The English general, statesman, and writer Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell (1883-1950), is best known for his devastating victories over the Italians in 1940 and 1941.

Archibald Percival Wavell, the son of Maj. Gen. Archibald Graham Wavell, was born on May 5, 1883, at Colchester. After spending 3 years in Summer Fields, the famous preparatory school at Oxford, he won a scholarship to Winchester and entered in 1896. As a student, he developed a well-disciplined and comprehensive intellectual ability. When he was 17 he passed on to Sandhurst; a year later he was commissioned into the Black Watch. In 1901 he was sent to South Africa, where he served as a subaltern in the later stages of the Boer War.

After the war Wavell continued his vigorous pursuit of a military career. In 1903 he went to India, where he remained for five years and served with distinction. Leaving there in 1908, he entered the staff college...