Review - The War Diaries of FM Lord Alanbrooke

Review - The War Diaries of FM 

Lord Alanbrooke

Only very few books I've ever read have left me with a sense of having gained some genuine insight into the machinations that drive human history. This is one of them. The diaries of first General Alan Brooke, later FM and Lord Alanbrooke cover the full duration of WWII, the European as well as Asian theater, and seldom has a more intimate and critical account of that time been given.

It shows us Alan Brooke, the private man loving and fascinated by nature, driven by a keen sense of duty, sportsmanship, love of family, love of country and, ultimately, his love of birds. A hobby ornithologist, Brooke found refuge and calm in his observation of birds, a kind of inner sanctum that allowed him to wind down in the sparse hours his mind was not preoccupied with first his military and later also his political duties. 

It also presents Brooke as a deeply poetic mind longing to spend time with his family. Each entry is written as if it was adressed to his wife; it's not merely noting down what happened on any given day, it's telling someone else about it. One can understand the man's fear when he recounts the instance of his son from his first marriage coming down with a severe form of appendicitis, only to lose sight of him when the Allied front collapses in France and Belgium in the summer of 1940. In the same vein, the joy he must have felt transpires - he was nearly 60 at the time - when he spent his free hours at home to build a small wagon that could be pulled by a goat for his younger children from his second marriage.

However, it is also an account of a man who - perhaps only subconsciously - realized he was witnessing the twilight of the empire he had grown up and lived in. His reports time and again bemoan the quality of senior military leadership in the British forces, something he attributes to the fact that too many of the good men were lost, for nothing, during the last war. His forces are strechted too thin, equipment is always sparse, and the longer the war goes on, the more the realization dawns that the British Empire is relegated to playing second fiddle to the Americans upon whom it has grown dependant.

But more than a book about Alan Brooke himself the "War Diaries" are a first hand account of his contemporaries: Eisonhower and Marshal, Stalin, de Gaulle and most importantly, Winston Spencer Churchill.

"Never have I admired and despised a man simultaneously to the same extent."

If you've got your knowledge about Churchill from common school books, from Brendan Gleeson's magnificent miniseries, or from Doctor Who you're in for a rough and unpleasant ride. The picture Brooke paints of Britain's most famous PM is no less grand than the one Churchill has painted for himself. As one contemporary once quipped, "Winston has written a book about himself and called it The Second World War". But Brooke's piece has more dark spots on it, and some of the colors he uses are a lot shriller. And since he spent literally every day with the man, I'm inclined to believe his account as far as WSC is concerned, because he describes a real human being.

'His' Winston Churchill is a fascinating personality: excentric (he describes more than one instance where the PM summoned him to a meeting only clad in a chinese-dragon embroidered bathrobe or were he lay almost naked in bed) industrious, well-read, tenacious, a natural born orator, stalwart, funny, aggressive and eager to be where the fighting is.
But the other side of the coin weighs heavier, for the PM proved himself to be a man defined by a narrow perspective, infatuated beyond reason with what should have been sideshows of the war, a man lacking nearly all understanding of strategy, vindictive, prone to recklessness and heavy drinking, lacking personal and military caution, a man who easily took advice contrary to his own ideas personal and who was prone to stack discussions with those he believed to be Yes-men, and ultimately a man who did not give a damn about the chain of command. As great as his judgement of his own people was, as lacklustre was the one of others, especially Stalin and the Americans who he was occasionally poised to raise to near sainthood.

Going by Alan Brooke's account, often the full voices of the War Cabinet and the CIGS and his chiefs were needed to discourage Churchill from a particular course of action. And only minor changes in who sat were and how the war played out may very well have produced severe consequences under these circumstances.

Final Verdict: 5/5 (A). Great account by a barely known man who nonetheless helped win WWII. Offers detailed insights into the leading echelons of Great Britain during the war, especially w/regards to military matters and, above all, the character of Winston Churchill. You should get this book.