Everything about Harold Alexander 1st Earl Alexander Of Tunis totally explained
Field Marshal Harold Rupert Leofric George Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis KG OM GCB GCMG CSI DSO MC PC (Can) PC (UK) (
10 December 1891–
16 June 1969) was a
British military commander and
field marshal, notably during the
Second World War as the commander of the
15th Army Group. He later served as the last British
Governor General of Canada.
Background and family
The third son of the
4th Earl of Caledon and the former
Lady Elizabeth Graham-Toler, a daughter of the
3rd Earl of Norbury, he was born in London and educated at
Harrow School and the
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Alexander was the 11th batsman in the famous
Fowler Match between
Eton and Harrow in 1910.
In 1931, Alexander married Lady Margaret Diana Bingham,
GBE DStJ, younger daughter of
George Bingham, 5th Earl of Lucan. The couple had two sons and two daughters (of which, one was an adopted daughter).
Early career
He was commissioned into the
Irish Guards in 1911. During the
First World War, Alexander's battalion formed a part of the original
British Expeditionary Force (BEF), in which he was a 22-year-old lieutenant and platoon commander.
Alexander became the youngest lieutenant-colonel in the
British Army during the war, and when the Great War ended he was in temporary command of a brigade. He served on the
Western Front and was wounded twice in four years of fighting. He received the
Military Cross in 1915, the
Distinguished Service Order in 1916, and the
Legion of Honour, and by 1918 was an acting
brigadier.
Rudyard Kipling, who wrote a history of the Irish Guards in which his own son fought and was killed, noted that, "It is undeniable that Colonel Alexander had the gift of handling the men on the lines to which they most readily responded . . . his subordinates loved him, even when he fell upon them blisteringly for their shortcomings; and his men were all his own."
In 1919 - 1920 Alexander led the
Baltic German Landeswehr in the
Latvian War of Independence, commanding units loyal to the Republic of
Latvia in the successful drive to eject the
Bolsheviks from
Latgale. He later served in
Turkey and
Gibraltar before returning to England and the
Staff College, Camberley and the Imperial Defence College. In 1937 he was promoted to
major-general.
World War II
Alexander joined the
British Expeditionary Force (BEF), as commander of the
1st Infantry Division, in France in 1939. After successfully leading his division's withdrawal to
Dunkirk in late May 1940 he was appointed to command
I Corps on the beachhead shortly after
Bernard Montgomery had been appointed to command
II Corps. He left the beach in the early hours of
3 June having ensured that all British troops had been picked up. For the rest of 1940 and 1941 he held commands equivalent to corps and then army in mainland Britain, before being sent to
Burma, commanding what was later to be the
Fourteenth Army at the beginning of that campaign. In August
1942 Winston Churchill sent him, as Commander-in-Chief Middle East, and under him Lieutenant-General
Bernard Montgomery as General Officer Commanding
Eighth Army, to North Africa to replace General
Claude Auchinleck who had held both positions. He presided over Montgomery's victory at the
Second Battle of El Alamein. After the Anglo-American forces from
Torch and the Eighth Army met in
Tunisia in January 1943, he became deputy to
Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean.
Alexander was very popular with both US and British officers, and was Eisenhower's preference for the ground command of
D-Day, but Field Marshal
Alan Brooke applied pressure to keep him in
Italy, considering him unfit for the assignment. Alexander remained in Italy as commander of the
15th Army Group, with the
US Fifth Army and
British Eighth Army under his command.
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 didn't agree.
In 1943 the Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill, proposed to make the Irish aristocrat Alexander a Knight in the Most Illustrious
Order of Saint Patrick. The Commonwealth Office advised against it and Alexander was made a Viscount in the
Peerage of the United Kingdom instead.
His forces captured
Rome in June 1944, thereby achieving one of the strategic goals of the
Italian campaign. However, US Fifth Army forces at
Anzio, under Clark's orders, failed to follow their original breakout plan that would have trapped the German forces escaping northwards. At the end of 1944 Alexander was promoted to field marshal, his promotion being backdated to the fall of Rome, on
4 June 1944, so that he'd once again become senior to Montgomery, who had been made a field marshal earlier in the year, on
1 September 1944, after the end of the Battle of Normandy.
Alexander received the German surrender in Italy on
29 April 1945.
Post-war
Sir Harold Alexander was created
Viscount Alexander of Tunis, of Errigal in the County of Donegal, in 1946 for his leadership in North Africa and Italy. In December 1946 he was made a
Knight of the Garter and was created
Baron Rideau, of Ottawa and of Castle Derg in the County of Tyrone, and
Earl Alexander of Tunis in 1952.
Governor General of Canada
Alexander was
Governor General of Canada (1946–1952), and was a popular choice among the
Canadian population. In addition to his military reputation, Alexander had a charismatic gift for making friends and communicating with people. This made him a popular and successful Governor General. He took his duties seriously—indeed, when he was asked to kick the opening ball in the 1946
Grey Cup final, he spent a number of early mornings practising.
He saw his role as a vital link between Canadians and their head of State, and was eager to convey that message wherever he went. He travelled Canada extensively, eventually logging more than 294,500 kilometres (184,000 miles) during his five years as Governor General.
On his first major visit to western Canada, he was presented on
13 July 1946 with a
totem pole made by
Kwakiutl carver Mungo Martin, to mark his installation as an Honorary Chief of the Kwakiutl, the first white man to be so honoured. The totem pole remains a popular attraction on the front lawn of
Rideau Hall. During a later visit in 1950, he was made Chief Eagle Head of the
Blackfoot First Nations.
Alexander's term - the post-WWII years - was an era of change for Canada. The post-war economy boomed in Canada, and a new prosperity began. In Letters Patent of 1947,
King George VI allowed the Governor General to exercise almost all of His Majesty's powers and authorities in respect of Canada on the King's behalf. The document continues to be the source of the Governor General's powers today. In 1949, at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference, the decision was made to use the term "member of the Commonwealth" instead of "Dominion".
That same year,
Newfoundland entered
Confederation, and Alexander visited the new province that summer. But by 1950, Canada was once again embroiled in war, as Canadian forces fought in
Korea against communist
North Korea and the
People's Republic of China. Alexander visited the troops heading overseas to give them his personal encouragement.
Alexander hosted various dignitaries, including
Princess Elizabeth and the
Duke of Edinburgh, who came to Canada for a Royal Tour in October 1951, less than two years before the Princess became Queen Elizabeth II,
Queen of Canada. Lord and Lady Alexander hosted a square dancing party which the Princess and the Duke attended. Alexander also travelled abroad on official trips, visiting
President Truman in the
United States in 1947, and paying a State visit to
Brazil in June 1948.
Generally, though, Lord and Lady Alexander led an informal lifestyle. He was an avid sportsman, enjoying
fishing,
golf,
ice hockey and
rugby. Fond of the outdoors, he enjoyed attending the harvest of
maple syrup in
Ontario and
Quebec, and personally supervised the tapping of the
maple trees on the grounds of Rideau Hall. He was also a passionate painter, and in addition to setting up a studio for himself in the former dairy which still stands today at Rideau Hall, he organised art classes at the
National Gallery of Canada. Lady Alexander became an expert weaver while in Canada, and had two looms in her study.
Alexander encouraged education in Canada. Many Canadian universities gave him honorary degrees, and he was also appointed an Honorary Doctor of Laws by
Harvard and
Princeton Universities in the United States.
Later career
In early 1952, after his term was extended twice, Lord Alexander left the office of Governor General, after
Sir Winston Churchill, the
British Prime Minister, asked him to return to London to take the post of
Minister of Defence, after
Sir Winston Churchill had found that age and infirmity made it hard for him to perform both jobs as he'd done during the Second World War. He was temporarily replaced by an administrator (Chief Justice
Thibaudeau Rinfret) prior to the appointment of diplomat
Vincent Massey as the new Governor General.
At that time each of the three armed forces was still run by a separate department and represented by a separate minister in the Cabinet, with the
Minister of Defence as a co-ordinator; Churchill tried unsuccessfully to have other departments co-ordinated by such "overlords". Lord Alexander served as Minister of Defence until 1954, at which point he retired from politics.
Canada remained a favourite second home of the Alexanders, and they returned often to visit family and friends.
Lord Alexander of Tunis died of a perforated aorta on
16 June 1969. His funeral was held on
24 June 1969 at St Georges Chapel,
Windsor Castle, and his remains are buried in the churchyard of Ridge, near Tyttenhanger, his family's Hertfordshire home. Lady Alexander died in 1977.
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