Armies of Empire

ARMIES OF EMPIRE: The 9th Australian and 50th British Divisions in battle 1939-1945

Allan Converse

Cambridge University Press, 2011, 347pp, $59.95

Allan Converse has provided a valuable comparison between the 50th Division, a Territorial Army formation mobilised in 1939, and the 9th, put together in 1941 using brigades intended for other Second AIF divisions. One striking element in this story is that while the 50th had a long history, dating back to the First World War, the 9th had greater organisational stability after its rocky start.  The three brigades of the 9th stayed together, while various brigades joined and left the 50th, with organisational stability only really coming in 1944.

Converse considers that the 9th Division had better commanders than the 50th, rating Morshead more highly than any of the 50th’s GOCs, who included the armoured advocate Giffard Martel and a later (unsuccessful) corps commander, Ramsden. He also rates Wootten highly. The 50th’s best GOC, Douglas Graham, did not take command until early 1944. At the next levels down, the 50th had difficulties with artillery commanders, and a high turnover rate for infantry brigadiers and battalion COs. Commanders at those levels changed much more frequently in the 50th Division than the 9th, with adverse effects on performance.

Converse sees leadership, at all levels, as critically important to success. However, he demonstrates that while a good CO could bring success, poor leadership at lower levels reduced the performance of even well trained and experienced units. He emphasises the professional ethos of the citizen-soldier leaders in the 9th Division (their equivalents in the 50th were largely British regulars, most Territorial commanders having been removed early in the war). In contrast to the 9th Division, few officers were promoted to battalion command from within the 50th, with most COs coming from outside.

The standard of training was an important element in each division’s successes (and failures) across the war. While not always popular among veteran soldiers, Converse shows continuation training to have been a significant part of the process of integrating replacements into units, particularly once the system of regionally based units broke down in both divisions. This breakdown had adverse effects on the cohesion of units, but unit loyalty remained a potent force.

Tactical development, particularly in the use of combined arms firepower to ‘assist rather than substitute for infantry action’ contributed to the successes of both divisions. Converse considers that the 9th was ‘one of the most tactically sophisticated divisions in 8th Army’ by the time of Alamein. However, learning, adaptation and tactical improvement occurred in both divisions, despite the image of the British Army as ‘rigid and inflexible’.

Converse concludes that a formation with good leadership could succeed even if morale was less than perfect, but that high morale could not overcome ‘basic weaknesses in training, equipment and tactics’. As long as morale, even if not perfect, was ‘sufficient to withstand attrition’, success could be obtained by good leadership and tactics.

Converse, perhaps unknowingly, echoes Sir William Slim in concluding that wars are won not by a few elite units, but by the average performance of main force divisions. The 9th and 50th Divisions were both good main force divisions.

This book is well worth reading, however, the indexing is poor. As an example, the 150th Brigade (destroyed at Gazala in June 1942) was part of the 50th Division, yet it is omitted from the index. Also, a paragraph seems to have been dropped from the Conclusion. When discussing the bases of success for the 9th and 50th Divisions, first, second, fourth and fifth factors are mentioned, but not a third. A minor point, Warfe is spelled without the ‘h’ (p235).

JOHN DONOVAN