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World War, SOUTHERN THEATER: Wavell Takes the Blame

3 minute read
TIME

“I did not expect the enemy to counterattack until the end of April. . . .”

With this short, tired statement, General Sir Archibald Percival Wavell last week took upon himself an historic guilt. He was telling the Indian Council of State about Britain’s setback by the Axis drive in Libya last April.

Only a man sure of his position could admit such miscalculation. General Wavell is secure in the knowledge that Winston Churchill still considers him the best of the British Army’s big generals. In truth “Archie” Wavell was taking too much blame for a situation which was not all of his doing.

The crisis in Greece, rather than General Wavell’s personal ideas, dictated the dispersal of his Middle Eastern forces last spring. And a shortage of supply, rather than miscalculation, left General Wavell with few troops and little equipment in the Western Desert while his best men were in Greece. His gravest mistake was in not recognizing the preparations the Axis was making for a push. This may have been a matter of bad reconnaissance, bad staff work, or a dozen other things, including good German camouflage, but it could hardly be called an error of strategy.

Wavell’s own estimate of himself as a conservative, thorough general is more accurate than War Office huzzahs of brilliance. Up to the early summer of 1941 he had not learned to handle a large force as ably as he has repeatedly shown that he can handle a small force. When the Italians entered the war in June 1940, General Wavell had a compact little army in the Western Desert. He moved it easily and beautifully, holding off an Italian force ten times the size of his own. Gradually, as the Middle Eastern forces expanded under his feet, he floated out of depth. The bigger the force, equipment and units he had to handle became, the harder General Wavell found it to keep control.

The growth of his forces caused him to make the real mistake of his career. In planning his counter-attacks last June, to throw the Germans back beyond Tobruk after they had retaken Libya, he planned a rapid attack, quick withdrawal, reattack. In operation he found that he could not move his big forces as quickly as he had moved his small forces. Supply complications and intertwining of forces tangled up the plan. It failed, and after a few days’ fruitless fighting the attempt was abandoned.

General Wavell, who is honest with himself, lost caste in his own eyes. Nothing he admitted to the Indian Council of State is likely to change Winston Churchill’s or the War Office’s opinion of him. Nevertheless, his admission will probably be accepted by history as true. For that, history-loving Sir Archibald Percival Wavell will be mostly responsible.

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