What kind of a People do they think we are? - Winston Churchill

stead he will "hedge and defer decisions until such time ashe had to consult his assistants. Unfortunately, his assistantswere not of the required calibre " The assistantsincluded Dwight Eisenhower, a charming, adept and"hopeless" general. "He literally knows nothing of the requirementsof a commander in action," wrote Alanbrooke:"...a very, very limited brain from a strategic pointof view." ^More upsetting, at least to the British, battle-hardenedUK officers are equally inept at strategy. John S. V.Gort, commander of the British Expeditionary Forcerushed to France in 1939, is charming and good, but his"brain has lately been compared to that of a glorified boyscout!....[H]e just fails to be able to see the big picture." 4General Sir Harold Alexander, who was admired byChurchill, has "many fine qualities but no very greatstrategic vision....It was very doubtful whether he was fitto command his Army" in North Africa. What about asecondary theater like India? No—he "has not got thebrains." Lord Louis Mountbatten, Chief of CombinedOperations, is "quite irresponsible, suffers from the mostdesperate illogical brain, always producing red herrings." 5With senior military men so appalling, one must expecta mere politician to be still worse, and Churchillobliges: "temperamental like a film star" and "peevish like aspoilt child," often picking up on "some isolated operationand without ever really having looked into it, setting hisheart on it." Churchill presses so hard for invading Sumatra(as a first step to recapturing Singapore) that Alanbrookebegins "to wonder whether I was Alice in Wonderland,or whether I was really fit for a lunatic asylum Idon't know where we are or where we are going as regardsstrategy, and I just cannot get him to face the true facts!"WSC has "no long term vision....In all his plans he livesfrom hand to mouth. He can never grasp a wholeplan His method is entirely opportunist. My God howtired I am of working for him." 6No one has doubted that Alanbrooke himself had astrong sense for military strategy. No one saysotherwise. Of Germans he was usually an astutejudge: of when they would move on Belgium and Holland;when they might strike East at "Russia" (as he andChurchill invariably called the USSR); and how Hitlerwould sequence the use of air bombing and amphibiousforces against England. Towards the end he suggested thatHitler might commit suicide (ten days before it happened).7 His approach to strategy was sober, thoughtful,and successful, and should be respected today for its pragmatismand internal logic.An important consequence of Alanbrooke's approachwas to slow down the Americans, and even Mr.Churchill, from too early a launch of the cross-Channelinvasion. 8 The Prime Minister's ugly memories of the inadequatelandings in World War I at the Dardanelles haveoften been mentioned as the reason he slowed down theAmericans; these diaries depict Alanbrooke as even morecautious, slowing down Churchill.Alanbrooke's views on other choices were often theresult of his strategic focus. The British were pumpingconsiderable military aid into Turkey, but when he attendeda high-level covert visit to Adana in early 1943,Alanbrooke showed only modest interest in Turkish collaboration.While praising Churchill's witty speeches andhandling of the meetings, Alanbrooke scorned his oppositenumber, a Turkish field marshal, for having "no conceptionof the administrative aspect of handling armies."Postwar additions to the diary pages dwell mostly on socially-awkwardmoments of that trip, including the timeAlanbrooke annoyed his hosts by staring out the windowat a wild bird. 9Encounters with birds often merited a sentencefrom this serious ornithologist and hunter. Such notes reflecthis relief in the ways he could be diverted from hiswar, and doubtless they would interest his wife Benita.Certainly it was not because birds are a safer subject towrite on than secret military matters. Each of the manylittle books making up this diary was illegal; top secretsdripped from all; any would have been a prize for an Axisintelligence officer.Winston Churchill is the figure most often pokedwith Alanbrooke's pen. There are at least three reasons forthis. The first is bureaucratic: there was a civilian Secretaryof State for War who outranked Alanbrooke, but this personage,Sir Percy James Grigg, appears remarkably uninfluentialon war policy and was utterly ignored by war historians.Alanbrooke thought him a prince, but this couldbe in part because Grigg kindly left him alone. »1. Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries,1939-1945, eds. Alex Danchev andDaniel Todman (London: Weidenfeld &Nicolson, 2001, £25), pp. 249, 360; hereinafterDiaries. The title of Field Marshal wasearned in January 1944. Later his givenproper names were collapsed into "Alanbrooke"when he was made a Viscount, afterthe war. Members may purchase the book for$28 from The Churchill Center Book Club,PO Box 385, Contoocook NH 03229.2. Two examples of historians criticizing the 4. Diaries, pp. 18, 7, 14.Bryant edition are the fine talk Dr. WilliamsonMurray offered to the Washington Society for 5. Diaries, pp. 384, 216, 357, 715.Churchill in that city on 2 April 1998, and therelevant paragraphs of Gerhard Weinberg's im- 6. Diaries, pp. 450, 532, 515; see also 521pressive essay "Some Thoughts on World WarII," in The Journal of Military History, 56 (Oct. 7. Diaries, pp. 12, 15, 30, 35, 145-46, 685.1992), pp. 659-68; my copy was courtesy ofMr. Mark Whisler.8. Diaries, pp. 284-85 et. seq.3. Diaries, pp. 351, 350, 669. 9. Diaries, pp. 373-75.FINEST HOUR 112/35