Politics of Command : : Lieutenant-General A.G.L. McNaughton and the Canadian Army, 1939-1943 / / John Nelson Rickard.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter UTP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2015
• VerfasserIn: Rickard, John Nelson,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©2010
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

In December 1943, Lieutenant-General A.G.L. McNaughton resigned from command of the 1st Canadian Army amidst criticism of his poor generalship and of his abrasive personality. Despite McNaughton's importance to the Canadian Army during the first four years of the Second World War, little has been written about the man himself or the circumstances of his resignation.In The Politics of Command, the first full-length study of the subject since 1969, John Nelson Rickard analyzes McNaughton's performance during exercise SPARTAN in March 1943 and assesses his relationships with key figures such as Sir Alan F. Brooke, Bernard Paget, and Harry Crerar. This detailed re-examination of McNaughton's command argues that the long-accepted reasons for his relief of duty require extensive modification.Based on a wide range of sources, The Politics of Command will redefine how military historians and all Canadians look not only at ";Andy"; McNaughton, but the Canadian Army as well.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Maps -- Tables and Figures -- Foreword / Milner, Marc -- Preface / Leslie, Andrew -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Part One: The Making of Andy McNaughton -- 1. Early Life and the Crucible of the First World War -- 2. The Road to High Command -- Part Two: The Problem of Deploying the Army -- 3. A Willingness to Fight, 1940-1941 -- 4. From ROUNDUP to TORCH -- 5. Practical Operations of War -- Part Three: McNaughton as Military Commander and Trainer -- 6. The Difficulty of Training in 1940 -- 7. The Politics of Training -- 8. Enter Montgomery -- 9. Exercise SPARTAN -- 10. The Long Shadow of SPARTAN -- Part Four: The End of an Idea -- 11. The Sicily Incident -- 12. Broken Dagger: A Corps in Italy -- 13. The Final Months of McNaughton's Command -- Epilogue -- Conclusion -- Appendices -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index