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'Unsinkable': Churchill and the First World War by [Richard Freeman]

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Richard Freeman

'Unsinkable': Churchill and the First World War Kindle Edition

by Richard Freeman (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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A history of Churchill's achievements in the Great War and why he was dubbed "the unsinkable politician" by the Morning Post when he returned to office in 1917Here is the story of a man unjustly vilified: Churchill in World War I. His enemies—the Tory party—censured him for Antwerp, the Dardanelles, and Gallipoli. He could do no right and was regarded as a dangerous maniac. But the true story is quite the opposite. This book tells how, as a brilliant First Sea Lord, Churchill was ousted by his enemies, yet clawed his way back to power against all the odds. As the leading critic of senselessly sending men to march toward machine guns, his calls for "machines not men" went unheeded. After a spell in the trenches he returned to London to clear his name over the Dardanelles. Then he relentlessly fought his way back to power through his brilliant, incisive criticism of the land war. The unsinkable politician finally became Munitions Minister in 1917, where he pushed output to unimagined levels. His weapons delivered the victory that had eluded others for the previous three years.

Print length

272 pages
Language

English
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On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Spellmount Publishers Ltd
Publication date

October 1, 2013
File size

2894 KB
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About the Author

Richard Freeman has written more than 60 books, including The Great Edwardian Naval Feud. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01JZYGL2M
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Spellmount Publishers Ltd; 1st edition (October 1, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 1, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2894 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 272 pages

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9 ratings

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Richard Freeman

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Richard Freeman writes books on naval history and the people who made that history. Amazon readers have greeted his style with phrases such as ‘Freeman makes military history interesting’ ... ‘Freeman’s accounts are so engaging’ ... ‘The excellent writing skills of Richard Freeman’ ... ‘Freeman is a master of scene setting’. His books regularly receive praise for combining accurate research with a compelling narrative:

‘Unsinkable’: Churchill & the First World War: ‘A wonderful addition to anyone’s collection of books about Winston Churchill’ … ‘A must read for anyone interested in Churchill’

'Admiral Insubordinate': ‘Intensively professionally researched’ … ‘Freeman is brilliant’

'Atlantic Nightmare': ‘A brilliant and readable record of this battle’ … ‘Excellent strategic look at a mammoth struggle’ … ‘A hugely competent account’

'Coral Sea': ‘Well written and delight to follow the action’ … ‘A very good book on a crucial battle of WWII’ … ‘A true WWII “eye opener” to the importance the Coral Sea’

'Dardanelles': ‘A powerful, intense, almost day-by-day description of one of the most famous and bloody campaigns of The Great War. Highly recommended.’

'Midway': ‘Should be compulsory reading for younger generations’ … ‘His analysis is excellent, bringing out extraordinarily well the key facts about the battle’

'Tempestuous Genius': ‘ must for all naval officers - and spads!’ … ‘An outstanding book of the extraordinary man who changed the Navy over 100 years ago as is evident today. Highly recommended’ … ‘Naval History at its best’

'Great Edwardia'n Naval Feud': ‘Best book on the subject’ … ‘Hard to put down’

Customer reviews

4.9 out of 5

9 global ratings

5 star		92%
4 star		8%
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A. A. Nofi

Winston at War, 1914-1918

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 30, 2014

A summary of the review on StrategyPage.Com:

'British naval historian Freeman gives us a detailed account of Churchill’s life and activities during the Great War. But while Churchill is the subject, the book offers a lot of insights into the British war effort at the highest levels, often deep looks at many of the other leading political and military leaders of the day, such as Asquith and Lloyd George, and gives us a taste of how in the midst of war politics often continued as usual.

'The book opens with Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty, apparently the only member of the Cabinet not so obsessed with “Irish Home Rule” as to be able to take action as the July Crisis erupted. Freeman tackles head on some of the severest criticism of Churchill’s role at the Admiralty, noting that not only was much of it rooted in Tory hostility toward the man, but often was based on fragmentary or even wholly inaccurate reporting, including the escape of the "Goeben", the loss of the “Live Bait Squadron,” the attempt to hold Antwerpt, the disaster at Coronel, or the failure of the naval effort to force the Turkish Straits. For example, Freeman makes a solid case that the Churchill was not the instigator of the Gallipoli landings, about which he in fact had reservations, and was in any case out of office during much of the planning and the execution.

'Freeman then looks at Churchill’s months in the doldrums, his decision to serve at the front, and his experiences in the trenches, where he did well and learned many lessons that proved helpful when he became Minister of Munitions in the final year of the war.

'Freeman argues, probably correctly, that only Churchill and Lloyd George fully grasped the implications of a world war, and that the war of 1914-1918 was for Churchill a training ground for the greater challenge that lay in the future. Although marred by some poor maps, this is an excellent look at Churchill and the war.'

For the full review, see StrategyPage.Com

Helpful

Fascinating, but questions remain.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 5, 2014

Politics is a dirty business and history doesn't always tell the truth. The author of this book set out to prove that the Dardanelles debacle in the First World War was not Churchill's fault, and that the history was written by the Tory party, bitter at his switching from Tory to Liberal in 1904. If this book is correct, it seems at the very least that other people were primarily to blame for the Dardanelles debacle. As for the Tories being to blame for the history, that would seem perfectly reasonable except that Churchill returned to the Tories in the 1920s and one might have expected the Tories, if they were originally to blame, to correct the history at some point thereafter, especially given later events. Surely they wouldn't want the great Second World War leader to be tainted forever by the Dardanelles debacle in the First World War, if he were completely blameless?

Leaving aside the blame issues, this book gives a fascinating account of Churchill's career just before and during the First World War. He started the war as the minister in Asquith's Liberal government responsible for the navy, which at that time was apparently Britain's strongest military force. Aeroplanes were in their infancy but those that were available were mostly assigned to the navy rather than the army. The Dardanelles debacle happened in 1915. Asquith was soon forced to go into coalition with the Tories, at which point Churchill lost his government job, no doubt as a consequence of the Dardanelles debacle. (Even in modern politics, government ministers sometimes resign over things that happen in their areas of responsibility, whether or not they are personally responsible. When Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982, Britain's defence minister resigned.)

The author stresses that Churchill had preferred to pursue anther campaign in northern Europe, but that his idea was overlooked and the Dardanelles attack, which was somebody else's idea, was pursued instead. However, once that decision was taken, Churchill gave his full support to the project. It seems that his naval commander in the Dardanelles wasn't really up to the job. So he should be blamed, as well as Kitchener, whose idea it was. Kitchener drowned while en route to Scapa Flow, a Scottish naval base, when the ship carrying him was sunk by a mine, so he was not available to be the public scapegoat. Kitchener certainly deserves to be blamed, as does the naval commander. Does that completely exonerate Churchill? I'm not so sure.

Churchill made mistakes during the First World War, but he learned from them, and he learned from the mistakes that he observed others making too. This is a fascinating book in so many ways.

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Top reviews from other countries

andrewevans74

Comprehensive, well-written, unique

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 22, 2013

Verified Purchase

Freeman's biography of Churchill during this period that was crucial, both in Churchill's career and in British history, is lucid, clear and informative.

I was surprised to discover that the popular view (that Churchill was responsible for the disaster of Gallipoli) is wrong both in the sense that it wasn't really a disaster (at least not compared to the loss of life on the Western Front) and that it would almost certainly have turned out differently if Churchill had got his way. This, and many other commonly held presuppositions about the man and his work, are comprehensively demolished by Freeman. Nevertheless he is no Churchill apologist, drawing attention to his egotism, follies and errors.

On a couple of occasions there are minor unnecessary repetitions of material already covered but these do not detract from its overall excellence. A solid 5 stars.

2 people found this helpful

Peter

YOUNG WINSTON AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 10, 2014

Verified Purchase

Surprising as it may seem this is the only scholarly text reviewing Winston Churchill's entire career during the First World War. It is elegantly written, fair and balanced in it's judgements on both men and affairs. Churchill comes out of it as being second only to Lloyd-George in his efforts to bring victory to his country and in saving Europe from German domination as he was to do- on a much more impressive scale - twenty five years later. A wonderful addition to anyone's collection of books about Winston Churchill. A delight to read.

2 people found this helpful

Tracy Jacks

A must read for anyone interested in Churchill

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 28, 2013

Verified Purchase

To my knowledge this is the first and only book to focus solely on Churchill's roll in The Great War.

Very well written and truely fascinating account of Churchill's time as first lord of the admiralty.

I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in Churchill or naval history.

2 people found this helpful

PracticalMan

Fact filled book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 2, 2013

Verified Purchase

Another intriguing book from the pen of Richard Freeman. Keeps the reader interested right to the end.
Richard always seems to tease out facts other writers have missed. Very enjoyable.

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