The Alliance That Held
2009; Hoover Institution; Issue: 154 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0146-5945
Autores Tópico(s)Intelligence, Security, War Strategy
ResumoANDREW ROBERTS. Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won War in West. ALLEN LANE. 672 PAGES. [pounds sterling]25 WINSTON CHURCHILL was not easiest of bosses to work for, as memoirs and reminiscences of those who were close to him during World War II testify. An incident recorded by Churchill's secretary, Elizabeth Nel, provides some of flavor: We are in Churchill's bedroom in No. 10 annex in Whitehall, just above Cabinet War Rooms, where Churchill spent most of war. prime minister lounges on his bed together with his Persian cat, Smokey, while on phone with Sir Alan Brooke, chief of Imperial General Staff and Britain's top soldier. Mr. Churchill sat on bed and Smokey sat on blankets watching him. PM'S telephone conversation with [Brooke] was long and anxious; his thoughts were far away; his toes wiggled under blankets. I saw Smokey's tail swish as he watched, and wondered what was going to happen. Suddenly he pounced on toes and bit hard. It must have hurt, for Mr. Churchill started, kicked him right into corner of room shouting 'Get off, you fool' into telephone. Then he remembered and he said, 'I didn't mean you,' and then seeing Smokey looking somewhat dazed in corner, 'Poor little thing.' Confusion was complete, CIGS hung up hastily and telephoned private secretary to find out what was happening. It took a long time to get it all sorted out, and Sir Alan Brooke assured that it was not his fault. This is pure comedy, but often disagreements between Churchill and Brooke, later ennobled as 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, were heated; on several occasions, Brooke snapped his pencil in two in disgust, while during one clash Churchill shook his fist at Brooke and accused him of crippling initiative. Brooke notes in his diary that prime minister was infuriated, and throughout evening kept shoving his chin out, looking at me, and fuming at accusation that he ran down his generals. When Alanbrooke diaries were published in their entirety in 1994, they created a sensation. Brooke detested Churchill's work habits, particularly these late night sessions often lasting past two in morning, which Brooke termed Midnight follies and at which Churchill's fertile imagination was apt to come up with all manner of new schemes for winning war--some good, others less so--which then had to be rendered harmless. Churchill, of course, had total faith in his powers as a strategist, in fact seeing himself as having inherited his ancestor Marlborough's genius in that department. And he took a dim view of War Office and top brass, which he saw as bereft of imagination and resistant to innovation, even accusing Chief of Staffs Committee of being governed by the sum total of their fears. On other side of Atlantic, Brooke's counterpart, George Marshall, chief of staff of U.S. Army, had a marginally easier time with his master, Franklin Roosevelt, who at least kept decent hours. But despite claiming no special expertise in military strategy, Roosevelt, like Churchill, was prone to getting ideas of his own. Marshall referred to FDR'S cigarette lighter gesture, a casual wave of hand, suggesting bold new operations. The President shifted, particularly when Churchill got hold of him ... President was always ready to do any sideshow and Churchill was always prodding him. My job was to hold President down to what we were doing. interaction between these four men is topic of Andrew Roberts's splendid Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won War in West, from which above incidents are taken. As loaded with color as was Roberts's earlier Napoleon and Wellington, his new book details how protagonists performed a delicate minuet, linking up in various combinations, sometimes ranging politicians against military men, sometimes dividing along national lines, Brits versus Americans, and sometimes crossing both national and professional lines, all depending on issue at hand. …
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