The Turn of the Tide: A History of the War Years Based on the Diaries of Field-Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke By Arthur Bryant

The Turn of the Tide: A History of the War Years Based on the Diaries of Field-Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke By Arthur Bryant

Hardcover

Publisher: Collins

Used - Very Good+. This book is in very good condition. The Dust
Jacket has some very limited signs of wear and the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. The book is protected with a Cellophane cover. Previous owner's inscription on the first page.

An astoundingly detailed recollection of the progress of the war from 1939 to 1943, written by one of Britain's ablest (and probably least known) generals and strategists.

Much of it concerns his role of Chief of Imperial General Staff and central to that was his relationship with Winston Churchill, and it is here that it is at its most interesting. I have read a biography of Churchill, but that did not get to the heart of what Churchill was really like. Alanbrooke describes him in sometime hilarious detail as both the most infuriating man he had ever had to work with and at the same time the most wonderful man he had ever met. He was probably the only man who could have worked well with Churchill over the dark early days of the war, with his incisive clarity of thinking about what was needed and his ability to endure Churchill's sudden changes of idea and mood.

It also reveals the true measure of the man Alanbrooke was. He was offered the opportunity to command British Forces in North Africa in 1942. He knew that this would bring him glory and recognition, but felt that his part in the war was to work in the background alongside Churchill. So he recommended Montgomery and Alexander to take the posts, and his diary reveals the personal cost he felt in doing so. As we know from subsequent events, Montgomery gained all the recognition. But the architect behind the victory was Alanbrooke.