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Orde Wingate: A Man of Genius, 1903-1944
Like his equally famous kinsman Lawrence of Arabia, Orde Wingate was one of that select handful of military prodigies who influenced the development of modern warfare. His Chindit campaigns in Burma helped to lay the foundations of victory in the Far East. Churchill called him 'a man of genius who might well have become also a man of destiny'. But Wingate died in an aircraft crash in 1944 and the official war historians blackened his reputation by denigrating the achievements of the Chindits. This controversial new biography is based on previously unseen sources including those of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) which Wingate joined in 1940. It traces Wingate's development as a soldier and guerrilla leader in Palestine and Ethiopia and shows how his strict religious upbringing had a lasting effect on his military career.
384 pages, ebook
First published April 1, 1995
About the author
Trevor Royle
56 books34 followersTrevor Royle is a broadcaster and author specialising in the history of war and empire. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was a member of the Scottish Government’s Advisory Panel for Commemorating the First World War.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 27, 2024
This biography of Wingate originally had the subtitle Irregular Soldier, which personally I prefer to the one used in this edition. The “man of genius” quote came from Churchill when he made a statement on Wingate’s death. Obviously on such occasions social convention compels the speaker to be fulsome in praise of the recently departed, and in any case Churchill was always impressed by special forces types. Some people did consider Wingate a genius. Others thought he was a madman. He’s a challenging subject for a biography.
One of the strongest aspects of this book is the description of how Wingate’s childhood may have affected his later life. His parents belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, a Christian sect who considered the outside world to be a corrupting influence. Orde was very much set apart from other boys, and throughout his life he displayed an unwillingness to compromise. This may have simply been part of his personality, but his upbringing within a strict religious sect would not have mitigated that tendency.
In the 1930s Wingate was posted to Palestine, then administered by Britain on behalf of the League of Nations. Ever the outsider, Wingate became a passionate Zionist at a time when British policy was generally pro-Arab. Politically he was a liability since his intemperate denunciations of British policy did nothing except anger the establishment. It was a different story in military terms though. At the time Jewish settlements were regularly attacked by Arab groups and to counter this Wingate formed “Special Night Squads” made up of a mix of regular British soldiers and Jewish volunteers. The latter included men like Moshe Dayan and Yigal Allon. Rather than simply defending their settlements, the SNS went out on night patrols and “ambushed the ambushers". The Jewish volunteers learned an enormous amount from Wingate about night fighting, but perhaps more important was the development of a mentality that involved always taking the fight to the enemy. Many senior Israelis credited Wingate with being a huge influence on Israeli military thinking in subsequent decades, and it became a lasting legacy of his.
Following the outbreak of WW2 Wingate was assigned to work with the exiled Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. He was enormously attracted to the idea of restoring a monarch to his throne, and created “Gideon Force”, a small band of Ethiopian and Sudanese soldiers with British officers, noting perceptively that “Given a population favourable to penetration, a thousand resolute and well-armed men can paralyse, for an indefinite period, the operations of a hundred thousand.” Wingate’s operations in Ethiopia were notably successful and led on to his creation of the famous “Chindits” of Burma. Debate on the effectiveness of the Chindits started after their first mission and has continued ever since, though even Wingate’s severest critics concede that the Chindits played an important part in boosting British morale in Burma.
Wingate was, by any measure, a difficult individual, with a huge ego and a volcanic temper. He frequently slapped, punched and kicked his subordinates. Wilfred Thesiger, who served alongside him in Africa, described him as “brutal, arrogant and assertive.” Blanche Dugdale, a noted “Zionist Gentile” called him “an irresponsible lunatic”. Royle doesn’t hide these aspects of Wingate’s personality but unsurprisingly, continues to assess him positively in overall terms, arguing that “few Chindits failed to be impressed and inspired by his leadership qualities.” I’m not totally convinced, perhaps because I’ve read John Masters’ book The Road Past Mandalay. Masters was on the second Chindit mission and was not at all impressed by either Wingate’s leadership or his inspirational qualities.
This is a readable biography and a useful balance to more critical assessments of Wingate, but personally I feel Royle has been a little too forgiving in his assessment.
One of the strongest aspects of this book is the description of how Wingate’s childhood may have affected his later life. His parents belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, a Christian sect who considered the outside world to be a corrupting influence. Orde was very much set apart from other boys, and throughout his life he displayed an unwillingness to compromise. This may have simply been part of his personality, but his upbringing within a strict religious sect would not have mitigated that tendency.
In the 1930s Wingate was posted to Palestine, then administered by Britain on behalf of the League of Nations. Ever the outsider, Wingate became a passionate Zionist at a time when British policy was generally pro-Arab. Politically he was a liability since his intemperate denunciations of British policy did nothing except anger the establishment. It was a different story in military terms though. At the time Jewish settlements were regularly attacked by Arab groups and to counter this Wingate formed “Special Night Squads” made up of a mix of regular British soldiers and Jewish volunteers. The latter included men like Moshe Dayan and Yigal Allon. Rather than simply defending their settlements, the SNS went out on night patrols and “ambushed the ambushers". The Jewish volunteers learned an enormous amount from Wingate about night fighting, but perhaps more important was the development of a mentality that involved always taking the fight to the enemy. Many senior Israelis credited Wingate with being a huge influence on Israeli military thinking in subsequent decades, and it became a lasting legacy of his.
Following the outbreak of WW2 Wingate was assigned to work with the exiled Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. He was enormously attracted to the idea of restoring a monarch to his throne, and created “Gideon Force”, a small band of Ethiopian and Sudanese soldiers with British officers, noting perceptively that “Given a population favourable to penetration, a thousand resolute and well-armed men can paralyse, for an indefinite period, the operations of a hundred thousand.” Wingate’s operations in Ethiopia were notably successful and led on to his creation of the famous “Chindits” of Burma. Debate on the effectiveness of the Chindits started after their first mission and has continued ever since, though even Wingate’s severest critics concede that the Chindits played an important part in boosting British morale in Burma.
Wingate was, by any measure, a difficult individual, with a huge ego and a volcanic temper. He frequently slapped, punched and kicked his subordinates. Wilfred Thesiger, who served alongside him in Africa, described him as “brutal, arrogant and assertive.” Blanche Dugdale, a noted “Zionist Gentile” called him “an irresponsible lunatic”. Royle doesn’t hide these aspects of Wingate’s personality but unsurprisingly, continues to assess him positively in overall terms, arguing that “few Chindits failed to be impressed and inspired by his leadership qualities.” I’m not totally convinced, perhaps because I’ve read John Masters’ book The Road Past Mandalay. Masters was on the second Chindit mission and was not at all impressed by either Wingate’s leadership or his inspirational qualities.
This is a readable biography and a useful balance to more critical assessments of Wingate, but personally I feel Royle has been a little too forgiving in his assessment.
April 16, 2015
An intriguing biography, Royle's thesis is that Wingate was a deeply religious man, prone to depression and mania by turns, who revolutionised modern warfare but whose memory was besmirched by jealous superiors. It's a compelling argument and certainly appeals to one's natural sympathy for the iconoclast and the underdog, but does it hold up?
Not really. Royle's book is a fine biography and gives a very comprehensive, but occasionally unflattering, picture of a man wracked by depression and driven by a fixed idea that he has been marked for great things by the Almighty. The chapters on Wingate's early life, his time in Woolich, the Sudan and Palestine are very good, though the Sudanese section lacks maps which is unpardonable. He deftly illustrates Wingate's religious ideas, his Zionism, his abrasive nature and his often astute use of political pressure to achieve his ends, through use of anecdote and a rigorous study of the primary sources.
Where Royle's book falls down is in his insistence that Wingate revolutionised warfare. His description of Wingate's time in Palestine, where he organised counter-gangs that would be familar to any student of Kitson*, and the Sudanese campaign, clearly show that he was a very gifted irregular soldier who grasped the fundamentals of guerrilla warfare with unusual clarity. However, his argument that these principles can naturally be applied to full on, total, heavy metal warfare, fail to convince. In fact, Royle seems to think that this is such a self evident truth that he barely makes an argument at all and simply states it as a fact.
His treatment of the first Chindit expedition is a case in point. It was a tremendously successful political operation, it showed the Japanese could be beaten, it was a "proof of concept" for mass aerial resupply and provided an allied victory when one was badly, badly needed. On the other had it accomplished little of military value and cost the Allies the services of over a thousand soldiers and the lives of several hundred. Generals have shoveled many more men into the fire for a much lower return, but it does not necessarily follow that what was a good idea on a small scale (a brigade) will still be a good idea on a large scale (a small corps), which is what the second Chindit expedition was.
Long range penetration groups are still part of the modern military world, but they're either small special forces units or airmobile battalions or fast moving armoured forces who operate in a radically differant way from that proposed by Wingate.
While it fails as operational history, it succeeds as biography. This is not a book to be read in isolation, I would certainly recommend reading Slim's Defeat into Victory first. An interesting and thought provoking portrait of a very complex, if not entirely admirable man.
*It should be remembered that one of Wingate's brigade commanders Calvert would have been in Malaya at the same time as Frank Kitson and therefore the idea of counter-gangs would have been floating around at the time for Kitson to pick it up and make it his own.
Not really. Royle's book is a fine biography and gives a very comprehensive, but occasionally unflattering, picture of a man wracked by depression and driven by a fixed idea that he has been marked for great things by the Almighty. The chapters on Wingate's early life, his time in Woolich, the Sudan and Palestine are very good, though the Sudanese section lacks maps which is unpardonable. He deftly illustrates Wingate's religious ideas, his Zionism, his abrasive nature and his often astute use of political pressure to achieve his ends, through use of anecdote and a rigorous study of the primary sources.
Where Royle's book falls down is in his insistence that Wingate revolutionised warfare. His description of Wingate's time in Palestine, where he organised counter-gangs that would be familar to any student of Kitson*, and the Sudanese campaign, clearly show that he was a very gifted irregular soldier who grasped the fundamentals of guerrilla warfare with unusual clarity. However, his argument that these principles can naturally be applied to full on, total, heavy metal warfare, fail to convince. In fact, Royle seems to think that this is such a self evident truth that he barely makes an argument at all and simply states it as a fact.
His treatment of the first Chindit expedition is a case in point. It was a tremendously successful political operation, it showed the Japanese could be beaten, it was a "proof of concept" for mass aerial resupply and provided an allied victory when one was badly, badly needed. On the other had it accomplished little of military value and cost the Allies the services of over a thousand soldiers and the lives of several hundred. Generals have shoveled many more men into the fire for a much lower return, but it does not necessarily follow that what was a good idea on a small scale (a brigade) will still be a good idea on a large scale (a small corps), which is what the second Chindit expedition was.
Long range penetration groups are still part of the modern military world, but they're either small special forces units or airmobile battalions or fast moving armoured forces who operate in a radically differant way from that proposed by Wingate.
While it fails as operational history, it succeeds as biography. This is not a book to be read in isolation, I would certainly recommend reading Slim's Defeat into Victory first. An interesting and thought provoking portrait of a very complex, if not entirely admirable man.
*It should be remembered that one of Wingate's brigade commanders Calvert would have been in Malaya at the same time as Frank Kitson and therefore the idea of counter-gangs would have been floating around at the time for Kitson to pick it up and make it his own.
March 12, 2017
Orde Wingate: A Man of Genius quotes Churchill in the subtitle to guide a biography of an expert in unconventional warfare, cut down before his time in a plane crash in 1944. This book is best when it describes the conformist weirdness of the interwar British Army, and Wingate's quixotic crusade to be an Individual in this environment. His early career, in the regiment, in Sudan, and in Mandatory Palestine, are lovingly detailed. The picture that emerges is of an iconoclastic and deeply moral soldier, who's immense (indeed, maniac) energy drives his men to accomplish great things. This came to a peak in with the campaign to liberate Ethiopia from the Italians with Gideon Force, a small patriotic band that outfought larger Italian units to restore Emperor Haile Selassie to the throne. Next, Wingate was assigned to the Burma theater, but the Chindit deep penetration units have a more mixed record, suffering heavy casualties for unclear results.
Wingate clearly was a man of great vision, but it's unclear if that vision actually matched up to reality. His talent for finding highly placed patrons was undercut by fighting against his immediate superiors, equals, and subordinate officers. His career might be encapsulated in miniature in one incident in Palestine. More or less on his own authority, Wingate had created a group of Jewish Special Night Squads to fight Arab gangs through night ambush. This went great, until a combined operation wound up with Wingate ambushing himself and getting shot five times with a Bren gun.
This is a strong biography, but a weak military history. As an aside, my favorite "wtf moment" was apparently a weekly ritual in British Artillery Officer school was a Friday night dance, where the Seniors wore full dress, the first years wore pajamas, and then the first years were beaten. Did the whole British army run on weird sadomasochism?
Wingate clearly was a man of great vision, but it's unclear if that vision actually matched up to reality. His talent for finding highly placed patrons was undercut by fighting against his immediate superiors, equals, and subordinate officers. His career might be encapsulated in miniature in one incident in Palestine. More or less on his own authority, Wingate had created a group of Jewish Special Night Squads to fight Arab gangs through night ambush. This went great, until a combined operation wound up with Wingate ambushing himself and getting shot five times with a Bren gun.
This is a strong biography, but a weak military history. As an aside, my favorite "wtf moment" was apparently a weekly ritual in British Artillery Officer school was a Friday night dance, where the Seniors wore full dress, the first years wore pajamas, and then the first years were beaten. Did the whole British army run on weird sadomasochism?
June 19, 2020
“Orde Wingate” is an excellent book. Trevor Royle has traced Orde Wingate’s history from the lives of his parents, down to his untimely death, and has also written an afterword.
Wingate was an eccentric, difficult man who was passionate about his beliefs and was, in many ways, a military genius.
His impact on Israel was immense. He played a significant role in pushing for an Israeli state. His training methods were vital in helping the Israeli Army become what it is today. It is not surprising that he is lionized in that country.
Wingate’s role in Burma during World War II was critical in halting the advance of the Japanese Army. He was an inspirational and difficult leader.
He also challenged his superiors and gained a few enemies who ruined his reputation after he died.
Trevor Royle’s book is excellent and gives us an idea of what Orde Wingate was all about. It is not an easy book to write. However, it is a fitting tribute to Orde Wingate.
Wingate was an eccentric, difficult man who was passionate about his beliefs and was, in many ways, a military genius.
His impact on Israel was immense. He played a significant role in pushing for an Israeli state. His training methods were vital in helping the Israeli Army become what it is today. It is not surprising that he is lionized in that country.
Wingate’s role in Burma during World War II was critical in halting the advance of the Japanese Army. He was an inspirational and difficult leader.
He also challenged his superiors and gained a few enemies who ruined his reputation after he died.
Trevor Royle’s book is excellent and gives us an idea of what Orde Wingate was all about. It is not an easy book to write. However, it is a fitting tribute to Orde Wingate.
January 29, 2023
On August 15 2020 I had the privilege to meet Wingate's grand-daughter at the 75th VJ celebration at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. One of my absolute heroes, Wingate was that combination of maverick, motivator and sound tactician that encapsulates the best British army officer. Like another true great Patton, maybe it is best he died when he did (1944) because how can such men ever find true fulfilment when peace returns?
March 22, 2017
Orde Wingate: A Man of Genius is an interesting account of the British general who fought in Burma during WWII and of whom I knew nothing about. He was a man of genius. He was also a man of temper, impatience, self-promotion, religious fever and maniacal ego. In many ways he was similar to Churchill but without Churchill's sense of humour and interpersonal charm. Wingate had no interpersonal charm. Zero. He alienated people and in many ways was his own worst enemy. He proposed new ways for defeating the Japanese and he was great for British morale. Did he accomplish what he set out to do? An untimely death negated the completion of his actual accomplishments on the field of battle. As for the biography, Royle does a pretty good job of re-creating the man. His accounts of the Burmese campaign/battles are somewhat lacking, however. I wished he would have spent more time describing the Chindit battles and less reproducing long, boring letters and memos written by Wingate which shed little or no light on the WWII campaigns.
September 9, 2022
Wingate is an extraordinary figure in the rich annals of British military history. Epithets such as genius, eccentric, and controversial are used to describe him. There is little doubt that this was a man with highly original and insightful ideas on unconventional warfare and he proved these ideas through his leadership roles with the Special Night Squads in British Palestine, the Gideon Force in Ethiopia, and the Chindits in Burma. He clearly was unconventional as a person as well and struggled with mental illness - the book suggests a mild version of manic depression - throughout his life, but especially the early stages of his career. He could be volatile, even violent, towards his fellow soldiers, but he also instilled a loyalty and admiration among many of them as he clearly cared about them and did not like to ask more of them than he would ask of himself. The book provides a balanced account of his life and exploits and helps redress some of the negative assessments of the man. Among others, I found it interesting to learn about his influence on the Israeli military, his sojourn in Sudan with the Sudan Defence Force, and to learn in some depth about the campaign in Ethiopia.
September 15, 2014
An account of an unorthodox WWII soldier and the campaigns he was involved in.
This was an interesting account but the detail was overwhelming / confusing in places making the book / logic difficult to follow.
This was an interesting account but the detail was overwhelming / confusing in places making the book / logic difficult to follow.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews