Churchill's Generals PDF
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GENERALS EDITED BY JOHN KEEGAN I Brilliant as both a politician and a writer, Winston Churchill was at heart awarrior. While his foe Hitler hoarded information, Churchill shared all intelligence with his generals. Who, then, were these menwho made up Churchill's inner circle? In Churchill's GeneralsJohn Keegan, author of such combat classics as The Face of Battle and The Mask of Command, has assembled an outstanding group of military historianstoexaminethecareers of twenty of Churchill's leading commanders. The opening chapters look at three generals—Ironside, Gort and Dill- all unsuited by outlook, age and tempera- ment to the caldron of warfare in 1940-41. Then, in December 1941, Churchill replaced Dill with Alanbrooke, probablythegreatestChiefoftheImperial General Staff ever produced by the British Army—and the only brother of- ficer Montgomery could bring himself to admire. It took longer to identify the effective field commanders. Wavell had brains but lacked battlefield ruthlessness. For atime he was served in the Middle East by a junior, O'Connor, who was a superlative leader of troops. But the replacements — for O'Connor Ritchie, Cunningham, even Leese—were not of the same class. Churchill experimented with a variety of successors, notably Auchinleck. Eventu- ally he hit upon a winning combination —Alexander as theatre commander, Montgomery asbattle chief. Britain'sotherwar, inthe Far East, nec- essarily took second place to the war in the West. Percival, who should not have been appointed to high command, was never forgiven for his surrender ofSinga- pore, andChurchillwasslowtoappreciate (continuedonbackflap) ^ n ^>>— ~v£jsL*^ - A^u^^t. ' ?/ y CHURCHILL'S GENERALS CHURCHILL'S GENERALS EDITED BY John Keegan ^V GROVE WEIDENFELD NEWYORK © & Copyright 1991byGeorgeWeidenfeld NicolsonLtd. Allrightsreserved. Nopartofthisbookmaybereproduced, stored inaretrievalsystem, ortransmitted in anyform,byanymeans, includingmechanical,electronic, photocopying, recording,or otherwise,withoutpriorwrittenpermissionofthepublisher. PublishedbyGroveWeidenfeld AdivisionofGrovePress, Inc. 841 Broadway NewYork,NY 10003-4793 First published in Great Britain in 1991 by George Weidenfeld cv Nicolson Limited, London. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-Publication I)ata Churchill'sgenerals/editedbyJohn Keegan—1st American ed. p. cm. Includesbibliographical referencesand index. ISBN0-8021-1309-5 1.WorldWar, 1939-1945-Great Britain-Biography 2. Generals- GreatBritain—Biography. I. Keegan, John, 1934- D750.C53 1991 940.54'0941-dc20 91-11536 CIP Manufactured intheUnitedStatesofAmerica Printedonacid-freepaper FirstAmericanEdition 1991 987654321 10 CONTENTS List of Illustrations vii List of Contributors ix Glossary of Acronyms and Abbreviations xv INTRODUCTION i John Keegan IRONSIDE i 17 Brian Bond GORT 2 34 Brian Bond DILL 3 51 Alex Danchev WAVELL 4 70 Ian Beckett ALANBROOKE 5 89 David Fraser CONTENTS ALEXANDER 6 104 Brian Holden Reid AUCHINLECK 7 130 Philip Warner MONTGOMERY 8 148 Michael Carver WILSON 9 166 Michael Dewar O'CONNOR 10 183 Barrie Pitt CUNNINGHAM, RITCHIE LEESE and 200 11 Michael Craster HORROCKS 12 225 Alan Shepperd HOBART 13 243 Kenneth Macksey PERCIVAL 14 256 Keith Simpson WINGATE 15 277 JohnW. Gordon SLIM 16 298 Duncan Anderson CARTON DE WIART SPEARS 17 and 323 G. D. Sheffield Index 351 VI
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