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Warlord - A Life of Churchill at War, 1874-1945

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Carlo D'Este is a renowned historian of World War Two. His previous books include Decision in Normandy, Bitter Victory: the battle for Sicily 1943, Fatal decision: Anzio and the battle for Rome, and a biography of General Patton.

Now in this extraordinary book, he studies Churchill's role in Britain's many wars from 1897 to 1945. Churchill wrote in 1897 from the war on India's North-West Frontier, "All who resist will be killed without quarter. The Mohmands need a lesson - and there is no doubt we are a very cruel people. ... with fire and sword in vengeance ... we proceeded systematically, village by village, and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation. ... I wonder if people in England have any idea of the warfare that is being carried on here ... no quarter is ever asked or given. The tribesmen torture the wounded & mutilate the dead. The troops never spare a man who falls into their hands - whether he be wounded or not ... The picture is a terrible one ... I wish I could come to the conclusion that all this barbarity - all these losses - all this expenditure - had resulted in a permanent settlement being obtained, I do not think however that anything has been done - that will not have to be done again." Very prescient, given the current Anglo-American commitment to endless, futile war on Afghanistan.

Churchill participated in Britain's wars across Africa, from north to south. The Daily Mail's war correspondent wrote of Omdurman, "It was not a battle but an execution." Of the Boers, Churchill asked, "What sort of men are these we are fighting? They have a better cause - and cause is everything."

D'Este calls World War One `the most colossal folly in the history of mankind'. Even within this folly, Churchill's disastrous Gallipoli scheme stood out.

Early in World War Two, Churchill directed reinforcements from North Africa to Greece. This stopped General O'Connor from taking Tripoli, leaving it open for Rommel to seize. "This removal disastrously changed the course of the war by spawning disastrous setbacks in Greece and North Africa - and later in Crete." D'Este believes this was `the most serious strategic misjudgement of the war'.

Churchill argued that Allied operations in the Mediterranean would not delay the cross-Channel assault beyond 1943, but of course they did just that. The Italian campaign, as D'Este notes, `simply distracted the Allies from their real task: crossing the English Channel and opening the endlessly delayed second front."

He recounts the great 1944 controversy - should the Anglo-American air forces knock out the French railway system to prevent Hitler reinforcing his troops in Normandy, as Eisenhower, backed by de Gaulle, proposed? Or should they carry on bombing Germany, as air-force chiefs Harris and Spaatz, backed by Churchill, wanted?

Harris and Spaatz adhered to the Trenchard doctrine that strategic bombing alone could win wars, so they thought that the D-Day invasion was unnecessary. Eisenhower, rightly, overruled them all.

I was brought up in an era and a milieu when and where it was generally accepted that Winston Churchill was close to God. Soon after he died in 1966, I was delegated by others in my village to go house to house collecting money for the great man's memorial fund. I did well until I reached the house of a gentleman who was a generation my senior. His response to my request for cash was, 'I ain't giving anything in memory of that b****y old warmonger.' I was amazed, until the gentleman (who later became a good friend) calmed down and explained his reasons which were, in brief, that Mr Churchill had gone out of his way to make war. Moreover, Mr Churchill, it was alleged, loved war.

Of course, there is often a grain of truth in what may appear to be the most outrageous of remarks and, of course, there was a grain of truth in my then new-found-friend's remarks. Mr (later Sir Winston) Churchill was clearly a complex character and Carlo D'Este, on the face of it an unlikely biographer, has delved into the complexities of the great man's character. Though it isn't spelt out in terms, my guess is that Colonel D'Este, late of the U.S. Army, was seeking an answer to the perennial question regarding his subject. Was he a warlord or a warmonger? The answer seems to me to be clear. Winston was a warlord, hence the title of this superb book.

I have read much about Mr Churchill and I have read much by him. Colonel D'Este provided me with much more than I already knew. The material on Winston's troubled childhood and school days was particularly enlightening, as were the fascinating descriptions of the great man's exploits as a reporter or as a soldier in Cuba, India, Sudan and South Africa. I didn't hitherto know that Churchill was very sympathetic towards the Boer people: maybe his later close comradeship with General Jan Smuts should have made me realise this.

Of course, Mr Churchill had his political ups and downs. He was initially a Conservative and followed his late father's lead. Then he joined the Liberals and his friend, David Lloyd George. A vehement anti-Communist, he supported the White Russians against the Soviets. Then he became a Conservative again, but fell out with the party's leadership in the 1930s. Churchill was not trusted by either the Conservatives or the Liberals and he was loathed by Labour. (My friend who was a generation senior to me remembered those earlier controversial days: I didn't). Nevertheless, 'cometh the hour, cometh the man' and, in 1940, his hour came. It is no exaggeration to say that Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill saved Great Britain from Nazi occupation and worse. That was his finest hour.

Colonel D'Este seems to understand better than most Mr Churchill's war-time and post-war travails and the troubles he had with both allies and enemies. In retrospect, one can see more clearly the reasoning for Churchill wanting to attack the Axis powers in their 'soft underbelly.' That he recognised before many the Red threat is greatly to his credit and to Roosevelt's discredit.

Churchill's frustration at the loss of the British Empire is fairly covered, as is Colonel D'Este's close attention to the former Prime Minister's own decline.

This is a first-class biography and, at nearly 1,000 pages, represents exceptional value and essential reading for students of Churchill's long and extraordinary life.