Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis
Harold Rupert Leofric George Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, was a British Army officer who served in both of the world wars. Alexander was born in London and was educated at Harrow school before moving on to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, for training as an army officer of the Irish Guards. He rose to military prominence through his service in the First World War, and continued his career through various British campaigns across Europe and Asia during the interwar period.
In the Second World War, Alexander, initially in command of a division, oversaw the final stages of the Allied evacuation from Dunkirk and subsequently held field commands in Britain, Burma, North Africa and Italy, including serving as Commander-in-Chief Middle East and commanding the 18th Army Group in Tunisia. He then commanded the 15th Army Group for the capture of Sicily and again in Italy before being promoted to field marshal and being made Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean in late 1944.
In 1946 he was appointed as Governor General of Canada by King George VI, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King, to replace the Earl of Athlone as viceroy, and he occupied the post until he was succeeded by Vincent Massey in 1952. Alexander proved to be enthusiastic about the Canadian wilderness and popular with Canadians. He was the last Governor General who was born in the United Kingdom as well as the last Governor General to be a peer.
After the end of his viceregal tenure, Alexander was sworn into the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and thereafter, in order to serve as the British Minister of Defence in the Cabinet of Winston Churchill, into the Imperial Privy Council. Alexander retired in 1954 and died in 1969.
Early life and military career
Alexander was born in London into an aristocratic family from County Tyrone of Anglo-Irish descent. He was the third son of James Alexander, 4th Earl of Caledon, and Lady Elizabeth Graham-Toler, Countess of Caledon, a daughter of the 3rd Earl of Norbury. Alexander was educated at Hawtreys and Harrow School, there participating as the 11th batsman in the sensational Fowler's Match against Eton College in 1910. Though Alexander toyed with the notion of becoming an artist, he went instead on to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1910.After passing out from Sandhurst he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Irish Guards on 23 September 1911. He was promoted to lieutenant on 5 December 1912.
First World War
Alexander spent most of the First World War on the Western Front. As a 22-year-old platoon commander in the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, he served with the British Expeditionary Force in 1914. He took part in the retreat from Mons and was wounded at First Ypres and invalided home. He was promoted to temporary captain on 15 November 1914 and permanent captain in the newly raised 2nd Battalion on 7 February the following year.Alexander returned to the Western Front in August 1915, fought at the Battle of Loos and was, for ten days in October 1915, an acting major and acting Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, as a "Battle Casualty Replacement". He then returned to the 2nd Battalion as a company officer and, in January 1916, received the Military Cross for his bravery at Loos. For service in the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916, he was, in October, appointed to the Distinguished Service Order, the citation for which read:
In the same month, Alexander was further honoured with induction into the French Légion d'honneur.
On 10 December 1916, his twenty-fifth birthday, Alexander became second-in-command of the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, as an acting major. By May, he was briefly acting CO of the 1st Battalion, as an acting lieutenant colonel, while still only a substantive captain. He became a permanent major on 1 August 1917, and was again promoted acting lieutenant colonel, this time confirmed as CO of the 2nd Battalion, Irish Guards, on 15 October. Alexander commanded his battalion at Third Ypres, where he was slightly wounded, then at Bourlon Wood, where his battalion suffered 320 casualties out of 400 men. Alexander, between 23 and 30 March 1918, had to assume command of the 4th Guards Brigade, during the British retreat from the German Army's Spring Offensive. He once again commanded the 2nd Battalion, Irish Guards, at Hazebrouck in April 1918, where it took such severe casualties that it saw no further action. Still an acting lieutenant colonel, he then commanded a corps infantry school in October 1918, a month before the war ended on 11 November 1918.
Rudyard Kipling, who wrote a history of the Irish Guards, in which his own son, Jack Kipling, fought and was killed in action, noted that, "it is undeniable that Colonel Alexander had the gift of handling the men on the lines to which they most readily responded ... His subordinates loved him, even when he fell upon them blisteringly for their shortcomings; and his men were all his own."
Between the wars
Alexander in 1919 served with the Allied Control Commission in Poland. As a temporary lieutenant-colonel, he led the Baltic German Landeswehr in the Latvian War of Independence, commanding units loyal to Latvia in the successful drive to eject the Bolsheviks from Latgalia. During service there, he was accidentally wounded by one of his own sentries on 9 October 1919.Alexander returned to Britain in May 1920 as a major, second in command of the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards; in May 1922, he was promoted substantive lieutenant-colonel and appointed commanding officer. He commanded the battalion at Constantinople, then Gibraltar from October 1922, then in London from April 1923 until January 1926, when he was released from that role to attend the Staff College at Camberley, England, from 1926 to 1927. By now Alexander had gained an excellent reputation for himself. In addition, he was older than many of his fellow students—and even some of his instructors—at the college. Among his many fellow students were Douglas Wimberley, who would later become a major-general and command the 51st Division from 1941—1943, including at the Second Battle of El Alamein, who formed a high opinion of Alexander, who, despite his outstanding war record, showed little sign of being overly pleased with himself. Instead, he showed "simplicity, directness and kindness" and gained the respect of all at the college, with two notable exceptions—the future field marshals Alan Brooke and Bernard Montgomery—who did not come away with a particularly favourable impression of him.
After graduating from the Staff College, Alexander was then, in February 1928, promoted to colonel and was the next month appointed Officer Commanding the Irish Guards Regimental District and 140th Infantry Brigade, part of the 47th Division, in the Territorial Army, a post he held until January 1930, when he again returned to study, attending the Imperial Defence College in London for one year.
Alexander then held staff appointments as GSO2 in the Directorate of Military Training at the War Office and GSO1 at HQ Northern Command in York, before being made in October 1934 a temporary brigadier and given command of the Nowshera Brigade, on the Northwest Frontier in India. For his service there, and in particular for his actions in the Loe-Agra operations against the Pathans in Malakand between February and April 1935, Alexander was that year made a Companion of the Order of the Star of India and was mentioned in dispatches. He was mentioned once more for his service during the Second Mohmand Campaign in Northwest Frontier Province from August to October of the same year, serving under Brigadier Claude Auchinleck. Alexander had a reputation for leading from the front and for reaching mountain crests with or even ahead of his troops.
In March 1937, Alexander was appointed as one of the aides-de-camp to the recently acceded King George VI and in May returned to the United Kingdom to take part in this capacity in the state procession through London during the King's coronation. Alexander would have been seen in this event by two of his Canadian viceregal successors: Vincent Massey, who was then the Canadian high commissioner to the United Kingdom, and Massey's secretary, Georges Vanier, who watched the procession from the roof of Canada House on Trafalgar Square. Following the coronation celebration, Alexander returned to India, where he was made the honorary colonel of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Punjab Regiment, and then in October 1937 was promoted to the rank of major-general, making Alexander the youngest general in the British Army. He relinquished command of his brigade in January 1938, and in February returned to the United Kingdom to take command of the 1st Infantry Division. In June 1938 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath.
Second World War
Belgium and France 1939−1940
Following the outbreak of the Second World War, in September 1939, Alexander brought the 1st Division to France, where it became part of the British Expeditionary Force and served there for the next eight months. In May 1940, when the German Army invaded France, he successfully led the division's withdrawal to Dunkirk, where it was evacuated to England, along with the rest of the BEF. Shortly after Major-General Bernard Montgomery had been appointed to command II Corps, Alexander was, while still on the beachhead, placed in command of I Corps, and left the eastern mole on the destroyer Venomous late on 2 June after ensuring that all British troops had been evacuated. In recognition of his services in the field from March to June 1940, Alexander was again mentioned in despatches.United Kingdom 1940−1942
After Dunkirk, Alexander returned to the United Kingdom and continued to command I Corps, now guarding the coasts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire as part of Northern Command. He was promoted acting lieutenant-general in July 1940, and in December 1940 he was appointed to succeed Claude Auchinleck as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Southern Command, which was responsible for the defence of south-west England. His rank of lieutenant-general was made permanent in December 1940. While he was here he came into contact with Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery, who was then serving under his command as GOC of V Corps. Montgomery and Auchinleck had never seen eye-to-eye on much but Alexander, believing Montgomery, who had been one of Alexander's instructors at the Staff College in the mid-1920s, knew what he was doing, simply allowed Montgomery to continue with what he was doing. The two men got along well and their relationship would continue in a similar manner later on in the war.It was during this period and most of 1941 where Alexander came to the attention of his superiors, the most notable among them being General Sir Alan Brooke, then the Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, and Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister. Churchill in particular became a great admirer of Alexander and visited him numerous times throughout 1941, nominating him as the commander of Force 110. Created on paper as the first expeditionary force since the BEF's evacuation from France the year before, Force 110 was considered for several projects throughout the year of 1941, such as landings in the Azores, the Canary Islands and Sicily, but these were, perhaps fortunately, all ultimately abandoned.