Every time he speaks in public General Eisenhower makes it
clear how much more he is than a great commander. His response at the luncheon after he had beW given his honorary degree at Cam- bridge (in company with Field Marshal Montgomery). last Friday could hardly have been bettered. The reminder that Marathon and Salamis should live in history, not as great strategic triumphs but for the service they rendered in the defence of the greatest civilisa- tion the world had then known, paved the way for a generous appre- ciation of British culture and the debt that the whole world, not least the speaker's own country, owed to it. The claim that never in history had two armies and their commanders worked in such com-
plete and unshadowed harmony as the British and the American in the last war raised interesting questions in the mind of anyone who had lately been studying (as I happen to have been doing) the great collaboration of Marlborough and Prince Eugene.
Previous page
