Alex, the life of field marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis

Field Marshall Earl Alexander of Tunis was a consistently successful British general of the Second World War who has been overshadowed in history by more publicized generals such as Eisenhower and Montgomery. In his 1973 biography "Alex", Nigel Nicholson, of the writing Nicholson family, has provided a nuanced, highly accessible account of Alexander's life that delicately wrestles with the question of why he is not better remembered. At a casual glance, Alexander's life reads like success. The third son of an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, he was a highly decorated hero of the First World War as a junior officer. Alexander commanded the Dunkirk beachhead in 1940, evacuating tens of thousands of British and French soldiers. He was future Field Marshall Bill Slim's boss in the harrowing extraction of British forces from Burma in 1941. In 1942, he was future Field Marshall Montgomery's boss as they fashioned the defeat of Rommel's Afrika Corps at El Alamein. In 1943, he was Eisenhower's land component commander in the destruction of Axis forces in Tunisia and in the capture of Sicily in 1943. In 1944, he led the Allied army group that liberated Rome. In 1945, he was the theater commander responsible for the defeat of German forces in Italy. After the war, he served as Governor-General of Canada and British Minister of Defense. Nicholson draws on an useful mixture of narrative, oral history, and extracts from many memoirs in crafting a friendly but honest biography. He finds the young Alexander was an exceptionally gifted junior officer, preternatuarlly calm in combat and easily commanding the respect of his soldiers. As a general, Alexander's personal charm and ability to empower subordinates were terrific assets in coalition warfare. These gifts probably served Alexander less well the further removed he was from direct command of troops. As a senior leader, Nicholson suggests Alexander's was a practical rather than a brillant intellect with a tactical rather than a strategic focus. He lacked interest in staff work, while his gentleman's code of conduct made it difficult for him to discipline headstrong subordinates. His faith in an older tradition of soldiering was ill-suited to the rough and tumble of politics or the spotlight of publicity. "Alex' is very highly recommended as an insightful account of the career of Field Marshall Alexander. It may be of greatest interest to those students of the Second World War looking to appreciate the many ways his particular talents contributed to the final Allied victory.