The Politics of Command:
Lieutenant-General A.G.L. McNaughton
and the Canadian Army, 1939–1943
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by John Nelson Rickard
University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2010
416 pp., illus., $46.95 hardcover
Senior British and Canadian officers charged that the charismatic A.G.L. McNaughton did not have the skills to command an army and was a poor trainer of men. Despite being the figurehead of Canada’s overseas army, he was fired in late 1943.
Historian John Rickard builds a strong case based on newly uncovered official and personal papers in order to understand McNaughton’s decisions within the context of the Second World War, and he is ultimately convincing in rehabilitating the general’s reputation. However, this is a book for specialists.
While Rickard leaves few stones unturned in the five years under his microscope — McNaughton’s senior commands that spanned the years 1939 to 1943 — he leaves entire fields unplowed. One is left wondering how Rickard would assess McNaughton’s pre-war career as a soldier and public servant, or his disastrous foray into politics in 1944 and 1945, or his very good work as a senior diplomat.
Nonetheless, this is an important study in that it deepens our understanding of McNaughton while revealing the sometimes-nasty relationship between senior British and Canadian generals.
— Tim Cook (Read bio)
Tim Cook is a member of the Order of Canada and the author of eight history books, including Fight to the Finish: Canadians and the Second World War.