British military spending in the thirties

If I may,I will post the official figures about the British military spendings in the thirties (source:UK public spending),because,still to day,a lot of people are believing that the UK government was disarming in the thirties.
First column :military spending,second :GDP (all in millions of £)
1930:118,6 4.600
1931:116,9 4.300
1932:112,9 4.200
1933:110,9 4.300
1934:116,3 4.500
1935:121,9 4.700
1936:145,5 5.000
1937:195,2 5.300
1938:205,9 5.500
1939:266,2 5.900

 

There was a decrease from 1931 to 1934 in percentage as you have shown. The following charts are from UK Public Spending.

Public Spending Chart for United Kingdom 1920-1940 - Central Government Local Authorities

 

Public Spending Chart for United Kingdom 1930-1938 - Central Government Local Authorities

 

Public Spending Chart for United Kingdom 1900-1950 - Central Government Local Authorities

 

Its also important to see what the money was spent on though.

 

I should have qualified that....Which service got the most cash, what for, and was the army the main beneficieary or the RAF. Judging that the politics of the thirtees and the army projections were for a minute expiditionary corps to Europe the costs come into the way thngs happened later. The 10 year rule being dropped was probably as big a saviour as any other.

 

Have you read John James' "The Paladins"?

It was the RAF that got it; after the air defence exercises of 1933 and 1934 (and possibly '35, I can't remember offhand...) 1935-36 saw the Cabinet approving the Air Plan for the development of a strategic bombing force and the ability of Fighter Command to defend the UK Home Base in order to be ready for a major European cpnflagration at or after the end of the European barley harvest in 1939 I.E. September 1939...

Oh look....

Army spending only started going up IIRC after Munich...

 

No haven't read it mate...the question was rhetorical though. I knew the answer.
The politics and the spending go hand in hand in the thirtees its documented in numerous sources. Including British army history volumes, collins, among others. I thought just publishing figures means nothing unless you show what the spending was actually on. Bit like the SSDR today. One read of that will show you what and where we plan to be in the UK defence arena in years to come and where the spending will be going. It amuses me big time that the media even today are horrified with the Telegraph as one example publishing the amount of real redundancies to come...Its there in the SSDR, just like in the thirtees spending plans. 20,000 souls and their other 40 odd thousand families and support coming home from Germany by end of decade. It cannot be done without the redundancies, its the one thing Liam Fox had to do and is praised by service chiefs for. His last project as defence secretary. Nothing changes. The figures matter little unless you know today or even the thirtees what was behind them.

I was trying in my own little way to encourage the original poster to bring out the figures...Looks like I failed. Ho hum.

 

The British government until February 1939 had ruled out the idea of fighting a campaign in Europe, and had focused its rearmament on building up the Navy and Air Force ( and even with the air force the primary forcus had been fighters for defense), it was only after this date that the government changed its policy and agreed to build up the army so it would be capable of sending 32 divisions to Europe if required, but this wouldn't have been achieved until 1942.

 

...hence doubling the size of the Territorials, ordering up tanks from every manufacturer we had etc. etc.

Urqh - James is really worth getting hold of, and it's not dear at all (Ebay even lists one for 99p plus postage!). I've never seen the Air Plan itself - but from what he describes I see something like what today would be represented by an MS Project workplan; some things that would take time to do were pressed ahead with while others requiring a large capital spend got it....then the money moved about year on year between workplan areas as they reached the point of growth where they HAD to have money spent on them.

James is actually more of a "social history" of the RAF - where we started from, how squadrons were grown under the Air Plan, how the technical side was grown in the same way etc. It looks like an overgrown uni thesis...but very easy to read, with useful appendices.

 

And in numbers of personnel:

................RAF ................Navy ................Army

1931 ........193th .............180th ...............207th


1941 ........662th .............395th ..............2,221th (897th in sept 1939)


The Navy was also able to call upon a sizeable Naval Reserve and in terms of personnel had a fairly easy time in coming up to scratch.

The Army clearly had the toughest problem both in arming and even more in training the sudden surge in 1939 and beyond.