WAVELL REPLACED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 2, 2 July 1941, Page 7

WAVELL REPLACED

MIDDLE EAST COMMAND

CHANGES ANNOUNCED

NEW MINISTER OF STATE

LONDON, July 1.

Important changes in the administration of the Middle East were announced from Downing Street tonight. Captain Oliver Lyttelton, who was Presi- i dent of the Board of Trade until two days ago, has' been appointed Minister of State. j He will represent the War Cabinet in the Middle East, and it is expected he will make his headquarters in Cairo. General Sir Archibald Wavell has been appointed Comniander-in-Chief in India, and will be replaced by General Sir Claude Auchinleck who changes places with him and goes to the Middle East as Commander-in-Chief.

Captain Lyttelton will collaborate with General Auchinleck in attending to the increased amount of administrative work in the Middle East. He will deal with diplomatic and political affairs, publicity, propaganda, financial and economic war-

fare, relations with our Allies in the Middle East, and other problems. Hitherto, all these problems have fallen on the shoulders of the Com-mander-in-Chief alone, and the strain upon General Wavell, who in addi-

tion has conducted five major campaigns', has been so great that he has agreed to change places with General Auchinleek.

General Auchinleck, who is 57, became Commander-in-Chief in India early this year. He was in command of the Allied forces which captured Narvik, and before going to India organised the strengthening of the defences on the south coast of England.

NEW COMMANDER'S CAREER *

General Auchinleck's new appoint^ ment marks the promotion of one of

I Britain's ablest soldiers to a hjgh and responsible post. ; Born in 1884, he joined the 62nd Punjabis, now the 1/lst Punjabj Regiment, in 1904, and became colonel of that regiment. During the last war he served in- Egypt/ at Aden, in Irak; and in SouthI crn Kurdistan, and after that war | distinguished himself in the Mohmand campaigns of 1933 and 1935. The appointments held by him have included the command of the Peshawar Brigade in 1933, and of the Merut District in 1938. In the interval between these commands he was Deputy Chief of. the General Staff in India from 1936 to 1938. In. the present war he saw active service in Norway, and in November, 1940, was appointed Commander-inJ Chief in India in succession to General Sir R. A. Cassels. i