The Grand Alliance (160 page)

A.F. (including training school to Cape Town) and R.N.

70CO, 2000 Free French, and about 9000 base and
other details. Upon the arrival of this convoy the total
figure for the Middle East will stand at fighting troops
183,000 and 86,000 rearward units – i.e., 15 to 7. The
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progressive deterioration in the proportion between
fighting troops and rearward services must be noted.

4. But the category “fighting troops” requires further
searching analysis. We are told, for example, that the
7th Australian Division, 14,800, is untrained and largely
unequipped, and there is the cavalry division, 8500,
whose mechanisation has not yet made progress, and
who cannot really be called fighting troops except for
local order. There are several other units I could specify
which are similarly not fighting troops in the effective
mobile sense – say, 6000. Thus 29,000 should properly
be subtracted from the fighting total, reducing it from
183,000, to 154,000, and added to the rearward
services and non-effective, raising them from 86,000 to
115,000. The condition of the Army of the Middle East
(excluding the 70,000 in Kenya and Aden) is therefore
represented by 154,000 fighting troops and 115,000

rearward and non-effective (except for immediate local
security). The proportion of non-effectives seems much
too high. It must be remembered that further great
reductions could be made from the effective fighting
troops, since every division or brigade group has its
own first-line transport and is supposed to be a self-contained military unit. Further, it should not be forgotten that in order to supply all this rearward and unorganised or non-effective strength the rations of the British
people have had to be severely reduced, and further
cuts are in prospect, and that every man and every ton
of stores has to be carried and transported at heavy
risk from enemy U-boat, air, and raider attacks round
the Cape of Good Hope by ships whose there-and-back
voyage occupies, with turn-round, not less than four
months. It is therefore incumbent upon all loyal
persons, whether at home or in M.E., to try to increase
the fighting troops and to keep at the lowest possible
the rearward and non-effective services. In this lies a
great opportunity for brilliant administrative exertion
which might produce results in war economy equal to
those gained by a considerable victory in the field.

5. If I could be assured that the plethora of rearward
services contained in the aforesaid convoys W.S.5A
and B and W.S.6 would animate and render effective
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the 29,000 non-effective fighting men mentioned in
paragraph 4 above, I should be content. For instance,
will the 7th Australian Division gain the ancillary
services necessary to fit it for other than local action?

Will the 8500 cavalry division become a mechanised
unit capable of acting in brigades, or at least regiments,
against the enemy? Then, although the proportions of
non-fighting troops now crowding our convoys would
still be a very hard measure, at any rate the Army in the
M.E. would grow markedly in fighting strength, and the
delay in sending the 50th Division would be tolerable. It
may be that some consoling information will be forthcoming about this.

The question of whether it would be better to send
the 1st Brigade of the 50th Division instead of the
mobile naval base in W.S.6 is nicely balanced, but
preparations may have advanced too far for a convenient change of plan. This must be considered
tomorrow (7th) by C.O.S. Committee, observing that it
will be out of action for nearly three months.

6. It is otherwise necessary to approve the despatch
of W.S.6 (reduced to 34,000 or less) as now proposed.

I deeply regret the resultant composition of the Army in
the M.E. When all these convoys have arrived, its total
will amount to 240,000, plus 43,000, plus 20,000 – total
over 300,000. to which must be added 70,000 in Aden
and Kenya – total 370,000 men, on pay and ration
strength. From this enormous force the only recognisable fighting military units are the following: 6th Australian Division, one New Zealand division, comprising
two brigade groups, 4th Indian Division, 5th Indian
Division, 16th Infantry Brigade, 2d Armoured Division,
7th Armoured Division (incomplete), 6th British Division
(incomplete). And such fighting units as have been
formed from the 70,000 men in Kenya and Aden – e.g.,
two South African brigades, two West African brigades,
and local East African forces. It is hoped that to these
will soon be added (a) the completion of the above
incomplete units, (b) a seventh British division formed
out of the unclassified and by combing the rearward
services, the 7th Australian Division, and a mechanised
cavalry division.

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This will amount to about ten divisions, infantry,
armoured, and cavalry, plus, say, one division from
Kenya – total eleven divisions. Even this would be a
very small crop to gather from so vast a field.

Prime Minister to General

21.I.41.

Ismay, for C.O.S. Committee

The following decisions arise from our discussion
last night:

Three Glen ships, with full complement of landing
craft and with the Commandos assigned to those ships
on board, less one Commando (which General Wavell
already has), should sail at earliest round the Cape to
Suez.

2. There will remain behind: (a) The Commando
redundant through one being already in Egypt, (b) The
Commando troops embarked on Karanja. (c) The rest
of the Commando force in this country. This should be
made up immediately to the full strength of five thousand and be fully equipped, and should continue their
training at full speed. If this is not done we shall have
lost an essential weapon of offence needed to man and
use the new landing-craft, which are coming out
steadily now from the builders. It will be necessary for D.

C.O. to remain at home to reorganise and rebuild this
force up to its full five thousand.

Pray let me have a plan to implement paragraphs 1

and 2 during the day (21st).

3. General Wavell should be told that his plans for
advancing to Benghazi are approved. Unless this
presents altogether unexpected difficulties he should at
the same time be able to prepare in the Delta a force
sufficient to take the principal “Mandibles” [Rhodes]

when the landing-craft and the Commandos arrive. In
the meanwhile he is to make all preparations in order
that the attack may be delivered at the earliest moment.

He should be asked to report on the above assumption
when he could do this, and what main units he would
use. It is hoped that the attack would be delivered not
later than March 1.

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4. General Wavell should also begin immediately to
build up in the Delta a strategic reserve to be used in
Greece or Turkey as occasion may require. Having
established himself strongly at Benghazi with a field
force and an armoured division based on that port, he
could drop the overland line of communication and thus
save both men and transport.

Benghazi, if captured [by us], should be made a
strongly defended naval and air base, guns, etc., being
drawn as may be necessary both from Alexandria and
intermediate ports or posts on the lines of communication. He ought therefore to be able to create a strategic
striking force (of which the troops for “Mandibles” will
form a first instalment) in the next two months. It is
hoped that this force may soon attain the equivalent of
four divisions, though probably brigade group organisation would be preferable.

5. The air disposition must conform to the above,
subject to the commitments we have already made to
Greece. The first duty of the A.O.C.-in-C. M.E. is none
the less to sustain the resistance of Malta by a proper
flow of fighter reinforcements. To enable these tasks to
be performed, Furious will make another voyage with a
third consignment of forty Hurricanes.

6. An expeditionary force of two divisions, plus
certain corps units and the Commandos when reorganised, should be prepared for action in the Western
Mediterranean, whether for “Influx” or “Yorker,” to aid
General Wavell as circumstances may suggest. Both
these plans are to be studied and perfected, “Yorker”

being the more probable. A commander should be
appointed and an attempt made to be ready to act after
March 1. The impingement of the above on later
convoys to M.E. must be examined and reported.

Prime Minister to Secretary of
29.1.41.

State for War

I am very much obliged to you for the considerable
effort you have made to meet my views and reduce
Army demands upon the man-power of Great Britain.

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2. I still do not understand how a division supposed
to be complete with 15,000 men of all arms requires
35,000 men, or 20,000 extra. Perhaps it will be simpler
to take a corps of three divisions, which on your calculations would require 105,000 men, of which 45,000 only
would be included in field units. Let me have a table
showing how the remaining 60,000 are divided
between (a) corps troops, (b) share of Army troops, (c)
lines of communication troops.

3. Neither do I understand the scale on which the
lines of communication troops is calculated. The troops
in Great Britain lie in the midst of their base of supplies
and of the most highly developed railway network in the
world. They have roads innumerable and of high
quality. In the event of invasion the advances they
would have to make are in the nature of seventy to one
hundred miles at the outside, although of course a
larger lateral movement by rail from south to north, or
vice versa, might be required. Such conditions are not
comparable at all with those prevailing in France,
where, owing to our choosing to base ourselves on St.

Nazaire, etc., we had a five-hundred-mile line of communication, mainly by road, to maintain. What are the
differences in the scale of L. of C. troops provided for
the first ten divisions in France this time last year and
those you now propose for the troops retained in Great
Britain for defence?

4. The problem will not be solved without taking a
view forward of what is likely to happen in the next
twelve months. We shall certainly have to keep not less
than fifteen British divisions behind the beaches to
guard against invasion. For the bulk of these a scale
much less than the French scale (B.E.F.) should
suffice. The forces in the Middle East, now that the
Mediterranean is closed, can only be built up at a
reduced rate. But we ought to assume that by July
there will be in the Delta or up [along] the Nile four
Australian, one New Zealand, one + one South African,

18
six out of eight Indian, and three British divisions, or
their equivalents in brigade groups. In addition, there
will be in Africa the four African Colonial divisions.

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These last, surely, are not divisions in the ordinary
sense – i.e., capable of being used as integral tactical
units in the field? Are they not, in fact, the garrisons of
East and West Africa and the Sudan, requiring only
small complements of artillery and technical troops, and
with lines of communication provided locally? Let me
know what scale of corps troops, share of Army troops
and L. of C. troops you contemplate for these four
sedentary or localised so-called “divisions.” Is it not a
mistake to call them divisions in any sense?