The Grand Alliance
Winston Churchill
This is the third in Churchill’s series of which I purchased the original publication of the whole set for fourteen dollars at a used book store in New York City. In this book the reader becomes intimately acquainted with the British experience of WWII during the period between the collapse of France and the alliance with the United States. As Churchill would say, this is the time when we would go it alone. What first catches the readers eye as impressive is how Churchill communicated and held consensus with his people, cabinet, the ministers, the War Council, the Prime Ministers of the British Empire, the Viceroys of India, Israel, Singapore, and Egypt., The Generals of the Home Army, the field Generals of The Mediterranean, North Africa,, India, the Heads of State in the conquered countries, The Heads of State of the free World, and saved time for private dialogue with Franklin Roosevelt, his King majesty, and then saved more time for his wife. I have read books that take a critical attack or a lesser passing swipe at Churchill and can only conclude that they were selfish authors for an audience and mad ( to sound British)at the same time.
I think the real plot of this tale of 1941 – 42 was found with the falling dominoes of Europe. Churchill, though try as he may, could not muster enough to stop Hitler’s advance. It give birth to the Domino Theory of the 1950’s. The book details the strategy of Churchill, and glosses over Hitler’s. You are left with the impression that the German Warmacht (war machine) was the prime strategy. It was indeed a Clawsitezian strategy that worked until the machine of his foe out produced him. So one is puzzled as to why Hitler turned to Russia without first consolidating his gains.
Churchill endeavors to make a case, modest though it may be, that it was his strategy of continuous annoyance in the Mediterranean and in North Africa that simply mesmerized Hitler with British valor and chivalry in the face of certain defeat. Meanwhile was it Hitler’s thinking leave him at bay while he looked East to defeat a people he had nothing but hatred toward? Hitler hated Stalin and was impressed with Churchill. He literally felt that by defeating Russia, Churchill would come to his senses and sue for armistice.
The question becomes was it strategy or failed strategy that prevailed? In the end we now see that it was Churchill that prevailed, but not because of Churchill’s strategy of maneuver but his strategy to hold on long enough for the United States to join in the fight. The strategy that failed was Hitler’s sense of an invincible warmacht that in reality failed him. And likely it was the strategy of the Gods as in winter that really prevailed. The reader eventually becomes aware that Hitler’s failure to formulate a sound alliance with Japan was as much a tribute to failed strategy as was the strategy to keep pressing his warmacht against Russia’s winter. So failure in Stalingrad and Moscow combined with Pearl Harbor brought a formidable opponent for Hitler to deal with. Hitler did not conceive the notion that even though the United States were attacked by Japan the Grand Alliance would hatch the strategy of Germany first. This strategy was first in the mind of Churchill and then through a deep private exchange of letters that found fertile soil in the mind of Roosevelt.
When looking at where a Head of State should have best spent his time, the reader learns that it first belongs to his own people and then international politics. Here is where Churchill excelled. He first built a Home Army and at every step incorporated Captains of industry to run the supply chain to a war machine. Production and supply chain management was that of civilian energy leaving war strategy to the benefiting Generals. In the international front, Churchill first looked to the appropriate Heads of State in each of his dominions. Second, during this time frame he looked to Roosevelt, and finally he spent time with the rest of the world. There became a time where the world was accusing Britain of roping them in to their fight. Then contrast this to Hitler who dictated to first his army through official orders, then his people through the lecture and press, and then the world through his warmacht. It was a battle for the world where Hitler lost it all and Churchill’s world empire saw the dawn of a new world order.
Britain is now an island country as opposed to a country who’s “fertile crescent” ran up the east coast of Africa, spanned the Middle East and then ran back down the Asian contenant to include India, ending up in Australasia. Against the world order pre WWII, contrast the belligerents and bring Japan and Italy in to the fold. Imagine Germany spanning from the English Channel, through the Middle East to Korea. Imagine Japan spanning the South Asia. Would India have been spared? Imagine Italy owning all of Africa. Should the United States have joined that axis, the western hemisphere would be her natural land grab. This was Rudolph Hess’s dream described in its own chapter.
Churchill brings in a chapter of the Rudolph Hess intrigue that leaves the reader with food for thought. How would Hitler’s Germany have handled today’s Muslim problem? Imagine the post two WWII juggernauts of industry owning three quarters of the worlds resources. How would they have dictated world culture? Certainly English would not be the world’s international business language. Certainly capitalistic democracies would not exist. There would be no USSR, China, France, or Britain. (all major votes in the United Nations) Would strict conformity to two basic leaders have brought on a world peace that is today still a dream? Would the United States have been rendered in Splendid Isolation in her western hemisphere? Free from the obligation of the world’s policeman. Free to continue is pursuit of capitalistic democracy, un-encumbered with the pressures of European socialism. Would an isolated Western Hemisphere leaped ahead of a war torn world that would not receive the recovery assistance they received? I only pose these scenarios as a prelude to the question especially to those who make sport of criticizing Churchill: Is Churchill the man or the goat of humanity’s twentieth century? I welcome your answer.
Churchill catch phrases:
• Nemesis personifies “the Goddess of Retribution"' who brings down all immoderate good fortune, checks the presumption that attends it... And is the punisher of extraordinary crimes.
• In somber wars of modern democracy chivalry finds no place. Dull butcheries on a gigantic scale and mass effects overwhelm all detached sentiment.
Below is a bibliography. Notes that influenced my reaction to the book. Integrated with the notes are specific reactions of mine that may be worth reading.
Page 5... We felt free to send over seas all troops... To wage
offensive war in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Here was the
hinge on which our ultimate victory turned.
Page 17.... General Smuts to Prime Minister; The question is whether
Germany can afford to set the Balkans ablaze with Russia in
incalculable factor and Turkey hostile. The Italian defeat in Africa
and Greece, together with the failure of the Gamma Air Force against
Britain, have profoundly changed the position, and German
concentrations may only be intended to pacify the Italians, and to
lure British forces away from Britain, where the main attack has to be
made.
Page 19 Prime Minister to General Wavel. Nothing must hamper
capture of Tobruk, bit there after all operations in Libya are
subordinated to aiding Greece up to he limits prescribed.
Page 21 Prime Minister to General Smuts. Weather, maintains, Danube
crossing, fortified Greek-Bulgarian frontier, all helpful factors.
Turkey, Yugoslavia, Russia, all perhaps favorably influenced by
Evidences of British support of Greece.
Whatever happens in the Balkans, Italian army in Abyssinia probably
destroyable. If this should come off, everything useful from Kenya
should go forward to Mediterranean.
Page 30...if Hitler had been able, with hardly a fight, to bring
Greece to her knees and the whole of the Balkans into his system and
the force Turkey to allow the passage of his armies to the south and
east, might he not have made terms with the Soviets upon the conquest
and partition if these vast regions and postpone his ultimate
inevitable quarrel with them to a late part of his program? Or as
is more likely, would he not have been able to attack Russia in great
strength at am earlier date? The main question which the ensuing
chapters will probe and expose is whether His Majesty's Government by
their action influenced in a decisive or even in an appreciable manner,
Hitler’s movements in Southeast Europe and moreover whether that action
did not produce consequences first upon the behavior of Russia and
next upon her fortunes.
Page 32... The Reich Government believed that this action (troop
movement in the Balkans) was serving Soviet interest as well, which
would be opposed to England's gaining a foothold in these regions.
Page 42. His [Hitler's] optimistic time-table assumed that the Soviets
like the French, would be overthrown in a six-week campaign and that
all German forces would then be free for the final overthrow of
Britain in the autumn of 1941. Meanwhile the obstinate nation was to
be worn down first by the combination of the U-boat blockade sustained
by long range air, and secondly, by air attacks upon her cities and
especially the ports. For the German army "Sea Lion" was replaced by
"Barbarossa". The German Navy was instructed to concentrate on our
Atlantic traffic and the German Air Force on our harbors and their
approaches. This was far a more deadly plan than indiscriminate
bombing of London and the civil population, and it was fortunate
forbid that it was not pursued with all available forces and greater
persistence.
The conquest of Italy in Africa exposed the strategic consequence of
Britain's effort. The reader of 2010 is made aware of the mapping of
world power in the final days of the colonial period that in my
opinion only ended with Vietnam. The chapter was described as a
perquisite though not main thrust at either Italy or Germany. The
prime strategic advantage was the control of the Eastern
Mediterranean. Learning of the collapse of Italy's aspirations of a
larger Roman Empire was added largely as Churchillean historic drama.
My comment: In the chapter on Greece the reader realizes the immediate benefit of the conquest of Italy in Africa and also realizes that this victory was a mere pittance of strategic advantage against a larger and more mature German war machine. The strategy of England and Germany is revealed from a Churchill view. While Churchill clearly knew what England could bring to the table was too little too late, he very much realized the diplomacy required to sway Turkey and Yugoslavia to stand with the allies. Reading this chapter on the heels of the Rudolph Hess chapter this reader at least romanticized the consequence of Hess's view. That being a main land Germany/Europe, an Italian/Rome in north Africa and the English Empire from South Africa up the east coast of that continents, across the Middle East, through India and ending in Austral-Asia with Canada as a kicker. One has to wonder first why Churchill wouldn't have given that serious consideration and more-so why Hitler pursued Soviet Russia as opposed to the Balkans. Clearly the Balkans and Hess's dreams were obtainable. Imagine Germany owning all the oil. It becomes clear that the personalities of both Hitler and Churchill weighed in on the fate of the whole world and millions of lives.
While the above is an impression left on the reader, Churchill makes it very clear the importance of international diplomacy to engage a vacillating Greece, Greece did nit want British help as it was too little too late. Yet Greece needed her help for fear of certainty against a German war machine building in Bulgaria. In the end the English engagement struck the right diplomatic chord but the reader is led to believe that Eastern Europe fate was forestalled only through Hitler's turn northeast to Russia where history tells the rest.
Page 121: again this reader finds evidence of a questionable German
character:
Meanwhile the Hipper [German] had fallen upon a homeward-bound Sierra
Leone convoy near the Azores which had not yet been joined by an
escort. In a savage attack lasting an hour she destroyed seven out of
nineteen ships, making no attempt to rescue survivors, and regained
Brest two days later.
My Comment: One could argue that Hipper left the rescue to the remaining convoy and here may lay German stay of conviction. In my view against the plethora of German atrocity this question is worth probing. One could begin with examining German orders, German SOP, and looking at German code of conduct with the rest of the tonnage they sent to the bottom of the sea.
Page 184: in a minutes document from Ribbentrop to Japan’s Matsuoka
on 27 March 1941 disposition the status of Germany's war, he
concludes:
If, then, we summed up the military situation in Europe we should come
to the conclusion that in the military sphere the Axis was completely
master of Continental Europe. A huge army, practically idle, was at
Germany's command, and could be employed at any time and at any place
the Fuhrer considered necessary.
My comment: Why Russia? Here is the probing with evidence presented by Churchill. There was only a modest resistance in Greece. The victory in Africa was minor and a turn for Germany would throw England back out. Spain could be had by Germany even over reluctance from Franco.
Why did Hitler not work with Japan to first consolidate his position and then second have a formidable alley in Japan to take on his despised Russians from the east while he would consolidated power from the west? This would have knocked out England for sure, without drawing in the United States. I have read elsewhere of Hitler’s deep regard for the English. Was it Hitler's regard that caused refrain
from the finishing blows to England? Or did Hitler despise Bolshevism and Russian Jews so much as to make such a critical strategic mistake? Did the personal views of one man bring the Third Reich to it's knees fir never to be a Forth Reich.
Page 188: [said Matsuoka]. The ideological struggle in Japan was
extremely bitter, but those who were fighting for the restoration of
old ideals were convinced they would finally win. The Anglo-Saxons
represented the greatest hindrance to the establishment of the New
Order. He had to Stalin that after the collapse of the British
Empire the differences between Japan and Russia would be eliminated.
The Anglo-Saxons were the common foe of Japan, Germany, and Soviet
Russia. After some reflection Stalin had stated that Soviet Russia
had never got along with Great Britain and never would.
My comment: if the natural allies were as such, imagine the world
powers today if Hitler had not turned on Russia and Japan had not
attacked Pearl Harbor. Neither of those two strategic made military
sense let alone international sense of power.
Page 200: [Churchill of General Rommel]. In somber wars of modern
democracy chivalry finds no place. Dull butcheries on a gigantic scale
and mass effects overwhelm all detached sentiment. Still, I do not
regret or retract the tribute I paid to Rommel, un fashionable though
it was judged.
My comment: when the reader comes to appreciate the time frame of
decisions being the first six months of 1941, the questions of
Hitler's decision on Russia became influenced by his megalomaniac
illusions of world power. Hitler already had in mind enough power to
easily sweep in through Churchill's back door in North Africa, of
which he did anyway [Tobruk]. This made Greece and the Balkans look easy and afforded the march on Moscow. None the less this was a lot of fast moving
world strategic decisions for any one man. Churchill makes mention of
this and pays tribute to the machine that fed him the information.
Tribute aside the amount of information and decisions made are/were
daunting, while being bombed nightly.
Page 229: of the decision to fight on in Greece Churchill’s position;
I am most reluctant to quit, and if the troops were British only and
the matter decided on military grounds alone, I would urge Wilson to
fight if he thought possible. Anyhow before we commit ourselves to
evacuation the case must be put squarely to the Dinions after
tomorrow's Cabinet. Of course, I do not know the conditions in which
our retreating forces will reach the new key position
My comment: contrast page 229 with the leadership methods of Hitler.
One of deference to Generals in conjunction with consensus of the
Cabinet as opposed to a pure dictator.
Page 233: from April 21 until the end of the evacuation twenty-six
ships were lost by air attack. Twenty-one of these were Greek and
included five hospital ships.
My comment: did German dive bomber pilots know they were bombing
defenseless hospital ships? Of everything I have read to date, I
suspect they knew and indiscriminately bombed away.
Page 265: on a successful Iraq campaign; The Germans, of course, at
a their disposal an airborne force which could have given them at
thus time. Syria, Iraq, and Persia, with their precious oil fields.
Hitler's hand might have reached out very far towards India, and
beyond to Japan. He had chosen, however, as we shall soon see, to
employ and expand his prime air organism in another direction
[Russia]. We often hear military experts inculcate the doctrine of
giving priority to the decisive theater [Clawswitz]. There is a lot
to this. But in war this principal, like all others, is governed by
facts and circumstance, otherwise strategy would be too easy. It
would become a drill book and not an art; it would depend upon rules
and not on an instructed and fortunate judgment of an ever changing
scene. Hitler certainly cast away the opportunity of taking a great
prize for little cost in the Middle East. We in Britain, although
pressed to the extreme, managed with scanty forces to save ourselves
from far reaching or lasting injury.
My comment: this agrees with and at the same time challenges the
American policy of Clawswitz that prevailed in the decision for
Normandy as opposed the Lubjana Gap strategy in Yugoslavia. I
could argue that either location would have been the main thrust of
the war. But who I really see is the prime strategic player was
always Hitler of which all others countered.
Page 301: they [British refugee soldiers] and the Greek soldiers were
succored by the villagers and country folk, who were mercilessly
punished whenever detected. Barbarous reprisals were made upon
innocent or valiant peasants, who were shot by the twenties and
thirties. It was for this reason that I proposed to the Supreme War
Council three years later, in 1944, that local crimes should be
locally judged, and accused persons sent back for trial on the spot.
The principal was accepted, and some outstanding debts were paid.
My comment: Would Germany, winners or losers as they were, have initiated
the same justice? I have come across no evidence that would support
an affirmative answer.
Page 311: [Bismarck's fatal decision ]. She had the choice of
returning home victorious [after sinking the Hood, to repair her
severe oil leak as well], with all the options of further enterprises
open, or going to almost certain destruction. Only the extreme
exaltation of her Admiral or imperious orders by which he was bound
can explain the desperate action which he took.
Page 319: It was the cruiser Dorestshier that delivered the final
blow [to the Bismark] with torpedoes, and at 10:40 the great ship
turned over and foundered. With her perished nearly two thousand
Germans and their Fleet Commander, Admiral Lutjens. One hundred and
ten survivors, exhausted but sullen, were rescued by us. The work of
Mercy was interrupted by the appearance of a U-boat and the British
ships were compelled to withdraw.
My comment: The British had enough ships to sink the U-boat and rescue
the survivors. But they deferred to the humanity of the survivors as a
priority. The difference between Germans and the English.
Page 352: Nemesis personifies “the Goddess of Retribution"' who
brings down all immoderate good fortune, checks the presumption that
attends it... And is the punisher of extraordinary crimes
My comment: of the finest yet obscure Churchillian phrases to mark down and make reference to in moments of vengeance and revenge.
Page 369: [in choosing the lesser of two evils on the eve of
Germany's invasion of the USSR] ... 'I have only one purpose, the
destruction of Hitler, and my life is much simplified thereby. If
Hitler invaded Hell I make at least favorable reference to the Devil
in the House of Commons.'
My comment: a classic Churchill quote though not so well known
My comment: as I read on into Book 3 of this Volume, I'll be looking for the first vestiges of the Domino Theory of Kennen circa 1950s. Was it apparent in Churchill's mind long before Keenen and US international policy.
Page 431 on Sunday morning August 10, Mr Roosevelt came aboard the HMS
Prince of Wales and, with his Staff officers and several hundred
representatives of all ranks of the United States Navy and Marines,
attended Divine Service on the quarterdeck. This service was felt by
us to be a deeply moving expression of the unity in faith if our two
peoples, and none who tool part in it will forget the spectacle
presented that sunlit morning on the crowded quarterdeck - the
symbolism of the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes side by side.,,,
My comment: You often hear the cliché claim that religion starts wars. This passage exemplifies my rebottle to such comment. Here you find that religion did not start any war but rather it was a common unity found in religion that helped two peoples endure a war. If this were today’s Britain’ Brown and our Obama, would such a ceremony occur?
Page 440:[on positioning with Japan, in the first meeting of Churchill
and Roosevelt of the coast of Newfoundland]. At the end if the Note
which the President will hand to the Japanese Ambassador when he
returns from his cruise in about a week's time he will add the
following passage, which was taken from my draft: "Any further
encroachment by Japan in Southwest Pacific would produce a situation
in which the United States Government would be compelled to take
counter measures, even those might lead to war between the United
Statea and Japan."
My comment: Here you find Churchill manipulating Roosevelt? Was that
Note passed on? Was that Note an invitation to Pearl Harbor? Were we,
Imperialist of the Philippines, accomplices with Great Britain,
Imperialists of Singapore, [claimed in the previous chapter to be more
vital to England that Egypt] in a threat to impede Japan's Imperial
aspirations?
Imagine a world map where Imperial Germany extended across the Middle
East to include all of India and half way across Russia., to meet up
with Imperial Japan, who 40 years earlier was at war with Russia and
now the conquerors of China. Then Italy would own all of Africa. The
Western Hemisphere would today be working as partners with Japan,
Italy, and Germany. The Middle East would be their problem.
Communism and the Cold War with all is ancilary wars including Korea
and Vietnam would have never happened. Russia, China, and England
would NOT be in existance let alone sitting at the top five security
table. How different would our problems be today? Would the be the
same only with different names?
Page 459: [Prime Minister to Monsieur Stalin 4 Sept 41]
We are ready to make joint plans with you now. Whether British
armies will be strong enough to invade the mainland of Europe during
1942 must depend on un foreseeable events. It may be possible however
to assist you in the extreme North when there is more darkness. We
are willing to raise our armies in the Middle East to a strength of
three- quarters of a million before the end of the present year, and
there after to a million by the summer if 1942. Once the German-
Italian forces in Libya have been destroyed, all these forces will be
available to come into line on your southern flank....,
My comment: history shows Stalin requesting a second front to
distract and dilute the German effort on Russia. A year later the
Americans pushed a second for Clawzwitizian reasons. Why a flanking
maneuver from the south after the Allied win back Africa and defeated
Italy was not pursued is yet to be sorted out in this readers mind.
Churchill's vision of 1941 was over run by his Allied partners. We
merely armed The USSR to first survive and then to consolidate her
victory in the counter attack to rule Eastern Europe for 50 years.
Churchill who fought alone for two years found his vision and strategy
stymied by two powers that would build nuclear muddled that would fly
over Churchill’s empire that is reduced to an island country. This was
the humble reward for the man that saved the world firm Hitler.
Page 480: it was clear from their message of August 6 1941 that the
Persians would not meet our wishes regarding the expulsion of German
agents and residents from their country, and that we would have to
resort to force. The next stage was to coordinate our plans,
diplomatic and military with those of the Russians
My comment: this represents why I say that our troubles with Iran
first start with the British. Iranians do not trust the British
because if their oil agenda openly discussed in this chapter of the
book. They equally don’t trust the Russian because of their conquest
aspirations. The prefer the United States yet our association with
Britain over the years has tainted their appreciation for our culture.
Page 583: in 1936 Japan had concluded with Germany the Anti-
Comintern Pact, which was originally negotiated by The Japanese War
Ministry, with Rippentrop representing the Nazi Party behind the backs
of both the then Foreign Ministers. This was not yet an alliance, buy
it provided the basis for one. In the spring of 1939 the Army
Ministers in the Cabinet, headed by Baron Hiranuma, tried to conclude
a full military alliance with Germany. He failed owing to the
opposition of the Navy Minister, Admiral Yonai. In August, 1939,
Japan not only engaged in the war with China which had begun in July,
1937, but was also involved in localized hostilities with Russia about
the boundary between the newly created State if Manchukuo and Outer
Magnolia. Alondra and behind this smoldering front large armies
lay. When, on the eve of European War, Germany made her Non-
Aggression Pact with Russia without consulting or informing Japan, her
Anti-Comintern partner, the Japanese felt with reason that they had
been ill-used. Their dispute with Russia fell into the background,
and Japanese resentment against Germany was strong. British support
and sympathy for China had estranged us from our former ally [Japan]
and during the first few months of the European war our relations with
Japan were already by no means friendly. There us however in Japan
little or no enthusiasm for Germany.
My comment: and there you have a explanation why Japan remained
fundamentally isolated from all World Powers in her quest to become
The World Power
Page 586: the drastic application of economic sanctions in July 1941,
brought to a head the internal crisis I. Japanese
Embargo imposed by Britain, United States, and Holland
Page 628: 5 Jan 42 [Eden to Churchill from Moscow]
...At my first conversation with M. Stalin and M. Molotov on December
16 M. Stalin set out in some detail what he considered should be post
war territorial frontiers in Europe and in particular his ideas of the
treatment of Germany. He proposed the restoration of Austria as an
independent state and the detachment of the Rhineland from Prussia as
an independent state or a protectorate, and possibly the constitution
of an independent State of Bravaria. He also proposed that East
Prussia should be transferred to Poland and the Sudetenland Land
returned to Czechoslovakia. He suggested that Yugoslavia should be
restored, and even receive certain additional territories from Italy;
and that Turkey should receive the Dodeanese, with possible
adjustments in favor of Greece as regards islands in the Aegean
important to Greece. Turkey might also receive certain districts in
Bulgaria, and possibly also in Northern Syria. In general the
occupied including Czechoslovakia and Greece, should be stored to
their pre-war frontiers, and M. Stalin was prepared to support any
special arrangements for securing bases for the United Kingdom in
Western European countries....As regards to the Soviet Union, M Stalin
desired the restoration of the position in 1941, prior to the German
attack in respect to the Baltic States, Finland, and Bessarabia. The
Curzon Line should firm the basis for furrier Soviet-Polish frontier.
My comment: Here you find clear argument in the political
perspective that A dominant powerful USSR would take any land she
could get. And while she was weak willing to make enormous
concessions. Thus our American insistence on a Normandy invasion over
Churchill's Lubjana Gap invasion in Yugoslavia allowed Russia to be
come powerful in Eastern Europe during WWII setting the stage for a
fifty-year Cold War
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Our Finest Hour
Our Finest Hour
By Winston Churchill
This book is a second in a series of five and spans the historical moment of a man who wrote his own history. As a continuation of the first book The Gathering Storm, Churchill begins with the grave World situation at the very moment he took the office of England’s Prime Minister. After 12 years of arm waving and foot stomping about the German build up, England and the World gave Winston Churchill the opportunity once denied him at the close of The Great War. It was at this time in history that Churchill formed a government under his leadership. With Churchill’s accounting of the job he undertook, the reader of this series gets to learn the merit of diplomacy and war and the intrigue of how they work hand in hand.
In the opening Churchill continues to criticize the French. This continues throughout, with the exception of de Gaulle. In the first book it was the governments inability to recognize a threat and do anything about it. This book opens with two chapters of narrative on how poorly prepared and organized the French army was. They were poorly prepared in terms of capability at all levels. Churchill is most critical of the leadership of the French Army and the Vichy government. And today the French arrogance continues, even though there exists museums that document the betrayal of the Vichy government we allow it…I am guessing or hoping it is because of their wine, women, food, and appreciation for the good life.
While the French government and her Army were politely criticized at many important junctures leading up to and during their quick fall to Germany the reader would be inclined to have a feeling of empathy towards the French people. After all it is cliché to say “it’s the government not the people”. But in this book is where the reader gets to the story describing events in the face of German army being three days from Paris, and an Italian declaration of war on France, the French people were found moving country carts and lories on an airfield to prevent British bombers from launching an attack on Milan and Tourin; one begins to wonder about “things French”.
Contemplating this in the wake of the excessive war reparation France imposed on Germany after WWI compels one to think even twice about things French. It is nice to believe that the world could be peaceful, but if world history were studied in the Science Colleges or vice-versa there would be a higher level of rational thought dedicated to applying lessons learned? Perhaps a step in that direction would be for our Universities to do a better job providing our youth with an appreciation of all the other aspects beyond their specific majors of our interrelated world. I’d recommend a curriculum entitled “Putting It All Together, Personally, Professionally, & Socially”. I know the reader might hand me Poly Si curriculum but then only 2% of those who needs to learn this actually do…and the rest of the 98% call the Poly Si majors and/or Law grads (Lawyers) crooks. Beware of the broth cooked in a black kettle or which kettle is black.
To punctuate the French fall with French request for Britain to agree to a French surrender, which was agreed they would never do three months earlier, exposes the fortitude of the French culture once again. This in conjunction with the French request to Roosevelt for help and Roosevelt’s refusal pressed by American people in the face of very apparent eminent domination of the world by an evil axis of power, reminds me of how dangerously French-like we are here in America. To punctuate this with an exclamation point, reading this fresh off of Churchill’s Gathering Storm, America cannot continue making alliances involving military protection as the French did to all of Europe and then falling short at the first or any sign of difficulty. In war there are no predictable outcomes. Making an alliance means exactly what Churchill wrote to France’s leadership at the time when Reynuad asked for relief of the French commitment to fighting Germany… in short he said NO. Churchill’s book includes the three-paragraph letter, which makes it an honorable and respectful no. I hope this passage of diplomacy in itself compels this reader to read Churchill.
Without the benefit of reading this book, my generation of Americans does not appreciate Churchill’s deeds to the same degree as one experiencing the same in first person. While the book is fraught with communiqué to an from key participants in history the following passage strikes at the heart of Churchill’s profound leadership. As The Battle of France closed Churchill wrote the following to his people and published it to the world. As I know it is unlikely for my readers to read the book…I provide this excerpt.
"""However matters may go in France or with the French Government or another French Governments, we in this island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the French people…If final victory rewards our toils they shall share the gins-aye, and freedom shall be restored to all. We abate nothing of our just demands; not one jot or tittle do we receed… Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians, have joined their causes with our own. All these shall be restored.
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our British life, and long the continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say, “ This was their finest hour”.""""
What I find most honorable is that these words were written by a man who had experienced years of French capitulation on commitment to common cause. He saw it immediately preceding this with French reneging on the Pols and Czecs. And most dramatically while the Battle of France was actually happening a large contingent of the French Government Ministers were taking action to surrender to the Germans as they would prefer to be subservient to a German regime as opposed to being a Anglo/French Union. What the reader also learns in this book it that while Churchill held a place in the future for the French, so did Herr Hitler, as was stated and documented in the dialogue minutes between Molitov and Rippentrop in the meeting preceding the Tripartite Act. What I find interesting and at the same time amusing is that while Molitov and Hitler were meeting relative to their interests in the “Pact”, Churchill sniffed out the meeting and bombed the city indiscriminately. He did this to show Stalin that England is indeed a lethal threat.
Mixed in with the above notes in history are the events, among many, of Dakar where it became imperative to defend the West African Coast so that England could sail around the Cape and the Atlantic Ocean would be safe for shipping to and from the Americas. In preparation to land in Dakar, under fire from French War Ships, Churchill made the importance of this painfully clear to Roosevelt, and the book describes the tribulation Churchill observed in Roosevelt in how to “sell” American involvement to a French (head in the sand) thinking American public. The reader is once again and not purposefully, I believe, drawn to question things French.
An intriguing strategy at the fall of France was Churchill’s immediate decision to swiftly capture or destroy the French Fleet. This was done the day after France signed an armistice with Germany. The reader becomes aware of the Naval consequence of world dominance by the Axis Powers of Germany, Japan, and Italy. As Britain drew her fleet home, the Pacific lay now free for Japan to roam. And Japan did just that. To those with wild conspiracy theories against Roosevelt, I say bunk. What occurred whether there existed details of Roosevelt folly prior to Pearl Harbor is immaterial to our national security derived from our “head in the sand” mentality as an American people with French traits. I fear those traits exist still today. I say this as I reflect on these words of Churchill that represent his mind set as he wrote those famous “Finest Hour” words to the world:
"""During our first four years of the last war the Allies experienced nothing but disaster and disappointment…We repeatedly asked ourselves the question “ How are we going to win? And no one was ever able to answer it with much precision, until at the end, quite suddenly, quite unexpectedly, our terrible vision collapsed before us, and we were so glutted with victory that in our folly we threw it away."""
Of Things French “ because I think a certain way, so must the world” my quote and critique of the French. This book and Churchill’s first book The Gathering Storm indirectly leads one to draw this conclusion. In my opinion the French lifestyle could be convincing. However history tells a darker story that would lead one to look at the other side of a coin to guarantee its authenticity.
Things American contrasted by things Roosevelt in the face of an American public opinion in 1940 that matched that of the French of the 1930’s you read in the letters from “Former Navel Person to President Roosevelt” (Churchill when he was Prime Minister) the influential hand in guiding Roosevelt to the eventual pearls becoming eminent upon the United States. While I can be critical of Roosevelt’s handling of the economy, I can be grateful for his attention to the words of Churchill. In this book those letters are made public and in my opinion should be mandatory history lessons to our American people, if for no other reason but to ward off the head in the sand mentality to looming international dangers. Also made apparent were the anxieties of Churchill, as he had to decipher the American newspapers to get a feel for American support towards the cause for freedom. Roosevelt’s deal on 50 destroyers and some of the details, from Churchill’s perspective of the precedent setting move of a Lend Lease Act are included in this book. While Churchill was a guiding light, Roosevelt did have to find a way to wake up his people and he did. Although December 7 is a day of infamy, much credit must be given to leaders who were prepared to respond accordingly.
Things magnanimously Churchill: among many was his un wavering allegiance to the French people, despite the Vichy government’s betrayal to not only her Continental allies but to England as they gazed upon the opportunities of subservience to Germany. In spite of this was his memorial statement to Chamberlain, a person of whom he was very critical of in the handling of the looming German threat in the 1930’s. When I read the passage I marked the pages for documentation in my closing. And now having finished the book I close with the statement as I strongly feel that we must continue to use history as written by the participants to mold our children as our future leaders and therefore guide our destiny.
“""At the lychgate we may all pass our own conduct and our own judgment under a marching review. It is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events. In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then again a few years later, when the perspective of time as lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all of this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield. Because we are often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the Fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour”
“Whatever else history may or not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating acts in which we are now engaged…”""
Can we learn two things from this piece of history? First can we learn to be undaunted in the travails of a war of any kind? Second, can we do a better job in managing the peace? I think the answer in those questions lay largely in the character of the British as since then America has struggled to match those qualities. And to be more specific, perhaps the qualities are not generally British but specifically Churchill.
Simple notes of corollary conversation to today:
Here at the beginning of the German invasion of France is an interesting bit of information gleaned from Churchill’s accounting of the British retreat from Belgium. This combined with more yet separate collection of history makes for not just interesting, but ironic turns of events. There are more to come. The Germans leaving the British to have to fight their way to Dunkirk for an escape by the sea encircled the essential Generals of the British army. The German Panzer tank supremacy could have stopped this if it were not for direct orders from Hitler to not risk the tanks in the honeycombed cannel geography of Belgium. I read an earlier book called What If. Hitler was a Private in WWI and was part of a defeated division in that exact place. “What If” described an event where Hitler almost lost his life..What IF he did. Well not losing his life, lead Hitler to make a blunder that allowed the British command to escape, regroup and though much had to occur it was these same Generals that led the liberation of Europe five years later where Hitler took his own life anyway.
Page 322 Churchill gave orders to shoot down German Red Cross aircraft. This was in the face of the cry from German doctors that called a violation of the Geneva Convention. Churchill boldly said bunk to a country that violated every treaty it signed with other nations. Both the World and England accepted and praised Churchill’s actions. There were no indictments or criminal investigations. Churchill closed this section sighting that England rather picked up the airmen from the “shot down aircraft” in fishing boats and then the Germans blew up the fishing boats.-
Page 364 I found it interesting that Churchill had an open sense of retaliation towards German in a tit-for-tat war. HE equally endorsed the indiscriminate bombing of German cities. The strategy was the same...to demoralize the German citizens. In today’s Terrorist War, we experience an agenda by the terrorist to sway public opinion and vote (Jimmy Carter, Spain) and it worked both times. However somewhere in war history and the Geneva Convention as interpreted by today’s far fetched anti war mongrels, we must raise above the character of the enemy as though we are running a police action as opposed to a war. If President Bush made his war message more clear in 2001, there would have been a lot more support for all the domino action that followed and will continue. He did say the War on Terror will be long, protracted, and with a hard to identify enemy. He only said it once.
In the development of Operation Compass a plan to take the offensive in Egypt, I found it interesting that the Generals who developed the plan did so in secret, even from Churchill. They did so to maintain a high level of surprise on Mussolini and Hitler. When Churchill found out about it in due course, he was pleased and approved it into action. I contrast it with today’s far fetched left news “investigative journalist” who are prone to site some concoction of our laws to indict the plotters; all in a frenzy to fulfill the political agenda of their respective agencies. In 1940, this level of secret operative planning led to freedom. In 2006, the treasonous exposure is leading to the demise of our way of life.
By Winston Churchill
This book is a second in a series of five and spans the historical moment of a man who wrote his own history. As a continuation of the first book The Gathering Storm, Churchill begins with the grave World situation at the very moment he took the office of England’s Prime Minister. After 12 years of arm waving and foot stomping about the German build up, England and the World gave Winston Churchill the opportunity once denied him at the close of The Great War. It was at this time in history that Churchill formed a government under his leadership. With Churchill’s accounting of the job he undertook, the reader of this series gets to learn the merit of diplomacy and war and the intrigue of how they work hand in hand.
In the opening Churchill continues to criticize the French. This continues throughout, with the exception of de Gaulle. In the first book it was the governments inability to recognize a threat and do anything about it. This book opens with two chapters of narrative on how poorly prepared and organized the French army was. They were poorly prepared in terms of capability at all levels. Churchill is most critical of the leadership of the French Army and the Vichy government. And today the French arrogance continues, even though there exists museums that document the betrayal of the Vichy government we allow it…I am guessing or hoping it is because of their wine, women, food, and appreciation for the good life.
While the French government and her Army were politely criticized at many important junctures leading up to and during their quick fall to Germany the reader would be inclined to have a feeling of empathy towards the French people. After all it is cliché to say “it’s the government not the people”. But in this book is where the reader gets to the story describing events in the face of German army being three days from Paris, and an Italian declaration of war on France, the French people were found moving country carts and lories on an airfield to prevent British bombers from launching an attack on Milan and Tourin; one begins to wonder about “things French”.
Contemplating this in the wake of the excessive war reparation France imposed on Germany after WWI compels one to think even twice about things French. It is nice to believe that the world could be peaceful, but if world history were studied in the Science Colleges or vice-versa there would be a higher level of rational thought dedicated to applying lessons learned? Perhaps a step in that direction would be for our Universities to do a better job providing our youth with an appreciation of all the other aspects beyond their specific majors of our interrelated world. I’d recommend a curriculum entitled “Putting It All Together, Personally, Professionally, & Socially”. I know the reader might hand me Poly Si curriculum but then only 2% of those who needs to learn this actually do…and the rest of the 98% call the Poly Si majors and/or Law grads (Lawyers) crooks. Beware of the broth cooked in a black kettle or which kettle is black.
To punctuate the French fall with French request for Britain to agree to a French surrender, which was agreed they would never do three months earlier, exposes the fortitude of the French culture once again. This in conjunction with the French request to Roosevelt for help and Roosevelt’s refusal pressed by American people in the face of very apparent eminent domination of the world by an evil axis of power, reminds me of how dangerously French-like we are here in America. To punctuate this with an exclamation point, reading this fresh off of Churchill’s Gathering Storm, America cannot continue making alliances involving military protection as the French did to all of Europe and then falling short at the first or any sign of difficulty. In war there are no predictable outcomes. Making an alliance means exactly what Churchill wrote to France’s leadership at the time when Reynuad asked for relief of the French commitment to fighting Germany… in short he said NO. Churchill’s book includes the three-paragraph letter, which makes it an honorable and respectful no. I hope this passage of diplomacy in itself compels this reader to read Churchill.
Without the benefit of reading this book, my generation of Americans does not appreciate Churchill’s deeds to the same degree as one experiencing the same in first person. While the book is fraught with communiqué to an from key participants in history the following passage strikes at the heart of Churchill’s profound leadership. As The Battle of France closed Churchill wrote the following to his people and published it to the world. As I know it is unlikely for my readers to read the book…I provide this excerpt.
"""However matters may go in France or with the French Government or another French Governments, we in this island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the French people…If final victory rewards our toils they shall share the gins-aye, and freedom shall be restored to all. We abate nothing of our just demands; not one jot or tittle do we receed… Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians, have joined their causes with our own. All these shall be restored.
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our British life, and long the continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say, “ This was their finest hour”.""""
What I find most honorable is that these words were written by a man who had experienced years of French capitulation on commitment to common cause. He saw it immediately preceding this with French reneging on the Pols and Czecs. And most dramatically while the Battle of France was actually happening a large contingent of the French Government Ministers were taking action to surrender to the Germans as they would prefer to be subservient to a German regime as opposed to being a Anglo/French Union. What the reader also learns in this book it that while Churchill held a place in the future for the French, so did Herr Hitler, as was stated and documented in the dialogue minutes between Molitov and Rippentrop in the meeting preceding the Tripartite Act. What I find interesting and at the same time amusing is that while Molitov and Hitler were meeting relative to their interests in the “Pact”, Churchill sniffed out the meeting and bombed the city indiscriminately. He did this to show Stalin that England is indeed a lethal threat.
Mixed in with the above notes in history are the events, among many, of Dakar where it became imperative to defend the West African Coast so that England could sail around the Cape and the Atlantic Ocean would be safe for shipping to and from the Americas. In preparation to land in Dakar, under fire from French War Ships, Churchill made the importance of this painfully clear to Roosevelt, and the book describes the tribulation Churchill observed in Roosevelt in how to “sell” American involvement to a French (head in the sand) thinking American public. The reader is once again and not purposefully, I believe, drawn to question things French.
An intriguing strategy at the fall of France was Churchill’s immediate decision to swiftly capture or destroy the French Fleet. This was done the day after France signed an armistice with Germany. The reader becomes aware of the Naval consequence of world dominance by the Axis Powers of Germany, Japan, and Italy. As Britain drew her fleet home, the Pacific lay now free for Japan to roam. And Japan did just that. To those with wild conspiracy theories against Roosevelt, I say bunk. What occurred whether there existed details of Roosevelt folly prior to Pearl Harbor is immaterial to our national security derived from our “head in the sand” mentality as an American people with French traits. I fear those traits exist still today. I say this as I reflect on these words of Churchill that represent his mind set as he wrote those famous “Finest Hour” words to the world:
"""During our first four years of the last war the Allies experienced nothing but disaster and disappointment…We repeatedly asked ourselves the question “ How are we going to win? And no one was ever able to answer it with much precision, until at the end, quite suddenly, quite unexpectedly, our terrible vision collapsed before us, and we were so glutted with victory that in our folly we threw it away."""
Of Things French “ because I think a certain way, so must the world” my quote and critique of the French. This book and Churchill’s first book The Gathering Storm indirectly leads one to draw this conclusion. In my opinion the French lifestyle could be convincing. However history tells a darker story that would lead one to look at the other side of a coin to guarantee its authenticity.
Things American contrasted by things Roosevelt in the face of an American public opinion in 1940 that matched that of the French of the 1930’s you read in the letters from “Former Navel Person to President Roosevelt” (Churchill when he was Prime Minister) the influential hand in guiding Roosevelt to the eventual pearls becoming eminent upon the United States. While I can be critical of Roosevelt’s handling of the economy, I can be grateful for his attention to the words of Churchill. In this book those letters are made public and in my opinion should be mandatory history lessons to our American people, if for no other reason but to ward off the head in the sand mentality to looming international dangers. Also made apparent were the anxieties of Churchill, as he had to decipher the American newspapers to get a feel for American support towards the cause for freedom. Roosevelt’s deal on 50 destroyers and some of the details, from Churchill’s perspective of the precedent setting move of a Lend Lease Act are included in this book. While Churchill was a guiding light, Roosevelt did have to find a way to wake up his people and he did. Although December 7 is a day of infamy, much credit must be given to leaders who were prepared to respond accordingly.
Things magnanimously Churchill: among many was his un wavering allegiance to the French people, despite the Vichy government’s betrayal to not only her Continental allies but to England as they gazed upon the opportunities of subservience to Germany. In spite of this was his memorial statement to Chamberlain, a person of whom he was very critical of in the handling of the looming German threat in the 1930’s. When I read the passage I marked the pages for documentation in my closing. And now having finished the book I close with the statement as I strongly feel that we must continue to use history as written by the participants to mold our children as our future leaders and therefore guide our destiny.
“""At the lychgate we may all pass our own conduct and our own judgment under a marching review. It is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events. In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then again a few years later, when the perspective of time as lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all of this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield. Because we are often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the Fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour”
“Whatever else history may or not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating acts in which we are now engaged…”""
Can we learn two things from this piece of history? First can we learn to be undaunted in the travails of a war of any kind? Second, can we do a better job in managing the peace? I think the answer in those questions lay largely in the character of the British as since then America has struggled to match those qualities. And to be more specific, perhaps the qualities are not generally British but specifically Churchill.
Simple notes of corollary conversation to today:
Here at the beginning of the German invasion of France is an interesting bit of information gleaned from Churchill’s accounting of the British retreat from Belgium. This combined with more yet separate collection of history makes for not just interesting, but ironic turns of events. There are more to come. The Germans leaving the British to have to fight their way to Dunkirk for an escape by the sea encircled the essential Generals of the British army. The German Panzer tank supremacy could have stopped this if it were not for direct orders from Hitler to not risk the tanks in the honeycombed cannel geography of Belgium. I read an earlier book called What If. Hitler was a Private in WWI and was part of a defeated division in that exact place. “What If” described an event where Hitler almost lost his life..What IF he did. Well not losing his life, lead Hitler to make a blunder that allowed the British command to escape, regroup and though much had to occur it was these same Generals that led the liberation of Europe five years later where Hitler took his own life anyway.
Page 322 Churchill gave orders to shoot down German Red Cross aircraft. This was in the face of the cry from German doctors that called a violation of the Geneva Convention. Churchill boldly said bunk to a country that violated every treaty it signed with other nations. Both the World and England accepted and praised Churchill’s actions. There were no indictments or criminal investigations. Churchill closed this section sighting that England rather picked up the airmen from the “shot down aircraft” in fishing boats and then the Germans blew up the fishing boats.-
Page 364 I found it interesting that Churchill had an open sense of retaliation towards German in a tit-for-tat war. HE equally endorsed the indiscriminate bombing of German cities. The strategy was the same...to demoralize the German citizens. In today’s Terrorist War, we experience an agenda by the terrorist to sway public opinion and vote (Jimmy Carter, Spain) and it worked both times. However somewhere in war history and the Geneva Convention as interpreted by today’s far fetched anti war mongrels, we must raise above the character of the enemy as though we are running a police action as opposed to a war. If President Bush made his war message more clear in 2001, there would have been a lot more support for all the domino action that followed and will continue. He did say the War on Terror will be long, protracted, and with a hard to identify enemy. He only said it once.
In the development of Operation Compass a plan to take the offensive in Egypt, I found it interesting that the Generals who developed the plan did so in secret, even from Churchill. They did so to maintain a high level of surprise on Mussolini and Hitler. When Churchill found out about it in due course, he was pleased and approved it into action. I contrast it with today’s far fetched left news “investigative journalist” who are prone to site some concoction of our laws to indict the plotters; all in a frenzy to fulfill the political agenda of their respective agencies. In 1940, this level of secret operative planning led to freedom. In 2006, the treasonous exposure is leading to the demise of our way of life.
The Gathering Storm
The Gathering Storm
by Winston Churchill
The following poetic quote sums up the words on the pages of the age of ink press:
He who will not when he may
When he will, he shall have Nay
Churchill’s prose interpretation of the same:
“In this Twilight War…It was after France had been flattened out that Britain, thanks to her island advantage, developed out of the pangs of defeat and the menace of annihilation a national resolve equal to that of Germany.
I personally noted that it were those same pangs of defeat that gave Germany the resolve to rise up to the world in the way they did. In reading this remarkable account of history by a leader who was part of it makes you the reader in want to take decisive lesson from the time spent between the covers of this book. The following summarizes what I learned.
It has been claimed at dinner parties that Britain and France had been the policemen of Europe in the prelude of World War II. Churchill makes in plainly clear in this book that they were champions of appeasement and diplomatic folly. In his careful and colorful description of events, using excerpts of speeches, and correspondences, blended with dialogue; the reader becomes painfully aware that appeasement was simply a term used in the press to lull the citizens towards a false hope for peace. Rather, the reader becomes clearly appraised as to the miss-steps in diplomacy in the nature of French Richelieu’s balance of power. A diplomacy where France instead breaks her commitment of balance of power through failed obligation in defense of smaller nations in domino succession, leaving Poland as the last domino to fall coinciding with the outbreak. Britain simply followed suit, as there were no formal commitments to counter act the overwhelming call in the press for peace. In the end such folly rendered both policemen as accomplices to a world tragedy. Churchill writes that the tale was not about diplomacy aimed at national security guised as justice; it ended up being a fight for our lives.
While the copyright is 1948 Churchill claims many words published were actually written eighteen years earlier as a message to prevent what he calls the second conclusion of mankind. I took grave note that Britain and France' roles aside, Churchill makes clear that most of all the immense power and impartiality in the United States allowed conditions to be gradually led to the very climax that peace dreaded most. In 1948 he is certain to caution any notion that the United States should make the same mistake for a third convulsion from which none may live to tell the tale. In almost every strategic decision to prepare England and her allies for defense, Churchill found himself perplexed with the prevailing sentiment of defensive –v- offensive stratagem. Where you actually call the start of the war didn’t matter. For instance just before Hitler attacked Norway and France it was learned that Hitler planned to attack Norway to defend herself and as well, maintain the industrious raw material from Sweden. Churchill faced absolute refusal to land troops in Norway or supply bombers to an offensive plan of defense of the world. Churchill writes of a French communiqué from his interlocutor: “The president of the Republic himself had intervened and that no aggressive measure must be taken which might only draw reprisal upon France. “ He again writes his personal frustration of well laid offensive plans in the defense of his home land
“The idea of not irritating the enemy did not commend itself to me.”“
To help the reader comprehend such a grim summary view the beginning is a good place to start. Churchill spends a chapter describing how the German leadership began their rearmament as early as 1923 and could have been stopped with out the risk of a single life up to 1934. Even when he sounded the alarm in 1930, there were eight years to arrest the build up of which not only did the allies reject but they also proceeded to reduce their own militaries.
In describing Hitler, in immediate Post Great War, Churchill describes a man capable of rationalizing a hatred for Jews and Bolsheviks, not for any other reason than it was they who exploited the defeated German people. But Hitler found himself not alone as he discovered a party of people of the same mind. They held a defeated passionate hate for those who exploited them in a time of defeat. With the collapse of the German mark Hitler, the new leader of the National-Socialist Party, found hungry AND THUS EASY RECRUITS. A PARTY FOUNDED IN HATRED. While in prison in 1924, Hitler outlined Mien Kampf. A Hitler doctrine adopted by the German people that appeared to have its sole basis in nothing but hatred of anything not German. It was a doctrine that mandated men to fight for freedom, a word guised in supremacy. Ironically, freedom arrived at a cost of individuals surrendering ones mind to the Fuehrer. In Churchill’s chapter on Locusts the reader of twenty-o-four cannot help but draw an Ominous Parallel to current world situation, but also to a theory analyzed on Piekoff’s book Ominous Parallel.
It took more than a desperate people for Hitler to spring to power. It took the coalescence of military organizations bent on power. As they viewed each other as foes that could bring each other down against the political enemy, being communist Bolsheviks, they united in a fashion that brought down the Bruening Cabinet, thus creating a political vacuum. There existed a vacuum; not of ideas, but of a leader to execute on his ideas. It should be noted that while the elite palace leaders were in no way impressed with Hitler, 13,000,000 Germans were behind him. While Churchill does not address the philosophical foundation of the German mind he makes a case for opportunity for a leader to take advantage of a willing mind, for whatever reason. In essence it takes willing people, but a cacophony of political stratagem must also coincide for such a catastrophe of an elected Hitler leadership to occur. In a note on humility, Hitler’s predecessor Hindenberg once said that Hitler is suited for no more than Postmaster, "where he can lick stamps with my head on them".
Meanwhile in the course of European debate over weapons of war (WMD) Churchill gave his first warning to England of the eminent danger being sown in 1936. While Europe was disarming, Germany was ripe to rearm. Meanwhile British public opinion concluded that all doubts of a peaceful Germany should be cast aside. After the takeover of the Rhineland of which without a challenge Hitler assumed un- questionable authority over his Generals. All of Germany was succeeded in the easy gain of ground against its former adversaries, so divided and tame. There is no doubt that had His Majesty's Government chosen to act with firmness and resolve through thru League of Nations, they could have led a united Britain on a final quest to avert war. In 1939 Churchill writes
“in keeping with a 400 year history to avert a dominance by a dictator from any country We ought to set the life and endurance of the British Empire and the greatness of the this island very high in our duty, and not be led astray by illusions about an ideal world, which only means that other and worse controls will step into our place, and that future direction will belong to them.''
In a speech to the House of Commons Churchill said the credit of the Government has been compromised by what has occurred. The House has been consistently misled about the air-position. The Prime Minister himself has been misled. He was misled right up to the last moment, apparently. Look at the statement, which he made in March when he spoke about our armaments:
“The sight of this enormous, this almost terrifying power which Britain is building up has a sobering effect, a steadying effect, on the opinion of the world.”
When I compare the political debate surrounding National Defense of 1936-1938 and compare it to 2001-2004, I am again struck by the similarities. History will again decide if G.W. Bush made the correct strategic decisions in Iraq. The notion to bring Bush up for war crimes comes from minds not incapable of examining the multi layered landscape of issues with a focus on National Security. And thus with absence of personally formed bias our ill informed public opinion leaves our current world vulnerable to Churchill’s greatest fear. Back to the book review specifically Churchill’s views were opposite those of Baldwin and Chamberlain. Attack through diplomatic channels and then with arms were his messages. The measured results of Churchill’s time where an immediate World War with grave loss of life ensued, yet it’s conclusion drew an apparent beginning of lasting peace in Europe. That conclusion did not have to weigh so heavy a price on the world. Credit is given to leaders such as Churchill, Roosevelt & Truman, of WWII and then Reagan who pushed for the close of the Cold War. Can history be used to chart our future in twenty-o-four?
Some lessons are never learned; this one being harmony in leadership. In 1937 and in the midst Italian buildup Secretary of British Foreign Affairs Eden was knitting together a plan to ally France and England against Italy on submarine attacks. Of course there are a few dynamics to be noted that draw a parallel with slight departure in terms of role reversals to current events in 2004. At first it should be noted that Eden, Secretary of State was placed at odds with his Prime Minister, Chamberlain of who replaced Baldwin. He did his duty at odds with his cabinet in a Machiavellian setting and eventually was neutralized in Chamberlains circle. His course of action was to play a strong hand and tendered an offer to Mussolini that the powers of the Mediterranean will join together to sink all submarines as pirates and requested Italy’s participation. With firm resolve of a united front Mussolini agreed to enjoin in the anti pirate campaign, and suddenly his Italian subs refrained from sinking any more merchant ships. The outlook Churchill held as he encouraged Eden to continue in the face political headwinds he wrote
“Poor England! Leading her free, and careless life from day-to-day, amid careless good-tempered parliamentary babble, she followed, wondering, along the downward path which led to all she wanted to avoid, She was continuously reassured by the leading articles of the most influential newspapers, with some honorable exceptions, and behaved as if all the world were as easy, uncalculating and well-meaning as herself.”
He further writes:
“Mr. Roosevelt was indeed running great risks in his own domestic politics by deliberately involving the United States in the darkening European scene. All the forces of isolationism would have been aroused if any part of these exchanges had transpired. On the other hand, no event could have been more likely to stave off or even prevent war than the arrival of the United States in the circle of European hates and fears.”
Churchill’s following words damning Chamberlain’s decision to not accept Roosevelt’s offer must be left for the reader, who would by page 255 of the book be in a Churchill frame of mind to appreciate the gravity of Chamberlains mistake.
” I must remark here though there is at least on consistent parallel and that is the influence of the press to tilt an uniformed population with incomplete information, and the necessity of a press secretary to spin leadership policy against these winds. And we the people must vote a leader and allow him to lead with a willingness to view and seek out the complete story as opposed to submit to the whirlpool of partisan politics found in the press at the fate of National Security. “
Churchill’s story makes this ever clearer in my mind and puts me on the look out for Colin Powell’s book. I must personally say that I have making a case for clarity and thoroughness in reporting. As well I have been condemning those with a voice of hatred towards our leadership when I find them banking all their emotion on the whims of our American press. If only in the heat of debate could I remember such eloquent words?
I also learned that the Domino Theory that prevailed in the 50s and formulated a tenant of our involvement in Viet Nam becomes none too original when reading the succession of events in the late 1930s where England and France, mishandled their “world policemen” obligations. France was bound by treaty to defend Czechoslovakia in the case of invasion by Germany. England had no such obligation. However without the commitment of one or the other, neither would defend Czechoslovakia over the Hitler proclaimed issues of the Sudentland area of German speaking Czechs. To this extend a French envoy to the Czechoslovakia government since 1925 resigned and became a Czech citizen when he heard of the folly of the French and Brits over Czechoslovakia. “Honor among men existed somewhere.” Were Churchill’s words. Underpinning the whole situation was a bent towards world peace through disarmament against a world axis menace of Germany, Japan, and to a lesser degree Italy. As a student I remember the film reels of Neville Chamberlain boarding tail-dragger planes of DC3 form, in his last ditch attempt of diplomacy with the Fuehrer. In the letters between all parties, held within the pages of this book, and Churchill’s description, the reader clearly becomes aware, how innocent and ill-informed leaders can play the wrong cards in the high stakes game of world dominance of that time. Chamberlains trip to Berchtesgaden proved to be a pinnacle mistake in diplomacy. Churchill in my opinion describing the events makes a clear case for a strong hand i.e.: T.Rex “speak softly and carry a big stick” or Ronald Reagan’s clear stand with Gorbechov in Reykjavik and then Berlin. Churchill in his book asks for history to be the judge of diplomacy’s hand. When I read of Carters handling of Iranian affairs in 1979 along with Chamberlain Berchtesgaden in contrast to Reagan and Bush(s), I must again stand behind a leader who plays a strong hand in matters of National Security, at high sacrifice to world opinion or ACLU protests of encroachment upon civil liberties. Both are a small price to pay for inalienable rights of freedom. I fully appreciate that there is a difference and a hierarchy between and within the two.
The most striking “news to me’ was to read of the high ranking German Generals plot to arrest Hitler and his leadership just prior to Chamberlains lack luster attempts at diplomacy. Churchill’s conclusive words are most appropriate at this point:
“If it should eventually be accepted as historical truth, it will be another example of the very small accidents upon which the fortunes of mankind turn.”
I am quickly reminded of Jimmy Carters week-handed diplomacy that was followed two days later of the capture of the American embassy in Iran. If only fate fell into the hands of stronger leaders?
In the aftermath of the Czechoslovakia invasions and the prelude of Poland and Albania by Germany and Italy respectively, Churchill continues to detail the errant decisions carried out in diplomatic relations; not only with his allies but also with his adversaries. The familiar phrase of appeasement becomes clearly understood, in terms of miscalculations, by the emotional words of Churchill standing in the wings waiting his turn to lead. His words towards Neville Chamberlain are typically British, as he allows history to redress Chamberlains leadership into disaster.
Coincidently mentioned but not delved into in this book was the quality of intelligence available to Chamberlain. Churchill claims a superior level of intelligence, and questions Chamberlains and the British Admiralty lack of preparedness against Mussolini’s invasion of Albanian. Ciano, a cabinet member of Mussolini, writes these British are not those of Drake, they are tired old rich men. As I listen to John Kerry not knowing hunger and the Democratic candidate of Presidency of 2004. He who claims he would have gotten up from a school room and done something on the morning of 911, without specifying what he would have done, gives me reason to draw a parallel to Chamberlain; rich men compelled to say I’m in charge and make decisions without trusting the service of his administration and his advisors. Churchill paints an emotional picture of failed diplomacy when placed in the hands of a leader with a self-centered leadership, bent on decision-making in a closet. Perhaps this could be a lesson in history.
As the book transitions from the sad tale of failed diplomacy to a declaration of war, Churchill describes his feelings upon inspecting the naval positions in Scotland as the reappointed Minister of the Admiralty, a position he once held in the onset of the Great War. He first writes a short poem reflecting his reaction to a new generation of crew placed upon the same ships of a previous war. It goes like this:
I feel like one
Who treads alone,
Some banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.
After reading of the failed preparations at cost of appeasement, Churchill while having a picnic lunch on a hill overlooking a Scottish harbor writes:
“Poland is in agony; France but a pale reflection of her warlike ardour; the Russians Colossus no longer and ally, not even neutral, possibly a foe, Italy no friend, Japan no ally. Would America ever come in again? The British Empire remained intact gloriously united but ill prepared.”
I was struck in reading these words written by a man who was placed in political exile for many a year, waved his flag of alarm to a deaf ear of England, and could place claim on a gloriously united spirit of his countrymen. I am struck by what it took to unite England, as it was not Churchill’s flag waiving. And then I am awe-struck at Churchill’s immediate gratification to be once again in a position to defend his fellow man. Churchill is immediately forgiving of his fellow mans penchant for peace at any cost. In a prefect world it is the higher road. In a real world of 1930 thru 1939, 1991 thru 2004 history proved that perfection was yet to be met.
As the story plunges deeper into the reality of war, the Cabinet officials were busy consuming themselves with the affairs of their own offices and vying for priority with the Prime Minister. Churchill spends a chapter describing his private letters to key officials, putting forward his concerns, recommendations and commitment for support. What Churchill had in his favor were actual experience in many posts of government, a continued study of the government while in 10 years exile, and as sense of raising above any grudge with an aim of National Defense in a headwind of war. The lessons in diplomacy on paper are well worth reading to glean the art of apprising your friend of unsolicited advice. This nature of diplomacy at an individual level is in my opinion a tenant of his countrymen’s call for his Prime leadership.
With Poland in ruins, the Baltic States parlayed to the Soviet Union, Churchill describes the strategy and diplomacy in building the defensive lines along it Belgian frontier. Herein, Churchill describes two tenants of diplomacy finding them tangled in military strategy. The first tenant is quite simple and basically prescribes that no military strategy involving the occupation of Belgian soil in the defense of France could be permitted without Belgian approval. As no approval came forth, plan B was quickly acquiesced to with no hard insistence by either party to Belgium for a plan of mutual benefit. One could easily draw a parallel to the Cambodian circumstance along the Ho Chi Min Trail question and find that world standards caused extreme compromise on a military battlefield. The questions placed upon our leaders are far more complicated than the average bear comprehends. And in too many cases our journalists as simply average bears. Second tenant was the military question of success of attack -v- defend, being argued largely by diplomats as opposed to military strategists. While history at that time proves that attacking leaves one in a more vulnerable position in terms of battlefield and supply lines, Hitler defied history as his Armies broke through the Allied lines on the Belgium frontier and proved that attack can be done while defending ones self. Churchill simply notes that Germany was first to put heavy plates of armor in vehicles. This lesson seems to have been over looked in 2004 by the greatest military planners in man kind.
The combination of the two issues draws into question preemptive attack, which is as a popular question today as it might well have been in 1961 with regard to the Cuban missile crisis. When war is eminent not in terms of days but years, building a case for preemptive action as a defense seems plausible, as Churchill makes clear. However on a world stage of hundreds of countries, this leaves the country of preeminence vulnerable to technical objection reverberated into a frenzy of biased views and exacerbated by journalist. The real questions may be when do the people entrust in our leaders, elected via due process and allow them unabated, but questioned execution of a plan. Churchill’s history makes it clear that the challenge for a unanimous world coalition in the winds of the minority objectors requires a strong leader to stay a course in National Defense, regardless of the popular view.
With regard to making strategic war decisions involving small countries soil, Churchill is mindful of international law but willing to abrogate to the laws of humanity, and allow history to be his judge. Here is a man willing to chart a new course if required; the mark a great leader on a world stage, in my opinion. This said, Churchill describes his efforts to not be confrontational with his “Commander in Chief” Neville Chamberlain; a requisite step in becoming a world class leader, teacher in history, professor in journalism, and spokesperson for personal integrity on a world stage. He was appointed Prime Minister of England by the King on the day Germany invaded Belgium and Holland; not because of the invasion but because of Chamberlains resignation over the poor performance in Norway. His words spoken and written are a hallmark of great leaders worth reading from. Had we only listened in 1936?
Post Script: To draw an ominous parallel to today’s popular venue in Michael Moore’s film, I read in this book of two days prior to the German invasion of Norway, German officials invited the civilians of Oslo, including Western Allies to view a film reel of the capture of Warsaw. With the falling of the bombs the caption at the bottom of the screen read: “This if not for the hand of France and England”. It seems Moore is a student of Hitler. It is too bad our general population is one of “30 second sound bites” students as opposed to one of conscientious study of grave matters. We can be so easily duped. Like the Communists of France who denounced the war as “an imperialistic and capitalist crime against humanity”, there are those factions here in the United States who continue in those ways of the French. As much as I can say I enjoy French culture and would endorse a world of it, I have yet to read of French politics where there was not a selfish French end in mind, blind to the realities of the world.
Catch phrases
1. Death stands at attention, waiting the command to pulverize civilization.
2. Long his victim - for once his master.
3. The world lifted its head, surveyed the ruin
4. The vessel of peace has sprung a leak at every beam.
5. Of all this let history be the judge. We now face events.
6. The veils of the future are lifted one by one, and mortals must act from day to day.
7. Facts are better than dreams.
by Winston Churchill
The following poetic quote sums up the words on the pages of the age of ink press:
He who will not when he may
When he will, he shall have Nay
Churchill’s prose interpretation of the same:
“In this Twilight War…It was after France had been flattened out that Britain, thanks to her island advantage, developed out of the pangs of defeat and the menace of annihilation a national resolve equal to that of Germany.
I personally noted that it were those same pangs of defeat that gave Germany the resolve to rise up to the world in the way they did. In reading this remarkable account of history by a leader who was part of it makes you the reader in want to take decisive lesson from the time spent between the covers of this book. The following summarizes what I learned.
It has been claimed at dinner parties that Britain and France had been the policemen of Europe in the prelude of World War II. Churchill makes in plainly clear in this book that they were champions of appeasement and diplomatic folly. In his careful and colorful description of events, using excerpts of speeches, and correspondences, blended with dialogue; the reader becomes painfully aware that appeasement was simply a term used in the press to lull the citizens towards a false hope for peace. Rather, the reader becomes clearly appraised as to the miss-steps in diplomacy in the nature of French Richelieu’s balance of power. A diplomacy where France instead breaks her commitment of balance of power through failed obligation in defense of smaller nations in domino succession, leaving Poland as the last domino to fall coinciding with the outbreak. Britain simply followed suit, as there were no formal commitments to counter act the overwhelming call in the press for peace. In the end such folly rendered both policemen as accomplices to a world tragedy. Churchill writes that the tale was not about diplomacy aimed at national security guised as justice; it ended up being a fight for our lives.
While the copyright is 1948 Churchill claims many words published were actually written eighteen years earlier as a message to prevent what he calls the second conclusion of mankind. I took grave note that Britain and France' roles aside, Churchill makes clear that most of all the immense power and impartiality in the United States allowed conditions to be gradually led to the very climax that peace dreaded most. In 1948 he is certain to caution any notion that the United States should make the same mistake for a third convulsion from which none may live to tell the tale. In almost every strategic decision to prepare England and her allies for defense, Churchill found himself perplexed with the prevailing sentiment of defensive –v- offensive stratagem. Where you actually call the start of the war didn’t matter. For instance just before Hitler attacked Norway and France it was learned that Hitler planned to attack Norway to defend herself and as well, maintain the industrious raw material from Sweden. Churchill faced absolute refusal to land troops in Norway or supply bombers to an offensive plan of defense of the world. Churchill writes of a French communiqué from his interlocutor: “The president of the Republic himself had intervened and that no aggressive measure must be taken which might only draw reprisal upon France. “ He again writes his personal frustration of well laid offensive plans in the defense of his home land
“The idea of not irritating the enemy did not commend itself to me.”“
To help the reader comprehend such a grim summary view the beginning is a good place to start. Churchill spends a chapter describing how the German leadership began their rearmament as early as 1923 and could have been stopped with out the risk of a single life up to 1934. Even when he sounded the alarm in 1930, there were eight years to arrest the build up of which not only did the allies reject but they also proceeded to reduce their own militaries.
In describing Hitler, in immediate Post Great War, Churchill describes a man capable of rationalizing a hatred for Jews and Bolsheviks, not for any other reason than it was they who exploited the defeated German people. But Hitler found himself not alone as he discovered a party of people of the same mind. They held a defeated passionate hate for those who exploited them in a time of defeat. With the collapse of the German mark Hitler, the new leader of the National-Socialist Party, found hungry AND THUS EASY RECRUITS. A PARTY FOUNDED IN HATRED. While in prison in 1924, Hitler outlined Mien Kampf. A Hitler doctrine adopted by the German people that appeared to have its sole basis in nothing but hatred of anything not German. It was a doctrine that mandated men to fight for freedom, a word guised in supremacy. Ironically, freedom arrived at a cost of individuals surrendering ones mind to the Fuehrer. In Churchill’s chapter on Locusts the reader of twenty-o-four cannot help but draw an Ominous Parallel to current world situation, but also to a theory analyzed on Piekoff’s book Ominous Parallel.
It took more than a desperate people for Hitler to spring to power. It took the coalescence of military organizations bent on power. As they viewed each other as foes that could bring each other down against the political enemy, being communist Bolsheviks, they united in a fashion that brought down the Bruening Cabinet, thus creating a political vacuum. There existed a vacuum; not of ideas, but of a leader to execute on his ideas. It should be noted that while the elite palace leaders were in no way impressed with Hitler, 13,000,000 Germans were behind him. While Churchill does not address the philosophical foundation of the German mind he makes a case for opportunity for a leader to take advantage of a willing mind, for whatever reason. In essence it takes willing people, but a cacophony of political stratagem must also coincide for such a catastrophe of an elected Hitler leadership to occur. In a note on humility, Hitler’s predecessor Hindenberg once said that Hitler is suited for no more than Postmaster, "where he can lick stamps with my head on them".
Meanwhile in the course of European debate over weapons of war (WMD) Churchill gave his first warning to England of the eminent danger being sown in 1936. While Europe was disarming, Germany was ripe to rearm. Meanwhile British public opinion concluded that all doubts of a peaceful Germany should be cast aside. After the takeover of the Rhineland of which without a challenge Hitler assumed un- questionable authority over his Generals. All of Germany was succeeded in the easy gain of ground against its former adversaries, so divided and tame. There is no doubt that had His Majesty's Government chosen to act with firmness and resolve through thru League of Nations, they could have led a united Britain on a final quest to avert war. In 1939 Churchill writes
“in keeping with a 400 year history to avert a dominance by a dictator from any country We ought to set the life and endurance of the British Empire and the greatness of the this island very high in our duty, and not be led astray by illusions about an ideal world, which only means that other and worse controls will step into our place, and that future direction will belong to them.''
In a speech to the House of Commons Churchill said the credit of the Government has been compromised by what has occurred. The House has been consistently misled about the air-position. The Prime Minister himself has been misled. He was misled right up to the last moment, apparently. Look at the statement, which he made in March when he spoke about our armaments:
“The sight of this enormous, this almost terrifying power which Britain is building up has a sobering effect, a steadying effect, on the opinion of the world.”
When I compare the political debate surrounding National Defense of 1936-1938 and compare it to 2001-2004, I am again struck by the similarities. History will again decide if G.W. Bush made the correct strategic decisions in Iraq. The notion to bring Bush up for war crimes comes from minds not incapable of examining the multi layered landscape of issues with a focus on National Security. And thus with absence of personally formed bias our ill informed public opinion leaves our current world vulnerable to Churchill’s greatest fear. Back to the book review specifically Churchill’s views were opposite those of Baldwin and Chamberlain. Attack through diplomatic channels and then with arms were his messages. The measured results of Churchill’s time where an immediate World War with grave loss of life ensued, yet it’s conclusion drew an apparent beginning of lasting peace in Europe. That conclusion did not have to weigh so heavy a price on the world. Credit is given to leaders such as Churchill, Roosevelt & Truman, of WWII and then Reagan who pushed for the close of the Cold War. Can history be used to chart our future in twenty-o-four?
Some lessons are never learned; this one being harmony in leadership. In 1937 and in the midst Italian buildup Secretary of British Foreign Affairs Eden was knitting together a plan to ally France and England against Italy on submarine attacks. Of course there are a few dynamics to be noted that draw a parallel with slight departure in terms of role reversals to current events in 2004. At first it should be noted that Eden, Secretary of State was placed at odds with his Prime Minister, Chamberlain of who replaced Baldwin. He did his duty at odds with his cabinet in a Machiavellian setting and eventually was neutralized in Chamberlains circle. His course of action was to play a strong hand and tendered an offer to Mussolini that the powers of the Mediterranean will join together to sink all submarines as pirates and requested Italy’s participation. With firm resolve of a united front Mussolini agreed to enjoin in the anti pirate campaign, and suddenly his Italian subs refrained from sinking any more merchant ships. The outlook Churchill held as he encouraged Eden to continue in the face political headwinds he wrote
“Poor England! Leading her free, and careless life from day-to-day, amid careless good-tempered parliamentary babble, she followed, wondering, along the downward path which led to all she wanted to avoid, She was continuously reassured by the leading articles of the most influential newspapers, with some honorable exceptions, and behaved as if all the world were as easy, uncalculating and well-meaning as herself.”
He further writes:
“Mr. Roosevelt was indeed running great risks in his own domestic politics by deliberately involving the United States in the darkening European scene. All the forces of isolationism would have been aroused if any part of these exchanges had transpired. On the other hand, no event could have been more likely to stave off or even prevent war than the arrival of the United States in the circle of European hates and fears.”
Churchill’s following words damning Chamberlain’s decision to not accept Roosevelt’s offer must be left for the reader, who would by page 255 of the book be in a Churchill frame of mind to appreciate the gravity of Chamberlains mistake.
” I must remark here though there is at least on consistent parallel and that is the influence of the press to tilt an uniformed population with incomplete information, and the necessity of a press secretary to spin leadership policy against these winds. And we the people must vote a leader and allow him to lead with a willingness to view and seek out the complete story as opposed to submit to the whirlpool of partisan politics found in the press at the fate of National Security. “
Churchill’s story makes this ever clearer in my mind and puts me on the look out for Colin Powell’s book. I must personally say that I have making a case for clarity and thoroughness in reporting. As well I have been condemning those with a voice of hatred towards our leadership when I find them banking all their emotion on the whims of our American press. If only in the heat of debate could I remember such eloquent words?
I also learned that the Domino Theory that prevailed in the 50s and formulated a tenant of our involvement in Viet Nam becomes none too original when reading the succession of events in the late 1930s where England and France, mishandled their “world policemen” obligations. France was bound by treaty to defend Czechoslovakia in the case of invasion by Germany. England had no such obligation. However without the commitment of one or the other, neither would defend Czechoslovakia over the Hitler proclaimed issues of the Sudentland area of German speaking Czechs. To this extend a French envoy to the Czechoslovakia government since 1925 resigned and became a Czech citizen when he heard of the folly of the French and Brits over Czechoslovakia. “Honor among men existed somewhere.” Were Churchill’s words. Underpinning the whole situation was a bent towards world peace through disarmament against a world axis menace of Germany, Japan, and to a lesser degree Italy. As a student I remember the film reels of Neville Chamberlain boarding tail-dragger planes of DC3 form, in his last ditch attempt of diplomacy with the Fuehrer. In the letters between all parties, held within the pages of this book, and Churchill’s description, the reader clearly becomes aware, how innocent and ill-informed leaders can play the wrong cards in the high stakes game of world dominance of that time. Chamberlains trip to Berchtesgaden proved to be a pinnacle mistake in diplomacy. Churchill in my opinion describing the events makes a clear case for a strong hand i.e.: T.Rex “speak softly and carry a big stick” or Ronald Reagan’s clear stand with Gorbechov in Reykjavik and then Berlin. Churchill in his book asks for history to be the judge of diplomacy’s hand. When I read of Carters handling of Iranian affairs in 1979 along with Chamberlain Berchtesgaden in contrast to Reagan and Bush(s), I must again stand behind a leader who plays a strong hand in matters of National Security, at high sacrifice to world opinion or ACLU protests of encroachment upon civil liberties. Both are a small price to pay for inalienable rights of freedom. I fully appreciate that there is a difference and a hierarchy between and within the two.
The most striking “news to me’ was to read of the high ranking German Generals plot to arrest Hitler and his leadership just prior to Chamberlains lack luster attempts at diplomacy. Churchill’s conclusive words are most appropriate at this point:
“If it should eventually be accepted as historical truth, it will be another example of the very small accidents upon which the fortunes of mankind turn.”
I am quickly reminded of Jimmy Carters week-handed diplomacy that was followed two days later of the capture of the American embassy in Iran. If only fate fell into the hands of stronger leaders?
In the aftermath of the Czechoslovakia invasions and the prelude of Poland and Albania by Germany and Italy respectively, Churchill continues to detail the errant decisions carried out in diplomatic relations; not only with his allies but also with his adversaries. The familiar phrase of appeasement becomes clearly understood, in terms of miscalculations, by the emotional words of Churchill standing in the wings waiting his turn to lead. His words towards Neville Chamberlain are typically British, as he allows history to redress Chamberlains leadership into disaster.
Coincidently mentioned but not delved into in this book was the quality of intelligence available to Chamberlain. Churchill claims a superior level of intelligence, and questions Chamberlains and the British Admiralty lack of preparedness against Mussolini’s invasion of Albanian. Ciano, a cabinet member of Mussolini, writes these British are not those of Drake, they are tired old rich men. As I listen to John Kerry not knowing hunger and the Democratic candidate of Presidency of 2004. He who claims he would have gotten up from a school room and done something on the morning of 911, without specifying what he would have done, gives me reason to draw a parallel to Chamberlain; rich men compelled to say I’m in charge and make decisions without trusting the service of his administration and his advisors. Churchill paints an emotional picture of failed diplomacy when placed in the hands of a leader with a self-centered leadership, bent on decision-making in a closet. Perhaps this could be a lesson in history.
As the book transitions from the sad tale of failed diplomacy to a declaration of war, Churchill describes his feelings upon inspecting the naval positions in Scotland as the reappointed Minister of the Admiralty, a position he once held in the onset of the Great War. He first writes a short poem reflecting his reaction to a new generation of crew placed upon the same ships of a previous war. It goes like this:
I feel like one
Who treads alone,
Some banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.
After reading of the failed preparations at cost of appeasement, Churchill while having a picnic lunch on a hill overlooking a Scottish harbor writes:
“Poland is in agony; France but a pale reflection of her warlike ardour; the Russians Colossus no longer and ally, not even neutral, possibly a foe, Italy no friend, Japan no ally. Would America ever come in again? The British Empire remained intact gloriously united but ill prepared.”
I was struck in reading these words written by a man who was placed in political exile for many a year, waved his flag of alarm to a deaf ear of England, and could place claim on a gloriously united spirit of his countrymen. I am struck by what it took to unite England, as it was not Churchill’s flag waiving. And then I am awe-struck at Churchill’s immediate gratification to be once again in a position to defend his fellow man. Churchill is immediately forgiving of his fellow mans penchant for peace at any cost. In a prefect world it is the higher road. In a real world of 1930 thru 1939, 1991 thru 2004 history proved that perfection was yet to be met.
As the story plunges deeper into the reality of war, the Cabinet officials were busy consuming themselves with the affairs of their own offices and vying for priority with the Prime Minister. Churchill spends a chapter describing his private letters to key officials, putting forward his concerns, recommendations and commitment for support. What Churchill had in his favor were actual experience in many posts of government, a continued study of the government while in 10 years exile, and as sense of raising above any grudge with an aim of National Defense in a headwind of war. The lessons in diplomacy on paper are well worth reading to glean the art of apprising your friend of unsolicited advice. This nature of diplomacy at an individual level is in my opinion a tenant of his countrymen’s call for his Prime leadership.
With Poland in ruins, the Baltic States parlayed to the Soviet Union, Churchill describes the strategy and diplomacy in building the defensive lines along it Belgian frontier. Herein, Churchill describes two tenants of diplomacy finding them tangled in military strategy. The first tenant is quite simple and basically prescribes that no military strategy involving the occupation of Belgian soil in the defense of France could be permitted without Belgian approval. As no approval came forth, plan B was quickly acquiesced to with no hard insistence by either party to Belgium for a plan of mutual benefit. One could easily draw a parallel to the Cambodian circumstance along the Ho Chi Min Trail question and find that world standards caused extreme compromise on a military battlefield. The questions placed upon our leaders are far more complicated than the average bear comprehends. And in too many cases our journalists as simply average bears. Second tenant was the military question of success of attack -v- defend, being argued largely by diplomats as opposed to military strategists. While history at that time proves that attacking leaves one in a more vulnerable position in terms of battlefield and supply lines, Hitler defied history as his Armies broke through the Allied lines on the Belgium frontier and proved that attack can be done while defending ones self. Churchill simply notes that Germany was first to put heavy plates of armor in vehicles. This lesson seems to have been over looked in 2004 by the greatest military planners in man kind.
The combination of the two issues draws into question preemptive attack, which is as a popular question today as it might well have been in 1961 with regard to the Cuban missile crisis. When war is eminent not in terms of days but years, building a case for preemptive action as a defense seems plausible, as Churchill makes clear. However on a world stage of hundreds of countries, this leaves the country of preeminence vulnerable to technical objection reverberated into a frenzy of biased views and exacerbated by journalist. The real questions may be when do the people entrust in our leaders, elected via due process and allow them unabated, but questioned execution of a plan. Churchill’s history makes it clear that the challenge for a unanimous world coalition in the winds of the minority objectors requires a strong leader to stay a course in National Defense, regardless of the popular view.
With regard to making strategic war decisions involving small countries soil, Churchill is mindful of international law but willing to abrogate to the laws of humanity, and allow history to be his judge. Here is a man willing to chart a new course if required; the mark a great leader on a world stage, in my opinion. This said, Churchill describes his efforts to not be confrontational with his “Commander in Chief” Neville Chamberlain; a requisite step in becoming a world class leader, teacher in history, professor in journalism, and spokesperson for personal integrity on a world stage. He was appointed Prime Minister of England by the King on the day Germany invaded Belgium and Holland; not because of the invasion but because of Chamberlains resignation over the poor performance in Norway. His words spoken and written are a hallmark of great leaders worth reading from. Had we only listened in 1936?
Post Script: To draw an ominous parallel to today’s popular venue in Michael Moore’s film, I read in this book of two days prior to the German invasion of Norway, German officials invited the civilians of Oslo, including Western Allies to view a film reel of the capture of Warsaw. With the falling of the bombs the caption at the bottom of the screen read: “This if not for the hand of France and England”. It seems Moore is a student of Hitler. It is too bad our general population is one of “30 second sound bites” students as opposed to one of conscientious study of grave matters. We can be so easily duped. Like the Communists of France who denounced the war as “an imperialistic and capitalist crime against humanity”, there are those factions here in the United States who continue in those ways of the French. As much as I can say I enjoy French culture and would endorse a world of it, I have yet to read of French politics where there was not a selfish French end in mind, blind to the realities of the world.
Catch phrases
1. Death stands at attention, waiting the command to pulverize civilization.
2. Long his victim - for once his master.
3. The world lifted its head, surveyed the ruin
4. The vessel of peace has sprung a leak at every beam.
5. Of all this let history be the judge. We now face events.
6. The veils of the future are lifted one by one, and mortals must act from day to day.
7. Facts are better than dreams.
Master and Commanders
Master and Commanders
By Andrew Roberts
This book is an analysis of the prime movers in WWII strategy for the allies. Chief among them were Franklin D. Roosevelt and George C. Marshall for the Americans and Winston Churchill and Sir Allen Brooke for the British. The first question I raised in reading the inside of the jacket cover was who is Brooke? I found out five hundred plus pages later. The author does a convincing job in portraying Sir Allen Brooke as the grand master who got things done in spite of his boss, Sir Winston Churchill. While I give praise to the character the author builds in Brooke, I disparage the character built in Churchill. Having been the benefactor of reading Churchill’s accounts that are backed by a plethora of correspondence with key players of the war, I completed the book prepared to defend Churchill against yet another critic with a skewed opinion based in assorted fact, standing in shallow and murky water.
Aside from character building, which the author believes was an essential ingredient to decision making on a strategic level, the strategic planning of every Allied initiative are discussed in detail, where the page count of five-hundred-eighty-four was its only limitation. As the chronology progressed through time, I could not help but asking myself about Stalin and Hitler. In 1941 Roosevelt characterized the situation where ‘the principle objective was to help Russia,’ since ‘It must be constantly reiterated that Russian armies are killing more Germans and destroying more Axis material than all the twenty-five United Nations put together.
Through much of the war, the prevailing strategy seemed to be more the failure of Hitler’s strategy than the brilliance of any of the allied Commanders. As I closed the back cover of his book, I wrote a big question mark on my reading list. I have read in many accounting at surface level description of the inner works of the Hitler command, at least from a resulting decision perspective. But I have yet to read a comparable accounting of equal measure specifically from the German side, where Hitler’s strategy trumped his generals. I have learned that there was great disagreement, but how is it that the strategy that told the fate of this world conflict was really a losing strategy as opposed to a winning strategy and why have we left the details to that question uncovered? I generally understand that the western leaders drew a strategy from consensus, while Hitler dictated a strategy against the advice of clearer thinking Generals, excluding Goering. I ask only because I am ignorant to any book on such a theme.
As the Grand Strategy was taking its form, there was an overriding idea that it should be a Germany first strategy. This strategy was largely British driven and bought in to because the Americans were of a junior partner status and did not as well have a better strategy. While this strategy prevailed it was periodically tested as Japan drew the United States in to the war. The timing of Germany first seems to have been controversial throughout the war. Intervening events and competing strategies were played out. In the fog of a couple hundred pages it seems that the Russian’s advance across eastern Europe post Stalingrad, and Hitler strategy held sway over the timing than anything else, including victories in Africa. I am once again not certain that Stalin and Hitler, though little was written between the covers, should not have had their pictures on the cover of this book. While the book did much in terms of the timing of the Normandy invasion, Operation Overlord, It seems that the narrow one tracked thinking of Marshal and Eisenhower, borne in classic Clauswitzian military mentality, forced an invasion that cost millions of lives and only got the Allies to Berlin after the Russians.
And finally I must be critical be critical of yet another author’s inability to see a folly of strategy that led to a Russian victory of WWII and a postponement of the Allied victory, where victory is defined by the liberation of Europe, that had to wait 45 years for the end of the Cold War. I say this because riddled throughout this book are arguments between Brooke and Churchill and then between the British and the Americans. In all arguments the author goes through pains to color Churchill as the cigar smoking, drunken strategy zealot, and in that course clouded his vision to draw that reality to the forefront is fogged over. The big decision to attack Germany from the beaches of Normandy, as we did, or to have attacked the Germans from the Italian front was a vexing intrigue on many levels, in the strategy for the race to Berlin. It was a protracted debate that could only have been equaled by the Germany First debate. All these debates carried the background references of each of the participants to readings of past great war strategies where the decision makers banked their views upon.
Here is my argument on both who the Masters and Commanders are, and what was the winning strategy. The early strategy was clearly a counter strategy to anything Hitler had already accomplished. The Brits when in to North Africa first because it was their only option at the time and second then needed to shore up their empire along what I refer to as the English Tierra; the arc from the horn of Africa through the Middle East down to India and through to Singapore ending at Australia. This was the heart of the English Empire and thus a worth prize to protect. Meanwhile the Americans agreed to participate merely because they had to do something of consequence to keep the American people bought in to the war effort. Meanwhile the Americans were formulating a Clausweitizian front across the same Channel that the Germans failed to see through in 1940. To think this massive attack could overshadow the wisdom of an assault from already conquered shores in Italy can only be rationalized by weak arguments provided both the actors of the book and the author. One can only wonder that if half the Herculean effort applied in Normandy was applied to the Ljubljana gap between Yugoslavia and Italy, the Allies could have first had an easier and shorter route to Berlin and second have precluded the Russians of their land grab of eastern Europe which set the stage for a forty-five year long Cold War.
I don’t know whether to compliment or criticize Andrew Roberts for his effort. There is enough granularity in this snap shot of history to reveal an alternative ending to World War Two, if only the masters and Commanders under the American flag had paid closer attention to Britain and namely Churchill. Roberts delivers this enlightenment through first person views and his narrative of the events. Yet he camouflages this nugget of insight at an alternative ending with unnecessary coloring of Churchill as a reckless egomaniac. In this review I interlace ‘My Comments’ with pertinent bibliography notes to demonstrate how the enlightenment makes itself apparent, in the shadow of ridicule of one of the most important men of the twentieth century.
Notes
Page 24: …it was at Forth Benning, in Georgia for five years head of infantry school , that Marshall showed his capacities as a reformer. His experience of the later stages of the Great War had convinced him that, in any future conflict, officers would not be able to wait for perfect orders written out over four pages of single-spaced foolscap sheet, such as the ones GHQ had provided then, especially with un reliable intelligence reports that might be expected from a fast moving battlefield.
Page 26/26: In July 1938….Marshall was ordered to Washington DC to become assistant chief of staff in the War Plans Division of the War Department. This was a key position, overseeing all future offensive operations of the United States. Three months later and a fortnight after the Munich Agreement, he was appointed chief of staff. It was In that post that he attended a conference at the White House on November 14, 1938 to discuss the Presidents plans to build fifteen thousand war plans
According to Arnold’s notes of the White House meeting the President did most of the talking, emphasizing that ideally he would have liked to build twenty thousand warplanes and create an annual capacity for twenty-four thousand, but acknowledged that this would be cut in half by Congress.
Page 27: Marshall well understood Roosevelt’s way of suborning people in this way, and refused to be drawn in to it. As chief of staff he didn’t visit Roosevelt’s country estate in Hyde Park (ever), saying that he found informal conversation with the President would get you ion trouble.
In this paragraph is an interesting end note: (it was suspected in the Churchill family that Marshall disapproved on moral grounds of the President’s affair with Lucy Mercer Rutherford.) This is not common knowledge in 2010.
Page 33: Whether Marshall had a “feel” for operations and a sense of strategy is a central question that this book will seek to answer.
Page 37: The BEF escaped destruction of Dunkrik. Even Pownall admitted in June 1946 that Brooke ‘came out trumps’. As we shall see, the experience of the campaign taught Brooke a number of important lessons about how he believed the rest of the war should be fought, lessons that diverged sharply from te ones Marshall had learned at Fort Leavenworth, Chaimount and Fort Benning.
Page 42 On 11 October 1940, staying at Chequers for the weekend, Churchill and Brooke disagreed over the use being made of the eccentric but occasionally brilliant Major-General Percy Hobart, who was then languishing as a lance-corporal in the Home Guard due to the War Office’s extreme inclination to employ him. Brooke said he was too wild , recorded Colville but ‘Winston reminded him of the Wolfe standing on a chair in front of Chatham brandishing a sword. “ You cant expect, he said “to have the genius type with conventional copy-book Style” That exchange could almost be taken as a template for their future relationship.
My comment: At this point I notice the difference in the dynamics between Marshall and Roosevelt and Brooke and Churchill. Where Marshall was smart enough to keep his boss at arms length, Brooke was not. In this case where Brooke challenged Churchill, even his own command was hesitant to use him militarily. Thus leaving a little grandstanding as a viable play to inspire the English people. Churchill used all the faculties of his people, ( and other Presidents, people) where Brooke’s vision was strictly military.
Page 45: The adoption of the memorandum, first by Marshall and then by Rossevelt- though not in writing – and then by the US Joint Planning Committee, meant that te United States had an outline plan to use durning the secret, arm'-length Anglo- American Staff talks, code named ABC-I which were about to start. No such talks could be organized before Roosevelt’s third inauguration on 20 January 1941, because during the election campaign he had promised American parents that ‘Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.’
Page 52: In a nine page hand written letter on 4 August, 1940 to his cousin and confidante Margaret ‘Daisy’ Suckley, who lived close to him in Dutchess County, New York, Roosevelt described how he had been secretly transferred from his presidential yacht the Potomac on to the heavy cruiser USS Augusta, and, with another cruiser and five destroyers as escort had made his way to Newfoundland. The Potomac had continued to fly his presidential flag once he’d left her, in order to maintain deception: “even at my ripe old age I feel the thrill in making a getaway, especially from the American Press.”
Page 68: The Grand Strategy Arcadia (1940) agreed was summarized in a document written by Churchill entitled WW1, which was to represent the Allies overall position until superseded by another document, CCS 94 in August 1942. This enshrined the concept of Germany first.
Page 69: Eisenhower agreed with Admiral Stark’s original assessment in ‘Plan Dog’ that the defeat of Germany would make the defeat of Japan a matter of time, whereas the defeat of Japan would not materially weaken Germany.
Page 77: Marshall’s institution of the Joint Chiefs of Staff could not, however, wholly alter the disorganization in the American system which Jacob had commented on so tartly. Roosevelt’s desire to retain power closely in his own hands, and to keep Administration officials competing for his favor, les him to adopt methods that seem indescribably Byzantine, even administratively dysfunctional, to modern eyes.
Page 91: On January 18 1942, in a memorandum to Roosevelt, Marshall identified what was for Brooke also a key aspect of the war, and one that the British believed justified the Gymnast operation. ‘The future effort of the Army is dependent on shipping, he wrote. ‘More shipping than is now insight is essential if the national war effort is not neutralized to a serious extent.’ Marshall estimated that by December 1942 there would be 1.8 million American troops ready for over seas service and by the end of 1943 about 3.5 million.
Page 110: Eden wanted to abolish the Defence Committee altogether, but recorded that Churchill was ‘obstinate about it, and maintains that it is better to have one place where service members have a show’ Eden thought that since it effected little and tended to attract criticism in parliament, it ought to go, but Churchill spotted that is would be better for an important committee to attract criticism than the real power-house of the war which were the Staff Conferences – meanwhile Ismay was the oil-can that greased the relationship between Churchill and Brooke.’ Says General Fraser – much as Dill oiled that between Brooke and Marshall.
Page 111: Dining with John Kennedy at the Savoy Grill on 4 June 1942, Ismay said Churchill ‘needs someone to use as a whipping boy on whom to blow off steam’ and he was ‘quite frank in admitting this as his chief function’ He added that someone with sounder and stronger judgment could hold his job it would be doubtless better, but chances are that such a person would soon be thrown out.’ Kennedy concluded that he would never have Ismay’s job ‘for anything in the world.’
Page 117: Like Brooke, Kennedy considered the bombing campaign against Germany ‘ineffective’ and ‘beyond our means.’ He repeated to his diary the views he injudiciously blurted out at Chequers the previous year, that if it came to worst, ‘It is certainly more important to hold India and Ceylon than to hang on in Egypt. We are getting very little for our effort in the Middle East and certainly not enough to compensate for serious losses of positions in the Indian Ocean. After hearing Churchill’s views on Singapore, Kennedy reiterated: ‘It is wrong to depend so much on one man who is so temperamental, so lacking in strategical knowledge and in judgment, despite his other great qualities.’ This summed up the view of Churchill that was held most universally among senior British Planners and especially Brooke., though none failed to praise those ‘the great qualities’, principally the fillip he gave national morale.
Page 119: Brooke’s adamant opposition to an early Second Front alienated plenty of liberal intellectuals …..who believed that Marshall’s judgment was ultimately better that Churchill’s and far ahead of General Brooke…whose judgment about Russia, was abysmal. In fact had a far more hard-headed attitude towards the Russians, who had until very recently been allies of the Nazis and had been supplying them with grain and oil right up to the night of Barbarossa was launched…Brooke was rather impatient with our attitude of giving everything Russians ask and getting nothing in return. Pf course the Russians are fighting - but for themselves and not for us.
Page 140: Brooke’s experiences in France in the two BEF expeditions of 1940 had a deciding influence on the assumptions underlying his formulation of grand strategy in the Second World War, principally in convincing him that the French could not be relied upon and that the Germans were very formidable opponents indeed.
Page 141: According to Hopkin’s notes of the trip, from 4p.m. to 6p.m. Marshall presented the broad outlines of his Memorandum to Churchill’s, who ‘indicated that he had told the Chiefs of Staff that, in spite of all the difficulties, he was prepared to go along.’ Churchill repeated the objections that the Chiefs of Staff had put, ‘all of which he had heard in Washington before coming to England’. Marshall was more optimistic about the interview than Hopkins, thinking that ‘Churchill went a long way and he Marshall, expected far more resistance than he got..
What Hopkins guessed, but Marshall seems not to have, is that Churchill privately opposed an early Roundup and Sledgehammer just as much as Brooke.
Page 155: Brooke then stated unequivocally that ‘The Chiefs of Staff entirely agreed that Germany was the real enemy. At the same time, it was essential to hold Japanese and ensure that there was no junction between tem and t Germans. He conjured up the by now familiar lurid scenario in which the Japanese won control of the Indian Ocean, allowing the Middle East to be gravely threatened and oil supplies prevented from going though the Persian Gulf. Under those circumstances, Germany would seize Persia’s oil, the southern route to Russia would be cut off, and Turkey would be isolated, destroying any hope of her joining the Allies, while Germany and Japan could exchange any hardware they needed
Page 156: Of Brooke he explained that the Germany First policy had been adopted because the US High Command wanted to fight on land, at sea, and in the air, as well as in the most useful place, and in the place where they could attain superiority, and they were desirous above all of joining in an enterprise with the British. He might have been more honest if less comradely, if he added that Roosevelt and Marshall realized how more difficult the task would be if Britain lost to Germany darning the time that it took for the United States to defeat Japan.
Page 170: ‘On 13 January last’ Marshall wrote to Roosevelt, on 5 May, ‘you authorized an increase in the enlisted strength of the Army to 3.6 million by 31 December 1942. Authorization for additional men in 1942 is now essential to out plans.’ In the intervening four months the Army had to garrison the lines of communication to Australia, and rush reinforcements to Hawaii, Alaska, and Panama.
Page 171: Roosevelt characterized the recapture of previously British- and Dutch-owned islands as ‘premature’. In the Near East and East African theaters, the responsibility was against the British, although America “must furnish all possible material’ in Libya, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and the Persian Gulf. Britain and America would split responsibility for the Atlantic, while ‘The principal objective was to help Russia,’ since ‘It must be constantly reiterated that Russians armies are killing more Germans and destroying more Axis material, than all the twenty-five United Nations put together.’
Page 198. So, just as Marshall, King and Eisenhower were trying to consign Gymnast to a strategic, logistical and even ‘logical’ grave in Washington – hardly resisted by an almost equally skeptical Brooke- Churchill resurrected it at Hyde Park. In getting Roosevelt on his own there, Churchill had a considerable advantage, as ‘amateur strategist’ President tended, at least at this stage of the war, to defer to him on military matters in a way that he would not have done had Marshall been present. ‘I must emphasize’, admitted Wedemeyer, after the war.
Page 200: The American response to the news about Tobruk was instinctive, and was often later recalled with powerfully nostalgia by all Britons present. ‘For a moment or two no one spoke,’ recalled Ismay, but then the silence was broken by Roosevelt. ‘In six monosyllables he epitomized his sympathy with Churchill, his determination to do the utmost to sustain him, and his recognition that we were all in the same boat: “What can we do to help?”
Page 214: Churchill himself admitted being haunted by the ghosts of the Somme and in the Closing Ring he wrote of Roundup: “The fearful price we had to pay in human life and blood for te great offensives of the First World War was graven on my mind….
Yet is wasn’t so much getting to Passchendaele and the Somme that worried the British strategists in 1942-4 as the Dunkirk and Brest campaigns of the summer of 1940. Rommel’s and Guderian’s seemingly unstoppable blitzkrieg campaign across France featured more in their fears – especially Brooke’s and Dill’s – than the mud and blood of Flanders of a quarter century before.
Page 220: Brooke explained his view and thus his fundamental difference of view from Marshall. “ Having been forced to fight on two fronts during 1914-18 War’ he began te Germans ‘had further developed their East-West communications with double railway lines and autobahns, to meet the possibility of being again forced to fight on two frontiers. They were capable of moving some six to eight divisions…simultaneously from East to West. That the Germans had far less maneuverability ins southern Europe and the Mediterranean, where he argued the rail and road communications from northern France to southern Italy and the Mediterranean were very poor.
Page 233: ‘I have carefully your estimate of Sunday’ wrote Roosevelt to Marshall and Stimson on Tuesday 14 July, before his return to the White House the next day. “My first impression is that the [Pacific Option] is exactly what Germany hoped the United States would do following Pearl Harbor. Secondly, it does not in fact provide American troops in fighting, except in a lot of [Pacific] islands whose occupation will not affect the world situation this year or next….
Page 235: Dill also mentioned another un-welcomed fact to Churchill in his telegram, namely that the American Chiefs of Staff were reading Field Marshall Sir William Robertson’s two-volume memoir about grand strategy of the Great War, Soldiers and Statesmen, and that Marshall had sent him a copy with the third chapter of the first volume heavily annotated. Churchill would have understood immediately what that meant. Robertson, whi had been CIGS from 1915 to 1918, was a Clausewitizian, and volume I chapter III of his book covered the Dardanelles expedition. ‘An essential condition of success in war being, the concentration of effort on the decisive front, ….
Over the Dardanelles, Robertson did not deny that ‘it might be desirable to threaten interests which are of importance to the enemy, so as to oblige him to detach for their protection of force larger than te one employed making the threat, thus rendering him weaker in comparison on the decisive front,’ which was precisely Churchill’s and Brooke’s Italian strategy for 1943-4, but Marshall is unlikely to have underlined that for Dill’s attention. Much more likely candidates for annotation were Robertson’s strictures on ministers – primarily Churchill himself – who were indifferent to, or ignorant or, the disadvantages which always attend on charges of plan and t neglect to concentrate on one thing at a time’ Churchill was also criticized by name for having briefed the supreme strategy-making body, the War Council, directly, instead of allowing the Admiralty professionals to do it, ‘as was, in fact done after Churchill left the department’.
My Note: First the Clauswitzien strategy of WWI only produced an armacist and planted the seeds of the Second World War. To be direct it was a failed strategy that cost millions of lives. Of this excerpt there is far too much conjecture. First the author attempts to connect the dots of history back to the Dardanelles and pin full blame on Churchill, when other accounts find that there was nothing wring with Churchill’s strategy in the Dardanelles if only the Admiral of the Fleet at the time had sailed into the ports of a Turk army who was completely out of ammunition. Additionally in his concluding sentences to indict Churchill of over reaching his authority, the author does not concede that at the time of Churchill’s address to the War Council, that it was his place and duty to do so, regardless of future changes in structure. The author is guilty of “piling on” in wrongful criticism of a leader who with faults led the world to victory in WWII. Form this point, on through the rest of the book the reader witnesses the bias of the author. Where as the strategy unfolds Churchill’s idea of attacking Germany from the south, may have inflicted lives cost in terms of lives and blood, and as well have reached Berlin far ahead of the Russians which would have stalled the Russian land grab of which was known for forty-five years as the Eastern Bloc countries that fell under the heel of the USSR.
Page 238: On the evening of 14 July, at a meeting at No 10 Downing Street of representatives of Allied countries grandly entitled the Pacific War Council, Kennedy recorded: “Winston in his blue romper suit but with clean white shirt with cuffs…looked well and serene, lit a cigar and proceeded to give a general survey of the war, speaking slowly and without effort.”. After asking the New Zealand High Commissioner Sir William Jordan to stop taking notes because it distracted his attention, he talked of shipping losses, the efforts to sustain Russia, and the Eastern Front, and pointed out that Germans had only seventy-five days before winter fell there. He believed ‘The Japs would attack Russia when the moment came the- they would stab her in the back…. But for the moment they were gorged with their prey’.
Page 251: Eisenhower reacted somewhat melodramatically to the news, telling Butcher that Wednesday 22 July 1942 could well go down as ‘the blackest day in history’ if Russia was defeated by ‘the big Boche drive now so alarmingly under way’ and the West had done nothing to save her.
Back in Washington, Stimson insisted on seeing the standoff in terms of ‘a fatigued and defeatist government which lost her initiative, blocking the help of a young and vigorous nation whose strength had not he been tapped so much as wrecked, and Britain’s along with it. The experience of these negotiations with Marshall and King must have been rather like reliving his June 1940 conversation with Churchill at Lamans.
That day John Kennedy was given a full briefing on the negotiations by Brooke, who told him that Roosevelt had given instructions to Marshall to the effect that the American Army must get into action somewhere against the Germans and that he was to go and make plans accordingly. This is so remarkably accurate that Brooke simply must have known or at least the gist of the secret instructions that Roosevelt had given Marshall and Hopkins before they left. Had Hopkins leaked them to Churchill, who passed them on at 11:00 PM meeting at Downing Streets? However he came by the information, Brooke knew that if he stayed utterly intransigent over Sledgehammer – if he kept ‘looking into the distance’ – Marshall was under orders to finally buckle.
Page 254: Like Portal, Kennedy also thought that superior British arguments rather than presidential diktat had won the day, ‘The last week has seen a development in our planning with Americans that may govern the future outcome of the war’ he wrote.
Page 255: As so often in hard-fought compromises between Staffs m the key detail was to be found towards the end, almost in the small print. Under paragraph C subsection 4 it stated: ‘That it be understood that a commitment to [Torch] renders Roundup in all probability impracticable of successful operation in 1943 and therefore that we have defiantly accepted a defensive encircling line of action for Continental European Theater, except as to air operations and blockade.
That might sound like Brooke’s strategy, but there was a catch, pone that Michael Howard has even likened to Faustian compact made between British Chiefs of Staff and the Americans, CCS 94 seemed to imply that Churchill’s original WWI document from Arcadia Conference had now been officially superseded, and that instead of Germany First, the phrase ‘defensive encircling line of action, meant that Americans could now concentrate more on the Pacific.
My Note: seems to imply is always a warning sign that the author may be attempting to add a new color to history. Robert Andrews does this often to cast Churchill in a critical light.
Page 258: The change of Allied policy from attacking Cherbourg in France to attacking Casablanca in Africa, swiveling the whole focus of grand strategy 1,250 miles to the south, cannot have but rankled with Marshall. Even ten months later walking to a meeting together in Washington, he told Brooke: ‘I find it very hard even now not to look upon your North African strategy with jaundice eye!!’
Considering that even the US secretary for War had bet the President that the American invasion of Morocco would fail – something that would surely have forced his resignation if know publicly – there was much ground to be made up.
My Note: The reader must be very careful to note where the end quotes are and where the conjecture begins in the above second paragraph. Earlier in the book the author portrays the North African Strategy as the only one available at the time where action must be made to demonstrate deterrence and affirmative action on the Allied part. For Marshall, there could only be a tactical interpretation of the North African campaign as he was always a Clausewitz advocate and North African distracted that effort. I’ll share my views in the body conclusion.
Page 267: On Brookes decision to remain Churchill’s strategist and not assume command in the field, deferring the job to Montgomery: Brooke was not persuaded by Smuts, not least because he was a gentleman, he couldn’t bear the idea that Auchinleck ‘might think that I had come out here on purpose to work himself into his shoes!’ He thought over the offer throughout the day, but remained convinced that his decision was the correct one, and that he could ‘do more by remaining CIGS’…..we assume that politicians are driven by personal ambition, but soldiers are too, and although in career terms to swab the job of CIGS for Near East commander-in-chief might have looked like a demotion, in fact it would have afforded, Smuts intimated, a ‘wonderful future’.
Page 268: Brooke and Churchill also agreed that Alexander Should succeed Auchinleck in Cairo, Lieutenant- General Thomas Corbett and Brigadier Eric Dorman-Smith were to leave their commands altogether, and Lieutenant-General William ‘Strafer” Gott was to lead the English Army, although Brooke had misgivings about this. Yet on his way to take up his new command on the very next day, 7 August, flying the Burg el Arab to Heliopolis route, which was considered safe, Gott’s slow transport plane was shot down ‘inflames’ by a lone German fighter. Churchill and Brooke then quickly settled on the man whom Brooke had wanted originally, Lieutenant General Bernard Law Montgomery.
My note: By now the reader is cautious on an author’s bent to color history. With an agenda to criticize Churchill’s credibility, Roberts could have provided evidence as to Brookes preference of pick.. While the story may or may not an accurate reflection of Brooke’s preference, this book does not stand on its own on this point.
Page 270: Everyone cheered up once Churchill passed on to what he called operation Torch, at which Stalin ‘became intensely interested’
Page 273: On the failed Operation Jubilee : A small German convoy in the Channel alerted the shore defenses before the assault could take place, so the element of surprise was lost, yet Mountbatten ordered it to go ahead anyhow.
Although no German troops were moved from East to West as a result of the debacle, coastal defenses were massively strengthened. ‘If I had the same decision to make again,’ Mountbatten nonetheless answered, ‘I would do as I did before. It gave the Allies the priceless secret of victory.’ This is trip, unless the lesson of not attacking a well-defended town without proper intelligence and a preliminary aerial and naval bombardment is a ‘priceless secret’….Yet even as late as 2003 historians would still take Mountbatten at his word, with one writing” ‘The catastrophe provided priceless lessons for a full scale amphibious invasion”.
My note: While this time I agree with Robert’s assessment or coloring of Mountbatten’s decisions, Roberts falls prey of criticizing other historians where his narrative stands on its own. In my view Mountbatten’s strategy and tactics has not been the benefactor of history’s long view on numerous other occasions; specifically post war India.
Page 276: It was Stalingrad that finally, in Stimson’s words, ‘banished is the spectre of a German victory in Russia, which had haunted the Council table of Allies for a year and a half.’ IT also greatly reduced the likelihood of a German attack through Spain, cutting off American forces from their supply lines. Just as Wellington’s campaign in the Iberian peninsula had been small but significant “ulcer’ for Napoleon, but certainly not the Russian ‘coronary’ that destroyed him, so too the North African and Italian campaigns would be ulcerous for Hitler, but it was the Eastern Front that annihilated the Nazi dream of Lebensraum for the mater race.
My note: To my observation on the missing strategy are those of Stalin and Hitler. Each of which contributed to the outcome of the Second World War, yet over looked in this book.
Page 279 We are undertaking something of a quite desperate nature and which depends only in minor degree upon professional preparations we can make or upon the wisdom of our military decisions,’ wrote Eisenhower in his diary that week. “in a way it is like the return of Napoleon from Elba – if the guess as to psychological reaction is correct we may gain a great advantage in this war; if the guess is wrong, it would be almost certain that we would gain nothing and lose a not.’ He feared that there might be a ‘very bloody repulse’ and that Vichy France and even Spain might enter the war against the Allies.
Page 281: When Roosevelt’s cable duly arrived on Monday 31 August it caused consternation.’ I feel very strongly that the initial attacks must be made by an exclusively American ground force supported by your naval and transport and air units,’ it read. This was because Roosevelt believed that the French would offer less resistance ‘to us than they will to the British’.
Page 293: Smuts suggested that the real victory front was to be found ‘from the South not from the West’, and Churchill agreed,
Page 297: It was a magisterial rebuke, and the figures still have the power to impress. An army of fewer that two hundred thousand when the European war broke out in September 1939 would grow into one seven million – thirty-five times its size- a mere four years later. In divisional terms, the US Army had 37 trained divisions at the time of Pearl Harbor, 73 by Operation Torch, 120 by the summer of 1943 and 200 by D-Day. By contrast the British Commonwealth had seventy-five divisions by the summer of 1943 and hardly any more the nest year. Nor was the American Revolution confined to the Army; on 13 November 1942 a US shipbuilding yard built a standard 10,500-ton merchant vessel - a Liberty ship in exactly four days and fifteen hours. Two days later the ship was fully equipped and ready for service. No other country or alliance could begin to match such efficiency and productive power.
Page 299: Had the entire German and Italian army in Tunisia- approximately a quarter of a million men- not been captured, they might well have stalled the later Allied advances into southern Europe. It might be, therefore, that the very lack of early success immediately after Torch paradoxically increased the success later, given Hitler’s unwillingness to retreat even tactically, a characteristic that American strategists were about to note with glee.
Page 301: With Churchill and Brooke now tending to agree on the big issue – that the next stage in the war ought to be in the Mediterranean rather than across the Channel – Brooke allowed himself to be irritated only by small issues, such as Churchill’s love for rodomontades during meetings. At one Defense Committee with Winston holding forth, he passed a note to Grigg saying ’15 minutes gone and no work done’, which he subsequently altered to 20, 30, 35, 40 and then 45, before the real business of the beating began. ‘Winston is really stupid the way he tries his team’ concluded Kennedy after he heard this…
My comment: Other than to tarnish an otherwise brilliant performance of Churchill , the author spends too much print like above to make his disenchantment with Churchill known.
Page 303: CIGS is quite determined to go flat out in the MED recorded Kennedy
We can waste German strength there and tackle him on equal or better terms in outposts like Sardania, Sicily, tip of Italy, Crete. We cannot develop an an offensive on both fronts. The essential condition for France is still a crack in German morale and strength. Italy may be knocked out of the war by a combination of landing attacks and bombing. The Balkans are a weak spot for the Axis. If we can get near enough to bomb the Roumanian oilfields and cut the Aegean and Turkish traffic (chrome, etc) we can go far to hamstring the Germans
My comment: What is missed by the author and the western strategists is had we marched from Yugoslavia to Berlin, the Russians would not have taken that territory and we would not have had a fifty-year Cold War.
Page 311: The strategy of North Africa-Ital-France, stated the American historian Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison in an Oxford lecture series in the 1950’s ‘was a perfectly cogent and defensible strategy; but Sir Alan Brooke disclosed it only bit by bit, which naturally gave Americans the feeling that they had been had.. He cited Admiral King’s prediction that once forced to the Mediterranean, We would be forced to go on had proposed North Africa as a stepping stone to mainland Italy and the Balkans, and possibly beyond, right at the start, the Americans would never have undertaken Torch.
Page 317: Broke thought it best to put the war against Japan high on the agenda, reasoning that if Admiral King ‘was able to get everything about the pacific “off his chest”, then perhaps he ‘would take a less jaundiced view vis-à-vis the rest of the world’
Page 323: At 5:30 PM the Combined Chiefs, along with Eisenhower, Alexander and Tedder, met Roosevelt and Churchill in the first of three plenary sessions- ‘at which we did little’, recorded Brooke, ‘except that the President expressed views favoring operations in the Mediterranean’. Far from little, this was the first glimpse that as with Torch, the Americans were split over strategy, and therefore might be prevailed over isolating Marshall again. This time it would take much detailed argument, especially by Staffs, rather than the point-blank veto that Brooke had exercised in London backing July.
Page 334: When the Combined Chiefs of Staff met again at 3p, the compromise paper was accepted with only a few minor alterations. The recapture of Burma through Anakim and a south-west Pacific offensive to Rabaul and then on to Marshall and Caroline Islands would be conducted with whatever means could be spared without compromising the objective of defeating Germany.
Page346: Ian Jacob believed that being expelled from North Africa ‘would be shattering for Italians. Their vitals would be exposed to attack.’ The surrender of Italy would present Hitler with a tough choice: either to let her go or else reinforce her by taking troops from elsewhere, such as Russia and the Balkans. There was an aspect to the Fuhrer that was only just becoming apparent to the Allied High Commands: it seemed clear from the orders that he gave both to Paulus in Stalingrad and to Rommel at El Alamein (and again in Tunisia) the he could not countenance even strategically justified with drawls.
Page 347: Churchill insisted on th President being carried up on to the roof of Villa Taylor, ‘his paralyzed legs dangling like limbs of a ventriloquist’s dummy, limp and flaccid’ in the words of an on looker, and together they watched the purple mountains changing color in the setting sun. It was from that roof that Churchill painted his only picture of the war, despite taking his canvases and paint box on several trips.
Page 384: In a Cabinet discussion on war criminals on 7 July, Churchill reported that FDR [was] inclined to let our troops shoot them out of hand! ‘I suggested the United Nations [should] draw up list of fifty or so who would be declared as outlaws by the thirty-three nations. (those not on the list might be induced to a rat!) If any of these were found by advancing troops, the nearest officer of Brigade rank should call a military court to establish identity and then execute without higher military authority.’
Page 402: On Monday 16 August, Brook and Marshall returned to the Trident system of off-the-record meetings. The secretaries and Planners left the Salon Rose, and for three hours after 2:30 p.m. the Combined Chiefs undertook ‘the difficult task of finding a bridge.’ These discussions were ‘pretty frank’ with Brooke opening by saying that ‘the root of the matter was that we did not trust each other’. He went on to accuse the Americans of doubting the British commitment ‘to put our full hearts into the cross Channel operation next spring’, while their part the British were not certain that Americans ‘would not in future insist on our carrying out previous agreements irrespective of changed strategic conditions’. This was a veiled reference to the seven divisions due to be withdrawn from the Mediterranean theatre only eleven weeks hence.
Page 403: Vast amounts of construction work had to be done – hard roads, railways to beaches, exits, fuel and storage tanks, railway sidings. The amount of construction in southern England was terrific. It is interesting to note that millions of pounds were spent from early 1943 onwards, when there was only COSSAC Staff; millions spent on a plan which had not been approved
‘It was the logic of events resulting from a loss of time more than logic of argument’
Page 404: Meanwhile, Churchill was still pressing hard for an attack on the northern tip of Sumatra, code named Operation Culverin. Rather condescendingly Brooke wrote that ‘Winston…had discovers with a pair of dividers that we could bomb Singapore’ from Sumatra, ‘and he had set his heart on going there’. Brooke believed Sumatra to be unsuitable place for any long term projects against the Malay States, and told the Prime Minister at a meeting at t Citadel at noon on 19 August the ‘when he put his left foot down he should know where the right foot was going to go’. In cold black and white print, that does not look too rude, but we cannot know the tone of voice and the body language that accompanied it. The result was Churchill lost his temper completely and shook his fist in Brook’s face saying ‘I do not want any pf your long term projects that cripple initiative!
Page 419: So the meeting served no useful purpose other than blowing off ministerial steam. It was not mentioned at all in Churchill’s war memoirs, probably because he did not want readers to appreciate how doubtful he was about Overloard.. Yet he was, and so – at least on this occasion –was Brooke.
My comment: Operation Overloard was clearly from the military books and minds of the Americans. It proved to be a victory or at least in my mind we didn’t lose. It was a victory at the cost of immense loss of life. Likely more so than the strategy being argued by the British at the time; which was to advance in to Germany from the south through a landing in what was then Yugoslavia. War was won by the Russians as much as the Allies. Overloard was the seed of the Cold War. Overloard was pushed by American who buy 1944 were contributing more to the war effort and therefore carried the commanding voice, without listening to alternative strategy.
Page 427: reported by Sir Alan Lascekes: great problem at the moment is to teach th Americans that you cannot run a war by making rigir ‘lawyers’ agreements’ to carry out preconceived strategic operations at a given date (ie Overloard), but you must plan your campaign elastically and be prepared to adapt it to the tactical exigencies of the moment. They don’t seem to grasp that a paper-undertaking made in the autumn to invade Europe (or any other Continent) in the following spring may have to be modified in accordance with what the enemy does or does not do in the intervening winter.
Page 428: With only days to go before the Cairo Conference began, The British crystallized their ideas about what they wanted out of it. The main desiderata would be to continued the offensive in Italy, to increase the flow of supplies to the partisans in the Balkans, to try to induce the Balkan powers to break away from Germany, to induce Turkey to enter the war, and to accept a postponement of Overloard. Of these five British hopes only the first two were adopted.
Page 433: Roosevelt evinced yet more hostility towards Britain in the COSSAC proposals for the division of post war Germany into zones, codenamed Rankin. He believed that ‘the British wanted the north western part of Germany and would like to see the US take France and Germany south of the Mouselle River. ‘ He said ‘he he did not like that arrangement’. Other than mentioning its Roman Catholicism, the President did not explain what he had against ‘southern Germany, Baden Wurttemburg, everything south of the Rhine’, but clearly preferred America to control the Protestant north-west of the Reich The reason was doubtless because that was generally where the manufacturing industries were located.
…continued onto page 434: King added that the military plans for Overloard were too far developed to permit any changes in deployment. Roosevelt then astonishingly suggested that American forces might instead be sent around Scotland and land in northern Germany, adding that “He felt that we should get out of France and Italy as soon as possible, letting the British and the French handle their own problem together. There would definitely be a race for Berlin. We may have to put the US divisions into Berlin as soon as possible
My comment: Again we find within his own words an author taking the ever popular attack on a religious argument when he also includes the practical argument for ones desires on the spoils of war. Andrew Roberts expounded on the religious points and glossed over the practical. And you wonder why there is a popular view against religion.
Page 436: Although the British wanted an agreement on Overloard and the Mediterranean before they all me the Russians in Tehran, the Americans needed a decision on south-eat Asia immediately, but wanted to discuss Overloard and the Mediterranean only at Tehran, where the knew they would be supported by Stalin, who was desperate for Overloard as he was opposed a Western presence In the Balkans. Furthermore, Roosevelt and Marshall rated Chaing Kai-shek highly and saw China as a post-war great power, where as Churchill saw him as a peripheral figure and Brooke considered him “Evidently [had]…no grasp of war in its larger aspects…
Page 440: Roosevelt had wanted to invite Moscow to Cairo but the Russians wouldn’t meet the Chinese generalissimo for fear that it might compromise the uneasy truce the Russians maintained with Japan since 1941.
Page 444 The Russian dictator stated unequivocally that Overloard should be the overriding priority for 1944, that the Italian campaign was a mere diversion (and an unimpressive one at that); that Turkey would not enter the war so Britain’s Aegean planes were still born, and that southern France needed to be invaded before Overlord.
Page 451
Stalin promised to declare war on Japan after Germany surrendered, and to launch an offensive during Overlord to discourage the Wermacht from moving troops westwards during the initial stages.
My comment: a convenient promise by Stalin, but it is not mentioned that Stalin did not declare war on Japan, and we fought on resorting to the Atom bomb.
Page 453: The realities were spelt to Stimson by Roosevelt after Marshall had specifically refused to ask for t Overlord post: ‘The President said that he had decided on a mathematical basis that if Marshall took Overlord it would mean that Eisenhower would become Chief of Staff. Yet Eisenhower was unfamiliar with the war in the Pacific and, in Stimson’s view he ‘would be far less able than Marshall to handle the Congress’…
Page 463: Brooke added that, when he visited Italy that December, ‘The terrain defies description. It’s like the North-West Frontier: a single destroyed culvert can hold up an army for a day.’ He then went on to talk about the Germans, saying they were fighting magnificently: ‘Marvelous it is perfectly marvelous.’ Hitler’s strategy was all wrong, however, in trying to establish a front in Italy so far south while simultaneously holding Nikopol on the lower Dnieper, for “While one is on the wave of victory no one can successfully violate all the established rules of war. But when one starts to decline, one cannot violate them without disaster.
Page 476: …when the War Cabinet was informed that there could be as many as 160,000 civilian casualties as a result of bombing the French railway network prior to Overloard, Cunningham noted,’ Considerable sob stuff about children with legs blown off and blinded old ladies but nothing about saving of risk to our young soldiers landing on a hostile shore. It is of course intended to issue warnings before hand’
Page 477: From Cunningham’s journals it is evident that the Chiefs of Staff were looking towards the post-war situation, with a suspicions eye towards Russia, almost before any other British government agency or institution.
My comment: yet they insisted on a text book attack of Overlord as opposed to attacking through the Balkans.
Page 490 The day after D-Day, Alexander reported that if he were left with his twenty-seven divisions in Italy, and not lose any to Anvil, he could break through the Appennines into the Po Valley, take eighteen divisions north of Venice and force the Ljubljan Gap between Italy and northern Yugoslavia. Once there, he stated in his memoirs, the way led to Vienna, an object of great political and psychological value’. The prospect appealed to Churchill and Clark, but not very much to others…
Marshall vociferously opposed forcing Ljubljana Gap, arguing that Eisenhower needed the southern French ports so that he could deploy on a much wider front, and that the Germans would merely withdrawal from north Italy to the Alps under Alexander’s attack, which could then be held with far smaller forces.
Page 490: Churchill’s dreams of British Commonwealth forces planting Union Jack over Schonbrunn and the Hofburg before the Russians arrived in Vienna was ended by Brooke, who knew Marshall’s view of it. There would still be plenty of teeth gnashing before Churchill relinquished his project,…
Page 498: said McMillan we should have to give in if Eisenhower and Marshall insisted upon ‘Anvil”. We can fight up to a point, we can ;eave on record for history to judge the reasoned statement of our views, and the historian will also see that the Americans have never answered any argument, never attempted to discuss or debate the points, but have merely given flat negative and slightly Shylock-like insistence which they conceive to be their bargain.
My comment: With all the negative color that the author puts on Churchill I don’t know what to make of him putting the most critical analysis of the most critical decision in terms of joint strategy in a first person voice of one of the actors of the story. Being that McMillan was not a prime mover of this book this critical analysis could have gone un noticed.
Page 499: Churchill’s reply on 1 July was anguished. Even though he began with first person plural – ‘We are deeply grieved by your telegram’ – he soon slipped into more intimate vernacular, saying that this was ‘the first major strategic and political error for which the two are responsible. At Teheran you emphasized to me the possibilities of a move eastward when Italy was conquered.’ He claimed that ‘N one involved in these discussions has ever thought of moving armies into the Balkans,’ but stated that Istria and Treste were strategically and politically important position ‘which, as you saw yourself, very clearly might exercise profound and widespread reactions, especially now after the Russians advances’ Finally Churchill stated that:
If you still press upon us the directive of your Chiefs of Staff to withdraw so many of your forces from the Italian campaign and leave all our hopes there dashed to the ground, His Majesty’s Government, on the advice of their Chiefs of Staff must enter a solemn protest…. It is with the greatest sorrow that I write to you in this sense. But I am sure that if we could have met, as I so frequently proposed, we should have reached a happy agreement.
That is precisely what Marshall had feared, and was one of the reasons Churchill did not meet the President at all throughout the nine months between December 1943 and September 1944, despite having seen him thrice in the seven months in 1943. Churchill‘s force of personality was blunted once it was translated on to printed telegraph slips…
My comment: The most critical turn of strategy is depicted in the book from page 436 through page 499. It bares the power to the phrase “let history” judge our actions. I am simply suspect that our author was so bent on the critique of Churchill that he missed an opportunity to expound on the genius of Churchill.
Page 505: Churchill agreed, telling Charles Moran ‘Good God, can’t you see that the Russians are spreading across Europe like a tide; they have invaded Polan, and there is nothing to prevent them into marching in to Turkey and Greece!...but the Americans would not listen to him….But The Americans would not listen to him. Moran concluded that Churchill was distraught, but you cannot get him down for too long.’He sat up in his bed as his speech quickened and he expounded on how “Alex might be able to solve this problem by breaking into the Balkans. Out troops are already in the outskirts of Florence. They would soon be in the valley of the Po.’ Churchill’s promise to Roosevelt on 1 July that ‘No on involved in these discussions has ever thought of moving armies into the Blalkans’ there for is obviously completely misleading.
My comment: I have learned that what an author in history uses words like obviously; it was a harbinger that the words immediately following is an attempt to either re-write history, bend it, or perhaps cast an undue judgment of history. In this point I find Andrew Roberts guilty as charged as history clearly finds that the period immediately after WWI was the dawn of the phrase Soviet Bloc which included all the countries that the USSR invaded while the Allies were spending all their effort in operation Overlord. So when the West say they won WWII I beg to differ. The USSR won WWII and the West won a Cold War that could have been avoided, had they listened to Churchill.
Page 510: That question then led to the next: what kind of front would the Allies choose in the drive to the Rhine and beyond? Would it be a broad one that comprehensively forced the Germans back towards the Fatherland, with two major advances on wide fronts north and south of the Ardennes or would the attack instead be on narrow fronts, spearheaded by several faster thrusts to try and capture important targets deep within Germany, possibly even including Berlin before the Red Army reached it? Here again Roosevelt and Marshall supported Esienhower’s inclination for the former, while Brooke and Churchill tended to opt for Montgomary’s and Patton’s preference for the latter.
On the question of what the armies in Italy under Alexander and Clark would do once Lucain Truscott’s fifth Army and Sir Richard McCreery’s Eighth Army broke through the Gothic Line, the Americans strongly deprecated moves towards Treste, Istria, the Ljubljana Gap, Vienna and the Balkans.
Page 511 On 29 August Churchill sent Roosevelt a telegram about the Mediterranean in which the final paragraph once again brought up their Tehran conversation. It ended, ‘I an sure the arrival of a powerfull army in purely military values.’ Although the condition of Hungary could not be predicted, he believes that having troops there would leave the Western Allies ‘in a position to take full advantage of any great new situation.’ Roosevelt passed this on to Marshall, who asked McNarney and Handy to work on a draft reply that covered Italy in full but deliberately bypassed Istria completely. Churchill cannot have failed to mark the implications.
My comment: In this paragraph you see Roosevelt’s hubris coming out. His economy was saved by a war. Are participation in that war was only granted the time to tool up by the British of who he arrogantly ignores the visionary words of an Allies with much more intimate experience in European affairs in than himself. While Roosevelt did much good in holding his country together through a great depression, his economic and war time strategy receives low scores from the 20/20 perspective of history.
Page 515[Brooke] believes that seizure of the Istrian peninsula ‘not only had a military value, but also a political value of the Russian advances in the Balkans’.
Page 525: That same day Roosevelt and Churchill, amazingly enough initialed the Morgenthau Plan, which said that Germany needed to be turned into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in character. Brooke was fundamentally opposed, already seeing Germany as a future ‘ally to meet the Russian threat of twenty-fie years hence.
Page 527: Churchill went on to claim, rightly, that Britain had nonetheless saved Greece from the flood of Bolshevism.
Page 528: Marshall later recalled: We were very much afraid that Mr. Churchill’s interest in matters near Athens and in Greece would finally get us involved in that fighting, and we were keeping out of it in every way we possibly could.’ On 13 December, Roosevelt cabled Churchill to say that ‘the traditional policies of the US’ meant that as head of state he had to be ‘responsive to the state of public feeling’ against Britain on the Greek issue, and concluded, I didn’t need to tell you how much I dislike this state of affairs between you and me. Churchill replied generously: ‘I have felt it much that you were unable to give a word of explanation for your actions, but I understand your difficulties.’ The new burden of combating Communism in south-eastern Europe therefore looked as if it would be carried entirely by the British
Page 531: On 29 November Churchill made clear his objections to the early liberation of the Channel Islands, telling the War Cabinet that while the twenty-eight thousand Germans there ‘can’t get away’, if they surrendered Britain would have to feed them.
Page 535: The battle of the Bulge, for the potential danger it posed in the west, was only half the size of the [Russian] battle of Kursk, for example.
Page 539: This was particularly so in regard to the Balkan states and the now-termed satellite states. ‘You can’t treat military factors in the way you do political factors. It’s quite a different affair.’ Marshall felt that his brief was not to save eastern Europe from Communism but instead to win the war in the shortest possible time and with the fewest possible Allied lives lost.
My comment: First it is Roosevelt’s job to tell Marshall what the objectives are. Had Roosevelt listened to Churchill earlier in the game of war strategy he could possibly have had his cake and eat it too. As much as the author took license to bend history and inject his comment elsewhere on to cast Churchill in poor light I find his vision slightly clouded by American hubris as well.
Page 532: In 6 February [at Yalta] [Marshall] summarized the Burmese campaigns for t Russians, and Marshall reported that ‘in the face of unparalleled difficulties’ 44,000 tons of supplies had been flown over the Himalayas the previous month, which he described somewhat hyperbolically, as ‘the accomplishment of the greatest feat in all history’ and beside which he said inter-Staff co-operation ‘should be relatively easy. One problem frequently encountered was the reluctance of even high-ranking Russian military officers to commit themselves to anything, however minor, until it ad been referred back to Stalin; the hitherto short life-expectancies of marshals of t Soviet Union made that a sensible precaution.
Page 553: Although Balaklava mattered much to men like Churchill and Brooke who had grown up with Tennyson’s poem, the Prime Minister complained that local Russian guides had shown ‘no sort of feeling’ there. Either they thought they had won the battle or they had never heard of it…. We stood on the little ridge on the end of that famous battlefield where the Charge of the Light Brigade took place. All around us were twisted remains of German anti-tank guns.
My comment: having read up on the Crimean War I noted to myself that while the Charge of the Light Brigade was eventually successful, the British actually lost the battle of Balaklava. This was at some level because that while the taking of the objective in the Charge of the Light Brigade, there was no coordinated effort with the rest of the British and French armies, hence they soon lost their prize back to the Russians. I must be critical of the author, a historian, who did not seem to portray history correctly.
Page 555: Because he is usually accredited the victor of Yalta, it is sometimes forgotten that Stalin made a number of concessions there. He gave a firm date of entry into the Japanese war (three months after the Tennyson’s poem e German surrender); agreed to observe the provisions of the Atlantic Charter in eastern Europe by signing the Declaration of Liberated Europe, which affirmed the right of all peoples to choose their form of government under which they live’; assent to France sitting on the Control Commission for Germany, and agreed that the USSR would join the new United Nations Organization, largely on Roosevelt’s terms. Taken together these seemed significant, yet in reality they amounted to relatively little.
Page 556: Speaking in 1974, Ed Hull made the sensible but rarely heard argument that: All that Yalta did was to recognize the facts of life as they existed and were being brought about…The only way we could have in any way influenced that in a different way was not to have put our main effort into France and the Low Countries but to put it into the Balkans…It might have meant that Bulgaria, Rumania, and possibly other of those Eastern European countries that are now Communist-dominated would have other type of control. But…it would also mean that all of Germany and probably a good portion of t Low Countries, Belgium, Holland, and even France, might have Soviet influence over them rather than Western influence. To me there was no choice to make.
My comment: Again since the author took critical license out on Churchill throughout the book, albeit slight; to take grave objection to him actually taking down Hull’s statement in this book and failing to be critical. Imagine the Russians leapfrogging over Germany to actually occupy Western Europe. To use that is a mitigating circumstance is absurd. The book is subtitled how Four Titans Won the War using superb strategy. He then proceeds to berate one of the titans, and then describes a missed strategy and writes it off as insignificant lesser of two evils. Who really won the War appears to have been the USSR. It was not until the USA won the Cold War that Europe was fully liberated from tyranny.
Page 557: It is hard to be naïve and cynical at the same time, but Roosevelt was both when it came to Stalin and the fate of the Poles. ‘of one thing I am certain’ he told the Polish Prime Minister-in-exile Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, ‘Stalin is not an imperialist.’ To the former American Ambassador to France, William C Bullitt, he also said: “I have a hunch that Stalin doesn’t want anything other than security for his country, and I think if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work for a world of democracy and peace’
My comment: When an author writes these words in a book one has to think his cover subtitle is off the mark.
Page 561: As there was no point in doing that, there was no race to Berlin between Montgomery and Patton, or anyone else. Berlin was in the Soviet zone, and if the Allies had reached it first they simply would have to withdraw.
Page 565: Roosevelt’s curt reply to Churchill –“I do not get the point’ – ended with his ‘regret that phrasing of a formal discussion should have so disturbed you but I regret even more at a moment of a great victory we should become involved in such unfortunate reactions. Churchill could hardly have felt that it was worth while ripping up various agreements made with the Russians over Occupation zoning in order to dash for Berlin. More likely he wished to put in writing that he was on the right side of the Cold War which he saw – earlier than anyone else except perhaps Brooke – was looming. Between Churchill’s wildly over-optimistic report to the War Cabinet on returning from Yalta and this doleful telegram to Roosevelt only two months later, Stalin had given no indication that his promises of free and fair elections in Eastern Europe had been genuine.
Page 567: despite the tension between the two Masters in the last year or so, there is no evidence to support the notion that Churchill’s absence was ‘because he felt the President had latterly become unsupportive’, or that ‘the emotional link was never as close as commonly thought,’ as some historians suggested.
Page 569: Truman, who in all military matters understandably tended to defer to Marshall, followed the Joint Chief’s line that it was best to adhere to the Yalta zoning arrangements whatever the legal or political circumstances. Brooke wanted Prague to be liberated by the Western Allies for the ‘remarkable political advantages’ that would accrue, but Marshall merely passed this information on to Eisenhower with the comment: ‘Personally, and aside from all logistics, tactical, or strategic implications, I would loath to hazard American lives for purely political purposes.
My comment: Here I struggle with American lack of consolidation of a military effort to not acquire a lasting peace. First the President is the Commander in Chief and Truman failed to lead. As a result we saw no real commitment from the Russians against Japan, which led to Truman’s calculated decision for the Atom Bomb. This lit the fuse for the nuclear arms race, and subsequent waves of nuclear proliferation around the world of which the world now. What if the Russians helped draw the Japanese War to an end without the benefit of the Manhattan Project; where would we be now?
By Andrew Roberts
This book is an analysis of the prime movers in WWII strategy for the allies. Chief among them were Franklin D. Roosevelt and George C. Marshall for the Americans and Winston Churchill and Sir Allen Brooke for the British. The first question I raised in reading the inside of the jacket cover was who is Brooke? I found out five hundred plus pages later. The author does a convincing job in portraying Sir Allen Brooke as the grand master who got things done in spite of his boss, Sir Winston Churchill. While I give praise to the character the author builds in Brooke, I disparage the character built in Churchill. Having been the benefactor of reading Churchill’s accounts that are backed by a plethora of correspondence with key players of the war, I completed the book prepared to defend Churchill against yet another critic with a skewed opinion based in assorted fact, standing in shallow and murky water.
Aside from character building, which the author believes was an essential ingredient to decision making on a strategic level, the strategic planning of every Allied initiative are discussed in detail, where the page count of five-hundred-eighty-four was its only limitation. As the chronology progressed through time, I could not help but asking myself about Stalin and Hitler. In 1941 Roosevelt characterized the situation where ‘the principle objective was to help Russia,’ since ‘It must be constantly reiterated that Russian armies are killing more Germans and destroying more Axis material than all the twenty-five United Nations put together.
Through much of the war, the prevailing strategy seemed to be more the failure of Hitler’s strategy than the brilliance of any of the allied Commanders. As I closed the back cover of his book, I wrote a big question mark on my reading list. I have read in many accounting at surface level description of the inner works of the Hitler command, at least from a resulting decision perspective. But I have yet to read a comparable accounting of equal measure specifically from the German side, where Hitler’s strategy trumped his generals. I have learned that there was great disagreement, but how is it that the strategy that told the fate of this world conflict was really a losing strategy as opposed to a winning strategy and why have we left the details to that question uncovered? I generally understand that the western leaders drew a strategy from consensus, while Hitler dictated a strategy against the advice of clearer thinking Generals, excluding Goering. I ask only because I am ignorant to any book on such a theme.
As the Grand Strategy was taking its form, there was an overriding idea that it should be a Germany first strategy. This strategy was largely British driven and bought in to because the Americans were of a junior partner status and did not as well have a better strategy. While this strategy prevailed it was periodically tested as Japan drew the United States in to the war. The timing of Germany first seems to have been controversial throughout the war. Intervening events and competing strategies were played out. In the fog of a couple hundred pages it seems that the Russian’s advance across eastern Europe post Stalingrad, and Hitler strategy held sway over the timing than anything else, including victories in Africa. I am once again not certain that Stalin and Hitler, though little was written between the covers, should not have had their pictures on the cover of this book. While the book did much in terms of the timing of the Normandy invasion, Operation Overlord, It seems that the narrow one tracked thinking of Marshal and Eisenhower, borne in classic Clauswitzian military mentality, forced an invasion that cost millions of lives and only got the Allies to Berlin after the Russians.
And finally I must be critical be critical of yet another author’s inability to see a folly of strategy that led to a Russian victory of WWII and a postponement of the Allied victory, where victory is defined by the liberation of Europe, that had to wait 45 years for the end of the Cold War. I say this because riddled throughout this book are arguments between Brooke and Churchill and then between the British and the Americans. In all arguments the author goes through pains to color Churchill as the cigar smoking, drunken strategy zealot, and in that course clouded his vision to draw that reality to the forefront is fogged over. The big decision to attack Germany from the beaches of Normandy, as we did, or to have attacked the Germans from the Italian front was a vexing intrigue on many levels, in the strategy for the race to Berlin. It was a protracted debate that could only have been equaled by the Germany First debate. All these debates carried the background references of each of the participants to readings of past great war strategies where the decision makers banked their views upon.
Here is my argument on both who the Masters and Commanders are, and what was the winning strategy. The early strategy was clearly a counter strategy to anything Hitler had already accomplished. The Brits when in to North Africa first because it was their only option at the time and second then needed to shore up their empire along what I refer to as the English Tierra; the arc from the horn of Africa through the Middle East down to India and through to Singapore ending at Australia. This was the heart of the English Empire and thus a worth prize to protect. Meanwhile the Americans agreed to participate merely because they had to do something of consequence to keep the American people bought in to the war effort. Meanwhile the Americans were formulating a Clausweitizian front across the same Channel that the Germans failed to see through in 1940. To think this massive attack could overshadow the wisdom of an assault from already conquered shores in Italy can only be rationalized by weak arguments provided both the actors of the book and the author. One can only wonder that if half the Herculean effort applied in Normandy was applied to the Ljubljana gap between Yugoslavia and Italy, the Allies could have first had an easier and shorter route to Berlin and second have precluded the Russians of their land grab of eastern Europe which set the stage for a forty-five year long Cold War.
I don’t know whether to compliment or criticize Andrew Roberts for his effort. There is enough granularity in this snap shot of history to reveal an alternative ending to World War Two, if only the masters and Commanders under the American flag had paid closer attention to Britain and namely Churchill. Roberts delivers this enlightenment through first person views and his narrative of the events. Yet he camouflages this nugget of insight at an alternative ending with unnecessary coloring of Churchill as a reckless egomaniac. In this review I interlace ‘My Comments’ with pertinent bibliography notes to demonstrate how the enlightenment makes itself apparent, in the shadow of ridicule of one of the most important men of the twentieth century.
Notes
Page 24: …it was at Forth Benning, in Georgia for five years head of infantry school , that Marshall showed his capacities as a reformer. His experience of the later stages of the Great War had convinced him that, in any future conflict, officers would not be able to wait for perfect orders written out over four pages of single-spaced foolscap sheet, such as the ones GHQ had provided then, especially with un reliable intelligence reports that might be expected from a fast moving battlefield.
Page 26/26: In July 1938….Marshall was ordered to Washington DC to become assistant chief of staff in the War Plans Division of the War Department. This was a key position, overseeing all future offensive operations of the United States. Three months later and a fortnight after the Munich Agreement, he was appointed chief of staff. It was In that post that he attended a conference at the White House on November 14, 1938 to discuss the Presidents plans to build fifteen thousand war plans
According to Arnold’s notes of the White House meeting the President did most of the talking, emphasizing that ideally he would have liked to build twenty thousand warplanes and create an annual capacity for twenty-four thousand, but acknowledged that this would be cut in half by Congress.
Page 27: Marshall well understood Roosevelt’s way of suborning people in this way, and refused to be drawn in to it. As chief of staff he didn’t visit Roosevelt’s country estate in Hyde Park (ever), saying that he found informal conversation with the President would get you ion trouble.
In this paragraph is an interesting end note: (it was suspected in the Churchill family that Marshall disapproved on moral grounds of the President’s affair with Lucy Mercer Rutherford.) This is not common knowledge in 2010.
Page 33: Whether Marshall had a “feel” for operations and a sense of strategy is a central question that this book will seek to answer.
Page 37: The BEF escaped destruction of Dunkrik. Even Pownall admitted in June 1946 that Brooke ‘came out trumps’. As we shall see, the experience of the campaign taught Brooke a number of important lessons about how he believed the rest of the war should be fought, lessons that diverged sharply from te ones Marshall had learned at Fort Leavenworth, Chaimount and Fort Benning.
Page 42 On 11 October 1940, staying at Chequers for the weekend, Churchill and Brooke disagreed over the use being made of the eccentric but occasionally brilliant Major-General Percy Hobart, who was then languishing as a lance-corporal in the Home Guard due to the War Office’s extreme inclination to employ him. Brooke said he was too wild , recorded Colville but ‘Winston reminded him of the Wolfe standing on a chair in front of Chatham brandishing a sword. “ You cant expect, he said “to have the genius type with conventional copy-book Style” That exchange could almost be taken as a template for their future relationship.
My comment: At this point I notice the difference in the dynamics between Marshall and Roosevelt and Brooke and Churchill. Where Marshall was smart enough to keep his boss at arms length, Brooke was not. In this case where Brooke challenged Churchill, even his own command was hesitant to use him militarily. Thus leaving a little grandstanding as a viable play to inspire the English people. Churchill used all the faculties of his people, ( and other Presidents, people) where Brooke’s vision was strictly military.
Page 45: The adoption of the memorandum, first by Marshall and then by Rossevelt- though not in writing – and then by the US Joint Planning Committee, meant that te United States had an outline plan to use durning the secret, arm'-length Anglo- American Staff talks, code named ABC-I which were about to start. No such talks could be organized before Roosevelt’s third inauguration on 20 January 1941, because during the election campaign he had promised American parents that ‘Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.’
Page 52: In a nine page hand written letter on 4 August, 1940 to his cousin and confidante Margaret ‘Daisy’ Suckley, who lived close to him in Dutchess County, New York, Roosevelt described how he had been secretly transferred from his presidential yacht the Potomac on to the heavy cruiser USS Augusta, and, with another cruiser and five destroyers as escort had made his way to Newfoundland. The Potomac had continued to fly his presidential flag once he’d left her, in order to maintain deception: “even at my ripe old age I feel the thrill in making a getaway, especially from the American Press.”
Page 68: The Grand Strategy Arcadia (1940) agreed was summarized in a document written by Churchill entitled WW1, which was to represent the Allies overall position until superseded by another document, CCS 94 in August 1942. This enshrined the concept of Germany first.
Page 69: Eisenhower agreed with Admiral Stark’s original assessment in ‘Plan Dog’ that the defeat of Germany would make the defeat of Japan a matter of time, whereas the defeat of Japan would not materially weaken Germany.
Page 77: Marshall’s institution of the Joint Chiefs of Staff could not, however, wholly alter the disorganization in the American system which Jacob had commented on so tartly. Roosevelt’s desire to retain power closely in his own hands, and to keep Administration officials competing for his favor, les him to adopt methods that seem indescribably Byzantine, even administratively dysfunctional, to modern eyes.
Page 91: On January 18 1942, in a memorandum to Roosevelt, Marshall identified what was for Brooke also a key aspect of the war, and one that the British believed justified the Gymnast operation. ‘The future effort of the Army is dependent on shipping, he wrote. ‘More shipping than is now insight is essential if the national war effort is not neutralized to a serious extent.’ Marshall estimated that by December 1942 there would be 1.8 million American troops ready for over seas service and by the end of 1943 about 3.5 million.
Page 110: Eden wanted to abolish the Defence Committee altogether, but recorded that Churchill was ‘obstinate about it, and maintains that it is better to have one place where service members have a show’ Eden thought that since it effected little and tended to attract criticism in parliament, it ought to go, but Churchill spotted that is would be better for an important committee to attract criticism than the real power-house of the war which were the Staff Conferences – meanwhile Ismay was the oil-can that greased the relationship between Churchill and Brooke.’ Says General Fraser – much as Dill oiled that between Brooke and Marshall.
Page 111: Dining with John Kennedy at the Savoy Grill on 4 June 1942, Ismay said Churchill ‘needs someone to use as a whipping boy on whom to blow off steam’ and he was ‘quite frank in admitting this as his chief function’ He added that someone with sounder and stronger judgment could hold his job it would be doubtless better, but chances are that such a person would soon be thrown out.’ Kennedy concluded that he would never have Ismay’s job ‘for anything in the world.’
Page 117: Like Brooke, Kennedy considered the bombing campaign against Germany ‘ineffective’ and ‘beyond our means.’ He repeated to his diary the views he injudiciously blurted out at Chequers the previous year, that if it came to worst, ‘It is certainly more important to hold India and Ceylon than to hang on in Egypt. We are getting very little for our effort in the Middle East and certainly not enough to compensate for serious losses of positions in the Indian Ocean. After hearing Churchill’s views on Singapore, Kennedy reiterated: ‘It is wrong to depend so much on one man who is so temperamental, so lacking in strategical knowledge and in judgment, despite his other great qualities.’ This summed up the view of Churchill that was held most universally among senior British Planners and especially Brooke., though none failed to praise those ‘the great qualities’, principally the fillip he gave national morale.
Page 119: Brooke’s adamant opposition to an early Second Front alienated plenty of liberal intellectuals …..who believed that Marshall’s judgment was ultimately better that Churchill’s and far ahead of General Brooke…whose judgment about Russia, was abysmal. In fact had a far more hard-headed attitude towards the Russians, who had until very recently been allies of the Nazis and had been supplying them with grain and oil right up to the night of Barbarossa was launched…Brooke was rather impatient with our attitude of giving everything Russians ask and getting nothing in return. Pf course the Russians are fighting - but for themselves and not for us.
Page 140: Brooke’s experiences in France in the two BEF expeditions of 1940 had a deciding influence on the assumptions underlying his formulation of grand strategy in the Second World War, principally in convincing him that the French could not be relied upon and that the Germans were very formidable opponents indeed.
Page 141: According to Hopkin’s notes of the trip, from 4p.m. to 6p.m. Marshall presented the broad outlines of his Memorandum to Churchill’s, who ‘indicated that he had told the Chiefs of Staff that, in spite of all the difficulties, he was prepared to go along.’ Churchill repeated the objections that the Chiefs of Staff had put, ‘all of which he had heard in Washington before coming to England’. Marshall was more optimistic about the interview than Hopkins, thinking that ‘Churchill went a long way and he Marshall, expected far more resistance than he got..
What Hopkins guessed, but Marshall seems not to have, is that Churchill privately opposed an early Roundup and Sledgehammer just as much as Brooke.
Page 155: Brooke then stated unequivocally that ‘The Chiefs of Staff entirely agreed that Germany was the real enemy. At the same time, it was essential to hold Japanese and ensure that there was no junction between tem and t Germans. He conjured up the by now familiar lurid scenario in which the Japanese won control of the Indian Ocean, allowing the Middle East to be gravely threatened and oil supplies prevented from going though the Persian Gulf. Under those circumstances, Germany would seize Persia’s oil, the southern route to Russia would be cut off, and Turkey would be isolated, destroying any hope of her joining the Allies, while Germany and Japan could exchange any hardware they needed
Page 156: Of Brooke he explained that the Germany First policy had been adopted because the US High Command wanted to fight on land, at sea, and in the air, as well as in the most useful place, and in the place where they could attain superiority, and they were desirous above all of joining in an enterprise with the British. He might have been more honest if less comradely, if he added that Roosevelt and Marshall realized how more difficult the task would be if Britain lost to Germany darning the time that it took for the United States to defeat Japan.
Page 170: ‘On 13 January last’ Marshall wrote to Roosevelt, on 5 May, ‘you authorized an increase in the enlisted strength of the Army to 3.6 million by 31 December 1942. Authorization for additional men in 1942 is now essential to out plans.’ In the intervening four months the Army had to garrison the lines of communication to Australia, and rush reinforcements to Hawaii, Alaska, and Panama.
Page 171: Roosevelt characterized the recapture of previously British- and Dutch-owned islands as ‘premature’. In the Near East and East African theaters, the responsibility was against the British, although America “must furnish all possible material’ in Libya, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and the Persian Gulf. Britain and America would split responsibility for the Atlantic, while ‘The principal objective was to help Russia,’ since ‘It must be constantly reiterated that Russians armies are killing more Germans and destroying more Axis material, than all the twenty-five United Nations put together.’
Page 198. So, just as Marshall, King and Eisenhower were trying to consign Gymnast to a strategic, logistical and even ‘logical’ grave in Washington – hardly resisted by an almost equally skeptical Brooke- Churchill resurrected it at Hyde Park. In getting Roosevelt on his own there, Churchill had a considerable advantage, as ‘amateur strategist’ President tended, at least at this stage of the war, to defer to him on military matters in a way that he would not have done had Marshall been present. ‘I must emphasize’, admitted Wedemeyer, after the war.
Page 200: The American response to the news about Tobruk was instinctive, and was often later recalled with powerfully nostalgia by all Britons present. ‘For a moment or two no one spoke,’ recalled Ismay, but then the silence was broken by Roosevelt. ‘In six monosyllables he epitomized his sympathy with Churchill, his determination to do the utmost to sustain him, and his recognition that we were all in the same boat: “What can we do to help?”
Page 214: Churchill himself admitted being haunted by the ghosts of the Somme and in the Closing Ring he wrote of Roundup: “The fearful price we had to pay in human life and blood for te great offensives of the First World War was graven on my mind….
Yet is wasn’t so much getting to Passchendaele and the Somme that worried the British strategists in 1942-4 as the Dunkirk and Brest campaigns of the summer of 1940. Rommel’s and Guderian’s seemingly unstoppable blitzkrieg campaign across France featured more in their fears – especially Brooke’s and Dill’s – than the mud and blood of Flanders of a quarter century before.
Page 220: Brooke explained his view and thus his fundamental difference of view from Marshall. “ Having been forced to fight on two fronts during 1914-18 War’ he began te Germans ‘had further developed their East-West communications with double railway lines and autobahns, to meet the possibility of being again forced to fight on two frontiers. They were capable of moving some six to eight divisions…simultaneously from East to West. That the Germans had far less maneuverability ins southern Europe and the Mediterranean, where he argued the rail and road communications from northern France to southern Italy and the Mediterranean were very poor.
Page 233: ‘I have carefully your estimate of Sunday’ wrote Roosevelt to Marshall and Stimson on Tuesday 14 July, before his return to the White House the next day. “My first impression is that the [Pacific Option] is exactly what Germany hoped the United States would do following Pearl Harbor. Secondly, it does not in fact provide American troops in fighting, except in a lot of [Pacific] islands whose occupation will not affect the world situation this year or next….
Page 235: Dill also mentioned another un-welcomed fact to Churchill in his telegram, namely that the American Chiefs of Staff were reading Field Marshall Sir William Robertson’s two-volume memoir about grand strategy of the Great War, Soldiers and Statesmen, and that Marshall had sent him a copy with the third chapter of the first volume heavily annotated. Churchill would have understood immediately what that meant. Robertson, whi had been CIGS from 1915 to 1918, was a Clausewitizian, and volume I chapter III of his book covered the Dardanelles expedition. ‘An essential condition of success in war being, the concentration of effort on the decisive front, ….
Over the Dardanelles, Robertson did not deny that ‘it might be desirable to threaten interests which are of importance to the enemy, so as to oblige him to detach for their protection of force larger than te one employed making the threat, thus rendering him weaker in comparison on the decisive front,’ which was precisely Churchill’s and Brooke’s Italian strategy for 1943-4, but Marshall is unlikely to have underlined that for Dill’s attention. Much more likely candidates for annotation were Robertson’s strictures on ministers – primarily Churchill himself – who were indifferent to, or ignorant or, the disadvantages which always attend on charges of plan and t neglect to concentrate on one thing at a time’ Churchill was also criticized by name for having briefed the supreme strategy-making body, the War Council, directly, instead of allowing the Admiralty professionals to do it, ‘as was, in fact done after Churchill left the department’.
My Note: First the Clauswitzien strategy of WWI only produced an armacist and planted the seeds of the Second World War. To be direct it was a failed strategy that cost millions of lives. Of this excerpt there is far too much conjecture. First the author attempts to connect the dots of history back to the Dardanelles and pin full blame on Churchill, when other accounts find that there was nothing wring with Churchill’s strategy in the Dardanelles if only the Admiral of the Fleet at the time had sailed into the ports of a Turk army who was completely out of ammunition. Additionally in his concluding sentences to indict Churchill of over reaching his authority, the author does not concede that at the time of Churchill’s address to the War Council, that it was his place and duty to do so, regardless of future changes in structure. The author is guilty of “piling on” in wrongful criticism of a leader who with faults led the world to victory in WWII. Form this point, on through the rest of the book the reader witnesses the bias of the author. Where as the strategy unfolds Churchill’s idea of attacking Germany from the south, may have inflicted lives cost in terms of lives and blood, and as well have reached Berlin far ahead of the Russians which would have stalled the Russian land grab of which was known for forty-five years as the Eastern Bloc countries that fell under the heel of the USSR.
Page 238: On the evening of 14 July, at a meeting at No 10 Downing Street of representatives of Allied countries grandly entitled the Pacific War Council, Kennedy recorded: “Winston in his blue romper suit but with clean white shirt with cuffs…looked well and serene, lit a cigar and proceeded to give a general survey of the war, speaking slowly and without effort.”. After asking the New Zealand High Commissioner Sir William Jordan to stop taking notes because it distracted his attention, he talked of shipping losses, the efforts to sustain Russia, and the Eastern Front, and pointed out that Germans had only seventy-five days before winter fell there. He believed ‘The Japs would attack Russia when the moment came the- they would stab her in the back…. But for the moment they were gorged with their prey’.
Page 251: Eisenhower reacted somewhat melodramatically to the news, telling Butcher that Wednesday 22 July 1942 could well go down as ‘the blackest day in history’ if Russia was defeated by ‘the big Boche drive now so alarmingly under way’ and the West had done nothing to save her.
Back in Washington, Stimson insisted on seeing the standoff in terms of ‘a fatigued and defeatist government which lost her initiative, blocking the help of a young and vigorous nation whose strength had not he been tapped so much as wrecked, and Britain’s along with it. The experience of these negotiations with Marshall and King must have been rather like reliving his June 1940 conversation with Churchill at Lamans.
That day John Kennedy was given a full briefing on the negotiations by Brooke, who told him that Roosevelt had given instructions to Marshall to the effect that the American Army must get into action somewhere against the Germans and that he was to go and make plans accordingly. This is so remarkably accurate that Brooke simply must have known or at least the gist of the secret instructions that Roosevelt had given Marshall and Hopkins before they left. Had Hopkins leaked them to Churchill, who passed them on at 11:00 PM meeting at Downing Streets? However he came by the information, Brooke knew that if he stayed utterly intransigent over Sledgehammer – if he kept ‘looking into the distance’ – Marshall was under orders to finally buckle.
Page 254: Like Portal, Kennedy also thought that superior British arguments rather than presidential diktat had won the day, ‘The last week has seen a development in our planning with Americans that may govern the future outcome of the war’ he wrote.
Page 255: As so often in hard-fought compromises between Staffs m the key detail was to be found towards the end, almost in the small print. Under paragraph C subsection 4 it stated: ‘That it be understood that a commitment to [Torch] renders Roundup in all probability impracticable of successful operation in 1943 and therefore that we have defiantly accepted a defensive encircling line of action for Continental European Theater, except as to air operations and blockade.
That might sound like Brooke’s strategy, but there was a catch, pone that Michael Howard has even likened to Faustian compact made between British Chiefs of Staff and the Americans, CCS 94 seemed to imply that Churchill’s original WWI document from Arcadia Conference had now been officially superseded, and that instead of Germany First, the phrase ‘defensive encircling line of action, meant that Americans could now concentrate more on the Pacific.
My Note: seems to imply is always a warning sign that the author may be attempting to add a new color to history. Robert Andrews does this often to cast Churchill in a critical light.
Page 258: The change of Allied policy from attacking Cherbourg in France to attacking Casablanca in Africa, swiveling the whole focus of grand strategy 1,250 miles to the south, cannot have but rankled with Marshall. Even ten months later walking to a meeting together in Washington, he told Brooke: ‘I find it very hard even now not to look upon your North African strategy with jaundice eye!!’
Considering that even the US secretary for War had bet the President that the American invasion of Morocco would fail – something that would surely have forced his resignation if know publicly – there was much ground to be made up.
My Note: The reader must be very careful to note where the end quotes are and where the conjecture begins in the above second paragraph. Earlier in the book the author portrays the North African Strategy as the only one available at the time where action must be made to demonstrate deterrence and affirmative action on the Allied part. For Marshall, there could only be a tactical interpretation of the North African campaign as he was always a Clausewitz advocate and North African distracted that effort. I’ll share my views in the body conclusion.
Page 267: On Brookes decision to remain Churchill’s strategist and not assume command in the field, deferring the job to Montgomery: Brooke was not persuaded by Smuts, not least because he was a gentleman, he couldn’t bear the idea that Auchinleck ‘might think that I had come out here on purpose to work himself into his shoes!’ He thought over the offer throughout the day, but remained convinced that his decision was the correct one, and that he could ‘do more by remaining CIGS’…..we assume that politicians are driven by personal ambition, but soldiers are too, and although in career terms to swab the job of CIGS for Near East commander-in-chief might have looked like a demotion, in fact it would have afforded, Smuts intimated, a ‘wonderful future’.
Page 268: Brooke and Churchill also agreed that Alexander Should succeed Auchinleck in Cairo, Lieutenant- General Thomas Corbett and Brigadier Eric Dorman-Smith were to leave their commands altogether, and Lieutenant-General William ‘Strafer” Gott was to lead the English Army, although Brooke had misgivings about this. Yet on his way to take up his new command on the very next day, 7 August, flying the Burg el Arab to Heliopolis route, which was considered safe, Gott’s slow transport plane was shot down ‘inflames’ by a lone German fighter. Churchill and Brooke then quickly settled on the man whom Brooke had wanted originally, Lieutenant General Bernard Law Montgomery.
My note: By now the reader is cautious on an author’s bent to color history. With an agenda to criticize Churchill’s credibility, Roberts could have provided evidence as to Brookes preference of pick.. While the story may or may not an accurate reflection of Brooke’s preference, this book does not stand on its own on this point.
Page 270: Everyone cheered up once Churchill passed on to what he called operation Torch, at which Stalin ‘became intensely interested’
Page 273: On the failed Operation Jubilee : A small German convoy in the Channel alerted the shore defenses before the assault could take place, so the element of surprise was lost, yet Mountbatten ordered it to go ahead anyhow.
Although no German troops were moved from East to West as a result of the debacle, coastal defenses were massively strengthened. ‘If I had the same decision to make again,’ Mountbatten nonetheless answered, ‘I would do as I did before. It gave the Allies the priceless secret of victory.’ This is trip, unless the lesson of not attacking a well-defended town without proper intelligence and a preliminary aerial and naval bombardment is a ‘priceless secret’….Yet even as late as 2003 historians would still take Mountbatten at his word, with one writing” ‘The catastrophe provided priceless lessons for a full scale amphibious invasion”.
My note: While this time I agree with Robert’s assessment or coloring of Mountbatten’s decisions, Roberts falls prey of criticizing other historians where his narrative stands on its own. In my view Mountbatten’s strategy and tactics has not been the benefactor of history’s long view on numerous other occasions; specifically post war India.
Page 276: It was Stalingrad that finally, in Stimson’s words, ‘banished is the spectre of a German victory in Russia, which had haunted the Council table of Allies for a year and a half.’ IT also greatly reduced the likelihood of a German attack through Spain, cutting off American forces from their supply lines. Just as Wellington’s campaign in the Iberian peninsula had been small but significant “ulcer’ for Napoleon, but certainly not the Russian ‘coronary’ that destroyed him, so too the North African and Italian campaigns would be ulcerous for Hitler, but it was the Eastern Front that annihilated the Nazi dream of Lebensraum for the mater race.
My note: To my observation on the missing strategy are those of Stalin and Hitler. Each of which contributed to the outcome of the Second World War, yet over looked in this book.
Page 279 We are undertaking something of a quite desperate nature and which depends only in minor degree upon professional preparations we can make or upon the wisdom of our military decisions,’ wrote Eisenhower in his diary that week. “in a way it is like the return of Napoleon from Elba – if the guess as to psychological reaction is correct we may gain a great advantage in this war; if the guess is wrong, it would be almost certain that we would gain nothing and lose a not.’ He feared that there might be a ‘very bloody repulse’ and that Vichy France and even Spain might enter the war against the Allies.
Page 281: When Roosevelt’s cable duly arrived on Monday 31 August it caused consternation.’ I feel very strongly that the initial attacks must be made by an exclusively American ground force supported by your naval and transport and air units,’ it read. This was because Roosevelt believed that the French would offer less resistance ‘to us than they will to the British’.
Page 293: Smuts suggested that the real victory front was to be found ‘from the South not from the West’, and Churchill agreed,
Page 297: It was a magisterial rebuke, and the figures still have the power to impress. An army of fewer that two hundred thousand when the European war broke out in September 1939 would grow into one seven million – thirty-five times its size- a mere four years later. In divisional terms, the US Army had 37 trained divisions at the time of Pearl Harbor, 73 by Operation Torch, 120 by the summer of 1943 and 200 by D-Day. By contrast the British Commonwealth had seventy-five divisions by the summer of 1943 and hardly any more the nest year. Nor was the American Revolution confined to the Army; on 13 November 1942 a US shipbuilding yard built a standard 10,500-ton merchant vessel - a Liberty ship in exactly four days and fifteen hours. Two days later the ship was fully equipped and ready for service. No other country or alliance could begin to match such efficiency and productive power.
Page 299: Had the entire German and Italian army in Tunisia- approximately a quarter of a million men- not been captured, they might well have stalled the later Allied advances into southern Europe. It might be, therefore, that the very lack of early success immediately after Torch paradoxically increased the success later, given Hitler’s unwillingness to retreat even tactically, a characteristic that American strategists were about to note with glee.
Page 301: With Churchill and Brooke now tending to agree on the big issue – that the next stage in the war ought to be in the Mediterranean rather than across the Channel – Brooke allowed himself to be irritated only by small issues, such as Churchill’s love for rodomontades during meetings. At one Defense Committee with Winston holding forth, he passed a note to Grigg saying ’15 minutes gone and no work done’, which he subsequently altered to 20, 30, 35, 40 and then 45, before the real business of the beating began. ‘Winston is really stupid the way he tries his team’ concluded Kennedy after he heard this…
My comment: Other than to tarnish an otherwise brilliant performance of Churchill , the author spends too much print like above to make his disenchantment with Churchill known.
Page 303: CIGS is quite determined to go flat out in the MED recorded Kennedy
We can waste German strength there and tackle him on equal or better terms in outposts like Sardania, Sicily, tip of Italy, Crete. We cannot develop an an offensive on both fronts. The essential condition for France is still a crack in German morale and strength. Italy may be knocked out of the war by a combination of landing attacks and bombing. The Balkans are a weak spot for the Axis. If we can get near enough to bomb the Roumanian oilfields and cut the Aegean and Turkish traffic (chrome, etc) we can go far to hamstring the Germans
My comment: What is missed by the author and the western strategists is had we marched from Yugoslavia to Berlin, the Russians would not have taken that territory and we would not have had a fifty-year Cold War.
Page 311: The strategy of North Africa-Ital-France, stated the American historian Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison in an Oxford lecture series in the 1950’s ‘was a perfectly cogent and defensible strategy; but Sir Alan Brooke disclosed it only bit by bit, which naturally gave Americans the feeling that they had been had.. He cited Admiral King’s prediction that once forced to the Mediterranean, We would be forced to go on had proposed North Africa as a stepping stone to mainland Italy and the Balkans, and possibly beyond, right at the start, the Americans would never have undertaken Torch.
Page 317: Broke thought it best to put the war against Japan high on the agenda, reasoning that if Admiral King ‘was able to get everything about the pacific “off his chest”, then perhaps he ‘would take a less jaundiced view vis-à-vis the rest of the world’
Page 323: At 5:30 PM the Combined Chiefs, along with Eisenhower, Alexander and Tedder, met Roosevelt and Churchill in the first of three plenary sessions- ‘at which we did little’, recorded Brooke, ‘except that the President expressed views favoring operations in the Mediterranean’. Far from little, this was the first glimpse that as with Torch, the Americans were split over strategy, and therefore might be prevailed over isolating Marshall again. This time it would take much detailed argument, especially by Staffs, rather than the point-blank veto that Brooke had exercised in London backing July.
Page 334: When the Combined Chiefs of Staff met again at 3p, the compromise paper was accepted with only a few minor alterations. The recapture of Burma through Anakim and a south-west Pacific offensive to Rabaul and then on to Marshall and Caroline Islands would be conducted with whatever means could be spared without compromising the objective of defeating Germany.
Page346: Ian Jacob believed that being expelled from North Africa ‘would be shattering for Italians. Their vitals would be exposed to attack.’ The surrender of Italy would present Hitler with a tough choice: either to let her go or else reinforce her by taking troops from elsewhere, such as Russia and the Balkans. There was an aspect to the Fuhrer that was only just becoming apparent to the Allied High Commands: it seemed clear from the orders that he gave both to Paulus in Stalingrad and to Rommel at El Alamein (and again in Tunisia) the he could not countenance even strategically justified with drawls.
Page 347: Churchill insisted on th President being carried up on to the roof of Villa Taylor, ‘his paralyzed legs dangling like limbs of a ventriloquist’s dummy, limp and flaccid’ in the words of an on looker, and together they watched the purple mountains changing color in the setting sun. It was from that roof that Churchill painted his only picture of the war, despite taking his canvases and paint box on several trips.
Page 384: In a Cabinet discussion on war criminals on 7 July, Churchill reported that FDR [was] inclined to let our troops shoot them out of hand! ‘I suggested the United Nations [should] draw up list of fifty or so who would be declared as outlaws by the thirty-three nations. (those not on the list might be induced to a rat!) If any of these were found by advancing troops, the nearest officer of Brigade rank should call a military court to establish identity and then execute without higher military authority.’
Page 402: On Monday 16 August, Brook and Marshall returned to the Trident system of off-the-record meetings. The secretaries and Planners left the Salon Rose, and for three hours after 2:30 p.m. the Combined Chiefs undertook ‘the difficult task of finding a bridge.’ These discussions were ‘pretty frank’ with Brooke opening by saying that ‘the root of the matter was that we did not trust each other’. He went on to accuse the Americans of doubting the British commitment ‘to put our full hearts into the cross Channel operation next spring’, while their part the British were not certain that Americans ‘would not in future insist on our carrying out previous agreements irrespective of changed strategic conditions’. This was a veiled reference to the seven divisions due to be withdrawn from the Mediterranean theatre only eleven weeks hence.
Page 403: Vast amounts of construction work had to be done – hard roads, railways to beaches, exits, fuel and storage tanks, railway sidings. The amount of construction in southern England was terrific. It is interesting to note that millions of pounds were spent from early 1943 onwards, when there was only COSSAC Staff; millions spent on a plan which had not been approved
‘It was the logic of events resulting from a loss of time more than logic of argument’
Page 404: Meanwhile, Churchill was still pressing hard for an attack on the northern tip of Sumatra, code named Operation Culverin. Rather condescendingly Brooke wrote that ‘Winston…had discovers with a pair of dividers that we could bomb Singapore’ from Sumatra, ‘and he had set his heart on going there’. Brooke believed Sumatra to be unsuitable place for any long term projects against the Malay States, and told the Prime Minister at a meeting at t Citadel at noon on 19 August the ‘when he put his left foot down he should know where the right foot was going to go’. In cold black and white print, that does not look too rude, but we cannot know the tone of voice and the body language that accompanied it. The result was Churchill lost his temper completely and shook his fist in Brook’s face saying ‘I do not want any pf your long term projects that cripple initiative!
Page 419: So the meeting served no useful purpose other than blowing off ministerial steam. It was not mentioned at all in Churchill’s war memoirs, probably because he did not want readers to appreciate how doubtful he was about Overloard.. Yet he was, and so – at least on this occasion –was Brooke.
My comment: Operation Overloard was clearly from the military books and minds of the Americans. It proved to be a victory or at least in my mind we didn’t lose. It was a victory at the cost of immense loss of life. Likely more so than the strategy being argued by the British at the time; which was to advance in to Germany from the south through a landing in what was then Yugoslavia. War was won by the Russians as much as the Allies. Overloard was the seed of the Cold War. Overloard was pushed by American who buy 1944 were contributing more to the war effort and therefore carried the commanding voice, without listening to alternative strategy.
Page 427: reported by Sir Alan Lascekes: great problem at the moment is to teach th Americans that you cannot run a war by making rigir ‘lawyers’ agreements’ to carry out preconceived strategic operations at a given date (ie Overloard), but you must plan your campaign elastically and be prepared to adapt it to the tactical exigencies of the moment. They don’t seem to grasp that a paper-undertaking made in the autumn to invade Europe (or any other Continent) in the following spring may have to be modified in accordance with what the enemy does or does not do in the intervening winter.
Page 428: With only days to go before the Cairo Conference began, The British crystallized their ideas about what they wanted out of it. The main desiderata would be to continued the offensive in Italy, to increase the flow of supplies to the partisans in the Balkans, to try to induce the Balkan powers to break away from Germany, to induce Turkey to enter the war, and to accept a postponement of Overloard. Of these five British hopes only the first two were adopted.
Page 433: Roosevelt evinced yet more hostility towards Britain in the COSSAC proposals for the division of post war Germany into zones, codenamed Rankin. He believed that ‘the British wanted the north western part of Germany and would like to see the US take France and Germany south of the Mouselle River. ‘ He said ‘he he did not like that arrangement’. Other than mentioning its Roman Catholicism, the President did not explain what he had against ‘southern Germany, Baden Wurttemburg, everything south of the Rhine’, but clearly preferred America to control the Protestant north-west of the Reich The reason was doubtless because that was generally where the manufacturing industries were located.
…continued onto page 434: King added that the military plans for Overloard were too far developed to permit any changes in deployment. Roosevelt then astonishingly suggested that American forces might instead be sent around Scotland and land in northern Germany, adding that “He felt that we should get out of France and Italy as soon as possible, letting the British and the French handle their own problem together. There would definitely be a race for Berlin. We may have to put the US divisions into Berlin as soon as possible
My comment: Again we find within his own words an author taking the ever popular attack on a religious argument when he also includes the practical argument for ones desires on the spoils of war. Andrew Roberts expounded on the religious points and glossed over the practical. And you wonder why there is a popular view against religion.
Page 436: Although the British wanted an agreement on Overloard and the Mediterranean before they all me the Russians in Tehran, the Americans needed a decision on south-eat Asia immediately, but wanted to discuss Overloard and the Mediterranean only at Tehran, where the knew they would be supported by Stalin, who was desperate for Overloard as he was opposed a Western presence In the Balkans. Furthermore, Roosevelt and Marshall rated Chaing Kai-shek highly and saw China as a post-war great power, where as Churchill saw him as a peripheral figure and Brooke considered him “Evidently [had]…no grasp of war in its larger aspects…
Page 440: Roosevelt had wanted to invite Moscow to Cairo but the Russians wouldn’t meet the Chinese generalissimo for fear that it might compromise the uneasy truce the Russians maintained with Japan since 1941.
Page 444 The Russian dictator stated unequivocally that Overloard should be the overriding priority for 1944, that the Italian campaign was a mere diversion (and an unimpressive one at that); that Turkey would not enter the war so Britain’s Aegean planes were still born, and that southern France needed to be invaded before Overlord.
Page 451
Stalin promised to declare war on Japan after Germany surrendered, and to launch an offensive during Overlord to discourage the Wermacht from moving troops westwards during the initial stages.
My comment: a convenient promise by Stalin, but it is not mentioned that Stalin did not declare war on Japan, and we fought on resorting to the Atom bomb.
Page 453: The realities were spelt to Stimson by Roosevelt after Marshall had specifically refused to ask for t Overlord post: ‘The President said that he had decided on a mathematical basis that if Marshall took Overlord it would mean that Eisenhower would become Chief of Staff. Yet Eisenhower was unfamiliar with the war in the Pacific and, in Stimson’s view he ‘would be far less able than Marshall to handle the Congress’…
Page 463: Brooke added that, when he visited Italy that December, ‘The terrain defies description. It’s like the North-West Frontier: a single destroyed culvert can hold up an army for a day.’ He then went on to talk about the Germans, saying they were fighting magnificently: ‘Marvelous it is perfectly marvelous.’ Hitler’s strategy was all wrong, however, in trying to establish a front in Italy so far south while simultaneously holding Nikopol on the lower Dnieper, for “While one is on the wave of victory no one can successfully violate all the established rules of war. But when one starts to decline, one cannot violate them without disaster.
Page 476: …when the War Cabinet was informed that there could be as many as 160,000 civilian casualties as a result of bombing the French railway network prior to Overloard, Cunningham noted,’ Considerable sob stuff about children with legs blown off and blinded old ladies but nothing about saving of risk to our young soldiers landing on a hostile shore. It is of course intended to issue warnings before hand’
Page 477: From Cunningham’s journals it is evident that the Chiefs of Staff were looking towards the post-war situation, with a suspicions eye towards Russia, almost before any other British government agency or institution.
My comment: yet they insisted on a text book attack of Overlord as opposed to attacking through the Balkans.
Page 490 The day after D-Day, Alexander reported that if he were left with his twenty-seven divisions in Italy, and not lose any to Anvil, he could break through the Appennines into the Po Valley, take eighteen divisions north of Venice and force the Ljubljan Gap between Italy and northern Yugoslavia. Once there, he stated in his memoirs, the way led to Vienna, an object of great political and psychological value’. The prospect appealed to Churchill and Clark, but not very much to others…
Marshall vociferously opposed forcing Ljubljana Gap, arguing that Eisenhower needed the southern French ports so that he could deploy on a much wider front, and that the Germans would merely withdrawal from north Italy to the Alps under Alexander’s attack, which could then be held with far smaller forces.
Page 490: Churchill’s dreams of British Commonwealth forces planting Union Jack over Schonbrunn and the Hofburg before the Russians arrived in Vienna was ended by Brooke, who knew Marshall’s view of it. There would still be plenty of teeth gnashing before Churchill relinquished his project,…
Page 498: said McMillan we should have to give in if Eisenhower and Marshall insisted upon ‘Anvil”. We can fight up to a point, we can ;eave on record for history to judge the reasoned statement of our views, and the historian will also see that the Americans have never answered any argument, never attempted to discuss or debate the points, but have merely given flat negative and slightly Shylock-like insistence which they conceive to be their bargain.
My comment: With all the negative color that the author puts on Churchill I don’t know what to make of him putting the most critical analysis of the most critical decision in terms of joint strategy in a first person voice of one of the actors of the story. Being that McMillan was not a prime mover of this book this critical analysis could have gone un noticed.
Page 499: Churchill’s reply on 1 July was anguished. Even though he began with first person plural – ‘We are deeply grieved by your telegram’ – he soon slipped into more intimate vernacular, saying that this was ‘the first major strategic and political error for which the two are responsible. At Teheran you emphasized to me the possibilities of a move eastward when Italy was conquered.’ He claimed that ‘N one involved in these discussions has ever thought of moving armies into the Balkans,’ but stated that Istria and Treste were strategically and politically important position ‘which, as you saw yourself, very clearly might exercise profound and widespread reactions, especially now after the Russians advances’ Finally Churchill stated that:
If you still press upon us the directive of your Chiefs of Staff to withdraw so many of your forces from the Italian campaign and leave all our hopes there dashed to the ground, His Majesty’s Government, on the advice of their Chiefs of Staff must enter a solemn protest…. It is with the greatest sorrow that I write to you in this sense. But I am sure that if we could have met, as I so frequently proposed, we should have reached a happy agreement.
That is precisely what Marshall had feared, and was one of the reasons Churchill did not meet the President at all throughout the nine months between December 1943 and September 1944, despite having seen him thrice in the seven months in 1943. Churchill‘s force of personality was blunted once it was translated on to printed telegraph slips…
My comment: The most critical turn of strategy is depicted in the book from page 436 through page 499. It bares the power to the phrase “let history” judge our actions. I am simply suspect that our author was so bent on the critique of Churchill that he missed an opportunity to expound on the genius of Churchill.
Page 505: Churchill agreed, telling Charles Moran ‘Good God, can’t you see that the Russians are spreading across Europe like a tide; they have invaded Polan, and there is nothing to prevent them into marching in to Turkey and Greece!...but the Americans would not listen to him….But The Americans would not listen to him. Moran concluded that Churchill was distraught, but you cannot get him down for too long.’He sat up in his bed as his speech quickened and he expounded on how “Alex might be able to solve this problem by breaking into the Balkans. Out troops are already in the outskirts of Florence. They would soon be in the valley of the Po.’ Churchill’s promise to Roosevelt on 1 July that ‘No on involved in these discussions has ever thought of moving armies into the Blalkans’ there for is obviously completely misleading.
My comment: I have learned that what an author in history uses words like obviously; it was a harbinger that the words immediately following is an attempt to either re-write history, bend it, or perhaps cast an undue judgment of history. In this point I find Andrew Roberts guilty as charged as history clearly finds that the period immediately after WWI was the dawn of the phrase Soviet Bloc which included all the countries that the USSR invaded while the Allies were spending all their effort in operation Overlord. So when the West say they won WWII I beg to differ. The USSR won WWII and the West won a Cold War that could have been avoided, had they listened to Churchill.
Page 510: That question then led to the next: what kind of front would the Allies choose in the drive to the Rhine and beyond? Would it be a broad one that comprehensively forced the Germans back towards the Fatherland, with two major advances on wide fronts north and south of the Ardennes or would the attack instead be on narrow fronts, spearheaded by several faster thrusts to try and capture important targets deep within Germany, possibly even including Berlin before the Red Army reached it? Here again Roosevelt and Marshall supported Esienhower’s inclination for the former, while Brooke and Churchill tended to opt for Montgomary’s and Patton’s preference for the latter.
On the question of what the armies in Italy under Alexander and Clark would do once Lucain Truscott’s fifth Army and Sir Richard McCreery’s Eighth Army broke through the Gothic Line, the Americans strongly deprecated moves towards Treste, Istria, the Ljubljana Gap, Vienna and the Balkans.
Page 511 On 29 August Churchill sent Roosevelt a telegram about the Mediterranean in which the final paragraph once again brought up their Tehran conversation. It ended, ‘I an sure the arrival of a powerfull army in purely military values.’ Although the condition of Hungary could not be predicted, he believes that having troops there would leave the Western Allies ‘in a position to take full advantage of any great new situation.’ Roosevelt passed this on to Marshall, who asked McNarney and Handy to work on a draft reply that covered Italy in full but deliberately bypassed Istria completely. Churchill cannot have failed to mark the implications.
My comment: In this paragraph you see Roosevelt’s hubris coming out. His economy was saved by a war. Are participation in that war was only granted the time to tool up by the British of who he arrogantly ignores the visionary words of an Allies with much more intimate experience in European affairs in than himself. While Roosevelt did much good in holding his country together through a great depression, his economic and war time strategy receives low scores from the 20/20 perspective of history.
Page 515[Brooke] believes that seizure of the Istrian peninsula ‘not only had a military value, but also a political value of the Russian advances in the Balkans’.
Page 525: That same day Roosevelt and Churchill, amazingly enough initialed the Morgenthau Plan, which said that Germany needed to be turned into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in character. Brooke was fundamentally opposed, already seeing Germany as a future ‘ally to meet the Russian threat of twenty-fie years hence.
Page 527: Churchill went on to claim, rightly, that Britain had nonetheless saved Greece from the flood of Bolshevism.
Page 528: Marshall later recalled: We were very much afraid that Mr. Churchill’s interest in matters near Athens and in Greece would finally get us involved in that fighting, and we were keeping out of it in every way we possibly could.’ On 13 December, Roosevelt cabled Churchill to say that ‘the traditional policies of the US’ meant that as head of state he had to be ‘responsive to the state of public feeling’ against Britain on the Greek issue, and concluded, I didn’t need to tell you how much I dislike this state of affairs between you and me. Churchill replied generously: ‘I have felt it much that you were unable to give a word of explanation for your actions, but I understand your difficulties.’ The new burden of combating Communism in south-eastern Europe therefore looked as if it would be carried entirely by the British
Page 531: On 29 November Churchill made clear his objections to the early liberation of the Channel Islands, telling the War Cabinet that while the twenty-eight thousand Germans there ‘can’t get away’, if they surrendered Britain would have to feed them.
Page 535: The battle of the Bulge, for the potential danger it posed in the west, was only half the size of the [Russian] battle of Kursk, for example.
Page 539: This was particularly so in regard to the Balkan states and the now-termed satellite states. ‘You can’t treat military factors in the way you do political factors. It’s quite a different affair.’ Marshall felt that his brief was not to save eastern Europe from Communism but instead to win the war in the shortest possible time and with the fewest possible Allied lives lost.
My comment: First it is Roosevelt’s job to tell Marshall what the objectives are. Had Roosevelt listened to Churchill earlier in the game of war strategy he could possibly have had his cake and eat it too. As much as the author took license to bend history and inject his comment elsewhere on to cast Churchill in poor light I find his vision slightly clouded by American hubris as well.
Page 532: In 6 February [at Yalta] [Marshall] summarized the Burmese campaigns for t Russians, and Marshall reported that ‘in the face of unparalleled difficulties’ 44,000 tons of supplies had been flown over the Himalayas the previous month, which he described somewhat hyperbolically, as ‘the accomplishment of the greatest feat in all history’ and beside which he said inter-Staff co-operation ‘should be relatively easy. One problem frequently encountered was the reluctance of even high-ranking Russian military officers to commit themselves to anything, however minor, until it ad been referred back to Stalin; the hitherto short life-expectancies of marshals of t Soviet Union made that a sensible precaution.
Page 553: Although Balaklava mattered much to men like Churchill and Brooke who had grown up with Tennyson’s poem, the Prime Minister complained that local Russian guides had shown ‘no sort of feeling’ there. Either they thought they had won the battle or they had never heard of it…. We stood on the little ridge on the end of that famous battlefield where the Charge of the Light Brigade took place. All around us were twisted remains of German anti-tank guns.
My comment: having read up on the Crimean War I noted to myself that while the Charge of the Light Brigade was eventually successful, the British actually lost the battle of Balaklava. This was at some level because that while the taking of the objective in the Charge of the Light Brigade, there was no coordinated effort with the rest of the British and French armies, hence they soon lost their prize back to the Russians. I must be critical of the author, a historian, who did not seem to portray history correctly.
Page 555: Because he is usually accredited the victor of Yalta, it is sometimes forgotten that Stalin made a number of concessions there. He gave a firm date of entry into the Japanese war (three months after the Tennyson’s poem e German surrender); agreed to observe the provisions of the Atlantic Charter in eastern Europe by signing the Declaration of Liberated Europe, which affirmed the right of all peoples to choose their form of government under which they live’; assent to France sitting on the Control Commission for Germany, and agreed that the USSR would join the new United Nations Organization, largely on Roosevelt’s terms. Taken together these seemed significant, yet in reality they amounted to relatively little.
Page 556: Speaking in 1974, Ed Hull made the sensible but rarely heard argument that: All that Yalta did was to recognize the facts of life as they existed and were being brought about…The only way we could have in any way influenced that in a different way was not to have put our main effort into France and the Low Countries but to put it into the Balkans…It might have meant that Bulgaria, Rumania, and possibly other of those Eastern European countries that are now Communist-dominated would have other type of control. But…it would also mean that all of Germany and probably a good portion of t Low Countries, Belgium, Holland, and even France, might have Soviet influence over them rather than Western influence. To me there was no choice to make.
My comment: Again since the author took critical license out on Churchill throughout the book, albeit slight; to take grave objection to him actually taking down Hull’s statement in this book and failing to be critical. Imagine the Russians leapfrogging over Germany to actually occupy Western Europe. To use that is a mitigating circumstance is absurd. The book is subtitled how Four Titans Won the War using superb strategy. He then proceeds to berate one of the titans, and then describes a missed strategy and writes it off as insignificant lesser of two evils. Who really won the War appears to have been the USSR. It was not until the USA won the Cold War that Europe was fully liberated from tyranny.
Page 557: It is hard to be naïve and cynical at the same time, but Roosevelt was both when it came to Stalin and the fate of the Poles. ‘of one thing I am certain’ he told the Polish Prime Minister-in-exile Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, ‘Stalin is not an imperialist.’ To the former American Ambassador to France, William C Bullitt, he also said: “I have a hunch that Stalin doesn’t want anything other than security for his country, and I think if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work for a world of democracy and peace’
My comment: When an author writes these words in a book one has to think his cover subtitle is off the mark.
Page 561: As there was no point in doing that, there was no race to Berlin between Montgomery and Patton, or anyone else. Berlin was in the Soviet zone, and if the Allies had reached it first they simply would have to withdraw.
Page 565: Roosevelt’s curt reply to Churchill –“I do not get the point’ – ended with his ‘regret that phrasing of a formal discussion should have so disturbed you but I regret even more at a moment of a great victory we should become involved in such unfortunate reactions. Churchill could hardly have felt that it was worth while ripping up various agreements made with the Russians over Occupation zoning in order to dash for Berlin. More likely he wished to put in writing that he was on the right side of the Cold War which he saw – earlier than anyone else except perhaps Brooke – was looming. Between Churchill’s wildly over-optimistic report to the War Cabinet on returning from Yalta and this doleful telegram to Roosevelt only two months later, Stalin had given no indication that his promises of free and fair elections in Eastern Europe had been genuine.
Page 567: despite the tension between the two Masters in the last year or so, there is no evidence to support the notion that Churchill’s absence was ‘because he felt the President had latterly become unsupportive’, or that ‘the emotional link was never as close as commonly thought,’ as some historians suggested.
Page 569: Truman, who in all military matters understandably tended to defer to Marshall, followed the Joint Chief’s line that it was best to adhere to the Yalta zoning arrangements whatever the legal or political circumstances. Brooke wanted Prague to be liberated by the Western Allies for the ‘remarkable political advantages’ that would accrue, but Marshall merely passed this information on to Eisenhower with the comment: ‘Personally, and aside from all logistics, tactical, or strategic implications, I would loath to hazard American lives for purely political purposes.
My comment: Here I struggle with American lack of consolidation of a military effort to not acquire a lasting peace. First the President is the Commander in Chief and Truman failed to lead. As a result we saw no real commitment from the Russians against Japan, which led to Truman’s calculated decision for the Atom Bomb. This lit the fuse for the nuclear arms race, and subsequent waves of nuclear proliferation around the world of which the world now. What if the Russians helped draw the Japanese War to an end without the benefit of the Manhattan Project; where would we be now?
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