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[2Chestnut] Военные некрологи из британских газет

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Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1944-10-16-03-006&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1944-10-16-03

Soldier And Nazi

Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel, whose death was announced by the German wire- less yesterday, was an able general, whose spell of success in Africa enabled German propaganda to build him up as a militarv figure second only to Hitler himself. This exaggerated reputa- tion was exploded in the battle of El Alamein, but Rommel's conduct of the Axis retreat to Tunisia proved beyond doubt his professional competence. Ruthless and resourceful, Rommel had been connected with the Nazi Party since its inception, and was completely identified with its fortunes; his death will be as much a political as a military blow to the enemy. Erwin Rommel was bom in 1891 and was educated at Tubingen University. In the 1914-18 war his career was one of extraordi- nary distinction for a voung and very junior officer. He started off as an ensign in the 124th Infantry Regiment, first came to notice for a brilliant exploit on the French front, and afterwards won the order " Pour Ic M;ritc "- for one of his rank the equivalent of the Victoria Cross-for his skill, leadership. and personal bravery in Italy. After the war he taught at the Dresden Military Academy before joining the National-Socialist Party. lie becamc a storm-troop leader, attached to Hittcr's bodyguard. and organized the cam- paign of terror in Coburg (in which Socialists and Communists were killed) which Hitler described in " Mein Kampf " as the turning- point of his career. GANGSTER METHODS Rommel's qualities of leadership-and per- haps also his taste for the methods of ad gangster in civil war-brought him the per- sonal favour of Hitler. He took part in the occupation of Austria, the Sudetenland. and Czechoslovakia. In the present war he served in the Polish campaign and in 1940 com- manded a Panzer division in Francc. He re- ceived the Knight's Cross for his part in break- ing the French front in the region of Mau- beuge, and it is believed to have been his division which reached the sea at St. Valery-en- Caux and cut off the British 51st Division. When Hitler realized that he would have to go to the support of his Italian allies in North Africa or see them driven right out of the continent, he entrusted Rommel with the organization of the Afrika Korps. This force was extremely well trained and equipped, and on heing transported to Libya it won an instant success against the depleted and relatively ill- armed British forces. In April, 1941, General Wavell was forced to abandon Benghazi. Ad- vancing with extreme rapidity, Rommel drove his opponent across the Egyptian frontier and laid siege to the isolated garrison which had been dropped in Tobruk. A long period of comparative lull followed. Rommel-the real commander-in-chief of the Axis forces, though he had a nominal Italian superior-was building up a strong force. but vas alvays short of certain essential supplies. His attacks against Tobruk were fruitless, but he was contemplating one on a bigger scale when he was attacked on November 18. 1941, by the British Eighth Army. The long and extremely confused battle which followed went against Rommel, though the German armoured tactics were, at least to begin with, superior to the British, and the German armour was very much better in quality. By sheer per- sistence and pluck the British, in spite of almost catastrophic losses in tanks, wore'down the enemy. or perhaps rather the enemy's com- mander. By the end of December, 1941, he had retreated headlong to Jedabia. leaving his forces on the frontier to be mopped up. In all he had lost 20.000 prisoners, but be had saved the personnel of his two crack armoured divisions, which was what he chiefly cared about. Having received some reinforcements in tanks. he succeeded in pushing the Eighth Army back to the line Gazala-Bir Hakeim, some 40 miles west of Tobruk. BACK AT TOBRUK This campaign had gone against Rotpmel on balance, but he made up for it in a re- sounding victory in May and June. 1942. Out- flanking and rolling up the Eighth Army's position from the sottth, he drove it back in fierce tighting to the frontier, then suddenly turned upon Tobruk, left isolated once agaitin, and carried it by storm. The British were un- able to call a halt until they reached El Alamein, 80 miles east of Alexandria. They had lost 50.000 men and vast quantities of mzaterial, and were no longer sttre of even being able to hold Egypt. Rommel had been aided by superior material. notably in tanks, but his tactics had been masterly. However, he made no headway in his attacks on the El Alamein line; in fact, the Eighth Army began to launch local counter-offensives. So the stage was set for the final trial, one of the most vital in the war. Rommel's last attack, begun on August 31. failed after sharp fighting. And then. in the last week of October and the first week of November General Mont- gomery inflicted a heavy defeat upon the Axis forces. Rommel was in hospital in Germany when the offensive began, but hurried back to his post. He succeeded in extricating once more a large proportion of his best German forces. leaving the rest and the Italians to their fate. Though outmanoeuvred in the battle, he conducted the long retreat to Tunisia with skill. But his African career ended with an- other disaster. His last attack on the Eighth Army at Medenine in March. 1943; was a com- plete failure, and he then returned home. leaving not pnly the troops which he had led back across North Africa but also those which had been landed in Tunisia to meet their in- evitable end. His first European appointment after his re- turn. on completing further hospital treatment, was apparently an inspecto'ship of the western coast defences. But before the allies landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944, he had been made commander of an army group defending the Low Countries and Fr'nce north of the Biscay coast. He was wholly unable to prevent the landing, which took the Germans largely by surprise, but he made vigorous efforts to con- fine the allied holding by means of armoured divisions which he concentrated from all points. The Germans have announced that it was on July 17 that he sustained the injuries from which he itas now died. Rommel was undoubtedly a tactician of genius, but with some weaknesses. Restless. arrogant, and difficult to work with, neglectful of the administrative side of the forces which he commanded. he was too apt to repeat him- self. But he brought tO modern large-scale warfare -the methods of bluff and ambush which had begun to appear unattainable in present-day conditions. This strange figure, master of tank warfare without knowing any- thing about a tank or even understanding the inside of a car, was in fact full of contradic- tions. Disliked by those with whom he came in contact, he yet exereised an amazing in- fluence over the troops from whom he exacted so much. Brutal in speech and sometimes in action, he treated British wounded prisoners in Africa with consideration. Boundless in darin,g it would seem that his nerve was liable to break suddenly. He will be remembered as a brilliant though uncertain and uneven com- mander in ihe - field rather than as a com- mander-in-chief. SOLDIER AND NAZI ROMMEL IN SUCCESS AND FAILURE A MASTERLY TACTICIAN

GENERAL G. S. PATTON

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1945-12-22-06-012&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1945-12-22-06

General George S. Patton. Junior, com- mander of the United States Fifteenth Army, whose death is announced on another page, was one of the most brilliant and successful leaders whom the war produced. It was he who led the Atmerican attack on Casablanca, forged his way through to effect a juncture with the Eighth Army near Gafsa, commanded the Seventh Army in Sicily, and then swept at the head of the Third from Brittany to Metz and onwards. George Smith Patton, a cavalryman by training and instinct, became a tank expert. Brave, thrustful. and determined in action. he .as a remarkable personality, wvho taught his men both to fear and to admire him. At the same time he was a serious and thought- ful soldier. He was an early advocate of the employment of armour in swiftly moving masses to exploit the break-through, and was finally able, with the help of American methods of mass-production, to realize his theories in practice. A great athilete in his earlier days, he had also a taste for philosophiy, literature, and poetry. He was the son of a California pioncer, and was born at San Gabriel, in that State, on November 11. 1885. lSoldiering was in his blood. for bie was the great -gandson ol General Hugh Mercer, w,ho served under Washington, and his grand- father died in the Civil War. It was natural, therefore, that he should find his way to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated in 1909. Afte'r great achievements on the track at West Point he was to be placed fifth in the cross-country run of the Modern Pentathlon (in the main a military event) at the Olympic Games of 1912. He was also to be known as a fine horseman anti showv rider and a crack pistol slot. He developed a flamboyant and emotional character. for which his men found expression in the sobriquet " Old Blood and-Guts," but he was a born military leader. Commissioned in the cavalry, Patiton served first at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. A little later lte went to France to stu(ly the sabre ihere and afiei his return served aIs N-laster of ihc Sword at the Mbounted Service School at Fort Riley, Kansas. In 1916 he was aide-de-camp to General Pershing ont the punitive expedition into Mexico. Then. vhenl America entered thle 1914-18 w:ar he, by that timc a captaini, wetit on Pershing's staff to France, where, in November. 1917, he wvas detailed to the Tank Corps and attended a couise at the Frencih Tank School and he wvas present whleni the Britishi tanks were launched at Cambrai. After this he organized the American Tank Centre at Latxgres and later the 304th Brigade of the Tank Corps, whicih he commanded with much distinction in the St. Mihiel offensive of September. 1918. Having been transferred with his brigade to the Meuse-Argonne sector he was wvotinled on the first day of the offen- sive, for his services he was awarded the D.S.C. and D.S.M. and at the time of the Armistice was a temporary colonel. Returning to the United States in earty 1919, Patton in 1920 was given command as a permanent captain of a squadron of the 3rd Cavalrv at Fort Myer. Then he was detailed to the general staff corp s and served for fotir years at the headquarters of lihe First Corps area at Boston and in th[le 1lviiaia Islands. After fotir more year-s at \V-'asUngton he was ortlered to Forn Mycr. uhtitc, as a permCanent lietteUnant-colonel, he retlMtliCeI Oil dItty weith thC 3rd Cavalry Ulntil 1N35. Pallion receivetl commnll;ld of tili 2ti(i ArmoLireNd D)ivision in October. 1940. wilt tic temrporary rank of brigadiet-general. becotning in the next year commnnindingg gencral ot tite First Armoured Corps. While he was thus employed Pattoni learned that thev might bc rettiired in North Alrica. He there- lore set tin a largc tleselL traininlg ceutre in Californiia. wthere lie tuilt tip a coordinated striking loice. At last his opportutiitv came and as commander of tie Western Task Force lie and his men succeedetl in iheir swvift cdesceilt in occupyingt Casablanca. I-e himself halld a narrow escape, for the landing ci-aft whicih was to take Ihini ashore was shatiered. Later, when lthe American Second Corps were it diflicultics at Kasserine Pass. Patton was sent to retrieve the sittiationl and, withl timely British aid, niot on ly did so btit cairried it oti to Gafsa, near wihich it made contact with the Eightlt Atmy, ThILs it was that lie vas chosen to command the Seventh Army in the itivasion of Sicily. It was while lie was visiting a field hospital in that island that, suspecting a soldier of being a malingerer, he struck him. The incident was reported and Genetal Eisenhower made it clear that stcli conduct could not be tolerated; but Patton, wtho made generous apology, was far too valuable a man to lose wvhen haid fighting lay ahead, and a little later he was nominiated to the permanent rank of major-general. In April. 1944,-he arrived in the Ettropean theatre of operations, and he took command of the Third Army, whicih went into action in Fiance on August 1. With it he cut off the Brittany peninstila, played his part in the trap- ping of tilc Geimans. and drove on to Paris. In October he had another of his nar row escapes wheni a heavy shell landed near him but failed to explode. Driving on relentiessly towaards the German - frontier, it fell to Patton to reconqtler Metz, and it recogni- tion of this victorv lie receivcd the Bronze Star. His next outstanding performanice 'as in late Dccember when thlc Tlhird Army tdrove in to relieve the First and helped to hold Bastogne. He was famous for the speed of his, operations; but. surpassing him- self on this occasion, he surprised the Germans, and slowed down and cventually checked the advance of. Rundstedt's southein column. One of his most striking feats was when in the advance to tile Rhine, he moved towards that fiver with his right flank on the Moselle. The Germans were apparently expecting him to force a crossing of the Rhine, but instead he suddenly crossed the Mosellc near the confluence, taking the enemy on the wrong foot " and completelv smashing up his array. In Germany hiis armoured divisions made the deepest advances of all, penctrating in the end into Czechoslovakia. A German staff officer, captured in the final stages, reported that his general.had asked him each morning as a first question what was the latest news about Patton. In April this vear President Truman nomi- nated Patton to be a full general. The Third Army occupied Bavaria last July, and in September Patton was ordered to appear before General Eisenhower to report on his steward- sliip of Bavaria. The summonis was a result of Patton'$ stateienits to a Press conference that Nazi politics are just like a Republican and Democratic election in the United States," and that he saw no need for the de- Nazification programme in the occupation of Germany. In October General Eisenhower announced ihat General Pattoti had been re- moved from the command of the Third Army and had been tranlsferred to the command of the Fifteenth Army, a skeleton force. Patton, in spite of many idiosyncrasics. which included the free use of a cavalryman s tongue- You have never lived until you have been bawied out by General Patton his men used to say-was a fundamentally scrious soldier, offensively minded and bent on the single object of defeating his enemy. He affected a smart and sometimes striking tumr- out, and was insistent that those under him should also maintain a smart and soldierly appearance.

Marshal Of The Soviet Union K. Rokossovsky

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1968-08-05-08-020&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1968-08-05-08

Marshal of the Soviet Union Konstantin Konstantinovich Rok- ossovsky, K.C.B., top Soviet war- time general and postwar Defence Minister of Poland, died in Mos- cow on Saturday at the age of 71. His military career spanned two regimes in Russia, the Tsarist and the Soviet. In the span of 30 years, from 1914 to 1944, he rose from cavalry- man in the Imperial Dragoons to Marshal of the Soviet Union. At the outbreak of the Soviet-German War. in 1941. he represented not only the survivors of Stalin's military purge of the mid 1930s but also the pro- mising formation commanders who wcre about to be put to the acid test. From the outset he displayed ability and personal courage, and Went on to join that relatively small group of senior Soviet commanders with whose names the growing Soviet successes came to be associated: Moscow 1941, Stalingrad 1942, Kursk 1943. Bvelorussia 1944 and the final triumphs of 1945. His wartime career was the foundation of his reputation. while his postwar acti- vity was linked more with the phase of the Stalinist domination of east- ern Europe, in particular Poland. His career as a "p6litical soldier" came to an abrupt end in 1956; with the disrlacement of Marshal Zhukov in 1957 his own service began to draw to a close and ended in an extended phase of semi-retirement, a respected veteran of Stalin's great Wvar. In spite of widespread and offici- ally fostered stories about his "Polish origins". Rokossovskv wvas born in 1896 in Velikiye Luki: his father was a railway worker, and the young Rokossovsky went to wvork as a stone-cutter in his youth. At the outbreak of the 1914-18 War he was called up to the Imperial Russian Army. Tall and well-built, he was assigned for this reason to the Dragoons, serving with the 5th Dragoon Regiment, and thereby beginning his long connexion wvith the cavalry. an extended irtroduction to his work with mobile forces. At the time of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution and the disinte- gration of the Imperial Russian Army. he attained the rank of junior N.C.O.; in October, 1917. Rokos- sovsky joined the pro-Bolshevik para-military organization. the -Red Guard. and entered the Red Army when it was formally established in 1918. Rokossovsky's membership of the Communist Party dated back to 1919. by which time he was a section commander with the 30th Cavalry Division on the Eastern Front. operating against Admiral Kolchak. For the remainder of the period of the Russian Civil War, RokosseLvsky continued to serve in the eastern theatre. against Admiral Koichak in Siberia. against Ataman Semenov's forces and finallv in Outer Mongolia against the troops of Baron Ungern-Sternberg. BY this time lie was a regimental commnander. At the close of the Civil War. Rokossovsky continued to serve with the Red Army as a regular officer (or " commander ". the term *'officer-" being as yet rigor- ously eschewed) and proceeded. in the company of many more Civil War veterans, to undergo formal military education, attending the Frunze Military Academy and the " Higher Red Bainer Cavalry Courses" in Leningrad. With the activation and reinforcement of the Special Far Eastern Army (O.D.V.A.) for operations in 1929 against the Chinese, promoted by the dispute over Soviet rights in the Chinese Eastern Railway, Rokossov- sky was sent back to the Soviet Far East where he assumed command of an independent cavalry brigade, and with which he fought in the brief operations in November. 1929. in the area of Manchouli. He remained with the Special Far Eastern Army, commanded by Blyukher, and by 1932 commanded the 5th Cavalry Division which was stationed in the valley of the Dauriya. At this time the Soviet Far Eastern forces were experimenting with tanks and Rokossovskv is reported to have had his first experience of them. When. in 1938, the military purge finally broke over the Soviet Far Eastern command. Rokossovsky w'as a corps commander: he was arrested. extremely roughly handled and his "case" investi"ated. (Accordinct to the most exact Soviet account. Rokos- sovskv did not "confess" and the "case ". while being further probed bv the NKVD. was finally dropped.) He was " rehabilitated " and returned in the winter of 1938-39 to command a mobile formation in the west. which subsequently took part in the " liberating drive" into Byelorussia and eastern Poland in September, 1939. In June. 1940. with the restor- ation of formal senior ranks into the Soviet command. Rokossovsky be-' came a major-general and was wosted to the Kiev Special Military District where he assumed command of the 9th mechanized Corps. which he helped to form and train. With this formation. he fought in the first engagements of the Soviet- German War (Great Patriotic War), proving himsclf from the outset a competent commander and a cool head. lie was transferred in August. 1941, to the crucial Western Front. wvhere he commanded the 16th Army covering the Minsk-Moscow high- way. For the remainder oi 1941 lie fought on this front. first in the defensive battles before Moscow and then in the successful Soviet counter- stroke which saved the capital. These successes identified him with the rapidly rising Soviet commanders whose abilitv was proved. In the spring of 1942. Rokossovsky w%ent to thc Bryansk front. and in October to the Don front. which was vitallv associated with the successful Stalin- grad counter-offensive: in January, 1943, together with Voronov. he signed the ultimatum to Field Marshal Paulus and the encircled German Sixth Army. During the gigantic battles of 1943, where the German offensive against Kursk was broken. he commanded the central front (Kursk-Orel). Diuring the next great period of Soviet success and advance (the " ten decisive blows " of 1944i. Rokos- sovsky took command of the Ist Bvclorussian Front for Operation Bagration, the plan tO destroy the German Army

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Военные некрологи из британских газет

Sir Winston Churchill

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1965-01-25-01-001&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1965-01-25-01

Sir Winston Churchill, whose death in London yesterday is reported on the centre page, led Great Britain from the peril of subjugation by the Nazi tyranny to victory; and during the last four years of his' active political life he directed his country's efforts to maintain peace with honour, to resist another tyranny, and to avert a war more terrible than the last. In character, intellect, and talent he had the attributes of greatness. An indifferent schoolboy, he was indifferent at nothing else which he attempted. Inheriting Lord Randotph Churchill's energy and political fearlessness, and being granted twice as many years, he carried to fulfilment a genius that in his father showed only brilliant promise. Leader of men and multitudes, strategist, statesman of high authority in the councils of nations, orator with a command of .language that matched the grandeur of his themes, able parliamentary tactician, master of historical narrative, his renown is assured so long as the story of these lands is told. The great war leader of his age, he lived through the fastest transformation of warfare the world has' ever known, charging with the 21st Lancers at Omdurman in his youth, and in his old age arming his country witb the hydrogen bomb. ' He first entered Parliament in. the sixty-fourth year of the reign of Queen Victoria. Sixty-four years later, in' the thirteenth year of the reign of her great-; great-granddaughter, he retired from it. Through more than half a century of British history there was not a year- barely a month-in which he was not actively and prominently engaged in public affairs. Churchill's outstanding political virtue, which never deserted him, was' his courage. There was the sheer phy- sical courage which led him to seek more risks on active service before he was 25 than many professional soldiers know in a lifetime; and which gave him the will, when he was past 75, to over- come an affliction which would have laid other men low from the start. But there was moral and intellectual courage in equal degree. He served in Kitchener's Army in the Sudan-but attacked Kit- chener rublicly for his desecration of the Mahdi's tomb. He was returned as a Conservative in the "Khaki Election". of 1900-only to dcvote a passage in his maiden speech. to a generous tribute to the Boers. -No sooner was his maiden speech over than he shocked the Con-- servative front bench ,again by turning on one: his;own party leaders, the Secretary of State for War, with a scorn" which would have been startling even in a member of the Opposition. Change of Party' Re was still underM30 when,. finding himself at 'odds :with the tariff reform peoicy of -Jloseph -Chamberlain, -hbe crossed the ftloor of-the House. -So; it continued all through bis life-the habit of following his own judgmet his:zown intuition, and his own impulses.. When be resigned from the Conservative 4"Shadow Cabinet" in 1931, as a pro-, test against its atti,tude to India, he was acting with the same courage and inde- pendence which-they were inherited from his father-he had displayed from the very beginning. His independence frequently baffled his contemporaries. who tended to conclude, as did Margot Asquith in 1908, that he was a man of " transitory convictions ". But the point is not that they were transitory but that they were: his own. His mind was always restlessly surveying the political scene.. He was for ever testing, court- ing, encouraging new ideas. No poli- tician of this cen4ury has been less conservative and less hidebound. This adventurousness, of course, had its disadvantages, of which his colleagues were often painfully aware. His mind never stopped roaming, and Asquith's Cabinet was described by one of its members. as "very forbearing to his chatter ". During the 1939-45 War-as the famous memoranda published as appendices to his history of The Second World War show-any question how- ever trivial or however far removed from the central direction of the war might gain his attention. He seized on new ideas so indiscriminately that it became neces- sarO' for s6me of those closest to him to act as a sieve, and so prevent valuable time from :being wasted on the wilder schemes. Yet, when the dross had fallen through, there remained inthe sieve one or, two nuggets. . There is in Printing House -Square. a letter. written. early in . the- 191418 :War by: a, high personage accusing :Cburchill: of: madness because of isomne i mpracticable schemne which he -was pressing through in the face of much eper pposition. The " scheme " w=as: the tank. - - .~~h he The independence of his ideas always made it difficult to define Churchill's political position. He was more of a, Tory than a Conservative. The symbols of'Toryism-Crown, Counitry, Empire -which might seem absti'actions to. some were to him realities. There. was, indeed, always a personal element in the service he gave to his Sovereigns, which found quite different expressions in his attitude to the abdication of Edward VIII and in the tributes he paid when George VI died. and Queen Elizabeth Il was crowned. But it was a Toryism infused by another abstraction which to him was equally a- reality: the People; He believed deeply that the People existed-not different and warring classes of people. In an earlier age he would have stood committed to the idea of the King and the People against the great Whig magnates-the cardinal principle of Disraelian Tory- ism. He was. in brief, a Tory.Dernocrat, and in a speech to the Conservative conference in' 1953 he proclaimed again the creed of his father, the first.prophet' of Tory Democracy. Sense of History Least of all was, he a " Little Eng- lander ". No statesman has ever been more aware of his country's position in the world and its responsibility to'the world. It, was not merely his awareness of the facts of Ciermany's. rearma- ment which made hini speak so clearly from the beginning of the'thirties: it was, even more (as befitted a descendanit of. Marlborough). his fundamental assumption that Britain 'was a part,of VEurope. He could no more have talked of'Czechoslovakia as a-far-aw'ay country than of Blenheim and Ramillies as. far- away towns. 'His politicswere infused with a sense of history. It,was a common gibe of his grasp. As early as April 5 he warned Roosevelt that "we should join hands with the Russian armies as far to the cast as possible, and, if circumstances allow, enter Berlin." But another policy prevailed in Washington. Perhaps the best account of Churchill's part in the war was given in 1957 by Lord Alanbrooke, who was Chief of the Imperial General Staff and chairman of the Chiefs of Staff committee from 1941 until the end of the war, in The Tu4rn of the Tide, written by Sir Arthur Bryant and based on AIanbrooke's war diaries. Irritation at Churchill's incor- rigible desire for action. which- was seldom related to the resources avail- abie, is frequently expressed, and at his perpetual goadings of his staff-" I sometimes think some of my-Geherals don't want to fight the Germans ", Churchill once remarked when his plans for a landing at Trondheim were being opppsed. This was taken by some at the time to be a denigration of the great man, but the book was in fact a truthful panegyric. Churchill?s greatest .single. contribution in Alanbrooke's view was that he carried the Americans with him -he kept together the alliance that won the war. At Potsdam Soon after the German surrender the Coalition Government broke. up. Churchill, after forming a " care- taker-" Government, was preoccupied for- a while with final plants flor the defeat of Japan. In June. accompanied bly Mr. Attlee as his " friend and coun- sellor." he went to Potsdam to settle with Stalin the many matters which the edd of the war had made ripe for decision and join with President Truman in a final warning to Japan. Then he returned to Lond0in to receive the election results which dismissed hirm from office. The conduct of Churchill during the campaign of' the 1945: elec- tion will alwayts seem one of the strang- est episodes of his career. The swing against the Conservative. Party, which had started before the war, was so'strOng that(even his reputation 'as a national leader could be of no'avaiiBtithe could have emerged'from the election. with that reputation untarniihed. Idstead he' indulged in accusations, imputations and even personal abuse againstfi his war- tine colleagues whidh shocked 0 his hearers-even his friends-and embit- tered his opponents. Churchill was undoubtedly dismayed and unsettled by the verdict-of the elec- tion-and he had to lead a party which; was just as disheartened and just as unsure of itself. In the House of Commons he was less assured than ever before, and his weekly brushes with the Leader of the House, Mr. Herbert Morrison, which came to be known as "Children's Hour ", saddened many of hisadinirers. in his.criticisms of the Labour Government's social and economic policies he never seemed able to strike the right note. He struck some of pijs old notes in his speeches opposing the Government's Indian policy. He was bitterly critical of the proposal to give independence to India, and when, towards the end of 1946, the Govern- ment announced their intention of granting self-government to'Burma he (leniounced it. fiercely as a policy of scuttle. in 1947 the Government fixed a date for the hatnding over of power to the Indians, and Churchill's opposi- tion was even more violent. However, he welcomed as a states- manlike means of averting civil war the intention to confer immediate Dominion status on the two succession states likely to emerge in India and promised to facilitate the passage of the necessary legislation. For a man whose vision could be so wide Churchill appeared sometimes to close his eyes to the nature of the problems facing Britain in India. He had inherited from his father a romantic-Disraelian-attitude to India which warped his judgment. The story, nevertheless, ended on. a happier note. When he again returned to office his own and his Government's relations,with India were cordial, and it was his Government which supported Indian initiative on the Korean question at the United Nations. He used the years out of office to make headway with his history of 'The Second World War. The first'volume was pub- lished in 1948 and the sixth' andlast six. years later. "in. War: Resolution.. In. Defeat: Defiance. InVictory: M,agnan- imity. In Peace: Goodwill" was the motto'of the work; the greatest of the war liaders, he chose with perfect apt- ness these ancient, simple, and resonant virtues. The work, which puts forward his personal interpretation of events, varies considerably in quality, but at its best it matches the magnificence of its theme. Churchill had moved far from his early models, Macaulay and Gibbon, and had fashioned a less studied manner of his own. His account of the battle for Crete stands comparison with the finest pas- sages of narrative prose, and the closing chapters of the work are charged with a tragic irony that Aeschylus would have acknowledged with applause. Fulton Speech His vision did not desert him in the postwar years when 'he' addressed him. self to the problems of foreign policy. Churchil's ideas on foreign policy developed so consistently after 1945 that it is impossible to draw a line at the point in 1951 when he was again returned to power, the Conservatives under his leadership winning a parliamentary majority, of 17. But it is worth noticing the' precise nature. of his achievement while he was in Opposition. He made a series of speeches which were as important as statements by a sovereign Government. They had a world-wide influence. They were creative. They helped to form the policies not only of Britain but of the whole free World. Yet when be made them he was out of office and speaking only for himself. It was in March, 1946, when he visited the United States at the invitation of Mr. Truman and was accompanied by the President to the town of Fulton, that he first addressed the world as its seer. Thc occasion, with the President of the United States present,was clearly chosen to give the speech the widest prominence -and Churchill began by offering openly his "true and faithful counsel in these anxious and baffling times". The first purpose of the speech was to present a clear picture' of the change which had been wrought in the world since the end of the war. The " splendid comradeship in arms " had not con- tinued. Instead, "from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron ;curta'in-" had "descended across' the Continent".* opponents that he lived in the past- that he was, in the words of Harold Laski, a gallant and romantic relic of eighteenth-century imperialism ". Nothing could be farther from the truth. He was as aware of the present, its opportunities and its challenges, as any of his contemporaries. But he drew from the past a profound conviction in the greatness of Britain, her people and her heritage. Romantic ? It may be. But it was from this reserve that he drew the inspiration which he communicated to his fellow-countrymen in their and his finest hour. He was the symbol of Britisb resistance, but of how much more as well. In his voice spoke the centuries which had made Britain as they had made him, and those who heard him in those days will never forget the echoes of Burghley, of Chatham, of Pitt, and countless more. " The last of the great orators to reach the heights." The Right Honourable Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, K.G., O.M., C.H., F.R.S., was born on St. Andrew's Day, 1874, at Blenheim Palace. He was the elder son of Lord Randolph Churchill and a grandson of the seventh Duke of Marlborough. His mother was the beautiful and talented daughter of Leonard Jerome, a New York businessman. Surviving her hus- ba'nd until 1921, she lived to see her s~on's fame firmly established. Soldier and Journalist The year had been an eventful one for Lord Randolph. Apart from his marriage and the birth of a son and heir, it had begun with his election as Conservative'M.P. for Woodstock and included a maiden speech which drew from Disraeli, who had a good eye for a duke's son, a warm commendation. Lord Randolph's rise to power and in- fluence was to be rapid, but his decline was even more rapid, and when he died in 1895 he left his'son with 'memories of defeat and failure which carried a moral he was often to remember. Winston Churchill's education was con- ventional in its pattern; from a prepara- tory school 'at Ascot, to a small school at Brighton, to Harrow in 1888, and then, ' after twice failing to gain admission, to the Royal Military College at 'Sandhurst. But his verdict on Harrow was individual, for he. left there, as he, later confessed, convinced that he was "all for the public schools, but I do not want to' go-there again ". In 1895, soon after his father's death, he entered the 4th Hussars at'Aldershot, and immediately obtained leave to go to Cuba for the Daily Graphic to watch the Spanish Army at work. 'While, he was there he participated in,the repulse of the insurgents who tried to cross the Spanish line at Trocham After 'enjoying the' ., . .. .. . . . .i .,g London Season in 1896 he embarked for India, where he relieved the monotony of morning parades and evening polo by indulging his delight in reading. He was back in London for the Season in 1897, and then left in September to join the Malakand Field Force on the North- West Frontier of India. After being men- tioned in dispatches for "making him- self useful at a critical moment". he bad to return to the 4th Hussars at Ban- galore early in 1898. and there he occu- pied himself with the writing of his first history, The Story of the Malakan,d Field Force, which had considerable success at the time and is still consulted. While he was at Bangalore he also wrote his only novel, Savrola. a Tale of thte Revolution in Laurania. which he later urged his friends not to read. It contained, however, the sentence which seems to be as autobiographical as any he wrote: "Under any circumstances. in any situation, Savrola knew himself a factor to be reckoned with; whatever the game, he would play it to his amuse- ment. if not to his advantage." During these early years Lieutenant Churchill. enjoying a liberty not likely to be granted nowadays to a serving officer. was able to combine the roles of a soldier and a newspaper correspondent, and it was as the representative of the Morning Post that at last, after three rebuffs from Kitchener, he joined the Sirdar's Army in Sudan. He reached Cairo. in time to take part in the advance south into the Mahdi's country, and was present at the final victory at Omdurman. Prisoner of the Boers The strategy, tactics, and what a later generation has learnt to call the logis- tics of the campaign were set out by ChurchiU in The River War, an Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan, which was immediately successful when it was published in 1899. His early military writings showed a grasp, remarkable in a man of his years, of the operations of war, which was best revealed in the clear separation of the essential from the accidental. They were also distinguished by a dogmatic self-confidence which never hesitated in its criticism of senior officers. His outspokenness did not im- prove his prospects and he was doubt- less wise to resign his commission after wearing the Queen's uniform for only four years. Moreover, his success as a journalist had enabled him to think of giving up the Army as a career, and he had even turned his attention to politics. addressing a Conservative garden party at Bath (his first political speech) and fighting a by-election (unsuccessfully) at Oldham. It was as a correspondent, again for the Morning Post. that he left for South Africa within a fortnight of the outbreak of war in the autumn of 1899. There -he met with sensational adventures very much' to his~taste. TakenFpFrs -oIft an armoured train expedition by a Boer by the name of Louis Botha he succeeded in cscaping from the prison camp at Pretoria within three weeks. "jumped " a train. and after an extra- ordinary journey reached Delagoa Bay. He saw the campaign out until he could reenter Pretoria with the victorious Army, and when he returned to England he was received tumultuously at Old- ham. wvhere, in the "Khaki Election" of 1900. he won the seat from Walter Runciman. He was not yet 26. and con- temporary accounts record that Joseph Chamberlain sat up and nudged his neighbour on the fron' bench when, in his maiden speech. Churchill declared: " If I were a Boer fighting in the field- and if I were a Boer. I hope I should be fighting in the field. . ." Tariff Reform Chamberlain was right to take notice: there was an ominous smack about the words, and in his first session in the House not only did Churchill speak vehemently against the Conservative Government's plans for Army reform- and their unfortunate advocate, Mr. Brodrick-but he voted against them as well. His unorthodoxy had deep roots He was at work on his life of his father. who had remained in a party with whose orthodox leaders he was at war and had suffered in the end only isolation and defeat. At the very beginning of his political career Churchill was in much the same position. He was as much a Tory Democrat as his father, in a party led by Balfour, who had always seemed to Lord Randolph to be the main opponent of Tory Democracy. More- over, there was little intellectual adven- ture to be found in the Conservative Party of 1902, and Churchill. who always retained a great respect for the academic and cultured intellect. felt drawn to the company of, Morley. Asquitb. Haldane. and Grey. Then, in the summer of 1903, Joseph Chamberlain made his great effort to revive protection-" playing Old Harry with all party relations ", as Campbell- Bannerman excitedly- remarked. With the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Hugh Cecil, Churchill declared himself a Unionist Free Trader, and by September, when it became clear that 1he Pro.tectionists in the Cabinet. bad won, he was publicly exclaiming to a meeting at Halifax, "Thank God for the Liberal Party ". Not unreasonably. the Oldham Conservative Association took exception to this and disowned bim, and in the following year he crossed the floor of the House. How many who were there on that May 31. 1904, could foresee the irony in the in- cidenrt as Churchill took his seat by the side of none other than David Lloyd George ? Before the end of 1905 Churchill had completed the life of his father. It stands, over half a century later, as one of the most brilliant political biogra- phies of all time. The prose i'as perhaps never excelled by Churchill-later in his life 'the influence of the platform and the Hlouse of'Commons made his prose too rhetorical-and the bringing to life of the political scene is so vividly and precisely done that the reader never loses his interest.; -No sooner was this work 'of filial vindica:tion done than Balfour-after Highlights of his Career Born: November 30, 1874 Entered Harrow : 1888 Commissioned in the 4th Hussars : 1895 Escaped from the Boers : 1899 Entered Parliament: 1900 Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies: 1905 President of the Board of Trade : 1908 Home Secretary : 1910' First Lord of the Admiralty : 1911 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: 1915 Rejoined the Army in France : 1915 Minister of Alunitions : 1917 Secretary of State for War and Air: 1919 Secretary flr the Colonies: 1921-22 Chancellor of tlhe Exchequer: 1924-29 First Lord of the Admiralty : 1939 Prime Mlinister and AMinister of Defence : 1940 Leader of the Opposition : 1945 Prime Minister : 1951 Retirement from Office: 1955 Retired from Parliament: 1964 At Hyde Park Gate on his ninetieth birthday. Lords as " something very like an incitement to violence ". In 1908, when Asquith succeeded Campbell-Banner- man. Churchill was promoted to the Cabinet as Lloyd George's successor at the Board of Trade, having turned down the Local Government Board on the ground that he refused "to be shut up in a soup-kitchen with Mrs. Sidney Webb ". Under the law then still in force his promotion forced him to submit him- self for reeleotion and a tempestuous by- election ended in his defeat by Mr. Joynson-Hicks. But he was found a seat at Dundee, and he returned to London. his official career uninterrupted, to marry Miss Clementine Hozier. In the political field he became a less conspicuous figure in the House of Com- mons, but in the country was second only to Lloyd George in his advocacy of the new Liberalism. A natural associa- tion developed between these two dissimilar men. Side by side they tried to check the rising naval expenditure. for, war-leaders though they were both to be, in 1908-09 their whole interest was focused on the first experiments in the "welfare state ". Bitter Attack Churchill hesitated for a moment when Lloyd George introduced his People's Budget in 1909, but then threw himself into the fight in the country. Bitterly he denounced the House of Lords-especially the backwoods peers " all revolving the problems of Empire and Epsomn"-and as president of the Budget League he enthusiastically praised the social policies which had made the Budget necessary. There were Conservatives who, though they could have cverlooked his treason to his party in 1904, never could forgive his treason to his class, as they saw it, in 1909. They were later to have their revenge. He was now becoming-though still only 35- one of the leadinz members of the Gov- ernment. In Cabinet, where one of his colleagues thought him " as long-winded as he was persistent ", he distributed long memoranda to the rest of the members on all subjects-however far removed from the affairs of his own department. (In the Board of Trade he was teaching his subordinates the duties which now belong to the Ministry of Labour.) Winston ", recorded Grey, "will very soon become incapab:2 from sheer activity of mind of being anything in a Cabinet but a Prime Minister." After the bitter general election of 1910 Churchill was promoted to the Home Office. where his interest in the future welfare of prisoners helped to launch the movement for penal reform. But the most famous episode of his term at the Home Office was the Sidney Street ".siege". which he characteristically insisted on witnessing personally. Ger-. many's intervention in Morocco had made it imperative to put a term to the controversy over the British naval pro- gramme which was dividing the Liberal. Party, and Asquith took what proved to be the decisive step of inviting the First Lord of the Admiraltv (Reginald McKenna) and the Home Secretary to exchange offices. Churchill went to the Admiralty, with a mandate to maintain the Fleet in constant readiness for war with Germany. Preparing for War Germany's threat had completely changed Churchill's attitude to naval and military armaments. and he became (as 25 years later) a powerful advocate of: preparedness, so much losing his interest in party differences and social policies that Lloyd George said he was apt to approach him with " Look here, David and then 'declaim for the rest of the afternoon about his blasted ships ".- In fact, the post exactly suited Churchill's temperament and gifts. His speeches in. introduction of the Navy Estimates rank with Gladstone's Budgets as classical expositions of the relationship of policy: to departmental practice. In the face of considerable service opposition he created a Naval War Staff. At weekends and when the House was in recess he familiarized himself with the work of the Navy, going everywhere, seeing every- thing, -and exercising a magnificent judgment in his selection of officers. When war came Churchill mobilized the Fleet- on his own responsibility, forcing from Morley a sad reflection on "the splendid -condottiere at the Admiralty ". But two years later, when he was dismissed to. satisfy the Con- servative Party leaders, Kitchener took to him the personal message: "Well. Kr. strife. Yet it was while under his leader- ship that the Conservative Party revolu- tionized its policy, became a guarantor of the welfare state, and stole so many of its opponents' clothes; and it was while he was Prime Minister that the party gave proof of its new convictions in office. It was not too difficult a trans- formation for one who had been a ijem- ber of the Liberal Government of 1906. Shortly after the Coronation he be- came suddenly ill and was ordered a complete rest by his doctors. Though he was back at work in October rumours grew of his retirement and of incapacity brought on at last by age. His move- ments it was noticed were less vigorous, his uptake in the Commons less quick, but again and again he came to the dispatch box and reasserted his mastery. 1962. At Middlesex Hospital, Loindon, with a broken thigh. father in 1945, before the restoration of the practice by which conferment of the Order is the sole prerogative of the Sovereign who does not act on the, recommendation of the Prime Minister. In the spring of 1956 he was awarded the Charlemagne Prize for services to Europe, at Aachen. That this should have gone to the man who was above all responsible for the overthrow of the German Reich was a sign of the rapidity with which the European scene had changed in 10 years. In his speech on that occasion he cast his last stone that was to ripple the surface of international waters. He spoke, as he had so often done before, of the grand design of a united Europe. Russia, he said, must play a part in the alliance that would guarantee the peace of Europe; if that pqube ob. t, ST C) WBUO Y7 m~~3icktiru inInCt CLno.~C luad dna.Jn 5 95 months of tr.ying to pacify his party and the House by " expressing no settled conviction where no settled conviction exists "-threw in his hand, and Camp- bell-Bannerman took office. Churchill accepted the office of Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies and was the spokesman of his department in the House of Commons. A month later, at the general election, Churchill was returned as a Liberal for North West Manchester-while Balfour was defeated in the adjacent seat. In the House it fell to him to maintain the Government's decision to grant full self-government to the annexed Boer Republics-a controversial issue-and he began to develop his parliamentary style in the thick of a major parlia- mentary battle. At the same time his mind_was_m. J,rg to a newQuttook,on. homie aifars. Before' leaving dtie Con- servative Party he had looked back to the time 'when it was not the sham it is now. and was not afraid to deal with the problem of the working classes". Now he confidently declared that the Liberal Party's cause was " the cause of the left-out millions " He was a Radical, describing the obstructive attitude of the House of Soldier, strategist, s tatesman, leader 1899. In the uniform of the South African Light Horse. 1910. Watching manoeuvres with General French. - 1924. AICh elIo :: of the x c heue: -.. 1924. As Chancellot of the. E;xchequer. - ; - - -~-I 1919. With Edward, Prince of Wales. 1941. Amid the wreckage of the bombed-out House of Commons. there is one thing at any rate they can- not take from you. The Fleet was ready." Heads were to fall in the 1914-18 War which never should have fallen, and Churchill's was one of them. He had carefully prepared for the Navy's first task-the carrying of the British Expeditionary Force to the Continent-and it was done well and without mishap. He had also foreseenc the possibility of a German advance threatening the Channel ports, and in October it seemed that the way to them would be open unless Antverp could be held-or, at least, not given up without a struggle. He himself organized and accompanied the expedition to Antwerp which not only, delayed the fall of the city by five days, but by doing so saved the Cbannel ports and prevented the Germans from gaining a quick decision in the west. Back in London Churchill took a decision which was eventually to involve him in misfortune. Although it was due to Prince Louis of Battenberg that the Fleet which was concentrated at Port- land in the last fortnight of peace was not allowed to disperse, Churchill felt under the pressure of popular agita- tion that his name and origin deprived him of public confidence, and he suf- fered him to go into retirement. The Dardanelles In his place he recalled to active service Lord Fisher, a warrior after his own heart, dauntless and indefatigable, a master of every detail of the sea service. The Navy could confidently look for a direction equal to any emergency so long as these two men saw eye to eye. Together they brilliantly restored the British command of the sea, which had been compromised by the destruction of Cradock's squadron off the South American coast. But still there was no decisive victor, over the main German fleet, and the shelling of Scarborough and Hartlepool brought public criticism of Churchill and -the Admiralty to a focus. He had, at the begin,ning of 1915, little public support-a relevant fact to keep in mind as one begins the con- fused story of the Dardanelles. The breach between Fisher and Churchill had come over a fundamental issue of the direction from which British.. sea power could make the most effective impact on the course of the war in. Europe. Fisher favoured the Baltic. Churchill the Dardanelles. Few would now dispute the strategic insight under- lying Chiurchill's conception of a swift, dramatic stroke at a vital point. Success might have been: achieved by the em-. ployment of such a combination of sea and land forces as- was eventually brought to bear-but only after the initial advantage of surprise had been lost. The most important criticism of Churchill's role is that he persisted in the enterprise without securing the sup- port of his own department and the cooperation of the War Office, - The documents dQ not support thc criticism. He was careful1from the very beginning to seek aand obtain the approval of those with whom he had to work, and when the idea of the operation was submitted to the War Council there was no expression of dissent. The Dardanelles did, in fact, become official policy, and the French and Russian Governments were informed of it. he'two main causes of thb failure were the. late hour of the objections raised by the unpre- dictable. Fisher and the War Council's inability to resodve thoc queistion ofi divided command. The delays, hesita- tions, and postponements are in many cases directly traceable to Fisher's behaviour-he resigned shortly after the first military landings-and it was only at the very late stage of his resignation that the admirals turned against Churchill's plan. Out of Office Churcbill took to heart the lessons of 1915. A notable feature of his direction during the 193945 War was his assumption of the post of Minister of Defence In this capacity hc was able to secure uninterrupted and effective liaison between the Chiefs of Staff them- selves and between them and the Cabinet which he led. The 193945 War was singularly free of the disputes between commands, between the Ser- vices, and between the Services and the politicians which Lloyd George never succeeded in ending between 1916 and 1918. The political consequences of the Dardanelles were immediate-so imme- diate that when Churchill crossed to Downing Street to inform the Prime Minister that Sir Arthur Wilson was ready to take Fisher's place he found that others had preceded him. Now was the hour of the Conservative Party's revenge. Bonar Law had informed Lloyd George that if Fisher had resigned Churchill must depart as well. Between them-and faced with a critical debate on the Dardanelles-Lloyd George and Asquith determined on their best way'. Out: a' Coalition Government formed at the cost of the resignation of Churchill. This was a hard political decision against which there could be n'o appeal; and in the new Government Churchill had to be satisfied with what the'Con- servatives were prepared to grant him- the Chanceljorship of the Duchy of Lancaster. The public. then - deeply suspicious of Churchill's talents, drew obvious conclusions. Six; months of idleness and frustration were sufficient, and in November Churchil resigned his sinecure and rejoined the Army. Not to Blame W'ithin a few days he was at the Front, attached to the 2nd 'Grenadier Guards. A. month later, with the rank of colonel, he was given command of i battali'on of Th=be Royal Scots Fusiliers But his thoughts remained fixed on the conduct of the war, and in the spring of 1916 he was home on leave delivering a weighty speech in whichj 'with the mag- naninaty which marked him all his life, he urged the recall of Fisher to the Admiralty. Later in* the year his batta-' lion was absorbed and he -returned permanently to political life. - Asquith had mneanwhile refused. all* Lloyd George's attempts to place Churchill in the Ministry of Munitions, and cven wheni Lloyd George replaced Asquith as Prime Minister the Conservatives were still firm that they would not admit him to the Cabinet. But, in:Februarv, 1917, i nspite: of all' Asquith's protests. Lloyd George published the report of the Dar-. danelles Commission, which. Asquith himself had appointed. . . Asquith's interest in the matter was soon apparent to-the public, for it was Asquith who was severely condemtted and Churchill who was exonerated. The commission could find' no Arounds' ofl which 'to indict Churchill: his'uplan' 'ad been -right and the delays 'andi 'ill- organization' had not 'been his: fault. Churchill's stock rose immediatcly and, after- a- brilliant' 'survey 'of' thc ''war situation during a secret session of May, 1917, Lloyd George (with Smutss support) appointed Churchill Minister of Munitions. Established less than two ;years before, the Ministry had become the greatest directorate of industry in the country. No episode in the whole of Churchill's career is so eloquent of his exceptional capacity as a departmental head than the success with which he imposed unity and order on this vast organization and established himself as the source and- controller of its multitudinous activities. During these last months of the war Churchill became a close adviser of Lloyd Gcorge on its central direction. He was not in. the War Cabinet, but Lloyd George consulted aQd used him frequently on matters. far outside his diepartmental activities. Churchill's visits to the Continent, in fact, became so frequent that the backbench Con- servative members, still harbouring their grudge, warned Lloyd George that he must not take the renegade into the War Cabinet. But Lloyd George still turned to Churchill and, after the German break-through in March, 1918, summoned him to a conference with Haig and Bonar Law: 'Haig found Churchill "a real gun in a crisis ", and as the situation worsened Churchill slept at his Ministry' so that he might be more closely in touch with the Prime Minister. He was Lloyd George's emissary at a meeting with Clemenceau, Foch, and Rawlinson-the prelude to the appointment of Foch as Supreme Commander-and at the hour of victory could feel that he had been at the hearr of things, playing his part. Damaged Reputation Churchill bad entered the war as a Liberal with an enviable popular repu- tation. He emerged from it a Coalition Liberal with a damaged reputation. As long as Lloyd George's Coalition held together Churchill. was certain of office and could hope for promotion:. But after that? The immediate ta5ks were, however, pressing. Lloyd George (who had been impressed by his departmental abiity) asked hitn to move to the War Office (with which he combined the Air Mdinistry) to smooth away the friction w/hich had at first attended demobiliza- tion. This he did in a fortnight. In this dual office Churchill became pro- minently' involved in -the question of Bolshevist Russia-eager, as he was, to continue the resistance to the Bolshevists. His appeal for a volunteer force to cover the withdrawal of British troops from Murmansk and Archangel-8,000 men were raised-lent. weight to tht suspi- ciotn that he 'was. anxious to provoke 'a war with Russia. Early in 1921 the growing. difliculties in framing a policy suited to Britain's new position in the Eastern Mediter- ranean led to his transfer to the Colornial Office. In this capacity he was a member of the Cabinet Committee which in 1921 iegotiated with the Irish lekd6rs, and he played the role of peace maker Tell: Winston ", said Collins af terwards 'vwe could never have done anything without him '. But the pugniacity which be had' kept in restraint during the Irish nego- tiations found: new' and unfortunate expression in 1922. - The new Turkisb state which was constitutini itself under Mustapha Keinal clashed with British power in the Dardanelles. ThanksItargely to the tact: of the. Britlsh Co-mmanider, Sir Charles Harington, a conflict was avoided, but. Churchill's attitu14, an. especially his premature appeal to' the Dominions, contributed both to the fall of the Government and to his own defeat at the ensuing election. The Conservatives had for sonac time been restless under their allegiancc to Lloyd George, and at a meeting at the Carlton Club on October 19, 1922. decided to end their association with him. Lloyd George immediately dis- solved Parliament, and a confused general election gave the Conservatives power for the first time since 1905. Churchill was defeated-and for the first time since 1900 was out of the House of Commons with no certain hope of re- turning. He was politically isolated. He had severed himself from the Asquithian Liberals. He distrusted the Labour Party. And there was still much to divide him- from the Conservatives: indecd all the more when, in the autumn of 1923. Baldwin appealed to the country on the issue of Protection-the very issue on which Churchill had left the Conservative Party 20 years before. He fought and lost the election as a Coalition Liberal- a term which barely had meaning any longer. During 1923 Churchill completed the earlier portions of The World Crisis. though the whole work, together with its sequel, The Aftermath, was not com- pleted until 1931. The volumnes were not entirely successfuL The style was too rhetorical and there was not the breadth of vision that marked his history of The Second World War. Balfour was not far wrong when he wrote to a friend: " I am immersed in Winston's brilliant auto- biography, disguised as a history of the universe." In the following year Churdhill severed his last links with Liberalism, and when, in February, A by-election was pending in the Abbey Division of Westminster he stood as an Independent Anti-Socialist. There was an official Conservative candidate in the field, but Churchill had the support of many of the rnore independent Conser- vatives, including Austen Chamberlain and Birkenhead. He was defeated by only 47 votes. Chancellor of Exchequer He fought the general election of 1924 as a Constitutionalist-and since there was no Conservative opponent was in effect the official Conservative candidate. He was returned to the House of Commons and (greatly to his surprise) was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. Baldwin had, in fact, decided to go outside the ranks of the safe and the orthodox: Austen Cham- berlain and Birktnhead were also brought in. Even so. Churchill. as Asquith said, "towered like a Cliim- borazo or Evere-st among the sand.hills. of, the Baldwin Cabinet ". His first. Budget, brilliantly introduced, con- tained provisions for widows' pensions, but its most conspicuous feature was'the decision to return to the gold standard. This-act of policy, though roundLy con- demned in the light of after events, was generally approved at the time by almost aU except Keynes, who contributed a lively polemic entitled TIhe Economic Conseouences of Mr. Churchilll. Keynes's warnings proved right. The mine-owners decided that in otder to rctaii their markets in the world they must cut down their costs and there followed the tragic course of events which led to the General Strike in 1926. ChurchlU's role was not a happy onc. AL the evidence suggests that he was not one of the more conciliatory members of. the Cabinet, and his Production of the British Gazette froht the conm- mandeered premises of the Morning Post-though the object was sound :- the communeiation of information ;tai the public-was marred by his eager- ness to turn it into a partisan anti- strikers sheet, which could only inflame feelings still more on both sides. The remaining years of the Baldwin Gov- ernment were quiet. In l929 Baldwin appealed to the country and lost the general election. Churchill, however, was again returned at Epping. Two years later the National Government was formed. but Churchill was not a member, and he remained out of office until the outbreak of the 193945 War. Rebel Over India In 1930 the Simon Commission on India published its report, and the Round Table Conference was summoned the following autumn. Churchill opposed this moderately liberal policy, -refusing to cast away - that most truly bright and precious jewel in the crown of the King "-,an almost precise echo of a phrase used by his . father, Lord Randolph: In January, 1931; he resigned from. .the Consenrative " shadow Cabinet "-as a protest against its support for the -Labour -Government's -Indian policy. It was -a courageous act what- ever one -may think of the merits of his views: Churchill's conduct of the oppo- sition to the India Bill in thc Housc of Commons-fighting it clause by clause in: cornrmittee-was perhbpsl his -most brilliant parliamentary performance. But even weightier i5sues were beginning to hold his attention. In 1932 there started his seven-Year struggle to. halt the drift to. what he later called .the .unnecessary war . His freedom from office did, however, give him time to write the biography of Marlborough, which his cousin. the Duke of Marlborough, had long urged him to do. Based on a mass of material in the mnunirnent room at Blenheim. the work was planned and completed on an ample scale, the last of its -four volumes appearing just before the Munich crisis. Never restrained in the expression of- his dislikes, Churchill pursued Macaulay with -a rancour excused rather than justi- fied bv familv loyalty. But- no one dLse could have so brilliantly attempted to vindicate, the qualities of a man of genius from the reproacpes cast by a master of invective. : Te -Nazi Menace Wheriver the balance of advantage for - forcsigfit. lies betwven the Con- servativ;, Liberal and Labour Parties .during -these years. Churchill's record is not open to even the smallest criticism. His views developed all the time-and consistently. As long as the -Weimar Republic had endured be had urged -the wisdom of -encouraging:Germany in a policy -of -peacefu cooperation: with Eutope through the revision. of .the Versaillesi cluses Inost .obnoxious to German sentiment. Even after 1932 when he fi lready saw: that Hitler was ' the movin,g impulse behind the Gerian Government and may- be more than that soon ",he still-demirded an- effort to remove the- Ust grievances of the van- quished .'Bilt afttr Hitler's confirma. tion iinpoWer ChurchiJlls thene-banged. He sought,:first, British;preparedness- .especially in the air-and-carried on-a. persistent -cross-examination . Qf- -the Government's intentions- in this respect. His warnings seeied to be dramatically confiriod by Baldwitn's " nfessieiiin 1936,- and his influence in the. country was steadilygrowing when an extraneous incident- -suddenly -restored- Baldwin's popularity and emnphasized Ckurchill's - - ;- (iontinuedon page23): men and multitudes of 1941. The first of the wartime meetings with President Roosevelt on board a British battleship. May, 1945. With the King and Queen on the balcony of Buckingham Palace,.on V.E. day. 1943. Discussing the Itafian invasion pLans at General Eisenhoweres headquarters in Algiers. 1944. To Parliament on D Day. 1945. Crossing to the east bank of the Rhine. SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL-continued from page 2 isolation and unpredictable tempera- ment. This was the abdication of Edward VIII. During the crisis Churchill seemed somotimes on the verge of forming a "King's Party", and his actions and public utterances stood in unhappy con- trast to the steady and wise guidance offered by Baldwin. This was undoubtedly a setback, but Churchill continued his campaign for prepared- ness. seeking the cooperation of all who agreed with him. His views had now developed further. More and more he put the emphasis on the need for collec- tive strength-collective security. He had never trusted the League of Nations as an instrument for general disarma- ment. but he looked to it now as the in- strument of collective preparedness by aU the non-aggressive Powers of Europe. -At the Admiralty Again It was all in vain. and on September 3. 1939. Britain was again at war; Churchill returned to office as First Lord of the Admiralty-an appoint- ment greeted wit'h relief by the public which had for so long been heedless of his warnings-and from the first he established himself as the popular war leader. At the Admiralty he took the first steps to combat the submarine menace which later became so formid- -able, but the main episode of his term was the brilliant operation in which Commodore Harwood. in command of Ajax, Achilles, and Exeter, drove the Graf von Spec to its destruction. His voicc meanwhile was strenthening the nerve of the British people-an invalu- able task in the confusing days of the "phoney war". There was the char- acteristic cockiness with which he otfered "to engage the entire German Navy, using only the vessels which at one time or another they have declared they have destroyed ". Meanwhile he was still pursuing his concept of col- lective security, urging the small Euro- pean neutrals to understand the danger. But they did not heed either, and in the spring of 1940 Norway, Den. mark, Belgium, and the Netherlands were all invaded. On Churchill, as First Lord, fell the reswonsibility for the dispatch and dis- embarkation of the forces sent to strengthen Norway. Ohce more, as in 1915, an improvised undertaking ended in failure. The debate which followed -in which Churchill manfully defended the Government-decided the fate vf Charmberlain's Government, and. on May 10 Chamberlain resigned and advised the King to send for Churchill. The Labour ard Liberal leaders agreed to serve with him, and so ihe great Coalition was formed which was to remain united until victory in Europe bad been won. In the first volume of his history of the war Churchill has described his feel- ings on that night in words. which are as moving as they are simple: " During. these last crowded days of tht political crisis my pulse had not quickened at any moment. I took it all as it.came.- _But I cannot conceal from the reader of this truthful account that as I went to bed at about 3 a.m. I was conscious of a profound sense of relief. At last I had the authority to give. directions over the ,whole scene. I felt as if I were. walking with destiny and that all my- past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial... I thougt. I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail." Undramatic Confidence l his undramatic confidence-recall- ing Chaitham's " I know that I can save this country and that no one else can " -was quickly communicated to the people of Britain. " What is our aim ? " he exclained when he first met the 'House of Conmnons as Prime 'Minister. 'I can answer in one word: Victory- victory at all costs, viotory in spite of all terrors, victory, however long and hard, the road may be; for without victory thete is no survival." And then: 1 have nothing to offer but blood. toiL tears. and. sweat." Was. ever language so matched to the occasion ? Meanwhile. attacking>hrough country which before the days-of mechanization' had been regarded. as. unsuitable for large-scale operations. the Germans.' drove a: wedge.. between the .Franco-. British armies advancing north-east- wards *and the main French Army. Holland surrendered after five days. Bet- glum held out until the. allied troops were cut off both from their support and from the sea. - There, followed. the un- expected success of the evacuation from Dunkirk, which so lifted the hearts of the British people that Churchill had .to warn them that-.' Wars are not won by evacuations".' It was at this point that Churchill ended a survey of the cam- paign with the :words: "We, shall-not flag or fall. We shall go on to the end. ... We shaU defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. And even if-. which I do not for a moment believe--, this island or a large part of'-it were subjugated and starving, then our E:mpire beyond the seas, armed and Suarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, stepjs forth to the rescue and liberatioin of the old ! Fall of France 'he agony of France was now pro- longed 'for-another thre *weeks, beavy with dlsast&r, durldg which Churchill himself carried the whoie weight ofi th British effort to keep France in the war. He visited the French.Ministers at Tours, and 'crossed the :Channel. again a few days later 'after 'he had already made his brave offer of 'a iolemri Act of Union- between the two countries. It was too brave for ithe'Mnisters'at Bordeaux, and or 'June 21,' 1940, 'Frince ssur- rendered, withouit giving Churehill an unadertskrig not. to allow the French. fleet to fall," into -German , 'hands. Churchill. boWing to'the login of neces- sity, then took what must have been one of the haidest decidions-of- his life: The:- Frerch Oiarshp-aconstitfutlg the floewer of the Freneh flee *-were fired on. with d'amifle iadfdtst4u6t6n, by iritish vessels's t,hey tried to 'make theIr wiy iromi a Noth 'Africain 'port to Toulon. Britainf was' now al*neW and almost unarmed. For het immediate delive'rance' 'the' reled upon' the-chosen' band of her own young" en tiy5ng a few machines. Chtchilll nelthor' planned no"r directid the'Battle of Brittin on'whicbh the future: of human frteoim depended; l,ur'it was_ he who had- evoked and deplbyed the indomitable strcgth behind the British airmet which nvow inspired their un- sleeping fight against enormous odds. It was fitting. that he should stamp on men's minds the character and signi- ficance of this battle in the simplest of all his phrases: " Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." The bombing of London foflowed in September-with Churchill cheerfully calculating that " it would take 10 years at the present rate for 'half the houses of London to be demolished. After that. of course, pro- gress would be much slower." C:onduct of the War The organization through which every department of Government consciously worked under Churchill's superintend- ing eye and felt the drive of his person- ality was built up gradually in the light of experience.. When first constructed his administration was modelled on Lloyd George's War Cabinet, and of the Prime Minister's four colleagues.Mr. wohamboelain, Mr. Attlee, Mr. Green- _pOw, and Lord Halifax, only the last carried, as Foreign Secretary, the burden 'of heavy departmental responsibilities.. But three months later the intimate rela- tionihip already apparent between the issue of the war and the activities of the Ministry of Aircraft Production-itself one of Churchill's creations-led to the inclusion in the War Cabinet of its head. Lord Beaverbrook. As the war devel- oped the Prime Minister brought in the Ministers in charge of other departments most directly concerned with its conduct, 'so that in its later form the War Cabinet "had a membership of eight or nine, and included the Chancellor of the Exche- quer and the Ministrs' of Labour, Pro- duction, and Home Security. Gradually, too, Churchill worked out his functions as Minister of Defeace, a title which. he had assumed when he became Prime Minister. It was. never his intention to create a full-blown Ministry such as has now been established. His purpose was to give definition and authority to his transactions not' with the service Mint. sters who were members of his Govern- nient but with the Chiefs of Staff, and to tbis end he provided himself with a small technical staff headed by Generai (now Lord) Ismay. ,The system which Churchill created wvas emphatically personal in principle tnd was devised to give full scope both' to his military knowledge and to his vast departmental experience. It- worked because he was able to handle a'mass of details which would have overwhelmed any other man. It was equally personal' in its method of operation. 'Its timetable Was 8ovetued'by the Prime Minister's habits. Churchill's practice wasto go to' b-ed med sleep soiindly in the early after-' noon. When he had dressed again he .rought a refreshed mind to bear oti the immediate business of the day. -Exhi- larated by his contact with. practical difficulties, he went on to address him- sclf to questions of policy, regularly, called Cabinet meetings for 11 p.m., and, after they had' ended, continued for sohite time to pour out comment' and. sugestion to those of his associates who dould keep his hours. Nbt was he merely equal to his st1f-imposed tasks; as 'Mr. Asttlee said later, he set the pace. The war surveys for:which his return frotmn his journeys often provided the occasion rank among the outstanding nevCnts of his parliamentary career. World-wide in range and. profound in manttr,' they' at once informied and' inspired both the House and tbe coun- try. The richness of their content was enhanced by R delivery chatacteristic of their author. Churchill's voice was not impressive in volume. But it was wide m compass. In his loftiest moments iti somewhat metallic tones vibrated with passion, the more combative passages were given colour by the effec- tive use of the rising inflexion and the frequent assertions of high resolve were made resonant by the accompaniment, felt rather than heard, of a sort of bull- dog growl. Read over in the light of after events these speeches are notable for their masterly restraint They re- vealed much but they concealed more; of the great plans which filled his mind and with the execution of which he must have been busy up to the moment when he rose in his place not a hint was allowed to transpire. Campaign in Africa Italy's entry into the war had exercised. a-. decisive influence upon British strategy. Her geographical posi- tion combined.with her armed strength in all three elements enabled her to close th Mediterranean to aU except the mIost, heavily cbnvoyed traffic. The main line of Britain's Imperial com- iunnications was perforce diverted round Africa and the extension greatly added to the strain on the British mer- cantile marine. On all counts, therefore, it was essential to counter the Italian threat to the Suez Canal. It was with special satisfaction that Churchill in- formed the House of Commons of the ' cplopling blow " struck at the Italian Fleet in harbour at Taranto and he threw all his energies into the task of building up an efective strikiing force in the Middle East. He realized that though the war could not be won in the Mediterranean it could be lost there, and his sensitiveness to any threat in this quarter as well as'his eagerness to give aid.to a small and very gallant ally in- duced him to move troops from Africa to Greece when Germany struck her blow in the Balkins. The wisdom of this. decision may be questioned. The reduction of British strength in Africa and the necessity, which Churchill immediately recognized, of returning the Australian troops when Japan declared war, opened the way to the successes of Romnmel's Afrika Corps, whose for- midable military quality was not, and perhaps could not have been, foreseen. There Was less excuse. however, for illowin.g the lesson of Norway, that an army could. not maintain itsrif agalist hostile air supremacy, to be repeated in the Aetiean. It waS widely felt that (ritC thould.elther have been evacuated earlier or mote effectively held and its capture, after i tremendous German effort which came within an ace of failure,.pro'vi&dd the one occasion in the whole war when Churchill's strategic judgment was. seriously criticized by Parliatnent or public. . In.the summer of 1942, while Churchil was in Washington, Rommel launched the 'reatest of his attacks. The British tront.was driven in for hundreds of miles and the crowning shock came when Tobruk, which earlier had resisted a long 6ige, fell almost. without a fight. The blow waks softened by President Roose- svelt's irnmediate ofFer of American tanks to belp in retriving: the position, and Westminster ebhoed Washington by dtfeating a no-confidence motion by-475 to 25. Some'two months.later Churchill was hiMself in the desert, having taken a visit to Moscow in his stride, and there effected those changes' in the higher comrmand which launched both Lord Alexantder and Lord Montgomery -on :theik great careers. - -: ::- ; The decision to deploy American mili- tary strengh in Africa was thus sufli- ciently in line with Churchill's strategic thought for him to describe it as "per- haps the end of the beginning", but he was also at pains to make it clear that the plan was Roosevet's and that he bad beeu no more than the President's lieutenant. The two met at Casablanca early in 1943.and there proclaimed " un- conditional surrender " as their aim. TheY decided as a first step to attack what Churchill pungently described as " the soft under-belly of the Axis," and by the following September uncondi- tional surrendet had been made by such governmental authority as was left in Italy. ChurchiLllwas again in Washing- ton when he received the news of this compiete turn of fortune's wheel. But the Germans continued to turn the country into a battlefield and as " the rake of war"-1the phrase is again Churcblls-was drawn throughout the length of the peniisula, he did not con- ceal his pity for the Italian people. Pneumonia attacked him on his return to London after the Casablanca confer- ence and he suffered another attack towards the. end of 1943, but his deter- mined will to live pulled him through. From the first Churchill had looked forward to the eventual participation of the United States in the war. Deeply appreciative of the support, material as well as moral, given by the American Government while nominally neutral and determined that friction with Britain should not obstruct the evolution of American policy, he was sympathetic towards American plans for the more effective defence of the western hemi- sphere and was even prepared for some small cession of territory. President Roosevelt, however, asked no more than 99-year leases of land for naval and air bases, and in September, 1940, an agree- ment was concluded. The bases in New- foundland- and Bermuda were leased " freely and without consideration ", Britain thus aligning herself with Canada in treating the defence of North America as a matter of partnership. Six bases in the Caribbean were also leased in exchange for-50 destroyers from the United States navy. P-Pearl Harbour The Lend-Leise Act of March, 1941, and the Atlantic Charter of the follow- ing August carried the process further, and when in December Japan attacked at Pearl Harbour Churchill gave effect to his warning,:uttered a month earlier, that a British declaration of war would *follow "within the hour " . Six months before Pearl Harbour Churchill had triumphantly surmounted a severer test of his appreciation of the needs of war. No man had shown fiercer opposition to the Soviet Power in its revolutionary, phase, and though' time and the growth- of the German menace had modifed his judgment, he had been a party in 1939 to plans, happily found imprapticable, for the dispatch of an Ahglo-Frec&h expeditionary force to aid Finland in her war with Russia. Hitler's decision in June, 1941, thus con- fronted bim with a difficult choice. He made it without hesitation, and in the most dramatic of his broadcasts announced that every possible aid would be given- to the latest victim of German aggression. The-declaration had prompt results. .Early in July an Anglo-Soviet afgreement was signed in Moscow, and in the following month the two Gov- ernments sent troops into Persia to eradicate German influence and to secure the:use of the Trans-Persian rail. Way for the conveyance of supplies to Russia. The operation led in Septem- ber to the abdication of the Shah. Under his son and successor Persia signed a treaty with the allies. Meanwhile the American Government, which had fol- lowed these developments with sym- pathy, had in August itself signed an agreement with Russia, and on the joint suggestion of the President and Churchill a three-Power conference met in Moscow at the end of September. In the following May Mr. Molotov came to London and Anglo-Russian coopera- tion was rounded off by the signature of a treaty of alliance. Meanwhile 26 allied nations had signed a declaration committing them to fight to a finish against the Axis. The Grand Alliance was in being. Through Disaster to Victory With Churchill's efforts from the middle of 1941 onwards to establish unity of policy and action between Britain, Russia, and the United States his war Premiership entered upon its second phase, the first, that of prepara- tion for insular defence, having closed when Britain ceased to fight alone. At the beginning of 1942 this second phase was overlapped by the third in which British arms suffered what Churchill himself described as " the greatest disaster which our history records ". Thc Prime Minister was under no ilu- sions as to the probable consequences of Japan's entry into the war. The new eneny' was a first-class Power whose might the British Commonwealth, already engaged in a fight to the death with Germany and Italy, could not hope to meet on equal terms. But the Japanese pressed home their advantage with a success whose rapidity and extent exceeded all expectations. In December, 1941, the Prince of Wales and the Repulse were sunk in Malayan waters. Their flanks thus safeguarded the Japanese land forces advanced and com- pleted their conquest by the capture of Singapore at the end of February. The tale of misfortune was not yet conplete. Rangoon was occupied early in March, and with the evacuation of Mandalay the whole of Burma, which Churchill's father had added to the Empire, passed into enemy hands. Churchill firmly refused to allow any examination of the causes of these distressing events. The House of Com- mons endorsed this view by a vote of 464 to 1, but it is instructive for the estimate of Churchill's attitude towards public opinion to contrast his firmness in holding the veil drawn over the loss of an Empire in the Far East with his readi- ness to grant an-inquiry into the success- ful escape of the Scharnhorst,Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen from Brest into Ger- man waters which occurred a few days before the fall of Singapore. It is eqaltly instructive to note his disregard of the cry for "a second front now-" which began to be raised in the spring and summer of 1942 as the Germans thrust ever more deeply into Russia. Diepp was a final warning against erations on an inadequate scale and Curchill now flung himself into the elaborate preparations which occupied two full years and oonstitute the fourth phase of his Premiership. With the victories of Stalingrad and El Alamein towards the close of 1942 the "awful balance " of war began to incline towards the allies and another aspect-the fifth-of Churchill's activi. tis bem increasingly' prominet. Issues of reconstruction began to thrust themselves forward, though it was not until late in 1943, the year which saw the establishment of Unrra and the pre- liminaries to the creation of Food and Agriculture Organization, that vital decisions were reaohed. After a conference of Foreign Secretaries at Moscow in October had cleared the ground and itself reached important conclusions as to the future organization of Europe, Churchill and Roosevelt met General Chiang Kai-shek at Cairo in November and there agreed to strip Japan of all her conquests during the past 50 years President and Prime Minister then ilew to Tehran, where they met StalinL Ihe txree statesmen declared their resolve to conclude a peace which would - banish the scourge and terror of war for many genera- tions" and their. readiness to welcome all freedomiloving pooples " into a world family of democratic nations". There was no meeting of the Big Three in 1944, But Churchfll's many ourneys, apart from visits to the front, took him' to Quebec in September to concert plans with Roosevelt, to Mos- cow in Octobcr to seel; a solution of the Poli difficulty, and to Athens at Christ- mas in an effort to bring toleration and decency backinto Greek public life. Churchill's ceaseless journeyings be- tween 1941 and 1945 serve to emphasize that if the war was won by the collaboration of the three great Powers, he was the architect of their cooperation. He built the Grand Aliance and hdd it together. The most vital of all the great Power meetings came in February, 1945, at Yalta. Seeds of Later Problenu At that conference the Alies con- certed their plans for the final assault on Germany, settled the terms on which Russia should enter the war against Japan, and sought agreement about a defeated Germany and about the future of the United Nations Organization. Many of the problems which later beset the world have been traced in their origins to Yalta. But references in pub- lished memoirs and the American version of the proceedings pubished 10 years later all bear witness to the prescience and grasp of realities Churchi%l brought to the conference table. Roose- velt, enfeebled by the great strain of his office and within -two months of his death, believed that he could "handle " Stalin and took an optimistic view of his trustworthiness. Churchill bad a juster appreciation of the uses Russia would make of the great power and opportuni- ties she possessed. His ideas on the settlement of Europe displayed an altogether deeper sense of history. Deprived this time of the Presidentis solid support in negotiation, and placing allied unity first among the objects to be achieved, he was obliged to acquiece in decisions about which he expressed deep misgivings. Berlin and Prague In the final throes of Germany's defeat Churchill saw more clearly than ever the importance of thrusting as far eastwards as possible before tle Rus- sian armies should be drawn into the vacuum of central Europe.' He pressed this view upon Roosevelt, Mr. Truman who succeeded him in 'April, 1945, and Geteral Eisenhoweri who cammanded the allied armies on the western front. 'Particularly he urged that our troops should advance to Berlin and Prague when. these' capitals. camoe wvithia their 1951. Reunited with old comrades on the occasion of the EI Alamein gathering in London. April 4, 15 On:,0 the e of Sir as Here, in two words, was tho crystallization. The phrase, the "iron curtain" only summarized a cogent argument, but it vividly painted the background against which all thinking about foreign policy had to be done. From this followed Churchill's three important conclusions: that there should be a close association between Britain and the United States-provid- ing "'no quivering, precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure"; that "the 1953. The National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations conference at Margate. secret knowledge or experience of the atomic bombb" should remain largely in American hands; and that "the safety of oie world requires a new unity in Europe from which no. nation should be permanently outcast" ' This last point was elaborated in a speech which he delivered at Zlrich University on September 19,' 1946. ".What is the sovereign remedy ", he asked, " for the tragedy of Europe ? It is to re-create the European family, or as much of it as we can. . We must build a kind 'of United States of Europe." There followed another forward-looking ProposaL "I am now going to say some- thing that 'will astonish you. The first step in the re-creation of the European family must be a partnership between France and Germany. In this way only can France recover the moral leadership of Europe. . . . The structure of the United States of Europe, if'well and truly built, will be'such'as to make the material 'strength of' a single State less important."? A United States of Europe -".or whatever nam'e or form it may take "-to include "a spiritually great Germany"; the seeds of future policy were being sown. The next time Churchill spoke in a' foreign affairs debate in the House of Commons (October, 1946) he vas able to say, with perfect truth, that "what I' said at Fulton has been outpaced 'and over- passed by the movement of events and by'the movement of American'opinion. If I were to make that speech at the pre- sent time and in'the same place, it would attract no particular 'attention."" 'Throughout 1947 and 1948 Churchill devoted much of his energy to' the con- cept of 'a United Europe. He had no very clear idea, of what he meant or in- tend&e The differences between federa- tion and confederation baffled and did not particularly-interest him. *But much of the criticism of his role in these years was misplaced. Churchill was not pri- marily concerned with building a politi- cal structure. He himself said at a United Europe -meeting at the Albert Hall on May 14, 1947, "We are not acting in the field of force, but in the domain' of opinion ". -And he'went on: " It is not for us at this stage to attempt to define -or prescribe the structure of constitu- tions. We oursveles arc-tontent, in the But later in the debate when Mr. Bevan taunted him with being prevented from holding such a conference by the Uinited States, Churchill rose to explain the reasons for delay. He would have liked, he said, to have seen a conference shortly after Malenkov took power and he had prepared to go over to see Presi- dent Eisenhower to arrange for the invi- tation. " However, I was struck down by a very sudden illness which paralysed me completely physically, and I had to put it all off, and it was not found pos- sible to persuade President Eisenhower to join in that process." He went on to speak of the hopes he had entertained of a dual meeting at Stockholm or some like neutral place. " But then the Soviet Government began a very elaborate pro- cess of trying to stop the ratification of E.D.C., which I thought had been more or less accepted . . . and so all this other matter has come up now and stood in the way of further general talks." Domestic Polic'y Through all the diplomatic activity of the autumn of 1954 which followed the French Assembly's rejection of - the European Defence Community treaty, Churchill remained in the background. It was his Foreign Secretary who described and executed British policy and who announced the Government's historic decision, reversing the policy of ages, to commit troops to the Continent for a period of some 50 years. And it was Sir Anthony Eden who went to Geneva the following sumnmer for the long-awaited conference of heads of state. Churchill's record. in domestic affairs during the Parliament of 1951 is less im- pressive. This is partly accounted for by the policy of his Government, which was to repair the national economy and grant a respite from 'Major legislation, and partly by his preoccupation with the great questions that lay unsettled be- tween the nations. In the more contro- versial domestic debates it was not he but his subordinate Ministers who appeared in the front line. Churchill himself, in contrast to his tactics while in opposi- tion after 1945, exerted his parliamen- tary talents in the mitigation of iparty time. His resignation of the office of Primne Minister had long been preceded by rumour, and when it'came on April 5, 1955, 'it unhappily coincided with a strike in offices of the London national newspapers which prevented their pub- lication. Yet thepublic did not need to be reminded in order to be aware that thetlast page was turned on one of the greatest chapters of British statesman- ship. Preferring to the highest honours which might have been''bestowed upon him to remain a private member of the House of Commons, he presented him- self again to the leotors of Woodford, as he did once more in 1959. Though he was often to be seen in the chamber 'of the House during these last' years, he took no further part in its debates: 'In the summer of 1962 he fell and frctIured a thigh bone. About 12 months later he announced that he would not seek reelection in- the next Parliament. On July 28, 1964; shortly before the-dissolu- tion of Parliament, the House of Commons accorded him the rare honour of passing a motion "putting on record its unbounded admiration and gratitude for his services to Parliament, to the nation and to the world... ." He did not take hiis seat in the Chamber that day. 'lhe motion was brought to him by the party leaders at his home at Hyde Park Gate. His ninetieth birthday last year was the occasion of widespread celebration. A glowing loyalty to the Monarchy, which was fed by the romantic strain in Churchill's nature, was matched 'by a warm personal regard for the Sover- eigns whom he served. His attachment to George VI was especially marked, and can be measured by the fact that he deferred to the King's wish that he should not, as he had planned and as he dearly wanted to, embark in a warship on D day to observe the bombardment of the Normandy coast. The panegyric which he broadcast the night after. King George's-death was deeply moving in its sincerity. For similar. reasons 'the Knighthood of the Garter, conferred on him by Queen Elizabeth just before her coronation, was a source of particular gratification to him. He'had declined the same honour at the hands of her first instance, to present the idea of United Europe . .. as a moral, cultural and spiritual conception to whivh all can rally.... It is for us to lay the founda- tion, to create the atmosphere and give the driving impulsion." NegotiationfromStrength When, at the Congress of Europe in May, 1948, he noticed that " 16 Euro- pean States are now associated for econonic purposes; five have entered into close economic and military rela- tioliship ", he could not hide the impli- cation that these achievements owed something to the general concept of a United Europe. They certainly owed much to his own initiative. At the back of Churchill's ideas from Fulton on- wards was the belief in negotiation from a position of strength. It was possible to deal with the Russians he said in March of 1949, "only by having superior .force on your side on the matter in question; and they must be con- -vinced that you will use-you will not hesitate to use-these forces, jf neces- sary, i the most ruthless manner ". He found encouragement in the fact that " our forces are getting stronger, actually and relatively, than they were a year ago It was because of this slowly changing balance of power that in February, 1950, he threw out " the idea of another talk with Soviet Russia upon the highest level ". The suggestion was made at the end of an election speech at Edin- burgh and was immediately dismissed as a "stunt". At the time it seemed, even to the non-partisan, to offer few real hopes. But the idea was a natural development of his Fulton argument and not a contradiction of it. At intervals throughout the next five years the idea of " talks at the summit " recurred in Churchill's foreign policy speeches. It was taken up by the Opposition, and he was increasingly criticized for delay in bringing a meeting about. His explanation came at an unexpected moment. It was in the course of a debate on the White Paper on Defence in March, 1955. Churchill had opened the debate with a speech which can be rated among his great parlia- mentary orations. He held a packed House in silence while he expounded his appreciation of the world situation which had determined the Government to press forward with the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb and the means of its delivery. On its deterrent power he founded his hopes for peace. If the ability and determination to use the weapon in self-defence were well under- stood on both sides war might be averted. "That is why", he said, "I have hoped for a long time for a top- level conference where these matters can be put plainly and bluntly. . . . Then it might well be that, by a process of sublime irony, we shall have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror and survival the twin brother of annihilation." His eightieth birthday on November 30, 1954, found him still in office and-in full control. The occasion drewJforth tributes from his countrymen and from abroad of such number and warmth as have never been accorded to any English statesman before. Both Houses of Par. liament met in Westminster Hall to pre- sent him with gifts. It was an occasion with no parallel. This was perhaps the climax of the public honour paid him during his life- position was first achieved, it might be that the reunification of Germany would be more easily effected. In Bonn the reaction was chilly to this strategy, which did not accord with the rigorous views there held about the steps by which reunification should be accomplished. During the Suez crisis Churchill, to the disappointment of many, was silent except for two letters to his constituents. in which he intimated that the Govern- ment's actions had his full support. He used his leisure to work at the long-projected History of the Englishi Speaking Peoples in four volumes. Pro- fessional historians found much to cavil at, in spite of the assistance Churchill had from some of their number. But the public recognized in it a master hand of historical narrative, a shrewd and appreciative judgment of magnanimity. and an endearing preference for the good old stories, however " tiresome investigators" might have undermined themn. Two of his private pursuits in parti- cular excited public interest-his horse- racing and his painting. He became a racehorse owner late in life. His racing colours were registered in 1949 and two mnonths later he won his first race with Colonist II. It was a popular victory. His taste for painting was of much longer standing. He began during en- forced inactivity after his removal from the Admiralty in 1915. Four years later' he exhibited a portrait at an exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. But it was landscapes that he grew to prefer. "Audacity ", he wrote, "is a very great part of the art of painting." And his decisive. boldly coloured, impressionistic works became taniliar at the Royal Academy. His election to that body as Royal Academi- cian Extraordinary was an honour he parficularly relished, and-his speeches at the annual banquets added much to the gaiety of the occasion. An exhibition of 62 of his paintings held at Burling- ton House in the summer of 1959 brought more than 140,000 visitors. The honours that crowded upon him towards the end of his life are far too numerous to list. First in esteem was his honorary citizenship of the United States of America, which was declared by proclamation at a ceremony at the White House on April 9. 1963-an honour that has been bestowed on no one else in the history of the'union. In 1958 he was decorated by General de Gaulle with the Cross of Liberation. He was made Grand Seigneur of the Com- pany of Adventurers of England into Hudson's Bay; he was the first non- American to receive the Freedom Award; he was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Grand Master of the Primrose League; he held honorary degrees at more than 20 universities and was a freeman of some 50 towns and cities from Thebes and Cap d'Ail to Harrow. Among the minor honours in which he took special delight was the annual invitation to song night at Harrow School. Hee married, as recorded earlier, Clementine, daughter of Colonel Sir Henry M. Hozier and Lady Blanche Ogilvy, and granddaughter of the seventh Earl of Airlie. From then on, ,he wrote in My Early Life, they " lived happily ever afterwards". That judg- ment, given in 1930, was not to be dis- turbed by time. 'Lady Churchill added grace and harmony to innumerable occasions in Sir Winston's public life, and made for him a secure and happy thome at Chartwell. Three children of the' marriage survive: Mr. Randolph Churchill; Miss Sarah Churchill, the actress; and Mary, wife of Mr. Christo- rher Soames, M.P. Diana, formerly wife, of Mr. Duncan Sandys, M.P., died in 1963. The proposal was made by Harold Laski in 1944 that a fund should be raised in token of'the'nation's gratitude to its Prime Minister. In thanking Laski. Churchill remarked that things of that kind were better left until a man is dead. "If, however ", he added, "when I am dead people think of commeemorating my services,. I shoulud likce to think that fa park was made forf the children' of -London's poor on the south bank o'f the Thames, where-^they have suffered so grimly from the Hlun ".;rIt SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL DIES TH IE GREATEST ENGLISHMIAN -- OF. -;HIS 1 TIM1E ,-. WORLD LEADER IN WAR AND PEACE

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Военные некрологи из британских газет

GENERAL H. GUDERIAN

CREATOR AND LEADER OF THE PANZERS

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1954-05-17-08-015&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1954-05-17-08

General Heinz Guderian, who had one of the most creative military minds of the 1939-45 War, has died at Fussen, in Bavaria, at the age of 65. . He was born at Kulm, in west Prussia, late'r the Polish " Corridor," in 1888, the son of an army officer. Kurt Schumacher, the late Socialist Democrat leader, came from the same small town, and though Guderian was older the two men knew each other from youth. His father expressed the wish that he should become an officer and he was sent, with his brother, to the Karlsruhe cadet school in Baden. From there he was later transferred to the chief cadet school at Gross-Lichterfelde, near Berlin. During the 1914-18 War his career alter- nated between regimental and staff duties, and by 1922 he had a wide knowledge of the army and its organization which stood him in good stead when he came to build up a formidable new arm of the service. It was Hitler, in the 1930s, who gave him the opportunity to put into practice the idea of a mobile armoured army which will stand as his contribution to the theory of war. Other men had the same idea, or a similar one: General Fuller. General Martel, and Captain Liddell Hart in Britain, and General de Gaulle in France, to all of whom he made acknowledgment. Some are apt to say, therefore, that he owes his place in military history merely to the fact that he alone found a political ruler to back him. But there was more to it than that. He joined to his creative imagination a dynamic energy and opportunism. As chief of staff to the inspectorate of motorized troops and later as chief of staff to the armoured troops command, he was given the authority and the resources to build up a powerful mobile armoured force. Then, in 1938, he was ap- pointed chief of mobile troops and promoted general of Panzer troops, and within a year could test his new model army in battle- in the invasion of Poland. The accuracy of his conception was immediately proved by the speed with which he broke through the Polish " Corridor " and drove through Wizna to Brest. But it was the campaign in the west which was his most remarkable achievement. Here his unorthodox method of leading his armoured and motorized forces-giving them the " green light to the very end of the road " -was as successful as the original conception. In the Russian campaign the Panzer army was at first even more successful. But soon they had to contend with a new and dangerous enemy-space and depth. " The very end of the road " was now a very long way away. Moscow did not fall-and he fell out of favour. When he was finally reinstated, after the conspiracy of July 20, in which he had no part. he was given the wholly unsuitable post of Chief of Staff, in which his fighting qualities could not help him. This last phase of the war was the phase, too, through which it was difficult for a high German officer to pass with moral credit, unless with risk to his life. He remained attached to Hitler, though not without hesitation and doubts, for which he had to pay in the last months of violence and defeat with utterances which did him no credit. Yet it must be said that he had dared to oppose Hitler when his sense of decent soldierly behaviour was affronted. As his volume of recollections, Panzer Leader, showed, he was a typical product of his Prussian traditions. He never pretended to have conspired against Hitler or to have quarrelled with him, except to prevent him making mistakes. But the German general who in 1944 ext6rted from Hitler permission to withdraw two S.S. brigades which had committed monstrous atrocities in Warsaw- and it was not an isolated act-deserves the tribute as well as the blame for the qualities nourished by his upbringing and his back- ground. GENERAL H. GUDERIAN CREATOR AND LEADER OF THE PANZERS

Sir Basil Liddell Hart

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1970-01-30-12-012&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1970-01-30-12

Sir Basil Liddell Hart died yesterday at the age of 74. Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, as he was known for much of his life. was the foremost military critic in Britain and probably in the world between the wars. While he had not the imaginative range of the other outstanding military writer of his day, Major- General J. F. C. Fuller, he had the intellectual range of a first- class scholar and in the narrower field of tactics, weapons, military training and organization, he was without equal. The basic changes in mechanized warfare to which the Army owed much of its eventual success in the Second World War had all been ad- vocated by Liddell Hart in the 1930s. His strength as a military critic came perhaps from his belief in the Clinese proverb, - Doubt is the beginning of wisdom ". He investi- gated every conceivable doubt be- fore he made up his mind, so that if he sometimes rode a good idea to death he seldom espoused a bad one. His ideas were always tested against the precedents of military history, of which he had a formid- able knowledge, and he held that the conditions of the next war could often be foretold from a really objective study of the last. The tragedy was that it was left to the Germans to vindicate his ideas. General Guderian, who first put his ideas to the test in France in 1940, never hid his debt to Liddell Hart as the " pioneer of a new type of warfare on the greatest scale ". Nor did Rommel, who wrote in 1942 that the British would have avoided most of their defeats if they had paid more attention to Liddell Hart's teachings. The success of his theories contrasts oddly with this failure to get them accepted. Like many reformers he did not see that the reforms themselves were only half the battle. The more he was in the right the more he annoyed the soldiers at the top who alone had the power to put them into effect. Much of this bitterness at what in his Memoirs he calls " the grooved ways of orthodoxy " evaporated after the war and there can be few senior Army officers today who have not been influenced by his teachings. Basil Henry Liddea Hart was born in October 1895, in Paris, and educated at St Paul's and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was reading history when the First World War broke out He was commissioned in 1914 in The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and served at Ypres and on the Somme as a company commander. As with so many thoughtful sol- diersof his generation.the slaughter of the Somnme, and in particular the success of an attack at Mametz Wood which revived the use of surprise, strongly influenced the cast of his mind in later life. The aim of nearly aU his tactical think- ing thereafter was to outwit the enemy, preferably by a paralysing combination of surprise and mobility, and to avoid head-on collisions that were bound to lead to carnage. He shared the ideal of Marshal Saxe. " that connoisseur of the art of war" as he described him. who argued that a reallv able general might win a campaign without ever fighting a battle at alL The immediate outcome of his experiences was a book on the Sonme offensive. written while he was recovering from wounds in 1916, and his evolution of battle drill. The latter was adopted by the War Office after the war but later fell into disuse. Its value was rediscovered in 1940. and battle drill became a leading feature of all Army trairing in the Second World War. After the war, at the age of 24. he was asked by General Sir Ivor Maxse to re-draft the Infantry Training Manual. Some of his innovations were removed by the War Office. but with General Maxse's backing he made consider- able changes in the offical doc- trine. His draft of the manual included 'what he named the "expanding torrent" method of attack, which was a development of the infiltration tactics intro- duced in 1917-18. This was taken up eagerly by the Germans a decade later. and became the key pattern of the Germnan Blitzkrieg m 1940. In 1924 Liddell Hart was selected for the Royal Tank Corps. but was found unfit for general service and placed on half pay. He retired from the Army in 1927. In 1925 he had written an essay called ' The Napoleonic Fallacy" Later expanded in his book Paris or the Future of War, which was the first chaUenge to the Napoleonic doctrine, then univer- sally accepted, of total war. He argued that the war aim of a nation should be " to subdue the enemys will to resist, with the least possible human and economic loss to itself", and that the destruction of the enemy's armed forces was therefore only a means towards the real ob- jective, and not necessarily an inevitable or infallible means at that. The essay is an outstanding example of his qualities of intel- lectual drive, courage, and clarity of argument. His career as a military wrlter began at this time, first as military correspondent for The Daily Tele- graph, after-the death of Colon.l Repington. In 1934, when the Government launched its rearma- ment programme, he was appointed military correspondent of The Times and principal adviser on defence. He conducted a campaign in The Times for the oloser coordination of defence, urging the appointment of a Minister of Defence with a combined staff drawn from all three Services. The Government did appoint a Minister for the Co- ordination of Defence. with a small staff. in 1936. but this felD far short of what had been advo- cated by The Times_ Much his most important work between the wars. however. was his constant advocacy of mechaniza. tion. His enthusiasm for the tank began in a way that was char- acteristic of his open-mindedness. when he went to the War Office to persuade Maior-Gencral J. F. C. Fuller that a certain infantry manoeuvre could defeat tanks. After half an hour's conversation he saw that he was wrong, and from that moment never wavered in his belief that armour was the key to future war. He realized that the tank, misused in the First World War. promised the soldier flexibility by allowing him to vary the direction of attack with great rapidity, and mobilitv by enabling him to penetrate behind the enemy's front and cut his vital arteries of supply. Along with the handful of soldiers who were the pioneers of armoured warfare, including FuUer. Hobart. Martel. Lindsay, Broad and Pile. Liddell Hart expounded the new doctrine in all its aspects. He had been consulted about the creations of the Experi- mental Mechanized Force in 1927. and he continually pressed the potential value of night assaults. As early as 1932 he suggested the idea of creating artificial moonlight to help the exploitation of night attacks, which came to fruition only in the last phase of the war. He was also one of the chief advocates of armoured personnel- carriers to enable the infantry to keep up with the armour in the pursuit, which enormously en- larged the scope of infantry tactics in the war. But the Germans were apter pupils than the British. In his history The Tanks (probably his finest book) he described with understandable bitterness the op- position of much of the Army. particularly the Cavalry, to the tank. and their longing to get back to " real soldiering " with horses. As he wrote in 1933, the Army's expenditure on horsed cavalry could not be justified unless the War Office had a scheme for breeding bullet-proof horses. Dis- creditable and stupid though this opposition was later shown to be, the advocates of the tank probably contributed to it by their own aipparent fanaticism. To Liddell Hart the need for mechanization was so self-evident that he under- estimated the need for tact and understanaing in dealing with his opponents at the War Office. He was a comnplex man who comnbined an extraordinary appetite for creative aid critical thinking with a passionate desire for fame and approbation that anounted to vanity. It was possibly this that led him to make the mnistake of becoming personal adviser to Hore-Belisha. the new Secretary of State for War. in 1937. Had the collaboration been strictly sub-rosa it might have been of the greatest value, for the changes he urged were much needed: the formation of several more annoured divis, ions, for instance, the complete mechanization of the infantry divi- sions, and the expansion of our anti-airccaft forces under a single command. But his position as an eminence grise was so blatant and his relations with the soldiers at the top so unfortunate, that hacklea were raised on all sides, until the War Minister and his Cl.G.S (:Lord Gort) ceased to be on speak- ing terms with each other. The partnership with Hore- Belisba failed to push through his cherished reforms, and he with- drew from it amicably in the sum- mer of 1938. But he was never able to forget the failure. and though he was much more philo- sophical about it after the war he stiU regarded himself as a prophet without honour in his own country. His inmmediate intention on end- ing the partnership was to apply the spur of pubEc criticism, as Military Correspondent- of The Times, to further Hore-Belisba's efforts at the War Office. His health, however. was not good. and there was a difference of opinion over the British Govern- ments's guarantee to Poland, which The Times endorsed but vbi,ich he regarded as impossible of fulfil- ment and as likely to precipitate war when the country's defences were stiU unprepared. He resigned from The Times in 1939. Though much of his most impor- tant work was in the form of news- pgk,er articles, the media most con- genial to him were books. memo- randa and letters. Throughout his life he was an indefatigpble corre- spondent and kept a vast collection of indexed documents and papers. The result was that few correspond- ents ever got the better of him in print, where he made his points far more effectively than in conversa- tion. He was seldom willing to com- mit himself to an opinion until he had mastered aill asAects of the par- ticular subject, so that when he fin- ally came to out it on paper, even as journalist, he could hardly bear to write less than two columns. He could neveTtheless turn his hand to more popular jouinlism. and wrote regular war commentaries for the Daily Mail from 1941 until the end of the war. His interests were by no means limited to nmlitary studies. He was keen on nearly all games. and began his journalistic career as Lawn Tennis Correspondent of the Man- chester Guardian. At his prep school he developed a gooy form of bowling which umdenned op- posing schools until a new head- master preferred defeat to uo- oilhodoxy, and in later life he was a fiendish exponent of croquet After the war he spent much time writing his history of the tanks in the Second World War. (Altogether. he was the author of some 30 books.) He thought much about the advent of nuclear weapons. which appalled him, and the possibility of unima,inable carnage if there were a head-on collision between nuclear powers. Though highly sceptical of the credibility of nuclear threats a, a deterrent, he was equally scepti- cal about the chances of limitimn an atomic conflict once it started. He remained convinced that the only hope for the west in war would be to refrain from initiating the use of nuclear weapons and that the inherent - advantages of defence over attack would materially help to redress the balance against a numerically superior aggressor. It was natural that he should pre- fer a conventional strategy, because nuclear weapons. if used. threaten- ed to negate all that he had stood for. He was affronted by brute force in any form. for to him, as to Marshal Saxe. war was above all an art In 1965 he published two vol- umes of menoirs: direct. muscular persuasively argued and firmly stamped with the Liddell Hart im press they threw a sharp light on the military history of our times As one critic remarked, they establisbed beyond all doubt the superiority of the pen over the sword. In 1969, he delivered his long awaited one volume history of the Second World War after 22 years work to his publishers. SIR BASIL LIDDELL HART Foremost military critic between wars

Major-General J. F. C. Fuller

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Major-General John Frederick Charles Fuller, C.B., C.B.E., D.S.O.- " Boney " to the Army, who died yester- day at Falmouth at the age of 87, was a soldier of original and unorthodox type. Professionally, his outstanding contribu- tion was to armoured warfare in the First World War, but he will be longer remem- bered as a writer. Had he been less testy and capricious his influence might have been greater than it was, since he would always have been arresting. It was, how- ever, considerable and, ironically, most of all in Germany, where it helped to shape commanders and ideas prominent in the Second World War. His favourite general was probably the Federal leader in the American Civil War. Ulysses S. Grant. to whom he devoted a volume and whom IJi iI1IKCU With Lee in another. In the second his prejudice, his major fault, especially if com- bined with interpre- tation, appears all too obviousiv: while Grant can hardly put a foot wrong lee behaves on occasion like a fool. His virtues were manifold. He - went imto history " to cx- pl0t an(d expound his ideas, and this he did magnificently. His critical armoury was superb; his gift of description very good; his understanding of character shrewd-except when anger raised smoke between him and his subject. l-e was one of the most eminent of modern military writers, if not the most. One quality he did not profess: kindliness in his ink. In the Second World War, when the tide had well turned, his journalism fell off; " Boney " had no more tops to whip. Over his later work, includ- ing the fine three-volume work on decisive battles, there broods something loftier and sadder than the earlier acerbity: dismay and horror, fear lest the world should be moving into the grip of a single global tyranny. Here his many-sided high- mindedness took another form, that of fierce denunciation of mass slaughter. He loathed brutality. His most damning verdict was: " He is a thug ". One of his last published books was Tlhe Generalslzip of Alexander the Great, an amazing effort on the part of a man who had no Greek, makes fascinating reading and was kindly received. He was born at Chichester, the son of the Reverend A. Fuller, on September 1. 1878, and educated in Switzerland and at Malvern before entering Sandhurst. In August, 1898, he was commissioned in The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and embarked for South Africa ,with the Ist Battalion before the end of 1899. There he served throughout the war, for the last six months as intelligence officer with native scouts. He was promoted to captain in June, 1905. After Volunteer and Territorial adjutancies and a spell of regimental duty, he passed into the Staff College in 1913 and was still a student at the outbreak of war ini August. 1914. His service began with junior administra- tive and staff appointments at home, and he did not go overseas until July, 1915, when he became G.S.O.3 on the staff of the VII Corps in France. He received his majority in September of that year. In February. 1916, he went to the 37th Division as G.S.0.2 and in July to the headquarters of the III Corps in the same capacity. At the end of the year he became G.S.O.2 of the Tank Corps, then camouflaged under the name of Heavy Section, Machine-Gun Corps, and devoted himself to tank organi- zation and tactical training. He was in no sense one of the parents of the tank and had not even seen one before August, 1916, but was now a member of a remark- able group of relatively junior staff officers. active, intelligent, and far-sighted, who accomplished great work in the cause of the new weapon. Intellectually, he may have been the foremost. Without under- estimating the value of the tank in flatten- ing wire obstacles, he regarded it as above all a moral weapon, as it became. TRIUMPH OF THE TANK In April, 1917, he was appointed G.S.O.I. In July, 1918, he went to the War Office as Deputy Director of Staff Duties in a special tanks section. He held that appointment for four years, the period of the triumph of the tank in war and the ex- periments in mechanization in the postwar Army. For services during the war he received the D.S.O. in 1917, the brevet of lieutenant-colonel in January, 1918, and the brevet of Colonel a year later, and was twice mentioned in dispatches. He reached the substantive rank of Colonel in August, 1920. In January, 1923, Fuller came from half- pay to be chief instructor at the Staff College, where he spent three well-filled years. In February, 1926. he was selected by Sir George (later Lord) Milne, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, as Military Assistant. In this promising appointment he was, however. deeply disappointed because, largely owing to financial restric- tions, the drastic changes in weapons and equipment necessary for the creation of a mechanized army such as he envisaged were not forthcoming. In April, 1927, he became G.S.O.I at Aldershot. and then commanded brigades on the Rhine and at Catterick. In September, 1930, he was promoted Major-General. However, fie rather too scornfully refused the command of the Bombay District, was not again em- ployed, and retired in December, 1933. He had been created C.B.E. in 1926 and C.B. in 1930. In 1935-36 he spent some months of the Abyssinian War with Italian forces. He was now in an unhappy phase of flirtation with Fascism, which seems to have been due to high-mindedness having taken a wrong turning. Thenceforward for another generation books came steadily from his pen. Nearly, all were historical, but he showed how brilliant he could be theoreti- cally in On Future IYarfare, in parts astounding as a vision of what was to come. Fuller married Sonia, daughter of Dr. Karnatzki. of Warsaw, in 1906. He leaves no children. MAJOR-GENERAL J. F. C. FULLER HISTORIAN AND INFLUENTIAL MILITARY THINKER

Field Marshal Kesselring

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Field Marshal Kesselring, one of the ablest German generals of the Second World War, died on Saturday at Bad Nauheim at the age of 74. His Blitz- krieg methods in Poland and his long, stubborn campaign in Italy showed that he possessed, rarely among mii"try corn- manders. an equal understanding of the command of air and land forces. Albert Kessehring was born on Novem- ber 30. 1885. of a middle-class familvy and was commissioned in a Bavarian artillery regiment in 1906. He served in the First World War, reachins the rank of captain. and was quickly pro- moted in the post- war Wehrrnacht. He served as a major in the DePartment of the Defence Ministry responsiblc for train- ing, and as a lieu- tenant-colonel at Army headquarters. Under Hitler he was promoted in 1935 to major-general and transferred to the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe was not then the effective w4'eapon it later proved to be, and Kessel- ring was given much of the credit for its- !bigh state of training He was responsible for many of its operations in the early phases of the war when aircraft and armour combined to make Blitzkrieg a terrifying and effective weapon. In the Polish cam- paign he commanded the First Air Fleet, and under his leadership the air attacks against Norway and on the westem front Were mounted. He was promoted to field marshal for these successes. and in 1942 assumed command of air operations in the Mediterranean and Africa. He took over the armies in Italy in 1943. wherc he fought a bitter defensive cam- paign, and in March 1945 replaced von Rundstedt as Oberbefeblshaber West and assumed command of all forces on the westem front. When the Soviet Army broke through south of lBerlin his command was extended to all forces south of the break- through. He surrendered to the American armies on May 6, 1945. Kesselring was held with the other Field Marshals in Dachau, and in the following year was extradited to Italy to face charges of responsibility for the murder of 335 Italian civilians and issuing orders for the shooting of civilians as reprisals against partisan activities. He was found Guilty by a British military court in Venice and sen- tenced to death, though it was said in evi- dence that it was Field Marshal Lord Alexander's opinion that Kesselring had fought fairly. The sentence was deplored by some of those who had fought against him, and was commuted to life imprison- ment. He was released in 1952, and after- wards became the president of the ex-service men's association, Stahlhelm. FIELD MARSHAL KESSELRING -H - THE ENEMY IN ITALY

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Военные некрологи из британских газет

Field Marshal Von Manstein

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Field-Marshal Erikh von Manstein, one of the outstanding soldiers of thet 9cond World ofardied on Sunday it the age *of 85. 'His influence aXid effect came from powers of iiI4, a6d,depth of knowledge ritpet thin by gejner4tihg an flettding cur- rent among -thie - troops or ".putting over,, hia _p'ers&nality. Ice-cold in maniae ,lthodgh with strong emotions' uindeirneath, he exercised coffifi*hd tore in the style of Moltke than- 6f Rapoleon and - those whb cultivate the Napoleonic touch. Tie range and versatility of -Maxisteih's ability was shown in the'wi;y that, after being trained as- -an infantry- man, and then. becoming. pre. eminent as a staff Planner, h'e proved a brilliant, and thrusting armoured corjss- conimander in his first test run-With mechan. ized troops. Inhis.next bit test he proved equally successful in directing the -iegetattack on a fortress. By the variety of his exPerience and qualities he was exceptionally well equipped for high command Erich von Manstein was-born on November 24, 1887 the tenth child of his parentS ifis original surname was von Lewmnski, but his parents agreed to his adop- tion by a childlems aunt who had married a von Manstein. Both families had - long-standing military traditionsa,4d 16 of the boy's immediate. fbrebears had been generals; in: Prussian or Russian service. After leaving a cadet school' inii1906, he was comnmissioned into the 3rd Regi- ment of Foot GuaRtds. Badly wounded in the.autuinp of 1914, he was given a staff post on recovery, and made his mark in a series of such appdintments on the'Easterns Western, and Balkan fr6nts. After the waf 1he- was taken into the Reichswehirj and by, 1935 he had risen -to. be:-head of the operations section of the General Staff, while the next-year he was advanced to' Obeirquartier. ineister 1-the deputy to; the Chief of the General Staff, then General Beck. Early in 1938,. when Fritsch was dismissed from the post of Army Conmmaihder-in-Chief, Manstein was sent away to com- mand a division, having come to be regarded in 'Nazi circles as an obstacle to the- extensionr of their influence in -the- Army. But on mobilization, in 1939 he was ,made Chief of Staff of Rundstedt's Army Group, which played the decisive role in,the Polish -campaign.. He then moved with Runditedt to the Western Front, and there soon began'to advocate a change in the' plan for the rbming offen- sive. He urged that the main thrust, with the balk of the armoured forces, t should be shifted from the r-ight wing in the Belgian plain tothe hilly and wooded Ardennes-as'-the line of least expectatibn. His per- sistence in pressing- for the change of plan deprived him of a hand in directing -it, for he was honourably pushed. ou6t of the way by promotion to command a reserve corps, of'idfantry, just before the new plan wxas adopted under Hitler's -pressure-after heating Manstein's arguments. In the crucial -'opening stage of the offensive, wincl. cut off the Allies' left wirg and trapped it on the Channe1 coast, Man. stein's corps merely had a fol- low-on part. But jih the second and final stage it played a bigger role. Under his dynakic leader- ship, his infantiry pushed on so fast on foot that they, raced the armoured corp's ini the- drive southward across thie Somme and the Seine to theLoire. '' When the German plan of in- vading England was, discarded in favour of an attack. on Russia, Manstein was g;ven ' the com- mand of an armoured corps. With it he made one' of the quickest and deepest thrusts of the opening stag'e, from East Prussia to the Dviria, fiearly 200 miles, within four days. - Pro- moted to command the. Eleventh Army in the south, lie forced an entry into the, Crimeaji penin- sula by breaking through the fortified Perekopl.sthmus, -and in the summer of 1942 further proved his mastery of siege war- fare technique by capturing the famous fortress df. Sebastopol, the key centre 'of the 'Crimea- being Russia's main naval base on the Black Sea. He was then sent. north again to command the- intended attack on Leningrad, -btit called away by an' emergeftcy summons to conduct -the * efforts to relieve Paulus's Sixth Army, trapped that 'wintet at Stalin- grad, after the - failure -of the main German offensive of 1942. The effort failed because Hitler, -forbiddinig ' any ' with- drawal, refused tb -'agree-- to Manstein's insistehce that Patlilus should be told to break out west- ward- and meet the relieving forces. Following' Paulus's sur- render, a ridespread collapse developed: ':on the German's southern front under pressure of advancing:'Russian armies, but Mansteih saved the situation by a brilliant flank- counterstroke which. recaptured Khrkov and rolled back the Russians in con- fusioni Then in the Germans'. last great off ensive of the war in the East, ' Operation Citadel'", launched in July 1943 against the Kursk salient, Manstein's ' Southern Army; Group" formed the xight ' pincer. It achi6ved&a- considerable measure of s,uccess, but the effect was nullxfied by the failure of the left Pincer, provided' by the "Central'Army Group ". Having checked the German offensive, the Russian,s Dow launched their own on 0 larger scale along a wider front, and with growing strength. From that time onwards the Gpermans were thrown on the defensive, itrategiially, and with the turn 6f the' tide Manstein was henceforth' ealled on to meet, ' epeatedly, what has always:been judged ;the hardest task of. -gen-ralshiP-that of conducting a fighting withdrawal in face of fiuch-superior forces. His cokuept' of tth' strategic defensive gave strong emphasis to offensive actioar in fulfilling it, and he- constantly looked for opportunities of delivering a riposte, while often ably exploit- ing those which irose. But when he urged that a longer step back should be made-'a strategic withdrawal-in order. to develop the full recoil.spring effect of a Coupfer-offensive against an over-stretched enemy advance, Hitler would not heed his argu- ments. Unlike maniy of his fellows, Manstein maintained the old Prussian tradition of speaking frankly, And expressed his criti- cismi forcibly. both to Hitler in Private and, at conferences, in a way that staggered others who were. present. .That Hitler bore it so .o0sg is remarkable evidence of the Profound respect he had for Manstein's ability, and a contrast with his. attitude to most of his.generals, and to the General Staff as a body. In March-; 1944, Hitder removed Manstein from. command and thereby removed from the path of the Russians and'their allies tbe most formidable individual obstacle in their advance to victory. ManStein . mqoved westward when the . Russian tide of ad. vance- sVept over Eastern Ger- many, and surrendered himself to the British in May, 1945. The Russians demanded that he, along'-with other generals who had served on the Eastern Front, shoul4 be handed over to. them as war criminals. The British and Aimericans refused, but agreed to put them on trial in spetial hiItaiy courts. ' Many questions were raised in Eng- lan'f about the legality or justice of the procedure adopted, while a long delay occurred, during which most of"the other British- held' .prisoners of war were released. But Manstein was eventually pht on trial, at Ham- burg, . in August, 1949-four years after the end of the war. A. sibshtiption list was opened in. England, on the initiative of Lord De L'Isle, VC, and Major- General Lord Bridgeman, to provide the funds necessary for an. adequate; defence, and Mr Winston Chuichill was one of the fitst, subscribers. Mr R. T. Paget, -QC, offered.to lead the defence without fee. The trial continued, with intervals, until the. w6eek before Christmas. In the end;'Manstein was acquitted on the eight most serious charges, and. convicted only on a number, of lesser, or modified charges. The decision of the court followed Nuremberg Trial precedents, and he wa,s sen- tenced to 18 years' imprison- ment} but.this wvas later reduced, and in 1953 he' was released. In a deeper sense, however, that period of im'prisonment was penalty and retribution for his failur.ej in. common with most of his fello'w geherals, to make a firm 'and timely stand against the Nazi regime and its abuses, despite the disapproval he early and often showed. In 1955-56 he. was chairman of a. Military Sub-Committee appointed to advise the Bundes- tag Defence Committee on the orgahization, service basis, and operational doctrine of the new Germa'n forces of th'e Federal Republic. In 1920 Manstein married Jutta . Sibylle von Loesch, daughter of. a Silesian land- owner; an' had two 'sons, the elder of whom was killed in the, Wat. FIELD IMARSHAL VON -MANSTEIN - An outstanding Gei'an soldier

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