by Frank McLynn
Thinking he had been given the green light, Leese flew to Akyab to tell Christison that he was to be the new commander of 14th Army; Slim would be assigned to the lesser 12th Army in Burma.10 The element of chicanery in Leese was clear from three separate false statements: he said that Slim had already left 14th Army when in fact he had not even spoken to him yet; he said that Stopford would be replacing him; and he added that Mountbatten had given the order for Slim’s sacking but did not want the unpleasant chore of a personal confrontation and insisted it was Leese’s job.11 The elated Christison said goodbye while Leese flew on to Meiktila for his meeting with Slim on 7 May. Thinking this was routine, Slim was flabbergasted by Leese’s opening words: ‘Before we talk of anything else, I must tell you that I have decided to give Christison command of the 14th Army … I do not consider you capable of planning a large-scale amphibious operation, so I do not think it would be fair either to 14th Army or yourself to leave you in charge of it.’12 When he offered Slim the command of the peacetime 12th Army in Burma, Slim rightly read this as an insult and indignantly rejected the offer. He said he would rather resign and return to Britain. Still unware of the enormity of his action, the obtuse Leese signalled Alanbrooke in a matter-of-fact way, announcing that he had replaced Slim. On 9 May Slim told his senior staff that he had been sacked, and soon the news leaked out to the other ranks.13 Predictably, 14th Army was incandescent at the news of the sacking of their beloved ‘Uncle Bill’. The feeling among Slim’s staffers was well summed up by his aide Jim Godwin: ‘Oliver Twist [Leese] and Mountbatten must be out of their minds. I never trusted that affected silk-handkerchief-waving guardsman.’14 The general feeling was that Mountbatten was behind it all, and the resulting wave of resentment hit Kandy like a tsunami. Mountbatten saw that he had miscalculated and quickly tried to distance himself from the decision, declaring himself very worried about it and telling Alanbrooke he would be taking the matter up with Leese.15 In London, Alanbrooke was stupefied when he got Leese’s signal. In fairness to Leese, he had sent an earlier cable raising in general terms the possibility of replacing Slim, but Alanbrooke either ignored it or was too busy to read it. Now, however, he reacted angrily. On 14 May he sent the bluntest of blunt signals to Leese with a severe reprimand. What did he mean by dismissing the most successful general in the East? How dare he take such unilateral action? Was he not aware that only Mountbatten could make such a decision, and then only after the closest consultation with the chiefs of staff in London? Leese should not even have discussed the matter with Slim; it was far outside his powers. In sum he would agree to Slim’s departure only if he and Mountbatten could produce the strongest possible reasons.16
Alanbrooke’s feelings were confirmed by a meeting with Auchinleck, who also happened to be in London at the time. ‘The Auk’ told Churchill at lunch on 20 May that Slim was the finest general in the entire Far East and South-East Asia theatre and strongly recommended him as his successor as Commander-in-Chief, India.17 Feeling himself to be in the frame also, Mountbatten summoned Leese to Kandy for another dressing-down, telling him that he had blundered and that his earlier orders must be countermanded.18 Now in the most terrible mess, Leese tried one last time to get Slim to accept the post as head of 12th Army, but once again Slim refused adamantly. Although Slim had appeared poker-faced and phlegmatic at the interview with Leese on the 7th, in private he was fuming. The public Slim was still playing the role of the bluff professional soldier: ‘It was a bit of a jar as I thought 14th Army had done rather well. However he [Leese] is the man to decide. I had to sack a number of chaps in my time, and those I liked best were the ones who did not squeal. I have applied for my bowler [hat] and am awaiting the result.’19 In private, though, Slim told Brigadier ‘Tubby’ Lethbridge that the incident was a replay of his conflict with Noel Irwin in 1943 and he was confident he would ultimately prevail: ‘This happened to me once before, and I bloody well took the job of the man that sacked me. I’ll bloody well do it again.’20 Mountbatten was reluctant to dismiss Leese, having so recently got rid of Giffard, as he feared for his own credibility: the obvious inference, if he got rid of two army commanders-in-chief as well as his other commanders and so many key personnel at Kandy, would be that the Supreme Commander was impossible to work with. However, Alanbrooke gave him no choice. In ‘I told you so’ mood – for the CIGS had never had a high opinion of Leese – he told Mountbatten that after such a grotesque error of judgement, Leese was no longer a credible commander and should be sent home.21 This order was confirmed after a meeting between Alanbrooke and Churchill on 29 June. Slim was on home leave at the time, and Alanbrooke called him to tell him the good news; not only was Leese sacked, but Slim was to be promoted to full general and given Leese’s job as Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces, South-East Asia. Stopford was given command of 14th Army and General Miles Dempsey sent out to command 12th Army.22 Christison was left high and dry, humiliated and let down by Leese, who failed to console him but simply moaned to him that he was being made the ‘fall guy’ for the real villain, ‘Dickie’.
Slim was on his way back from the UK to take up his new command when, on 14 August, he learned that Japan had surrendered unconditionally after the two devastating atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Emperor Hirohito was forced to ‘endure the undendurable’, but still managed to achieve a classic of Oriental face-saving: ‘The war has developed, not necessarily to our advantage.’ Two days later Slim was at the headquarters of ALFSEA, and on 12 September sat on Mountbatten’s left to receive the official surrender of all Japanese forces in South-East Asia. Slim’s hatred of the Japanese had not abated; rather it had increased once he learned the fate of Allied prisoners of war. MacArthur, already looking forward to his entente with Hirohito and his long tenure as an ‘American Caesar’ in Japan, decreed that Japanese officers should not be asked to give up their swords at the surrender, for otherwise there might be mass suicide. MacArthur had his agenda, but Slim had his. He felt very strongly that if the Japanese officer class was not made to swallow the bitter pill of sword surrender, the legend would grow that they had never really been beaten, simply betrayed, in the same way as the German officer class after World War I. He therefore disregarded MacArthur’s ban on the archaic ceremony; all the swords were given up, there was no mass suicide, and Slim always thereafter kept General Kimura’s sword on his mantel-piece.23 He did not stay in Burma long, and returned to Britain in 1946 as Commandant of the Imperial War College. His main lieutenants all played a part in post-war reconstruction in South-East Asia. Messervy administered Malaya, Stopford took over as supremo at SEAC after Mountbatten’s departure in June until the command was wound up in November, while Christison was Mountbatten’s agent in Indonesia in the short-lived British intervention there in 1945–46, spent nearly half a century in retirement and died in 1993 aged 100. Intending to retire in 1948, Slim was brought back to eminence by Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who appointed him Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1948 to replace Montgomery. ‘Monty’ had already hand-picked his putative successor, John Crocker, but Attlee slapped him down as only Attlee could. After the Prime Minister gave him the news, Monty protested: ‘But I’ve already told Crocker.’ ‘Well, you’ll have to untell him,’ replied Attlee curtly.24 Promoted to field marshal, Slim served as CIGS for three years and then in May 1953 was appointed Governor General of Australia, where he remained until 1959. Created Viscount Slim in 1960, he was made Constable and Governor of Windsor Castle and died in London in December 1970 aged 79.
Stilwell did not simply fade away and brood in California after FDR made him the sacrificial victim of his unwise China policy. When he heard that Chiang had renamed the Burma–Ledo road the ‘Stilwell highway’, his reaction was one of amused contempt: ‘I wonder who put him up to that’ was his only comment.25 By 1945 Vinegar Joe was back in the ring punching. Always a fighting soldier and forever in search of a command berth, he arrived in Manila on 25 May and was greeted cordially by Do
uglas MacArthur. He toured the Okinawa battlefields and on 18 June, the day before he was due to fly back to California, MacArthur offered him a prestigious job as his chief of staff. Although touched and gratified, Stilwell declined on the grounds that he was no great administrator and was anyway looking for a position as a field commander. MacArthur queried whether a four-star general would really consent to serve as a front-line commander; Stilwell replied that he would be glad to command a single division as long as he was allowed to fight.26 MacArthur replied that he could do better than that; as commander of an army he knew no better than Vinegar Joe. Stilwell flew out to Honolulu, but when he got there, a cable from MacArthur was waiting for him, offering him the command of 10th Army, one of the spearheading forces for the coming invasion of Japan. On 23 June Stilwell assumed command: he was to command the second wave of the invasion with 25 divisions. Among those he had under him were Canadian, Australian and Indian units that had been taken away from SEAC after the Japanese defeat in Burma. Stilwell chuckled: ‘Mountbatten has to give up units for this operation! Life is funny.’27 The Japanese surrender ended hopes of further martial glory, but there were compensations in the news from China. Wedemeyer, even with his sycophantic approach, was finding Chiang impossible, while an alliance between Marshall and ‘Hap’ Arnold had finally removed Chennault from any real power over the air force in China; these duties devolved on the much more rational and trustworthy Stratemeyer. With Truman in the White House after FDR’s death in April 1945, US policy in China became much more hard-headed and empirical. Public opinion in the USA dramatically turned against the generalissimo as more and more stories about the corruption of the Kuomintang were printed in the press. What Theodore White had been in the Roosevelt era, the witheringly anti-Chiang drama critic turned war correspondent Brooks Atkinson, writing in the New York Times, was in the Truman years.28 Truman made Marshall his Secretary of State, and after a tour of inspection in China that confirmed in detail everything Stilwell had said about Chiang – and the moral and military supremacy of Mao and the Communists – the President ended by cutting off aid to the nationalists and embargoing arms sales. In 1949 Mao achieved complete victory in the Chinese civil war, forcing Chiang to flee to Taiwan. Alas, Stilwell did not live to see Chiang’s downfall. Determined to die with his boots on, in November 1945 he headed a War Department Equipment Board, which showed a prescient interest in ballistic missiles. He died of liver cancer in October 1946 aged 63, at the Presidio, San Francisco, while still on active service.
Shortly after MacArthur entertained Stilwell and gave him the Okinawa appointment, he had another distinguished visitor, none other than the Supreme Commander, SEAC, himself. The omens were not propitious for a favourable outcome, since both men were outrageous prima donnas – Eisenhower said he had spent five years in the Philippines studying dramatics under Doug MacArthur – and the American had initially opposed the creation of SEAC, fearing it would limit his own independence of action. Mountbatten made his mark, as he so often did, by exuding charm, especially the old-fashioned kind of British charisma that so appealed to Americans. For once he was prepared to play second fiddle, and the tactic paid off. On 12 July he wrote in his diary about his meeting with the American Caesar in Manila: ‘I had a long and interesting conversation with MacArthur. Or, to be more precise, I listened to a fascinating monologue, and found the same difficulty in trying to chip in as I have no doubt most people find in trying to chip in to my conversation.’ Two days later the lustre had not worn off and Mountbatten confessed that he was completely under the older man’s spell:
Contrary to popular conception, he gives the impression of being a rather shy and sensitive man, who regards compliance with the needs of publicity as a duty … he does not look at all fierce or commanding until he puts his famous embroidered cap on. As we went out together to face the photographers, and he pulled his cap on, his whole manner changed. His jaw stuck out, he looked aggressive and tough, but as soon as the photographers had finished, he relaxed completely, took off his hat, and was his own charming self … he is one of the most charming and remarkable characters I have ever met, and so sympathetic and friendly towards the SEAC.’29
It is a fair comment that Mountbatten’s enthusiasm was based on recognition of strengths and weaknesses like his own. Mountbatten was selfish and vain but not remote or cold, ambitious but with a cocksure personality leavened with common sense. He would not have made flowery speeches referring pleonastically to ‘divine God’ as MacArthur did and, unlike the American Caesar, he could laugh at himself. Impetuous, impressionable, overexcited by ‘experts’, Mountbatten was a liberal-left personality who believed in human goodness; MacArthur was a hardline right-winger who believed in main force. As Mountbatten’s biographer has shrewdly remarked: ‘It is doubtful if MacArthur’s opinion of his visitor was as flattering as his guest’s.’30 Yet the differences between the two men should not be overstated. Both considered themselves born to rule, reverenced monarchical and hereditary principles, were supreme commanders and proconsuls or viceroys (MacArthur in Japan, Mountbatten in India) and were cordially loathed by many of their colleagues (Eisenhower found MacArthur unspeakable, while Marshall summed him up crisply as ‘never any good … always a four-flusher’).31 Curiously, both men ended their lives speaking out strongly against the use of nuclear weapons in combat.
Once Japan had surrendered, the position of supreme commander seemed less attractive to Mountbatten, for he was happy backing neither the neo-colonial position of the Dutch in Indonesia nor that of the French in Indochina. Because the British were the only credible military presence in South-East Asia, he had to spend the latter part of 1945 and early 1946 using British forces to hold the ring and keep at bay the nascent nationalist movements headed by the Viet Minh in Vietnam and Sukarno in Indonesia. This was not the kind of work Mountbatten relished, so he was delighted to be offered the post of Viceroy of India, succeeding Wavell. Where Wavell had put together a thoughtful programme for gradual British withdrawal from the subcontinent and the gradual phasing in of the Congress party of Nehru and Gandhi in India and the independent Muslim state of Pakistan under Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Mountbatten reverted to his destroyer mode and decided that everything had to be done with unconscionable haste. The famous declaration that the British would quit India ‘by August 1947 at the latest’ was mainly Mountbatten’s work. Many historians have therefore held him responsible for the terrible Hindu–Muslim communalist massacres that followed the lightning British departure.32 After the debacle in India, Mountbatten returned to his first love the sea, first commanding a cruiser squadron, then climbing the final rungs of naval promotion until he became First Sea Lord in 1954–59, almost the exact period that Slim was in Australia as governor general. Even though it gradually became obvious that Slim was the true military genius in Burma, and that Earl Mountbatten of Burma was a solecism as a title, Mountbatten tried to recoup some of the glory for himself by co-opting Slim and insinuating that he and the field marshal were equal partners in the enterprise. His later career was controversial at many different levels. Edwina died in 1960 at the age of 58 from a heart attack, but not before very strong rumours began to circulate that in the 1946–47 viceroyalty period she and Nehru had been lovers. Then in 1968, as the beleaguered Labour government of Harold Wilson struggled with economic crisis, the newspaper proprietor Cecil King intrigued with the intelligence services, trying to plot a coup d’état that would make Mountbatten a British dictator.33 The details of this conspiracy are still far from clear, but it seems that Mountbatten, after some dithering, had the good sense to turn down the proposed role. Even his death in 1979 became controversial. The official story was that the Provisional IRA assassinated him and others in Sligo when they blew up a motorised fishing boat, and an IRA member, Thomas McMahon, was later jailed for the crime.34 Yet the late Enoch Powell, himself a controversial figure, always maintained that the CIA had assassinated Mountbatten because he had just spoken out agains
t nuclear weapons.35 According to this version of his death, the CIA engineered a set-up job that would look like an IRA assassination, and the Provisional IRA, for propaganda reasons and to enhance its own credibility, was happy to take responsibility. It seems that even in death Mountbatten divided opinion sharply. All four of Burma’s ‘musketeers’ – Slim, Stilwell, Mountbatten and Wingate – were larger-than-life characters, all incredibly working in the same theatre. They seem more creatures of myth than of history, and it is unlikely that we shall ever see such a quartet juxtaposed again.
Finally, we must ask the 64,000-dollar question: was the Burma war worth it? There is a persuasive school of thought that holds that all twentieth-century wars, except the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War in Europe, were avoidable conflicts, that they were not waged for vital national interests but were the result of stupidity, miscalculation and irrationality. The First World War, the Korean war and the Vietnam conflict of 1965–75 fit well enough into this category. What about the war between the Allies and Japan, and particularly the war in Burma? The aggressive foreign policy of FDR and Secretary of State Cordell Hull, complemented by the equally aggressive policies of Prince Konoye and General Tojo, produced a kind of irresistible force versus immovable object scenario, but it could hardly be said that vital national interests were at stake. Japan went to war in defence of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, perceived to be vital to her national survival; post-war events and the Japanese economic miracle showed clearly that the narrowly defined economic autarky of the Sphere was not essential for economic survival. The United States basically went to war because she would not accept an Asian Monroe doctrine, with Japan having hegemony in China, but by her own errors (principally the mindless and irrational support given to Chiang) lost all influence in China for 25 years. Cynics would say the Americans might just as well have let Japan have its fervently desired hegemony. The Burmese, in so far as they took part in the war in their own country, fought for independence. Yet the history of Burma after independence in 1948 has been singularly unhappy, to the point where it would be a brave man who would assert that the present-day despotic regime represented for ordinary people any advance at all on British colonialism. By a huge irony, Burma since 1948 has espoused exactly the kind of paranoid xenophobia that brought the Japanese empire to grief in the 1930s. The British fought in Burma to preserve and restore the British Empire in the East, yet within two years of the end of the war, India, the fulcrum and axis of the whole system, was independent, with Burma following a year later, and Malaya and Singapore limping through years of ‘emergency’ before also relinquishing the imperial bonds. We have made great claims for Slim, but a further one must be that his military genius and the encirclement of the Japanese on the Irrawaddy meant that Britain relinquished its empire at the moment of its most glorious military success, and allowed her to retreat from the imperial arena with pride.