Britain's professional head of the army and Allied chief strategist
In 1943 he judged a landing in France impossible without sufficient troops, landing craft and air superiority, delaying the Normandy invasion to June 1944. His Trident conference claim that no major operations on the continent were possible until 1945 damaged his reputation as a strategist.
Alan Brooke was a British Army field marshal, born on 23 July 1883 in France and dead of a heart attack on 17 June 1963. An artillery officer by training, he was Commandant of the School of Artillery at Larkhill in 1929 and Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces in 1940. He succeeded Sir John Dill as Chief of the Imperial General Staff in December 1941 and Admiral Sir Dudley Pound as chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in March 1942, becoming Winston Churchill's foremost military adviser; he was promoted field marshal on 1 January 1944 and helped coordinate the Allied victory of 1945. He gave priority to the Mediterranean theatre, clearing North Africa of Axis forces and driving Italy out of the war so that the Mediterranean would be open to Allied shipping. Born in France to an Anglo-Irish family, he was a British subject throughout.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1902Commissioned into the Royal Artillery
- 1914–1918Artillery staff officer on the Western Front
- 1938–1940Commander of Anti-Aircraft Command and Southern Command
- 1940–1941Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces
- 1941–1946Chief of the Imperial General Staff
- 1942–1946Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee
- 1953Lord High Constable at Elizabeth II's coronation
Related historical events
- 1914–1918First World WarWestern Front artillery officerDuring the First World War, he was assigned to a Royal Horse Artillery ammunition column on the Western Front.
- 1941–1944The Second Front and the Normandy LandingsChief of the Imperial General Staff who delayed the Second FrontHe argued that 1943 lacked landing craft, troops, and air superiority for a safe cross-Channel invasion, and supported Mediterranean operations instead.
Life and career: CIGS and Allied strategy
Early life and Anglo-Irish background
Alan Francis Brooke was born on 23 July 1883 at Bagnères-de-Bigorre, in France, into a prominent Anglo-Irish family from West Ulster, the "Fighting Brookes of Colebrooke". His father was Sir Victor Brooke, 3rd Baronet, of Colebrooke Park, Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, and his mother was Alice Bellingham. Educated at Pau in France, he was bilingual in French and English, and his father died when he was eight. His French birthplace is not evidence of French nationality. The sibling count is recorded differently across reference works: one account calls him the seventh and youngest child, another the sixth son and ninth child, and the discrepancy is unresolved. He "only just" qualified for the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1900, and was commissioned a second lieutenant into the Royal Regiment of Artillery on 24 December 1902, serving in Ireland and India before the First World War.
First World War
During the First World War he was assigned to a Royal Horse Artillery ammunition column on the Western Front, where he gained a reputation as an outstanding planner. He introduced the French "creeping barrage" at the Somme in 1916, and from early 1917 was with the Canadian Corps, planning the barrages for Vimy Ridge. He ended the war a lieutenant-colonel with the DSO and Bar.
Chief of the Imperial General Staff and Allied strategy
In December 1941 Brooke succeeded Field Marshal Sir John Dill as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and in March 1942 he succeeded Admiral Sir Dudley Pound as chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. As CIGS he was the functional head of the British Army and dominated the committee by force of intellect and personality, taking the leading military part in British strategic direction, and in 1942 he joined the U.S.-British Combined Chiefs of Staff, coordinating British military efforts to Allied victory in 1945.
Mediterranean strategy and the cross-Channel invasion
Brooke's focus was the Mediterranean theatre: to rid North Africa of Axis forces, knock Italy out of the war and open the Mediterranean to Allied shipping, and then mount the cross-Channel invasion only when the Allies were ready and the Germans sufficiently weakened. This contrasted with the American commitment to an early invasion of western Europe and produced heated arguments at Combined Chiefs of Staff conferences. The Casablanca Conference decision of January 1943 to invade Sicily effectively postponed the invasion of Western Europe until 1944. In 1943 he judged a landing in France impossible without sufficient troops, landing craft and air superiority, and that judgment delayed the Normandy invasion to June 1944. At the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943 he claimed that no major operations on the continent would be possible until 1945, remarks that, according to the historian Max Hastings, "significantly damaged" his reputation as a strategist.
Death and legacy
He died on 17 June 1963 at Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, of a heart attack, aged 79. He served as Lord High Constable of England at the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, and his war diaries are famous for their criticism of some of Churchill's policies and for his forthright views on other leading figures of the war.