26 JUNE 1964, Page 21

The Summing-Up

On Their Shoulders : British Generalship in the . • Lean Years 1939-1942. By Brigadier C. N. Barclay. (Faber, 30s.) PERHAPS the most controversial statement in Brigadier Barclay's admirable and stimulating book is in his preface: 'On the whole the British have been very kind to their generals.' Coming from a general, that is a gracious comment, but it leaves us at some distance from the full truth. Later on, he writes somewhat differently. Democracy, he says, is flexible enough to cope with the visible emergencies of war—an assertion Which can stand a good deal of annotation—but, he adds, 'What democracy is singularly bad at is preparing for war when the danger' is not imminent. . . .' And this frame of mind, particularly when enshrined in such official policy slogans as 'No major war for ten years' (the dogma of 1919-1938), is anything but kind to the generals who have to grapple with its conse- quences.

The subjects of. On Their Shoulders, are pre- cisely such men. The book consequently risks dismissal as a rescue operation, a whitewashing exercise. It is nothing of the. kind; Brigadier Barclay inspects existing critiques of these generals (almost all of whom were to some extent branded as 'failures') with great frankness, and does not hesitate to put forward criticisms of his own where these are appropriate. Out of the eight commanders whom he ha's selected to write about, three emerge with, his Unstinted praise. 'I do not think that any reasonable person, who has given the matter proper study and thought, can say that Gort in 1940, O'Connor in the winter of 1940-41 and Wilson on his numerous missions from the beginning until well' into the victory Years, were found wanting.' His study of General Sir Richard O'Connor, who won. 'the first British victory in World War IL' destroying two Italian armies, taking over 130,000 prisoners, about 400 tanks and nearly 850 guns at a cost of less than 2,000 casualties out of a force which never exceeded 31,000 men, will not be questioned. It fully endorses the conclusion already stated by Correlli Barnett in The Desert Generals (1960):

. . a model campaign . . . of great originality and faultless execution.

But Gort and Wilson? Brigadier Barclay is quite positive. Of Field-Marshal Viscount Gort, VC, he writes: 'In spite of the meagre praise accorded to Lord Gort, then and now, I find it very difficult to see in what way he could have handled his force better during the period 10th May to June 3rd 1940. . . . He seems to have been the one senior Allied general north of the Somme who adopted a realistic attitude, knew What was happening, kept a grip on his troops and kept his head.' It was purely Gort's fateful decision to break off battle and retire on May 25, says Brigadier Barclay, which 'saved the BEF from destruction.' This accolade is the more significant for being so long overdue.

It fell to Field-Marshal Lord Wilson of Libya to take a similar decision, equally correctly, in Greece in April, 1941. Thanks to him, another British force was saved, and since this one largely consisted of Australians and New Zealanders, his action prevented some probable serious repercussions in the Commonwealth. Wilson then Went on to successful command in Syria and Iraq. In 1944 he succeeded General Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediter- ranean, and ended the war as Head of the British Joint Staff Mission in the United States. 'For one who held field command for more than five years he was unique in emerging at the end with an untarnished reputation.'

Auchinleck, Cunningham (East Africa and Libya), Percival (Singapore), Hutton (Burma) also receive fair assessment. But much interest will inevitably focus upon what Brigadier Barclay has to say about Lord Wavell. And this forces a mention of General 'de Guingand's unfortunate book, which it might otherwise have been kindest to ignore. For General de Guingand includes in it• a merciless attack on Wavell's military reputa- tion. He blames Wavell squarely for the Greek fiasco, failing to remind us that the advice which Wavell gave to the Government was fully sup- portetPby the Naval C-in-C (Admiral of the Fleet Lord Cunningham) and Air Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore. Neither General de Guingand nor Brigadier Barclay tell us anything of the role of the CIGS, Field-Marshal Sir John Dill, who was present at the moment of decision.

Nevertheless, it emerges from both these books (as one might suppose) that Wavell's performance was not the perfect thing that some have held it to .be. Brigadier Barclay may have his own com- ments on what. de Guingand says about Syrian and Iraqi affairs; he himself supports and amplifies de Guingand's criticisms of Wavell's handling of the situation in South-East Asia in 1942. But their conclusions are startlingly different, and many will prefer the tone of Brigadier Barclay's. Out of six critical decisions taken by Wavell in the Middle East, :says de Guingand, 'five . . . were wrong, and two . . . were• disastrous.' Brigadier Barclay accepts the mistakes, but adds: 'the fact remains that against massive odds Wavell held the Middle East for the. British Commonwealth during the year we stood alone and, what is not generally realised, directed two of the most resounding military victories in history. . . .' He thus' places Wavell 'at the top of any list of generals who served their country with distinction in World War II. I would not go further than that : I do not believe in dogmatising. . . .' This would seem to be a sane and civilised summing-up.

One last word is necessary : it is a matter for regret that publishers of such reputation as Messrs. Faber should allow an important book to appear with so many bad printing errors in so few pages.

JOHN TERRAINS