Firstly, thank you.
Have a look at Leslie Hore-Belisha, and I would read how his biographer described his character.
Leslie Hore-Belisha - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
By the end of 1939, the entire Army hated him, and they used the Pillbox Affair to make his position untenable. What really leaves a bad taste in all this was the antisemitism on display, and so Gort is tarred with that. Gort wasn't a brilliant mind like Wavell, but was prepared to continue to serve his country, taking lesser roles, and working hard in those roles.
Referring back to Ironside, if you think giving Gort the Far East, is a questionable choice, and I don't say it isn't, how would you justify Ironside as the choice, given the enemies he made, and the way he finished, effectively shutting the door on his career.
Firstly, thank you.
Have a look at Leslie Hore-Belisha, and I would read how his biographer described his character.
Leslie Hore-Belisha - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
By the end of 1939, the entire Army hated him, and they used the Pillbox Affair to make his position untenable. What really leaves a bad taste in all this was the antisemitism on display, and so Gort is tarred with that. Gort wasn't a brilliant mind like Wavell, but was prepared to continue to serve his country, taking lesser roles, and working hard in those roles.
Referring back to Ironside, if you think giving Gort the Far East, is a questionable choice, and I don't say it isn't, how would you justify Ironside as the choice, given the enemies he made, and the way he finished, effectively shutting the door on his career.
Okay @Fatboy Coxy I see what you trying to say about Leslie Hore and well you are right. If only he didn't read that book that was given by Chamberlain maybe he would have gotten along with the army.
"Upon appointing Hore-Belisha as Secretary of State, Chamberlain advised him to read B. H. Liddell Hart's book Europe in Arms, which advocated that Britain should avoid becoming involved in a continental land war and rely on the Royal Air Force as its offensive arm.[8] Impressed by the book's arguments and under Cabinet pressure to control expenditure, Hore-Belisha formed a close partnership with Liddell Hart and sought to refocus the British Army away from the aim of raising a second British Expeditionary Force to fight in France." - Wikipedia
Chamberlain has many to blame for what happen to Leslie Hore and the Army. Chamberlain was caught with his pants down when WW2 started.
Now about Gen. Ironside and the enemies he made, is simple. Ironside knew that a war was coming and knew that the army was under man. In fact he told Chamberlain that the war would start in Poland and that Britain should send help but the politicians didn’t pay attention. When he found out that he wasn't going to be in command of BEF but Chief of the Imperial General Staff he knew that he was to raise Divisions to be used for defense of France. Now being a General he wasn't a defeatist like many other generals (French).
Quote "At a conference in Lens he clashed with the French Generals Billotte and Blanchard, whom he considered defeatists. He wrote: "I lost my temper and shook Billotte by the button of his tunic. The man is completely defeated."[49] Although Billotte was supposed to be co-ordinating the British, French and Belgian armies' operations in Belgium, Ironside took over the job himself, ordering Gort and Blanchard to launch a counter-attack against the Germans at Arras.[50] This attack achieved some local success, but the German onslaught proved unstoppable. The French Commander-in-Chief, General Maxime Weygand, so resented Ironside's actions that he said he would "like to box Ironside's ears."
Now the enemies at the homeland were mix of politicians and military. Ironside did build up the defenses of the Homeland but yes he wasn't perfect and did mistake like securing a defense line behind many airfields. Also many Generals were frustrated that the ay were building Pillbox and not training.
Quoted "Although Ironside managed to placate the Chiefs of Staff, discontent amongst his subordinates was growing; one divisional commander wrote "We have become pill-box mad".[69] There was widespread concern that troops were spending their time constructing defences rather than on the training which they desperately needed.[70] Another critic was Major-General Bernard Montgomery, who later wrote that he found himself "in complete disagreement with the general approach to the defence of Britain and refused to apply it."[71] When Churchill visited Montgomery's 3rd Infantry Division on 2 July, he described to the prime minister how his division, which was fully equipped except for transport, could be made into a mobile formation by the requisitioning of municipal buses, able to strike at the enemy beachheads rather than strung out along the coast as ordered." - Wikipedia
With all that he saw in the army and seeing that to win a war you need to go defense build up your military and then go offensive. That why I choose Ironside because it's the same scenario in the Far East. This timeline you doing is that right now there isn't any Division that can help out Singapore until the Mediterranean theater is resolved.
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