Book description
Archibald Wavell was born a few years before Queen Victoria's Golden
Jubilee and died shortly after the end of the Second World War
(1883-1950). During that time the country in which he was born and
brought up in changed beyond recognition, undergoing a fundamental
revision in the attitudes, expectations, prejudices and hopes of the
British people. His life epitomises that of a generation of famous men
whose education and upbringing equipped them for a future that was to
prove an illusion.
At seventeen, Archibald Wavell joined the army and as a young
officer saw action in the Boer War and on the North West Frontier. In
the Great War, he was often close to the greatest generals in the
British Army; he fought in the trenches, was decorated for bravery and
lost an eye. Between the wars his career included command of troops
attempting to keep the peace in Palestine as revolt engulfed the
country. His victorious campaigns early in the Second World War
attracted a blaze of public admiration and renown; but he also tasted
defeat and rejection, both in Africa and from 1941 as
commander-in-chief of Allied forces in India, wilting before the
Japanese onslaught in Burma and Singapore. In 1943 he was appointed
Viceroy of India, where he took on the task of guiding that country's
destiny as it crossed the brink of Empire into the turmoil of independence.
Adrian Fort was educated at Oxford where he was a Clarendon Fellow.
He practised as a barrister and became involved with politics before
pursuing a financial career. He has published many articles on financial
and economic matters and has broadcast frequently on the radio and
published
Prof
:
The Life and Times of Frederick Lindemann
in 2003.
