The Secret (Scribbling) Life of Bill Slim

Few people during his lifetime, and even fewer now, know that the man who was to become one of the greatest British generals of all time – and I’m not exaggerating – was in fact a secret scribbler. Now, many people know that he was the author of at least two best selling books. In 1956 he wrote his account of the Burma campaign, Defeat into Victory, described by one reviewer, quite rightly in my view, as ‘the best general's book of World War II.’ Then, in 1959, he published, under the title of Unofficial History, a series of articles about his military experience, some of which had been published previously as articles in Blackwood’s magazine. This was the first indication that there was an unknown literary side to Slim. The fact that he was a secret scribbler, or at least had been one once, was only publicly revealed on the publication of his biography in 1976 by Ronald Lewin – Slim, The Standard Bearer – which incidentally won the W.H. Smith Literary Award that same year. Lewin explained that Slim had written material for publication long before the war. In fact, between 1931 and 1940 he wrote a total of 44 articles, extending in length between two and eight thousand words – a total of 122,000 words in all – for a range of newspapers and magazines, including Blackwood’s Magazine, the Daily Mail, the Evening Express and the Illustrated Weekly of India. According to Lewin, he did this to supplement his earnings as an officer of the Indian Army. He didn’t do it to create a name for himself as a writer, or because he had pretensions to the artistic life, but because he needed the money. As with all other officers at the time who did not have the benefit of what was described euphemistically as ‘private means’ he struggled to live off his army salary, especially to pay school fees for his children, John (born 1927) and Una (born 1930). Accordingly, he turned his hand to writing articles under a pseudonym, mainly of Anthony Mills (Mills being Slim spelt backwards) and, in one instance, that of Judy O’Grady.

With the war over, and senior military rank attained, he never again penned stories of this kind for publication. With it died any common remembrance of his pre-war literary activities. Copies of the articles have languished ever since amidst his papers in the Churchill Archives Centre at the University of Cambridge, from where I rescued them last year. They have been republished this week by Richard Foreman of Sharpe Books.

During the time Slim was writing these the pseudonym protected him from the gaze of those in the military who might believe that serious soldiers didn’t write fiction, and certainly not for public consumption via the newspapers. He certainly went to some lengths to ensure that his military friends and colleagues did not know of this unusual extra-curricular activity. In a letter to Mr S. Jepson, editor of the Illustrated Times of India on 26 July 1939 (he was then Commanding Officer of 2/7 Gurkha Rifles in Shillong, Assam) he warned that he needed to use an additional pseudonym to the one he normally used, because that – Anthony Mills – would then be immediately ‘known to several people and I do not wish them to identify me also as the writer of certain articles in Blackwood’s and Home newspapers. I am supposed to be a serious soldier and I'm afraid Anthony Mills isn’t.’

What do these 44 articles tell us of Slim? He would never have pretended that his writings represented any higher form of literary art. He certainly had no pretensions to a life as a writer. He was, first and foremost, a soldier. His writing was to supplement the family’s income. But, as readers will attest, he was very good at it. They demonstrate his supreme ability with words. As Defeat into Victory was to demonstrate, he was a master of the telling phrase every bit as much as he was a master of the battlefield. He made words work. They were used simply, sparingly, directly. Nothing was wasted; all achieved their purpose.

The articles also show Slim’s propensity for storytelling. Each story has a purpose. Some were simply to provide a picture of some of the characters in his Gurkha battalion, some to tell the story of a battle or of an incident while on military operations. Some are funny, some not. Some are of an entirely different kind, and have no military context whatsoever. These are often short adventure stories, while some can best be described as morality tales. A couple of them warned his readers not to jump to conclusions about a person’s character. Some showed a romantic tendency to his nature.

The stories can be placed into three broad categories. The first comprises seventeen stories about the Indian Army, of which the Gurkha regiments formed an important part. The second group are eleven stories about India, with no or only a passing military reference. The third, much smaller group, contains seventeen stories with no Indian or military dimension.

With the onset of war in 1939, Slim’s interest in pursuing his literary ventures rapidly waned and was never renewed.

That he was an extraordinarily good scribbler is not in doubt. Defeat into Victory was an instant publishing sensation with the first edition of 20,000 selling out almost immediately. It is widely regarded as a classic memoir of high command. Major General. D. R. Bateman wrote in The Field:  ‘Of all the world's greatest records of war and military adventure, this story must surely take its place among the greatest. It is told with a wealth of human understanding, a gift of vivid description, and a revelation of the indomitable spirit of the fighting man that can seldom have been equalled – let alone surpassed – in military history.’ George Thompson in the London Evening Standard was as effusive in his praise: ‘He has written the best general's book of World War II. Nobody who reads his account of the war, meticulously honest yet deeply moving, will doubt that here is a soldier of stature and a man among men.’

When it was published in the United States in 1961 it received similar reviews. The Journal of Modern History in 1963 considered it a work of ‘wisdom, modesty, grace, and deep understanding’, and ‘an outstanding example of the best of British military memoirs.’ The author John Masters, who served in the 14th Army, wrote in the New York Times on 19 November 1961 that it was ‘a dramatic story with one principal character and several hundred subordinate characters,' arguing that Slim was 'an expert soldier and an expert writer’.  The book remains a best seller today.

The following year Slim also published an anthology of speeches and lectures, loosely based on the theme of leadership, entitled Courage and Other Broadcasts. Then in 1959 Slim published his second book, Unofficial History, which bears out in full Masters' description of Slim as a superb writer. It was a deeply personal, honest though light hearted account of events during his service in locations and at times missed by the history books. It was also the place where a number of his longer articles for Blackwood’s Magazine were first published in 1936 and the years following, all of which are republished in this anthology. It received widespread acclaim. The author John Connell described it as ‘for the most part uproarious fun. If Bill Slim hadn't been a first-rate soldier, what a short story writer he might have made’. Connell was clearly unaware of Anthony Mills. For its part, The National Review wrote: ‘One of the most significant aspects of Field Marshal Slim's book is the affectionate respect he shows when he writes about British and Indian soldiers. He finds plenty to amuse him too. I doubt whether a kindlier or truer description of the contemporary soldier has been given anywhere than in Unofficial History... It is one of the most delightful and amusing books about modern campaigning I have ever read.’

I am absolutely delighted that Sharpe Books have republished these 44 articles in three short volumes, available in ebook, paperback and hardback. It is my hope that they will bring the quality of Slim’s character to a new and appreciative audience.