Claude Auchinleck

Field Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck, GCB, GCIE, CSI, DSO, OBE (/ˌɒxɪnˈlɛk/ OKH-in-LEK; 21 June 1884 – 23 March 1981) was a British Indian Army commander who saw active service during the world wars. A career soldier who spent much of his military career in India, he rose to become commander-in-chief of the Indian Army by early 1941 during the Second World War. In July 1941 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Middle East Theatre, but after initial successes, the war in North Africa turned against the British-led forces under his command and he was relieved of the post in August 1942 during the North African campaign.

In June 1943, he was once again appointed Commander-in-Chief, India, where his support through the organisation of supply, maintenance and training for General William Slim's Fourteenth Army played an important role in its success. He served as commander-in-chief, India, until the Partition in 1947, when he assumed the role of supreme commander of all British forces in India and Pakistan until late 1948.

Born at 89 Victoria Road in Aldershot, Hampshire, the son of John Claud Alexander Auchinleck and Mary Eleanor (Eyre) Auchinleck. His father, a colonel in the Royal Horse Artillery of the British Army, was posted to Bangalore in British India, with his family accompanying him, while Claude was very young. It was from here that he developed a love for the country that would last for most of his life. Returning to England after the death of his father in 1892, Auchinleck attended Eagle House School at Crowthorne and then Wellington College on scholarships. From there he went on to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned as an unattached second lieutenant in the Indian Army on 21 January 1903, and joined the 62nd Punjabis in April 1904. He soon learned several Indian languages, and, able to speak fluently with his soldiers, he absorbed a knowledge of local dialects and customs: this familiarity engendered a lasting mutual respect, enhanced by his own personality.

He was promoted to lieutenant on 21 April 1905, and then spent the next two years in Tibet and Sikkim before moving to Benares in 1907 where he caught diphtheria. After briefly serving with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers at Aldershot he returned to Benares in 1909 and became adjutant of the 62nd Punjabis with promotion to captain on 21 January 1912. Auchinleck was an active freemason.

Auchinleck saw active service in the First World War and was deployed with his regiment to defend the Suez Canal: in February 1915 he was in action against the Turks at Ismailia. His regiment moved into Aden to counter the Turkish threat there in July 1915. The 6th Indian Division, of which the 62nd Punjabis were a part, was landed at Basra on 31 December 1915 for the Mesopotamian campaign. In July 1916 Auchinleck was promoted acting major and made second in command of his battalion. He took part in a series of fruitless attacks on the Turks at the Battle of Hanna in January 1916 and was one of the few British officers in his regiment to survive these actions.

He became acting commanding officer of his battalion in February 1917 and led his regiment at the Second Battle of Kut in February 1917 and the Fall of Baghdad in March 1917. Having been mentioned in despatches and having received the Distinguished Service Order in 1917 for his service in Mesopotamia, he was promoted to the substantive rank of major on 21 January 1918, to temporary lieutenant-colonel on 23 May 1919 and to brevet lieutenant-colonel on 15 November 1919 for his "distinguished service in Southern and Central Kurdistan" on the recommendation of the Commander-in-Chief of the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force.

Auchinleck attended the Staff College, Quetta, between 1920 and 1921. As a lieutenant colonel, he outranked most of his fellow students and even some members of the staff. Despite performing well there – passing the course and being among the top ten students – he was critical of many aspects of the college, which he believed to be too theoretical and with little emphasis being placed on matters such as supply and administration, both of which he thought had been mishandled in the campaign in Mesopotamia. He married Jessie Stewart in 1921. Jessie had been born in 1900 in Tacoma, Washington, to Alexander Stewart, head of the Blue Funnel Line that plied the west coast of the United States. When he died about 1919, their mother took her, her twin brother Alan and her younger brother Hepburne back to Bun Rannoch, the family estate at Innerhadden in Perthshire. Holidaying at Grasse on the French Riviera, Auchinleck, who was on leave from India at the time, met Jessie on the tennis courts. She was a high-spirited, blue-eyed beauty. Things moved quickly, and they were married within five months. Sixteen years younger than Auchinleck, Jessie became known as 'the little American girl' in India, but adapted readily to life there. They had no children.

Auchinleck became temporary deputy assistant quartermaster general at Army Headquarters in February 1923 and then second-in-command of his regiment, which in the 1923 reorganisation of the Indian Army had become the 1st Punjab Regiment, in September 1925. He attended the Imperial Defence College in 1927 and, having been promoted to the permanent rank of lieutenant-colonel on 21 January 1929 he was appointed to command his regiment. Promoted to full colonel on 1 February 1930 with seniority from 15 November 1923, he became an instructor at the Staff College, Quetta in February 1930 where he remained until April 1933.