BRILLIANT LEADER OF NORTH AFRICAN ARMY

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23883, 27 February 1943, Page 4

BRILLIANT LEADER OF NORTH AFRICAN ARMY

GENERAL ALEXANDER

Alexander—what a name to conjure with-is. like John Dill and Alan Brooke, an Irishman: what deductions may be drawn from that, except that we may have Indian leaders in the next World War, I do not know. But Harold Rupert Leofric George Alexander's Irish upbringing is, to some extent at least, a key to the character of one of our lesser known generals. One of the four sons of Lord Caledon, who died when he was a child, Harold Alexander was allowed by ms mother, an Irishwoman of distinctive and unconventional temper, to roam at will not only from dawn to dusk but through as many dawnsanddusks as he liked; he wasn t, for the first m years of his life, troubled much with manner or books: in other words, he knew, as few English children know it freedom. That does not mean that he was an unmannerly lout, or that he was in any way disabled from coping with Harrow, for which he played football in 1909 and cncket-in the famous Fowlers’ match-m 1910, it does partly explain why a man who loves mainly a family life, solitude, and painting, should also bc amateur mile champion of Ireland in 1914, and should drift by circumstance rather than by deliberate choice, into Sandhurst and an Army career. And circumstance was quick to stamp necessity on that drift and to turn it into the most urgent of careers. It was on September 23. 1911. f ha f . gazetted a second lieutenant in the Ist Battalion of the Irish Guards; he was one of the Old Contemptibles surviving with only slight wounds through alf the four fateful Flanders yeprs Anyone, therefore, who, seeking for men talks of a lost generation can here find one who survived: a slight, fair, good-looking subaltern in 1914, a lieutenant-colonel commanding the 2nd Battalion of the Irish Guards in October 1917, (at the age of 26), an officer of wide experience in the 20 years that followed, and then, as we know the commander of the last forces at Dunkirk, the last-minute organiser of the small and gallant Burma army, and to-day Rommel s opposite number, holding what may well be the most vital position in the British Empire’s war plan. Is he lucky, or unlucky. to have thus been landed with the responsibility for three desperate situations? Are there, in the 20 hidden years of his career between two wars, any clues to the character and ability of a man who, though sociable and charming, is sometimes described by his friends as “inscrutable”? Late in 1918 Alexander was sent to command the Xth Corps School; which, for a soldier at that particular time, was scarcely exciting. And here suddenly came into the picture Stsphen Tallents, of “Projection of England” and 8.8.C. fame, now K.C.M.G, but then a severely wounded and invalided former officer of the Irish Guards who, after working m the Ministry of Food, had been sent to. Warsaw on the British Food Mission to organise measures for Polish, relief, and wanted help. He turned to his old regiment, and Alexander went. But the gods did not destine him to

[By L.F., in “Profile” Series in the "Observer."]

be a food expert, and for what v pened next we must g 0 to WaF Duranty. "One day," he writes “aW 1 a week after my arrival found sitting by the fire in club-room a young British officer khaki uniform with the insignia -.i l ® colonel but wearing Russian v- * boots; beside him there was a astrakhan cap of the type worn in t? Cossack regiments. This was Li P , ant-Colonel Alexander, a regular!# cer of the Irish Guards, now detark by special order to command the ft? tic Landwehr. Alex, as everyone caF him, was the most charming and turesque person I have ever met Plc one of the two soldiers I have lain#’ who derived a strong, positive ~ permanent exhilaration from of danger There are the tional men, like Alexander, whaSP' real kick from danger, and’the Sal! the danger the greater the kick* 9 “And when Tallents talked v der Goltz out of Riga and establish? a pro-ally government, the arose-what was to be done wither Baltic Landwehr. who were all olr man stock . . . although most of«!?’ were Russian citizens. It was a#-!? 1 decided that if the Landwehr accept an Allied commander th P v? j not be disbanded; and fiji.-f. o ®® l * hold of Alexander. There coifid^a #t been no happier choice; within anSS!? the Landwehr were devoted tohil. and it was he who, quite unconscS? ly, prevented them from marching; Riga. As one of them told me tw haps we ought to have done ifin that case we should have had v knock Alexander on the head, and »j liked him far too much.” ’ w, t

Thus Alexander won laurels aJ experience in a Russo-German- jS less than two years later he was again commanding the Irish Guartr and having his first taste of the MidiS East at Constantinople, besieged, or less, by the victorious Mustashl Kemal. ■ ' ,

I remember meeting him in those W doubt now trivial but then anxlouj. seeming days: a quiet, unflurried, |W man held in exceptional esteem b those who served him. And then M. lowed a long period of quieter mllitwy work, first at Gibraltar, then at thi Staff College, then at the Imperial lit. fence College, then at the War Office, and then Chief Staff Officer Northern Command, until 1934, when he wta| (on the same boat as the presents*, retary of State for War) to India: end there commanded the Nowshera Bri< gade, taking a distinguished part ia the Loe-Agra and Mohmand open, tions.

He was born in December, 1891, Ha has been five times mentioned in dit* patches and holds the Legion d Honour as well as M.C., D.5.0., CSI C.8., and K.C.B. 'At Hazebrouck,' In 1918, he . won particular praise Mr coolness and courage. Many event? in Alexander’s life seem to have . lu> pened in the autumn. Good luco him in this one: he has his work q»| out, and no easy path, ahead Qf hlo, but let us at least say—even if we riik imitating the Cairo spokesman-that for one of the name of Alexande! Cairo to Dakar is but a step.