Book Review: The Turn of the Tide: 1939–1943
| Published date | 01 September 1957 |
| Date | 01 September 1957 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070205701200311 |
| Author | John C. Cairns |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
232
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
dictions
for the
future.
Students
of
international
affairs
will
probably
find
the
analysis
of
events
in
the
United Nations
and
the
Disarmament
Commission over-simplified,
but
will
be glad
to
have
the
scientific
and technical
position
so
ably
and
conveniently
set forth.
Chalk
River,
Ontario
JOHN
E.
WOOLSTON
THE
TURN
OF
THE
TIDE:
1939-1943:
A
Study
based
on
the
Diaries and
Autobiographical
Notes of
Field Marshal
The
Viscount
Alanbrooke.
By
Arthur
Bryant.
1957.
(London:
Collins.
7
66pp.
$6.00.)
It
has
variously
been
suggested
that
this
book
is
the
best
account
of
the
war
that
we
have;
or
that
it
offers
nothing
new
about
the
war
at
all.
Either
judgment
is
invalid.
When
one
sets
aside
the
unfortunate
newspaper
publicity
attending
its
publica-
tion
(the
kind
of
thing
which
prompted
that
Punch
cartoon
showing
an
apoplectic
WSC
glowering
into
its
pages),
one
sees
that
Sir
Arthur's
study
is
a serious
partial
account
of
the
war
through the
eyes
of
a
man
who
was
commander
of
the
B.E.F.'s
second
Corps
before
June,
1940,
commander
of
that
short-lived
"second
B.E.F."
in
a
tottering
France,
C-in-C
of Home
Forces
until
November,
1941,
and
Chief
of
the
Imperial
General
Staff
thereafter.
It
is
not
true
that
the
editor's
use
of
the
diaries
and
notebooks
is
incidental;
it
is
true
that
he
has
provided
so
full
and
sympathetic
a
"setting" for the
"jewel"
which
he
considers
these
documents
to
be
that
one
tends
to
become
impatient
with
his
narrative
as
being
neither
objective
nor
adequate
enough
to
justify
the
delays
in
getting
from
one
section
of
Brooke
to
an-
other.
Certainly
the
frequent
obvious
excisions
are
tantalizing,
even
maddening.
But
any
reader
will
see
that
uninhibited
per-
sonal
notes
of
this
kind have to
be
edited
for
contemporary
pub-
lication.
Brooke was
not
only
immensely
competent:
he
was
obstinate, impatient
and
critically
withering
about
his
opponents.
Perhaps
he
had to
be.
Running
that
war
was
a
fantastically
difficult
business.
It
might
be
difficult
to
justify
the
editorial
"going
easy"
on
some
British
commanders and
civilians
where
sometimes
others
(the
French,
the
Americans)
come
in
for
pretty
hard
knocks.
But then,
one
has to
live
at
home-and,
to
be
fair,
there
are
remarks
about
Montgomery
and Mountbatten
here
to
set
beside
those
on
Marshall
and
Eisenhower.
No
brief
notice
will
suggest
the
book's
wealth
of
detail
about
the
great
days
between
1939
and
1943:
the
first
awful
crises,
the
exhausting
planning,
the
heated
interallied
struggles,
the
haz-
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