Fundamentalism (religious or political) is the last refuge of the intellectually incompetent.

(Sorry to those who say I don’t post enough. Afraid I don’t get time to write for the magazines that pay cash, let alone for my private amusement. But it is – Time for another Rant I think. Enjoy.)

Fundamentalism in the modern world has many forms.

Bad journalists imagine it is restricted to foaming at the mouth religious fanatics. (And many don't understand that most religious people aren't remotely fundamentalist.)

Slightly less bad academics and politicians concede that there are many forms of fundamentalism, including: radical politicians; rabid environmentalists; extremist right-to-lifers/euthanasia enthusiasts; foam flecked global warmers/denialists; anti-smoking fanatics (that last pretty much includes me by the way); and even natural birth, and ‘people who don’t feed their baby real breast milk should be publicly shamed’ fascists.

In fact any position can become a fundamentalist position, by the simple process of moving it from an ‘I prefer’ statement, to a ‘people should’ statement, to a ‘we must make people do X’ statement.

There are whole industries of lobbyists in the world campaigning for governments to ‘make people do X’. Some of them actually believe that they are doing good!

At it’s simplest level this can lead to a voluntary vegetarian, who once accepted that most people don’t make the same choice; becoming an obnoxious Vegan who preaches intolerance of meat eating; and finishing as a violent lunatic who feels morally justified in poisoning the food chain elements they don’t approve of. Any intellectual, emotional or moral position – religious, political, whatever – can become a fundamentalist position if you believe in it too passionately.

A fundamentalist position is simply that which gives you the right, or duty, to walk over other people’s rights.

In fact the only common thread that unites fundamentalists of all sorts, is their rock hard belief that their preferred way of doing things is so obviously to everyone’s benefit, that they should enforce it on everyone else for their own good.

It is intellectually very lazy to imagine that the only version of fundamentalism must be the same as it was in the sixteenth century when the insular Western European countries with little exposure to the outside world were fighting religious wars between Roman and Orthodox and Protestant divisions. Their definition – the Shorter Oxford definition – ‘Strict adherence to traditional orthodox tenets’ (usually meaning scripture), was then felt to be specifically opposed to ‘liberalism’ or ‘modernism’.

In practice of course that converts easily to Muslim fundamentalism. Fair enough.

However it converts equally easily to many other things that are ‘anti-liberal’ and ‘anti-modern’.

I attended a funeral recently for an academic who was a proud Marxist his whole life, but who nonetheless always felt that he was on the side of the angels because he also felt passionate about ‘Aboriginal separatism’ and ‘Multiculturalism’, and other trendy anti-liberal and anti-modern movements. Appalling ideological claptrap that divides and poison societies, and impoverishes the poor benighted ‘victims’ of the modern world back to the idealised illiteracy and unemployment from which they were otherwise escaping through the horrors of ‘integration’ into a modern society.

I have attended other funerals where the Comrades actually get up and sing the Internationale at the end, and shed genuine tears about the fact that the appalling mass murdering regimes of the Communist heroes of their youth still need a bit of ‘perfecting’ before the ‘Revolution’ remakes the whole world. (Yes they actually still say this stuff, I am not making it up!)

Of course none of the die-hard Socialists seem to understand when I point out that their unforgiving (and unforgivable) extremism is in no way different to that of the Nazi’s (the National Socialist Workers Party to give it it's full idealist title) or any other version of Fascism.

Lunatic political extremists, whether they pretend to be Communist or Fascist, or of the supposed Left or of the theoretical Right (and I still don’t see much difference between them apart form the quality of their tailors), are just evil.

Even when they imagine they are nobly campaigning to save us all.

ESPECIALLY when they imagine they are nobly campaigning to save us all.

My occasional writing partner – Lorenzo – makes a big distinction when he talks about the different elements of the Enlightenment. He points out that there are two types of Enlightenment.

There is the English style Liberal Enlightenment  sometimes called the ('moderate' enlightenment according to sceptics like Jonathan Israel), accepts that people are people, so we can only do the best we can do to get them to all agree and play happily together.

Then there is the European style Radical Enlightenment, which believes that the only way to make people play well together is to change them, by molding them into better people. Into people who are designed, built, trained, and FORCED, to fit the correct mould.

If you are a victim of the superficial attractions of the fuzzy idealism of the Radical Enlightemnment, you probably believe that the state, and its education and punishment systems, are there to make people fit into a ‘socially desirable’ mould. 

(If so, you are probably very happy with the deterioration of the Australian public school system to the point that political correctness is considered far more important than literacy or numeracy. You probably are appalled that so many parents want to put their children in private schools where they might learn to red and write.  You probably campaign loudly against public funding for private schools. I bet you want to make sure no taxpayer money goes to anything that the people who pay taxes might want, but instead only to what reinforces your comfortable ideological preferences... you... you... whoops, time for a cold shower and a lie down I think...)

If you are such a person, you usually call yourself by benign titles like ‘socialist’, or a ‘multi-culturalist’; or perhaps by titles that have gone out of fashion but mean exactly the same sort of state intervention in people’s lives like ‘Eugenicist’ or ’White Man’s Burden’ worker; or perhaps you even still hang grimly on to the ultimate idealism of sickening movements like Communism or Fascism. (See any recent European news for samples of both.)

No matter which of these fantasies you are attached to, you become a dangerous fundamentalist the second you believe that ‘the world would be a better place if everyone thought the same way’.

Or, as the great social commentator of the modern media – Joss Whedon – put it, in the immortal word’s of Captian Reynold’s (in the movie Serenity)…

“Sure as I know anything, I know this. They will try again… a year from now, ten, they will swing back to the belief that they can Make People Better…”

No matter how many times they fail, or how appalling the results, 'they' keep believing that their idealistic fantasy just needs a bit of ‘perfecting’. It is simply beyond their comprehension that you cannot build a stable, or indeed sane, system on Radical Enlightenment beliefs.

The Liberal Enlightenment gave birth to the dozens of Constitutional Monarchies of the older parts of the British Commonwealth, or of the Protestant parts of Northern Europe – Scandinavia and Benelux etc. Countries that, despite their whacky, cobbled together and often unwritten constitutions, have generally had between two and five centuries of internal peace and economic development. (Unless attacked or invaded by their Radical Enlightenment neighbours.)

The Radical Enlightenment gave birth to the – literally – hundreds of ‘Republics’ that tend to break down into political chaos, dictatorship, civil war, mass murder or genocide of their own people’s, or just violent attacks on all their neighbours. Usually within twenty years of being founded. 

From the French Terror to the Napoleonic wars; from the Weimar Republic to the Nazi state; from the Soviet Socialist Republics of XXX, to the Muslim Republics of XXX, to almost any post WWII African or Asian republic you care to name – including most ‘new Commonwealth’ ones; or indeed the interwar Western European or postwar Eastern European ones. 

The four, FOUR, successful republics out of the hundreds of failures _ that have not been just tiny city states like Singapore – are: Switzerland,  Finland, Israel, and Botswana. Three that held together mainly because they were monocultures under constant threat from invaders for most of their existence, and the third an effective tribal monarchy even if it is not called one.

(The United States is the standout weirdo of the modern world… enough English Liberal Enlightenment in its legal structure to keep it to only a single Civil War – and only 600,000 dead – despite the unstable French Radical Enlightenment elements in it’s constitution. But if you watch the US Congress – Liberal Enlightenment – and President – Radical Enlightenment – systems in conflict recently it constantly amazes that it works at all…)

You cannot build a state purely on Radical Enlightenment ideals, which is why all such states run in to trouble sooner or later. Usually much sooner. Which just reinforces why the US hybrid state and other Radical Enlightenment states (even functional Constitutional Monarchy states like Australia that should know better) trying to force illiterate tribal cultures in Central America and Asia and Africa and – more recently – the Middle East: to become ‘democratic republics’ has been so woefully unsuccessful. (And which has also dropped the average survival of modern ‘republics’ to even lower levels, because the ‘imposed’ idealistic republics are even less successful than the ‘revolutionary’ idealistic ones.)

Fundamentalism is not just political parties however, it is anything, any movement, that leaves no room for debate.

Watching once proud Universities completely give up on the idea of freedom of debate, when they ban an internationally respected group of free-thinkers from Australian campuses has been very scary. NOT banned for ‘climate denialism’ you will note, but for merely suggesting that there might be better ways to look at climate activism than the incredibly, stupidly, simplistic responses: ‘It's all carbon and only carbon, and nothing else, and there is only one possible way to reduce that, and there will be no discussion or debate no matter how much the accumulating evidence shows that all our models are wrong, wrong wrong…” Very weird fundamentalism. Stupid, dangerous, probably evil, certainly futile, fundamentalism.

Watching so called ‘Feminists’ loudly proclaim all the world’s problems as being exclusively the fault of Western White Men, while studiously referring to the many other repressive cultural practices in the world  as 'culturally relevant' is perplexing. When the truly wicked misogynist, slavers and sex exploiters (and sex slavers) of the Muslim world are referred to as ‘victims', it's incomprehensible. Stupid, dangerous, definitely evil, certainly futile, fundamentalism.

Watching people who have had a century and a half of experience of just how appalling and evil Socialist regimes – whether called Communism or Fascism – are, and how they enslave, impoverish and torture their own citizens: call for more attempts at the ‘perfect’ socialism, truly makes you wonder where we could find enough padded cells to lock such pathetically intellectually lazy loonatics up.

If years… decades… centuries of historical evidence proves, PROVES, that you are wrong to keep thinking that this nice simplistic sounding solution is the obvious way to go… LEARN.

It is all very well to say that ‘if you are not a socialist at 20, you don’t have a heart, but if you are still one at 40, you don’t have a brain’. Children simply do not understand consequences (and should not get the vote until they are old enough to do so, and can prove they contribute to the wellbeing of the society… but that’s another post). But supposed adults who cling to overly simplistic idealistic claptrap because they are too intellectually limited, or lazy, to see or assess the endless evidence that they are wrong to believe in such stupidities, are very dangerous.

If they become fundamentalist  believers in this crap, they are actively evil.

Myself, I am an unashamed Liberal Enlightenment follower. I think that people, good or bad, are people. We can attempt the best compromises we can to get them all to play nice. But we have to accept they are only compromises, and can only be imperfect.

If you believe that there can be no compromises, and that there should be no need for compromises, but only the one true perfect and inevitable solution to every X… then you are a fundamentalist.

No mater what you think you are aiming for, you, and concerned, well meaning (and very intellectually lazy) people like you: are in fact those most responsible for the religious persecution, political violence, enforced separatism, illiteracy, and empoverishment, that pulls against the liberal, integrating, and potentially universally uplifting efforts of the modern world.

Or at least, self-righteous smug bastards like me can believe you are.

The ‘Arab Spring’, 1848, and the 30 Years War/s...

When journalists were going nuts a few years ago about the wonders of the wave of ‘revolutions’ that they decided to refer to as an ‘Arab Spring’, I was reminded how few modern academics, let alone journalists, have any understanding of history. None of the political analysts or professional pundits seemed to have much more of a clue about how things would INEVITABLY turn out, than babes in a wood.

Which is ridiculous, because you would imagine that anyone with a pretense of being worth consulting might have at least a clue that there might be historical parallels worth considering.

Frankly it is terrifying that our modern ‘chattering classes’ honestly seem to imagine that they are above being able to learn anything from history.

1848 of course saw a wave of ‘revolutions’ all across Europe, which many people at the time hailed as the inevitable downfall of the ancient regimes, and the prelude of the rise of true modern democracy. How sweet.

In fact, of course, the revolutions led to a re-imposition of the ancient regimes, or much worse dictatorships: often with harder edges to prevent such things happening again. In fact it can be credibly argued that the results of this wave of revolutions was to slow down the democratization of Europe by at least 50 years.

I suspect the same thing will result from the Arab Spring.

‘Revolutions’ tend to kick off way before the society as a whole is really ready for them. Usually as pre-emptive takeover attempts by the newly educated middle class ‘intelligentsia’, (or chattering class as we would call them, or ‘twitteratti’ as I have recently heard the political ‘pundits’ ruthlessly described).

Unsurprisingly these newly graduated minor functionaries, petty civil servants, and junior lawyers, want more say in the power structure of the state than the traditional ruling class has previously allowed them. Unsurprisingly – I suppose – they want it immediately… Or as Billy Connelly said in a skit, “We want it now, we want it yesterday, we want to control half of that, most of that, f….ing ALL of that, and stay awake, because tomorrow the demands will change!”

The problem with the proto middle classes jumping the gun and trying to impose their idealized version of democracy before the working class (read average voter) is even half way down the trail to a similar level of literacy and political interest and philosophical conceptualization: is that the resulting mad theories are far too complex for the voters, and NO imagined safe-guard can stand up to the combined ignorance and misunderstanding of the newly enfranchised. The result is, absolutely inevitably, a dictatorship.

Either one of the theoretical loony models is seized by a corrupt power seeker ‘for the good of the people’, and away we go to a Mussolini, or a Stalin, or a Franko, or a Goddafi, or a Castro, or a… well the list would go to a couple of hundred in the last century. Or worse, it is seized by the much more restricted number of ‘genuine believer’ nutters: like the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, who (like Hitler, Petain and Mao) honestly believed that the only way to give the people the government they deserved was “to rule myself!”

Please note that it IS possible to have a Res Publica – by the people – government, but only as long as it is by the ‘deserving’ few. The worst excesses of these proto-democracies can be undercut by an extreme limiting of the franchise – preferably to an effective oligarchy of voters narrow enough to be more self-interested in keeping control against the uneducated and undisciplines rule of the genuine majority, but this is hard to achieve. The Serene Republic of Venice achieved it for almost a thousand years by limiting the franchise to the great and the good families, and the early United States managed to hold it together for about 90 years by limiting it by racial profiling as well as property franchise… but note that both were, like all the Greek and Roman republics, slave based societies: so their claims to be genuine democracies are hopelessly confused to anyone with a consistent or comprehensible ideological viewpoint. In their case ‘the people’ simply meant, the deserving few that we will allow to vote.

This limiting of the franchise to the deserving actually continues in very successful – one could even say the ONLY successful – republics o the modern world. The ancient Greek and Roman franchises were honestly based on ‘those who contribute get a say’. Contribution a that time being buying the expensive armour yourself, putting in the training time, and taking the risk in the front lines of battle: to prove you put the good of the state and your fellow citizens above your own interests. (Though it is notable that their Republics almost instantly graduated to imperialistic and aggressive expansion, which pretty quickly made republican government unworkable, and inevitably led to such champions of democracy as Alexander the Great and Julius Ceasar.)

The only long term successful modern Republic – Switzerland – still has compulsory military service; as does Israel, the only successful democracy ever established in the Middle East.

The other ways to limit the franchise – Like the first (1770’s), second (1860’s) and third (1880’s) American attempts of a franchise limited by race/property; or the first (1790’s), second (1820’s) or third (1860’s) French attempts at a property based franchise (which often saw as few as 20% of people with a vote): were actually much less successful than the equivalent slow Westminster style expansions of the franchise under a developing constitutional monarchy. (No Western Westminster system state has ever had a coup, let alone a civil war.) France has had 5 republics, 3 monarchies and 2 emperors in less than 200 years; and the United States has similarly run through several major reformations of their race/property franchise system since their – 600,000 dead – little debate about their system.

(The American comparison with France is amusing. The first American republic was smashed by the Confederate Defection; the second was an anti-democratic imposition on the South – with no voting rights for Confederate ‘activists’ – after the Confederacy War of Independence was crushed; the third ‘republic’ was when the white southerners were re-enfranchised and promptly disenfranchised the blacks who had been the only voters in the south for the previous 20 years – and whose elected black representatives had not been allowed in the front door or the dining rooms of Congress; the fourth republic… well you get the idea. The US system, with all its defectioins, jumps and retreats, simply can’t be called a continuously expanding development the way Westminster systems are.)

Which is all a round about way of pointing out that the ‘republics’ in the Middle East, and particularly in the Arab and Muslim world, simply cannot work.

The absolutely vital elements of a successful democratic component of government (note – component of a system, not the entire system): is that there be a literate population; a free and enquiring press; a well developed and just rule of law; and a tradition of give and take being acceptable to the society.

Tribal societies have none of these things. That is why democracies have consistently failed in African countries where tribalism is still the most important element. (In fact politics in some of these places is still largely a competition between which tribal groups served in the imperial militaries, versus which served in the imperial civil services. With very bloody competition between the two.) The fact that illiteracy is rampant; free presses almost non-existent; and the rule of law where judges are not beholden to tribal interests, or simply threats, doesn’t exist: makes democracy impossible to sustain.

Muslim culture has none of these things. A system where a woman’s evidence in court is one third of a man’s – and dhimmitude is recognized even if slavery officially isn’t – is unlikely to have these things. And for literacy, free press, or rule of law, see Africa, but doubled.

It is also possible to suggest that without a clear understanding of the logic of natural laws, you can’t have a democracy. The fact that Muslim scholarship specifically rejects natural law on the basis that Allah can cause anything, so there are no ‘natural laws’, means you cannot have these things. The reason the Muslim world lost its scientific supremacy of the 11^th and 12^th centuries relates specifically to their decision to turn their back on empirical evidence. Without that basic understanding, I do not believe democracy is possible. (In fact that basic approach helps explain why democracy is actually anathema to good Muslims, and why Boko Haram literally means ‘Western education is evil’!)

So the concept that an ‘Arab Spring’ could work in the Middle East is a sad indictment on the Western media and ‘intelligentsia’s’ failed understanding about how democracy works.

In fact the entire deluded Western project of attempting to impose ‘republics’ on tribal societies as part of post-colonialism ,is an indictment on the western fantasy that republics are workable, let alone good things.

Let’s face it, no western republic, even in the most educated, literate, and rule of law abiding parts of the Anglosphere, has survived a first century without a collapse and or bloody civil war. The most ‘successful’ Western republics have included the American (see above), French (see above), Weimar (heard of the popularly elected Adolf Hitler?), Italian (50 governments in 50 years), Greek (how’s that brilliant financial planning going?) and Polish (are they on their 3^rd, 4^th, or 5^th?). Those are the good ones. 90% of all republics ever founded in Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, or the Middle East, have collapsed into dictatorship, civil war, mass murder, or ethnic cleansing, within 20 years of being set up.

And that’s what we thought would work in the Middle East?

To be fair, the British set up monarchies, in the hope that they would become constitutional monarchies (which were their experience of something that might actually get somewhere). Jordan seems to be succeeding; the Gulf states are so successful few want to change; and Egypt was derailed by the Soviets and Americans playing Cold War games. The French tried to set up republics (god knows why, their's and never worked) in Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, and other places. In the words of Dr Phil, ‘How’s that working out for you?’. The Americans successfully undermined the Egyptian and Iranian attempts to get constitutional monarchies off the ground, and celebrated the resulting republics... very briefly. The second in particular no longer looks a very clever move.

The latest American attempts to force republics on Afghanistan and Iraq have been absolute disasters.

Afghanistan might, might… have worked if the Americans had understood that such a tribalised society required a House of Lords of all the powerful tribal leaders and major clerics, to balance and elected representatives. (But of course it would still need some sort of monarch to make it work, because, as Machiavelli pointed out, you need 3 powers in balance, so any two can stop the third from dominating!).) Or they could just have a system where the two major components completely ignore each other while they compete for control , and leave an easy opening for the return of the Taliban.

Iraq might, might… have worked with a federal system of at least a dozen ethnically based states that each had two representatives to a senate that had the right to block the excesses of an elected house where a 50% majority could get revenge on everyone else for every slight since the death of the prophet. Or they could go for a more simplistic version of a republic, and get what they inevitably got.

Why couldn’t the Americans have kept their big fat ideologies out of it, as they largely did after the first Gulf War. Kuwait is no great shining beacon, but it doesn’t suffer from the American idealism that lead to Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt and Iran!

Which brings us to the fundamental problem. The Western media and intelligentsia don’t seem to have a clue that the issues in the Middle East are not related to competing political ideologies, but to competing religious tribalism.

The ongoing conflicts throughout the region, and in other parts of the world, are not about democracy versus monarchy; or fascism versus communism; or imperialism versus freedom. Or indeed any of the other childish ideologies Western journalists fell in love with during their undergraduate post modernist deconstructionalist courses by failed ex-Trotsky’s, who simply can’t accept that the last century has proven how appalling and basically evil their over-simplistic ideologies are. (Yes Comrade Corbyn, that’s you and your gushing twitteratti I am slamming!)

In fact the problem in the Muslim world is that they are entering the third decade of the Muslim Civil War.

The Sunni’s and Shia’s are at about the point that the Roman Catholic’s and the Protestants were at in Europe in the 1620’s to 30’s, and it is only going to get worse. That war was ideaological, and paid very little attention to national boundaries. This one is the same. The Christian 30 Years War is about to be repeated in a Muslim civil war, and 30 years might be an optimistic number.

Interestingly the Christian’s split over 3 or four centuries, into Orthodox and Roman, then split again into Albigensian and Protestant etc. Eventually it got to the point, after 14 or 15 centuries of slow development, that major conflict broke out. Is it co-incidence that the Muslims have followed a similar path? Is it inevitable that after 14 or 15 centuries of existence, they too are having a major internal conflict? Or is it just that a century of renewed prosperity and development (largely brought on by Western intrusion into their secular affairs) has given them the semi-educated proto middle class who traditionally stir up revolutionary stuff they don’t understand?

Whatever the reasons, stupid Westerner’s are eventually going to have to admit to a few of realities.

1.     No matter how much you fantisise about the functionality of republics and democracy, you can’t impose systems that don’t work in places that don’t have the necessary pre-requisites.

2.     No matter how much literacy or free press you do manage to push in, you can’t impose rule of law and understanding of natural law on societies that have very specifically rejected such concepts for 8 or 9 centuries.

3.     No matter how much your secularist ideologies (developed from safely behind 2 millennium of Christian teaching that accepts rule of law and natural law) is offended, you cannot expect a similar acceptance from people whose cultural development of such beliefs is several centuries behind the West.

4.     No matter what you want to believe, the Muslim civil war is happening.

Let’s hope we really are at least half way through the 30 years…

D Day... if the right generals were in charge?

Who should have commanded Allied forces from D Day on, and would the war have been shortened thereby?

(Another 'what if' to stir debate. Stirring the pot as usual... hope you enjoy it.)

Whenever I do a post on 'rating' this general, or that general: the comments usually come down to 'but at this battle they failed, whereas at this battle such and such succeeded'. These comments almost always try to compare apples with oranges, suggesting that someone good at open field pursuit with little opposition, would have done better at an invasion than someone brilliant at tight defensive battles who never commanded a successful advance. In fact the opposite would be more likely, with someone who has good knowledge of how to fight tight engagements probably much better at an invasion than someone who had only ever pursued broken enemies with loose formations in open spaces. Their specific knowledge bases are probably more important than the fact that one had possibly seen only victory, and the other only defeat.

The truth is that any successful high command should maximise the chances of success of any campaign by choosing the 'best fit' for the job.

But that is not how generals were chosen for D Day.

(I would love to start with divisional commanders, but there are way to many, so for space I will start with Corps and Army commanders, and work up to the top).

The outstanding Canadian of the campaign for instance was Guy Simonds. Described by many as the best Allied Corps commander in France, and credited with re-invigorating the Canadian Army HQ when he filled in while his less successful superior Harry Crerar was sick, Simonds was undoubtedly the standout Canadian officer in both Italy and France.

He was however, the youngest Canadian division, corps or army commander, and the speed of his promotions pushed him past many superiors. He was also described as 'cold and uninspiring' even by those who called him 'innovative and hard driving'. It can be taken as a two edged sword that Montgomery thought he was excellent (presumably implying Montgomery like qualities?) But his promotions seemed more related to ability than cronyism, and his achievements were undoubted.

Should he have been the Canadian Army commander instead of Crerar? Yes. Arguments against were mainly his lack of seniority, and lack of experience. but no Canadian had more experience, and lack of seniority was no bar in most of the other Allied armies.

It comes down to the simple fact that the Allied cause would have been better served by having Simonds in charge of Canadian forces than Crerar.

The most interesting British Corps commander was Neil Ritchie. Interesting because he had previously been given unexpected command of Eighth Army at a crucial point of the desert war, and been sacked for failing in this role. In fact his appointment from HQ officer over the heads of many senior battlefield commanders in 1942 had been supposed to be a temporary one, and Brooke had been appalled at such a junior officer being thrown in way over his head and 'damaged'. Once sacked, he was returned to England, where Brooke carefully built him back up through divisional and then corps command, to make him ready for re-entering the war at an appropriate level.

Few would say that Ritchie was the most brilliant corps commander on the allied side, but he did a much better job than many of his contemporaries. His 'reconditioning' proved to be a worthwhile development (underlining how his earlier failure reflects more on his superiors than on him).

Was he the right man for the job? Yes, both due to his undoubted (if painful) past experience, and to his natural ability which had overcome such a past.

As an interesting comparison Gerard Bucknall was sacked as commander of the British XXX Corps during the campaign by the man who had appointed him, Montgomery again. Bucknall had served competently in North Africa, and impressed Montgomery as a divisional commander in Sicily and Italy, but Alan Brooke as CIGS felt that he was unsuitable as a Corps commander, and experience was to suggest that (as usual) Brooke was correct.

Montgomery sacked Bucknall for repeated failures during the breakout operations, and, fortunately, Brian Horrocks had recuperated enough from his North African injuries to take over and re-invigorate XXX Corps for the rest of the war. Brooke didn't hold this sacking against Bucknall, and appointed him commander of Northern Ireland for the rest of the war. Another example of accepting men at their ability levels, and not blaming them for being pushed beyond them.

Horrocks was definitely the right man for a corps command, as he had proved in North Africa, and was to prove again. If he had not been wounded (by a strafing fighter) at Tunisia, he might have been the right man to be army commander too. He certainly was by far the most experienced corps commander, having fought from Alemein to Tunisia, and then from Normandy to the Rhur. It is possible to suggest that he would have been a better commander of the British 2nd Army than Dempsey... if not for his being out injured for a critical year.

Another possibility for British 2nd Army commander was O'Connor, who instead served as commander of VIII Corps. O'Connor was THE outstanding corps commander of the first half of the war, with achievements in North Africa that only Patton came close to matching later. Of course both O'Connor and Patton achieved their most dramatic successes against the Italians, not against the Germans, but both are masters of high speed manoeuvre.

Having said that, O'Connor also succeeded in breaking fortified lines several times in North Africa – a role that Patton notably failed in at the Metz (though we might note that O'Connor faced Italians, and Patton Germans). So O'Connor had been a brilliant Corps commander before most other Allied generals had led a division, and might have been considered a better choice for Army command too.

Unfortunately O'Connor had spent two years in captivity during the middle of the war, and there is some doubt that he was up to even corps command in France. He certainly performed competently – who with his experience would not have – but he lacked the fire of his previous command.

It is also possible that freewheeling corps commander was actually his metier, and army command might have been beyond him? perhaps if he had not had those two years in captivity he may have developed into a good army commander. But he did, and thus he didn't.

Was he the right man in the right place? He was certainly a safe pair of hands, and it was sensible to give him a key role at the start. He proved uninspiring after that, and it was perhaps also sensible to replace him with better goers later. An interesting debate could trend either way, but all in all it was probably sensible to rely on his experience until others proved themselves.

'Lightning Joe' Collins was one of the best of the American corps commanders for the campaign in France, not only through natural ability, but through sheer experience. He commanded the 25th Division on Gudalcanal and then on New Georgia before transferring to Europe to provide a bit of genuine combat experience, and he commanded VII Corps throughout the campaign extremely competently. He was a prime example of using safe and experienced hands to lead new or inexperienced troops into combat. His leadership of Operation Cobra finally allowed inexperienced US units to break experienced (if depleted) German troops, and converted the Normandy siege into the great trans-France pursuit.

Definitely one of the best men for the job in France.

By contrast Leonard Gerow proved to be very competent despite his lack of combat experience. A contemporary of Bradley (who was second to him in the Advanced Course at Infantry School) and Eisenhower (who was his study partner at Command and General Staff school), there was no reason he  could not have finished senior to both, rather than staying a corps commander for his few months of operations. Such is fate.

But he turned out to be a good choice for his role, and proved a safe pair of hands despite his inexperience. A man who might have been a good army commander with more experience.

Interestingly Charles Corlett did not bring XIX corps into action until after the invasion was successful. This is fascinating because he had commanded two successful invasions in the Pacific – Kisku, which proved to be a non event because the Japanese had left, and the much tougher Kwajalein operation, often called 'the most nearly perfect' of all US invasions in the pacific war. Why such a proven invasion commander (he was later to be tasked with planning to invade Japan) was not used for the actual invasion is an interesting question. Clearly he might have been better at that than less experienced contemporaries?

Which raises the fundamental question, why was the single most experienced and successful American invader (North Africa, Sicily, Italy.. twice) Lucian Truscott, not brought up for the most important invasion of the war? He was a proven corps performer, with vastly greater experience than even the Pacific veterans, and deservedly got an army of his own in 1944. Not only was he the outstanding choice for a corps commander for an invasion, he would have been a vastly superior choice as Army commander to the less experienced (and less competent) Bradley or Hodges.

Admittedly he was pretty hotly engaged in Italy at the time. (And admittedly, his presence had repeatedly saved the situation when other less competent generals had screwed things up), but he was the standout invasion specialist in the US army. If Marshall genuinely believed that Italy was a wasted sideshow, and everything should be focused on France, his being left in the secondary theatre was a pretty strange choice.

Should he have been there? Definitely. Was it possibly helpful that one competent leader was left in 5th army? Probably. Perhaps we need to accept that the best available was simply not available?

There are other corps commanders, but lets move on to the army leaders.

Harry Crerar has been mentioned . Pedestrian might be an acceptable phrase. He was not completely incompetent, but he inspired no one, and his achievements were made to look poor in the few months that Simonds got to stir his command up. Was he the wrong man in the wrong place? Yes.

Miles Dempsey is interesting. Proved quite competent in the end, but hardly inspiring. The need to leave Leese with 8th army and Slim with 14th was probably necessary, and he certainly had a background with combined ops and invasions, but possibly more inspiring leaders were available (Horrocks and O'Connor have already been mentioned), but taking all things into consideration, Dempsey was possibly a safe choice from the dozen or so experienced corps commanders quite ready to run an army. His well organised and fast (200 miles in a single day) pursuit of the defeated Germans across France was actually faster than Patton achieved against considerably less opposition.

Was he the right man for the job? Well he was certainly a competent choice.

Which is quite a contrast to Courtney Hodges, who appears a fairly incompetent choice. He had flunked out of West Point as a young man before re-enlisting as a private and working his way up. As such his final role commanding US 1st Army is quite an achievement. However he led it into battle despite having no combat experience since leading a platoon for a couple of weeks of combat in WW1. He was astonishingly highly thought of by Eisenhower considering his lack of achievement, and Montgomery was at one point amazed to realise that US 1st army had 20+ divisions assigned (bigger than most army group HQ's could handle successfully) whereas US 9th army next door had less divisions assigned than most corps.

Hodges advance across France was nothing special, except for a fairly major disaster called 'the battle of the Bulge', where his army survived more due to the individual toughness of a few units, than to any leadership from above. (Monty's contact officers arrived at Hodges HQ to find it completely abandoned, but with all the maps still on the walls... When they finally chased him down, he had taken to his bed in what might have been considered a nervous collapse.)

Hodges next great effort was the disastrous battle of the Heurtgen Forest, one of the last great German defensive victories of the war, and an absolute bloodbath for American forces. (It was later excused on the 'vital need' to capture two damns... but that 'need' was not apparently discovered until the battle was almost over, and the recriminations already mounting.)

Did Hodges have the experience, or skill to run an army? There is little evidence that he did. Did he cause it enormously greater casualties than a more experienced general might have? Almost certainly inarguable. Was he the wrong man in the wrong place? Yes.

By contrast William Simpson might have been a good choice for 1st army, as he proved for 9th army when it came on line. A soldier with actual combat experience in the Philippines, and WW1, he proved a competent and safe pair of hands, particularly in reacting swiftly and smoothly to the Battle of the Bulge. He also worked very smoothly with the difficult Montgomery after that, and was highly rated by Monty as the most competent US general he dealt with during the war.

Should he have been given more experience before getting such a key position? Yes. Did he cope well considering his lack of experience? Very. Was he the right man for such a role? Probably not, but he performed well enough to deserve praise.

Alexander Patch was one of the few American army leaders who were promoted from experienced corps leaders who had seen a lot of combat. His efforts with a division and later corps on Guadalcanal meant he had experience to go with his role. He was hardly outstanding, but certainly a safe pair of hands for such a role. It is interesting that he got an army when Collins and Corlett did not, even though they probably had superior claims to him.

George Patton was of course the other army leader who had seen some actual combat, but that is the only thing you can say about him that won't cause debate. Personally I think he would have been a better choice for Army group commander than his ex-subordinate/now superior Bradley, but that is no great compliment to either.

Patton had a genuine 'nose' for assessing what was going on in combat. On the other hand I think he is hugely over-rated as an army commander, in that he was only ever successful in pursuit of defeated foes.

Despite the propaganda in the film about him, he had nothing to do with the Germans pulling back after Kasserine. He did get to swan around in Sicily collecting Italians who were lining up to surrender as fast as possible, and he also got to go on a scenic cruise through France when there was no opposition to his advance. He proved very competent at pushing such advances, and was happy to make or mend (or steal) anything to keep momentum going. With experience, he might have made a good all round general.

But his only real testing against an enemy prepared and willing to fight was at the Metz, where he failed dismally. Given that this came within days of his 'shit through a goose speech', the fact that he was stopped cold for months and could think of nothing to do about it (to the extent of eventually going to sulk in Paris for weeks), argues against him being a great general.

He was in the right place to lead the troops after the breakout, but he was probably too inexperienced in combat to be given a role that should have gone to Truscott or Collins or Corlett instead.

Wrong man for the job.

Jean De Lattre de Tassigny was definitely the right man. A very experienced combat professional, and one who had the honour of being described by his German opponent in 1940 as having led men who performed like those at Verdun in the previous war. He fought in North Africa, Sardinia, Italy, and France (and later was one of the few success stories in Vietnam), and was always efficient and effective. Right man for the job, and possibly a better candidate to command the US/French Army group than Devers.

Jacob Devers was the Army Group commander no one has heard of. Despite having run all US Army Armoured units for most of the war, he had no real combat experience before being thrown in to command an army group in the invasion of Southern France and the fight up to Germany. Despite being one of the best organisers and administrators and trainers available to the US Army, he had little background to deal with a combined US/French army group, and struggled to stay in charge of the French component (though many others might have too in the last months of the war).

Was he the right man for the job? Probably not. Certainly it is a shame to think how much better he would have been running Eisenhower's logistics than the appalling Lee turned out to be. His skills could have been better employed. But on the other hand, by the time he got into action there was little that he could have done to undermine things anyway.

Certainly a better man than his lack of recognition deserves, despite his lack of experience for such a role.

Omar Bradley is easier. Out of his depth.

He had been quite good running a corps in Sicily, against no opposition from Italians who wanted to surrender. But it can hardly be said that a month of such operations made him an experienced combat leader.

Perhaps if he had been left as an army commander he might have proved competent (with careful mentoring). But he had to be gently pushed to concentrate adequately to achieve things for the breakout, and then he operated like a junior corps commander directing traffic.

Was he experienced enough to run an army group? No. Was he good at it? No. Hodges was poor, Patton did as he liked, and Bradley's organisation and control failed to control them, let alone lead them. He wandered between sitting at Eisenhower's side whinging about not being able to communicate with most of his armies after being caught out at 'the battle of the  Bulge'; to telling Patton he would 'stay away from the telephone' so Eisenhower couldn't order him to stop Patton's insubordination.

Bradley would have been an excellent divisional commander. With more practice, he looked like making a very good corps commander. He was an inexperienced and inadequate army commander. As Army group commander he was terribly out of his depth.

Montgomery... Oh God, Montgomery!

Montgomery was the most experienced, skilled and competent Army or Army Group commander in Europe (or indeed the world). He was absolutely the right person to be commanding an army, and seemed to be quite good at commanding an army group.

But he was not a good choice for 'Land Forces Commander'. He was simply the wrong personality to work with the group such a role needed to co-ordinate.

Nor did he have the strategic vision to relate a tactical campaign to the overall situation.

Having said that, having him as army group commander of the initial invasion, was probably sensible. It needed one strong experienced and un-panicked hand, and even Eisenhower and Bradley (hardly admirers) later admitted that invasion might not have worked at all without him.

And having him as land forces commander afterwards, despite his weaknesses and the trouble it would cause, would still have been better than not having one at all.

But not much.

(In fact his personality was so difficult he may well have caused almost as much damage as Eisenhower's HQ was managing anyway... If not adequately controlled... which meant NOT by Eisenhower.)

Was Monty the right man in the right place? Yes. Did he NEED a strong commander? Yes. Did he get one? No. Was that his fault? .... Well again, don't blame a subordinate if his superiors stuff things up...

Monty was correct of course that someone had to do the job of land forces commander, and that it would be better to give it even to someone relatively incompetent like Bradley, than simply pretend it was not necessary.

In fact he would have been happy to have Ike's preferred choice, Alexander, who had never inspired Monty with confidence, but who at least knew what the job entailed, and had an unrivalled ability to get people to work together. (Yes, better than Ike's ability... much better.)

What was absolutely vital was someone who could concentrate on the land battle while the Supreme Commander played politics.

Who was qualified to be land forces commander? Bloody good question.

Alexander is the default choice. He had done it before, and made it work. Was he the best choice? No. too soft and conciliatory, and earlier in the war his juniors (Monty, Patton, Clarke) played him the way Patton later played Bradley. But there are signs that after a few years of experience he was maturing, and might have been up to the job. (Or at least more up to it than anyone else available.)

Who might have done it better? Alan Brooke of course. Possibly his successor at home army Bernard Paget, who, despite limited modern combat experience in Norway, had enormous experience training and organising the invasion armies. Or even Henry 'Jumbo' Wilson who, despite being thrown out of Greece, and running an uninspiring Syrian campaign before taking over 10th army, had at least seen modern combat on large fronts. Otherwise William Slim, the Australian John Lavarack, or perhaps even an experienced American army commander like Robert Eichelberger. Even the inexperienced Devers at lest had the managerial ability to get something done.

As Monty said, anyone would have been better than no one.

Which leaves Supreme Allied Commander.

Much is said about Eisenhowers great strengths. He certainly had buckets of charm, a great work ethic, and an unrivalled ability to co-ordinate disparate characters.

Less is said about his weaknesses. His charm hid ignorance of military affairs; his overwork reduced him to a nervous chain smoking wreck; and his attempts to jolly people along meant he failed to control (or sack) Lee, Patton, Montgomery, or anyone of the many others who eventually gave up on waiting for sensible leadership and just started doing their own thing. (That's unfair, he did threaten to sack Monty... once. Probably the only time of many he needed to make a stand that he actually did... and it would have achieved nothing if he had done it.)

It is inconceivable that anyone as inexperienced and unskilled at military operations as Eisenhower should have been left to play the role of land forces commander... or to pretend he was doing so given that no one actually did the job properly anyway. He did not have the knowledge, experience, or temperament, to command armies in the field.

So his first failure to be an adequate Supreme Commander is that he didn't understand he needed competent subordinates, run by a competent subordinate, and working to a competent plan.

Tens of thousands of casualties can be scored up to this fundamental failing.

So let's imagine for a minute that he had the sense to insist on having Alexander run things, and had concentrated on his actual job. Could he have been a success at being Supreme commander if he wasn't failing at ground forces commander?

Again, probably not. His failure to control or inspire his subordinates is evident from the above. But his failures in the geo-political sphere are even more depressing.

This was the man who had insisted an invasion of France was possible in 1942 when he was at war plans division, only to want to stop an invasion of Sicily in 1943 if 2 more German divisions showed up. This was the man who failed to convince the French leadership (in Gibraltar pre North Africa, in North Africa post that invasion, or in France post that invasion), or the Italian leadership (during surrender negotiations) to play ball in a sensible way. Combine that with his disastrous approach to abandoning Central Europe to the Russians when he could have saved much of it, and you get the impression that he should not have been playing politics at all.

(Which is amusing, because he turned out to be a much better President than he was a general.)

Again, who were better choices?

Again, Alan Brooke, obviously. A much, much more experienced combat leader, and corps, army, army group, and home army commander, with incredible geo-political skill and negotiating experience. (Also a French born, French speaking officer who had fought over very inch of Northern France in two wars.) More importantly, a man who Montgomery, and everyone else, absolutely obeyed, and whose tongue lashings they both feared and respected.

There is no chance that a campaign run by him would have had half the problems Eisenhower's HQ managed to create.

Anyone else? Well again, on the basis that if the person had concentrated on their real job, anyone was better than no one, the list of more experienced and competent generals/admirals (not saying much really), is pretty endless.... Alexander, Auchinlek, Blamey, Brooke, Cunningham, Devers, Mountbatten, Nimitz, Ramsay, Spatz, Wavell, Wilson, etc, etc.

So what would be the ideal listing?

Supreme Commander - Brooke

Deputy Commander - Eisenhower
Air Forces - Spatz
Naval Forces - Ramsay

Land Forces - Alexander

British/Canadian Army Group - Montgomery

American Army Group - Eichelberger

US/French Army Group - de Lattre de Tassigny

Canadian Army - Simonds

British Army - Dempsey

French Army - Koenig

9th US Army - Simpson

1st US Army - Corlett

3rd US Army - Collins

7th US Army - Patch

The weakest part of that list is Alexander who, as noted, may have been coming along anyway. (His final campaign in Italy was a masterpiece, so it appears he had learn't something). 

But the key element is that with Brooke providing the brains and giving clear directions, Alexander would be free to co-ordinate operations. And no one, least of all Montgomery, was going to question Brooke's orders.

Would the war have finished quicker with that list? Yes.

Would there have been less casualties? Probably.

Would Central Europe have been saved from the Russians? Almost certainly.

Would more of Germany finished up in Western hands? Unlikely given pre-arrangements, but possibly.

Would the post war settlement have been better? Very likely.

Would German soldiers have had more chance to surrender to the West rather than fight to the end against the Russians? Definitely.

Was an earlier surrender, or even another coup attempt, more likely? Here's hoping.

But let's repeat the main one... Earlier finish with less casualties? Yes.

PS: Amusingly Patton too (had he got a guernsey as a corps or army commander) would have been delighted to have Brooke in charge. No chance of a broad front strategy, plenty of opportunity for 'blitzkrieg' tactics instead, and no chance of not pursuing the Germans into central Europe. Patton, who had the best geo-political sense of any American general except MacArthur, would have loved it!