Dramatis Personae Alexander, Harold Rupert Leofric George, first Earl Alexander of Tunis (1891–1969) Army officer. Harrow and Sandhurst. 1911 commissioned into the Irish Guards. Highly decorated during the First World War. 1914, Lieutenant (serving in France); 1918, acting Brigadier-General in command of the retreat from Arras. 1937, Major-General. 1939 in France, under Sir John Dill. February 1942, sent to Burma, withdrew from Rangoon into India and established good links with the Americans and with the Chinese. August 1942, appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East. January 1943, attended the Casablanca Conference. Directed the final victory in Tunis and was then sent to Italy where his skill as a military strategist became visible. Made Supreme Allied Commander of the Mediterranean Theatre 1944–45. Appointed Field-Marshal in December 1944 (although it was backdated to June 1944 when the allies entered Rome). Amery, Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett (1873–1955) Politician and journalist. Harrow and Oxford. Fellowship in History at All-Souls whilst a journalist for The Times. Ardent believer in the British Empire. Conser- vative MP for South Birmingham 1911–45. Served as an Intelligence Officer in Flanders during the First World War. 1919 Under-Secretary to the Colonial Office. 1922, First Lord of the Admiralty: presided over the plans and initial stages of the construction of the naval base at Singapore. Appointed Secretary to the Colonies 1924–29 (at the same time Churchill was holding the Treasury’s purse). Secretary of State for India during Churchill’s wartime Coalition government. Asquith, Herbert Henry (1852–1928) Lawyer and QC from 1890. Liberal MP for East Fife in 1886. Appointed as Home Secretary in Gladstone’s fourth Liberal government in 1892. Served under Rosebery (who was appointed Prime Minister after Gladstone resigned) in 1894, and then Harcourt and later Campbell-Bannerman. Joined, and later became Vice-President, of the Liberal Imperial League and helped draft the Liberal League’s 1902 manifesto. Chancellor of the Exchequer 1905–08. Asquith became Prime Minister after Campbell-Bannerman’s resigned due to ill health. He pro- moted Churchill to the Board of Trade. Term as Prime Minister ended in 1916 when Lloyd George succeeded him. Attlee, Clement Richard, first Earl Attlee (1883–1967) Labour Politician. Educated Haileybury College and Oxford. Called to the bar in 1906. Served in Gallipoli and the Mesopotamia during the First World War. 154 Dramatis Personae 155 1917, made rank of Major. 1922, Labour MP for Limehouse and became Ramsay MacDonald’s Parliamentary Private Secretary. Under-Secretary for War in 1924. Key member of the Simon Commission 1927–30. Deputised as the leader of the Labour Party 1933–4; outright leader in October 1935. Leader of the Labour group in Churchill’s wartime coalition. Prime Minister of the Labour government with an overwhelming majority in July 1945. Resigned after his general election defeat in October 1951. Auchinleck, Claude John Eyre (1884–1981) Army Officer. Wellington and Sandhurst. 1904 commissioned into the 62nd Punjabis in India. 1914–15, Turkey; 1916–18, Mesopotamia. 1917, awarded DSO. 1919, Staff College at Quetta. 1927, Imperial Defence College. 1930–33 returned to Quetta as an instructor. 1933, commander of the Peshawar Brigade, subse- quently promoted to Major-General. 1936, Deputy Chief of the General Staff. 1938–9, integral member of the Chatfield Committee, tirelessly endorsed the Indianisation of the Indian Army. After a brief spell in Norway (1940) he was replaced (by Montgomery), made Commander-in-Chief in India in 1941 and in turn he replaced Wavell. Sent to the Middle East by Churchill (with whom he had a tense relationship) from 1941–3, and then back to India (when Wavell was made Viceroy) from 1943–7. Known affectionately by those he commanded as ‘The Auk’ his archive papers (presented to Manchester University in 1967) illustrate how highly he thought of the Indian troops under his command and how secure he was in his knowledge that the Indian Army was a superb fight- ing force. Worked closely with the Americans and Chinese in the Burma theatre, was praised as an exemplary soldier, and after realising the dire situation of the Indian Army in a post-Partition and post-Independent India (and amid rapidly deteriorating relations with Mountbatten) he retired in September 1947. Baldwin, Stanley, Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (1867–1947) Politician. Conservative MP for Bewdley and Prime Minister of a Conservative government from 22 May 1923 to 22 January 1924. The Conservatives achieved a majority in the general election of October 1924 and Baldwin became Prime Minister for a second time from 4 November 1924 to 4 June 1929, when he resigned to avoid disaffected Conservative voters from creating a revival in Liberal Party support. Baldwin’s final term as Prime Minister was as head of the National Government from 7 June 1935 to 28 May 1937, when his ill health forced him to resign. Created Earl Baldwin of Bewdley and founded the Imperial Relations Trust. Balfour, Arthur James, first Earl of Balfour (1848–1930) Conservative politician. Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. Nephew of Lord Robert Cecil. Elected as Conservative MP for Hertford in 1874. Achieved promi- nence as Chief Secretary for Ireland 1887–91 (with his decision to prosecute Parnell and his Irish Nationalists). 1891, Leader of the House of Commons. 156 Dramatis Personae 1892, opposition leader. Became Prime Minister in 1902 (when he succeeded Lord Salisbury) and resigned due to his electoral defeat in December 1905. Member of the Committee of Imperial Defence during the First World War, and First Lord of the Admiralty from 1915–16 (backed the Dardanelles strategy). 1916–19, Foreign Secretary. Mostly known for the Balfour declaration of 1917 which supported the need for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Retired from the Commons in 1922. Baring, Thomas George, Lord Northbrook (1826–1904) Inherited the title of Lord Northbrook in 1866. Served in the Admiralty, the India Office, the War Office and then the Home Office before being offered the position of Viceroy of India by Gladstone (following the previous Viceroy’s assassination – Lord Minto) in 1872. Viewed the British administration in India differently to Salisbury, but succeeded in arguing that the advice of those on the spot should at least be heard. Disagreed with Salisbury over Indian cotton duties issue but both men agreed on the threat that Indian Muslims posed to the Raj (Minto’s assassin had been a Muslim). Bevin, Ernest (1881–1951) Labour politician and trade unionist. An unprivileged background (when com- pared to his peers) and worked from an early age. Official of the Dockers Union by 1911, and worked his way up to General Secretary of the Transport and Gen- eral Workers’ Union by 1922. Elected to the general council of the Trade Unions Congress in 1925; ensured that once the General Strike ended, fair terms for TUC members were brought about. Minister of Labour during the Second World War within Churchill’s coalition government. Under Attlee’s Labour government Bevin was appointed as Foreign Secretary (a sharp contrast to the tailored and well heeled Anthony Eden) and was arguably a successful Foreign Secretary (Berlin blockade, America in Korea). Overwhelming impression received from his archive papers (Churchill Archive Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge) is that he was a forthright, fair, respected and generous man. Brooke, Alan Francis, Lord Alanbrooke (1883–1963) Army officer. Woolwich, 1917, Canadian corps. 1918–19, 1st Army. 1923–7, instructor at Staff College, Camberley. 1927, Imperial Defence College. 1934–5, Commander of the 8th Infantry brigade. 1938–39, Commander of AA Corps. 1939–40, commanded II Corps in France. 1941–6, commander of Imperial Gen- eral Staff. Diarist who was not afraid to balk against Churchill in public as well as in his diaries. Campbell-Bannerman, Henry (1836–1908) Liberal MP for Stirling Burghs in 1868,; financial secretary to the War Office in 1871; Irish Chief Secretary in 1884; then Secretary of State for War in Gladstone’s Dramatis Personae 157 third government in 1886. Returned to War Office in 1892 (for Gladstone’s fourth government) and, when Rosebery succeeded Gladstone as Prime Minister in 1894, Campbell-Bannerman retained his Cabinet position. Following Harcourt’s relatively unsuccessful leadership of the Liberal Party, Campbell-Bannerman was voted Leader of the Commons in 1899. After the Boer War, the Liberals split into two factions (Campbell-Bannerman against Rosebery). Due to Rosebery’s increas- ing isolation, and Balfour’s resignation, Campbell-Bannerman selected a Liberal Cabinet at the King’s command and was then elected Prime Minister in January 1906. Ill health forced him to resign in April 1908. Chiang Kai-Shek (1887–1975) Influential member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (the Kuomintang), and a conservative anti-Communist. Chairman of the Nationalist League of China 1928–31. Established himself as the Chairman of the National Military Coun- cil 1932–46. Despite accusations of cowardice, stockpiling of essential goods and profiteering from both his own party and the Allies, he worked closely with the Allied forces during the Second World War in the hope of ridding China of Japanese aggression (Manchuria had been invaded and occupied by Japanese force in 1931). Relations were never cordial between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) but until the Japanese surrendered the tension between the two sides worked towards this common aim. After the Japanese surrender, relations deteriorated further and following the CPC’s defeat of the Nationalists, Chiang Kai-Shek was forced to relocate to Taiwan where he declared himself the President of the Republic of China from 1950 until he died in 1975. Churchill, Lord Randolph Spencer (1849–95) Conservative MP for Woodstock from 1874–85.