WAVELL-AS I REMEMBER
" Let me talk a little bit about Wavell. Since he had served in the Indian Army, he was extremely fond of it.I have seen him & he was a very popular general.In both Great wars, Indian Army was easily the largest volunteer force in the world.
The Middle East, 1939–1941
In late July 1939 Wavell was sent to Cairo to form the new command of the Middle East. When war broke out in September. The forces at his disposal were small; when Italy came into the war in June 1940 his command had been reinforced by Australian, New Zealand, and Indian troops, but was menaced by superior forces on several fronts. Bold patrolling by light covering troops in the western desert imposed upon Graziani's Italians a caution quite out of proportion to the relative strengths of the two armies.In any case,I did not find Italians as good soldiers.
Wavell was able also to delay the Italian advances into Sudan from Ethiopia; but upon the Somaliland front, where the defection of the French in Djibouti prejudiced the defence, the local commander was forced to give ground. During Wavell's temporary absence in London the decision was taken to evacuate the protectorate rather than lose its small but valuable garrison.
The prime minister disapproved of this decision, Wavell defended it, and relations between Churchill and Wavell were never very happy thereafter. Churchill was rabidly anti Indian.
The prime minister disapproved of this decision, Wavell defended it, and relations between Churchill and Wavell were never very happy thereafter. Churchill was rabidly anti Indian.
But Wavell could not care less & his image both with his troops or with the public had ever remained high as ever, and it rose with the authorities during and after his remarkable run of success in the winter of 1940–41. He had been keeping a careful eye on the gingerly advance of the Italians in the west, and he detected unsoundness in their dispositions. Containing the threat to Sudan with an elaborate bluff, he switched the 4th Indian division from that front for use in the western desert, and caught the Italians napping at Sidi Barrani on 9 and 10 December. The 4th Indian division returned to Sudan, while the remainder of the western desert army swept up Bardia and Tobruk. By mid-February the whole of Cyrenaica was in British hands, with 125,000 prisoners, more than 800 field guns, and 400 tanks. This advance of 400 miles did much to raise British spirits after the losses of 1940.
Meanwhile Alan Gordon Cunningham's army from Kenya and William Platt's in Sudan were forcing the Italians from Ethiopia back into their remotest mountains; they capitulated in the north in May and in the south some weeks later. Elsewhere, however, the odds against Wavell had mounted. He had been urged to send help on a larger scale to Greece, which since the end of October 1940 had been fighting stoutly and successfully against greatly superior Italian forces in Epirus. Hitherto Britain had contributed only air support with ground defence, anti-aircraft, and medical units; but on 9 January 1941 he was told that the support of Greece must now take precedence of all operations in the Middle East. His first reaction was sharply adverse; but throughout January and February mounting pressure was brought to bear on him to reinforce the Greeks with fighting formations and units. After conversations with the Greeks, in which both the cabinet and the chiefs of staff were represented by Anthony Eden and Sir John Dill, and during which various stipulations which he made were accepted by the Greeks, Wavell agreed to intervention at a moment when the enthusiasm of the cabinet and chiefs of staff was cooling.
Stout efforts were made to defend Crete, but it was invaded from the air on 20 May and lost after desperate fighting before the month ended. The Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force in the Middle East had both crippled themselves in these operations. New anxieties had developed; Rashid Ali in Iraq had thrown in his lot with the axis powers, and Syria, occupied by Vichy forces, was harbouring Germans and seemed likely to follow the example of Iraq. Wavell was urged to undertake three almost simultaneous operations: against Iraq, against Syria, and against Rommel in the desert. He protested that he had not the resources for all three, but was overruled. Although the operation against Iraq was successful by early June, operation Battleaxe against Rommel proved a costly failure by 17 June; in Syria, however, the French asked for an armistice early in July.
Churchill had lost confidence in Wavell, particularly after learning that plans had been prepared for evacuation of the Middle East. After the failure of the offensive against Rommel, Churchill replaced Wavell with Sir Claude Auchinleck, whose place he took as commander-in-chief in India.
Wavell shouldered a profoundly difficult task in this his last public service, for which he had little of the diplomatic or political training customary for the viceregal appointment. He faced enormous political and administrative problems, presiding over an imperial government committed since the Cripps offer of 1942 to permitting Indians self-determination after the war, yet meantime having to maintain imperial authority and to extract from India all possible human and material resources for the war effort. Wavell's first challenge was the Bengal famine of 1943, which occurred when wartime shortages of rice were compounded by a devastating failure of administration. He went to Bengal within six days of taking office, offered the help of the army to move food grains, and prevailed on the provincial government to adopt a more interventionist role, including rationing. He continued thereafter to urge on an insensitive London government which had other priorities the vital need of more food imports into India.
Although Wavell was thought of by his London masters as a ‘stop-gap Viceroy’ to hold India steady until political change occurred after the war, he saw that the political situation was not static, and that as viceroy he could not avoid politics but must do what he could to encourage Indians to co-operate not only in the war effort but in preparations for a new peacetime political order. In this he displayed considerable political acumen, sensitivity, and courage, but was severely hampered, indeed debilitated, by the lack of understanding from London, either from Churchill or from Attlee's Labour government after 1945. In 1943 he prevailed on London to permit the release of Gandhi from jaill, having been assured that the aged nationalist leader would never be strong enough to become politically active again.
When Gandhi proved resilient, Churchill was greatly angered. Two years later, in the summer of 1945, the cabinet permitted the release of the remaining leadership of the Indian National Congress, who had been imprisoned since the autumn of 1942 and the Quit India campaign. Even this conciliatory move to enable the resumption of political negotiations with authoritative Indian voices had cost Wavell frustrating weeks of valuable time in London as he tried to persuade Churchill of the urgency of political movement in the face of growing administrative weakness, Indian expectations of post-war change, and the erosion of the raj's legitimacy in the eyes of many Indians. Immediately Wavell began the process of political discussion and negotiation with various groups of Indian politicians, in the hope of securing their agreement in a new form of executive council which, by providing opportunities for co-operation among them, would ease the way to a new constitution for a united post-war India.
But the war years had served to harden divisions between the predominantly Hindu Congress, which claimed to speak for all Indians, and the Muslim League, led by the astute and intransigent M. A. Jinnah, which claimed to represent all Muslims as a separate political ‘nation’. Moreover, the Cripps offer, confirming that no minority would be coerced into a post-war settlement, had given Jinnah an enormously strengthened bargaining position and a virtual veto in any negotiations. The issue of whether the League alone could nominate Muslim members of any new government became the rock on which were wrecked Wavell's attempt at political advance through the Simla conference of 1945, and, subsequently, the plans of the three-man cabinet mission in 1946, dispatched by Attlee's government to achieve agreement on the future of India and an interim representative government.
Commander-in-chief and Viceroy of India, 1941–1947
When, in December 1941, Japan came into the war, Wavell, whose reputation stood high in the United States, was nominated supreme commander of the ill-fated American, British, Dutch, and Australian (ABDA) command of south-east Asia and the south-west Pacific. The speed, preparedness, and overwhelming strength of the Japanese were in inverse ratio to those of the defence. Wavell was criticized for the loss of the British 18th division in Singapore, which was landed only two days before the capitulation; but he still enjoyed the confidence of his troops, and his resilience as a commander was exemplified by the fact that he gave orders for the eventual recapture of Burma to be studied by his planning staff before its evacuation was complete. The ABDA command was dissolved in February 1942. Policy dictated that the German war should be won before the Japanese, and Wavell had to fight the war in Burma with the minimum of help from home. He had little success, and in June 1943 he was appointed viceroy of India in succession to the marquess of Linlithgow and in July was raised to the peerage as Viscount Wavell of Cyrenaica and of Winchester. He had been promoted field marshal in January of that year.Wavell shouldered a profoundly difficult task in this his last public service, for which he had little of the diplomatic or political training customary for the viceregal appointment. He faced enormous political and administrative problems, presiding over an imperial government committed since the Cripps offer of 1942 to permitting Indians self-determination after the war, yet meantime having to maintain imperial authority and to extract from India all possible human and material resources for the war effort. Wavell's first challenge was the Bengal famine of 1943, which occurred when wartime shortages of rice were compounded by a devastating failure of administration. He went to Bengal within six days of taking office, offered the help of the army to move food grains, and prevailed on the provincial government to adopt a more interventionist role, including rationing. He continued thereafter to urge on an insensitive London government which had other priorities the vital need of more food imports into India.
Although Wavell was thought of by his London masters as a ‘stop-gap Viceroy’ to hold India steady until political change occurred after the war, he saw that the political situation was not static, and that as viceroy he could not avoid politics but must do what he could to encourage Indians to co-operate not only in the war effort but in preparations for a new peacetime political order. In this he displayed considerable political acumen, sensitivity, and courage, but was severely hampered, indeed debilitated, by the lack of understanding from London, either from Churchill or from Attlee's Labour government after 1945. In 1943 he prevailed on London to permit the release of Gandhi from jaill, having been assured that the aged nationalist leader would never be strong enough to become politically active again.
When Gandhi proved resilient, Churchill was greatly angered. Two years later, in the summer of 1945, the cabinet permitted the release of the remaining leadership of the Indian National Congress, who had been imprisoned since the autumn of 1942 and the Quit India campaign. Even this conciliatory move to enable the resumption of political negotiations with authoritative Indian voices had cost Wavell frustrating weeks of valuable time in London as he tried to persuade Churchill of the urgency of political movement in the face of growing administrative weakness, Indian expectations of post-war change, and the erosion of the raj's legitimacy in the eyes of many Indians. Immediately Wavell began the process of political discussion and negotiation with various groups of Indian politicians, in the hope of securing their agreement in a new form of executive council which, by providing opportunities for co-operation among them, would ease the way to a new constitution for a united post-war India.
But the war years had served to harden divisions between the predominantly Hindu Congress, which claimed to speak for all Indians, and the Muslim League, led by the astute and intransigent M. A. Jinnah, which claimed to represent all Muslims as a separate political ‘nation’. Moreover, the Cripps offer, confirming that no minority would be coerced into a post-war settlement, had given Jinnah an enormously strengthened bargaining position and a virtual veto in any negotiations. The issue of whether the League alone could nominate Muslim members of any new government became the rock on which were wrecked Wavell's attempt at political advance through the Simla conference of 1945, and, subsequently, the plans of the three-man cabinet mission in 1946, dispatched by Attlee's government to achieve agreement on the future of India and an interim representative government.
Dismissal and retirement, 1947–1950
Meanwhile, Wavell was acutely aware of the ebbing strength of the Raj, and the inability of the British to control a continent increasingly wracked by vicious communal conflict, such as the ‘Great Calcutta Killing’ of 16 August 1946. In September 1946 he argued that on administrative grounds alone the raj could not last more than eighteen months, and urged the cabinet to accept a ‘breakdown plan’ for orderly British withdrawal at a time of their own choosing, if agreement with Indians could not be reached. London judged Wavell, unfairly, to be politically incompetent and alarmist: and in February 1947 he was sacked, to make way for the flamboyant Viscount Mountbatten. Wavell noted laconically in his journal on 4 February that he had received a letter from Attlee ‘dismissing me from my post at a month's notice. Not very courteously done’. (Mountbatten rapidly concurred with Wavell's diagnosis of the Indian situation, and, given co-operation and considerable freedom by London, presided over the end of the Raj within six months.)
I recall Wavell's words at the time of his leaving Indian shores, "The Indian Army shall be a major factor in ensuring the stability of India". How right he was ! I salute him.he was a soldiers' General.RIP my Field Marshall.
(To Be Continued)
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