(2 of 3)
Only MacArthur. Bryant and his hero claim that it was Brooke who insisted on the North African and Italian campaign against the wishes of Marshall and Eisenhower, who wanted an early and massive blow struck on the French coast. Brooke's idea was to get the German armies dispersed on the whole perimeter of Fortress Europe and so take the heat off Russia and lessen German power to push the Allies into the sea when the time came for the Normandy invasion. But no one had the wisdom to go along. Not Churchill, who was constantly asking for attacks in Norway, the Balkans and in the Pacific (which would, of course, fritter away resources). Not Eisenhower, who in Brooke's view spent too much time on political matters. And not Admiral King, who could, after all, see nothing but Japanese and wanted the U.S. to go all-out in the Pacific before Hitler was brought down. No one, in fact, had 20-20 military vision but "Brookie," and if he had been listened to sooner the war might have ended long before it did.
That is Bryant's and Alanbrooke's story. In the U.S., Alanbrooke's estimate of his American colleagues will not make pleasant or convincing reading.
EISENHOWER: "I had little confidence in his having the ability to handle the military situation . . . Tactics, strategy and command were never his strong points."
"VINEGAR JOE" STILWELL: "A stout-hearted fighter suitable to lead a brigade of Chinese scally-wags . . . little military knowledge and no strategic ability."
SECRETARY OF WAR STIMSON : "Limited strategic outlook," and Author Bryant adds: "High-minded but dogmatic septuagenarian.''
PATTON : "A character," charged with goofing at a critical point in Sicily.
The fighting done by U.S. troops any where is barely acknowledged. Only Mac-Arthur, whom Alanbrooke extravagantly admired from afar, comes off well: "I have often wondered since the war how different matters might have been if I had had MacArthur instead of Marshall to deal with. From everything I saw of him I put him down as the greatest general of the last war."
Bitter Man. While putting Brookie on a pedestal, Historian Bryant failed to notice that someone else was barging in to steal his own show. If there is a real hero in The Turn of the Tide, it is that fabulous old original, Winston Churchill. Bryant and Alanbrooke complain about Churchill's ornery demands for action, his espousal of half-baked military adventures that had disaster written all over them, his frequent bullying of subordinates. But over and over again Alanbrooke bursts out in admiration of his chief: "He is the most difficult man I have ever served, but thank God for having given me the opportunity of trying to serve such a man in a crisis such as the one this country is going through ... But traveling and working for Winston is not a rest cure; it is like living on the lip of a volcano and never knowing when it is going to erupt next." It is not the grey Alanbrooke who remains in the reader's memory but the great Prime Minister with his marvelous flair, tempers and steadfastness.