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Official: War and Air, 1918 - 1921

 Series
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 16

Scope and Contents

The War and Air papers contain correspondence, minutes, printed material and other papers which were created or accumulated as a result of WSC's activities as Secretary of State for War and Air, positions he held concurrently from January 1919 to February 1921 (he continued as Secretary of State for Air while Secretary of State for the Colonies until April 1921). The papers have been divided into correspondence, WSC's outgoing minutes, and subject-based files and are arranged chronologically.The War and Air material covers WSC's routine ministerial duties as Secretary of State as well as specific issues of the period including: the demobilisation of British troops following the end of World War I; the reorganisation of the Air Ministry; Britain's involvement in the Russian Civil War and the related conflict between Russia and Poland; the fear of the spread of Bolshevism; matters discussed at the Paris [France] Peace Conference; British military control in the middle east, particularly concerning Mesopotamia [later Iraq]; military activity in Ireland.The material contains correspondence with WSC's ministerial colleagues and senior military figures of the day, such as General Sir Henry Wilson [Chief of Imperial General Staff]. It contains much addressed to WSC's deputy Sir Archibald Sinclair [later 1st Lord Thurso, Personal Military Secretary to the Secretary State for War] and there are several files devoted to information sent by Brigadier-General Edward Spears and the British Military Mission in Paris. There are also a number of files of intelligence reports, as well as several folios in assorted files, which remain closed and have been removed on Cabinet Office instructions.

Dates

  • Creation: 1918 - 1921

Conditions Governing Access

From the Fonds:

The Churchill Papers are made available to researchers using Churchill Archives Centre and worldwide in digital format. The digital edition of the Churchill Papers is published by Bloomsbury Academic and is available online to subscribing institutions at churchillarchive.com. The Churchill archive is freely available in our reading rooms and onsite at Churchill College (via the Churchill College wireless network). Researchers can download images of documents directly from churchillarchive.com and so are encouraged to consider bringing a laptop or other device for this purpose. For conservation reasons, the fragile originals are no longer issued to researchers.

This digital edition is open to researchers unless otherwise marked in the catalogue. Some material has been closed by the Cabinet Office or by Churchill Archives Centre in accordance with data protection legislation.

Language of Materials

English

Subject

Repository Details

Part of the Churchill Archives Centre Repository

Contact:
Churchill Archives Centre
Churchill College
Cambridge Cambridgeshire CB3 0DS United Kingdom
+44 (0)1223 336087