Product Description

Alanbrooke was CIGS - Chief of the Imperial General Staff - for the greater part of the Second World War. He acted as mentor to Montgomery and military adviser to Churchill, with whom he clashed. As chairman of the Chiefs of Staff committee he also led for the British side in the bargaining and the brokering of the Grand Alliance, notably during the great conferences with Roosevelt and Stalin and their retinue at Casablanca,Teheran, Malta and elsewhere. As CIGS Alanbrooke was indispensable to the British and the Allied war effort. 'An essential tool for students of the war...It is also to the credit of the editors, Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman, that we see beyond the fascinatingly personal to the truly historical' Alan Judd, Sunday Telegraph

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #267305 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 816 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Already celebrated as the most important war diaries yet to appear, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke's War Diaries 1939-1945, edited by Alex Danchev and Dan Todman, are full of fascinating and controversial stuff. But Alanbrooke's style should not be confused with that of Alan Clark: he does not set out to be controversial for controversy's own sake and there is little gossip or speculation. The tone is steady and soldierly throughout, which only makes it more impressive and, at times, curiously moving. It is the voice of a man of great self-control and military expertise, weighed down with the tremendous burdens of conducting a global war. The central relationship is inevitably with Winston Churchill, whose cavalier attitudes and short-term enthusiasms for hare-brained schemes that would cost many lives, often infuriated Alanbrooke. And, in private at least, on the pages of his diary, he would say so: Churchill "knows no details, talks absurdities" and is "a public menace". You can see Alanbrooke's point, when he records that Churchill has suggested making aircraft carriers out of ice. But above all, with Alanbrooke, you get balance. He never pretends that Churchill was anything but a genius, as a war leader:

genius mixed with an astonishing lack of vision--he is quite the most difficult man to work with that I have ever struck but I should not have missed the chance of working with him for anything on earth!

It is also interesting to find how poor relations were between Britain and America at the time, with even Churchill, part-American himself, inveighing against the "evils of Americans". The overwhelming feeling arising from these diaries is that, contrary to what we now think of as the inevitable, historic triumph of the Allies, it was in fact, as Wellington said after Waterloo, "a close run thing, a damn close run thing". The diaries are superbly edited, cut short with fine judgement on the last day of August 1945, with the quiet entry, "I had Paget to lunch, he was in excellent form. In the evening I motored home". All in all, this is a good job well done. --Christopher Hart

About the Author
Alex Danchev is currently Professor of International Relations at Keele University. He has held fellowships at King's College, London, St Antony's College, Oxford and the Wilson Center in Washington DC.

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Customer Reviews

A fascinating account of the war
Alanbrooke provides an amazing insight into the way in which the WWII was directed. The accounts of his struggles within the British Government, the armed forces and with Britain's allies around the world are an eye opener into the interaction between military strategy and political expediency. Whilst others, Churchill included, receive Alanbrooke's wrath for their short-sightedness and lack of military intellect, it is clear that Alanbrooke struggled with placing the military in its political context.

What amazed me, born two generations after the war, was the normality of Alanbrooke's life. Whilst bombs blow the windows of nearby buildings out, Alanbrooke's children (delightfully referred to by AB as Pooks and Mr Ti) and his wife come up to London and eat dinner with friends. As the D-day landings begin, Alanbrooke finds fascination in a new nest of birds in his garden. Whilst this brought home the humanity of the people involved, this day to day life teetered for long periods on the hum-drum. That is the reality of what happened, but don't expect a compelling read; this is a book you need to persevere at. But if you do persevere you get one of the most honest accounts (Alanbrooke frequently apologises in later entries for how harsh he was about his colleagues when in a low mood) of the running of the second world war, of the key conferences and meetings between the various protagonists, that is available.

An outstanding but disturbing memoir of World War II
This book should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in history, politics or psychology. Most importantly, it illustrates the danger of politicians meddling in military decisions, and the tragedy of men ordered to their likely deaths purely for reasons of political expediency (how might the war have developed if British forces had not been ordered to leave their prepared defensive positions and march into Belgium in May 1940?). The long wait from the declaration of war to the opening of real combat is vividly captured, as are the personalities of the Allied protagonists (noone escapes criticism, although praise is given when AB considers it deserved). If some of the "edge" of memoirs written by those serving on the front-line (for which read "Men at Arnhem" or "Quartered Safe Out Here"), is lacking, the snapshots of men taking decisions that will affect millions more than compensate.

A reader's comments, half-way through..
Definitely not an easy read. Packed full of content it is undoubtedly of historical value and insight. The most enlightening passages are those which are added to the diary entries after the diary was written. (These are italicised, and easy to find). Many of the entries are dull, seeming to be an endless round of meetings, or touring military installations. (Chiefs of staff daily session etc).

The insightful stuff centres around his meetings with world leaders, (his meetings with Stalin for example), his constant interaction with Churchill, where he pulls no punches, and his ongoing conflict with Beaverbrook. Getting the inside view on what Churchill promised Stalin at their private session in Moscow (ie to open a Western Front in 1943) has been the highlight of the book for me so far.

Half-way through the diaries, I am not sure I acutally understand Alanbrooke the man, any better, only his surroundings and perceptions. It does provide, however, a unique historical insight into the period.