1959-12-09 — Page 6

THE CHINA MAIL,

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1959.

R TO

ON

Busing

"So we'll be early, let's take a taxi anyway"

Busing

"Now then-what's trump?”

Whimpering

Reactionaries!

London.

THERE'S a helluva row going on about Piccadilly

Circus. They are pulling down some buildings And on the north side and putting up a new one. the usual whimpering mass of reactionaries have rushed in to defend the dear old bricks and mortar,

Now, what a lot of nonsense this all is. Apart from Wrigley's and Guinness's and Schweppes's, and all the other exquisite examples of the adver tiser's art, can YOU remember anything about Piccadilly Circus, particularly at night?

remember the

Can you

of it, let alone the shape shape of things to come?

case you cannot, let me give you details of the latest carry-on.

In

Projected on the north side is

a 13-storey building 17011 hugh that will be built on the site of will ensi the Cafe Monico. H

fi £7.000.000 and it includes

Architecte Journal, who refers

to the whole thing as "Chewing Gum House.

The Fme Arta

Commission

says it is not happy."

There's caution for you. Lard Conesford is asking in the House of Lords "What has

deserve London dow

fate

this

13

The Marquis of Salisbury

So is Mr K. Shane "feed" with aluminium a steamed up.

St Pancras Robinson Lab, which will be used for changing

North). betvertisements.

I remember.......

ferraces with It will have

umbrellas just the job and

Bay

uf Now, I can member lots things about Paradilly); I

failed to contact my Aunt Aileen at Swan and Edgars... how I bow I was was moved on wedged there one night between Two howling Newcastle United and how 1 once supporters... idea, narrowly escaped death when a top of the buzz bomb fell on Regent Palace.

For Neither afternoons) eght theory of tuodern, go-ahend ertices

It is Mr Jack Cotton's and be has been attacked for it by the assistant editor of

Russians round

up the

spivs

Moscow.

Teddy

THE Russians are making an example of the Moscow's

HOW I'M FED UP

WITH THEM

EVERY TIME A NEW STONE IS LAID

by

Nancy Spain

But I cannot for

the life of went, there urose the instant twitter of the faithful who want everything always to stay the some for ever.

me renember the shape of the buildings round it. What is more I do not care, and I don't believe you do.

People talk a lot of preten- tious tosh about architecture and

hastly good taste, anyway.

Piccadilly Circus isn't even the neknowledged heart of London any more. This is now near King Charles I's statue in Whitelat, since you ask, and they have let a brats plate into the pavement there to say so.

Sentiment

It doesn't So for my money matter what buildungs good old Jack Colton puts up.

Their

voices 1050 like the shrill chorus of stardings in Trafalgar Square. They madden tre, partly because they are 10 ineffective, ...

People

Have we been fair

to the silent general?

IN war, above all other occupations known to man, nothing succeeds like success. Victory is the clinching argument which settles all disputes about strategy and tactics. The win- ning generals take all-including the fattest royalties on their memoirs.

Only German generals are able to escape the rigours of this simple law. They can pin the blame for defeat on their political chief with the assurance that he can never retaliate from the grave.

Thus, if we socept the word of the Amalgamated Trade Union ot Field Marshals and Kindred Trades, The German generals lost the war because

of Hitler. British generals, on the other hand, won the war Jespite Churchill.

ROBIEN

by

MICHAEL FOOT

GRAND LEXANA 20

WON THE SINGLE-HANDED

WART

Cummings

in

were

01

the

21, "WC

heading for Auchinleck went out from Cairo disaster under the former and did Heaven alone knows how the

what he doubtless

Second World War would have

regime. Apparently was should have done before; he intended

face ended it both these meddling

direct command of

heavy took politicians had been forced to

attacks To retire eastwards battle himself. Mussolini was giving orders mind their own business, if the ton for the seizure of Suez and looking over their shoulders to the Delta. Many мете infallible German generals had the closing of the Canal. On

the

been left to fight it on with June 29 he arrived on the scene make sure of their seat in the infallible British generals,

in person, bringing with him a lorry, and no plan of battle or dominating will power had But wait.

white charger for the parade Consider the case through the streets of Alexandria, reached the units."

war.

+

of a defected British general, socked. In *fect, from supreme post of authority at a supreme moment of the Imagine him to be condemned

by his fellow generals than by the politicians. Skeppose the record has confirmed how defeat changed to victory once he was safely put out to pasture.

The things Jack Cotton is gols

right to me.

De less

Full retreat

WAS

He railled a routed Army and within a fortnight longhi Jamiel to P standstill Already by the beginning of July the road to Cairo blooked. Only by a hair's- breadth, Ister that month then? But what happened

It was the bold, it brutal,

did Auchinleck fall to inalet How was it that a bare three decision to remove Auchinleck

crushing punishment en and and a half

his subordinates months later this and

enemy he had balled, broken army гове from

with Alexander lis replace them krices and the

of and Montgomery which changed

Icast is Connell's Alamein

the the face of the Mediterranean

The first conflict and much else besides, story-and Rommel's,

and forgotten battle of Alamein п Here surely is verdict of

world?

name

rang round

This at

the

Let Field Marshal Montgomery history DA clear and Indisput- had prepared the way for the

คร Jy

He arrived abic take up the tale In Cairo on August 12 to find emerge from

10 ever likely the fogs of war. a city still smärting from the And yet there is a reply to the disappointments of the summer. heavy indictment.

says

Monly, Auchinleck

How can uch a man expect a hearing? Will not his thin explained his plan for a fresh pipe of apology be drowned withdrawal, if Rommel should amid the orchestra of attack in strength. All Egypt triumph, while Str Arthur might have to be abandoned, Bryant blows Lord Alan- brooke's trumpet and Lord hastened to the front. Montgomery blows his own?

But let us

Field Marshal

see.

The

man

03

Next

day

First step

A challenge

second and of arms.

world-famous feat-

But things looked so different back in Cairo. Only in Auchin- leck's analysis of the time-and in the messages of Rommel to his wife--was the change in the fortunes of the war properly And who would First, Auchinlock was not pro appreciated.

the

belleve the man who seemed to abandonment

Mont have the curse of defeat upon alleged by

of

In so far as any such been contem- considered only

Back in Cairo

1oo he had Here, unfortun- Connell, uskally so becomes expositor,

Montgomery posing

He was Egypt, TAN

him? not supposed to take up his new gomery,

But idea had ever command until the 15th. Sir Cloude s great was the disarray, he plated, it was

вл all around him that he in the much wider context of many enemies. ing to do to our Circus look all Auchinlock. A man of courage. disobeyed orders. He assumed what might have to be done it ately, Mr

dignity, and palpable honesty.

armies in their c southward A man who, for all his wounds, command at once, cancelling all the German

advance into Russia Crypile. In my opinion great cities are may still be

able to smash the previous plans for withdrawal.

broke through towards Persia greater than their little land-legend that marks.

masquerades

and the oil of Abadan. Paris is a darned sight history. more than the Arc de Triomphe,

Alanbrooke W39 well ac- New York is bigger than the Rommel was racing towards

that strategi. for something like 400 years Statue of Liberty.

quainted with Suez. That was the terrible fact Thus the first momentous step cal argument. He was of one since the first May Fair 11

And London is made up of in the last days of June 1942, was 13ken in the splendid mind with Auchinleck. Indeed, homesick have looked back 10 guine much

interesting He reckoned more

he would occupy resurgence. Churchill and Alan the two men discussed it a few ward London through a weeping Things than a whole lot of talty Cairo and

Alexandria by June brooke do not actually confirm days before Auchinlock's dis- fog of woot-latien sentiment, buildings.

30,

the precise particulars in Mont- missal before Alanbrooke him- And the word that suns

The great thing about London Tobruk, with 35,000 men, had gomery's Recount But up their nostalgia for them has is its people.

their self knew Churchill's decision to surrendered a few days before, deeds at the time and the words change the command. always been "Piccadilly.""

And you won't after London-A British army was in full they have written since go far to ers by pulling down or building retreat, bashed and battered by substantiate the general sense of On this iue Montgomery has up a few odd bricks hero or Rommel's dazzling offensive. there.

Piccadilly is an idea, not a lot of buildings.

now in on

from

the

When they pulled down the old Alhambra, when Romano's

Boys and speculators, who hang around hotels trying to buy foreign currency and clothes tourists.

A showpiece trial is going

Russian capital.

The two chief villains,

ati

the

whe

shadow spivo Literary to according to the

brothers tourists through the streets and Gazette, are the

them in good Ashot and Rene Trdatyan, then approach

English. who

arrested were

"Do you have anything to sell Frame- breakfast in a restaurant.

in clothes, shoes, of Rene was clad in a crimson phone records? I will buy them

út a good price." Jocket with a smart slit at the fail. Ashot was dressed in black and silver speckled nylon shirt and a white knitted vest,

'Overwhelmed"

0

all

in

I always explain that I need

my clothes ns 1 live Moscow myself. Sonetimes they | persist. One of them offered me about £55 for my not-very-

But 1 needed good overcoat.

Their crime buying one that too. dollar

inflatert bills at

Tales The next move is: "Do you American tourists

have any dollars or pounds for sule?"

always ask: "Why do you

from

and adding then carefully

three noughts to the bills, urning

them into Luke 1,000-dollar want them?" Always the bills which could fool Russians who understand the figures but not the printed words.

the

answer is the same: "I havo friend who is going abroad.”

Girl Friends

The Literary Gazette lashes out at them: "The brothers were overwhelmed by a passion

I then explain that I have no suits,

only dollars hyper-fashionable

pounds, and no ultra-flashy Les and shoes with roubles an ugly sole resembling

Then they usually switch to caterpillar tracks of a tank.

selling: "Excuse me, but I have "They assailed foreigners in some very nice kong for sale, very old and very the street and burst into their They are hotel suites."

beautiful"

The

"But stock answer is: Another speculator paid 7,000 roubles for some British golden surely you know I am not sovereigns. Another had 25,000 allowed to take ikons out of the roubles on him when he was country?" arrested while his wife was The Russian spive even have borrowing from the neighbours the same type of girl friend sus to feed herself and their child. their Britas counterparts.

Cases like this are only pub- The Literary Gazette, describ- Leised in the Soviet Union in the scone at the trial pays:

* "Crowded round the window i they are intended to preach political and sociological lesson. a group of heavily rougest girls, Much as I believe in private the friends of the prisoners and enterprise, these spivs are a their bosom companions. nuisance.

**The Intlers corrupting in- They range from small boys fluence has mutilated their lives, who gather be sparrows out. They have all dropped both side the hotel doors and besiego work and study"

tourists for chewing gum and ballpoint pens and small colna

-Chris Dobson --CLandon Barsan Marušok),

-(London Express Service).

bis claim,

Hitler exulted with Mussolini and reinforced the pursuit.

"Neither by birth nor UD- bringing." he 源丁

"did Auchinleck belong to-and he had never soquired coANGG- Lions with the Inner, ruling clus circles which still exor- cised a predominant initumoe in the British Army.”

What role?

Then

com-

he odds: "The been directly challenged. He mander-in-chief, who so dis- "I am sure." wrote Churchill Ands an unaccustoried refuge liked the intellectual and social to the War Cabinet on August in silence.

has climate of Cairo that he built Alanbrocke sizyed silent Loo,

cottage in the leaving himself a smell Auchinleck to Aght the bate desert near Mena as a personal for his repulation alone.

retreat, and who proposed to move G.H.Q. out of the city But this

and put it in tenis alongside the Pyramids, was hardly likely to Auchinleck'a case resta

be popular in the conventional much more considerable array swirl of cocktail parties. Gezira, of evidence...

THE CLOSER WE GET, THE FARTHER IT SEEMS

Werld Copyright by arrangement with the Manchester Guardian

is no more than a

subsidiary conflict of testimony,

00

Not a word

Д

.

the Turf Club, and the long bar at Shepheard's,"

Indeed, Who were these loyal officers and gentlemen

and What

What really happened be- how did they operate? tween those last days of June role did they really piny in the when Rommel was riding high drama and how does this piece At into the claim and those carly days of August of evidence

Alanbrooke that ho when he was no bearer to his made by

1be real author

of tho objective? This is the hinge on was

which the whole event turned telegram-troen Churchill so the War Cabinet recommending the Why before Churchill and change in the command-"Most Alanbrooke ever arrived in of it was entirely in accord Cairo and before Montgomery's with the advice I had oven narne had ever been mentioned him?”

as the new commander in the

(first

field

No Here, Connell's explana- by Auchinlock,

Alanbrooke's-scen incidentally), was Auchinleck tion-and-

able to prepare plans for a new to break down. It was Churchill who made the paramount decl- oftenalve in September?

sion. Adi The indications are

he Here is the great question. Sir that had long Arthur Bryant dismisses it in Auchinleck must go.

resolved Not even

ono laconic paragraph. Churchill the news of that last desperate is slightly

more expansive, but recovery, it it over reached him, not much. Montgomery offers would deflect his judgment.

# single sentenco of enlightenment.

not

And, despite Mr. Connell's

vallant and largely successful But now Auchinleck's blo- effort to restore a great man's too 15 grunder, John Connell-e more reputation, Churchil skilful because leme boastful and one justification for his lonely dogmatic historien the Sir choice.

Artin Brayant-tells a story

IT WORKED.

to make your heart stand still; the story of the first battle of

And this is Churchill's most Alameln, the story of an epic eloquent reply to all the military which the other witnesses have

and literary neld- well-nigh succeeded in expung- marshals, ike muccessful, the ing from the history, books. all-wise; and the ever-jusfiled

In those

diarista

last days of June, no less than those others who-in when his world

was crashing, like so many of the millions who petumily won the wandell as causities on the Himalayan

* AUCHINLECK.

Conusă (Camall, 186).

by John road to victory.

-{London Ferrum Karuiz(),

I