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Roger Hermiston

All Behind You, Winston: Churchill's Great Coalition 1940-45 Hardcover – July 5, 2016

by Roger Hermiston (Author)

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On 14 May 1940, the Evening Standard published a cartoon with the caption "All Behind You, Winston". It showed Churchill, the freshly installed prime minister, rolling up his sleeves to confront the oncoming menace of Nazi Germany. In his wake, leading the endless ranks of the British people, marched the most prominent figures of his new coalition government.

It was a potent expression of a moment when Britons of every class were truly all in it together. It also contained a truth that Churchill's titanic historical reputation has since eclipsed: that neither he nor the country would have prevailed but for the joint effort of this remarkable "ministry of all the talents". Indeed, without the vital support of the Labour Party, and its leader Clement Attlee, Churchill might never have become prime minister at all.

Now Roger Hermiston tells the story of the men â?? and women â??Â who steered Britain through its darkest hour, showing how they helped to win the Second World War, and how they laid the foundations of the "New Jerusalem" that followed. Along the way, he explores the roles played by characters as diverse as the mercurial newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook, who supplied the planes that won the Battle of Britain; the pugnacious trade union baron Ernest Bevin, who kept the nation working; Lord Woolton, the minister for food â?? a man so widely loved he was dubbed "Uncle Fred"; and Sir John Anderson, one of the first people to contemplate the awful power of the atom bomb. Hermiston also considers the achievements of more junior ministers, including the only two women in Churchill's government: the left-wing firebrand Ellen Wilkinson, and the Conservative Florence Horsbrugh, who played a pivotal role alleviating the suffering inflicted by the Blitz.

Five years after that cartoon, Churchill predicted that history would shine a light on "every helmet" of his"great coalition". As it was, many were forgotten. This book seeks to recover their memory, and to celebrate a generation of politicians who rose above party to put their country first.Â

Â

Print length

416 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Aurum Press
Publication date

July 5, 2016
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

1781313318
ISBN-13

978-1781313312
See all details

Edward Farley Aldrich
71
Hardcover
46 offers from $13.75

Editorial Reviews

Review

'By the book's end the reader will be in no doubt that Churchill did an amazing job in holding together and directing the nation during one of its most difficult eras' - Sky and Bullets

‘a forensic study...makes for gripping reading; it is a genuine page-turner, written in objective, but always absorbing, fashion’ - Kentonline

‘[Hermiston] takes a firm grip, writes well and refreshes the [familiar] narrative with a substantial helping of original research. The result is an accessible political history, enlivened by shrewd, vivid portraits...Hermiston is excellent on the Labour contingent of Clement Attlee, Ernest Bevin, Herbert Morrison and Hugh Dalton, while showing how wrong it would be to claim that they dominated the home front.’ - History Today

'Not only did this {Churchill's 1940-45 administration} Conservative-Labour-Liberal coalition steer Britain through its most perilous years and win the war, it also initiated social reforms that were to shape post-war Britain. These staggering achievements are brilliantly described in Hermiston's All Behind You, Winston' - Irish Independent

‘Roger Hermiston’s bright idea [to explore the achievement of the coalition]... is so obviously right that it is surprising that no one, so far as I know, has done it before. His book is skilfully constructed… The sometimes tense relationships within the coalition make a good new slant on a familiar story, and Roger Hermiston tells it well.’ - John Campbell, Finest Hour magazine

‘A must for anyone interested in British wartime politics… So much is known about Churchill and the struggles he faced during Britain’s darkest hours that it is almost unimaginable that there could be still more information out there. But Roger Hermiston has proved otherwise, brilliantly examining the fraught relations...and the relentless internal difficulties facing Churchill for five horrendous years.’
- Soldier Magazine

'[Hermiston recalls] personalities now widely forgotten, and with evocative illustrations'

- Church Times

'The war was won on the front line, in the air, at sea and on the factory floor. However, it might not have happened without the influence of the coalition government...it is all here in this excellent book by Roger Hermiston. Highly recommended!' - War History Online

'In this highly readable account...the ideological differences and personality clashes between the large egos of Bevin and Morrison, Beaverbrook and Attlee are described in fascinating' - Maj Stephen Coulson, The Lady

Summer Reads Pick: ‘Of all political coalitions, the piece de resistance must be the 1940-45 administration: warring egos held together by sheer will’ ‘Of all political coalitions, the piece de resistance must be the 1940-45 administration: warring egos held together by sheer will’ - Sunday Telegraph

'Hermiston has written a gripping account, full of drama, personality and humour' - Tim Bouverie, Daily Telegraph

About the Author

ROGER HERMISTON is a journalist and was assistant editor on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme from 1998-2010. It was there that he first encountered George Blake, when editing an interview with the former spy in 1999. His first book, Clough and Revie, was an acclaimed dual biography of two of English football's most famous and controversial managers.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Aurum Press; First Edition (July 5, 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1781313318
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1781313312
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.65 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,779,183 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,420 in Historical British Biographies
- #5,458 in WWII Biographies
- #6,406 in European Politics Books

Customer Reviews:
49 ratings

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Roger Hermiston

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Roger's latest book, 'Two Minutes to Midnight; 1953, The Year of Living Dangerously', has just been published by Biteback. It's the story of one of the most tense years in the early Cold War, with the nuclear arms build-up, the death of Stalin, the malign influence of Joe McCarthy, and the continuing war in Korea.

His previous book, 'All Behind You, Winston - Churchill's Great Coalition 1940-45' is the compelling story of the men (and two women) in Churchill's government who helped win the war, primarily on the Home Front. Many of those characters have been forgotten - eclipsed by the great man's giant shadow - and the book seeks to recover the memory of the likes of Lord Woolton, Sir John Anderson, Lord Beaverbrook and Ellen Wilkinson.

Roger's previous books were 'The Greatest Traitor', a biography of the Cold War spy (and KGB mole) George Blake, and 'Clough and Revie', the story of the fierce rivalry between those two great football managers.

Roger was a print and broadcast journalist before turning to full-time writing. He was a reporter and feature writer on the Yorkshire Post before joining the BBC in the early 1990s. The bulk of his career at the corporation was devoted to the Today programme, BBC Radio 4, where he was Assistant Editor from 1999-2010.

Customer reviews

4.9 out of 5

49 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

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Limey Smokejumper

Excellent read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 31, 2018

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Of the several feet of books I have on Churchill, this is the only one that delves into the men and women behind the man; those who kept the country running, kept the country together, fighting as best they could while preparing for greater conflicts to come. In that, it's a long-needed book for anyone interested in more than just battles. For instance, sheltering the British people from German bombers was a huge undertaking in itself, and the arguments over designs of shelters - while bombs were falling and killing hundreds on a single night - shine a spotlight on as yet untold stories. To an old Englishman many of the names are, no doubt, already familiar, but to others the names will have been forgotten to history. These people should not be forgotten. They did the great work behind the great man, and Churchill did well persuading them to stay with their cause no matter the rivalries. Marshall, equally, is heralded for corralling many conflicting personalities, many prima donnas, to forge a winning U.S. team. Churchill had already done it on his side of the pond. We can all be grateful that he did, and had such a diverse, strong-minded team behind him.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main" - John Donne

One person found this helpful

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Dang

points out the foibles of the Great man.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 3, 2016

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A MUST read on the most famous man of the 20th Century. Also, points out the foibles of the Great man.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 9, 2016

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Book arrived in excellent condition. An interesting text for filling in details of a well know story.
AWM

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 19, 2016

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Sent as a present to my history prof son, he enjoyed the book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 28, 2018

Author Roger Hermiston performs a service to the WWII reader hoping to learn more about how Winston Churchill's wartime cabinet worked. Or how they didn't work, it would seem, succeeding despite conflicting personalities who dashed off memos at the slightest offense. If Lincoln had a "team of rivals" then Churchill had a "team of gentry". But they turned the tide and made victory possible for the allies.

The best parts of this book are the passages detailing the ambitions of lesser-known politicians. I had never heard of Sir Stafford Cripps before, but he was a wartime rival to Churchill. As democracies often waver and wobble when stressed, Cripps was ready to step forward should Winston falter or be physically unable to continue prosecuting the war.

Having finished the book, I was surprised there wasn't any focus on how the various cabinet ministers assembled their meager resources into standing firm against Fortress Europe. The book seems largely an account of ministers reacting to events rather than shaping them, with a mercurial and often flighty Churchill at the time, raving with various untenable schemes for waging war. What the book does manage to convey is Churchill's stance that war had to be waged coldly and with all focus on success, not morality or fighting honorably. This is why he sunk the Vichy French fleet, this is why he made deals for splitting up postwar Europe with Stalin on scraps of paper, this is why he approved of carpet bombing of civilian refugee areas like Dresden. It's debatable whether all were necessary for victory, but victory was the aim and ultimate result.

The disappointing part of the book is the Postscript, where the author tries to argue that Churchill was wrong about the harm that the upcoming socialist government was going to inflict on a postwar Britain. He quotes Churchill:

"Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism... the state being a malign individual, a dictator, the arch-employer, the arch-planner, the arch-administrator and ruler, the arch-caucus boss."

Sounds accurate to me. This is the problem with a modern author trying to judge Churchill's views on socialism long after it was proven that socialism failed Britain, failed to enforce equality, and certainly failed to bring prosperity to post-colonial Britain. Churchill was right. The author continues his quoting of Churchill's "intemperate passage":

"No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance. And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil."

Can there be any more apt and accurate description of the modern United Kingdom? Roger Hermiston must surely be aware of what happens to any Briton who speaks negatively of any migrant group in public. They are singled out, arrested, and convicted of hate speech. Just as Churchill warned with the above on the utopia of socialism. It's what he fought with Germany's national socialism, how sad to see the same mindset ultimately win in the country that birthed modern freedom.

I guess the biggest flaw of the book is that the author did not seem to respect or like Churchill's views. He closes his book with the weakest of praise:

“History must surely credit that administration not only for winning the war, but also with beginning the vital work of framing the future political and social structure of Britain”.

Rather, it would seem Britain let Winston down. He was right about the crippling economic ruin that socialism would bring to the UK. And contrary to the author's assertions, Churchill was also right in being dismissive of Gandhi. After Britain left India, the resulting India Civil War resulted in an estimated 500,000-1 million dead. Churchill was right that India was better off being part of the British Commonwealth. One only has to look at the nuclear Indian-Pakistan subcontinent today to see the lasting truth of Churchill's words. Pity the author did not.

But that's the drawback of any Postscript in a history book, where modern dogmas are forced upon people dead for decades. What this book does is illustrate how the trite phrase "All Behind You, Winston" was a joke from the start, and it's a miracle that all the chaotic in-fighting produced a reasonably-functional military machine. Had Hitler been able to read this book at the start of the war, he would have invaded Britain and quickly conquered it. How fortunate for history and the world that he did now know just how fragile Winston's coalition was throughout the contest! That is the book's strength and its value to any WWII reader.

Helpful

B. Lai

Good Book - well recommended

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 26, 2017

Interesting book with facts and story largely forgotten by the public.I've learnt a lot. Easy to read and the story flows smoothly.

Well recommended to all who wanted to see a different side of Winston and British Politics in the 1940s.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Ken Aplin

Well researched book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 24, 2021

Verified Purchase

I expected this book to be a bit jingoistic, but it is far from that. Due to having lived through WW2, I thought I knew a fair bit of the history. Wrong. I had my eyes opened. A coalition government well led and properly supported by bright men and women from all parties. A revelation as to what CAN happen when parties put aside their differences. Regrettably politics is too polarised for that to happen today.

J. MCMAHON

Interesting objective account

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 18, 2017

Verified Purchase

This account of the real behind-the-scenes challenges and the resolution of so many serious issues that faced the Coalition and the War Cabinet, really brings a lifelike reality to the stark historical events we know so well.
After reading this, we can only wonder at the resolve and tenacity of the men and women who worked together for so long to win the war and lay the foundations of the peace.

5 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Excellent book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 8, 2020

Verified Purchase

I though I will read propaganda on great achievements but actually very good book on War Cabinet relations/wealthy members/influence/decisions. I recommend this not only to people interested in ww2 but also to understand British society and political decisions.

Amazon Customer

Brilliant read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 19, 2021

Verified Purchase

Well written and informative - very enjoyable read with good insight

J. R. Richardson

This is a really interesting, well-written, book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 19, 2020

Verified Purchase

This is a really interesting, well-written, book.