Andrew McNaughton

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Andrew McNaughton, around 1943

Andrew George Latta McNaughton PC , CH , CB , CMG , DSO , CD (born February 25, 1887 in Moosomin , Northwest Territories , † July 11, 1966 in Montebello , Québec ) was a Canadian general, chief of the Canadian general staff in the interwar period , Minister of War during World War II and later a diplomat.

Life

Youth and education

McNaughton was born in the prairie town of Moosomin, now in Saskatchewan , then Northwest Territories, to an Anglican family where his father ran a trading post. From the age of 13, Andrew attended Bishop's College School in Lennoxville , Québec and, from 1905, McGill University in Montreal , where he studied physics and electrical engineering. He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in 1910 and a Master of Science degree two years later with a specialization in hydroelectronics.

McNaughton then worked as a post graduate in high voltage transmission and published several research papers on the subject by 1914. In 1910 he had received an officer license in the Montreal Field Battery in the Non-Permanent Active Militia after he had already been a member of Bishop's Cadet Corps. In September 1914, in view of his impending relocation to Europe, he married.

First World War

When the Canadian Expeditionary Force was formed in September 1914, McNaughton was given the post of major in chief of his mobilized battery . His unit was shipped to England in autumn 1914 and was at the front in Flanders in spring 1915. He was severely wounded in the left arm in the Second Battle of Flanders and did not return to the front until October 1915. In the spring of 1916 he was in England command of the 11th Brigade, Canadian Forces Artillery , with which he took part in the final stages of the Battle of the Somme .

McNaughton's scientific education secured him a quick rise to high posts. In January 1917 he was appointed Counter-Battery Staff Officer of the Canadian Corps and took part in this capacity in the Spring Battle of Arras ( Vimy Ridge ), the Battle of Height 70 near Lens and the Third Battle of Flanders ( Passchendaele ). In 1918 missions followed in the battle of Amiens , the Siegfried Line and Valenciennes . Shortly before the armistice, McNaughton was appointed artillery commander of the Canadian Corps with the rank of brigadier-general .

Interwar period

In 1919 McNaughton was a member of the Otter Commission, which prepared the future structure of the armed forces. In 1920 he joined the regular army and was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff under James Howden MacBrien after completing the course at British Staff College in 1922 . In 1923 he developed an idea for shortwave direction finding using cathode ray tubes . This should be used in the development of the Canadian north. In 1927 he studied at the Imperial Defense College .

From 1929 to 1935 McNaughton served as Chief of the General Staff in succession to Herbert Cyril Thacker . Today's historians rate his achievements as chief of staff quite critically, since he was more concerned with scientific and global strategic problems than with military-political questions and the further development of the armed forces doctrine. He also had the face of budget cuts during the global economic crisis, asked the traditional weapons genres infantry and cavalry and armored force inferior to the artillery, engineer and signal corps. In 1931 he went so far as to question the necessity of the Royal Canadian Navy , since renouncing naval forces could save millions annually. In 1932, a McNaughton plan was authorized by Parliament to use the unemployed for public works, in anticipation of certain measures of the New Deal in the United States. Those employed in this way were used, among other things, for the construction of airfields for the Trans-Canada Air Lines project .

From 1935 to 1939, McNaughton was a member of the National Research Council of Canada .

Second World War

When Canada entered World War II, McNaughton was in favor of a volunteer army for overseas operations. This and his experience, as well as his well-known tactical approach to bring the enemy to their knees using heavy firepower, made him the ideal choice as commander of the expeditionary forces in the eyes of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King . In view of the great losses of the First World War, King hoped that this would minimize the human casualties that Canadian participation in the war would require.

McNaughton led the 1st Canadian Division to England in 1939 and commanded it during the Battle of France in 1940. From July 1940 he commanded the British VII Corps, to which the Canadian Division and the British 1st Armored Division and a New Zealand contingent were subordinate. In December 1940 a new Canadian Corps was set up from it after a second Canadian division had arrived in England. In April 1942 he took command of the First Canadian Army .

The relative inactivity of the Canadian forces in England made it seem imperative to McNaughton to make the 2nd Canadian Division available for Operation Jubilee . For this disastrously failed operation, which was led by Lord Louis Mountbatten , McNaughton was criticized somewhat wrongly, as he had no real influence on the course of the operation.

During the great military exercise Exercise Spartan in March 1943, McNaughton's unsuitability as the commander of a large formation was relentlessly exposed. As a result, his replacement as army commander was mainly operated by Alan Brooke . This did not take place until December 1943, when the final command structure for Operation Overlord was established. McNaughton had previously had to agree to the use of Canadian troops from his command in the Italian campaign . This came into conflict with Bernard Montgomery , who refused to agree to a visit from the front by McNaughton to the 1st Division. He was succeeded as commander of the First Canadian Army by Henry Crerar .

In November 1944, McNaughton was retired with the rank of general to take up the post of Secretary of Defense. This had become vacant after Prime Minister King dismissed incumbent James Ralston in the wake of the 1944 conscription crisis . As a result, McNaughton, contrary to his convictions, was forced to send conscripts overseas, albeit on a relatively small scale. He resigned in August 1945 after being in the general election had no seat in parliament to win. He had previously been defeated in a by-election in February 1945. King then dropped his intention to make McNaughton the country's first Canadian-born governor-general. Instead, the job went to Harold Alexander .

post war period

From September 1945, McNaughton sat before the Canadian section of the USA-Canada Permanent Joint Board on Defense . From April 1946 he represented his country in the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission and was chairman of the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada from September 1946 . At the beginning of 1948 he became the permanent representative of Canada to the United Nations and represented his country on the UN Security Council . From 1950 he was a member of the International Joint Commission and headed the Canadian section of the commission from 1950 to 1959.

In 1964, McNaughton was awarded the IEEE Founders Medal . His grandson Andrew Leslie was Chief of the Land Staff of the Canadian Armed Forces from 2006 to 2010 .

literature

  • JL Granatstein: The Weight of Command: Voices of Canada's Second World War Generals and Those Who Knew Them. UBC Press, 2016.
  • John Nelson Rickard, The Politics of Command: Lieutenant-General AGL McNaughton and the Canadian Army, 1939-1943. University of Toronto Press, 2010.
  • Andrew B. Godefroy (Ed.): Great War Commands. Historical Perspectives on Canadian Army Leadership 1914–1918 (PDF) , Canadian Defense Academy Press, 2010.
  • John Alexander Swettenham: McNaughton (3 vol.), Ryerson Press, Toronto 1968 ff.

Web links

Commons : Andrew McNaughton  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME McNaughton, Andrew
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McNaughton, Andrew George Latta (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian general
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Moosomin , Northwest Territories (now Saskatchewan )
DATE OF DEATH July 11, 1966
Place of death Montebello , Quebec