Ok.
If you want to understand the British land war effort [against Germany] in WWII, there are pretty much 3 essential texts.
The first is 'And We Shall Shock Them: The British Army in the Second World War' by David Fraser, which provides a broad overview of British land operations. The second is 'Raising Churchill's Army: The British Army and the War against Germany 1919-1945' by David French, which details the path of British doctrine, personnel and operational intentions as well as the institutional inertia that characterises Britain and especially its army. The third is a revisionist text called 'Monty's Men: The British Army and the Liberation of Europe' by John Buckley which analyses why the British Army performed the way it did in NW Europe 1944-1945 and dismisses some key misconceptions.
But let's start with WWI. The short answer is that Britain was not impotent. It had its finest moments however, in 1918, at the end of the war. It was able to field a large Army with respect to how many personnel it had in the Navy -- much larger than it fielded in WWII in terms of combat formations. It was the only army that at the end of the war could move whole Armies around in the field and take offensive action with them. Reason for this later.
It has been said that the British Army has always trained for the last war. This is a bit of an untrue statement: the British Army did not get a formal doctrine until 1989 and the publication of the British Military Doctrine by General Nigel Bagnall. This was true in 1930 and true in 1940 and true in 1950 etc. What Britain instead had was totally different quality depending on two factors:
Firstly, training by unit commanders. Some men were excellent at training troops -- others were not.
Secondly, the ability of units to a) train with other combat arms b) actually work with those same units they had trained with in battle.
When you had all of those put together, in 1944-1945 Britain was able to, on multiple occasions, beat up the German Army and the SS in open battle, man to man. In other cases, where these factors couldn't be fulfilled, the British didn't do nearly so well. There's also something to say about the average British soldier. He was of course a conscript, but the 1930 Field Regulations forbade any kind of political indoctrination. Britain was also the only major country in WWII which did not shoot any of its own soldiers for desertion or threaten to: this was outlawed in the same Field Regulations.
In both world wars, Britain had outstanding, perhaps the best, combat service support in terms of logistical supply, tactical military intelligence, engineering, and medical support. This is what enabled them to go on fighting in the first war, and is a major factor for operational and tactical success. Combat service support can be considered a multiplying factor in capability and is often ignored. Comparing a German infantry division on the eastern front with a British one on the western front: the British one would be vastly superior. It would eb larger, it would have much better logistical support -- especially in terms of ammunition -- and have more tanks and artillery and trucks. In fact a British 'Army Tank Brigade', of which there were ten on the Western front, had twice as many tanks as a German tank division.
The reason for this is manpower. Britain wanted to fight a war with mechanics, not blood. The major downfall of the British infantry is that they would not fight without artillery superiority. Advances stalled as units waited for artillery to simply plaster over everything in sight. Britain didn't even have good artillery until the later water, although it did have excellent artillery cooperation practices.
Of course, someone said that Britain and France had similar population sizes. This is definitely true. But France hadn't the Navy of Britain. Britain had 100 cruisers in WW2 -- each about the size of a battalion, enough to form 30 brigades. Then of course, hundreds of destroyers and submarines, thousands of patrol boats, ands o on. It also had to man hundreds of bases all across the world and defend those bases with troops and anti-air units and aircraft. It was essentially backed up against the principal disadvantage of being a maritime power: a lack of interior lines. If you have 10 men to defend a shop, you may concentrate them. If you have 10 men to defend a shopping mall, you can never concentrate. You must disperse. Britain's power in WWII was totally dispersed, across the sea lanes, foreign bases, colonial assets, and so on. Consequently it could only put 20 divisions & 10 very large brigades into the fight for Europe, although they were large and excellently supported units.
There is of course no doubt that Britain failed majestically on more than one occasion. Usually this was a result of two things:
- A failure to prepare and be ready.
- A failure to provide good equipment and training.
They both are partly political and partly due to Army inertia.
One last point: Britain's major forgotten approach to war was strategic bombing. It produced a huge quantity of four engined bomber aircraft with which it laid waste to Germany. This was seen at eh time as being a major contribution, at least by the British themselves, and in terms of effort it was not small. However -- I dont have answer to this myself -- it is possible that the effects of strategic bombing were really minor, in which case you can put down Britains impotence to having chosen and carried out with huge effort a totally ineffectual military policy. It seems unlikely to me that bombing had no effect, but it is of course definitely possible.
