Dirty Dogs

A quiet weekend.  A great Monday.  Yesterday was quite nice and Eric and I hiked up to the John Muir Cabin in Spaulding Meadows overlooking Auke Bay.  I had never walked that part of the meadows trail before and it was a bit more of a climb than I expected - about 1800 feet according to the  Juneau Trail Mix website.

Much of the trail is boardwalk through the muskeg.  Lots of muddy potholes for the dogs to wallow in - which they did with considerable enthusiasm.  Eric was going to hose 'em down when he got home.

The John Muir Cabin in Spaulding Meadows

Looking back towards town from Spaulding Meadows

We're at about 1800 feet

Sadie took a lot of mud baths on the trail

We were pantin' like the dogs by the end of the hike

In other news, I did finish a good book this weekend "Masters and Commanders" by Andrew Roberts.  It is the story of the European theater of WWII as viewed through the prism of the complex relationships among four of the Allied principals -  FDR, Churchill, George Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, and Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff.

The author relies heavily on personal diaries of many American and British staff officers to tell his story - several of these sources have not previously been cited.  The disputes between the American and British strategists become much more vivid and sharp-edged than previous accounts I have read.  Indeed, the danger of relying too heavily on official accounts of the many Allied conferences is humorously pointed out in several passages:

Sir Edward Bridges' instructions for the writing of Cabinet minutes insisted on their being '(a) brief (b) self-contained (c) in the main, impersonal, and (d) to the full extent the discussion allows - decisive'.  Often this was the very opposite of what had actually happened in meetings that were prolix, open ended, highly personal and indecisive.  Official Cabinet minutes are therefore opaque documents, usually deliberately so.

Or, as one British staff wag put it:

And so while the great ones depart to their dinner,
The Secretary stays, growing thinner and thinner,
Racking his brains to recall and report
What he thinks that they think they ought to have thought.

On the other hand, personal diaries are not peer-reviewed and human nature being what it is they are often self-serving.  Still, their very human quality gives a sense of the passion and drama that permeated many of the Allied staff meetings and conferences.  Many of the comments made by Brooke and Marshall regarding their military colleagues and civilian masters would make General McChrystal blush.

So, what was the main point of the book?  First, that the disagreements between the American and British strategists were very real and very deep.  The Americans believed that a landing in France at the earliest possible date (as early as the fall of 1942) was the only viable strategy for ending the war.  The British, on the other hand, were opposed to an early landing in France and had reservations right up to D-day in Normandy.

And who was right?  Both were right (or both were wrong) in the author's mind.  He concludes that a landing in France in 1942 or 1943 might well have been an Allied disaster since they would have lacked air superiority over the battlefield and would not have had sufficient troop strength to counter the Germans who would have been able to effectively concentrate their forces to oppose any landing and possibly throw the Allies into the sea.

On the other hand, the British obsession with the Mediterranean theater, while sensible in late 1942 and 1943, had clearly outlived its usefulness by 1944.  Many allied soldiers died fighting offensive actions in Italy long after the campaign had ceased to have any strategic significance.  And Churchill's many half-baked plans to march from Italy through the Balkans were sheer folly.

Fortunately, the shift in the balance of power between the British and Americans forces inexorably led to a shift in strategy at just the right time.  At the beginning of the war, the Americans were the junior partner in the alliance.  By 1944, however, the vastly superior numbers of American troops and war material allowed American political and military leaders to dominate war making strategy.  The rest, as they say, is history!

There are many pithy and amusing quotes in the book.  But not surprisingly, Mr. Churchill comes across as the most entertaining.  Here is a humorous example related by Churchill's secretary, Elizabeth Nel involving the Prime Minister, the PM's cat, Smokey, and Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff:

Mr. Churchill sat in bed and Smokey sat on the blankets watching him.  The PM's telephone conversation with the CIGS was long and anxious; his thoughts were far away; his toes wiggled under the blankets.  I saw Smokey's tail twitch as he watched, and wondered what was going to happen.  Suddenly he pounced on the toes and bit hard.  It must have hurt, for Mr. Churchill started, kicked him right into the corner of the room shouting, 'Get off, you fool' into the telephone.  Then he remembered.  'Oh,' he said, 'I didn't mean you,' and then seeing Smokey looking somewhat dazed in the corner, 'Poor little thing.'  Confusion was complete, the CIGS hung up hastily and telephoned the private secretary to find out what was happening.  It took a long time to get it sorted out, and Sir Alan Brooke assured that it was not his fault.

As trivial as this story may be, it is nonetheless emblematic of many of the misunderstandings and disputes, both large and small, that characterized the personal relationships that were key to the ultimate success of perhaps the greatest military alliance of all time.