MILITARY LEADERSHIP

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 10 January 1936, Page 2

MILITARY LEADERSHIP

Major-General A. P. Wavell, Commander of the 2nd Division, Aldershot Command, spoke on generals and .generalship in a lecture to the Royal United Service Institution. Generals with big peace reputations, he said, often failed in war, while those who had made a name in war were sometimes not very satisfactory when training troops in . peace. “If I had to take one quality as the mark of the really great commander,” he said, “I should call it the spirit of adventure. He must have at least a touch of the gambler.” A leader must have personality, which was really simply knowing your own mind and being perfectly determined to get it. He must have a genuine interest in. and knowledge of, humanity—the raw material of his trade. Alodern developments have removed the general’s person from the close contact with his troops of former days; broadcasting and television may perhaps restore it. The British Army had, to a certain extent, still kept its amateur status. They could not with voluntary service have a wholly professionalised army of the modern .type. And it still had to be prepared for the “village cricket” type of campaign, as well as for the “timeless test” type of the Great War. A knowledge of the psychology of the ordinary un-military citizens, of whom in the future all great armies will, be composed, should be part of the knowledge of their leaders, the professional officers. What they must aim at is to produce a high normal type of commander. No one could pretend that the profession of arms attracted the highest quality of brains, but there was among those "who joined the army a potentially high level of robust common-sense. They were overhauling and modernising’ the machinery of war, hut doing very little to modernise the directing brain, the officer. If they wanted to have a high level of command at the top, they must begin right at the bottom before the good, keen, young subaltern started- to become bored, disillusioned, parochial and barrack-bound. He suggested that at present, in this first vital impression, there was too much stress on drill and routine, on “spit and polish,” on details of the regulations and of dress, at the expense of mental liveliness and independence of thought.