BOOK REVIEWS

A THOROUGHLY CANADIAN Dickson sympathizes with his subject, but he does not : A BIOGRAPHY let that interfere with either his account or his analysis. OF GENERAL H.D.G. CRERAR Crerar was a complex individual, and ‘we get the good by Paul Douglas Dickson with the bad.’ He was incredibly ambitious, yet he : University of Toronto Press, 2007, 571 pages, $55.00 shunned the spotlight. He could be kind and loyal to ISBN-13: 978-0802008022 the people around him, yet he contrived to have his mentor and boss, General A.G.L. “Andy” McNaughton, Reviewed by Douglas Delaney removed as commander of First in 1943. Personal connections were t was worth the wait. Paul critical to his manner of doing Dickson’s ambitious biography business, and yet, he was personally of Canadian General H.D.G. cool and reserved to nearly everyone, Crerar finally fills the most including family members. He was glaring gap in Canadian a Canadian nationalist and a believer militaryI biography, authoritatively in the . These traits and with aplomb. may appear incongruous, but Dickson’s narrative is so complete Crerar’s career demanded an that, by the time the reader is done, inexhaustible biographer. A Royal none of it seems contradictory. Military College graduate and an artillery from a well-to-do At 571 pages, A Thoroughly Hamilton family, Crerar deployed Canadian General is neither a light to France with the First Contingent volume nor a light read, so while of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces it might be a bit weighty for in 1915, and he fought during the lay reader, readers of both all the battles of 1915 and Canadian and military history will 1916. He commanded a battery find it enlightening. Most soldiers during the battle of Vimy in April 1917, will be disappointed to learn that and, later, as a Brigade Major in Crerar had written McNaughton in the 5th Divisional Artillery, he worked 1926, seeking employment as a under the future Chief of the Imperial officer in – in preference General Staff, Alan Francis Brooke, to assuming command of an and helped perfect the counter-battery artillery battery. The two chapters and counter-mortar techniques that contributed largely dealing with the 1930s reveal much about how Crerar to the victories of Canada’s Hundred Days in 1918. positioned himself to be near the centre of defence He subsequently spent much of the inter-war period policymaking, and how very small was the Directorate at the locus of Canadian military planning and policy. of Military Operations and Intelligence at National During the Second World War, he was the primary architect Defence Headquarters at the time. Chapters 8 through of the and he fought that 10 highlight the political skill with which Crerar, as formation in the 1944-1945 campaign to destroy the Chief of the General Staff, got a reluctant government Wehrmacht in Northwest . No Canadian has to approve an overseas army of five divisions and two ever commanded a larger formation than the 476,000-man independent brigades in 1941. Crerar skilfully fed the army Crerar led during the high point of Operation requirement to the politicians, one digestible increase Veritable in February 1945. That is a lot of story to tell. at a time. His life-long conviction that the army had a role to play as a key element of Canadian external It is also a lot of documentation to plough through – and policy, and as a civic institution of the Canadian nation, Dickson seems to have ploughed all of it. Crerar’s permeates most of this book. Having fought two world personal papers alone are enough to have discouraged wars, and having been intimately involved at the most historians. Although Crerar kept everything, Dickson political-military interface, he believed in having the did the ‘hard slogging.’ He also mined Canadian and nation ready to face international threats and challenges, British archives for a myriad of war diaries, personal in compulsory military service, and in the role of the papers, and after action reports, in addition to consulting army in educating the public upon the necessity of an impressive array of interviews, memoirs, and secondary preparedness. Dickson draws that theme ably from the sources. This is how history should be recorded. many speeches, lectures, personal notes, policy papers, and actions of his subject. Sadly for Crerar, both The product of Dickson’s toil is a credible and he and his opinions faded quickly from the national scene balanced portrait of one of Canada’s most important, after 1945, and the general died a largely forgotten yet ‘obscure,’ historical figures. Like most biographers, man 20 years thereafter.

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Dickson also makes it clear that Crerar was a man When Lieutenant-General Sir , GOC 1st British who knew his limitations, and who was often sensitive Corps, refused an order in July 1944, Crerar again went about them. He lacked the combat experience of his to Montgomery, this time seeking the removal of the British peers, and even some of his Canadian subordinates, difficult subordinate. And yet, in spite of a few touchy so he devolved much to those subordinates with respect episodes that broke the monotony of Crerar’s blandness, to the planning and conduct of battle. He gave Dickson reminds us that the man did preside successfully Lieutenant-General the lead in planning over the operations of First Canadian Army in Northwest the battles between Caen and Falaise, which Simonds Europe – and that was no small accomplishment. spearheaded with his Second Canadian Corps during the summer of 1944, and, in the winter of 1944-1945, This is the biography that deserves. he left the ‘nitty-gritty’ details of A soldier who was at the centre of Canada’s Great War to Lieutenant-General [Sir] , then victories, who gave up a lucrative civilian career to commanding 30th British Corps. On the battlefield, save some shred of military professionalism in Canada’s Crerar was more of a coordinator and resource-provider dismal inter-war army, who engineered the largest than anything else. For the most part, he managed to Canadian field force ever assembled, who fought keep his insecurities under wraps, but occasionally, when that army competently against one of the fiercest armies ever he was questioned or challenged on operational matters, assembled, should not have been allowed to slip into those insecurities popped out. When Guy Simonds obscurity, no matter what his faults. In effectively dismissed one of Crerar’s staff officers in , Crerar dragging Crerar from the shadows, Paul Dickson has took it as a brush-off by a snotty junior officer, who was performed a great service. puffed up by his recent battle successes and contemptuous of anyone not in that ‘battle-experienced club.’ Piqued by the episode, Crerar sent a note to the Eighth Army Lieutenant- Douglas E. Delaney, CD, PhD, PPCLI, is an infantry commander, General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, officer and an Associate Professor at the Royal Military College of expressing his concern that Simonds had become unstable. Canada, currently serving as Chair of the War Studies Department.

IRAQ & THE EVOLUTION National Security Strategy and the Department of OF AMERICAN STRATEGY Defense’s production of the National Military Strategy. by Steven Metz While he has been careful to make that distinction, he Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2008 has also focused the reader’s attention upon the role of 278 pages, $29.95 USD (Hardcover) force in pursuit of American national interests. The most ISBN 978-1-59797-196-6 important element of this exploration of strategy, however, Reviewed by James McKay is his observations upon American strategic culture.

teven Metz is a Professor of National Security Metz has argued that there are long-term trends in Studies at the US Army War College’s Strategic American strategic culture, and, while the list of such Studies Institute. This long-awaited book offers trends is lengthy, three of them merit mention as they an explanation of why the speak directly to the book’s central 2003 invasion of Iraq did thesis. First, he notes that there is notS lead to the expected outcome, an American penchant for using as well as the long-term ramifications ‘mirror images’ to think about the for American strategy. Instead of adversary’s motives and intentions. merely offering an explanation for Metz argues that a series of events in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, Administrations, lacking a deeper Metz has taken a longer view and understanding of Iraqi culture, tied it to broader trends in American misread Saddam Hussein’s government’s strategy since the early 1980s. intent and actions. Second, he suggests that the United States The book starts with a short government fluctuates erratically exploration of the concept of strategy between the realist and idealist and its purpose from the point of view traditions of international relations, of the state. Metz has been careful and, on occasion, creates admixtures to make a distinction between grand between the two. Third, the process strategy and military strategy. This of strategy formulation in the is not surprising, considering the United States requires a degree of traditional of responsibility transparency, openness, and participa- between the centre of the American tion by multiple government agencies. government for the production of the The combination of the three, however,

118 Canadian Military Journal • Vol. 9, No. 4, 2009