You can train a military as much as you want, but if you are not training the right skills for the coming fight, it is all wasted effort. Learning first is vital. The British military experience around the First World War – before, during and after – can be salutary when thinking about military training and education. Just as the British Army was getting serious about professional military skills, it was torn apart by indecision about whether the lessons from the Boer War would be useful for all future campaigns or were completely context specific. Dr Aimée Fox from King’s College, London talks to Peter about how the military learned, how that impacted on training and education, and why some of those tensions remain extant today.