Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck was born in India and raised in conditions of near poverty. Yet his talent ensured his career flourished despite his Indian Army background and he was the first Commander of 8th Army in North Africa. Despite great political interference, he stopped Rommel's Afrika Corps at 1st Alamein only to be sacked by Churchill. After a spell in the wilderness he became C in C India during the dark period of Partition and, ironically, had to preside over the destruction of his beloved Indian Army. A private man of great humour and integrity he refused to be drawn into discussing or criticising his tormentors be they Churchill, Montgomery or Mountbatten. He always argued that history would be his judge. This is a super piece of military biography by one of the most respected post war military historians.

Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck is a study not only of the individual but also of how the British Army, Indian Army and the Empire were transformed during his long military career. Auchinleck was commissioned into the Indian Army from 1904 and served with distinction against the Turks in Egypt and the Mesopotamian campaign, earning a DSO. Between the wars he was involved in the pacification of the Northwest Frontier (now Pakistan). In the Second World War he briefly led a division in the ill-fated Norway campaign before being appointed Commander-in-Chief, India. He is best remembered for his controversial stint in command in North Africa, where he replaced Wavell in July 1941. He halted Rommel at the First Battle of El Alamein but was then replaced by Montgomery and resumed as C-in-C India, where his logistical support for Fourteenth Army was vital to success in Burma. Post-war he planned and oversaw Partition and British withdrawal from India. Here, as in North Africa, interference from his political masters added to the burdens of command. Evan McGilvray appraises Auchinleck’s long and varied career in its entirety.

Fresh examinations of the manuscript which is one of the chief compendiums of literature in the Middle English period.

Fighting Rommel examines how and why some armies innovate under pressure while others do not. Focusing on the learning culture of the British Imperial Forces, it looks at the Allied campaign during the Second World War against the Afrika Korps of Rommel. The volume highlights the hitherto unexplored yet key role of the British Indian Army, the largest volunteer force in the world. It also introduces ‘learning culture’ as a heuristic device. Further, it goes on to analyze military innovation on the battlefield, in victory and defeat. A major intervention in the study of the Second World War, this book will be indispensable to scholars and researchers of military history, especially British and German, battlefield history, and defence and strategic studies.

Biografi over den britiske øverstkommanderende i Indien og Ægypten, general Auchinleck, der i 1946 blev forfremmet til feltmarskal

This book explores the ways in which discourses of religious, racial, and national identity blur and engage each other in the medieval West. Specifically, the book studies depictions of Muslims in England during the 1330s and argues that these depictions, although historically inaccurate, served to enhance and advance assertions of English national identity at this time. The book examines Saracen characters in a manuscript renowned for the variety of its texts, and discusses hagiographic legends, elaborations of chronicle entries, and popular romances about Charlemagne, Arthur, and various English knights. In these texts, Saracens engage issues such as the demarcation of communal borders, the place of gender norms and religion in communities' self-definitions, and the roles of violence and history in assertions of group identity. Texts involving Saracens thus serve both to assert an English identity, and to explore the challenges involved in making such an assertion in the early fourteenth century when the English language was regaining its cultural prestige, when the English people were increasingly at odds with their French cousins, and when English, Welsh, and Scottish sovereignty were pressing matters.