page_title: Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke
section_title: Commander in Flanders, France and Britain
hierarchical_section_title: Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke / Second World War / Commander in Flanders, France and Britain
caption_attribution_description: English: The British Army in the United Kingdom 1939-45 Senior officers discuss operations during Exercise 'Bumper', 2 October 1941. On the left the Chief Umpire, Lieutenant-General B L Montgomery, talks to the Commander-in-Chief Home Forces, General Sir Alan Brooke.
context_page_description: Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, KG, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO & Bar, was a senior officer of the British Army. He was Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the professional head of the British Army, during the Second World War, and was promoted to field marshal in 1944. As chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, Brooke was the foremost military advisor to Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, and had the role of co-ordinator of the British military efforts in the Allies' victory in 1945. After retiring from the British Army, he served as Lord High Constable of England during the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. His war diaries attracted attention for their criticism of Churchill and for Brooke's forthright views on other leading figures of the war.
context_section_description: Following the outbreak of the Second World War, in September 1939, Brooke commanded II Corps in the British Expeditionary Force (BEF)—which included in its subordinate formations the 3rd Infantry Division, commanded by the then Major-General Bernard Montgomery, as well as Major-General Dudley Johnson's 4th Infantry Division. As corps commander, Brooke had a pessimistic view of the Allies' chances of countering a German offensive. He was sceptical of the quality and determination of the French Army, and of the Belgian Army. This scepticism appeared to be justified when he was on a visit to some French front-line units; and was shocked to see unshaven men, ungroomed horses and dirty vehicles.
  He had also little trust in Lord Gort, Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the BEF, whom Brooke thought took too much interest in details while being incapable of taking a broad strategic view. Gort, on the other hand, regarded Brooke as a pessimist who failed to spread confidence, and was thinking of replacing him.
  When the German offensive began Brooke, aided by Neil Ritchie, his Brigadier General Staff (BGS), distinguished himself in the handling of the British forces in the retreat to Dunkirk. In late May 1940 II Corps held the major German attack on the Ypres-Comine Canal but then found its left flank exposed by the capitulation of the Belgian army. Brooke swiftly ordered Montgomery's 3rd Division to switch from the Corps' right flank to cover the gap. This was accomplished in a complicated night-time manoeuvre. Pushing more troops north to counter the threat to the embarking troops at Dunkirk from German units advancing along the coast, II Corps retreated to their appointed places on the east or south-east of the shrinking perimeter of Dunkirk.
  Then on 29 May Brooke was ordered by Gort to return to England, leaving the Corps in Montgomery's hands. According to Montgomery, Brooke was so overcome with emotion at having to leave his men in such a crisis that "he broke down and wept" as he handed over to Monty on the beaches of La Panne. He was told by Gort to "proceed home ... for (the) task of reforming new armies" and so returned on a destroyer (30 May). Then "on June 2nd set out for the War Office to find out what I was wanted for" with a "light heart" and with no responsibility, and was then told by Dill (CIGS) that he was to "Return to France to form a new BEF"; he later said that hearing the command from Dill was "one of his blackest (moments) in the war". He had already realised that there was no hope of success for the "Brittany plan" (Breton redoubt) to keep an allied redoubt in France. He told the Secretary for War (Eden) that the mission had "no military value and no hope of success" although he could not comment on its political value. In his first conversation with Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Brooke had been rung by Dill who was at 10 Downing Street) he insisted that all British forces should be withdrawn from France. Churchill initially objected but was eventually convinced by Brooke and around 200,000 British and Allied troops were successfully evacuated from ports in northwestern France.
  After returning for a short spell at Southern Command he was appointed in July 1940 to command United Kingdom Home Forces to take charge of anti-invasion preparations. Thus it would have been Brooke's task to direct the land battle in the event of German landings. Contrary to his predecessor General Sir Edmund Ironside, who favoured a static coastal defence, Brooke focused on developing a mobile reserve which was to swiftly counterattack the enemy forces before they were established. A light line of defence on the coast was to assure that the landings were delayed as much as possible. Writing after the war, Brooke acknowledged that he also "had every intention of using sprayed mustard gas on the beaches".
  Brooke believed that the lack of a unified command of the three services was "a grave danger" to the defence of the country. Despite this, and the fact that the available forces never reached the numbers he thought were required, 
caption: Senior officers discuss operations during Exercise 'Bumper', 2 October 1941. On the left, the Chief Umpire, Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery, talks to the C-in-C Home Forces (soon CIGS), General Sir Alan Brooke.
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