WAVELL

Encouraged by his success in the north, Wavell then moved to cover his southern flank. When Italy had declared war the Duke of Aosta, Viceroy of Ethiopia (Abyssinia), had crossed into the Sudan with 110,000 troops and taken Kassala, then into Kenya to capture Moyale, and also into British Somaliland, seizing Berbera. 

Wavell had bided his time before responding, but in late January 1941 he sent two British Commonwealth forces totalling 70,000 men—mainly South Africans—to exercise a massive pincer movement utterly to rout Aosta. 

Lieutenant-General Sir Alan Cunningham occupied Addis Ababa on 4 April, having averaged 35 miles a day for over a thousand miles, taking 50,000 prisoners and gaining 360,000 square miles of territory at the cost of 135 men killed and four captured. The Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia returned to his capital on 5 May, five years to the day since it had fallen to the Italians. Aosta and his enormous but demoralized army surrendered on 17 May, leaving the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden open to Allied shipping once more. 

Meanwhile, in the north, very great victories greeted O’Connor, who saved the Suez Canal and drove the Italians back along the coast road to Benghazi. As the 6th Division forced Graziani into headlong retreat, O’Connor sent the 7th Division through the desert via Mechili to slice through the Cyrenaican bulge and cut off the Italians. At the battle of Beda Fomm on the Gulf of Sirte between 5 and 7 February 1941 the British Empire and Commonwealth won its first really significant land victory of the Second World War. 

In two months from 7 December 1940, the Western Desert Force had achieved successes that utterly belied Churchill’s statement quoted above; they had destroyed nine Italian divisions and part of a tenth, advanced 500 miles and captured 130,000 prisoners, 380 tanks and 1,290 guns, all at the cost of only 500 killed and 1,373 wounded. In the whole course of the campaign, Wavell never enjoyed a force larger than two divisions, only one of them armoured. It was the Austerlitz of Africa, and prompted his prep school to note in the Old Boys’ section of the Summer Fields magazine: ‘Wavell has done well in Africa.’

Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

BOOKS FOR BOYS

I hear from plenty of educators who say they’re reluctant to talk about the needs of boys for fear of being labeled reactionary. But more boys might develop a taste for reading if they encountered more of the kinds of books they’d like to read.

What If Boys Like the “Wrong” Kind of History?
Great Battles for Boys: a delightfully countercultural book series

Frederick Hess
July 8, 2024

An Amazon box was on the porch the other day. (I get sent a lot of books. It’s a cool perk.) I pulled out five colorful, oversized paperbacks. Great Battles for Boys: The Korean War. Great Battles for Boys: The American Revolution. Great Battles for Boys: WW2 in Europe. And two more. I found the titles delightfully countercultural. I mean, who writes about military strategy today? Who unabashedly markets stuff to boys? The books, all published between 2014 and 2022, are authored by history teacher Joe Giorello. They all run about 150 to 250 pages with straightforward text, anecdotes, pictures, maps, and suggestions for further reading.

Having never heard of the series, I was curious how these books were faring in the larger world. The answer? Very well. On Amazon, at the time of this writing, Giorello’s volume on WWII in Europe ranked #2 in “Children’s American History of 1900s.” His volume on the Civil War was #1 in “Children’s American Civil War Era History Books.” His book on the Revolutionary War was #1 in “Children’s American Revolution History.” There are thousands of enthusiastic, five-star reviews.

And yet, like I said, I’d never heard of Giorello. I couldn’t find a single mention of him when I searched School Library Journal, Education Week, the National Council for the Social Studies, or the National Council for History Education. As best I can tell, he’s self-published. The stories are interesting, but the narrative is pretty rote, with no gimmickry or multimedia pizzazz. It’s just workmanlike, accessible history. For instance, the chapter on “The Battle of Britain” in WW2 in Europe begins:

By June 1940, Germany had achieved a victory in Norway, but the win came at a steep cost. The battle had damaged or sunk over half of Germany’s warships.

This loss was crucial. Hitler desperately wanted to conquer Great Britain, but with half his fleet out of commission, the German navy was no match for the powerful British Royal Navy.

Hitler decided he would conquer Britain by air.

So, what’s going on? Why have these books been such a silent success? The most salient explanation may be the frank, unapologetic decision to offer books about “great battles for boys” in an era when that’s largely absent from classrooms. This may simply be the kind of history that a lot of boys are eager to read about. Of course, even penning that sentence can feel remarkably risqué nowadays, which may be a big part of the problem.

It got me thinking. My elementary-age kids have brought home or been assigned a number of children’s books on history. Most are focused intently on social and cultural history. I’ll be honest. Even as someone who’s always been an avid reader, I find a lot of that stuff pretty tedious. As a kid, I found books about the Battle of Midway or D-Day vastly more interesting than grim tales of teen angst, and I don’t think that makes me unusual. Moreover, it surprises no one (except the occasional ideologue) to learn that girls generally appear more interested in fiction than boys—or that boys tend to prefer reading about sports, war, comedy, and science fiction, while girls favor narratives about friendship, animals, and romance.

Today, when I peruse classroom libraries, recommended book lists, or stuff like the summer reading suggestions from the American Library Association, I don’t see much that seems calculated to appeal to boys.

One reason that boys read less than girls may be that we’re not introducing them to the kinds of books they may like. There was a time when schools really did devote too much time to generals and famous battles, but we’ve massively overcorrected. Indeed, I find that too many “diverse, inclusive” reading lists feature authors who may vary by race and gender but overwhelmingly tend to write introspective, therapeutic tales that read like an adaptation of an especially heavy-handed afterschool special.

Now, my point is not that kids should read this rather than that. Schools should be exposing all students to more fiction and nonfiction, with varied topics and themes. If that requires assigning more reading, well, good.

Then there are the well-meaning educators and advocates who approach book selection as an extension of social and emotional learning. Heck, while writing this column, I got an email promoting the nonprofit I Would Rather Be Reading, which uses “trauma responsive literacy support and social-emotional learning to help children.” I’m sure it’s a lovely organization, but I’d be shocked if any of the books in question feature stoic virtues or manly courage. After all, the therapy/SEL set has worked assiduously to define traditional masculinity as “toxic.” And all this can alienate kids who find the therapy-talk unduly precious or rife with adult pathologies.

I hear from plenty of educators who say they’re reluctant to talk about the needs of boys for fear of being labeled reactionary. But more boys might develop a taste for reading if they encountered more of the kinds of books they’d like to read. I’d take more seriously those who talk about inclusive reading lists if their passion extended to the well-being of those students bored by social justice-themed tracts and if they truly seemed more invested in turning every kid into an avid reader, which requires a diverse mix of books available—including those about “great battles for boys.”

Frederick Hess is an executive editor of Education Next and the author of the blog “Old School with Rick Hess.”

MICHAELA

 A Deeper Desire

Perhaps one of the most important things a leader does is help his or her people find courage. One extraordinary story of a leader doing that in a single moment of genius can be found in an incident that occurred during the French Revolution, in the critical Battle of Toulon. Toulon was a vitally important naval city which the French couldn’t afford to lose, but it had recently fallen to the allied forces determined to quash the Revolution. The revolutionaries were stretched thin, lacking experience and short of leadership. Their hopes of regaining the crucial city were looking slim, and the success of the whole Revolution was hanging in the balance.

Just when defeat looked unavoidable, a twenty-four year old artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte arrived on the scene. He could see that the only hope of regaining the port lay in establishing a point from which they could effectively bombard the allied ships. In order to do this, one particularly effective but dangerously exposed gun battery needed to be constantly manned. The problem, however, was that the battery’s exposed position meant that those who manned the post were all but certain to die doing so, and eventually it reached the stage where men were simply refusing to take the post, recognising it as the suicide mission that it was. Napoleon knew that the battle had reached a decisive moment, and everything temporarily hung on this crucial point.

He walked through the camp, considering what to do, when an idea struck him. He made a sign with a few words on it. He then attached it to the lethal battery position. After this, it never lacked a man, day or night; indeed, men were fighting over the chance to hold the post. The battle was won, and Napoleon’s name was established. The words he’d written stated simply, ‘The battery for men without fear.’ 

 Something greater than the possibility of an immediate victory had been placed before the men. Something more than the threat of a sanction for cowardice, or an immediate reward for compliance. Something deeper had been appealed to and awoken; the prospect of engaging in something requiring wholehearted, full-blooded courage. The men were ultimately thirsty for the opportunity to harness everything they had, and give it their all. People today are still looking for that kind of invitation: an invitation to give everything you have to something worth fighting for.

Being part of Michaela feels a bit like that.

Katherine Birbalsingh, Michaela: The Power of Culture (33-34). Hodder Education. Kindle Edition.