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For most of the Second World War, General Sir Alan Brooke (1883–1963), later Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, was Britain's Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) and Winston Churchill's principal military adviser, and antagonist, in the inner councils of war. He is commonly considered the greatest CIGS in the history of the British Army. His diaries—published here for the first time in complete and unexpurgated form—are one of the most important and the most controversial military diaries of the modern era. The last great chronicle of the Second World War, they provide a riveting blow-by-blow account of how the war was waged and eventually won—including the controversies over the Second Front and the desperate search for a strategy, the Allied bomber offensive, the Italian campaign, the D-day landings, the race for Berlin, the divisions of Yalta, and the postwar settlement.
Beginning in September 1939, the diaries were written up each night in the strictest secrecy and against all regulations. Alanbrooke's mask of command was legendary but these diaries tell us what he really saw and felt: moments of triumph and exhilaration, but also frustration, depression, betrayal, and doubt. They expose the gulf between the military and the politicians of the War Cabinet, and how often military strategy was misguided and nearly derailed by political prejudices. They also reveal the incredible strain on Alanbrooke of the Allied conferences in Washington, Moscow, Casablanca, Quebec, and Tehran, as he tried after intense and exhausting argument (not least with Churchill) to match Allied strategy with the reality of British military power and the fragility of the British Empire. These diaries demonstrate the true depth of Alanbrooke's rage and despair at Churchill's failure to grasp overall strategy. This was particularly acute in the winter of 1943–44 when Churchill, fueled by medicine and alcohol, no longer seemed master of himself.
- Sales Rank: #1682996 in Books
- Published on: 2003-05-05
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.81" w x 5.76" l, 2.45 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 815 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Begun as a substitute for regular conversation on the day's events with his wife, War Diaries 1939-45 records Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke's (1883-1963) service as commander of the doomed corps in France, as head of the evacuation from Dunkirk, and then, beginning in 1941, as Churchill's chief of staff. The diaries inspired Sir Arthur Bryant's The Turn of the Tide (1957) and The Triumph of the West (1959), but are published here for the first time, in an edition carefully edited by Keele University professor of International Relations Alex Danchev, and Pembroke College history research graduate Daniel Todman.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Among the heavyweight tomes on the Second World War, "War Diaries, 1939-1945 stood out. Full of fascinating glimpses of Montgomery, Stalin and so on, the book exposes the 'muddling through' process by which the Axis powers were defeated."--named a "New Statesman "Book of the Year"
About the Author
Alex Danchev is Professor of International Relations at Keele University. His books include A Very Special Relationship: Field Marshal Sir John Dill and the Anglo-American Alliance (1987) and Alchemist of War: The Life of Basil Liddell Hart (1998). Daniel Todman is a history research graduate at Pembroke College, Cambridge.
Most helpful customer reviews
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful.
Surviving Winston, the Yanks, and the Bosch - in that order
By Mr. Joe
"Running a war seems to consist in making plans and then ensuring that all those destined to carry it out don't quarrel with each other instead of the enemy." - Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke
WAR DIARIES is Alanbrooke's daily record of events, addressed to his beloved wife Benita, during the time that he was British II Corps commander in France, then head of (England's) Southern Command, then Commander-in-Chief of Home Forces, and finally Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) from December 1941.
It isn't until page 205 of this monster 721 page narrative that Alanbrooke (AB) becomes CIGS. The reader would've been better served if this volume's editors had eliminated the first 204 pages, which are barely more than a series of entries with the flavor of that for 18 April 1941:
"Left 8:15 am for Dover where I met Bulgy Thorne and Charles Allfrey and went round with them defences 43rd Div round from Dover through Walmer, Deal, Ramsgate, Margate, Herne Bay and Whitstable. Finally returned at 6:45 pm and put in an hour in the office."
It isn't until AB becomes CIGS, when his perspective on the war becomes global and he interacts on a daily basis with Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his generals, and attends periodic conferences with Roosevelt and Stalin and their military chiefs, that AB's nightly jottings become interesting in an historical and personal sense. It's then you realize the truth behind AB's observation that heads this review.
AB, rightly or wrongly, evidently considered himself to be the best war strategist available to the western Allies. His opinion of the strategic ability of Churchill and such military commanders as U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower, U.S. General George Marshall, U.S. Admiral Ernest King, and Louis Mountbatten (Supreme Commander, Southeast Asia) is positively scathing. Indeed, AB doesn't consistently say nice things about anybody except Field Marshal John Dill (his mentor and predecessor as CIGS), Joseph Stalin, and (briefly) U.S. General Douglas MacArthur (whom he never actually meets between these pages).
The first post-war publication of AB's diary caused a stir on both sides of The Pond for its excoriation of Eisenhower and Churchill. Indeed, though AB admired and loved Winston as the superman without whom England would've lost the war, the latter's inconsiderate treatment of those around him and his gadfly approach to war strategy caused AB to write in frustration on 10 September 1944:
"Never have I admired and despised a man simultaneously to the same extent."
What comes across in WAR DIARIES is that Alanbrooke was the consummate staff officer - competent, dedicated, meticulous, organized, hard working to a fault, intelligent, honest, honorable, and persistent - upon whom Winston relied upon (without giving public credit) to haul the Empire back from the brink of defeat. Outside of his duties, however, AB was an oddly mild and unprepossessing man. His chief hobby was birdwatching; he liked to show bird films to friends who came to dine with him and Benita. Also, he seems a rather dour individual who took himself too seriously. There's no evidence in his writing of any humor, self-deprecating or otherwise.
WAR DIARIES contains a small section of sixteen photographs that's inadequate when considering those individuals often mentioned, but who don't appear: Roosevelt, King George VI, Stalin, de Gaulle, Eisenhower, AB's elder son Tom, Polish Lt. General Wladyslaw Anders, British generals "Jumbo" Wilson, Claude Auchinleck, and Ronald Adam, South African Prime Minister Smuts, and Canadian generals Andrew McNaughton and Henry Crerar.
Despite the first 200 pages, which are virtually useless except that they introduce one to AB's way of thinking and writing style, I'm awarding four stars because the remainder of WAR DIARIES is a fascinating worldview rarely encountered by Yanks, a perspective in which the American icons of WWII mythology - Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and Churchill - aren't painted as the heroes we're familiar with. And, because honor is due Alanbrooke's Herculean but largely ignored and unappreciated service to his King, country and the Allies.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
The best book about Churchill in WWII ever written
By Piako
Lord Alanbrooke, as other reviewers have mentioned, was CIGS, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, during a large part of World War II, which means head of British and Imperial forces, commanding Naval, Land, and Air resources across multiple fronts during the war. This book (his own diary) paints a picture of an alarmingly self-focused and self-absorbed man, a friend to few, a military administrator (in wartime) obsessed with his own view of the universe, and a military strategist focused on his own narrow objectives -- to which he brooked no criticism by his Prime Minister, his War Cabinet, or his American fellows in arms.
Brooke was a man apart. You will discover him leaving his office (during the Blitz) for an appointment with the artist painting his portrait. You will audit his reviews of British and Empire officers, Generals and below, who receive his esteem or his prejudice. You will seem him declining a combat assignment in North Africa in order (as he says) to 'manage' Churchill and Churchill's strategic extravagances. You will come away admiring, perhaps loving Alan Brooke for his amazing candor. But you will not admire a great many things about him, including his obsessive focus on himself and his own ideas, his failure and his pathological inability to participate in constructive dialog, particularly with American commanders, and his extraordinary impatience with many British officers, many of whom actually helped to win the war, notably the brilliant General Freyberg of the Second New Zealand Division, probably the best fighting General in World War II (according to Montgomery) and, in addition, his loyal Prime Minister Fraser of New Zealand, whom Brooke said 'wasted' 20 minutes of his time (!). Amazingly, New Zealand sent more men per head of population to WWII than any other nation, including Britain. But this didn't matter -- or register -- with Brooke. Not much that didn't have a Brooke tag registered with Brooke.
However, the big event in Brooke's book is Churchill. Churchill doesn't appear in the title, but you this is the best WWII book written about Churchill -- he appears on virtually every page. Brooke's war revolved around Churchill and what he thought, what he said, what he wrote, what he did, how he engaged with leaders political and military, and how he and Brooke worked together. To Brooke, Churchill was an amazing and inspired leader, a giant among men. He was also a strategic lunatic, who needed to be in a straight jacket of Brooke's design.
The truth is, both won the war.
Churchill channeled America into the war, which saved everything. Brooke appointed Montgomery in North Africa, which ultimately assured Brooke's reputation, elevated General Alexander, and saved North Africa. Once American power was massed and focused in Italy, and later France, the war was over. This is a very long book, with excellent footnotes, that belongs in every library of military history. Churchill fans must read it for its unique portrait of WLSC. At the end of the book, you don't have to love Brooke to respect him. But respecting him is one thing. Loving him is another. This man doesn't need your affection. He has enough of his own to keep him warm, even in death.
An amazing portrait, written by himself.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Anger Management
By Kerry B.
In December 1941, Field Marshall Alan Brooke stepped up to the highest office in the British Army. That was just prior to Japanese attacks on British and American military bases in the Pacific islands. Despite his lofty position among the Allied Chiefs of Staff, Lord Alanbrooke is almost unknown to the public. His unofficial diary from World War II is a gold mine of information and a fascinating view from the halls of high command. Immediacy is the major draw; the author's thoughts in raw form through stream of consciousness reactions.
Unfortunately Brooke was not a professional writer and it shows. His executive agenda was usually dull and tedious, with occasional excitement and participation in world-changing events. To separate the wheat from the chaff, the reader is required to slog through daily summaries of Alan Brooke's full schedule: military and political staff conferences, interviews with colleagues, social contact with influential people, his hobbies, and family life. You may need the Index to stay on track and with 763 pages, do not expect to absorb the particulars in one evening.
Field Marshall Brooke was never at ease with the fact that global war must be managed by committee. He did not always handle his own role with diplomacy. His faultfinding with other top-level officials tended to be repetitive. A recurring theme was the exasperating - and costly - lack of cooperation between the British armed services. That and frequent interference by Winston Churchill and his War Ministry exacted a cumulative toll on Field Marshall Brooke's emotional well-being. Throughout the war, Brooke seemed to feign surprise that high-powered admirals, airmen, soldiers and political ministers would aggrandize their own department as more important to the war effort. And that, Brooke implied, prevented him from projecting his will on military strategy. After a while this read like self-pity.
One of Brooke's primary stressors was that Prime Minister Churchill refused to appoint a military commander who controlled all British air, sea and ground forces. Churchill often made repeated demands for the same military operation no matter how many times it was rejected as unsound by the British Chiefs of Staff. What irritated Brooke the most was Churchill's impulsive nature and determination to stretch his limited military resources beyond attainable limits. The most extreme example of this occurred when Churchill proposed large gift packages to the Russians - hundreds of tanks and aircraft, backed by two infantry divisions - when British forces in the Middle East and Far East had critical shortages of equipment and other supplies.
On the other side of the coin, Field Marshall Brooke was not unbiased or faultless. Keeping a personal diary was a security risk that defied military regulations. Brooke admits that he wrote it to vent frustration. Like many officers who climbed to the top, Brooke was a classic egomaniac with a hair trigger for firing subordinates who did not live up to his personal standards. He spared no criticism for nearly all British military and political leaders with whom he came into contact with, as well as his French, Belgian and American counterparts. Debate was usually caused by disagreements about strategy or allocation of resources, though other times Brooke's hostility seemed to arise from personality conflicts or reasons that he declined to explain.
The attempts by Field Marshall Brooke to bring order to chaos in British military planning might have been his signal contribution to the military defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan. He appears to have been honest in expressing his beliefs, but often with the undercurrent of a nasty streak. This story has a huge cast of characters and your patience may be strained when some of them are reduced to one-dimensional stick figures, or worse. Brooke's poison pen was extremely rough on Winston Churchill, who must have been deeply hurt and humiliated by this being taken public. You will need to read the entire contents of the book to understand how far Brooke admonished his boss, with no detectable sense of humor other than excited punctuation marks in his writing.
The personal convictions of Field Marshall Brooke were sometimes proven wrong, such as his cautious and pessimistic prediction that the Anglo-American invasion of France was not practical until 1945 or later. His analysis of American generalship during the Battle of the Bulge was no more convincing. If General Dwight Eisenhower had followed Brooke's advice and concentrated U.S. troops in advance instead of using a wider front, that would have created larger gaps through which the Germans could counter-attack. Brooke was not the brilliant strategist he made himself out to be, but taken as a whole his feedback appeared to be sensible in the context of British national interests.
At the height of the war in the Middle East, Brooke could have accepted a field command yet he chose to remain behind the scenes. Considering the number of hypercritical attacks that Brooke unleashed on other officers, he should have been more willing to prove himself by testing his ability as a battlefield leader against the incumbents.
More recent studies like "Masters and Commanders" by Andrew Roberts indicates that Field Marshall Brooke changed some of his opinions after the war. Although his wartime diary still has historical significance, it is not for everyone. A hefty volume like this may not hold the attention of less informed readers. The diary format lacks a flowing narrative and is difficult to follow precisely unless you are familiar with the subject. Except for the introductory chapters, you will not find many footnotes leading to documents and other sources; obviously a disadvantage if you are inclined to verify statements made by the author. Overall the text lacks a general backdrop of the war to help students understand decisions as they were made. I would categorize "War Diaries 1939-1945" as a companion piece for other works and a good desk reference for scholars and serious students of military history.
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