Editing Claude Auchinleck (section)

==Between the world wars==
Auchinleck attended the [[Staff College, Quetta]], between 1920 and 1921.<ref name=heath30/> As a lieutenant colonel, he outranked most of his fellow students and even some members of the staff. Despite performing well there – passing the course and being among the top ten students – he was critical of many aspects of the college, which he believed to be too theoretical and with little emphasis being placed on matters such as supply and administration, both of which he thought had been mishandled in the campaign in Mesopotamia.{{sfn|Doherty|2004|p=35}} He married Jessie Stewart in 1921. Jessie had been born in 1900 in [[Tacoma, Washington]], to Alexander Stewart, head of the [[Blue Funnel Line]] that plied the west coast of the United States. When he died about 1919, their mother took her, her twin brother Alan and her younger brother Hepburne back to Bun Rannoch, the family estate at Innerhadden in [[Perthshire]]. Holidaying at [[Grasse]] on the [[French Riviera]], Auchinleck, who was on leave from India at the time, met Jessie on the tennis courts. She was a high-spirited, blue-eyed beauty. Things moved quickly, and they were married within five months. Sixteen years younger than Auchinleck, Jessie became known as 'the little American girl' in India, but adapted readily to life there.<ref>{{cite journal| journal=[[The Spokesman-Review]]|title=Claude Auchinleck| date=8 July 1941| page=1}}</ref> They had no children.<ref>{{cite news|author=J. Y. Smith |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1981/03/25/sir-claude-auchinleck-96-dies/5f3e51c0-36ea-4dff-ad4c-234de623f0bf/?noredirect=on |title=Sir Claude Auchinleck, 96, Dies |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=25 March 1981|access-date=10 February 2019}}</ref>

Auchinleck became temporary deputy assistant quartermaster general at [[Army Headquarters, India|Army Headquarters]] in February 1923<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=32824|page=3531|date=18 May 1923}}</ref> and then second-in-command of his regiment, which in the 1923 reorganisation of the [[British Indian Army|Indian Army]] had become the [[1st Punjab Regiment]], in September 1925.<ref name=heath30/> He attended the [[Royal College of Defence Studies|Imperial Defence College]] in 1927 and, having been promoted to the permanent rank of lieutenant-colonel on 21 January 1929<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=33475| date=8 March 1929|page=1678}}</ref> he was appointed to command his regiment.<ref name=heath30/> Promoted to full [[colonel]] on 1 February 1930 with seniority from 15 November 1923,<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=33600| date=25 April 1930|page=2596}}</ref> he became an instructor at the Staff College, Quetta in February 1930<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=33604| date=9 May 1930|page=2870}}</ref> where he remained until April 1933.<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=33952| date=23 June 1933|page=4206}}</ref>

He was promoted to temporary [[brigadier]] on 1 July 1933<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=33976| date=8 September 1933|page=5864}}</ref> and given command of the [[Peshawar Brigade]], which was active in the pacification of the adjacent tribal areas during the Mohmand and Bajaur Operations between July and October 1933: during his period of command he was [[mentioned in despatches]].<ref name="MID1934"/> He led a second punitive expedition during the [[Second Mohmand Campaign]] in August 1935 for which he was again mentioned in despatches, promoted to [[Major-general (United Kingdom)|major-general]] on 30 November 1935<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=34239| date=3 January 1936|page=53}}</ref> and appointed a [[Companion of the Order of the Star of India]] on 8 May 1936.<ref name="CSI"/>

On leaving his brigade command in April 1936, Auchinleck was on the unemployed list (on half pay)<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=34275| date=17 April 1936|page=2490}}</ref> until September 1936 when he was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Director of Staff Duties in [[Delhi]].<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=34338| date=6 November 1936|page=7127}}</ref> He was then appointed to command the Meerut District in India in July 1938.<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=34536| date=29 July 1938|page=4884}}</ref> In 1938 Auchinleck was appointed to chair a committee to consider the modernisation, composition and re-equipment of the [[British Indian Army]]: the committee's recommendations formed the basis of the 1939 [[Ernle Chatfield, 1st Baron Chatfield|Chatfield Report]] which outlined the transformation of the Indian Army – it grew from 183,000 in 1939 to over 2,250,000 men by the end of the war.<ref>Mackenzie, pp. 1–3</ref>