Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander

British general
Also known as: Sir Harold Alexander, Viscount Alexander of Tunis
Quick Facts
Also called:
(1946–52) Viscount Alexander Of Tunis, or(1942–46) Sir Harold Alexander
Born:
Dec. 10, 1891, London
Died:
June 16, 1969, Slough, Buckinghamshire, Eng. (aged 77)
Title / Office:
earl (1952)

Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander (born Dec. 10, 1891, London—died June 16, 1969, Slough, Buckinghamshire, Eng.) was a prominent British field marshal in World War II noted for his North African campaigns against Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and for his later commands in Italy and western Europe.

The third son of the 4th Earl of Caledon, Alexander was educated at Harrow and the Royal Military College (Sandhurst) and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Irish Guards in 1911. He fought with distinction in World War I and led a brigade on the North-West Frontier Province, India. In World War II Alexander commanded the British 1st Corps at Dunkirk, where he helped direct the evacuation of 300,000 troops; he was the last man to leave the beaches. In Burma (February 1942) he successfully extricated British and Indian troops before the advancing Japanese.

In the summer of 1942 Alexander was made British commander in chief in the Mediterranean theatre, where he formed a highly successful duo with his chief field commander, General Bernard Montgomery. Together they reorganized British forces and drove the Germans back from Egypt and across North Africa until the surrender of the Germans in Tunis in May 1943. Alexander continued to drive the Germans from Sicily and southern Italy as commander of the Fifteenth Army Group (with Montgomery and the U.S. general George Patton as his field commanders), and in November 1944 he became commander in chief of all Allied forces in Italy. After the war he was named governor-general of Canada (1946–52); as a member of Winston Churchill’s Conservative government, he served as minister of defense (1952–54) until his retirement. He was knighted in 1942 and made Viscount Alexander of Tunis in 1946 and an earl in 1952.

Germany invades Poland, September 1, 1939, using 45 German divisions and aerial attack. By September 20, only Warsaw held out, but final surrender came on September 29.
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Quick Facts
Also called:
Second World War
Date:
September 3, 1939 - September 2, 1945
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World War II, conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939–45. The principal belligerents were the Axis powersGermany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies—France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China. The war was in many respects a continuation, after an uneasy 20-year hiatus, of the disputes left unsettled by World War I. The 40,000,000–50,000,000 deaths incurred in World War II make it the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in history.

Along with World War I, World War II was one of the great watersheds of 20th-century geopolitical history. It resulted in the extension of the Soviet Union’s power to nations of eastern Europe, enabled a communist movement to eventually achieve power in China, and marked the decisive shift of power in the world away from the states of western Europe and toward the United States and the Soviet Union.

(Read Sir John Keegan’s Britannica entry on the Normandy Invasion.)

Axis initiative and Allied reaction

The outbreak of war

By the early part of 1939 the German dictator Adolf Hitler had become determined to invade and occupy Poland. Poland, for its part, had guarantees of French and British military support should it be attacked by Germany. Hitler intended to invade Poland anyway, but first he had to neutralize the possibility that the Soviet Union would resist the invasion of its western neighbour. Secret negotiations led on August 23–24 to the signing of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact in Moscow. In a secret protocol of this pact, the Germans and the Soviets agreed that Poland should be divided between them, with the western third of the country going to Germany and the eastern two-thirds being taken over by the U.S.S.R.

Having achieved this cynical agreement, the other provisions of which stupefied Europe even without divulgence of the secret protocol, Hitler thought that Germany could attack Poland with no danger of Soviet or British intervention and gave orders for the invasion to start on August 26. News of the signing, on August 25, of a formal treaty of mutual assistance between Great Britain and Poland (to supersede a previous though temporary agreement) caused him to postpone the start of hostilities for a few days. He was still determined, however, to ignore the diplomatic efforts of the western powers to restrain him. Finally, at 12:40 pm on August 31, 1939, Hitler ordered hostilities against Poland to start at 4:45 the next morning. The invasion began as ordered. In response, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, at 11:00 am and at 5:00 pm, respectively. World War II had begun.

Germany invades Poland, September 1, 1939, using 45 German divisions and aerial attack. By September 20, only Warsaw held out, but final surrender came on September 29.
Britannica Quiz
Pop Quiz: 17 Things to Know About World War II