War Diaries, 1939-1945. (Books: prosecuting a war).

Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke War Diaries, 1939-1945. University of California Press, 763 pages, $40

In 1980, in his valedictory lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History, Hugh Trevor-Roper discussed the events of 1940, when the world hung in a balance between very different futures. Drawing attention to the fallacy of historical determinism and Marxist historiography, he observed that

 
   no one could rationally have assumed that at the precise moment of the fall 
   of France there would be, in Britain, a statesman able to unite all 
   parties, and the people, in the will and confidence to continue what could 
   easily have been represented as a pointless struggle. 

Trevor-Roper knows what our professors today seem to be too smart to grasp, that the "crisis does not always produce the man" In 1940, Winston Churchill stood between day and night. It was all the more remarkable that in late 1941 at another moment of great military crisis--Russia near defeat; Japan overrunning Malaya, Hong Kong, and Burma; the Germans victorious in North Africa and threatening Persia and Britain's irreplaceable oil supply--Britain produced the perfect complement to Churchill: General Sir Alan Brooke, the man who translated Churchill's genius into workable military strategy.

Alanbrooke (Brookie, as all his friends knew him, was created Viscount Alanbrooke in 1946) was an artilleryman from an old military family--the Brookes of Ulster sent twenty-six men to fight in the First World War and twenty-seven in the Second. He served with distinction on the Western Front--arriving as a captain in September 1914 and rising to GSOI Royal Artillery. Between the wars, he continued his quick advancement showing an immense competence at staff work and at training soldiers. In 1939, he took command of one of the two corps that comprised the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and molded it over eight months into a formidable fighting force.

Alanbrooke was a true savior during the disastrous retreats in June 1940. He calmly maintained an organized front that--it still seems miraculous--kept the Germans in front and the beaches (and possible evacuation) behind. He was made commander-in-chief of the short-lived second BEF and then after the capitulation of France was given the impossible task of C-in-C Home Forces when every day brought the prospect of a German invasion that probably could not have been repelled. This threat passed with Germany's attack on Russia in June 1941, but when Alanbrooke became Chief of the Imperial General Staff--the operational commander of the whole British Army--in December, Britain seemed without hope.

This changed days later with America's entry into the war and led to a plan for German encirclement now called the "Mediterranean Strategy." The original vision seems to have been Churchill's, but Alanbrooke was the first to grasp its implications. Winning the campaign in North Africa would take the Germans off the offensive, return control of the Mediterranean, and free up a million tons of shipping per year. Then invade and knock out Italy, forcing Germany to commit divisions to southern Europe and the Balkans. Invade Fortress Europa only when Germany was on the defensive and unable to resist. It was a Grand Strategy in the mold of Marlborough and Wellington, and it was a grand success. Historians are always fond of connecting the absolutists: Louis XIV to Napoleon to Hitler. Their overweening ambitions and great power were defeated by British generals who understood what was at stake and then acted deliberately to bring the enemy low.