Jobs Done and To Do

Britain's Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and Chief of Imperial General Staff General Sir John Greer Dill flew to Cairo last week. The two men carried with them a tremendous responsibility. Two weeks before, the British had captured Bengasi, and for two weeks the Imperial Army of the Nile had been consolidating its conquests. The messages these two men took from London to General Sir Archibald Percival Wavell, the discussions all three would have, and the plans Sir Archibald and his aides would then draw up --these things would decide not only the future operations of the Army of the Nile, but very possibly the whole future of the war.

Would the Army of the Nile transform itself into the Army of Salonika? Was an invasion of Sicily the plan? Would General Wavell push on to Tripoli? Answers to these questions were firmly shut away in the brief cases and the minds of these three men. In Ankara it was rumored that Anthony Eden would soon fly to Turkey, to brace the wavering demi-ally. At week's end Turkey's Foreign Minister Suekrue Saracoglu made a speech indicating that, even in Cairo, Anthony Eden was a bracer.

But before Anthony Eden and General Dill busied themselves with the future, they spent a pleasant time in review. For Anthony Eden, this was particularly satisfying. Sir Archibald Wavell has not been too popular in Downing Street, and last summer, when the Italians pushed into Egypt and he seemed to do nothing about it, there was a strong movement in London to recall him. Anthony Eden stood up for him. Twice Eden flew to the Middle East and talked with him. The second time, he may have warned General Wavell he was under a cloud. Shortly afterwards Sir Archibald attacked. And now, if ever faith was vindicated, Anthony Eden's faith in Sir Archibald Wavell certainly was. In the startling conquest of Cyrenaica, he had proved himself the best general the British have produced in the entire war. When war in Africa began, Archie Wavell was virtually unknown outside his profession. By the time Bengasi fell, he was world-famous.

Two Months of Caution. On the morning of Dec. 7,1940, the military correspondent of a German newspaper wrote: "Neither of the parties can carry out a surprise attack in the western desert because of natural obstacles in the desert and because preparation of mechanized forces for a big offensive cannot be concealed." Two mornings later Sir Archibald Wavell called twelve crack war correspondents into his Cairo office and calmly announced: "Gentlemen, this morning at dawn our troops opened attack against Italian positions at Sidi Barrani." Then his grim mouth relaxed into a smile as he added: "It would be interesting to know whether any of you had any idea the attack started?" Most of these veteran journalists had been out in the desert for weeks, watching every maneuver -- but not one answered. History knows how surprised the Italians were.

Behind that surprise, in a place where surprise was impossible, was a record of preparation and study which is interesting now not only because it explains Archie Wavell's terrific success in Libya, but also because it sheds light on how he and his men may be able to achieve the impossible elsewhere -- in the Balkans, in Sicily, wherever they choose. General Wavell now admits that he decided on the offensive as far back as October. He spent two months making plans.

He studied desert warfare in all its phases. He memorized topography and used exhaustive British researches on sand. He reviewed the desert tactics of his preceptor and idol, Field Marshal The Viscount Allenby. He even used the Bible as a military handbook. From Gideon, who fought on the scarred plain of Armageddon, he says he learned principles of night attack. On the use of mechanized equipment in the rainy season, he took the warning of Elijah: "Prepare thy chariot and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not." On the uselessness of hoping for Egyptian military assistance, he heeded II Kings, xviii, 21: "Now, behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt; on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it."

Two Months of Skill. The campaign itself brought out General Wavell's great military qualities. Perhaps the greatest is his ability to see war not just in terms of guns and communications and bombardments, not just in equations of tactics, but in terms of men. His ringing order of the day before the advance promised: "We shall bring peace and freedom back to the world and be able to return to our own peaceful homes." After Sidi Barrani fell, he showed that he knows, as so few generals do, when not to stop. "In pursuit," he says, "you must always stretch the possibilities to the limit. The troops, having beaten the enemy, will want to rest. They must be given as objectives, not those you think they will reach, but the farthest they could possibly reach." By the time his troops had pursued the Italians to Bardia, General Wavell -- out of hearing his men call him just "Archie" -- had infected them with another of his qualities: enthusiasm.

The Australians, to whom this enthusiasm was second nature, roared into Bardia singing:

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong

Under the shade of a coolibah tree.

And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled:

"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me."

Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong,

Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee.

And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag:

"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me."

Up rode the squatter mounted on his thoroughbred,

Up rode the troopers, one, two, three.

"Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tuckerbag?

You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me."

Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong,

"You'll never take me alive," said he.

And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong:

"You'll never take me alive, HE! HE!"*

After Bardia's fall, Archie Wavell demonstrated a talent which is in the greatest British tradition--his knack for and knowledge of literature. He has written two good books, and is a constant reader of authors ranging from Browning to Wodehouse. When the Kipling Society of London quoted Kipling to congratulate him on taking Bardia, he cabled back immediately another reference from the same story. As his troops pushed on, other Wavell traits came out: his genius for cooperation, indicated by the way his men worked with R. A. F. and Navy; his complete confidence in subordinates like Major General Richard Nugent O'Connor, commander in the western desert who commanded operations in the field; his ability to improvise, indicated by the use made of Italian supplies--without which the campaign probably could not have gone so far. The speed of the advances was dazzling mainly because Sir Archibald is a student of speed. He knows its advantages ("Speed is armor") and its disadvantages ("Speed is an expensive commodity: in battleships, motorcars, race horses and women, a comparatively small increase of speed may double the price of the article.").

Silent Archie. Aside from his purely military talents, there were other more intimate qualities which helped General Wavell rise so greatly to his test. He is quietly efficient. His subordinates sometimes refer to him as "Silent Archie" and "Guinea-a-Word Wavell." He works hard --rises at 6:15 a.m., does not dawdle all afternoon over lunch, and is tireless in flying from front to front to keep in touch with his vast command. He is physically tough, and rides, plays golf, goes swimming even when crises are thickest. His calm is unshatterable, he can be hurried by no man. He is sociable but completely unaffected, and loves to quote Hotspur's contemptuous speech about popinjay staff officers who shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, and talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman, of guns and drums and wounds. His blood runs thick with soldiery: his first ancestor in Britain was a Deveauville who came over with William the Conqueror, and he is the third general in three generations of Wavells. His father was and his son is with the famed Black Watch Regiment. Even his three daughters are in military work, and one is nicknamed Trooper. He is a strong family man who loves the luxury of spare time in his big Cairo house hidden in jacaranda trees behind the third hole of the Gezirah golf course. Finally, he is a reader, a thinker, not just a machine; he has put much thought on a post-war reconstruction of Britain around the "hard core of national courage."

Before reconstruction, Britain is likely to suffer a lot more destruction. But men like Churchill and Wavell, like Eden and Dill, see no reason for taking it lying down. By last week the military situation in Europe had put Britain on an especially tough spot: nothing ventured, everything lost. The question was what could be ventured with a chance of gain. There was no use just jumping into the billabong to save the swag.

What Next? The Libyan campaign was won but not finished. One of the problems was all too familiar to the British: how to administer the natives. In his recent speech summing up the Battle of Cyrenaica, Winston Churchill said: "The unhappy Arab tribes who have for 30 years suffered from the cruelty of Italian rule . . . have at last seen their oppressors in disorderly flight or led off in endless droves as prisoners of war." Last week, near the white walls, bright cupolas and date palms of Giarabub Fort, 150 miles south of Bardia, and the last East Libyan post still being held by the Italians, a great crowd of Moslems waited to make a triumphal entry when the Australian troops should take the fort. These were the vanguard of 3,000,000 Moslems of the Senussi sect. Their leader, Seyyid Idris el Senussi, was all set to re-establish an independent Senussi State under British protection. But here, and also in northern Libya, Sir Archibald and the General Officer Commander in Chief in Egypt Lieut. General Sir Henry Maitland ("Jumbo") Wilson were faced with an administrative problem as ticklish as that of Palestine. They had to decide whether to hand the land back to Arabs, or leave it in the hands of Italian settlers, who seem willing to accept British rule.

From the military point of view, also, the Libyan campaign left some unfinished business. The worst nuisance was German air activity. Last week for the first time, the R. A. F. revealed that not only were comparatively defenseless Junkers Stukas and Heinkel bombers being used by the Germans over Libya, but also some up-to-the-minute Messerschmitt fighters to cover them. In unconquered Libya there were still three important air bases--Homs, Misurata, Castel Benito (near Tripoli). But for the most part the Germans were operating out of Sicily.

No one in the U. S. could say, last week just what the Army of the Nile was up to, just what Messrs. Eden, Dill and Wavell had up their sleeves. Unquestionably it was some rush job. Now, as never before, Britain was faced with the need for decision, boldness, speed.

* Swagman: hobo; billabong: waterhole; jumbuck: sheep; tuckerbag: food bag; squatter: sheep rancher; waltzing Matilda: hobos' affectionate name for their bag (bundle with blanket, tin cup, etc.) as it dangles from their shoulders and jounces with their pace.

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