Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis
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| Field Marshal The Right Honourable The Earl Alexander of Tunis KG, OM, GCB, GCMG, CSI, DSO, MC, PC, PC (Can) |
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| In office 12 April 1946 – 28 February 1952 |
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| Monarch | George VI, Elizabeth II |
| Prime Minister | William Lyon Mackenzie King Louis St. Laurent |
| Preceded by | Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone |
| Succeeded by | Vincent Massey |
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| Born | 10 December 1891 London, United Kingdom |
| Died | 16 June 1969 (aged 77) Slough, United Kingdom[1] |
| Spouse | Margaret Alexander, Countess Alexander of Tunis |
| Profession | Soldier |
| Religion | Anglican |
| Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis | |
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| Allegiance |  United Kingdom Canada |
| Service/branch |  British Army |
| Years of service | 1911 - death |
| Rank | Field Marshal |
| Commands held | 1st Battalion, Irish Guards (1915 - temporary) 2nd Battalion, Irish Guards (1917) 4 Guards Brigade (Mar 1918 - temporary) X Corps School (Oct 1918) Baltische Landeswehr (Jul 1919 - Mar 1920) 1st Battalion, Irish Guards (1922) Nowshera Brigade, India (13 Oct 1934 - 14 Jan 1938) 1st Infantry Division (17 Feb 1938 - 7 Jun 1940) I Corps (8 Jun 1940 - 14 Dec 1940) Southern Command (UK) (15 Dec 1940 - 26 Feb 1942) Army in Burma (5 Mar 1942 - 6 Aug 1942) Commander-in-Chief, Middle East (7 Aug 1942 - 18 Feb 1943) 18th Army Group (19 Feb 1943 - 14 May 1943) 15th Army Group/Allied Central Mediterranean Force/Allied Armies in Italy (10 Jul 1943 - 11 Dec 1944) Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theatre (12 Dec 1944 - 29 Sep 1945) |
| Battles/wars | World War I Latvian War of Independence World War II |
| Awards | KG (3 Dec 1946) OM (1 Jan 1959) GCB (11 Nov 1942) KCB (1942) CB (1938) GCMG (1946) CSI (7 Feb 1936) DSO (1916) MC (14 Jan 1916) MID (4 Jan 1917, 27 Dec 1918, 8 Jul 1919, 3 Feb 1920, 7 Feb 1936, 8 May 1936, 20 Dec 1940, 28 Oct 1942) LM (10 Aug 1943) PC (1952) PC (Canada) (1952) Legion of Honour 5th class Order of St. Anna, 2nd Class, with swords Order of Suvorov, 1st Class (29 Feb 1944) Grand Cross, Order of King George 1st (20 Jun 1944) Virtuti Militari, Vth Class (7 Dec 1944) DSM (United States) (2 Aug 1945) |
| Other work | Minister of Defence (Mar 1952 - Oct 1954) |
Field Marshal Harold Rupert Leofric George Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis KG OM GCB GCMG CSI DSO MC PC (Can) PC (UK) (10 December 1891–16 June 1969) was a British military commander and field marshal, notably during the Second World War as the commander of the 15th Army Group. He later served as the last British Governor General of Canada.
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[edit] Background and family
The third son of the 4th Earl of Caledon and the former Lady Elizabeth Graham-Toler, a daughter of the 3rd Earl of Norbury, he was born in London and educated at Harrow School and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Alexander was the 11th batsman in the famous Fowler Match between Eton and Harrow in 1910.[2]
In 1931, Alexander married Lady Margaret Diana Bingham, GBE DStJ, younger daughter of George Bingham, 5th Earl of Lucan. The couple had two sons and two daughters (of which, one was an adopted daughter).
[edit] Early career
He was commissioned into the Irish Guards in 1911. During the First World War, Alexander's battalion formed a part of the original British Expeditionary Force (BEF), in which he was a 22-year-old lieutenant and platoon commander.
Alexander became the youngest lieutenant-colonel in the British Army during the war, and when the Great War ended he was in temporary command of a brigade. He served on the Western Front and was wounded twice in four years of fighting. He received the Military Cross in 1915, the Distinguished Service Order in 1916, and the Legion of Honour, and by 1918 was an acting brigadier. Rudyard Kipling, who wrote a history of the Irish Guards in which his own son fought and was killed, 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."
In 1919 - 1920 Alexander led the Baltic German Landeswehr in the Latvian War of Independence, commanding units loyal to the Republic of Latvia in the successful drive to eject the Bolsheviks from Latgale.[3] He later served in Turkey and Gibraltar before returning to England and the Staff College, Camberley and the Imperial Defence College. In 1937 he was promoted to major-general.
[edit] World War II
Alexander joined the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), as commander of the 1st Infantry Division, in France in 1939. After successfully leading his division's withdrawal to Dunkirk in late May 1940 he was appointed to command I Corps on the beachhead shortly after Bernard Montgomery had been appointed to command II Corps. He left the beach in the early hours of 3 June having ensured that all British troops had been picked up.[4][5] For the rest of 1940 and 1941 he held commands equivalent to corps and then army in mainland Britain, before being sent to Burma, commanding what was later to be the Fourteenth Army at the beginning of that campaign. In August 1942 Winston Churchill sent him, as Commander-in-Chief Middle East, and under him Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery as General Officer Commanding Eighth Army, to North Africa to replace General Claude Auchinleck who had held both positions. He presided over Montgomery's victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein. After the Anglo-American forces from Torch and the Eighth Army met in Tunisia in January 1943, he became deputy to Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean.
Alexander was very popular with both US and British officers, and was Eisenhower's preference for the ground command of D-Day, but Field Marshal Alan Brooke applied pressure to keep him in Italy, considering him unfit for the assignment. Alexander remained in Italy as commander of the 15th Army Group, with the US Fifth Army and British Eighth Army under his command.
Montgomery, who was both a long-time friend and subordinate of Alexander in Sicily and Italy, said of him, "Alexander....is not a strong commander...the higher art of war is quite beyond him."[citation needed] He advised his US counterparts, Mark Clark and George S. Patton, to ignore any orders from Alexander with which they did not agree.[citation needed]
In 1943 the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, proposed to make the Irish aristocrat Alexander a Knight in the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick. The Commonwealth Office advised against it and Alexander was made a Viscount in the Peerage of the United Kingdom instead.
His forces captured Rome in June 1944, thereby achieving one of the strategic goals of the Italian campaign. However, US Fifth Army forces at Anzio, under Clark's orders, failed to follow their original breakout plan that would have trapped the German forces escaping northwards. At the end of 1944 Alexander was promoted to field marshal, his promotion being backdated to the fall of Rome, on 4 June 1944, so that he would once again become senior to Montgomery, who had been made a field marshal earlier in the year, on 1 September 1944, after the end of the Battle of Normandy.
Alexander received the German surrender in Italy on 29 April 1945.
[edit] Post-war
Sir Harold Alexander was created Viscount Alexander of Tunis, of Errigal in the County of Donegal, in 1946 for his leadership in North Africa and Italy. In December 1946 he was made a Knight of the Garter and was created Baron Rideau, of Ottawa and of Castle Derg in the County of Tyrone, and Earl Alexander of Tunis in 1952.
[edit] Governor General of Canada
Alexander was Governor General of Canada (1946–1952), and was a popular choice among the Canadian population. In addition to his military reputation, Alexander had a charismatic gift for making friends and communicating with people. This made him a popular and successful Governor General. He took his duties seriously—indeed, when he was asked to kick the opening ball in the 1946 Grey Cup final, he spent a number of early mornings practising.
He saw his role as a vital link between Canadians and their head of State, and was eager to convey that message wherever he went. He travelled Canada extensively, eventually logging more than 294,500 kilometres (184,000 miles) during his five years as Governor General.
On his first major visit to western Canada, he was presented on 13 July 1946 with a totem pole made by Kwakiutl carver Mungo Martin, to mark his installation as an Honorary Chief of the Kwakiutl, the first white man to be so honoured. The totem pole remains a popular attraction on the front lawn of Rideau Hall. During a later visit in 1950, he was made Chief Eagle Head of the Blackfoot First Nations.
Alexander's term - the post-WWII years - was an era of change for Canada. The post-war economy boomed in Canada, and a new prosperity began. In Letters Patent of 1947, King George VI allowed the Governor General to exercise almost all of His Majesty's powers and authorities in respect of Canada on the King's behalf. The document continues to be the source of the Governor General's powers today. In 1949, at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference, the decision was made to use the term "member of the Commonwealth" instead of "Dominion".
That same year, Newfoundland entered Confederation, and Alexander visited the new province that summer. But by 1950, Canada was once again embroiled in war, as Canadian forces fought in Korea against communist North Korea and the People's Republic of China. Alexander visited the troops heading overseas to give them his personal encouragement.
Alexander hosted various dignitaries, including Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, who came to Canada for a Royal Tour in October 1951, less than two years before the Princess became Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada. Lord and Lady Alexander hosted a square dancing party which the Princess and the Duke attended. Alexander also travelled abroad on official trips, visiting President Truman in the United States in 1947, and paying a State visit to Brazil in June 1948.
Generally, though, Lord and Lady Alexander led an informal lifestyle. He was an avid sportsman, enjoying fishing, golf, ice hockey and rugby. Fond of the outdoors, he enjoyed attending the harvest of maple syrup in Ontario and Quebec, and personally supervised the tapping of the maple trees on the grounds of Rideau Hall. He was also a passionate painter, and in addition to setting up a studio for himself in the former dairy which still stands today at Rideau Hall, he organised art classes at the National Gallery of Canada. Lady Alexander became an expert weaver while in Canada, and had two looms in her study.
Alexander encouraged education in Canada. Many Canadian universities gave him honorary degrees, and he was also appointed an Honorary Doctor of Laws by Harvard and Princeton Universities in the United States.
[edit] Later career
In early 1952, after his term was extended twice, Lord Alexander left the office of Governor General, after Sir Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, asked him to return to London to take the post of Minister of Defence, after Sir Winston Churchill had found that age and infirmity made it hard for him to perform both jobs as he had done during the Second World War. He was temporarily replaced by an administrator (Chief Justice Thibaudeau Rinfret) prior to the appointment of diplomat Vincent Massey as the new Governor General.
At that time, each of the three armed forces was still run by a separate department and represented by a separate minister in the Cabinet, with the Minister of Defence as a co-ordinator; Churchill tried unsuccessfully to have other departments co-ordinated by such "overlords". Lord Alexander served as Minister of Defence until 1954, at which point he retired from politics.
Canada remained a favourite second home of the Alexanders, and they returned often to visit family and friends.
Lord Alexander of Tunis died of a perforated aorta on 16 June 1969. His funeral was held on 24 June 1969 at St Georges Chapel, Windsor Castle, and his remains are buried in the churchyard of Ridge, near Tyttenhanger, his family's Hertfordshire home. Lady Alexander died in 1977.
[edit] References
- ^ World War II British Army officers
- ^ 1910 Fowler's match - cricinfo
- ^ Keegan (ed), John; Brian Holden Reid (1991). Churchill's Generals. London: Cassell Military, pp 107-108 & 128. ISBN 0-304-36712-5.
- ^ Mead (2007), pp.41-42
- ^ "After the Auk" . Time Magazine (31 August, 1942).
- Mead, Richard (2007). Churchill's Lions: A biographical guide to the key British generals of World War II. Stroud (UK): Spellmount, 544 pages. ISBN 978-1-86227-431-0.
Some text adapted from http://www.gg.ca
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