the means to pay before writing the cheques.

[Jose · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is brimming with facts and figures. In that sense, it is not the most readable because of the onslaught of data: tons per capita, man hours, pounds invested, houses built, etc... The main premise is simply that from its peak as the world's hub of the industrial revolution, England steadily declined in its productivity and potential to the point that during the First and Second World Wars it would have been lost without American help. This premise is contrasted with the myth of an England that earned its victory against Germany through grit and good use of its resources. On the contrary, from the years 1890 onwards , English industry suffered to the point that countries like Germany, the USA and even little Belgium became much more efficient.
The book lays the blame at the doorstep of several factors, each chapter following the logical consequence of the last.
The author talks about the "new Jerusalemism" that impregnated the political class during the last part of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. This was the notion of a reconstructed Britain in which freedom from Want would reign by harnessing the ideals of a Christian civic-minded society awash in high minded planning and the classics. Think of a Pre-Raphaelite painting and you have the stained-glass knightly inspiration. These ideals didn't particularly care about the dirty trades, the balance sheet on exports or what science could do for commerce.
And as if to prove the point, the second chapter deals with coal mining. This industry was atomized in thousands of mines ran by "practical men" who had learnt on the job and wanted no extra expense even if it would save time. Mines were labored by crews who feared mechanization as a threat and were often on strike. Neither patrons nor miners thought much of education. The result was a shortage of energy at critical stages during the war.
These shortages greatly affected the industry in the next chapter, steel. The US alone through the Lend And Lease program of aid riskily shipped thousand of tons to aid the country. The quality of English steel had also declined and its prospects as an export seemed dismal due to its expensive means of production. In fact, it was only through the transformation of the whole economy to a war objective that most furnaces remained open despite their poor record. But nobody seemed to be paying much attention to the fact that to re-convert the war machine to a peace one would mean facing a very uncompetitive industry and the investment necessary would leave no room or budget for a new society of garden-cities,universal healthcare and proper schools.
What follows steel is shipbuilding and airplanes. The mighty Spitfires took two thirds more time to produce than a German Messerschmidt. The Germans had increased the efficiency of their industry many times over by agglomerating their mining and steel concerns, applying a rigorous program of scientific and educational engineering and disposing with obsolete labor practices. The Americans had done the same. England seemed lulled in a dream of empire that provided in fact very little to the war economy.
Then the author talks about how elite education meant a steady diet of classics and high-minded subjects, only begrudgingly making room for trades and science much later than in other parts. It goes on to talk about the (re)construction of the housing and its many planning flaws after the war.
The general impression is one of disappointment, the author has clearly put a lot of effort on gathering the data but it's his rebuke that comes through. Not against the English people per se but mostly against the elites and the stories and myths that sustain England as an exception -i imagine it's less prevalent now but Brexit seems to have made some of those old myths surface- to all other former empires. Only recommended for those who like their history with plenty of spreadsheet worthy material.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Illusion and delusion seem to have characterised UK government since about 1860... Failures of will and understanding are outlined in oppressive detail by Correlli Barnett. Seems the only thing to do is leave...