The Command in War
Operation Viespry. By Majoy-General Sir Francis de Guingand. (Hodder and Stoughton. 25t.) GENERAL DE GUINGAND had the good fortune to fill a ringside- seat at more of the war against Germany than any other single man. He was well placed even before it began ; for he was Military Assistant to the Secretary of State for War, and he held that position
until his chit[' a tie n. Then he found himself in the Neat East, and C ?mei, ^way of Commandant of Combined Operations, to the Joint Planning Staff in Cairo under Wavell. It was a com- paratively minor position, but, there again, good fortune ltd him to all the exciting spots, ;nd there is not one of them about which he fails to write a pertinent and illuminating, if not the final, word. A certain vividness of apprehension combined with an invincible simplicity and common sense make almost everything he writes significant and rather exciting. What he has to say about the campaign in Greece and the battle of Crete, for instance, may not be the last word ; but it will not be ignored by the historian any more than by the ordinary reader. There is sufficient of the background of the war outside Africa to provide the due setting, and the writer has the invaluable gift of knowing the wisdom of silence where he was not in possession of reliable knowledge. Later on he became Director of Military Intelligence under Auchinleck, later still his Chief of Staff, in which position he was found by Montgomery and it seems almost casually, retained from Alamein to the Sangro when he followed his chief in the same role to England, France and to the Baltic.
It was an astonishing Odyssey, and it provided him with an un- equalled knowledge of Montgomery. He had learned in Whitehall how to be the detailed adviser and buffer state of a superior, and Montgomery depended upon him for all the staff work and the smoothing of relations below him and above. It was this that gave Montgomery the conditions which enabled him to concentrate on the essentials. (Foch used to emphasise the necessity of this practice in a well-worn phrase.) But General de Guingand had to shoulder a heavy burden, though he was young enough to carry it with few interruptions from ill-health. And by so doing he came tq know all that was to be known about his chief and the reactions to him of others. He was in the thick of the war at Alam Haifa, and he sets that decisive battle in just perspective. He was at Alamein, and, adds something to one's knowledge of that great battle ; and he provides illuminating sidelights on the battles of Mareth and Wadi Akarit. Incidentally, one of the ill-natured stories of Montgomery receives its death-blow in this section of the book. He did not resent, but suggested, the removal of several of his divisions from before Enfidaville ; did not rush off to Cairo in pique, but because his Chief of Staff thought his presence advisable in the planning of the Sicily campaign.
This campaign and the advance up the Italian peninsula to the Sangro, where " Generals Rain and; Mud " intervened to prevent his moving down the Pescara road to Rome, are vividly described. And then the period of planning for the invasion and the actual invasion of Normandy rivet the attention. The writer mentions and dismisses most of the ill-natured criticism of Montgomery's campaign. He is a much better apologist than Montgomery himself ; for the latter in his dispatch maintains that the battle was "fought exactly as planned before the invasion," and the phase-map produced here shows that this is not exactly true, though Montgomery got to the Seine earlier than had been predicted and maintained control of the battle from the beginning to the end.
The swift march to Brussels, the battles between the Meuse and Rhine and the crossing of the Rhine are attractively described, though at different levels. Arnhem is unfortunately barely glanced at, and the clearance of the Scheldt receives only a few lines. It is, indeed, not for the detailed history of the various battles in which General de Guingand was concerned that this book will be valued. He was an eye-witness of many great events and the background of these and others that have shaped history. His study of Montgomery is obviously of historic value. No one could know him so well ; and, even if it does not all seem new at this stage—for he was generous of his news and appreciations to some of the war correspondents— this is the original and not the second-hand version. This is, in fact, a memorable book. It is never pretentious and never goes beyond what the writer knew or is fully qualified to judge. If it is really gripping at times, it is not because it is particularly well written, but because, as I have said, it has a devastating simplicity that is content with the truth and conveys its very accent.
STRATEGICUS.
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