General Wavell Speaking Generally on Generals

My library includes titles on the general subjects of war, warfare, military science, the art of war, strategy, tactics, leadership, and the art of command, among related subjects. The arts of leadership, command, generalship are a long time study, for professional and personal interest. I have had the pleasure of knowing and even working for a few leaders over the years, but it is a rare pleasure and most of the time the best you can hope for is a boss who at least grasps the concepts of good management.

I was delighted last year to add a slim little 63 page paperback to my library. This was the Penguin Special paperback edition (1941) of General Archibald Wavell’s three lectures on Generals and Generalship. This wartime edition looks great among the other paperbacks of similar vintage that I place on display to support my portrayal of a somewhat overage British Army captain during World War II.

Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell was certainly someone in a position to write knowledgeably on the subject, having by 1941 spent almost 40 years as an officer - first in his regiment, The Black Watch, and then in higher command positions. These lectures were first given at the Royal United Services Institution beginning in 1936 and, as presented in this volume, were delivered at Cambridge in early 1939.

Wavell admits that in preparing for these lectures, he sought out what all of the great captains and military thinkers had said on the subject and yet found only one that he thought worth sharing, from Socrates, which appealed to his own views about a general’s need to be practical, energetic, and adaptable.

“The general must know how to get his men their rations and every other kind of stores needed for war. He must have imagination to originate plans, practical sense and energy to carry them through. He must be observant, untiring, shrewd; kindly and cruel; simple and crafty; a watchman and a robber; lavish and miserly’ generous and stingy; rash and conservative. All these and many other qualities, natural and acquired, he must have. He should also, as a matter of course, know his tactics; for a disorderly mob is no more an army that a heap of building material is a house.”

The future Field Marshal rather diminishes the importance of physical characteristics that might be desirable in a general, but did identify the essential moral qualities (which he clearly rated as more important):

• Character – in “that he knows what he wants and has the courage and determination to get it.”

• A genuine interest in and real knowledge of humanity, which is “the raw material” of his trade in the form of the officers and men under his command.

• Fighting spirit – i.e., the will to win.

• A spirit of adventure, a touch of the gambler – citing Napoleon, “If the art of war consisted merely in not taking risks glory would be at the mercy of very mediocre talent,” for “the general who allows himself to be bound and hampered by regulations [in waging war] is unlikely to win a battle.”

With regard to intellectual or mental qualities, Wavell emphasized the need to have a sense of what is possible to do in battle, especially with regard to the administrative and logistical aspects of warfare. He noted that the lack of this sense was where most critics of warfare and of generals (as well as most generals who fail) go wrong.

Wavell offered two simple rules for every general:

1) never try to do your own staff work, and

2) never let your staff get between you and your troops.

A general should also know his subordinate commanders and their key characteristics – does one need to be restrained and perhaps another pushed, which of them can be used effectively and decisively in an independent role?

He also discussed whether, and how, a general should address the troops under his command, including whether he should do so collectively or individually. In either situation, Wavell noted, each officer will have to find his own way and manner of doing either but always risks leaving behind an impression other than the one sought. He also notes that a certain of show of temper is not automatically received unfavorably but that sarcasm is “always resented and seldom forgiven.”

Having worked for superiors at various times who used sarcasm, I agree completely with Wavell’s elaboration that “sarcasm…is being clever at someone else’s expense” but believe he might have gone even further to note that a superior thus exercising his (or her) sarcasm upon a subordinate is in reality simply abusing their position of authority and targeting someone who has no recourse or response other than to stay silent and “take it” – but they will remember and resent that moment.

The General concluded his final lecture with a last admonition. He called to mind “the pious Greek” who erected altars to all the known great gods and then added one more, enscribing it “To the Unknown God.” Wavell asked that we add one further military altar to those already erected to Hannibal, Marlborough, Napoleon, et al, and upon this one enscribe “To the Unknown Leader” – understanding this to mean the “good company, platoon, or section leader who carries forward his men or holds his post, and often falls unknown.”

Amen.

'Twas a Famous Victory - and who won again?

Those of you interested in military history probably recall that the Battle of Waterloo was fought on June 18, 1815 and that we recently marked its 197th anniversary. Bet that you didn't know that it is also an example of how history is often retold differently by different sources (and if you want proof of that go visit my friends at The Napoleon Series).

The English politician and poet Winthrop Mackworth Praed wrote this version of the Battle of Waterloo presumably after one or more visits to France in the decades immediately following the battle!


WATERLOO


Ay, here such valorous deeds were done
  As ne’er were done before;
Ay, here the reddest wreath was won
  That ever Gallia wore;
Since Ariosto’s wondrous Knight
  Made all the Paynims dance,
There never dawned a day so bright
  As Waterloo’s on France.

The trumpet poured its deafening sound,
  Flags fluttered on the gale,
And cannons roared, and heads flew round
  As fast as summer hail;
The sabres flashed their light of fear,
  The steeds began to prance;
The English quaked from front to rear—
  They never quake in France!

The cuirassiers rode in and out
  As fierce as wolves and bears;
‘Twas grand to see them slash about
  Among the English squares!
And then the Polish Lancer came
  Careering with his lance;
No wonder Britain blushed for shame,
  And ran away from France!

The Duke of York was killed that day;
  The king was sadly scarred;
Lord Eldon, as he ran away,
  Was taken by the Guard;
Poor Wellington with fifty Blues
  Escaped by some strange chance;
Henceforth I think he’ll hardly choose
  To show himself in France.

So Buonaparte pitched his tent
  That night in Grosvenor Place,
And Ney rode straight to Parliament
  And broke the Speaker’s mace;
“Vive l’Empereur” was said and sung
  From Peebles to Penzance;
The Mayor and Alderman were hung’
  Which made folk laugh in France.

They pulled the Tower of London down,
  They burnt our wooden walls;
They brought the Pope himself to town,
  And lodged him in St. Paul’s;
And Gog and Magog rubbed their eyes,
  Awakening from a trance,
And grumbled out, in great surprise,
  “Oh, mercy! we’re in France!”

They sent a Regent to our Isle,
  The little King of Rome;
And squibs and crackers all the while
  Blazed in the Place Vendome;
And ever since, in arts and power,
  They’re making great advance;
They’ve had strong beer from that glad hour,
  And sea-coal fires, in France.

My uncle, Captain Flanigan,
  Who lost a leg in Spain,
Tells stories of a little man
  Who died at St. Helene;
But bless my heart, they can’t be true;
  I’m sure they’re all romance;
John Bull was beat at Waterloo!
  They’ll swear to that in France.

Winthrop Mackworth Praed
(1802-1839)

Cultures Don't Clash - People Clash

I was participating in a seminar discussion recently on the issues that confront us today around the globe or may confront us in the near to medium future. One of the participants opened his comments on the Middle East with that now almost cliché phrase “clash of cultures.” And upon hearing the words, it struck me that this was a cop out – a sound bite that unburdened the speaker and listener alike from the risk of having to do any more thinking about the subject. There is a lot of this kind of thing going on these days – substituting a catchy sound bite for thoughtful analysis – for various reasons that possibly include our intensive use of electronic media rather than the printed page (pause here for the sound of irony).

This very idea of course was advanced first and most strongly by Samuel P. Huntington in the 1990s in a lecture and finally a book. Today it’s so clichéd that it has its own Wikipedia article and is regularly cited in jeremiads on how difficult it is for us (the superior West) to get along with these other (hidebound traditionalist) cultures and civilizations and their unacceptable demands that we change our ways (not to mention Western demands and hopes that the other “cultures” should change to suit our ways of thinking). Hearing the long arms of the windmills creaking as this breeze built up, I placed my shaving bowl firmly on my head, mounted my gallant Rocinante, and couched my lance.

My first thrust should be pretty obvious (even without the hint of my title above) – civilizations/cultures do not clash, they do not make war. People clash, people make war. Civilization/culture is an inanimate construct, an artifact of the human mind, without mind, body, or a will of its own. It consists entirely of ideas proposed and shared by the members of that civilization/culture. And being a product of the human mind it is mutable – it can be altered by the people who adopt, adapt to, and follow its mores – thus constituting a civilization. The history of any civilization will show that they change and adapt frequently over time, responding to the changing ideas of its members.

I also object to the phrase as I noted above because it eliminates thought in favor of a sound bite. In so doing, it suspends any requirement or expectation of further thought, study, or analysis. It’s too easy and too pat to be a real answer. It is a phrase that reduces an incredibly complicated subject (and in this case a whole complicated book!), i.e., the nature, means, and content of interactions and exchanges between social groups today usually called nations to a few syllables. And cynically, it does so with an added sense of inescapable inevitability to that “clash”. History, if you choose to study it, is replete with examples from the past in which the thought that a clash with another culture of civilization was inevitable after some period of time brought forth the reality of that up until then hypothetical clash.  The story of the years leading up to the long anticipated and expected “inevitable” war between Germany and Britain – 1914-1918 – should provide sufficient lesson to discourage anything that smacks of repeating this error.

According to some scientists, the human mind apparently comes already hard wired to put things in categories, a reality that perhaps inspired but which is certainly reflected in the Bible’s Book of Genesis in which Adams is called upon to give names to the beasts of the world. It would appear from what we know of human history, that having cataloged the beasts of the fields and the plants mankind began sorting out, its fellow man as well. There was family, kin, lovers, friends, acquaintances, all good, but eventually there were those who were “other” than any of these and sometimes were actually enemies. Sometimes they were the “other” simply because they were new and not previously known to those doing the sorting and labeling, and sometimes because there had already been incidents of violence between “them” and “us”.

The real issue is not that such mental behaviors exist, what is critical is what people do about them. Just like civilization itself, these labels, now days often called stereotyping, are human artifacts – human creations. History shows that the making of such distinctions can lead to bloodshed but they have also been overcome more than once in human history. The United States, with its experience of the melting pot, should of all countries be able to recognize that differences can be overcome if we emphasize the things we share.

Which brings us back to the original notion – civilizations don’t clash, people clash. Civilization is just the frequently used source of the justifications people use to explain the otherwise unexplainable reasons for their clashes.