Winston's War: Churchill, 1940-1945

712 Pages·2010·9.28 MB·English

by  Max Hastings

ALSO BY MAX HASTINGS
REPORTAGE
America 1968: The Fire This Time
Ulster 1969: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland
The Battle for the Falklands (with Simon Jenkins)
BIOGRAPHY
Montrose: The King’s Champion
Yoni: Hero of Entebbe
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Going to the Wars
Editor
MILITARY HISTORY
Bomber Command
The Battle of Britain (with Len Deighton)
Das Reich
Overlord
Victory in Europe
The Korean War
Warriors: Extraordinary Tales from the Battlefield
Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944–1945
Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944–45
COUNTRYSIDE WRITING
Outside Days
Scattered Shots
Country Fair
(Edited) The Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes
ANTHOLOGY

In memory of Roy Jenkins,
and our Indian summer friendship
It may well be that the most glorious chapters of our history have
yet to be written. Indeed, the very problems and dangers that
encompass us and our country ought to make English men and
women of this generation glad to be here at such a time. We
ought to rejoice at the responsibilities with which destiny has
honoured us, and be proud that we are guardians of our country
in an age when her life is at stake.
—Winston Spencer Churchill, April 1933
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.
—Winston Spencer Churchill, November 1940
Contents
List of Maps
Introduction
1. The Battle of France
2. The Two Dunkirks
3. Invasion Fever
4. The Battle of Britain
5. Greek Fire
Insert 1
6. Comrades
7. The Battle of America
8. A Glimpse of Arcadia
9. “The Valley of Humiliation”
Insert 2
10. “Second Front Now!”
11. Camels and the Bear
12. The Turn of Fortune
13. Out of the Desert
14. Sunk in the Aegean
Insert 3
15. Tehran
16. Setting Europe Ablaze
17. Overlord
18. Bargaining with an Empty Wallet
19. Athens: “Wounded in the House of Our Friends”
Insert 4
20. Yalta
21. The Final Act
Acknowledgements and References
Notes
Select Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Maps
Europe
The Mediterranean
May 1940 Deployments
The German Advance
The Dunkirk Perimeter
Operation Sealion
Operation Compass
The North African Campaign
Operation Torch
The Italian Campaign
The Dodecanese
Overlord and Anvil

Introduction
C was the greatest Englishman and one of the greatest human
HURCHILL
beings of the twentieth century, indeed of all time. Yet, beyond that bald
assertion, there are infinite nuances in considering his conduct of
Britain’s war between 1940 and 1945, which is the theme of this book. It
originated nine years ago, when Roy Jenkins was writing his biography
of Churchill. Roy flattered me by inviting my comments on the
typescript, chapter by chapter. Some of my suggestions he accepted;
many he sensibly ignored. When we reached the Second World War, his
patience expired. Exasperated by the profusion of my strictures, he said:
“You’re trying to get me to do something which you should write
yourself, if you want to!” By that time, his health was failing. He was
impatient to finish his own book, which achieved triumphant success
before his death.
In the years which followed, I thought much about Churchill and the
war, mindful of some Boswellian lines about Samuel Johnson: “He had
once conceived1 the thought of writing The Life Of Oliver Cromwell …
He at length laid aside his scheme, on discovering that all that can be
told of him is already in print; and that it is impracticable to procure any
authentick information in addition to what the world is already
possessed of.” Among the vast Churchillian bibliography, I was
especially apprehensive about venturing anywhere near the tracks of
David Reynolds’s extraordinarily original and penetrating 2005 In
Command of History. The author dissected successive drafts of Churchill’s
war memoirs, exposing contrasts between judgements on people and
events which the old statesman initially proposed to make, and those
which he finally deemed it prudent to publish. Andrew Roberts has
painted2 a striking portrait of wartime Anglo-American relations in his
2009 Masters and Commanders. We have been told more about Winston
Churchill than any other human being. Tens of thousands of people of