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The war of 1914-1918 was the first great generalconflict to be fought between highly industrial societies able to manufactureand transport immense quantities of goods over land and sea. Yet the armies ofthe First World War were too vast in scale, their movements too complex, andthe infrastructure upon which they depended too specialised to be operated byprofessional soldiers alone. In Civilian Expertise at War, Christopher Phillipsexamines the relationship between industrial society and industrial warfarethrough the lens of Britain's transport experts. He analyses the multipleconnections between the army, the government, and the senior executives of someof pre-war Britain's largest industrial enterprises to illustrate the Britisharmy's evolving understanding both of industrial warfare's particular characterand of the role to be played by non-military experts in the prosecution of sucha conflict. This book reveals that Britain's transport experts were akey component of Britain's conduct of the First World War. It demonstrates thata pre-existing professional relationship between the army, government, andprivate enterprise existed before 1914, and that these bonds were strengthenedby the outbreak of war. It charts the range of wartime roles into whichBritain's transport experts were thrust in the opening years of the conflict,as both military and political leaders grasped with the challenges before them.It details the application of recognisably civilian technologies and methods tothe prosecution of war and documents how - in the conflict's principal theatre,the western front - the freedom of action for Britain's transport experts wasconstrained by the political and military requirements of coalitionwarfare. Christopher Phillips is a lecturer in international security in the Department of International Politics at AberystwythUniversity.