Wavell: Soldier & Statesman
by Victoria Schofield
John Murray, HK$210
With the credibility earned from Kashmir in Conflict, Afghan Frontier: Feuding and Fighting in Central Asia and six other titles besides, Victoria Schofield combines her passions for military history and the subcontinent in her examination of the life of Field Marshal Archibald Wavell. What emerges from Wavell: Soldier & Statesman is a man sent to clean up the messes made by others. Schofield reveals a soldier who understood the strategic significance of what he called the 'actualities' of war, 'the effects of tiredness ... fear, lack of sleep, weather, inaccurate information, the time factor'. He pushed for mechanisation in the British Army in the 1930s to little effect. With the outbreak of war, Wavell was sent first to the Middle East and then the Far East, in both theatres his forces were overwhelmed by superior armies. Sacked from both, he left better commands and more appropriate strategies than when he arrived. After the war, he was handed India, but it was too late for a united India. Schofield concludes Wavell deserves more than he's been accorded by history.