In the original dustsheet. Grey cloth binding with silver title on the spine.

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• A greatly underrated book.

In this text, Field Marshal Lord Carver has used newly available first-hand historical resources to reassess the story of the British campaign in the North African desert. History shows that several key figures in these battles were wrongly criticised.

Review: This is a more analytic work than Carver’s first two books (Tobruk & El Alamein). It was published later to take into account the controversies and disputes which had arisen since the publication of his first two volumes, in particular the relative attribution of blame (and/or praise) to the senior generals involved. The author has felt freer to be more critical (he was a serving officer and still subject to censorship during the writing of the first two books).

The book does go into some detail, particularly in discussing Ritchie and the Gazala and Tobruk battles, since alone of the generals he had not gone into print during the controversies. Although certainly not white-washing Ritchie’s part in the disasters, the author is clear that he by no means deserves the blame that has been thrown on him (and the decision to retain him as an operational commander perhaps suggests that there was some sense of this in the Army at the time) and that Auchinleck’s subsequent defenders (mainly defending him against Montgomery’s charges) went too far in their defence.

The author takes some time, as in his other books, to say that the criticism of British equipment at the time was excessive. This is not entirely persuasive, since his own figures show that where German tanks had extra armour bolted-on (i.e. all of them after Battleaxe) they were stronger in the exchange. Elsewhere, he makes clear the inferiority in anti-tank guns, particularly within the infantry formations and the paucity of reliable communications, especially in the infantry again, which contributed to the disaster. The author is also sceptical of the claims particularly common in German-influenced works which lay the blame on failures to concentrate tanks, noting that many of the worst tactical defeats occurred when the British armour was fully concentrated. And so on.

The author’s style is concise, even dense, although clear enough as long as the reader knows the terrain and which commander commanded which formation at which time. There is more of the author personally in the story than in the previous two books, since he was in a position to sometimes know the contents of conversations that weren’t otherwise recorded. This isn’t a beginner’s work, since the narrative is not presented for chronological clarity but for analytic. But as an accompaniment to any serious investigation into the battles of 1940-2. it is highly recommended, even essential.

Field Marshal Lord Carver, served in North Africa, Italy and North-West Europe, finishing in command of an armoured brigade at the age of 29. He became Commander-in-Chief Far East and Chief of the General Staff. He has published a number of works of military history, notably El Alamein, Tobruk, The War Lords, Wars Since 1945, A Policy for Peace and The Seven Ages of the British Army.