Churchill and His Generals

• Churchill wanted to influence the way war was fought.

• He had little experience of command, planning or overall strategy and no naval experiene. This did not stop him giving direct orders to the navy when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, a poitical post, or offering opinionated strategic views when WWI broke out in 1914.

• The Gallipoli campaign of 1915 resulted in heavy losses and total failure to get beyond the beaches. Only the navy evacuation was successful, Churchill was forced to resign. 

• Dominated his view:
  • Churchill saw the heavy losses in the fighting in France in WWI and he attributed this to politicians letting Generals like Haig pursue their costly plans without proper supervision. 
  • He had been fustrated by the caution of the leading military commanders during the appeasement of the 1930s in advising against decisive action because of their fears of underprepardness and having to deal with a possible war on three fronts.

What influenced the generals' view was Churchill's unpredictability and his amateur strategy. 

• Main burden of Churchill's interference with operational matters was the head of the army, Field Marshall Sir Alan Brooke.
• Highly competent organiser nad a thorough professional.
• He was consious of the need to deploy British forces carefully and avoid heavy casualties. 
• Often annoyed  by Churchill's 'thinking out loud.'
• His wartime diaries often mention long and exhausting meetings.
• When it came to major decisions there were fewer disagreements between the two men.
• In 1940 Churchill made a bold decision in sending troops and military equiptment to the Middle East to deal with the potential Italian threat to Egypt, the Suez Canal and the route to India. This was bold because it was unclear whether Germany would invade England. Brooke an other generals supported Churchill's decision. 

• Rapid British victories in North Africa justified the decsion to concentrate on fighting in North Africa, but Churchill have little credit to the commander, Sir Archibald Wavell, whom he personally disliked. 
• Churchill took forces away from Wavell when the Italians invaded Greece in 1940 and the cabinet made a decision to send troopes to defend it and establish a new Balkan front. Wavell was not given time to prepare properly without him in command in Greece. His troops were taken off to a deeply flawed campaign. When the Germans invaded Greece, the British had to be evacuated to Crete and then were defeated there and forced out by a German invasion.
• The early successes in North Africa had been thrown away, and Wavell did not have the resources to meet German forces under Rommel who were sent to North Africa. He took the blame and was demoted. 

• Wavell's successor
• Not prepared for the premature attack on the Germans and, to Churchill's annoyance, he insisted on delayign until he was well prepared. 
• Sacked for his delays and not being sufficiently daring and aggressive. 

• Auchinleck's replacement.
• Won over Churchill with his self-confidence but insisted on thorough preperations involving accumulating more than twice the men that Rommel had before attacking at El Alamein in Oct 1942. 
• Much of the credit for the first British Victory in the war should have gone to Auchinleck because of the efficient preperations he had made, even though he did not actually lead the attack. However, Churchill disliked him and favoured 'Monty.'
• Montgomery was very slow in following up his victory after El Alamein, which allowed the Germans to retreat to Tunisia. But Churchill continued to favour him. 

• Amercan and British forces first invaded and captured Sicily and then landed in southern Italy.
• Led to a long campaign and slow progress right through Itlay whcih distracted the allies from major tasks of defeating the main German armies and invading Germany. It kept more British and Amercan troops occupied than it did German troops and forced Russia to take on the main task of moving towards Germany. 
• Little evidence that Brooke or the generals were eager for the invasion of France that Russia was urging. 
• Brooke thought and invasion of France might not succees and might lead to a such heavy casualties that war would be lengthened, not shortened. 
• Churchill planned for the invasion of France for the summer of 1944. 
• Brooke was not put in charge, the US general Eisenhower was and Churchill did not appear sympathetic to his leading general's dissapointment. 
• Churchill showed little appreciation for the detailed and meticulous planning and Monty remained his favourite. 
• Compared to the US forces, the British forces faced relativley limitted resistance at D-Day on 6th June 1944 but were slow to break through from the beachhead and take the key port of Caen. 
• From 1940 to 1944, Churchil and his generals had occupied Germnany in what was really a minor military action in North Africa while the German army was engaged and defeated with massive losses by the Russian forces. 
• The War in North Africa was dominated by the PM's belief that somehow the war could be won in the Mediterranean  without the British Army destroying the German forces in the West.