After the Auk

Britain's new commander in the Middle East (see above), General Sir Harold Rupert Leofric George Alexander, once had a conversation with a literary friend. The author stared at the soldier, and said: "Tell me something I have always wanted to know, Alex. You're really very intelligent, aren't you?"

Alexander winked.

"I am," he said.

The British last week put their hopes in General Alexander's intelligence and in his reputation as an aggressive fighting man. He gained the reputation in World War I, when he went over the top 30 times, was wounded twice, was twice decorated (D.S.O., M.C.)In the British Army his known talent for aggression still outweighs his World War II record as the leader of two "brilliant retreats," from Dunkirk and Burma. Now in Egypt, he commands forces which cannot retreat again without losing all that they defend. At El Alamein his back is to the wall in a theater where three soldiers with greater reputations-- Wavell, Cunningham, Auchinleck--failed to beat Rommel.

Alexander succeeds Auchinleck in the over-all command of the Middle East. Under him, in direct command of the Eighth Army in Egypt, he has Lieut. General Bernard Law Montgomery, a 54-year-old Ulsterman who is also a veteran of the retreat from France. But, like Wavell and Auchinleck (who at the last held both the area and army commands), Alexander is responsible for victory or defeat.

At 50, Alexander is the youngest full general in the British Army. He is also a favorite subject of army stories. At Dunkirk he showed some of the qualities of the U.S. Army's General Douglas MacArthur. When the remnants of the B.E.F. seemed to face destruction, Alexander donned his smartest breeches and finest boots, sat down to breakfast in a shell-shattered house, at a table with a spotless cloth, and calmly consumed Dundee marmalade.*

On the bloody beaches a staff officer told Alexander: "The situation is catastrophic." "Sorry," said Alexander, "I don't understand such big words." He then squatted on the beach and built a sand castle. He was the last man in his command to leave Dunkirk.

* In World War I a Scottish regiment charged into a hopeless action with the cry: "Marmalade forever!"

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