Churchill And Hitler

Were World Wars I and II inevitable? Were they necessary wars? Or were they products of calamitous failures of judgment? In this monumental and provocative history, Patrick Buchanan makes the case that, if not for the blunders of British statesmen– Winston Churchill first among them–the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust might have been avoided and the British Empire might never have collapsed into ruins. Half a century of murderous oppression of scores of millions under the iron boot of Communist tyranny might never have happened, and Europe’s central role in world affairs might have been sustained for many generations. Among the British and Churchillian errors were: • The secret decision of a tiny cabal in the inner Cabinet in 1906 to take Britain straight to war against Germany, should she invade France • The vengeful Treaty of Versailles that mutilated Germany, leaving her bitter, betrayed, and receptive to the appeal of Adolf Hitler • Britain’s capitulation, at Churchill’s urging, to American pressure to sever the Anglo-Japanese alliance, insulting and isolating Japan, pushing her onto the path of militarism and conquest • The greatest mistake in British history: the unsolicited war guarantee to Poland of March 1939, ensuring the Second World War Certain to create controversy and spirited argument, Churchill, Hitler, and “the Unnecessary War” is a grand and bold insight into the historic failures of judgment that ended centuries of European rule and guaranteed a future no one who lived in that vanished world could ever have envisioned.

'His book is timely and a triumph. Roberts manages to convey all the reader needs to know about two men to whom battalions of biographies have been devoted' EVENING STANDARD Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill were two totally opposite leaders - both in what they stood for and in the way in which they seemed to lead. Award-winning historian Andrew Roberts examines their different styles of leadership and draws parallels with rulers from other eras. He also looks at the way Hitler and Churchill estimated each other as leaders, and how it affected the outcome of the war. In a world that is as dependent on leadership as any earlier age, HITLER AND CHURCHILL asks searching questions about our need to be led. In doing so, Andrew Roberts forces us to re-examine the way that we look at those who take decisions for us.

This collection of essays examines the development of Churchill and Hitler as strategic leaders and analyses in particular the impact of their formative years on their leadership styles, operational codes', views on civilmilitary relations, and approaches to the conduct of war at strategic, operational and tactical levels. Ultimately, victory depended on the calculated use of all the means of national power military, political, psychological and economic to achieve the national end. These essays demonstrate it was Churchill who best understood that calculation.

The legacies of Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill stand in stark contrast. While Churchill is touted as the tenacious hero who refused to let Great Britain fall to the enemy, Hitler will forever be reviled for his oppressive dictatorship of Germany. Readers will learn what happened when these two leaders came head-to-head during World War II. Astonishing historic photographs underscore the biographical information included in the text as well as the effects of the war on Europe and the rest of the world. This valuable volume, which includes a timeline of the war's key moments, is an engaging examination of this era.

In Fighting Churchill, Appeasing Hitler Adrian Phillips presents a radical new view of the British policy of appeasement in the late 1930s. No one doubts that appeasement failed, but Phillips shows that it caused active harm – even sabotaging Britain's preparations for war. He goes far further than previous historians in identifying the individuals responsible for a catalogue of miscalculations, deviousness and moral surrender that made the Second World War inevitable, and highlights the alternative policies that might have prevented it. Phillips outlines how Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his chief advisor, Sir Horace Wilson, formed a fatally inept two-man foreign-policy machine that was immune to any objective examination, criticism or assessment – ruthlessly manipulating the media to support appeasement while batting aside policies advocated by Winston Churchill, the most vocal opponent of appeasement. Churchill understood that Hitler was the implacable enemy of peace – and Britain – but Chamberlain and Wilson were terrified that any display of firmness would provoke him. For the first time, Phillips brings to light how Wilson and Churchill had been enemies since an incident early in their careers, and how, eventually, opposing Churchill became an end in itself. Featuring new revelations about the personalities involved and the shameful manipulations and betrayals that went into appeasement, including an attempt to buy Hitler off with a ruthless colonialist deal in Africa, Fighting Churchill, Appeasing Hitler shines a compelling and original light on one of the darkest hours in British diplomatic history.

"A new history of the British appeasement of the Third Reich on the eve of World War II"--

This is a collection of 25 short biographical essays about famous people, written and published by Winston Churchill before his first tenure as Britain’s Prime Minister from 1940-1945. The original collection of 21 essays was published in 1937, mainly written between 1928 and 1931. This 1939 edition contains four additional essays on Lord Fisher, Charles Stewart Parnell, Lord Baden-Powell and Franklin D. Roosevelt. “THESE essays on Great Men of our age have been written by me at intervals during the last eight years. Although each is self-contained, they throw from various angles, a light upon the main course of the events through which we have lived. I hope they will be found to illustrate some of its less well-known aspects. Taken together they should present not only the actors but the scene. In their sequence they may perhaps be the stepping-stones of historical narrative. The central theme is of course the group of British statesmen who shone at the end of the last century and the beginning of this—Balfour, Chamberlain, Rosebery, Morley, Asquith and Curzon. All lived, worked and disputed for so many years together, knew each other well, and esteemed each other highly. It was my privilege as a far younger man to be admitted to their society and their kindness. Reading again these chapters has brought them back to me, and made me feel how much has changed in our political life. Perhaps this is but the illusion which comes upon us all as we grow older. Certainly we must all hope this may prove to be so. In the meantime those to whom these great men are but names—that is to say the vast majority of my readers—may perhaps be glad to gain from these notes some acquaintance with them.” “By far the most important, thoughtful edition of Churchill’s famous personality sketches ever published...The indispensable ‘desert island’ text for any marooned Churchillian.”—Finest Hour “Interesting, well written and worth reading.”—Kirkus Reviews