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Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, CMG, MC, PC (5 May 1883 – 24 May 1950) was a senior officer of the British Army. He served in the Second Boer War, the Bazar Valley Campaign and the First World War, during which he was wounded in the Second Battle of Ypres.
Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell led an imaginative and flexible campaign against the Italians in North Africa. His triumph over their vastly superior forces was Britain’s first success of the war and paved the way for later victories.
Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell was a British field marshal and government administrator whose victories against the Italians in North Africa during the early part of World War II were offset by his inability to defeat the German Afrika Korps under General Erwin Rommel (1941) and his
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Learn about the life and career of Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, who commanded British forces in the Middle East and China-Burma-India during World War II. He faced overwhelming odds, stunning victories, and bitter defeats in a wide range of theaters and conflicts.
- The Ever-Fraught Middle East
- Desert Triumphs
- Assault on East Africa
- Intervention and Reversals
- Wavell’s Dilemma
- Debacle and Rising Doubt
- Breaking Point
- The Author
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The Middle East theater was vast, the resources available to Wavell in 1940 few. When France left the war and Italy entered, the challenges were almost overwhelming. No one yet realized how hollow Italy’s military capacity was. No one knew the attitude of French authorities in Syria, who with their sizable garrison were still loyal to Vichy. German...
The most spectacular of his successes took place in the Western Desert of Egypt. Mussolini had entered the war for what he imagined would be easy pickings from the collapsing British Empire. High on his list was Egypt. His generals in Italian-occupied Libya, well aware of their forces’ fragility, dragged their feet. Finally, after much prodding and...
By that time Wavell had launched another shoestring offensive, this one against Italian East Africa (Somaliland, Eritrea, and Italian-occupied Ethiopia). That campaign, now nearly forgotten, was in fact very important. With the Italians in East Africa, the Red Sea was a war zone and American vessels could not transverse it. If the Italian territori...
Important as the victories against the Italians were, they brought nemesis in their train. Fearful that the British successes might imperil Mussolini’s regime, Hitler deployed German forces to the Mediterranean, and prospects for Wavell’s theater darkened. A German “blocking force,” initially one light division, began to arrive in Tripoli in Februa...
Pressure began to mount on Wavell to send troops to aid the Greeks. Churchill told him that when the Western Desert Force finished mopping up the Italian 10th Army, it would be halted in a defensive posture with some troops released for Greece. Several months elapsed while London and Cairo discussed theater strategy. A British mission discussed wit...
Then came Crete, where many units evacuated from Greece were installed. The garrison, commanded by Freyberg, was a jumble of units, many whose equipment had been left behind on Greek beaches. Freyberg was new to command beyond division level. Despite Bletchley’s putting the entire German plan into his hands, tactical fumbles by subordinates gave th...
Iraq boiled over in the Spring of 1941: a revolt led by officers who colorfully called themselves the Golden Square. It was the perfect catalyst for Churchill’s accumulating doubts. Stretched everywhere, Wavell was reluctant to take action against the Iraqi rebels, urging a political solution. It took a direct order from Churchill to move an improv...
Dr. Callahan is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Delaware and a leading scholar of the Indian Army in the two World Wars. He taught at the University for thirty-eight years and was director of the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program, where an annual student prize bears his name. He is the author of Churchill and His Generals...
Learn about Archibald Wavell, the British Army's most senior general when the war began, who fought in the Middle East and India. Discover his achievements, challenges, and relationship with Churchill in this article by Raymond A. Callahan.
On 19th June, 1943, Wavell became viceroy of Burma and the following month was raised to the peerage as the 1st Earl of Cyrenaica. One of his first acts was to free Congress leaders from prison. He also worked hard at trying to resolve the Hundu-Moslem differences.
Jul 2, 2017 · Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell was born on 5 May 1883. 1 He was the son of Maj.-Gen. Archibald Graham Wavell and Lillie Percival. 3,4 He married Eugenie Marie Quirk, daughter of Colonel J. O. Quirk, on 22 April 1915. 4 He died on 24 May 1950 at age 67. 1
