New Ironside Biography

Discussion in 'Books, Films, TV, Radio' started by Charley Fortnum, Feb 15, 2015.

  1. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    £14.24.

    Edit: scratch that--this is the Kindle price.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2018
  2. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    Bad luck, plase try agai, I would love to resd it.
    Stefan.
     
  3. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    Pushed back until 01 Jun 2018!

    Saga.
     
  4. Over Here

    Over Here Junior Member

    Happened to be rereading, Five Days in London, May 1940 by Lukacs the other day. This from John Colville's diary for Monday May 27th, 1940:

    "There are signs Halifax is being defeatist, He says our aim can no longer be to crush Germany, but rather to preserve our own integrity and independence. Fortunately Ironside is gone." (He was relieved as CIGS on the 26th, with announcement delayed one day.)

    The clear implication being that Ironside was counselling a negotiated peace on his opinion that resistance was futile. One cannot say that it was not a logical conclusion for a professional soldier, and he certainly was not a coward.

    Tragic is the only word for it.
     
    JimHerriot and CL1 like this.
  5. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    I'm not saying that your inference is definitely wrong, but I am not certain that it is actually implied--at least not given the wider context of his views on Ironside and the course of the war up until then.

    Colville had formed a bad impression of Ironside before the British Army had started fighting and before our wicket had begun to look sticky, writing on 13/12/39 that he and Hore-Belisha were 'as usual, behaving disgracefully' in a 'first-class row' with Lord Gort, of whom he was fond.

    This poor opinion had deteriorated even further by 12/4/40, when Grigg (then Perm. Sec. at the War Office) told him that Ironside and Stanley (Sec. of State for War) were 'not adopting a sensible attitude' with regards to War Office plans focusing on retaking Trondhjem (sic) instead of Narvik; he warned that he and Winston (not yet PM) might 'go and bugger up the whole war' if the P.M. (Chamberlain) didn't take a hold of events.

    Grigg again soured Colville against fortnight later, as plans to evacuate Norway were finalised, describing him as 'the worst and most incompetent of men'. Grigg was against the decision, believing it could even be part of a ploy by Winston to strengthen his own position and discredit Chamberlain.

    Hence, by 1/5/40, Colville would write 'I feel it is most important to be rid of Ironside as C.I.G.S. and replace him by Dill. But crucially it was not Ironside alone he thought to be at fault, it was the whole organisational apparatus. He went on to write: 'I have less and less confidence in the Chiefs of Staff, especially as far as the War Office is concerned'. Dill's appraisal of the British position two days later (following the evacuation from Namos) as 'by no means precarious' and his opinion that the German Army was not 'in really good fighting shape', with soldiers who were 'young and enthusiastic, but not steady' moved Colville to declare him 'a man who gives one confidence and who will, I hope, soon succeed Ironside as C.I.G.S.'

    It's important to note that Colville was comparatively sanguine about the position in France until it really was apparent that the end was nigh (he described the weekend of 25/26 May as 'a grave deterioration' and only then began to countenance a French 'collapse'). Part of the blame for the chaos in France, he believed, was a failure in co-ordination between British and French forces, a failure that was at least partially Ironside's fault. Earlier in the week he had described himself as being 'staggered' by the fact that the French had put up less resistance to invasion than Poland, Norway and Holland. 'In all the history of war', he writes 'I have never seen such mismanagement', but, still, the very next day (the 21st), he was still pinning hopes on the French. When offered Pug Ismay's opinion that while Weygand was a notable improvement in leadership, the danger was that they would fold if offered generous terms of surrender by the Germans (after demanding undeliverable reinforcements from Britain to save face), Colville still could not see them 'shaming themselves to quite that extent.' Ismay here, envisaging collapse, urged the need for a really good C-in-C for the forces in Britain--and Colville seemed not to demur. This, ironically, would turn out to be Ironside, at least for a time. [All the forgoing quotations from The Fringes of Power: The Downing Street Diaries 1939-55]

    Indeed, in Colville's biography of Gort (Man of Valour: Field Marshal Lord Gort V.C.), he is explicit in stating that Gort had 'good reason to complain of Ironside's excessive zeal for, and concentration on, Scandinavian excursions planned at the expense of the only front on which the decisive battle could be fought.' If I has to summarise, I'd say that Colville--like Gort--saw Ironside as preferring to play wargames and plot grand-strategy rather than focus on the essentials of administration.

    Details here from Churchill's Generals by John Keegan:

    Screenshot 2020-01-08 at 00.20.40.png
    Screenshot 2020-01-08 at 00.21.17.png
    Screenshot 2020-01-08 at 00.21.49.png

    There is a litany of further causes given for the friction between Gort with the B.E.F. and Ironside at home, not least a lack of equipment during the winter of '39 and '40 and Ironside's habit of bypassing Gort on matters pertaining to his own command, but most notably a repeated failure in communication--with Gort and with the French. Despite his being on leave in England an the end of January, Gort was not briefed either plans for Finland or Scandinavia, not even simply on the extent of the consequences of these plans for the forces under his command. More seriously, perhaps, the withdrawal 5th Division from France was not even mentioned to Gamelin, and two of the three divisions of III Corps were also withheld from Gort, resulting in a B.E.F. that was notably below its proposed strength. (All this: pp. 172-73).

    The picture I get is one in which Colville had lost faith in Gort's capacity for management, which as C.I.G.S. was a crucial ability. With the Battle of France all but over, he was hoping and pushing for a man whom he thought better suited to focusing effectively on co-ordination and communication. Dill's optimism against Ironside's pessimism helped to convince him that he was up to the job. Ironside himself had once stated that of the two of them, Dill was a better staff officer and he the better commander of troops. He described his move from C.I.G.S. to Commander-in-Chief Home Forces (replacing Kirke) as a job 'much more to my liking than CIGS in every way'.

    An equally interesting question, of course, is how on Earth did he end up in a job to which he believed himself so ill-suited--and for that Gort himself (and Pownall) appear to bear some blame:

    Screenshot 2020-01-08 at 00.16.10.png
    Screenshot 2020-01-08 at 00.16.25.png

    From Churchill's Generals by John Keegan.
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2020
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  6. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    When Britain Invaded Russia - BBC Sounds

    Released On: 20 Oct 2017
    Available for over a year
    Lucy Ash tells the story of a little-known brutal war that took place a century ago along the frozen rivers of the Russian Arctic, transforming Russia's relations with the West for decades to come. After the October Revolution, thousands of foreign troops under British command fought Russians on Russian soil for over 18 months. Swamps and forests around Archangel are still littered with grenades and fragments of shells. On Mudyug, an island in the White Sea, Lucy visits the remains of a concentration camp where the Allies locked up potential troublemakers. British soldiers stayed on long past the Armistice with no clear idea of their mission. Were they there to defend against German attacks or were they on a crusade which Winston Churchill hoped would "strangle at birth the Bolshevik State"? In the programme Lucy Ash meets the 93-year-old son of General Edmund Ironside, who wrote at the time that he was in charge of "a tiny army of not very first class troops" stranded in the icy vastness of Russia "in the midst of a bitter civil war". Producer: Natalia Golysheva.
     

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