A staff officer who served in Flanders with the 2nd Corps under Sir Alan Brooke told me that the very presence in the room of the commander was an inspiration. He acted like a tonic on them all. The ideal combination in war has usually been a commander of outstanding personality and common sense and a chief-of-staff with a fine intellect The one has the intellect to plan and the other the stern resolution to carry it through in the strain of actual combat. Intellectuals so often overlook the elementary fact that frequently the man who can make a plan in war would be completely incapable of putting it into action, lacking, perhaps, iron nerve and staying power.
The basic failure of the French armies: has been perhaps that their generals have had too much mental brilliance and too little staying power. When we remember that General Weygand saved Poland in 1921, we forgot that Wey gand provided the ideas but Pilsudski executed them. Had there been a man of iron behind General Weygand this year instead of Petain, who knows whether the French disaster might not have been averted?
The problem then in army leadership is the human factor, the choice of the right men to lead and the right men to plan. Conflicting personalities have lost many a battle. It may seem unthinkable that in the grim game of war where thousands of lives are at stake temperamental differences should interfere, but that fact islamentable as it is—that they do.
In the last war there was a British general who was not on speaking terms with his chief staff officer, with the result that while that state of things lasted the whole division was unhappy and unsound. The outstanding example of unfortunate personal relations was, of course, seen at the Battle of Tannenberg. The Russians lost it chiefly because the two principal generals—Samsonoff and Rennenkampf—hated the sight of each other, while on the German side Ludendorff and. Hindenburg worked in close harmony. That colossal disaster can be traced almost entirely to temperament.
The model of the other side is, of course, Napoleon, and his chief-of-staff, Berthier. The latter was hopeless when in command himself, but as a staff officer he was superb, interpreting Napoleon's orders with an accuracy and clearness and understanding that still remain as an ideal for all staff officers. When he and Napoleon parted, the emperor's luck left him Berthier was irreplaceable.
Our commander-in-chief at home, Sir Alan Brooke, is fortunate in having as his chief-of-staff that very able soldier, Gen. H. R. Pow-nail, who acted in the same capacity to Lord Gort in France. General Pownall is a master of exactitude and detail-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.