Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [64]
This first of Britain’s “desert generals” was much beloved in the army. In World War I, Wavell won an MC and lost an eye at Ypres, then spent 1917–18 as a staff officer in Palestine under Gen. Edmund Allenby, whose biography he later wrote. A reader of poetry and prone to introspection, among soldiers Wavell passed as an intellectual. His most conspicuous limitation was taciturnity, which crippled his relationship with Churchill. Many who met him, perhaps over-impressed by his enigmatic persona, perceived themselves in the presence of greatness. But uncertainty persisted about whether this extended to mastery of battlefields, where a commander’s strength of will is of greater importance than his cultural accomplishments.
On October 28, 1940, the Italians invaded northwestern Greece. Contrary to expectations, after fierce fighting they were evicted by the Greek army and thrown back into Albania, where the rival forces languished in considerable discomfort through the five months that followed. British strategy during this period became dominated by Mediterranean dilemmas, among which aid to Greece and offensive action in Libya stood foremost. Churchill constantly incited his C-in-C to take the offensive against the Italians in the Western Desert, using the tanks shipped to him at such hazard during the summer. Wavell insisted that he needed more time. Now, however, overlaid upon this issue was that of Greece, about which Churchill repeatedly changed his mind. On October 27, the day before Italy invaded, he dealt brusquely with a proposal from Leo Amery and Lord Lloyd, respectively the India and colonial secretaries, that more aid should be dispatched: “I do not agree with your suggestions that at the present time we should make any further promises to Greece and Turkey. It is very easy to write in a sweeping manner when one does not have to take account of resources, transport, time and distance.”
Yet as soon as Italy attacked Greece, the prime minister told Dill that “maximum possible” aid must be sent. Neville Chamberlain in March 1939 had assured the Greeks of British support against aggression. Now, Churchill perceived that failure to act would make the worst possible impression upon the United States, where many people doubted Britain’s ability to wage war effectively. At the outset, he proposed sending planes and weapons to Greece, rather than British troops. Dill, Wavell and Eden—then visiting Cairo—questioned even this. Churchill sent Eden a sharp signal urging boldness, dictated to his typist under the eye of Jock Colville.
He lay there in his four-post bed221 with its flowery chintz hangings, his bed-table by his side. Mrs. Hill [his secretary] sat patiently opposite while he chewed his cigar, drank frequent sips of iced soda-water, fidgeted his toes beneath the bedclothes and muttered stertorously under his breath what he contemplated saying. To watch him compose some telegram or minute for dictation is to make one feel that one is present at the birth of a child, so tense is his expression, so restless his turnings from side to side, so curious the noises he emits under his breath. Then out comes some masterly sentence and finally with a “Gimme” he takes the sheet of typewritten paper and initials it, or alters it with his fountain-pen, which he holds most awkwardly half way up the holder.
On November 5, Churchill addressed the Commons, reporting grave shipping losses in the Atlantic, and describing a conversation he had held on his way into the Commons with the armed and helmeted guards at its doors. One soldier offered a timeless British cliché to the prime minister: “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.” This, Churchill told the MPs, was Britain