Defender of Empire

(See Cover)

On the Anzio beachhead, the German wound up and threw his heaviest blow, an attack by nine divisions to break the Allies, drive them into the sea. British and American troops met him headon. The action was so close that neither side dared to use hand grenades.

But cold steel flashed and the enemy was hurled back. U.S. tanks which had rumbled into the battle, formed up and slashed two miles into the German's positions. The beachhead looked sounder than it had for days.

In the Rapido River valley on the wider front near Cassino the Allies forced their way foot by foot across the icy stream. Combat engineers rushed in to build bridges and clear mines out of roads while German shells slammed blindly through their protecting smoke screen. Planes and barrages smote the Monte Cassino Abbey positions, but when infantrymen tried to press forward the Germans were still dug in on the mountain and pouring back murderous patterns of machine-gun fire. As at Anzio, the best the Allies could claim was stalemate.

On this bloody, stubborn Italian front, the biggest continuing battlefield for U.S. and British soldiers, the immediate responsibility for the Allied command rested with slim, trim, incisive General Sir Harold R.L.G. Alexander. Ultimate responsibility rested with another soldier whom the world knew more as a military name than a personality: huge, burly, genial General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, Supreme Allied Commander in Chief in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations.

Lifted Eyebrows. "Jumbo" Wilson's appointment to the job late in December had caused some eyebrow-lifting in British military circles. His most recent campaign as Middle East commander, the attack on the Aegean Islands of Cos, Samos and Leros had been a fiasco. Troops had been pushed within easy reach of German land-based air power; communications were so badly organized that landing parties had trouble contacting headquarters at Cairo 500 miles away; equipment was rusty and inadequate. Some wit rose to the occasion by dubbing Jumbo "The Wizard of Cos." Another commented that the Russians shoot generals who fail, the Americans find soft jobs for them, the British promote them.

Even Jumbo himself had equably admitted that he seemed fated "to bolster up lost causes." Most thoroughly lost was his expedition to Greece in 1941, with 60,000 troops to meet a German invading force three or four times as strong.

Yet presumably the U.S. and British leaders knew what they were about. General Wilson's performance in Greece was skillful in a hopeless "operation, dictated by political necessity. The Aegean show also was probably ordered from London for political reasons.

Wilson had a brilliant record as field commander under General Wavell in Libya. He knew the Mediterranean area; he knew tactics and supply. He had qualities of calmness and diplomatic finesse which could be extremely useful at headquarters in Algiers. Thus Jumbo Wilson, at 62, when most British generals would be going on the shelf, got his biggest command.

Soldier's Legacy. General Wilson took over at Algiers on Jan. 8, after General Dwight Eisenhower had moved on to the European invasion command in London. What Wilson acquired included some first-class tactical worries, headaching problems of supply, a set of tarnished political problems. All of these and more were wrapped up in a gargantuan geographic command, running from the Turko-Syrian border through the Mediterranean and across Africa to Dakar. Any operation against Europe from Gibraltar to the Dardanelles would be his problem.

At present his command maintains liaison with partisan fighters in Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia; his domain runs as far north in Italy as any Allied infantryman contrives to plant his heavy boots and stay.

For himself General Wilson now stands in the somewhat anomalous position of an expert professional soldier with many tasks and many worries that do not ordinarily come a soldier's way. But he has the experience and temperament to handle them; behind him is a wealth of training and tradition.

Wilson was born into a distinguished Suffolk family. One ancestor, Lord Raglan, commanded British forces in the Crimean War; another, Lord Cardigan, led the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava; an uncle, General Sir Henry Fuller Maitland Wilson, had a corps at Salonika in World War I.

At Eton, already a hulking, good-natured youngster, he got the inevitable nickname of "Jumbo." Elephants have since become a matter of fascination to him. His children remember that on trips to the zoo he could watch the elephants all day. He admires elephant-foot carpets, likes little ivory jumbos on his desk. Some friends think he has taken on elephant characteristics, among them a stupendous memory. For his headquarters when he commanded Britain's PAI force (Persia & Iraq) he designed an emblem with a rampaging elephant, trunk uplifted.

Off to the Wars. Jumbo began his army career at 18, when he joined the Rifle Brigade and went out to fight the Boers. He ended that campaign a lieutenant, with two medals, and decided to stay in the army. His rise .was gradual and unspectacular until after World War I, in which he won the D.S.O. and promotion to lieutenant colonel. Later he lectured at Sandhurst and the Staff College. Several times it seemed that he might be hurting his career by sticking to infantry commands, but a real break came in 1934, when he took over the Aldershot Brigade, first fully mechanized brigade in the British Army.

World War II found him a lieutenant general, commanding in Egypt. This side spot became a hot spot after the fall of France, and Wilson became the "broom" of Wa veil's famous "broom and dustpan" tactics of sweeping up the Italians. Later he handled the campaigns in Iraq and Syria with notable deftness, using small forces to head off the pressing danger of German penetration into the Middle East. In 1943 he held the Middle Eastern command, with the Ninth and Tenth Armies, the job from which he was ordered to Algiers and the overall Mediterranean command.

War Is Hell. General Wilson now can contemplate problems, military or political, wherever he turns. One of his most pressing concerns is the administration of Italy, now transformed into a greyish mess of political pasta e faggioli. Another lies across the Adriatic in Yugoslavia, where two native armies hold the field, the Partisans of General Tito fighting like exacerbated dervishes, the Chetniks of General Mihailovich refusing to fight. Greek conservative elements rally around Britain's friend, King George; Partisan leaders, closer to the people, are profanely antimonarchist.

East of Greece General Wilson must keep an eye on the uneasy neutrality of Turkey. Below there lies the tinderbox Levant and the peninsula of Arabia. In Palestine Jews and Arabs live in a state of ancient and dangerous friction. Farther east, at the separate British command for Iran and Iraq, Wilson's territory touches directly the problem of Russian influence in the north Persian area where Russian power is a historical threat to India.

And in restless Saudi Arabia sits the brooding figure of Ibn Saud, dominant leader of the Moslem world, while the U.S. undertakes for the first time to challenge British dominance in Middle Eastern oil (TIME, Feb. 14).

Back on the rim of the Mediterranean, Wilson must watch political developments in Egypt, while in Algiers General de Gaulle and his colleagues dream their several dreams of what power shall prevail in a liberated France.

At the far west are Spanish Morocco, the Strait of Gibraltar, the sullen, hungry, heartsick land of Spain, where the corpulent Caudillo Franco balances sympathy against expediency, and ponders how he can best save his moth-eaten skin.

When other problems pall, General Wilson can consider that of the Roman Catholic Church. Some of his troops in Italy already have run into painful decisions on when a shrine ceases to be a shrine and becomes an enemy artillery observation post (see p. 56). When the Allies approach Rome the eyes of the Christian world inevitably will be upon them, asking the mute question whether the city and its priceless antiquities must be left in rubble.

Road Show. As for purely military matters, in the brief time he has held his command General Wilson probably has been compelled to do more patching than planning. The Italian operation was in motion before he took over. General Wilson finds himself today commanding a theater which was once the western Allies' big show, but has now been downgraded by tactics and politics. In earlier days the Mediterranean fighting seemed the start of Winston Churchill's widely advertised notion of striking at the soft underbelly of the Axis. Now it is clear that the European underbelly was not so soft as advertised.

Other circumstances have changed. The Russians were gratified at the collapse of Italy, but Joseph Stalin still wanted a second front in Western Europe. He vetoed Churchill's evident desire for a Balkan invasion. The Balkans have remained un-invaded.

General Wilson is left.with one main military effort--Italy. The overall situation there is not one to make him or his field commander, Alexander, over happy. Their armies include more & more foreign units--two divisions of French, two of Poles, smaller units of Greeks and Czechs --with resulting problems of liaison. While the Allies have hundreds of thousands of men and billions of dollars of equipment in the Mediterranean, the amount they can put on the front line is limited. The Germans also are using relatively few divisions in Italy but their troops are as good as the Wehrmacht has--hard-muscled youngsters trained up from the Hitler Youth, with a seasoning of veteran paratroopers.

Tough Foeman. The Germans have fought stubbornly and skillfully. They have been ably led by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, 59-year-old airman, who, like General Wilson, is big, burly, affable, and one of the best-liked top officers in his army. No hard-eyed Prussian, "Smiling Albert" Kesselring was born near Bayreuth in Bavaria, and throughout a long military career has somehow managed to preserve a reputation for Gemutlichkeit and sociability. He is a master of parlor magic and a good piano player.

As a professional soldier, General Wilson might be pardoned an occasional twinge of envy when he considers the beautiful simplicity of Kesselring's assignment: to defend a constricted and highly defensible region, with direct overland supply lines behind him.

Guardian of Empire. If General Wilson's armies could drive to the Po Valley or run the Germans out of Italy it would be ?. triumph for Allied arms. But it is not so pressingly vital as it once seemed. The Mediterranean is safe, the British Empire lifeline is finally intact after all the threats against it.

The boss of the theater and guardian of the lifeline is a superbly typical product of upper-class British life. He stands 6 ft. 2 in., weighs "about 16 stone" (224 lb.), is bulky without being fat, dignified without being ponderous. He is bald (with a fringe of grey) and heavy jowled. From his desk he peers at visitors over a curious pair of horn-rimmed glasses with the top halves of the lenses cut away.

His staff offices are usually small and unpretentious, but during a field campaign he insists upon making himself as comfortable as possible. "Any fool can be uncomfortable," he says. He enjoys good food, drinks and smokes moderately, likes a fine sherry but cares little for other wines. His men admire him.

Once the General took his coat off and helped weary Tommies dig trenches on the Egyptian frontier. As a staff officer in the last war he joined a fatigue party cleaning out a well. Jumbo saw nothing unusual in that: "The sooner we got it clean, the sooner I could get a drink."

The Golden Fleece. At the start of his 1940 offensive against the Italians, Jumbo had a disillusioning experience. The emotion of battle was yeasting in his soul and suddenly Jumbo decided to address his troops. He harangued them eloquently, told them the classic story of the "Golden Fleece" and sent them out to capture it. The men cheered and charged off.

Jumbo was greatly bucked over it. Weeks passed before he found out that the soldiers thought he was telling them about a fabulous pub called "The Golden Fleece" about 300 miles down the road where they would find oceans of beer and tons of dancing girls.

General Wilson's familiarity with the classics exemplifies the soldier who knows his business and takes the long view of Empire. For him war and international politics are not separate things. To command intelligently he must know the score as Britain sees it. General Wilson reads every issue of the Times of London, keeping the papers in scrupulous chronological order no matter how long they may be delayed in getting to him in the field.

To all the problems of the Mediterranean Theater Commander Jumbo Wilson can be depended upon to apply his talents and virtues, not the least of which is patience. During the evacuation of Greece he and his staff arrived at a port where a destroyer was to meet them. The ship was nowhere in sight; the Germans were getting closer; the younger officers were pacing nervously. Someone ventured to ask what the General was going to do. Jumbo climbed atop a pile of baggage and settled himself in comfort. Said he:

"I am going to do what countless soldiers have done before me--wait, sitting on my kit."

The destroyer, as matters turned out, turned up.

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