The Middle East Command
General Sir Archibald Wavell stands so high in the estima- tion of the public that his transference from the Middle East to the Command in India has naturally caused considerable sur- prise. He changes places with General Sir Claude Auchinleck, a soldier with a distinguished record of service and a high reputation in the Army. The reasons for the change are not yet known, though it may well be that after the series of exhausting campaigns which he has conducted with such ability General Wavell will welcome the less exacting but highly im- portant task of organising the defences of India. Already in this war he has won a unique position for successful leadership in the most difficult possible circumstances. With small forces and uncertain supplies he had to hold a key position in the Middle East at the moment when French support was with- drawn in Africa and a numerically superior Italian Army was massing for attack. By a brilliant feat of arms he crushed that army, and his subsequent withdrawal from Cyrenaica, necessitated by the despatch of troops to Greece, did not alter the fact that he had destroyed a great part of the Italian forces and equipment in Libya. He has organised a victorious campaign in the vast mountainous regions of East Africa, and had to plan the fighting in Iraq and Syria. There is much that is as yet obscure in the direction of certain operations in the Middle East—in regard, for example, to decisions about Crete and the delay in attacking Syria. It has yet to be made known how far these were determined by the War Cabinet, and how far by the G.O.C. in the Middle East.
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