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

Perhaps the explanation of Alanbrooke's view on politicsis that he was a very traditional military man.He longed to leave things political to politicians,while he breathed and fought in the realm of high strategy—wherehe expected full support from ministers. Thisis somewhat predictable for a military purist; it is alsogood doctrine according to SunTzu {The Art of War). Butit is bad Clausewitz.A successful general and a veteran of the Napoleonicwars, the Prussian Clausewitz, in his famous book, OnWar, warned officers that all war operations are to somedegree permeated by political factors. What modern historyappears to suggest—what even Mao Tse-tung accepted—isthat Clausewitz had the best advice for stateswhose entire populations are being mobilized for war, atleast on matters of civil-military relations and the makingof strategy. In this matter, Winston Churchill was Clausewitzeanand well ahead of Alanbrooke. "The distinctionbetween politics and strategy diminishes as the point ofview is raised," Churchill wrote. "At the summit true politicsand strategy are one." 1 ''Alan Francis Brooke was a splendidly able soldier.Ironically, irritated with others for not seeing the big militarypicture, he himself erred in thinking it was his dutyto control "grand strategy." That requires the involvementof dozens of foreign governments, armies, and navies, andnearly all branches of government. On every working dayfrom 1943 through 1945, committees around Whitehalltoiled over vexed issues: housing, food imports, currency,governing postwar Germany, captured war materiel, repatriationof prisoners, France, even the fate of Istria atopthe Adriatic Sea. Wanting little part in such things, Alanbrookeabsorbed himself in the making of British interserviceconsensus, the arranging of military partners, andcrushing the Axis everywhere it dared fight on.That Alanbrooke was a superior warrior we knowfrom his achievements. His diaries show deep concern andthoughtful judgment on many difficult military problems.It is unseemly to be overly fascinated by the diaries' underside.His whinings do not make him a child, any morethan his ejaculation about Churchill being childish makethe Prime Minister less of a man. Each deserves his statue.And Alanbrooke knew it. One of the things the diariesshow, in original form and when their author addedto them after the war, is how often he checked his ownworst passions, and implored the reader to pardon hisharshness about Churchill. Typical of such interventionsare words of 30 August 1943: after strong criticism ofChurchill, he reflects that future historians will have troublesquaring such failings with this man of "...most marvelousqualities and superhuman genius...." ^On VE Day, as a happy mob filled London, Alanbrookeand other senior leaders were received at BuckinghamPalace. He then rode in a staff car which inched alongto the Home Office. There a balcony had been readied sothe crowds could cheer the Prime Minister, the Cabinet,Alanbrooke and the other Chiefs of Staff. A longtimefriend told him: "I watched you getting into your car thismorning from the window with a crowd looking at you,and none of them realizing that beside them was the manwho had probably done most to win the war against Germany...[But] I do, and lots of people do...." Alanbrookerecords this with gratitude and then deftly adds: "[T]hepublic has never understood what the Chiefs of Staff havebeen doing in the running of the war. On the whole thePM has never enlightened them much." 19Some say Churchill's celebrated war memoirs didnot adequately praise Alanbrooke. The point is a sensitiveone given that, already in 1944, the Prime Minster hadhurt him by withdrawing earlier assurances that Alanbrookewould command "Overlord." When war ended(under Attlee's Labour government) he was given a verysmall monetary reward; later, per custom, he retired athalf a field marshal's salary. Quickly he was reduced to livingin a cottage beside what had been his home. He hadto sell his precious illustrated books on wild birds.20 Littlewonder that the field marshal later decided to edit his diarieswith Arthur Bryant and publish their inner thoughts.They sold well, and added to his fame. But it is less clear ifthey added to his respectability.These diaries are an important possession and enlighteningto read. Their strength however is thesignificance of Alanbrooke, not the introductorymaterials of editors Danchev and Todman. They makeseveral useful observations, including the point thatChurchill and Alanbrooke had a tragic tendency to underestimateeach other. They observe that the diary was a toolfor Alanbrooke's "recovering possession of himself" andsoldiering on into another day.But the editors also commit some blunders. Whichof them imagined that it would be funny to follow up theirtwelve well-composed pages on "The Cast"—mini-biographiesof important figures like Molotov, Harriman, Eden,and Attlee—with similar paragraphs in the same typefaceon five of the wild birds mentioned by Alanbrooke? The16. continued...between Alanbrooke and Churchill on Asianstrategy, described in his essay "Alanbrooke,"in Churchill's Generals, ed. John Keegan (NewYork: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991), pp. 98-99.17. This passage could have been written byClausewitz or Churchill; it appears inChurchill's The World Crisis, vol. 2: 1915(London: Thornton Butterworth Ltd., 1923),p. 21.18. Diaries, p. 451.19. Diaries, pp. 688-89.20. Introduction to the Diaries, p. xxiv.FINEST HOUR 112/ 38