The Radical General

Britain’s great battlefield generals of World War II, like Montgomery and Slim, would have failed had not General Sir Ronald Adam been appointed Adjutant-General in 1941. As the army’s second most senior officer, he was responsible for providing the man- and womanpower for battle. He revolutionized recruitment practices and introduced scientific selection procedures to find the officers, NCOs, and technicians that a modern army needed. Adam also recognized that soldiers needed to believe in the cause they were fighting for. This too led to controversy when the soldiers began to debate political issues about post-war Britain. Did Adam’s espousal of such discussion groups lead to the Labor landslide in 1945? How did this career soldier of conventional background, when given the authority, come to tread on so many toes, kick so many shins, and break up so much of the War Office’s most revered items of mental and organizational furniture? This book reveals the true story of a Modern Major-General.