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Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.
This desert-fighting phase first brought out in Wavell an urge to express himself Biblically to his officers, a habit he developed to a high degree in his later Middle East campaigns. For a warning against unexpected rainy seasons in desert climates, he drew on Elijah's message to Ahab in I Kings, 18:44 ("Prepare thy chariot and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not"). The danger of floods in Palestine he underlined with a quotation from Jeremiah 12:5 ("How wilt thou do in the swelling of the Jordan?"). The folly of expecting military assistance from Egypt he expressed through II Kings, 18:21 ("Now, behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it").
Soldier to Proconsul. In 1937 Wavell returned to the Near East as commander in chief in Palestine and Transjordan, largely stamped out the bloody Jewish-Arab riots. In 1939, he assumed command of the British forces in Egypt. World War II swelled his Egyptian garrison into the Imperial Army of the Nile, an amorphous instrument which he painstakingly fashioned into a weapon that drove the Italians out of Cyrenaica. It was a famous victory at a time when Britain, standing singlehanded against the Axis might, was staggering under successive defeats. For the first time the name of Wavell was heard round the world.
In 1943 Wavell doffed his uniform, was made a peer and Viceroy of India. The soldier became the proconsul. But he was unlike any other proconsul who had ever been seen in India. Hitherto it had been deemed a necessity to surround the Viceregal office with a pomp and pageantry that would dazzle even India's dazzling princes. Wavell's predecessor, Lord Linlithgow, a thrifty Scot, used to travel around India in a luxurious, cream-colored train because "Indians are impressed by these things." The new Viceroy arrived in India in a rumpled lounge suit. Instead of taking the royal route through Bombay's imposing "Gateway to India," he went direct to New Delhi. He shunned parades, fanfares, ceremonial welcomes. He shattered tradition by casually meeting the outgoing Viceroy on the steps of the Viceregal Lodge. At his parties he and the Vicereine, motherly Lady Wavell, a soldier's daughter, mixed freely with the guests, instead of having them led into the Viceregal presence in relays for a few moments of stilted conversation.
Proconsul & Politicians. Lord Wavell had assumed office at one of the worst moments in British-Indian relations. Sir Stafford Cripps' mission had failed. The Indian leaders had rejected his proposals for self-government after the war, demanded immediate independence. Gandhi urged Indians to sabotage Britain's war effort. Singapore had fallen and the Japanese were streaming through Thailand and Burma. Wavell went patiently about his task of winning the confidence of the Indian leaders. He began with drastic, effective measures to curb the famine sweeping Bengal. It was an encouraging start.