Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke

Infobox Military Person
name=The Rt Hon. The Viscount Alanbrooke
lived= birth date|1883|7|23 – death date and age|1963|6|17|1883|7|23
placeofbirth=Bagnères-de-Bigorre, France
placeofdeath=Hartley Wintney, Hampshire


caption=General Sir Alan Brooke as CIGS, 1942
nickname=Brookie
allegiance=flagicon|United Kingdom United Kingdom
branch=
serviceyears=1902–1946
rank=Field Marshal
commands=School of Artillery (1929–1932) 8 Infantry Brigade (1934–1935) Mobile Division (1937) Anti-Aircraft Corps (1938) II Corps (1939–1940) C-in-C, Southern Command (1940–1940) C-in-C, Home Forces (1940–1941) CIGS (1941–1946)
unit=
battles=World War I World War II
awards=Knight of the Garter Knight Grand Cross of the Bath Order of Merit Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order Distinguished Service Order
laterwork=Lord High Constable of England President of the Zoological Society of London (1950–1954) Vice President of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
portrayedby=
Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke KG, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO (23 July 1883 – 17 June 1963) was a senior commander in the British Army. He was the Chief of the Imperial General Staff during the Second World War, and was promoted Field Marshal in 1944. As chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee Brooke was the foremost military advisor to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and is regarded as one of the chief architects of the Allies' victory in 1945. After retiring from the army he served as Lord High Constable of England during the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. His war diaries attracted attention for their criticism of Churchill and Brooke's forthright views on other leading figures of the war.

Background and early life

He was born in 1883 at Bagnères-de-Bigorre, France, to a prominent Anglo-Irish family with a long military tradition. He was the sixth son and ninth child of Sir Victor Brooke, 3rd Baronet, of Colebrooke, Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, and the former Alice Bellingham, second daughter of Sir Alan Bellingham, 3rd Baronet, of Castle Bellingham in County Louth.

Alan Brooke was educated in France where he lived until the age of 16, and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He left the Academy as a Gentleman Cadet on 24 December 1902 to join the Royal Regiment of Artillery as a Second Lieutenant. [ [http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/ViewPDF.aspx?pdf=27528&geotype=London&gpn=1216 London Gazette Issue 27528 published on the 24 February 1903. Page 6 of 88] ] Thanks to his upbringing in France he was a fluent French speaker. During World War I he served with the Royal Artillery in France, ending the conflict as a Lieutenant-Colonel and with a reputation as an outstanding planner of operations. Between the wars he was a lecturer at the Staff College, Camberley and the Imperial Defence College, where Brooke knew most of those who became leading British commanders of the Second World War.

World War II

Following the outbreak of World War II, Brooke commanded the II Corps of the British Expeditionary Force - which contained the 3rd Division, commanded by the then Major-General Bernard Montgomery, whose superior he thus was - and distinguished himself in the handling of the British forces in the retreat to Dunkirk. Shortly after the evacuation from Dunkirk he was again sent to France to take command of the remaining British troops in the country. Brooke soon realized that the situation was untenable and, in his first conversation with the prime minister Winston Churchill, he recommended that all British forces should be withdrawn from France, which they subsequently were. [Alanbrooke (2001), entry 14 June 1940.] In July 1940 he was appointed to command United Kingdom Home Forces to take charge of anti-invasion preparations, and in December 1941 was appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS); he later also became chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, holding both posts until retirement from active service in 1946.

For most of the Second World War, Brooke was the foremost military adviser to the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill (who was also Minister of Defence), the War Cabinet, and to Britain's allies. As CIGS, Brooke was the functional head of the Army, and as chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, which he dominated by force of intellect and personality, he took the leading military part in the overall strategic direction of the war effort. In 1942, Brooke joined the Western Allies' ultimate command, the US-British Combined Chiefs of Staff.

Alan Brooke's focus was primarily on the European theatre of operations. Here, one of his key issues was to keep a strong pressure on the Axis in North Africa and Italy, thereby opening up the Mediterranean for Allied shipping, and then, when the Allies were ready and the Germans sufficiently weakened, mount the cross channel invasion. [Alanbrooke (2001), entry 17 July 1942.] This strategy was essentially the one which was implemented, not always in initial agreement with the American allies whose strong commitment to an invasion of western Europe was in contrast to Brooke's and the British view on the importance of the Mediterranean operations. Not all of Brooke's plans were however ultimately met with success. For example he had great hope of bringing Turkey into the war on the Allied side, but this hope he admitted after the war remained a "wild dream". [Alanbrooke (2001), entry 1 February 1943.]

The post of CIGS was less rewarding than command in an important theatre of war, but the CIGS chose the generals who commanded those theatres and decided what men and munitions they should have. When it came to finding the right commanders he often complained that many officers who would have been good generals had been killed in World War I, and that this was one reason behind the difficulties the British had in the beginning of the war.Fact|date=May 2008 However, he does not seem to have reflected on the fact that the Germans did not suffer from the same problem, which they must have had to the same extent. When General Claude Auchinleck was to be replaced as the commander of the Eighth Army in 1942, Brooke preferred Bernard Montgomery instead of Lieutenant-General William Gott, who was Churchill's candidate. Soon thereafter Gott was killed in an air crash and Montgomery got the command. Brooke would later reflect upon the tragic event which led to the appointment of Montgomery as an intervention by God. [Alanbrooke (2001), entry 7 August 1942] Earlier in 1942 Brooke had himself been offered the command of British forces in the Middle East, Brooke declined, believing he now knew better than any other general how to deal with Prime Minister Churchill, who too often seemed vulnerable to unwise advice from unqualified people. [Alanbrooke (2001), entry 6 August 1942]

A year later, the war had taken a different turn and Brooke no longer believed it necessary to stay at Churchill's side. He therefore looked forward to taking command of the Allied invasion of Western Europe, a post Brooke believed he had been promised by Churchill on three occasions. But during the first Quebec conference, in August 1943, it was decided that the command would go to US General George C. Marshall. (Although in the event Marshall's work as US Army Chief of Staff was too important for him to leave Washington DC, and a different US General, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was in fact appointed.) Brooke was bitterly disappointed, both at being passed over and of the way the decision was conveyed to him by Churchill, who according to Brooke "dealt with the matter as if it were one of minor importance". [Alanbrooke (2001), entry 15 August 1943. See also entries for 15 June, 7 July and 14 July 1943.]

Relationship with Churchill

During the years as CIGS, Alan Brooke had a stormy relationship with Winston Churchill. Brooke was often frustrated with the Prime Minister’s habits and working methods, his abuse of generals and constant meddling into strategic matters. At the same time Brooke greatly admired Churchill for the way he inspired the Allied cause and for the way he bore the heavy burden of war leadership. In one typical passage in Brooke’s war diaries Churchill is described as a “genius mixed with an astonishing lack of vision -- he is quite the most difficult man to work with that I have ever struck but I should not have missed the chance of working with him for anything on earth!”. [Alanbrooke (2001), entry for 30 August 1943.]

When Churchill’s many fanciful strategic ideas collided with sound military strategy it was only Alan Brooke on the Chiefs of Staff Committee who was able to stand up to the Prime Minister. Churchill said about Brooke: “When I thump the table and push my face towards him what does he do? Thumps the table harder and glares back at me. I know these Brookes – stiff-necked Ulstermen and there's no one worse to deal with than that!” [Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, 6 vols (London: Cassell, 1948-54), Vol II, pp. 233-34] [John Colville, The Fringes of Power:Downing Street Diaries, 2 Vols (London: Sceptre 1986 and 1987) Vol. 1 p. 530] It has been claimed that part of Churchill's greatness was that he appointed Brooke as CIGS and kept him for the whole war. Fact|date=December 2007

A general complaint from Brooke was that Churchill often advocated diversion of forces where the CIGS preferred concentration. Brooke was particularly annoyed by Churchill's idea of capturing the northern tip of Sumatra. [See for example Alanbrooke (2001), entries for 8 and 19 August 1943, 28 September 1943 and 8 August 1944.] But in some cases Brooke did not see the political dimension of strategy as the Prime Minister did. For example, Brooke was sceptical about the British intervention in Greece in late 1944, an operation which he believed drained troops from the central front in Germany. But at this stage the war was practically won and Churchill saw the possibility to prevent Greece from becoming a communist state. [Fraser (1982), pp.471-473.]

The balance of the Chiefs of Staff Committee was tilted in October 1943 when Admiral Andrew Cunningham succeeded Admiral Dudley Pound as First Sea Lord. Brooke now got a firm ally in his arguments with Churchill. [Reynolds (2005), p 405.] This was reflected in the most serious clash between the Prime Minister and the Chiefs of Staff, regarding the British preparations for final stages of the Pacific War. Brooke and the rest of the Chiefs of Staff wanted to build up the forces in Australia while Churchill preferred to use India as a base for the British effort. It was an issue over which the Chiefs of Staff were prepared to resign, but in the end a compromise was reached. [Fraser (1982), pp.410-421.]

Despite their many disagreements Brooke and Churchill held an affection for each other. After one fierce clash Churchill told General Hastings Ismay that he did not think he could continue to work any longer with Brooke because “he hates me. I can see hatred looking from his eyes.” Brooke responded to Ismay: “Hate him? I don't hate him. I love him. But the first time I tell him that I agree with him when I don't will be the time to get rid of me, for then I can be no more use to him." When Churchill was told this he murmured, ”Dear Brooke.” Fact|date=December 2007

Assessment

Alan Brooke, or "Brookie" as he was generally known, is reckoned to be one of the foremost of all the heads of the British Army. He was quick in mind and speech and deeply respected by his military colleagues, both British and Allied, although his uncompromising manners could make the Americans somewhat wary. His influence on the Western Allied grand strategy was strong, perhaps the strongest any individual had. Among the most important of his contributions to the course of the war ranks the delaying of the second front. The partnership between Brooke and Churchill was a very successful one. The combination of Churchill's vision and Brooke's down to earth-method of running the war led Britain to victory in 1945. [Fraser (1982), pp.525-539.]

War diaries

Alan Brooke kept a diary during the whole of World War II. Originally intended for his wife, Benita, the diaries were later commented by Brooke in the 1950s. The diaries contain descriptions on the day-to-day running of the British war effort (including some quite indiscreet references to top secret interceptions of German radio traffic), [Alanbrooke (2001), see for example entry for 4 November 1942.] Brooke's thoughts on strategy as well as frequent anecdotes from the many meetings Brooke had with the Allied leadership during the war.

The diaries have become famous mostly because of the frequent remarks on and criticisms of Winston Churchill. Although the diaries contain appraisal and admiration of Churchill, they also served as a vent for Brooke's frustration with working with the Prime Minister. The diaries also give a rough opinion on several of the top Allied leaders. The American generals Eisenhower and George Marshall are for example described as poor strategists and the British Field Marshal Harold Alexander as unintelligent. Among the few individuals who Brooke seems to have positive opinion of are General Douglas MacArthur, [Alanbrooke (2001), see for example entry for 20 November 1943.] Field Marshal John Dill and Joseph Stalin. Brooke admired Stalin for his quick brain and grasp of military strategy. Otherwise he had no illusions about the man, describing Stalin thus: "He has got an unpleasantly cold, crafty, dead face, and whenever I look at him I can imagine his sending off people to their doom without ever turning a hair." [Alanbrooke (2001) entry 14 August 1942.]

Edited by historian Arthur Bryant the diaries were first published in 1957 ("The Turn of the Tide") and in 1959 ("Triumph in the West"). Originally the diaries were never meant to be published. One reason why Brooke changed his mind was the lack of credit to him and the Chiefs of Staff in Churchill's own war memoirs which essentially presented their ideas and innovations as his own. Although heavily censored, the books became controversial not only as a result of the many comments on Churchill and others, but also because they launched Brooke as the sole man behind the Allies' victory. Winston Churchill himself did not appreciate the books. [ [http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=307 The Churchill Centre] ] In 2001 the publication of the uncensored "War Diaries", edited by Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman, again attracted attention to one of the most influential strategists of World War II.

Post war career and honours

After retirement from the Army Alan Brooke served on the boards of several companies, both in industry and in banking. He was director of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the Midland Bank, the National Discount Company and the Belfast Banking Company. Brooke was particularly fond of being a director of the Hudson's Bay Company where he served for eleven years from 1948. [Fraser (1982), pp.514-515.]

Brooke was created Baron Alanbrooke, of Brookeborough in the County of Fermanagh, in 1945 [ [http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/ViewPDF.aspx?pdf=37315&geotype=London&gpn=5133 London Gazette Issue 37315 published on the 19 October 1945. Page 1 of 30] ] , and Viscount Alanbrooke in 1946 [ [http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/ViewPDF.aspx?pdf=37407&geotype=London&gpn=1 London Gazette Issue 37407 published on the 28 December 1945. Page 1 of 132] ] .

*He won the Distinguished Service Order [ [http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/ViewPDF.aspx?pdf=29886&geotype=London&gpn=20 London Gazette Issue 29886 published on the 29 December 1916. Page 20 of 56] ] in World War I,
*He was appointed KCB in 1940,
*The GCB in 1942, [Galloway, Peter (2006). "The Order of the Bath", p 433.]
*He became a Knight of the Garter in 1946. [ [http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/ViewPDF.aspx?pdf=37807&geotype=London&gpn=5945 London Gazette Issue 37807 published on the 3 December 1946. Page 1 of 2] ] ,
*A member of the Order of Merit in 1946,
*And GCVO in 1953.

He also served as Chancellor of the Queen's University of Belfast from 1949 until his death. At the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II he was appointed Lord High Constable of England, thus commanding all troops taking part in the event. In 1994 a statue of Brooke was erected in front of the Ministry of Defence in London. The statue is flanked by statues of Britain's other two leading generals of World War II, Viscount Slim and Viscount Montgomery.

Coat of Arms

His Coat of Arms as issued to him by the College of Arms is:"Or, a cross engrailed per pale Gules and Sable, in dexter chief a crescent for difference."

Private life and ornithology

Alan Brooke was married twice. After six years of engagement he married Jane Richardson in 1914, a neighbour to the Brookes in Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. Six days into their honeymoon Brooke was recalled to active duty when World War I started. The couple had one daughter and one son, Rosemary and Thomas. Jane Brooke died following a car accident in 1925 in which her husband was at the steering wheel. The death of his first wife was a severe blow to Alan Brooke. [Fraser (1982), pp.55, 58, 92-93.] He regained happiness when he met Benita Lees, daughter of Sir Harold Pelly, 4th Bt. and the widow of Sir Thomas Lees, 2nd Bt., whom he married in 1929. The marriage was very happy and resulted in one daughter and one son, Kathleen and Victor. [Fraser (1982), pp.96-102.] During the war the couple lived in Hartley Wintney, a village in Hampshire. After the war, the Alanbrookes' financial situation forced the couple to move into the gardener's cottage of their former home, where they lived for the rest of their lives. Their last years were darkened by the death of their daughter, Kathleen, in a riding accident in 1961. [Fraser (1982), p.524.]

Alan Brooke had a love of nature. Hunting and fishing were among his great interests. His foremost passion, however, was birds. Brooke was a noted ornithologist, especially skilled in bird photography. He was president of the Zoological Society of London from 1950 to 1954 and vice-president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. [See:
*Fraser (1982), pp.518-519
*Danchev and Todman (2001), introduction to War Diaries, p. xxv-xxvi] During breaks in the war planning, the CIGS could sometimes be seen in London book shops looking for rare bird books. He bought a precious collection of books by John Gould, but due to financial reasons he was forced to sell these volumes after the war.

Death

On 17 June 1963 Brooke suffered a heart attack and died quietly in his bed with his wife beside him. The same day, he was due to have had attended the Garter Service in St George's Chapel, Windsor. Nine days later he was given a funeral in Windsor and buried in St Mary's churchyard, near his home in Hartley Wintney, [Fraser (1982), p.524.] which is where his son, the last heir to the Alanbrooke viscountcy, still lives.

Other

*Alanbrooke House is a house at Welbeck college where all 5 houses are named after prominent military figures.
*Alanbrooke is the Junior Girls house at the Duke of York's Royal Military School, where, like Welbeck college, all houses are named after prominent military figures.

Notes

References

*cite book
last = Alanbrooke
first = Field Marshal Lord (edited by Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman)
title = War Diaries 1939-1945
publisher = Phoenix Press
series =
year = 2001
isbn = 1-84212-526-5
*cite book
last = Fraser
first = David
authorlink =
title = Alanbrooke
publisher = Hamlyn Paperbacks
series =
year = 1983
isbn = 0-600-20816-8
*cite book
last = Galloway
first = Peter
authorlink =
title = The Order of the Bath
publisher =
series =
year = 2006
isbn =
*cite book
last = Heathcote
first = Tony
authorlink =
title = The British Field Marshals 1736-1997
publisher = Pen & Sword Books Ltd
series =
year = 1999
isbn = 0-85052-696-5
*cite book
last = Reynolds
first = David
authorlink =
title = In Command of History, Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War
publisher = Peunguin Books
series =
year = 2005
isbn = 0-141-01964-6

External links

* [http://search.msn.com/images/details.aspx?q=alanbrooke&color=both&size=1p&ht=329&wd=162&tht=128&twd=63&su=http%3a%2f%2fhomepage.ntlworld.com%2fstephen.plowman1%2fHart_Heraldry%2fhartley-wintney.htm&iu=http%3a%2f%2fhomepage.ntlworld.com%2fstephen.plowman1%2fHart_Heraldry%2falanbrooke2.jpg&tu=http%3a%2f%2fimages.picsearch.com%2fis%3f4182332633173&sz=12 A link to the churchyard where he is buried - which shows his Coat of Arms]