William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

William Slim was a British Army officer who rose from modest origins to senior command in the Second World War. After service in the Middle East and India, he took command in Burma and eventually led the multinational Fourteenth Army through the campaigns that defeated Japanese forces and reconquered Burma.

Known for attention to logistics, morale and realistic operational planning, Slim became one of the most respected British commanders of the war. He later served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff and Governor-General of Australia and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Slim.

Max Hastings’ Nemesis places William Slim’s Fourteenth Army at the centre of Britain’s return from the defeats of 1942 to the reconquest of Burma, while setting that campaign beside the wider Allied war against Japan. John Masters’ The Road Past Mandalay supplies a soldier’s view from inside the same theatre: his service with Gurkhas and the Chindits records the jungle conditions, command problems and multinational warfare through which Slim’s Burma army had to operate.