Orde Wingate was a heck of a tactician and one of history’s truly original characters.
One of my favorite stories is about a woman he didn’t marry. He was engaged for several years to a woman in England, and then, as he was returning from the Middle East with the intention of marrying her, he met a teenage girl on the ship and quickly married *her* instead. His original fiancee remained unmarried, and eventually became a close friend of some of Wingate’s siblings.
When she was asked, in her old age, why she hadn’t married, she said, “After knowing Wingate, every other man was just too boring.”
Bump for Wingate.
‘Fiery Scotsman’? Wingate was born in India and grew up in England. I know his father was Scottish, but saying that Wingate was Scottish because of this is like saying that Winston Churchill was American because one of his parents was...