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Winston's War: Churchill, 1940-1945

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So many books have been written about Churchill, in particular about the wartime years, that another biography might be needless. However, Max Hastings presents a wonderfully balanced portrait of the man, the politician and the statesman. While in no way a revisionist history, Hastings has used distance and time to place Churchill's immense contribution in historial perspective. It is fascinating to compare the Churchill revealed in the "War Diaries of Field Marshall Lord Alanbrooke" (from which Mr. Hastings quotes) with Hastings' own work. Two brillant accounts, one immediate with short term judgements and Mr. Hastings's more measured and from a distance.

Churchill's rhetoric and prose shaped the common view of the conduct of WWII. Brave little Britain fighting alone. "The Few, we will fight them on the beaches and never surrender." How Churchill's phrases captured and continue to color the imagination. Much less widely recognized are Britain's problems during wartime. In a sense disguised by Churchill's masterful language the strikes, the attitudes and the actions of the many Communist sympathizers and the often poor performance of Britain's own Army (especially in the war's early years) have tended to fade from popular viewpoint. Mr. Hastings deals with the good, the bad and the downright ugly without flinching and without using criticism to deflect from what was an overall immense achievement.

Whatever Churchill's failings(and he was human), Max Hastings points out without Winston Churchill at the head of government, Britain would have probably capitulated in 1940-41. Churchill did not simply capture the British spirit, he to some extend, created it as this book makes clear. Had Churchill not done so, the outcome could have been entirely different or, at least, more protracted and bloody without Britain as a base to launch the killer blow upon Nazi Germany.

Initially, having read many Churchill biographies I was afraid this might be a revisionist history that so many authors are prone to write simply to sell their work. Max Hastings' book about this great man who occupied this pivotal moment is well balanced and researched.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in this period of history. I have read many books by Max Hastings and this is one of his best. I also recommend the "War Diaries of Field Marshall Lord Alanbrooke" to gain even further perspective on the effect an individual can have on history.

Enjoy the read!

Decades following his death, Winston S. Churchill (WSC) continues to fascinate historians and attract various pundits hoping to make a critical imprint on the landscape of modern moral relativism. His detractors attempt to belittle his many accomplishments by framing them in the context of his many inconsistencies and, failing that, sometimes resort to ad hominem attacks ("alcoholic" being prominent amongst them). Recently, at least three major military historians, John Keegan, Carlo D'Este and Max Hastings, have written focused biographies of WSC in his capacity as "warlord". Keegan's book is essentially a monograph (interesting, nonetheless). D'Este wrote a somewhat more encyclopaedic book (WSC's entire military career). Hastings concentrates on WSC as British supreme commander during the years of the Second World War. While all three books are good, Hastings' penetrating assessments and candid observations on the protagonist and those who enter his orbit make for more enjoyable reading.

Hastings nominally begins his story in 1939, the year Great Britain joined France in declaring war on Hitler's Germany. However, necessary historical context from pre-war years is also provided, allowing this book to be read independently of any other biography or study. Despite the book's apparently narrow focus, it can be read without background or understanding of the War, itself.

Not too surprisingly to his more strident critics, WSC made many minor and several major errors in his capacity as wartime Prime Minister. He had a penchant for "meddling" in military affairs, one shared with at least Stalin and Hitler. In common with Hitler, WSC had actual front-line combat experience and, also in common with Hitler, demonstrated bravery in battle. Despite first-hand experience with war and direct, personal knowledge of the consequences of leadership error, both men were fond of audacious and risky enterprises, often-times creating consternation in the ranks of their professional military consultants, sometimes with lamentable results. Hastings unfavorably contrasts the British military with its German counterpart throughout the book, with the British falling far short of their adversaries in professionalism, skill, dedication, improvisation, equipment, strategy and battlefield tactics. For that matter, Hastings made the same unfavorable comparison of American troops to the Germans in "Overlord", his history of the D-Day invasion.

In order to understand the relatively dismal performance of the British Army (in particular), Hastings provides many examples of the incompetence and timidity of the major British commanders who repeatedly come up short in comparison to their North African theater adversary, Rommel and their foe in Italy, Kesselring. However, even their American counterparts seemed to view them with dismissive attitudes. On the British home front, morale was undermined by the seemingly interminable duration of the war, pro-Soviet attitudes of many workers (and their "betters" in the governing classes), residual exhaustion from the labors of the First World War and concerns regarding the post-war course of their nation. Hastings repeatedly emphasizes that, almost single-handedly, WSC provided the leadership example required to sustain the war effort from its earliest years (when the situation seemed most hopeless) through its overly long finale, when the population seemed no longer able or interested in sustaining the effort.

WSC is both lauded and attacked. His penchant for dramatic forays by small "elite" units (which proliferated under his leadership) were generally unsuccessful (1942 Dieppe raid, for example). His emphasis on the Mediterranean theater was distracting from the major war effort. His repeated solicitations to the Americans on behalf of various "pet projects" became distracting and then annoying. Nonetheless, WSC had an over-arching and penetrating understanding of grand strategy and, in service to that understanding, was able to bury his antipathy to Communism recognizing that the contributions of the USSR were arch-critical to the defeat of the Nazi armies. Perhaps the most damning (from both the perspective of Roosevelt's U.S. and from Hastings, himself) was WSC's fealty to the concept of the British Empire. Perceptions that many of Britain's military plans and perspectives were undertaken in service of post-war imperial ambitions soured relations between the Western powers, especially on the U.S. domestic front.

From my perspective, Hastings makes his greatest contribution both in this book and in "Retribution" (the Pacific War) by clarifying many now controversial wartime actions such as the use of atomic weapons ("Retribution") and "area bombing" (both theaters of war). WSC was personally conflicted and committed some of his thoughts to paper. Still, he observed that, "Morale is a legitimate military target" and advocated bombing of German cities not only for that reason (in the early war years to prop up home-front morale) but to convince Stalin that the British were making a meaningful "second front" contribution. Hastings also notes that contemporary technology did not allow "precision bombing" or anything even remotely approaching that concept. Hence, to target factories and military installations, area bombing was necessary. In Hastings' words, "In addressing the history of the Second World War, it is necessary to recognise the huge moral compromises forced upon the nations fighting under the banner of democracy and freedom. Britain, and subsequently America, strove for the triumph of these admirable principles wherever the could be secured-with sometimes embarrassing exceptions of the European overseas empires. But again and again, hard things had to be done which breached faith with any definition of absolute good. If this is true of politics at all times, it was especially so between 1939 and 1945...the moral and material price of destroying Hitler was high...". In "Retribution", Hastings commented that, "But in an imperfect world, it seems unrealistic to expect that any combatant in a war will grant adversaries conspicuously better treatment than his own people receive at their hands". This all rings true and does much to undermine the "post-modern" moral relativism which is currently fashionable. Hastings also repeatedly emphasizes that the Hitler War was won largely due to the efforts and exertions of Stalin's USSR: the role of Lend Lease and the significance of the D-Day landing have been over-amplified with the passage of time.

In summary, Hastings characterizes WSC as, "...one of the greatest actors upon the stage of affairs the world has ever known...If his leadership through the Second World War was imperfect, it is certain that no other British ruler in history has matched his direction of the nation in peril.." Certainly, WSC was the greatest statesman of the modern era and his "grand vision" enabled the eventual defeat of Hitler, cementing as it did a roiled domestic constituency and contentious allies. His "anachronistic delusions" (sometimes making him appear to FDR and others as a "traveler from an antique land") about the future of the British Empire were just that. His magnificent accomplishments dwarf his strategic shortcomings and can only serve as an example to be emulated by any current or future leader with pretensions to greatness.

As I finished the last words on page 486, I yearned for more. Except for the acknowledgements, bibliography and such, there was no more.

The excellent writer and detailed-obsessed military historian Max Hastings had brought us to the end of Churchill's reign as the war leader of the British Empire.

You can measure Churchill, the man, by the thousands of books, movies, documentaries and other expositions about him.

In Hastings, we find much that is new. As with many contemporary histories of WWII, more than a little comes from the once again closed Soviet archives. But much more comes from the diaries and unpublished letters of people, particularly the little people, the ones who in a democracy elect those who lead.

Hastings leaves us in absolutely no doubt of Churchill's unique accomplishments - and his failures.

For many months, the future of any vestige of democracy in Europe and perhaps the world rested on Churchill's shoulders. Through his oratory and pluck alone, Churchill encouraged battered and, in fact, defeated Britain to rally itself and fight on, despite the fact that literally all its artillery, amour, small arms and military vehicles had been left on the battlefields of France. Churchill pleaded and cajoled to get Franklin Roosevelt into the European war, but Roosevelt basically wouldn't budge.

For a while, it was Churchill, a few hundred brave pilots, a few thousand ground crew and radar plotters who kept Britain in the war.

Hastings tracks the public opinion of the day. Churchill had long been a divisive character, long relegated to the back benches of Britain's ruling class for his outspoken opinions on the dangers of a rearmed and resurgent Germany. Neville Chamberlain had captured the support of the people who believed that giving Hitler what he wanted was the road to peace.

It was not and the 66 year old Churchill, called a war monger by so many, was asked by the King to become Prime Minister.

It is now widely agreed that Churchill was the only man who could have saved Britain.

Hastings keeps his focus on Churchill as war leader, but lets us see how the world around him reacted to his larger-than-life presence. He irritated and frustrated his military leaders by his constant interference and demands for action now. He lifted the spirits of his people in his visits to the bombed out streets of London. He bestirred the Members of Parliament (and controlled them) with his wit and guile. Finally, he roused the world through oratory of a brilliance rarely seen.

Churchill, as Hastings endlessly points out, was not perfect. Far from it. His military plans were more often than not entirely impractical and when he did succeed in getting his ideas acted upon, they often resulted in disaster. But strategically, Churchill was ahead of his generals who for the most part never rose to anything near Churchill's greatness.

Hastings correctly believes that it was the military of the Soviets that defeated Germany and that Britain and the United States played a subordinate role militarily. No serious student of the period can disagree. It was the Soviets who broke the armies of the Germans and their allies. But Churchill believed he enjoyed some kind of personal relationship with Stalin, a delusion he persisted in almost to the end of the war.

It is fascinating to read the letters and diaries of the average citizens, many, if not most, of whom revered Churchill the war leader, while reserved about Churchill the domestic leader. The letters of the committed leftists are chilling to read. Military men and Churchill's staff left behind copious memoirs, published and unpublished, about their impressions. Hastings draws upon all of this and more to produce a truly in-depth history of Churchill's six years as the most powerful leader in British history and one of the most remarkable men to have appeared in Western civilization.

The pity is that history is no longer taught in American schools and what has replaced it has little relation to history. Thus the children of today will grow up with little idea of how close the freedom they abuse came so close to being snuffed out were it nor for Winston Churchill who roused the West to save itself.

Next time, perhaps, we will not be so fortunate as to have a Churchill.

Hastings makes it clear just how remarkable Churchill, as the war leader of his people, was.

Jerry

A deeply engrossing, and most revealing, account of Churchill during Great Britain's toughest hours and years. Max Hastings has accomplished a brilliant task: painting a full portrait of a complex man, using all the colors of the human palette without favoring one over the other.

For lay Churchillian fossil hunters--eager to crack open that one rock which will reveal the perfectly defined imprint of a long-extinct species of leader, Winston's War is the ideal tool for discovery. In page after page, Hastings gives us Churchill the humanist, the warrior, the worrier, the optimist, the depressed, the badgerer and and the beguiler. But most of all, Hastings reveals as few have before, Churchill's devotion to the Great Britain that once was and, in his vision, could be again, if only his plans were properly attended to by generals and allies whose actions were otherwise limited to the near horizon of self-interest.

The same brush that defines Churchill with such clarity and vibrance does not neglect to flesh out other characters from that era -- Roosevelt and the American chiefs of staff, and Winston's own stable of generals and advisers receive equal amounts of critical paint, and not always in pleasing hues.

Hastings is not all laud and champagne for Churchill; Winston's War gives us a churlish Winnie, a frustrated warfighter, a spoiled child, an unthinking master, a fretful husband, and bitter father. Through Hasting's sharply focused lens of research and discovery, we watch Churchill fall victim to the duplicity of perceived friends--Beaverbrook, for one, with all his smarminess and deceit--and to seek the embrace of the spitting cobra of Stalin in order to save Poland from the fangs of Soviet domination. Just as in a horror movie in which a hapless character is about to turn a corner to face a bloodthirsty monster the audience can already see, Hastings' portrayal of the Churchill/Stalin matchup will have you screaming, "Run, Winston, run!" and yet you will be unable to stop turning the pages, just as history could not be stopped or re-directed.

But for all his foibles and failings--and there were many--the scales of judgment must, if Hastings has it right--and I believe he does--tip easily toward a near reverence for Churchill's place in history. He was not as much a man of his time, as he was the right man for his time. An anachronism from the very start of the war, Churchill nonetheless was able to poke, prod, cajole, inspire, and lead even when so many forces--social, political, and economic--were placed in his path. As Hastings puts it, "He was one of the greatest actors upon the stage of affairs whom the world has ever known ... He was the largest human being ever to occupy his office."

Winston's War is an astonishing feat--it chronicles the activities, thoughts, ideals, politics, relationships, and personality of a man through five long, complex years and does so without becoming boring or losing sight of some one of these parts of the man. The man is Winston Churchill and Max Hastings has done a remarkable job of describing Churchill's experience during World War II.

Hastings follows Churchill through the war closely, especially during the tense first days of Churchill's premiership and through the American commitment to Europe in North Africa. I won't recapitulate the chronology here--it would bore those already familiar with World War II and just be so many unfamiliar names to those who aren't. The impression gained from this book is that through all five years Churchill was constantly on the go, moving between the headquarters of various generals, the ministries in London, and overseas meetings with his allies, Roosevelt and Stalin. The constant balancing act Churchill faced--as politician, PM, diplomat, strategist, and human being--would have destroyed a lesser man, and Hastings evokes the myriad demanding duties well.

The book had two great strengths. The first was the attention Hastings gave to lesser-known operations. This must come with the territory, as Churchill was notoriously fond of derring do like commando raids and sabotage. But Churchill also pushed for, planned, and executed several large-scale but little-known missions during the war. There were, for instance, the "second Dunkirk" during late June of 1940, during which more British troops trapped in France were evacuated, and the disastrous invasion of the Aegean in 1943. Churchill's campaign into the Dodecanese, the Greek isles, meant to bring the Turks into the war on the Allied side but was ill-planned and even more ill-fated, reminding many of his botched Gallipoli campaign in the same sea during World War I. He also urged constantly the creation and supply of resistance groups in occupied Europe, the usefulness of which--in light of terrible German reprisals--is still debated. Hastings clearly illustrates the complexity of Allied planning, as numerous proposed or planned operations came to nothing.

The book's second strength was Hastings's focus on Churchill the man. It is easy for historians to forget that their subjects got tired, sick, cranky, drunk, or jokey, but Hastings always keeps Churchill as human being in the foreground. He reminds us that, though Churchill is now an inspirational icon, he was an old man. He was moody. He kept odd hours. He was by turns abrupt and affectionate. His health was a constant worry. And he wasn't always popular--in fact, political enemies agitated constantly for his removal from the premiership during the last half of the war. Churchill's story is often one of frustration, especially after the Americans entered the war. Roosevelt, to whom Churchill gave enormous attention early on in the hopes of currying American favor, shunned and ignored Churchill more and more in favor of Stalin. Stalin, who knew Churchill hated the Soviets, was inscrutable but clearly enjoyed the favor he found with Roosevelt at Churchill's expense. Churchill was always the least of the Big Three and he knew it, and his frustration with Stalin and especially Roosevelt was pitiful.

Winston's War, of course, is not solely about Winston, and Hastings does an excellent job of describing the personalities and relationships between the many figures--important or not--who interacted with Churchill. As I said, I won't bother with specifics of chronology here. The best thing I can say is to read Winston's War. Max Hastings has written an enormously detailed and engaging book on one of the most important figures in modern history.

Highly recommended.

This book is, indeed, a study of the finest years of Winston Churchill, as war leader of Great Britain. It grew out of a comment made by Roy Jenkins in the course of writing his 2001 biography, which is arguably the best single-volume work of its kind. As other reviewers have noted, the book also works as an unauthorised sequel to William Manchester's incomplete The Last Lion trilogy, which is the best biography of Churchill's life and times there is. This is a focus on Churchill as war leader, not a study of the man per se.

To sum up the theme of this book, Churchill got a lot of the little things wrong, but got the big thing - winning WWII - right. As it turned out, he was also right about the post-war world and the threat of exchanging the Nazi empire for a Soviet one, but was powerless to arrest this on his own, and was powerless to convince Roosevelt and the US to assist. In part, ths was due to his getting the little things wrong.

From the fall of France, the Battle of Britain, North Africa, Italy, and D-Day, the big picture of WWII is laid out. Greece was perhaps Churchill's last success of WWII, at least by some values of success.

There is sorrow here also - the loss of Poland, the looming horrors of the Soviet Iron Curtain, all flowing from the fact that having allied with Stalin to defeat Hitler, the western allies were stuck with Stalin to the bitter, bitter end. Without Stalin, there could be no battlefield victory for the west; with him, the victory was gall and wormwood.

This is a superb volume, dealing with the role of Churchill in WWII, and the role he played in shaping the post-war world. Although never stated in the book, it is clear that to the extent that the US and Britain today share a "special relationship" - and they do, and arguably stronger now than in 1945 - this should be seen as Churchill's true legacy, one myth he spent his life's work to turn to truth. Hastings here shows the decline of Britain and her Empire over the course of the war years, the ebb and flow of popular support for Churchill and the war, the troublemakers in Cabinet - to rise above all this, as Churchill did, is probably the truest mark of a great man, save for his utter public lack of any resentment at the loss of office in 1945: his simple exit, without recrimination, shows his complete commitment to British democracy.

The book does end in 1945: there is no coda dealing with Churchill's return to the Prime Ministership in later life, or his death nearly 20 years later, so do not expect that at the end. This is simply a history of wartime Britain as Churchill made it: when his war ended, so did the story. It is an excellent retelling of those dreadful years when the fate of the world hung in the balance, and Churchill's attempts to bring down Nazi Germany.

Please disregard the review posted by the reviewer who appears to spend much of his time on Amazon "trashing" Max Hastings books. This is a fascinating study of Churchill, "warts and all." Highly recommended.

Winston Churchill has for many years been a hero and an inspiration to me. He was multi-dimensional: warrior, politician, gifted writer, orator, painter, and unconventional character. In 1940, Britain was one of the world's preeminent powers (before the post-war ascendancy of the United States and the Soviet Union). I had voraciously read Churchill's six-volume memoir of the Second World War and his History of the English-Speaking Peoples. I have read numerous biographies such as The Last Lion, Churchill: A Study in Failure 1900-1939, and Franklin and Winston. Now here is another biography, which from the onset provides fresh insights into Churchill's impact during the war, beginning with his appointment as wartime Prime Minister by the king during May 1940 - a warrior was needed! British expeditionary forces were already in France striving to halt the German blitzkrieg through Belgium, and would soon find themselves being evacuated from Dunkirk. Western Europe was reeling and facing impending defeat.

Yet one man, with doubters all around him, refused to concede defeat. By his steadfast courage, wit, and groundless optimism, Churchill infused the British people with an astonishing attitude of defiance. After the fall of France, Britain stood alone against the Axis Powers. Churchill went through excruciating moments during this time, as Max Hastings reveals that Churchill, as early as the summer of 1940, uttered his prophetic conviction that the United States would come to the aid of the Allies. Hastings states that Churchill's "supreme achievement in 1940 was to mobilize Britain's warriors, to shame into silence its doubters, and to stir the passions of the nation." Hastings astutely writes: "As Churchill always recognized, modern war is waged partly on battlefields, and partly also on airwaves, front pages and in the hearts of men and women."

At the onset, Britain required both its Navy and its Royal Air Force (RAF) to prevent a German invasion. The odds seemed slim, but strategic plans were put in place, and against all odds the pilots of the RAF, fighting with intrepid tenacity, won the Battle of Britain by the end of 1940, the first British victory of the war, which gave assurance to Americans that Britain would not fall. Yet Britain would stand alone for nearly a year and a half before the Soviet Union battled the Germans in war, and more than two years before the U.S. joined with Britain to launch the invasion of North Africa during November of 1942; while one month earlier, Montgomery, with around 1,000 tanks (of which nearly half were from the U.S. - at last), proceeded to win Britain's first large-scale land victory against Germans, in Egypt at the Battle of El Alamein.

Though I was born after WW II was over, I fought in Vietnam, and I certainly consider Churchill to be a magnificent wartime leader, deserving of tremendous praise. Max Hastings has done credit to the man and the warrior. Yes, another biography of Winston Churchill will do just fine.

Overall this is a fine book. It is especially fine in its perspective, seeing Churchill as he was, as his influence with the U.S. waned as the war effort turned favorable. Hast-ings is clear in depicting Churchill's flaws, his grandiosity, as well as his indomitable spirit, so singularly important in carrying Britain through the dark early years of the War. His judgment is that Churchill was a unique leader whose importance to his country's (if not its empire's) survival cannot be overstated. Withal, he shows Churchill as a human being, with all the imperfections and foibles of that condition.

Secondary characters in the drama are also well drawn, and, indeed, there are a fair number of laughs in the narrative. Any reader who thinks Roosevelt and Churchill were bonded buddies will emerge from reading this book with a much clearer apprecia-tion of the fact that their relationship was driven by national interest, not truly by personal affection or even affinity.

Perhaps most significantly for those who think they know their history, the sine qua non role of the Russia in defeating Nazism is well and convincingly told. Hastings does a marvelous job of limning the times and the circumstances as well as the headlines of the major events from 1939 through to the defeat of Germany in 1945.

The author writes, mostly, with clarity and with energy. This reader, however, cannot understand how a manuscript can go through many readings before publication and still not be purged of the writer's mistakes or poor word choices. To be a writer, one much take care--exacting care. Most irritating, Hastings (and his many manuscript read-ers) seem to think that "imprecations" means "pleadings." It does not, nor does it have a particularly British meaning (I checked Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary). "Impreca-tions" means "curses." The word Hastings must have meant, whether he knows it or not, is "importunities." When a writer falls into such catachresis it undermines his authority.

Likewise his frequent use of the rebarbative (both to me and to the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary) "enthuse." This is not a writerly word nor, clearly, an authoritative word. It's a word that those who are not sensitive to words use. Nor does Hastings know the difference between a restrictive and a nonrestrictive clause--to the detriment of his noted clarity. These may sound like small bore points but they detract from an otherwise outstanding piece of work. This reviewer thinks that both unfortunate and avoidable. The dictionary is the writer's dearest friend, especially in cases where he is absolutely certain of a given word's meaning.

Oh, yes, Shangri La, now Camp David, is not in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland.

As others have stated, there are many biographies of WC. The reason I purchased this one is that I have always found Max Hasting to be thought-provoking writer who finds something new to tell on every subject he tackles. I was not disappointed. This is a narrowly focused view of Winston Churchill as PM during the war. The narrative covers events in some detail, but not so low as to be painful. It is obvious that Hastings is a big fan of Churchill, but can still point out the flaws that prevented him from being an effective peacetime national leader of Britain. The book delves into many of the more controversial of Churchill's actions and explains why most were not the flights of fancy others have claimed. The author's claim that Churchill was the only leader that could have done what he managed to do for Britain during the war is undoubtedly correct. He convincingly tells of Churchill's failure to recognize the future and the British people's need for change that ensured the PM's ouster as the war wound down and the war-weary populace prepared to return to peacetime and the resumption of their lives.

While no detailed knowledge of WW2 history is needed to enjoy the book, it is helpful in placing in context the events that most affected Churchill and his leadership of the British Empire.