Palestine between Politics and Terror, 1945–1947

Epilogue

228 Epilogue On May 1, 1948, two weeks before he left Palestine, Cunningham turned sixty-one. Having retired from the army in October 1946, he now was about to retire from his brief service in the Colonial Office. The age at which he left the service was not unusual in comparison with the six high commissioners who preceded him in Palestine. With the exception of Herbert Samuel, who was fifty-five when he concluded his term as high commissioner and whose public career lasted many more years, the conclusion of the high commissioners’ respective periods in Palestine marked the end of their public service. Five of them, Cunningham included, arrived in Jerusalem when they were between fifty-six and fiftyeight years old. The exception was Herbert Plumer, who was sixty-eight. Two of them, who came from the Colonial Office (John Chancellor, who started out in the army but arrived in Jerusalem after a long career in the colonies, and Harold MacMichael), wanted to go on contributing after their tenure in Palestine but did not receive a meaningful appointment. The military men among the high commissioners—Plumer, Arthur Wauchope , and John Gort—retired immediately. All three, like Cunningham, had joined the Colonial Office for the sole purpose of serving in Palestine. Two of them (Plumer and Gort) retired with the rank of field marshal, which effectively ruled out an additional operational appointment. They died not long after their return from Palestine. From the point of view of their age and life experience, only Wauchope recalls Cunningham: Scottish, unmarried, a soldier from youth who received the rank of general during his tenure in Palestine in order to retire from the army while still there. Wauchope, too, had to cope with an insurgency —in his case, by the Arabs—which was broader and fiercer than the Jewish uprising during Cunningham’s period. He, too, was at loggerheads with the army over control in Palestine, both in principle and in practice. Wauchope’s tenure as high commissioner was almost three times as long as Cunningham’s (seven years versus two and a half). He was sixty-four when he left Palestine. His death, in September 1947, while Cunningham was on an extended visit to Britain, was a significant loss for the latter. The two had become very close during Cunningham’s tenure as high commis- 229 Epilogue sioner. Both were ardent proponents of partition. Whereas the support for the Yishuv by Samuel, a Jew and a Zionist, was to be expected (though amid disagreements with the Zionist leadership), this was not the case with Wauchope and Cunningham. Neither man was “prone” to a proZionist ­stance. In contrast to Wauchope, Cunningham was healthy when he retired; he did not rule out continued involvement in the affairs of the Colonial Office.1 However, no one offered General Sir Alan Gordon Cunningham another appointment in the empire. Indeed, such offers were becoming scarcer as the empire itself dwindled. What remained were colonies that wanted to detach themselves from Britain. The traits required for service in them were determination, energy, and a younger age. Cunningham was not appointed high commissioner of Malaya (afterward Malaysia) when that post suddenly became available in summer 1948. The appointment went to Sir Henry Gurney, who was the chief secretary of the Mandatory administration in Palestine from September 1946 until May 14, 1948. Gurney had displayed firmness and sangfroid in Jerusalem, and was more than ten years Cunningham’s junior. It is not clear whether Cunningham ’s name was put forward as a candidate for the Malaya post by anyone else or by himself. What is clear is that the fresh experience of Palestine was very much in demand at the time, particularly in locales of rampant violence, such as Malaya. Accompanying Gurney to Malaya as inspectorgeneral of the police force was William Gray, who had held the same post in Palestine. Gurney was assassinated in Malaya in October 1951 and was succeeded by General Sir Hugh Stockwell, who had been commander-inchief of the Sixth Airborne Division, Haifa and the North, until May 14, 1948. He served as military governor of Malaya from 1952 until 1954. Cunningham ’s experience found no takers.2 No life story can be neatly schematized. Alan Cunningham had a story of his own. Having spent his whole adult life in the army, even when he was stationed in the British Isles, followed by a brief stint in the colonial service, he was effectively homeless. In part...