This was my Book Friday last week. I thought that there wouldn’t be any harm in mentioning a book of mine published back in 2008, in which I compare the generalship of five Brits (Percival, Hutton, Mountbatten, Irwin and Slim), one American (Stilwell) and two Japanese (Yamashita and Mutaguchi). I had spent a lot of time in my PhD looking at Slim’s generalship, and comparing it with a few others in the field at the time, and thought that it would be good to bring this work together into a single volume. Fortunately Constable and Robinson agreed, and The Generals was the result.
There is much more than can be said about Far Eastern generals but sadly there just don’t appear to be the scholars out there willing to give the subject the attention it deserves. That said, Ray Callahan and Alan Jeffrey’s new book on Auchinleck, Slim and Savory is really excellent, and deserves a wide readership.
Anyway, I’ve been pulled back to The Generals because I’m currently revaluating - in much more detail - Mutaguchi’s role in the planning for and execution of Operation U Go in 1944, Japan’s invasion of India. Standby: there’s much more to come!
When The Generals was published it did so quietly, and received little attention. One review was from Eric Morris, lately of the War Studies Department at Sandhurst. Eric had been vey helpful during my PhD because he had once entertained the idea of writing a book about Slim, and very generously gave me all his research material when he decided this was, for him, a book too far. His review was fair, and although I have no idea where it was published, I have a copy. Reading it through today, I accept his criticisms, but I thought you might like to read it too.
This is a very good book. [I like these words! RL] The title is somewhat misleading for the study is limited in scope to the British and Japanese generals, plus Stilwell who fought in Malaya and Burma. Any American student looking for an analysis of Leadership in the Philippines campaign leave alone the island hopping war from Guadalcanal to Okinawa will be in for disappointment. The point is, had the title talked of ‘Southeast Asia’ rather than ‘Asia’ it would have been a more accurate description. [I blame the publisher, as they chose the title…]
The author selects eight Leaders for his study and he deals with them a chapter at a time. On the Japanese side there is Yamashita Tomoyuki, who conquered Malaya and Mutaguchi Renya who failed so badly in 1944 At Imphal and Kohima.
The British include those who failed, notably Percival in Malaya, Hutton in Burma and Irwin in the Arakan. The author’s hero is unabashedly Bill Slim of Fourteenth Army and for some odd reason Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten who was the supreme commander in SEAC. [Come on Eric: he was actually a very good Combined and Joint commander! We can forget his philandering and his vanity when evaluating his ability to pull a whole variety of diverse and competing interests together in a single cause.] One would have thought that General Sir Oliver Leese as the Army Group Commander, in today’s parlance the Land Component Commander, would have been a more suitable case for treatment, yet he enters the account only from the sidelines within the context of Slim and Mountbatten. [I agree! I had written a draft of a chapter on Leese, but it took the book over 100,000 words so it was left out.]
By the same token, if we were to have a chapter devoted to Mountbatten as the successful supremo, how about Wavell as the unsuccessful chief? Would one rate Mountbatten’s contribution to the victory as significant as Wavell’s to the disasters of Malaya, Burma and elsewhere, two years earlier. Wavell figures in the text but should he have been given a separate study too? [I agree, but I had written extensively about Wavell in my book First Victory (2006) and so left him out this time, though I agree it would have made sense to do so. That said, I was keen not to overburden the book with British generals.]
Writing a book on these lines, dedicating a chapter to each individual does create considerable organizational problems not least the need to go over old ground and so repetition, to a degree, is unavoidable. There are occasions however, where the repetition does become tedious and the temptation to skip or even just skim a section is inevitable.
Some of the chapters are better than others as is bound to be the case in a study of this nature. The most outstanding is Stilwell where the author shows great insight as he explores the conflicting requirements of keeping the venal Chinese sweet and in the war and at the same time having them live up to their commitments to put troops in the field. [Thanks Eric.] Stilwell’s task was an impossible one, at the same time the US president’s high representative in the Court of Chiang Kai Shek, as a military advisor to the Generalissimo, and to command a corps level force in the field.
Stilwell’s temperament did not help, not for nothing was he known as Vinegar Joe. The one weakness in what is an excellent chapter is the author assumes that the reader has a good knowledge of the tangled intrigues of the Nationalist Court and the terrain over which the Chinese fought on the Sino Burmese border. But Robert Lyman has his man “bang to rights” and it would be worth his writing a full account dedicated to Stilwell. A British author’s perspective would add value to a man who has been much studied by his fellow countrymen.
In contrast the weakest chapter is Mountbatten where the author is so unstinting in his praise and admiration that past demeanours, such as driving his destroyer in the early years of the war with such reckless abandon that it would have earned any officer without his connections in the star-studded firmament, censure and possibly dismissal. Similarly other writers have criticized Mountbatten for the grandeur and opulence of his SEAC headquarters in Kandy which was vastly overstaffed by bright young things” which allowed him to bask in their admiration. Neither does your reviewer accept that the relationship between Mountbatten and Slim was as congenial as the author maintains. The great controversy over Slim’s “sacking” from Command of Fourteenth Army is very one-sided in this account. That it was insensitively handled is beyond dispute but the “plot”, such as it was, was masterminded by Mountbatten and poor old Oliver Leese, who was but the messenger, like the loyal Guardee that he was, shouldered the blame. Mountbatten, in my judgement, let him take the fall. [Fair enough!]
Mountbatten did make a major contribution, not least at the highest levels in the reconquest of Burma. He was the supreme commander but it is a bit wearisome to read account after account of his standing on a conveniently placed ammo box to address the boys at the front. It rather reminds one of John Major [a tired old Tory politician who became one of Britain’s worst ever prime Ministers, for those reading from abroad] who also had a soap box to hand at the political hustings in the election of 1997 which brought doom to the Conservative Party.
Percival gets a sympathetic hearing but to blame him for failing to prevent the Japanese amphibious invasions of Malaya is a bit harsh. The author suggests that had things been different the Japanese could have been thrown back into the sea. When, in the Second World War was an amphibious invasion across beaches thrown back from whence it came? [Fair enough.]
Nationality wise the author is strongest with the Japanese where he describes with great clarity their military systems of command due to the relationship between the commander and his subordinates. For those of us on unfamiliar ground this was very helpful.
Plus of course the author knows Slim and has written before (Slim, Master of War) and for this reason the chapter is a little disappointing. [Oh dear!] The controversial nature of the relationship between Slim and Wingate, for example, is given scant attention. [Because it can be dismissed in a sentence: Slim had to put up with Wingate, but he found him a nuisance and a distraction.]
This book is an excellent read. It is well written and the prose flows easily. There are some errors in the text, some which should have come to light with careful editing. In the Introduction Robert Lyman refers to the writer of the Chinese master strategist Sun Tsu and his short treatise written, “...fifteen hundred years ago.” My edition tells me that “Art of War” was written 2,400 years ago, roughly at the time of Confucius. [Oops! Maths never was my strong point.]
Students of the Operational Level of war will find much of value and much to enjoy in this book, as I did.
Eric Morris
