- Pronouns
- he/him
Commander-in-Chief Combined Allied Forces Command, Western Europe
October 1939 - March 1940: Edmund Ironside (UK) [1]
March 1940 - August 1940: Maurice Gamelin (France) [2]
August 1940 - January 1941: Victor, Baron van Strydonck de Burkel (Belgium) [3]
January 1941 - June 1941: Maxime Weygand (France) [4]
June 1941 - July 1941: Bernard Montgomery† (UK) [5]
July 1941 - December 1941: Jan Smuts (South Africa)
December 1941 - May 1942:
May 1942 - May 1943:
May 1943 - October 1943:
October 1943 - November 1943:
November 1943 - November 1944:
November 1944 - April 1945:
[1] Desperate to learn the lessons of the last war, France and Britain agreed to forgo separate higher command groups for the Second War in the West and created Combined Allied Forces Command (CAFCOM) for troops of all allied nations serving in France under its jurisdiction. It's first C-in-C was British general Edmund Ironside. Initially sceptical of his new command, Ironside knew that he would be better use to the war effort in France than as Chief of the Imperial General Staff in London. Both London and Paris saw him as an acceptable candidate for the job for his work with the Poles in the run up to war: Ironside was also keen to add limits to his own office, laying down the precedent that a C-in-C of CAFCOM should only spend 6 months in the job, unless circumstances allowed an extension or early removal. As the Phoney War stretched on however, Ironside lamented the resolve on French commanders to prepare for total war, and he consequently began sacking French generals he deemed to 'lack the stuff'. Besides this, Ironside's main contribution to the Allied war effort was the creation of the Allied Armoured Reserve, a concentrated force of British and French tank units meant to counter the German panzer divisions. When his 6 months were up, Prime Minster Chamberlain sent Ironside to the Middle East Command, to keep him out of the way.
[2] A Frenchman had to be Commander CAFCOM to placate Paris after all the sackings Ironside had done. Gamelin was viewed as a powerhouse of a general and acceptable to all, and began preparing to meet the Germans in Belgium - he also wanted to meet them in the Netherlands, at Breda, but his staff generals argued it down. When Germany attacked in May, they crashed against a powerful Allied force. Unfortunately, the Germans had planned a 'sickle cut' through the Ardennes and pushed through into France until the Allied Armoured Reserve could grind them to a halt, and the Netherlands fell. As the ground offensive stalemated, heavy Luftwaffe bombing began across French soil (though most of Paris was deliberately spared) from out of Dutch bases, and Gamelin was frustrated that the air part of the battle was mostly out of his hands; he threw ad-hoc Allied Kommando units of British, French, and Free Dutch & Norwegian soldiers across the border to prick these airbases. By August, the Germans were scaling back their efforts and it was safe to replace Gamelin.
There is ferocious debate about Gamelin's plans and the compromises made. A prevailing theory is that if the 'Breda variant' had been carried out, at least part of the Netherlands could have been saved and the Blitz of France, with its thousands of lost lives, prevented.
[3] Primarily a political appointment to shore up Belgium's will to resist, Baron van Strydonck de Burkel surprised Allied Command with his grasp of logistics and leadership abilities. His successful defence of Liege had done much to stiffen Belgian resolve and been enough to persuade the French and British that he would be a solid commander regardless of the political considerations.
This trust was put to the test in November 1940 when a large German force advanced on Bastogne. The Allies were caught flat-footed, successful Germany espionage had convinced the French (ignoring Strydonck de Burkels intuition) the attack would be towards Metz and Nancy. Instead Belgian defenders were left to face the Blitzkrieg alone.
What followed was one of the finest moments on Belgian military history as their outnumbered and out-gunned forces held off assault after assault. Burkel had been wise enough to retain some forces from the defence of Metz and used his reserves to grind the Germans to a halt, allowing time for the French and British to redeploy and throw the Germans back across the border.
The Belgians were acclaimed for their tenacity and fighting spirit, indeed Prime Minister Eden praised them in the House as "fiercer than Spartans". Strydonck de Burkel was lauded for his foresight and preparation and while the rest of his term was quiet he had inflicted a severe blown upon the Reich, throwing the initiative firmly back to the allies. The alliance itself was no longer a duopoly, Belgium had decisively allowed itself to be considered one of the "Big Three".
[4] Another respected figure from WW1 and other battles beside, Weygand had been the initial head of Middle East Command. When he took command of CAFCOM, Burkel had seen Germany fall back from French soil, the Blitz was dying out, and most of Belgium was saved - Europe was now a static front, and attention shifted to other theatres, including (as Italy had been cajoled into joining the war by lies of an easy storm to Egypt) by the dynamic Middle Eastern theatre. Weyygand proved an unpopular leader, complaining he was being "wasted" and being openly critical of the generals at MEC. After several months, he pitched Operation Croix: a 'Blitz' style attack on occupied Belgium, to throw the Germans out the same way they'd entered.
This was approved and led to ten days of grinding slaughter, as Weygand had overestimated how integrated his forces were and how accurate Allied bomber planes were. After initial gains, the Allied forces had to retreat back over the Axis lines. While the Germans were badly mauled too and it was, in all honesty, a no-score draw, they could at least claim victory. Weygand finished the rest of his term in seething silence, while the 'Big Three' looked elsewhere for a general who might be able to lead an offensive plan...
[5] Initially hoped to be the exact offensive general that the Allies were looking for, 'Monty' had been Eden's poster boy and the French liked for his record in 1940, where his division had held the pivot for the French to counterattack into the Ardennes, though some of them didn't appreciate his questioning the sexual health of French women. Eden had him personally transferred to the Middle East, where Ironside wielded him like a hammer against the Italians, leading the Commonwealth forces advance into Libya as far as Benghazi before Germany lit the Balkans tinder box.
Feeling the time was right for another big offensive while the Germans were tied down in Yugoslavia and Greece and Weygand was on the way out, Monty was given CAFCOM, however it wasn't to last. While engaging in an inspection of newly arrived Canadian units, a flight of Stukas came over head. Trying to take personal direction of the Canadian's anti-air guns, Monty was caught in an explosion and tore up by shrapnel which killed him. Eden gave a personal address to the Commons lamenting his general 'who had fought to the last'. Consequently, morale among the Canadians shrank and Belgian, Free Dutch and Norwegian units soon referred to them as jinxed. Disheartened by the tragedy, Command fell to Monty's deputy.
[6] Jan Smuts had resigned the Prime Minister's office in early 1941 to act as the unofficial coordinator of the Dominion armies. By 1941, relations between Britain and her colonies leadership were breaking down under the strain of what appeared to be a repeat of the terrible attrition of the Great War. In Quebec, in Melbourne and in Johannesburg questions were openly being asked about whether another generation of young men would be expected to leap into a meatgrinder in Flanders come the 1960s. The overall command structure was being increasingly threatened by the demands for Imperial troops to have a voice in the decisions being made by Britain and France; finally Churchill tried to get ahead of the problem by appointing Smuts as the de facto Dominion representative- which, given his closeness to Winston, satisfied the colonies not one bit.
Smuts was an intelligent man and knew that his appointment would be short-lived. He made the decision to spend the summer of 1941 on dispensing with the clunky, ad hoc command structure that had so far characterised the Allied war effort. He encouraged the integration of the continental militaries into a single structure, eroding Belgian military independence in exchange for the over representation of their officers on staff commands throughout the entire theatre. He enjoyed far less success with his own Imperial peers- Canada and Australia in particular refused to sacrifice any autonomy for the proposed Imperial Staff, and when the Nehru-Jinnah Commission demanded Indian representation it became clear that this was now a political and diplomatic crisis more than a military one. Jan Smuts resigned in December 1941, to take up command of the thrust into Salazar's colonies.
October 1939 - March 1940: Edmund Ironside (UK) [1]
March 1940 - August 1940: Maurice Gamelin (France) [2]
August 1940 - January 1941: Victor, Baron van Strydonck de Burkel (Belgium) [3]
January 1941 - June 1941: Maxime Weygand (France) [4]
June 1941 - July 1941: Bernard Montgomery† (UK) [5]
July 1941 - December 1941: Jan Smuts (South Africa)
December 1941 - May 1942:
May 1942 - May 1943:
May 1943 - October 1943:
October 1943 - November 1943:
November 1943 - November 1944:
November 1944 - April 1945:
[1] Desperate to learn the lessons of the last war, France and Britain agreed to forgo separate higher command groups for the Second War in the West and created Combined Allied Forces Command (CAFCOM) for troops of all allied nations serving in France under its jurisdiction. It's first C-in-C was British general Edmund Ironside. Initially sceptical of his new command, Ironside knew that he would be better use to the war effort in France than as Chief of the Imperial General Staff in London. Both London and Paris saw him as an acceptable candidate for the job for his work with the Poles in the run up to war: Ironside was also keen to add limits to his own office, laying down the precedent that a C-in-C of CAFCOM should only spend 6 months in the job, unless circumstances allowed an extension or early removal. As the Phoney War stretched on however, Ironside lamented the resolve on French commanders to prepare for total war, and he consequently began sacking French generals he deemed to 'lack the stuff'. Besides this, Ironside's main contribution to the Allied war effort was the creation of the Allied Armoured Reserve, a concentrated force of British and French tank units meant to counter the German panzer divisions. When his 6 months were up, Prime Minster Chamberlain sent Ironside to the Middle East Command, to keep him out of the way.
[2] A Frenchman had to be Commander CAFCOM to placate Paris after all the sackings Ironside had done. Gamelin was viewed as a powerhouse of a general and acceptable to all, and began preparing to meet the Germans in Belgium - he also wanted to meet them in the Netherlands, at Breda, but his staff generals argued it down. When Germany attacked in May, they crashed against a powerful Allied force. Unfortunately, the Germans had planned a 'sickle cut' through the Ardennes and pushed through into France until the Allied Armoured Reserve could grind them to a halt, and the Netherlands fell. As the ground offensive stalemated, heavy Luftwaffe bombing began across French soil (though most of Paris was deliberately spared) from out of Dutch bases, and Gamelin was frustrated that the air part of the battle was mostly out of his hands; he threw ad-hoc Allied Kommando units of British, French, and Free Dutch & Norwegian soldiers across the border to prick these airbases. By August, the Germans were scaling back their efforts and it was safe to replace Gamelin.
There is ferocious debate about Gamelin's plans and the compromises made. A prevailing theory is that if the 'Breda variant' had been carried out, at least part of the Netherlands could have been saved and the Blitz of France, with its thousands of lost lives, prevented.
[3] Primarily a political appointment to shore up Belgium's will to resist, Baron van Strydonck de Burkel surprised Allied Command with his grasp of logistics and leadership abilities. His successful defence of Liege had done much to stiffen Belgian resolve and been enough to persuade the French and British that he would be a solid commander regardless of the political considerations.
This trust was put to the test in November 1940 when a large German force advanced on Bastogne. The Allies were caught flat-footed, successful Germany espionage had convinced the French (ignoring Strydonck de Burkels intuition) the attack would be towards Metz and Nancy. Instead Belgian defenders were left to face the Blitzkrieg alone.
What followed was one of the finest moments on Belgian military history as their outnumbered and out-gunned forces held off assault after assault. Burkel had been wise enough to retain some forces from the defence of Metz and used his reserves to grind the Germans to a halt, allowing time for the French and British to redeploy and throw the Germans back across the border.
The Belgians were acclaimed for their tenacity and fighting spirit, indeed Prime Minister Eden praised them in the House as "fiercer than Spartans". Strydonck de Burkel was lauded for his foresight and preparation and while the rest of his term was quiet he had inflicted a severe blown upon the Reich, throwing the initiative firmly back to the allies. The alliance itself was no longer a duopoly, Belgium had decisively allowed itself to be considered one of the "Big Three".
[4] Another respected figure from WW1 and other battles beside, Weygand had been the initial head of Middle East Command. When he took command of CAFCOM, Burkel had seen Germany fall back from French soil, the Blitz was dying out, and most of Belgium was saved - Europe was now a static front, and attention shifted to other theatres, including (as Italy had been cajoled into joining the war by lies of an easy storm to Egypt) by the dynamic Middle Eastern theatre. Weyygand proved an unpopular leader, complaining he was being "wasted" and being openly critical of the generals at MEC. After several months, he pitched Operation Croix: a 'Blitz' style attack on occupied Belgium, to throw the Germans out the same way they'd entered.
This was approved and led to ten days of grinding slaughter, as Weygand had overestimated how integrated his forces were and how accurate Allied bomber planes were. After initial gains, the Allied forces had to retreat back over the Axis lines. While the Germans were badly mauled too and it was, in all honesty, a no-score draw, they could at least claim victory. Weygand finished the rest of his term in seething silence, while the 'Big Three' looked elsewhere for a general who might be able to lead an offensive plan...
[5] Initially hoped to be the exact offensive general that the Allies were looking for, 'Monty' had been Eden's poster boy and the French liked for his record in 1940, where his division had held the pivot for the French to counterattack into the Ardennes, though some of them didn't appreciate his questioning the sexual health of French women. Eden had him personally transferred to the Middle East, where Ironside wielded him like a hammer against the Italians, leading the Commonwealth forces advance into Libya as far as Benghazi before Germany lit the Balkans tinder box.
Feeling the time was right for another big offensive while the Germans were tied down in Yugoslavia and Greece and Weygand was on the way out, Monty was given CAFCOM, however it wasn't to last. While engaging in an inspection of newly arrived Canadian units, a flight of Stukas came over head. Trying to take personal direction of the Canadian's anti-air guns, Monty was caught in an explosion and tore up by shrapnel which killed him. Eden gave a personal address to the Commons lamenting his general 'who had fought to the last'. Consequently, morale among the Canadians shrank and Belgian, Free Dutch and Norwegian units soon referred to them as jinxed. Disheartened by the tragedy, Command fell to Monty's deputy.
[6] Jan Smuts had resigned the Prime Minister's office in early 1941 to act as the unofficial coordinator of the Dominion armies. By 1941, relations between Britain and her colonies leadership were breaking down under the strain of what appeared to be a repeat of the terrible attrition of the Great War. In Quebec, in Melbourne and in Johannesburg questions were openly being asked about whether another generation of young men would be expected to leap into a meatgrinder in Flanders come the 1960s. The overall command structure was being increasingly threatened by the demands for Imperial troops to have a voice in the decisions being made by Britain and France; finally Churchill tried to get ahead of the problem by appointing Smuts as the de facto Dominion representative- which, given his closeness to Winston, satisfied the colonies not one bit.
Smuts was an intelligent man and knew that his appointment would be short-lived. He made the decision to spend the summer of 1941 on dispensing with the clunky, ad hoc command structure that had so far characterised the Allied war effort. He encouraged the integration of the continental militaries into a single structure, eroding Belgian military independence in exchange for the over representation of their officers on staff commands throughout the entire theatre. He enjoyed far less success with his own Imperial peers- Canada and Australia in particular refused to sacrifice any autonomy for the proposed Imperial Staff, and when the Nehru-Jinnah Commission demanded Indian representation it became clear that this was now a political and diplomatic crisis more than a military one. Jan Smuts resigned in December 1941, to take up command of the thrust into Salazar's colonies.