1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim Quotes

Field Marshal William Joseph Slim, 1st Viscount Slim, , usually known as Bill Slim, was a British military commander and the 13th Governor-General of Australia.

Slim saw active service in both the First and Second World Wars and was wounded in action three times. During the Second World War he led the Fourteenth Army, the so-called "forgotten army" in the Burma campaign. After the war he became the first British officer who had served in the Indian Army to be appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff. From 1953 to 1959 he was Governor-General of Australia.

In the early 1930s, Slim also wrote novels, short stories, and other publications under the pen name Anthony Mills. Wikipedia  

✵ 6. August 1891 – 14. December 1970
William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim photo
William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim: 6 quotes0 likes

Famous William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim Quotes

“Armies do not win wars by means of a few bodies of super-soldiers but by the average quality of their standard units. Anything, whatever short cuts to victory it may promise, which thus weakens the army spirit, is dangerous. Commanders who have used these special forces have found, as we did in Burma, that they have another grave disadvantage- they can be employed actively for only restricted periods. Then they demand to be taken out of the battle to recuperate, while normal formations are expected to have no such limitations to their employment. In Burma, the time spent in action with the enemy by special forces was only a fraction of that endured by the normal divisions, and it must be remembered that risk is danger multiplied by time.”

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

Source: Defeat Into Victory (1961), p. 456

“The more modern war becomes, the more essential appear the basic qualities that from the beginning of history have distinguished armies from the mobs. The first of these is discipline.”

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

Source: Defeat Into Victory (1961), p. 451

“The strength of the Japanese Army lay, not in its higher leadership which once its career of success had been checked became confused, nor in its special aptitude for jungle warfare, but in the spirit of the individual Japanese soldier. He fought and marched till he died. If five hundred Japanese were ordered to hold a position, we had to kill four hundred and ninety-five before it was ours- and then the last five had killed themselves. It was this combination of obedience and ferocity that made the Japanese Army, whatever its condition, so formidable, and which would make any army formidable. It would make a European army invincible.”

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

Source: Defeat Into Victory (1961), p. 447

“Generals who are terribly busy all day and half the night, who fuss round, posting platoons, and writing march tables, wear out not only their subordinates but themselves. Nor have they, when the real emergency comes, the reserve of vigor that will enable them, for days if necessary, to do with little rest or sleep.”

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

Source: Defeat Into Victory (1961), p. 184

“Private armies, and for that matter private air forces- are expensive, wasteful, and unnecessary.”

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

Source: Defeat Into Victory (1961), p. 457

“...any Japanese officer wishing to commit suicide would be given every facility.”

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

Source: Defeat Into Victory (1961), p. 442

Similar authors

Mikhail Gorbachev photo
Mikhail Gorbachev65
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union None
Francisco Franco photo
Francisco Franco14
Spanish general and dictator None
George S. Patton photo
George S. Patton77
United States Army general None
Jack Welch photo
Jack Welch27
American executive: General Electric CEO None
Golda Meir photo
Golda Meir38
former prime minister of Israel None
Erich von Manstein photo
Erich von Manstein8
German general None
Augusto Pinochet photo
Augusto Pinochet28
Former dictator of the republic of Chile None
Italo Calvino photo
Italo Calvino44
Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels None
Joseph Stalin photo
Joseph Stalin95
General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union None
Alice Munro photo
Alice Munro38
Canadian novelist None