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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
When will war cease to exist?, December 6, 2001
This review is from: War Diaries 1939 - 1945 (Hardcover)
I really enjoyed reading Lord Alanbrooke's War Diaries -- six years of daily impressions from the fellow who managed World War II for Britain. I now have a much better understanding why the British and Americans were fighting the Germans in North Africa and why the first Allied invasion of Europe took place in Sicily and southern Italy. Although Britain was already at war and had broken the German military code, it seems unlikely its leaders had any advance warning of the Pearl Harbor attack. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Britain sustained devastating defeats in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Burma leaving India and Australia vulnerable. Of course, Hilter's invasion of the Soviet Union was the turning point. As Churchill's principal military advisor, Alanbrooke kept a daily account from September 1939 to August 1945. He describes the Dunkirk evacuation in May 1940; the nightly German bombings of London that continued for many months after September 1940; the defensive measures Britain took to guard against attack; the German defeat of France; and meetings with American allies to plan the invasion of Europe and the defeat of the Axis powers. Alanbrooke dined with military and political leaders virtually every day and attended many meetings with Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Eisenhower, Marshall, Dill, and Montgomery. In a typical entry (January 24, 1944), he tells of Churchill ". . . discussing Stalin's latest iniquities in allowing Pravda to publish the bogus information that England was negotiating with Germany about a peace. He said: `Trying to maintain good relations with a communist is like wooing a crocodile, you do not know whether to tickle it under the chin or to beat it on the head. When it opens its mouth you cannot tell whether it is trying to smile, or preparing to eat you up.'" Alanbrooke described the major role he played: "The whole world has now become one large theatre of war, and the Chiefs of Staff represent the Supreme Commanders, running the war in all its many theatres, regulating the allocation of forces, shipping, munitions, relating plans to resources available, approving and rejecting plans, issuing directives to the various theatres. And most difficult of all handling the political aspect of this military action, and coordinating with our American allies." He struggled to keep military strategy intact at Allied war conferences held in Washington, D.C., Casablanca, Teheran, Quebec, Moscow, Yalta, and Potsdam. Later, Alanbrooke inserted the following after one of his diary entries: "According to [Eisenhower] when we stood on the bank of the Rhine on March 25th, I said to him: `Thank God, Ike, you stuck by your plan. You were completely right, and I am sorry if my fear of dispersed efforts added to your burdens. The German is now licked. It is merely a question of when he chooses to quit. Thank God you stuck by your guns.' I think that when this statement is considered in connection with what I wrote in my diary that evening, it will be clear that I was misquoted. To the best of my memory I congratulated him heartily on his success, and said that as matters turned out his policy was now the correct one, that with the German in his defeated condition no dangers now existed in a dispersal of effort. I am quite certain that I never said to him `You were completely right', as I am still convinced that he was `completely wrong', as proved by the temporary defeat inflicted on him by Rundstedt's counter stroke, which considerably retarded the defeat of Germany." Alanbrooke also took time to ponder the meaning of war: "The suffering and agony of war in my mind must exist to gradually educate us to the fundamental law of `loving our neighbor as ourselves'. When that lesson has been learned, then war will cease to exist." His perceptive remarks ring true today. If you have the time, this book is definitely worth reading. The editors provide a useful introduction (including short descriptions of friends, comrades, politicians, and soldiers), a carefully prepared index, a handy list of abbreviations, and 8 pages of photographs.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surviving Winston, the Yanks, and the Bosch - in that order, December 2, 2004
"Running a war seems to consist in making plans and then ensuring that all those destined to carry it out don't quarrel with each other instead of the enemy." - Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke
WAR DIARIES is Alanbrooke's daily record of events, addressed to his beloved wife Benita, during the time that he was British II Corps commander in France, then head of (England's) Southern Command, then Commander-in-Chief of Home Forces, and finally Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) from December 1941.
It isn't until page 205 of this monster 721 page narrative that Alanbrooke (AB) becomes CIGS. The reader would've been better served if this volume's editors had eliminated the first 204 pages, which are barely more than a series of entries with the flavor of that for 18 April 1941:
"Left 8:15 am for Dover where I met Bulgy Thorne and Charles Allfrey and went round with them defences 43rd Div round from Dover through Walmer, Deal, Ramsgate, Margate, Herne Bay and Whitstable. Finally returned at 6:45 pm and put in an hour in the office."
It isn't until AB becomes CIGS, when his perspective on the war becomes global and he interacts on a daily basis with Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his generals, and attends periodic conferences with Roosevelt and Stalin and their military chiefs, that AB's nightly jottings become interesting in an historical and personal sense. It's then you realize the truth behind AB's observation that heads this review.
AB, rightly or wrongly, evidently considered himself to be the best war strategist available to the western Allies. His opinion of the strategic ability of Churchill and such military commanders as U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower, U.S. General George Marshall, U.S. Admiral Ernest King, and Louis Mountbatten (Supreme Commander, Southeast Asia) is positively scathing. Indeed, AB doesn't consistently say nice things about anybody except Field Marshal John Dill (his mentor and predecessor as CIGS), Joseph Stalin, and (briefly) U.S. General Douglas MacArthur (whom he never actually meets between these pages).
The first post-war publication of AB's diary caused a stir on both sides of The Pond for its excoriation of Eisenhower and Churchill. Indeed, though AB admired and loved Winston as the superman without whom England would've lost the war, the latter's inconsiderate treatment of those around him and his gadfly approach to war strategy caused AB to write in frustration on 10 September 1944:
"Never have I admired and despised a man simultaneously to the same extent."
What comes across in WAR DIARIES is that Alanbrooke was the consummate staff officer - competent, dedicated, meticulous, organized, hard working to a fault, intelligent, honest, honorable, and persistent - upon whom Winston relied upon (without giving public credit) to haul the Empire back from the brink of defeat. Outside of his duties, however, AB was an oddly mild and unprepossessing man. His chief hobby was birdwatching; he liked to show bird films to friends who came to dine with him and Benita. Also, he seems a rather dour individual who took himself too seriously. There's no evidence in his writing of any humor, self-deprecating or otherwise.
WAR DIARIES contains a small section of sixteen photographs that's inadequate when considering those individuals often mentioned, but who don't appear: Roosevelt, King George VI, Stalin, de Gaulle, Eisenhower, AB's elder son Tom, Polish Lt. General Wladyslaw Anders, British generals "Jumbo" Wilson, Claude Auchinleck, and Ronald Adam, South African Prime Minister Smuts, and Canadian generals Andrew McNaughton and Henry Crerar.
Despite the first 200 pages, which are virtually useless except that they introduce one to AB's way of thinking and writing style, I'm awarding four stars because the remainder of WAR DIARIES is a fascinating worldview rarely encountered by Yanks, a perspective in which the American icons of WWII mythology - Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and Churchill - aren't painted as the heroes we're familiar with. And, because honor is due Alanbrooke's Herculean but largely ignored and unappreciated service to his King, country and the Allies.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fine general, an inspired British crank, July 15, 2007
Alanbrooke is just so damn unique. If you read this, you will get to know him. Many people will have trouble liking him. I liked him. He was bright and clear and driven. He saw the men around him and pronounced his judgments without much fear or favour. His difficulty in getting Churchill and Marshall to think deeply or thoroughly about anything is amazing and exasperating. At one point when the American army is clamouring for a landing in France in 1943 Alanbrooke asks Marshall to consider that the Germans have three excellent railroad lines into France and Belgium--once you land, how are you going to win the race to reinforce the new front while the Germans pour in their reserves? Marshall had no answer! He just wanted to land, go toe-to-toe with the Germans, and then assume victory. When the Allies did land, it was only after gaining air supremacy, training more divisions, smashing the French rail net, and getting their logistical ducks in order. Alanbrooke was one of the key irritants in the Allied war machine, one of those annoying fellows who demand to know what you mean when you say you are going to do something. He pushed the Allies towards greater clarity and precision, and for this we all owe him alot.
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