Talk:Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis

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Contents 1 Order of Merit 2 Suggested Improvements 3 Role in Baltic Landwehr 4 Infamous Harold: murdered of cossacks 5 No mention of children 6 Commonwealth Office in 1943? 7 Alleged Monty quote 8 Dunkirk 9 Honours after his name

[edit] Order of Merit

Field Marshall Alexander of Tunis cannot have received the Order of Merit from King George VI in 1959 as the latter died in 1952. He either got it on that date from Queen Elizabeth II or from George VI on some other date. Can anyone advise? --F Sykes 20:39, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Are we even sure he was in the OM? My sources don't list him as such... Proteus (Talk) 00:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

It would appear so as his name is mentionned on http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page493.asp which I suppose is as authorised as can be. --F Sykes 08:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Field Marshal Alexander of Tunis received the Order of Merit from Queen Elizabeth II on 23rd April 1960. See List_of_Members_of_the_Order_of_Merit and http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page1747.asp --F Sykes 12:54, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested Improvements

The box at top right may be removed, the information is either replaced by the boxes at the end of the article, or is in the main article. "In 1937 he was promoted to Major-General and joined the British Expeditionary Force (BEF)." - the BEF didn't exist until 1939, so what date? What rank, & what was his command? The fact that Alexander was the last British soldier to leave Dunkirk merits inclusion I think. Monty hadn't been knighted in August 1942, so the reference should be to 'General Bernard Montgomery'. Auckinleck hadn't been knighted in August 1942, so the reference should be to 'General Claude Auchinleck'. GrahamBould 14:02, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome.

The only other thing I would say is that suggestions to improve the template can be made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Military person infobox. This one used to have a nice picture of Alexander, but it was deleted as an unsourced image. If you wanted to find an uncopyrighted version that would be great..... Leithp 14:05, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Tried moving the picture from the lower infox to the upper, without success. It looks silly where it is, not apparent to the casual viewer, & as he is in uniform, it should be in the military box anyway. GrahamBould 14:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Role in Baltic Landwehr

I'm puzzled by the claim that Alexander 'led the Baltic Landwehr'. I've looked at relevant German websites and they don't mention him, except occasionally to refer the reader to this Wikipedia article. This makes me wonder if he was simply a middle- or senior-ranking officer in the Baltic Landwher. 'Lead' implies that he was C-in-C or Chief of Staff. Moreover, it would have been very remarkable if a largely German force had placed such trust in a Briton so soon after the end of WWI. It looks as if there's been some misunderstanding about his role in the Baltic Landwehr. Norvo 03:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

John Keegan's anthology of biographies of British generals, "Churchill's Generals", refers to Alexander as "Commander Baltic Landeswehr" (p128) and there are details on pp 107 & 108. Alexander's title was "'Relief Adviser' but took command of the Baltic Landeswehr, consisting of German and Baltic soldiers, with a German Chief of Staff, Baron Rahden." The author, Brian Holden Reid, cites "Alexander of Tunis as Military Commander". I haven't checked Reid's reference, but it seems sound. Hope this helps. Folks at 137 10:13, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infamous Harold: murdered of cossacks

The Cossack General Domanov was in the group of Cossack officers who were brutally betrayed by the British authorities. Gerenral Domanov was the one who received a letter for the British Field Marshal Harold Alexander. On the May 27, 1945 at 5 PM the British Major B.P. Davis arrived to the hotel "Gold Fish" where General Domanov was residing at that time. The Major delivered a special order to the General from Field Marshal Alexander. This order stated that all cossacks must arrive to the city of Spital (Austria) to participate in a conference "Present political and military situation and the POW cossacks". General Domanov passed the British order to all Cossack officers. Following this betrayal order, 14 Cossack generals, 2359 officers, 65 military clerks, 14 doctors, 7 feldshers and 2 priests arrived to the designated location. They were all placed into a prison camp. British took away from the cossacks pocket knives, lighters, whistles, etc. The prison camp was surrounded by the British army with 6 tanks. On the 28th of May 1945 it was announced that there will be no conference. It was announced that all cossacks will be given away to the Soviet authorities. General Krasnof wrote several petitions to the King of England, League of Nations, International Red Cross but hey all remained unanswered. Few officers who didn't want to be given to the Soviets, took away their lifes. On the 29th the Soviets came and the British forced Cossacks into the lorries. While forcing Cossacks into the lorries, the British soldiers and officers were brutally beating them. By 5 PM of the 29th of May 1945 all remaining alive 2426 Cossacks were given by British to the SMERSH (Russian acronym for "Death to the spies") group of the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front. This is a free-style and may be not of a very good quality abbreviated translation from: http://www.cossacks.info/war/repatriation/chapter_lenivov21.html

[edit] No mention of children

No indication if his marriage produced children. I'll do some research of my own.

Done and included. Folks at 137 10:13, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Commonwealth Office in 1943?

GrahamBould 22:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alleged Monty quote

Re: this sentence and unreferenced quote attributed to Montgomery:

Montgomery, who was both a long-time friend and subordinate of Alexander in Sicily and Italy, said of him, "Alexander....is not a strong commander...the higher art of war is quite beyond him." He advised his US counterparts, Mark Clark and George S. Patton, to ignore any orders from Alexander with which they did not agree.

A Google search on the phrase: "higher art of war is quite beyond him" results in only one hit - to this page. Doing the same through Google Book Search results in no hits. Isn’t it strange that, if true, such a historically significant event has not been mentioned in any of numerous published sources that have been fully indexed by Google Book Search or that is has never been discussed anywhere else on the internet?

Considering the inflammatory nature of this quote, unless it can be properly referenced and its accuracy verified, shouldn’t it be struck from the article? Psywar (talk) 19:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dunkirk

During the retreat to Dunkirk, Alexander's 1st Division was under 1 Corps but was transferred to II Corps on 18 May. Om 21 May the division received its only significant attack...On 28 May 1st was re-attached to I Corps and moved into the Dunkirk perimeter...On 31 May Alexander replaced Barker as commander II Corps i.e. after he arrived at Dunkirk. This all comes from Churchill's Lions: A Biographical Guide to Key British Generals of World War II. Alexander may well have been the last general officer off the beach at Dunkirk but was certainly not "instrumental in leading the retreat to Dunkirk". Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 00:33, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that Barker was so ineffectual that Alexander had effectively been in command of the corps before then. To be honest your current wording looks okay. Leithp 08:11, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. My point was to do with being instrumental in the withdrawal to Dunkirk. This was not the case since up to four days before his division's arrival at Dunkirk he was reporting to II Corps commanded successively by Brooke and Montgomery, both of whom arrived back from France with reputations enhanced. Barker was indeed ineffectual, but this meant that Alexander had to act very much on his own initiative in handling his division. He would not have had much influence on the other divisions in the corps - that's not the way the army works! There is no doubt, however, that once he became corps commander Alexander executed his task to "hold the perimeter alongside the French and to sagfeguard the evacuation of the rearguard" extremely well and Alexander's "...unflapability made a huge contribution to the success of Operation Dynamo, the rescue of the BEF." i.e. his impact was during the evacuation from Dunkirk not the withdrawal to Dunkirk. Regards Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 09:05, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Honours after his name

The two PCs in the list of honours after Alexander's name are in different places in the infobox and the main article. There must be rules about this sort of thing, but I don't know what they are. Could someone please 'do the honours'. Cheers. GrahamBould (talk) 06:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)