202-478: [REDACTED] The Second World War is a history of the period from the end of the First World War to July 1945, written by Winston Churchill . Churchill labelled the "moral of the work" as follows: "In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill". These had been the words which he had suggested for the First World War memorial for a French municipality. His suggestion had not been accepted on that occasion. Churchill compiled
404-630: A blue-water navy was vital for global power projection; Tirpitz had his books translated into German, while Wilhelm made them required reading for his advisors and senior military personnel. However, it was also an emotional decision, driven by Wilhelm's simultaneous admiration for the Royal Navy and desire to surpass it. Bismarck thought that the British would not interfere in Europe, as long as its maritime supremacy remained secure, but his dismissal in 1890 led to
606-583: A grenade at the Archduke's car and injured two of his aides. The other assassins were also unsuccessful. An hour later, as Ferdinand was returning from visiting the injured officers in hospital, his car took a wrong turn into a street where Gavrilo Princip was standing. He fired two pistol shots, fatally wounding Ferdinand and his wife Sophie . According to historian Zbyněk Zeman , in Vienna "the event almost failed to make any impression whatsoever. On 28 and 29 June,
808-536: A guerrilla warfare campaign and only surrendered two weeks after the armistice took effect in Europe. Before the war, Germany had attempted to use Indian nationalism and pan-Islamism to its advantage, a policy continued post-1914 by instigating uprisings in India , while the Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition urged Afghanistan to join the war on the side of Central Powers. However, contrary to British fears of
1010-593: A Soviet alliance and for believing that Poland was a stronger ally than the Soviet Union. The principal problem during the "peace front" talks in 1939 was that the Poles absolutely refused to grant the incessant Soviet demands for Red Army transit rights into Poland. Reynolds noted that during the Danzig crisis British leaders first confronted in embryonic form the problem that it was not really possible to be an ally both of Poland and
1212-525: A US newspaper syndicate, King Features , at 6.36pm on the day of his resignation as Prime Minister. He initially declined as it would have meant losing his tax status as a "retired author" which exempted his earnings from previous books from the then 90% rate of income tax. Churchill was eventually tempted in November 1945 by a suggestion from Marshall Field III of the Chicago Sun that he donate his papers to
1414-408: A change in policy and an Anglo-German naval arms race began. Despite the vast sums spent by Tirpitz, the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 gave the British a technological advantage. Ultimately, the race diverted huge resources into creating a German navy large enough to antagonise Britain, but not defeat it; in 1911, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg acknowledged defeat, leading to
1616-623: A deal with Clement Attlee and the Labour government which came to office in 1945. Attlee agreed to allow Churchill's research assistants access to all documents, provided that no official secrets were revealed and the documents were not used for party political purposes. Churchill's privileged access to documents and his knowledge gave him an advantage over other historians of the Second World War for many years. The gathered documents were placed in chronologies by his advisers, and this store of material
1818-491: A dictated account of the events leading up to the outbreak of war. Ismay replied with comments and some recollections of his own. By September 1946 Churchill was dictating some chapters on the Battle of France in 1940, which he planned to send to Ismay for comments, whilst warning him that they would be further checked by the "young gentlemen" he would employ, and that they would not be published for several years. Clarke comments that
2020-592: A direct threat. The 1908–1909 Bosnian Crisis began when Austria annexed the former Ottoman territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina , which it had occupied since 1878. Timed to coincide with the Bulgarian Declaration of Independence from the Ottoman Empire, this unilateral action was denounced by the European powers, but accepted as there was no consensus on how to resolve the situation. Some historians see this as
2222-850: A family trust (thus reducing the impact of high inheritance tax on his children), after which he would only be taxed on his income as "editor" of any book written using them. By February 1946 Churchill's tax advisors had drawn up a detailed plan along these lines. He returned to England in late March from the US, where he had delivered his " Iron Curtain " speech at Fulton, Missouri . In early April he had more meetings with solicitors and tax advisors. On 3 May 1946 Churchill met with Henry Luce and Walter Graebner of Time Life. Lord Camrose and Emery Reves negotiated further finance deals. Churchill (who despite his large literary earnings throughout his life had been perennially short of money) wanted payment up front, and received £40,000 from Cassells (double what they paid for
SECTION 10
#17330853143592424-467: A gap between the German armies as they closed on Paris. The French army, reinforced by the British expeditionary corps, seized this opportunity to counter-attack and pushed the German army 40 to 80 km back. Both armies were then so exhausted that no decisive move could be implemented, so they settled in trenches, with the vain hope of breaking through as soon as they could build local superiority. In 1911,
2626-526: A historical point of view the book is therefore an incomplete memoir by a leading participant in the direction of the war. The book was a major commercial success in Britain and the United States. The first edition appeared in six volumes; later editions appeared in twelve and four volumes, and furthermore there is also a single-volume abridged version. Churchill received the first offer for his War Memoirs from
2828-583: A lengthy attack on the "error and vanity" of Joseph Stalin in ignoring repeated British warnings that Germany was going to invade the Soviet Union in the spring of 1941. On 14 May 1941, the Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland to propose peace. Churchill had prepared a statement to the House of Commons saying that the British government was not interested in talking to Hess, but upon the advice of Eden he did not deliver it. Eden thought it best to leave
3030-432: A limited number of copies for proofreading . Galley proofs are thus, historically speaking, galleys printed on a proof press. From the printer's point of view, the galley proof, as it originated during the era of hand-set physical type, had two primary purposes, those being to check that the compositor had set the copy accurately (because sometimes individual pieces of type did get put in the wrong case after use) and that
3232-517: A major danger. He also wrote that any threat from submarines had been "mastered". The major theme in Churchill's memo which was based on his previous experience as First Lord of the Admiralty (1911–1915) was that naval warfare would be decided by traditional battleship gunnery duels. Churchill also assumed that Italy would enter any war on the German side and argued that the Royal Navy should concentrate in
3434-445: A man whom Churchill greatly hated. The "Churchill Camp" of anti-appeasers consisted of Churchill, Brendan Bracken , Admiral Roger Keyes , Lord Lloyd , and Leo Amery , and because it was so small Chamberlain did not consider it a threat to his ministry. Dutton noted that Churchill was much more critical of Baldwin, who after the failed attempt to depose him in 1930–1931 always made it clear that he would never allow Churchill to serve in
3636-504: A misunderstanding as he claimed he was unaware that Wavell had a plan for an offensive intended to stop the Italian invasion of Egypt and push into the Italian colony of Libya. In fact, Churchill was informed on 3 November 1940 of Wavell's plans, but in order to gain the War Cabinet's approval to send forces to Greece on 4 November he did not tell them about Wavell's plan until 8 November. In
3838-580: A part of an Anglo-German plot. However, Stalin had already long decided before Hess made his flight that Germany was not going to invade the Soviet Union. In The Grand Alliance , the image of the Soviet Union that Churchill painted was as a "burden" upon the British war effort as Churchill portrayed the Soviets as in constant need of British support. Churchill argued that the failed expedition to Greece in April–May 1941 had "saved" Moscow later in 1941 as he argued that
4040-540: A possibility. This was accentuated by British and Russian support for France against Germany during the 1911 Agadir Crisis . German economic and industrial strength continued to expand rapidly post-1871. Backed by Wilhelm II, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz sought to use this growth to build an Imperial German Navy , that could compete with the British Royal Navy . This policy was based on the work of US naval author Alfred Thayer Mahan , who argued that possession of
4242-799: A revolt in India, the outbreak of the war saw a reduction in nationalist activity. Leaders from the Indian National Congress and other groups believed support for the British war effort would hasten Indian Home Rule , a promise allegedly made explicit in 1917 by Edwin Montagu , the Secretary of State for India . In 1914, the British Indian Army was larger than the British Army itself, and between 1914 and 1918 an estimated 1.3 million Indian soldiers and labourers served in Europe, Africa, and
SECTION 20
#17330853143594444-504: A significant escalation, ending any chance of Austria cooperating with Russia in the Balkans, while also damaging diplomatic relations between Serbia and Italy. Tensions increased after the 1911–1912 Italo-Turkish War demonstrated Ottoman weakness and led to the formation of the Balkan League , an alliance of Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro , and Greece . The League quickly overran most of
4646-449: A squire and smoking his pipe, to associate him with rural England, a positive image that Churchill turned into a negative one by writing that Baldwin was too provincial to conduct a proper foreign policy. Dutton wrote that the popular belief that Churchill became Prime Minister in May 1940 because he was an anti-appeaser is not true, and the real reason was the widespread belief that the failure of
4848-495: A target ship since the 1920s, as a sacrificial blockship . The next day the Admiralty ordered Cunningham to sacrifice HMS Barham and a light cruiser; Cunningham thought this a waste of two good ships and their crews, as the Axis had already landed a lot of supplies and could land more through Vichy French Tunisia. Instead he obtained permission to bombard Tripoli on 21 April 1941 but warned that future attempts might not be so successful if
5050-517: A team of writers known as "The Syndicate". The name comes from horse racing, as Churchill had recently become a racehorse owner. Peter Clarke writes that the Syndicate was run with "businesslike efficiency tempered by the author's whims" by William Deakin . They included Hastings Ismay , Henry Pownall and Commodore Gordon Allen. By February 1946 Churchill's tax advisors had drawn up a detailed plan for his memoirs. Returning to England in late March from
5252-515: A tougher line against Benito Mussolini , whom he detested as much as liked Hitler, and it was foreign policy disagreements over Italy, not Germany, that prompted his resignation from the cabinet in February 1938. Churchill had a strong belief in the power of strategic bombing to win wars and in a speech in the House of Commons on 28 November 1934 he had predicted that Luftwaffe strategic bombing of London would kill between 30,000 and 40,000 Londoners in
5454-471: A war on two fronts; the Schlieffen Plan envisaged using 80% of the army to defeat France, then switching to Russia. Since this required them to move quickly, mobilisation orders were issued that afternoon. Once the German ultimatum to Russia expired on the morning of 1 August, the two countries were at war. At a meeting on 29 July, the British cabinet had narrowly decided its obligations to Belgium under
5656-402: A weak Ottoman government, rather than an ambitious Slav power like Bulgaria . Russia had ambitions in northeastern Anatolia while its clients had overlapping claims in the Balkans. These competing interests divided Russian policy-makers and added to regional instability. Austrian statesmen viewed the Balkans as essential for the continued existence of their Empire and saw Serbian expansion as
5858-451: A whole, the Somme offensive led to an estimated 420,000 British casualties, along with 200,000 French and 500,000 Germans. The diseases that emerged in the trenches were a major killer on both sides. The living conditions led to disease and infection, such as trench foot , lice , typhus , trench fever , and the ' Spanish flu '. At the start of the war, German cruisers were scattered across
6060-512: Is inaccurate. Deakin took the blame for misdating the meeting of Chamberlain, Halifax and Churchill and omitting the presence of Chief Whip David Margesson . Jonathan Rose suggests that Churchill may have deliberately embellished the story by omitting the presence of Margesson, exaggerating the length of a pause when Halifax declined to accept the premiership (other accounts suggest that Churchill may have been more aggressive in stating that he did not believe Halifax should be Prime Minister) and timing
6262-503: Is known, however, that from 1908 to 1913, military spending by the six major European powers increased by over 50% in real terms. The years before 1914 were marked by a series of crises in the Balkans, as other powers sought to benefit from the Ottoman decline. While Pan-Slavic and Orthodox Russia considered itself the protector of Serbia and other Slav states, they preferred the strategically vital Bosporus straits to be controlled by
The Second World War (book series) - Misplaced Pages Continue
6464-425: Is made on a desk-top printer or copy machine and used as a paper proof for authorial or editorial mark-up, it approximates a galley proof, and it may be referred to as a galley. Preliminary electronic proof versions are also sometimes called digital proofs , PDF proofs , and pre-fascicle proofs, the last because they are viewed as single pages, not as they will look when gathered into fascicles or signatures for
6666-524: Is the slightest chance of that in our lifetime" and he argued that the Royal Navy budget should be cut as Japan was the only naval power capable of challenging Britain in Asia and that the reduced expenditure should be used for social programmes. Churchill portrayed the 1929 United Kingdom general election , which was won by the Labour Party under Ramsay MacDonald , as the moment that British foreign policy went off
6868-427: Is yet to receive final author and publisher approval. The term may also appear on the covers of advance reading copies; see below. These days, because much typesetting and pre-press work is conducted digitally and transmitted electronically, the term uncorrected proof is more common than the older term galley proof, which refers exclusively to a paper proofing system. However, if a paper print-out of an uncorrected proof
7070-661: The History of the English Speaking Peoples which was begun the 1930s but not finished until the 1950s). He probably could have made more had he made a deal for royalties rather than a lump sum. However, lucrative deals were also signed for publication by Houghton Mifflin in the United States, serialisation in Life magazine , The New York Times , in Camrose's The Daily Telegraph in the UK and
7272-558: The Schutzkorps was established, and carried out the persecution of Serbs. The assassination initiated the July Crisis, a month of diplomatic manoeuvring between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain. Believing that Serbian intelligence helped organise Franz Ferdinand's murder, Austrian officials wanted to use the opportunity to end their interference in Bosnia and saw war as
7474-626: The World War . In August 1914, the magazine The Independent wrote "This is the Great War. It names itself". In October 1914, the Canadian magazine Maclean's similarly wrote, "Some wars name themselves. This is the Great War". Contemporary Europeans also referred to it as " the war to end war " and it was also described as "the war to end all wars" due to their perception of its unparalleled scale, devastation, and loss of life. The first recorded use of
7676-665: The Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed on the island of New Britain , then part of German New Guinea . On 28 October, the German cruiser SMS Emden sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug in the Battle of Penang . Japan declared war on Germany before seizing territories in the Pacific, which later became the South Seas Mandate , as well as German Treaty ports on
7878-808: The First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War , was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers . Fighting took place mainly in Europe and the Middle East , as well as in parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific , and in Europe was characterised by trench warfare ; the widespread use of artillery , machine guns, and chemical weapons (gas); and
8080-639: The German bombing of the British cities that public pressure would force Congress to declare war on Germany before the presidential election due in November of that year . Most of the chapter on the Battle of Britain was based on a short book entitled The Battle of Britain by Albert Goodwin that was published in March 1941 by the Air Ministry and sold over a million copies in the first week after its publication. In that chapter Churchill celebrated "the few" as he called
8282-545: The Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire in the meeting on 15 September. Churchill downplayed the importance of radar in the Battle of Britain largely because it was the Chamberlain government that had built the network of radar stations, but devoted an entire chapter to "The Wizard War". "The Wizard War" celebrated two young British scientists, R.V. Jones and Albert Goodwin, as the scientific "wizards" who had "broken
The Second World War (book series) - Misplaced Pages Continue
8484-677: The Luftwaffe was active in the area, and preferred that Tripoli should be bombed by air from Egypt. Churchill deferred to his judgment, although Pound suggested stationing an old battleship at Malta to disrupt Axis convoys from Italy to Libya. Jock Colville (25 May 1941) recorded Churchill saying that Cunningham should be willing to lose half the Mediterranean Fleet to save Crete. Off Crete Britain lost three cruisers and five destroyers with two battleships, one aircraft carrier, eight cruisers and seven destroyers damaged. Churchill also did not mention
8686-593: The Luftwaffe . Former Cabinet Secretary Maurice Hankey wrote in protest to The Times (31 Oct 1948) arguing that even after its repeal the Ten Year Rule had cast a baleful influence over defence planning. Hankey had a testy public exchange of letters with Churchill's assistant General Ismay, who wrote that it was unfair to blame Churchill for actions of governments when he was out of office after 1929. Hankey's final letter (20 Nov 1948), which The Times declined to publish, argued that Churchill's rearmament campaign in
8888-573: The Murdoch Press in Australia. Volume 1 was serialised in 80 magazines across the world, and was published in 50 countries in 26 languages. Along with other deals for the publication of his personal papers Churchill appears to have secured around £550,000 (approximately £17 million at 2012 prices). The books made him a rich man for the first time in his life. At the time the salary of the Prime Minister
9090-503: The Norwegian campaign Churchill accepted the criticism that the Admiralty had been wrong to force Admiral Forbes to cancel his attack on the German fleet at Bergen shortly after the invasion. During that campaign, which led to Chamberlain's fall from power , Churchill was seen as a dynamic war leader by the public, even though many senior political and naval colleagues took a dimmer view of his competence. In an early draft he had written "it
9292-609: The Russian Front in the latter part of 1941 and a force of light cruisers and destroyers was able to be deployed to Malta; Churchill still felt that Cunningham was insufficiently aggressive but by November was distracted by the Operation Crusader battle in the desert. In contrast to his favourable treatment of Freyberg, Churchill made it clear that he regarded Wavell as incompetent. Churchill came close to accusing Wavell of cowardice as he wrote he had to push Wavell into invading
9494-706: The Rüstungswende or 'armaments turning point', when he switched expenditure from the navy to the army. This decision was not driven by a reduction in political tensions but by German concern over Russia's quick recovery from its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and subsequent 1905 Russian Revolution . Economic reforms led to a significant post-1908 expansion of railways and transportation infrastructure, particularly in its western border regions. Since Germany and Austria-Hungary relied on faster mobilisation to compensate for their numerical inferiority compared to Russia,
9696-736: The United States entered the war on the Allied side following Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against Atlantic shipping. Later that year, the Bolsheviks seized power in the Russian October Revolution , and Soviet Russia signed an armistice with the Central Powers in December, followed by a separate peace in March 1918. That month, Germany launched an offensive in
9898-603: The faiblesse of France in contrast to the fighting spirit and courage of the British. Reynolds noted that the actual transcript of the summit showed that Gamelin was indeed depressed as Churchill portrayed him, but that Reynaud and Daladier-though worried by the German victory in the Second Battle of Sedan -were nowhere near as defeatist as Churchill portrayed them. Reynaud wrote a lengthy reply in The Daily Telegraph and The New York Times challenging Churchill's account of
10100-480: The hydrophone and depth charges were introduced, destroyers could potentially successfully attack a submerged submarine. Convoys slowed the flow of supplies since ships had to wait as convoys were assembled; the solution was an extensive program of building new freighters. Troopships were too fast for the submarines and did not travel the North Atlantic in convoys. The U-boats sunk more than 5,000 Allied ships, at
10302-488: The intense debate within the Cabinet between 26 and 28 May 1940 , in which Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax argued that Britain should use Mussolini as an "honest broker" to make peace before France was defeated. The Labour leaders Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood rejected Halifax's approach, and were joined by Chamberlain. Churchill accused Halifax of being willing to "buy off" Mussolini by ceding to Italy Gibraltar, Malta and
SECTION 50
#173308531435910504-789: The tank . After the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914, Allied and German forces unsuccessfully tried to outflank each other, a series of manoeuvres later known as the " Race to the Sea ". By the end of 1914, the opposing forces confronted each other along an uninterrupted line of entrenched positions from the Channel to the Swiss border. Since the Germans were normally able to choose where to stand, they generally held
10706-409: The typographical sense, is a term that dates to around 1600. The primary goal of proofing is to create a tool for verification that the job is accurate separate from the pages produced on the press. All needed or suggested changes are physically marked on paper proofs or electronically marked on electronic proofs by the author, editor, and proofreaders. The compositor, typesetter , or printer receives
10908-588: The 1839 Treaty of London did not require it to oppose a German invasion with military force; however, Prime Minister Asquith and his senior Cabinet ministers were already committed to supporting France, the Royal Navy had been mobilised, and public opinion was strongly in favour of intervention. On 31 July, Britain sent notes to Germany and France, asking them to respect Belgian neutrality; France pledged to do so, but Germany did not reply. Aware of German plans to attack through Belgium, French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre asked his government for permission to cross
11110-431: The 1879 Dual Alliance , which became the Triple Alliance when Italy joined in 1882. For Bismarck, the purpose of these agreements was to isolate France by ensuring the three Empires resolve any disputes between themselves. In 1887, Bismarck set up the Reinsurance Treaty , a secret agreement between Germany and Russia to remain neutral if either were attacked by France or Austria-Hungary. For Bismarck, peace with Russia
11312-441: The 1913 Treaty of London , which had created an independent Albania while enlarging the territories of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. However, disputes between the victors sparked the 33-day Second Balkan War , when Bulgaria attacked Serbia and Greece on 16 June 1913; it was defeated, losing most of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece, and Southern Dobruja to Romania. The result was that even countries which benefited from
11514-477: The 1930s had served merely to cause public dismay and encourage Hitler. Hankey prepared, but did not complete, a longer critique of Churchill's interwar influence. He sent material to Viscount Templewood (the former Sir Samuel Hoare) whose memoirs were published in 1954. After publication Noël Coward complimented Churchill on his "impeccable sense of theatre", eg. describing his last meeting with Joachim von Ribbentrop in 1938 as "the last time I saw him before he
11716-415: The 1930s he had made exaggerated claims about the killing capacity of Luftwaffe strategic bombing to spur the government to spend more on the Royal Air Force (RAF). David Dutton wrote that the popular image of British politics in the 1930s is of an epic feud between Churchill the anti-appeaser and Chamberlain the arch-appeaser, but the real target in The Gathering Storm is not Chamberlain, but rather Baldwin,
11918-434: The 1930s, and he believed that he had a special rapport with Hitler that would allow him to negotiate a favourable peace with Germany. As late as October 1940, Lloyd George was predicting that Britain would soon be defeated as he expected Churchill to fail as prime minister and that King George VI would be forced to make him prime minister again with a mandate to make peace. Churchill did admit that his position as prime minister
12120-598: The 1930s, including his first time as Foreign Secretary between 1935 and 1938, as both an excessively ambitious political lightweight with bad judgement and until 1938 as an appeaser. Churchill portrayed Eden's resignation from the Chamberlain cabinet in February 1938 as the decisive turning point under which the appeaser Lord Halifax became Foreign Secretary. This account was written to please Eden, who had been Churchill's "heir apparent" since 1940, and who wanted to be remembered as an anti-appeaser who had resigned in protest against Neville Chamberlain 's foreign policy. In fact at
12322-420: The 1938 Sudetenland crisis rather than for Poland during the 1939 Danzig crisis . Reynolds noted that "many historians" tended to agree with Churchill. During the Danzig crisis Churchill also believed that a "Grand Alliance" of Britain, France and the Soviet Union would have deterred Hitler from invading Poland, and in The Gathering Storm he strongly criticised Neville Chamberlain for not trying harder to reach
SECTION 60
#173308531435912524-409: The Austrians and Serbs clashed at the battles of the Cer and Kolubara ; over the next two weeks, Austrian attacks were repulsed with heavy losses. As a result, Austria had to keep sizeable forces on the Serbian front, weakening their efforts against Russia. Serbia's victory against Austria-Hungary in the 1914 invasion has been called one of the major upset victories of the twentieth century. In 1915,
12726-593: The Austrians briefly occupied the Serbian capital, Belgrade . A Serbian counter-attack in the Battle of Kolubara succeeded in driving them from the country by the end of 1914. For the first 10 months of 1915, Austria-Hungary used most of its military reserves to fight Italy. German and Austro-Hungarian diplomats scored a coup by persuading Bulgaria to join the attack on Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian provinces of Slovenia , Croatia and Bosnia provided troops for Austria-Hungary. Montenegro allied itself with Serbia. Bulgaria declared war on Serbia on 14 October 1915 and joined in
12928-491: The Balkan Wars, such as Serbia and Greece, felt cheated of their "rightful gains", while for Austria it demonstrated the apparent indifference with which other powers viewed their concerns, including Germany. This complex mix of resentment, nationalism and insecurity helps explain why the pre-1914 Balkans became known as the " powder keg of Europe ". On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria , heir presumptive to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria , visited Sarajevo ,
13130-533: The British aristocracy including the Duke of Westminster and Lord Tavistock along with a number of MPs including former prime minister David Lloyd George thought that the Reich was invincible and favoured making peace while there was still time. Hastings wrote that the principal difference between the British and French experiences of the war in 1940 was that in France leaders such as Marshal Philippe Pétain , Pierre Laval , and General Maxime Weygand actually did sign an armistice with Germany. Churchill also gave
13332-415: The Burma Road, saying that with Germany on the brink of invading Britain that this was no time for a war with Japan. A compromise was crafted and Britain closed the Burma Road until October 1940 over furious Chinese protests and adverse American comments. Churchill also did not mention his belief in 1940 that the pro-Allied neutrality of President Franklin D. Roosevelt meant that the United States would enter
13534-404: The Central Powers. However, the pro-German King Constantine I dismissed the pro-Allied government of Eleftherios Venizelos before the Allied expeditionary force arrived. The Macedonian front was at first mostly static. French and Serbian forces retook limited areas of Macedonia by recapturing Bitola on 19 November 1916 following the costly Monastir offensive , which brought stabilisation of
13736-410: The Chinese Shandong peninsula at Tsingtao . After Vienna refused to withdraw its cruiser SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth from Tsingtao, Japan declared war on Austria-Hungary, and the ship was sunk in November 1914. Within a few months, Allied forces had seized all German territories in the Pacific, leaving only isolated commerce raiders and a few holdouts in New Guinea. Some of the first clashes of
13938-402: The Cold War, Churchill supported West German rearmament as an ally against the Soviet Union and he portrayed the Wehrmacht in a relatively favourable light. Another reason for Churchill portraying the Wehrmacht generals more as victims than followers of Hitler was his claim that if only he had been prime minister in 1938, the Second World War would have been avoided altogether. He presented as fact
14140-430: The Emperor Wilhelm II to abdicate in order to make a peace which limited but not destroy German power. Churchill did not mention the crisis in July 1940 caused by the Japanese demand that Britain close the Burma Road , which linked India to China and was the principal means by which arms reached China. Lord Halifax wanted to reject the Japanese ultimatum and risk war with Japan while Churchill wanted to give in and close
14342-420: The Foreign Office, were all pro-Arab if they not actually anti-Semitic". Sir Norman Brook told Churchill to delete that sentence, saying it was not helpful towards Britain's image in the Middle East. Churchill wrote in Their Finest Hour that he wanted to sack Wavell as Middle East commander-in-chief in the summer of 1940 and to replace him with one of his favourite generals, Bernard Freyberg of New Zealand. Only
14544-613: The German High Seas Fleet was confined to port. German U-boats attempted to cut the supply lines between North America and Britain. The nature of submarine warfare meant that attacks often came without warning, giving the crews of the merchant ships little hope of survival. The United States launched a protest, and Germany changed its rules of engagement. After the sinking of the passenger ship RMS Lusitania in 1915, Germany promised not to target passenger liners, while Britain armed its merchant ships, placing them beyond
14746-623: The German Army increased in size from 1908 to 1914, he changed the allocation of forces between the two wings to 70:30. He also considered Dutch neutrality essential for German trade and cancelled the incursion into the Netherlands, which meant any delays in Belgium threatened the viability of the plan. Historian Richard Holmes argues that these changes meant the right wing was not strong enough to achieve decisive success. The initial German advance in
14948-724: The German right wing would sweep through the Netherlands and Belgium , then swing south, encircling Paris and trapping the French army against the Swiss border. The plan's creator, Alfred von Schlieffen , head of the German General Staff from 1891 to 1906, estimated that this would take six weeks, after which the German army would transfer to the East and defeat the Russians. The plan was substantially modified by his successor, Helmuth von Moltke
15150-480: The Germans bled heavily as well, with anywhere from 700,000 to 975,000 casualties between the two combatants. Verdun became a symbol of French determination and self-sacrifice. The Battle of the Somme was an Anglo-French offensive from July to November 1916. The opening day on 1 July 1916 was the bloodiest single day in the history of the British Army , which suffered 57,500 casualties, including 19,200 dead. As
15352-773: The Mediterranean at the expense of Asia. Churchill assumed that Japan would enter the war on the Axis side, but dismissed the need to activate the Singapore strategy as they could never take Singapore. Churchill printed the "Memorandum on Sea-Power" in The Gathering Storm , but cut out the parts where he wrote that Singapore would be "easy" to hold against the Japanese; that there was no threat from U-boats to British shipping; and that Axis aircraft were not capable of sinking British warships. Reynolds also noted that Churchill's picture of
15554-621: The Mediterranean rather the longer and more safer route via the Cape of Good Hope . Churchill wrote correctly that the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound , thought the Mediterranean route was too dangerous, but he did not mention in the final draft the idea originated with the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir John Dill . The first drafts had mentioned Dill's role, but Eden who
15756-675: The Middle East. In all, 140,000 soldiers served on the Western Front and nearly 700,000 in the Middle East, with 47,746 killed and 65,126 wounded. The suffering engendered by the war, as well as the failure of the British government to grant self-government to India afterward, bred disillusionment, resulting in the campaign for full independence led by Mahatma Gandhi . Pre-war military tactics that had emphasised open warfare and individual riflemen proved obsolete when confronted with conditions prevailing in 1914. Technological advances allowed
15958-616: The National Government formed in 1931. He was later absolutely opposed to the Government of India Act 1935 which devolved much power to the Indians as a preparatory step towards ending the British Raj . Churchill portrayed Anthony Eden – who served twice as his Foreign Secretary in 1940–1945 and again in 1951–1955 – as an especially noble anti-appeaser when in fact he had regarded Eden in
16160-560: The Norway expedition proved Chamberlain to be an unsuccessful war leader while Churchill was seen as the best man to win the war. Appeasement only started to be seen as a disastrous foreign policy after the publication of the best-selling book Guilty Men in early July 1940. In the chapter on the development of radar , Churchill downplayed the role of Sir Henry Tizard while playing up the role of his science adviser Lord Cherwell , aka "The Prof". Churchill wrote that Tizard sacked Cherwell from
16362-859: The Ottoman Empire , which disturbed the long-standing balance of power in Europe, as well as economic competition between nations triggered by industrialisation and imperialism . Growing tensions between the great powers and in the Balkans reached a breaking point on 28 June 1914, when a Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand , heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Austria-Hungary held Serbia responsible, and declared war on 28 July. After Russia mobilised in Serbia's defence, Germany declared war on Russia and France , who had an alliance . The United Kingdom entered after Germany invaded Belgium , whose neutrality it guaranteed, and
16564-709: The Ottomans joined the Central Powers in November. Germany's strategy in 1914 was to quickly defeat France, then to transfer its forces to the east, but its advance was halted in September , and by the end of the year the Western Front consisted of a continuous line of trenches stretching from the English Channel to Switzerland. The Eastern Front was more dynamic, but neither side gained a decisive advantage, despite costly offensives. Italy , Bulgaria , Romania , Greece and others joined in from 1915 onward. In April 1917,
16766-598: The Ottomans' territory in the Balkans during the 1912–1913 First Balkan War , much to the surprise of outside observers. The Serbian capture of ports on the Adriatic resulted in partial Austrian mobilisation, starting on 21 November 1912, including units along the Russian border in Galicia . The Russian government decided not to mobilise in response, unprepared to precipitate a war. The Great Powers sought to re-assert control through
16968-895: The Pyrrhic victory won by the Germans in the Battle of Crete as the elite Paratroop Corps was badly mauled by the ferocious resistance of the Anglo-Australian-New Zealander-Greek defenders, but exaggerated the losses suffered by the Paratroop Corps. Churchill claimed 15, 000 German dead while in reality the Paratroopers lost only 5, 000 dead. Churchill was dissatisfied with Admiral Andrew Cunningham 's apparent reluctance to attack Tripoli in April 1941, which Churchill wanted him to do to stop supply of Rommel's forces from Italy. Admiral Dudley Pound suggested using HMS Centurion , used as
17170-606: The Russian Stavka agreed with the French to attack Germany within fifteen days of mobilisation, ten days before the Germans had anticipated, although it meant the two Russian armies that entered East Prussia on 17 August did so without many of their support elements. By the end of 1914, German troops held strong defensive positions inside France, controlled the bulk of France's domestic coalfields, and inflicted 230,000 more casualties than it lost itself. However, communications problems and questionable command decisions cost Germany
17372-400: The Russian powers of resistance" and it was "a downright falsehood" to claim otherwise. Churchill's former Assistant Private Secretary Jock Colville provided oral testimony that whereas CIGS John Dill and US Ambassador Winant had both thought that the Soviets would be lucky to last six weeks Churchill had been willing to bet "a Monkey to a Mousetrap" (£500 to £1 or a sovereign ) that
17574-553: The Scientific Air Defence Committee in 1937 for being Churchill's friend, but in reality it was for his impassioned advocacy of the impractical weapon of "aerial mines", which made Cherwell a disruptive force on the committee. Cherwell served as Churchill's science adviser throughout the war, and Churchill found it embarrassing that some of his ideas were those of a crank. In a note he sent to research assistant Bill Deakin on 30 June 1947, Churchill asked: "Surely there
17776-631: The Serbian retreat toward the Adriatic coast in the Battle of Mojkovac on 6–7 January 1916, but ultimately the Austrians also conquered Montenegro. The surviving Serbian soldiers were evacuated to Greece. After the conquest, Serbia was divided between Austro-Hungary and Bulgaria. In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece to offer assistance and to pressure its government to declare war against
17978-629: The South of France, once again paid for by Life and the New York Times. Churchill worked in the South of France in late August 1948. Deakin helped Churchill with Volume Two in France in summer 1948, and a "starred final" version was ready for the printers after his return to Britain. Another working holiday, this time in Monte Carlo, was arranged for that winter. The first draft of Volume Two included an account of
18180-656: The Soviet Union varied depending on the politics of the moment. In The Gathering Storm which was published in 1948 (before the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb), Churchill portrayed the Soviet Union as little better than the Axis states as reflected in his account of the Spanish Civil War which portrayed the Republicans and Nationalists as equally savage and deserving of condemnation. Churchill's account reflected his strong view that it would have been better for Britain to have gone to war for Czechoslovakia during
18382-541: The Soviet Union, a recurring problem during Churchill's wartime premiership. Reviewers noted that Churchill, reflecting the "Great Man" view of history, gave readers the picture of "an almost stationary world upset by the wild ambitions of a few wicked men" such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini , which also reflected the politics of the Cold War. Churchill saw the Soviet Union as the principal enemy and West Germany, Italy and Japan as British allies, which led him to portray
18584-563: The Soviets would be fighting victoriously in two years' time. Colville commented "So much for Michael Foot". In order to uphold the unity of the Commonwealth, Churchill did not mention that he had serious disagreements about strategy in the first half of 1941 with the Australian prime minister Robert Menzies and the New Zealand prime minister Peter Fraser , both of whom had major doubts about
18786-511: The Suez Canal and praised Chamberlain and Attlee as "very stiff and tough" in rejecting Halifax's suggestions. He did not mention his own statement to Halifax on 26 May that "if we could get out of this jam by giving up Malta and Gibraltar and some African colonies he would jump at it", though he went on to say that he doubted that it was possible to make any sort of reasonable peace with Hitler who had no reason to make concessions with Germany winning
18988-676: The Treaty's disarmament clauses on the grounds that if the Reich had remained disarmed, the Second World War would never had happened. Churchill defended the foreign policy of the Second Baldwin ministry -of 1924 to 1929 in which he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and-which sought to promote peace by revising the Treaty in favour of Germany. Reynolds noted that Churchill did not mention that as Chancellor he had fought for greater social spending to combat
19190-497: The US (where he had delivered his " Iron Curtain " speech at Fulton, Missouri ) he engaged William Deakin. Churchill met Deakin on 19 March 1946. In early April, whilst having more meetings with solicitors and tax advisors, Churchill met with Ismay. A year earlier Ismay had sent Churchill a printed copy of the minutes of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council of 1939–40, and in the third week of May Churchill sent him
19392-646: The Wehrmacht in the Balkans. Churchill was sensitive to the charge made by General Francis de Guingand in his 1947 memoirs that the Greek expedition had weakened the British offensive into Libya and thereby ended the chance to clear the Italians out of Libya before the arrival of the Afrika Korps . Menzies during his lengthy visit to London between 20 February and 20 May 1941 found himself playing devil's advocate as he questioned
19594-629: The West was very successful. By the end of August, the Allied left, which included the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), was in full retreat , and the French offensive in Alsace-Lorraine was a disastrous failure, with casualties exceeding 260,000. German planning provided broad strategic instructions while allowing army commanders considerable freedom in carrying them out at the front, but von Kluck used this freedom to disobey orders, opening
19796-480: The Younger . Under Schlieffen, 85% of German forces in the west were assigned to the right wing, with the remainder holding along the frontier. By keeping his left-wing deliberately weak, he hoped to lure the French into an offensive into the "lost provinces" of Alsace-Lorraine , which was the strategy envisaged by their Plan XVII . However, Moltke grew concerned that the French might push too hard on his left flank and as
19998-446: The aggressor, German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg delayed the commencement of war preparations until 31 July. That afternoon, the Russian government were handed a note requiring them to "cease all war measures against Germany and Austria-Hungary" within 12 hours. A further German demand for neutrality was refused by the French who ordered general mobilisation but delayed declaring war. The German General Staff had long assumed they faced
20200-410: The answer that there were none; in a contrast to Gamelin who was portrayed as broken and defeated, Park was portrayed as unbowed and determined. The same point about the French as useless allies is driven home by the contrast between the French using obsolescent technology which features prominently in the account of the meeting on 16 May and Fighter Command which was using highly advanced aircraft such as
20402-587: The appeal of the British Communist Party to the British working class by cutting defence spending. In the decade or so after the Russian Revolution , Churchill saw Soviet Russia as the principal enemy, but he viewed the Soviet challenge to Britain as ideological, not military. In December 1924 Churchill told the prime minister Stanley Baldwin at a cabinet meeting: "A war with Japan! I do not believe there
20604-712: The argument that the Ten Year Rule , still in force during Churchill's chancellorship (1924–29), had slowed defence research and long term planning. This was amended to stress that the rule was laid down by the Lloyd George government in 1919 and had the backing of the Cabinet and Committee of Imperial Defence. Churchill argued that he was not wrong to have kept the Rule in place until 1929, as war did take another ten years to break out, and he argued that Hitler could have been stopped without loss of life up to 1934 when he had started building
20806-454: The assumptions behind the Greek expedition. Menzies thought that using Greek airfields to bomb the Romanian oilfields was a good plan, but pointed out that Hitler would reach the same conclusion and would invade Greece to thwart it. Churchill did not mention that Menzies thought that the forces being dispatched to Greece were not strong enough to hold out against the expected German invasion, giving
21008-466: The attack by the Austro-Hungarian army under Mackensen's army of 250,000 that was already underway. Serbia was conquered in a little more than a month, as the Central Powers, now including Bulgaria, sent in 600,000 troops in total. The Serbian army, fighting on two fronts and facing certain defeat, retreated into northern Albania . The Serbs suffered defeat in the Battle of Kosovo . Montenegro covered
21210-402: The beams" (the radio beams that guided German bombers onto British cities) that was largely based upon notes from Goodwin and Jones. The portrayal of Jones and Goodwin as "wizards", rhetoric that invoked magic and sorcery revealed much about Churchill's attitude towards science. When Italy invaded Greece on 28 October 1940, Churchill portrayed the opposition of Wavell to sending forces to Greece as
21412-535: The best way of achieving this. However, the Foreign Ministry had no solid proof of Serbian involvement. On 23 July, Austria delivered an ultimatum to Serbia, listing ten demands made intentionally unacceptable to provide an excuse for starting hostilities. Serbia ordered general mobilisation on 25 July, but accepted all the terms, except for those empowering Austrian representatives to suppress "subversive elements" inside Serbia, and take part in
21614-517: The book from 4 volumes to 5 (it would run to 6 in the end). Volume 1 was largely completed by July 1947. Daniel Longwell of Life Magazine spent a month in England, making various suggestions for changes, most of which were accepted. In November 1947 Henry Luce complained that the book contained too many lengthy quotes from documents. Churchill had the first of several holidays, paid for by his publishers, at Marrakesh in December 1947. Before publication, at
21816-540: The book, with a team of assistants, using both his own notes and privileged access to official documents while still serving as Leader of the Opposition; the text was vetted by the Cabinet Secretary. Churchill was largely fair in his treatment, but wrote the history from his personal point of view. He was unable to reveal all the facts, as some, such as the use of Ultra electronic intelligence, had to remain secret. From
22018-431: The books declined over time and by 1951 the Syndicate were increasingly writing much of the work in Churchill's style. Peter Clarke uses the phrase "School of Churchill", referring to Peter Paul Rubens ' system of delegating much of the work of painting to apprentices and outside experts. Churchill finally released the Syndicate, to whom he had been paying combined salaries of £5,000 per annum, in 1952. Triumph And Tragedy ,
22220-427: The books were very much "a collaborative effort", far more so even than Churchill's Marlborough in the 1930s when he had already come to rely heavily on drafts written by specialist researchers. Churchill had the greatest personal input into Volume One. The barrister Denis Kelly was in charge of Churchill's massive personal archive (Churchill would sometimes write on or even chop up documents). Kelly increasingly took on
22422-483: The border and pre-empt such a move. To avoid violating Belgian neutrality, he was told any advance could come only after a German invasion. Instead, the French cabinet ordered its Army to withdraw 10 km behind the German frontier, to avoid provoking war. On 2 August, Germany occupied Luxembourg and exchanged fire with French units when German patrols entered French territory; on 3 August, they declared war on France and demanded free passage across Belgium, which
22624-454: The cabinet again, than of Chamberlain who allowed Churchill to join his cabinet on 3 September 1939 as First Lord of the Admiralty (his old job from 1911–1915), despite the popular perception that Churchill had a chequered record as a politician associated with failures, most notably the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. This gave Churchill's career a major boost, and it was the perception that Churchill
22826-447: The campaign in the Balkans had given the Soviet Union an extra five weeks by delaying Operation Barbarossa . Operation Barbarossa was due to start on 21 May 1941, but was instead was launched on 22 June 1941. However, the reason for the delay was not the campaigns in the Balkans, but rather the heavy rains in the spring of 1941 that made the made the mud roads of Eastern Europe almost impassable. First World War World War I or
23028-480: The campaign saw the first use of anti-aircraft warfare after an Austrian plane was shot down with ground-to-air fire, as well as the first medical evacuation by the Serbian army. Upon mobilisation, in accordance with the Schlieffen Plan , 80% of the German Army was located on the Western Front, with the remainder acting as a screening force in the East. Rather than a direct attack across their shared frontier,
23230-636: The capital of the recently annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina . Cvjetko Popović , Gavrilo Princip , Nedeljko Čabrinović , Trifko Grabež , Vaso Čubrilović ( Bosnian Serbs ) and Muhamed Mehmedbašić (from the Bosniaks community), from the movement known as Young Bosnia , took up positions along the Archduke's motorcade route, to assassinate him. Supplied with arms by extremists within the Serbian Black Hand intelligence organisation, they hoped his death would free Bosnia from Austrian rule. Čabrinović threw
23432-466: The chance of a decisive outcome, while it had failed to achieve the primary objective of avoiding a long, two-front war. As was apparent to several German leaders, this amounted to a strategic defeat; shortly after the First Battle of the Marne , Crown Prince Wilhelm told an American reporter "We have lost the war. It will go on for a long time but lost it is already". On 30 August 1914, New Zealand occupied German Samoa (now Samoa ). On 11 September,
23634-587: The chapters on the Middle East, Churchill initially wrote that he wanted to arm the Jews of the Palestine Mandate (modern Israel), but was blocked by Field Marshal Archibald Wavell , who commanded the Commonwealth forces in the Middle East. The first draft included the line: "All our military men disliked the Jews and loved the Arabs. General Wavell was no exception. Some of my trusted ministers like Lord Lloyd and of course,
23836-490: The cheers of her loyal subjects". The typescript was also vetted by the new Cabinet Secretary , Sir Norman Brook . Brook took a close interest in the books and rewrote some sections to ensure that British interests were not harmed or the government embarrassed. Brook read three successive proofs of Volume One and became in David Reynolds' words almost "an additional member of the Syndicate". Churchill's personal input into
24038-519: The colony of Italian East Africa (modern Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea). Churchill wrote that Wavell did not want to take action about the campaigns in Iraq and Syria, and that he to push him into action. By splitting the campaigns that involved Middle East Command into different chapters, Churchill downplayed the immense problems faced by Wavell who was in charge of campaigns in Egypt, Ethiopia, Crete and Iraq all at
24240-511: The cost of 199 submarines. World War I also saw the first use of aircraft carriers in combat, with HMS Furious launching Sopwith Camels in a successful raid against the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in July 1918, as well as blimps for antisubmarine patrol. Faced with Russia in the east, Austria-Hungary could spare only one-third of its army to attack Serbia. After suffering heavy losses,
24442-416: The course of ten days' work, only for Churchill to sharpen his prose "like a skilled topiarist restoring a neglected and untidy garden figure to its true shape and proportions." Kelly was paid £1,200 per annum over the three year period of 1950–2. Charles C Wood formerly of Harraps was hired as a proofreader . Sir Edward Marsh also fulfilled that role. Wood, similar in age to Churchill and long retired,
24644-513: The creation of new independent states, including Poland , Finland , the Baltic states , Czechoslovakia , and Yugoslavia . The League of Nations was established to maintain world peace, but its failure to manage instability during the interwar period contributed to the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Before World War II , the events of 1914–1918 were generally known as the Great War or simply
24846-449: The creation of strong defensive systems largely impervious to massed infantry advances, such as barbed wire , machine guns and above all far more powerful artillery , which dominated the battlefield and made crossing open ground extremely difficult. Both sides struggled to develop tactics for breaching entrenched positions without heavy casualties. In time, technology enabled the production of new offensive weapons, such as gas warfare and
25048-948: The crowds listened to music and drank wine, as if nothing had happened". Nevertheless, the impact of the murder of the heir to the throne was significant, and has been described by historian Christopher Clark as a " 9/11 effect, a terrorist event charged with historic meaning, transforming the political chemistry in Vienna". Austro-Hungarian authorities encouraged subsequent anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo . Violent actions against ethnic Serbs were also organised outside Sarajevo, in other cities in Austro-Hungarian-controlled Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia. Austro-Hungarian authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina imprisoned approximately 5,500 prominent Serbs, 700 to 2,200 of whom died in prison. A further 460 Serbs were sentenced to death. A predominantly Bosniak special militia known as
25250-506: The defence of Crete, where Freyberg presented the battle as a hopeless, but noble struggle, which thereby covered up the fact that Freyberg had ignored intelligence that the Germans were planning to invade Crete via the air instead of the sea as he expected. Wavell had informed Freyberg of the Ultra secret just before the Battle of Crete and told him of the three airfields where the German paratroopers were going to drop, but also told him not to change
25452-452: The disposition of his forces as that might tip the Germans off that the British were reading their codes. Freyberg believed that Crete was not very important and was not informed that Hitler was obsessed with the fear that British bombers based in Crete would destroy the Romanian oilfields upon which the Reich depended, a point he impressed on Churchill in his letters to him. Churchill made much of
25654-418: The edited copies, corrects and re-arranges the type or the pagination, and arranges for the press workers to print the final or published copies. Galley proofs or galleys are so named because in the days of hand-set letterpress printing in the 1650s, the printer would set the page into "galleys", metal trays into which type was laid and tightened into place. A small proof press would then be used to print
25856-706: The endless detail about unimportant battles and incidents. So much of the material is pedestrian". Clementine persuaded him to tone down some criticism of the Royal Navy. Dutch opinion was angry at Churchill's failure to mention the activities of their submarines in the Far East in December 1941 (under the command of Conrad Helfrich ), so he agreed to include a footnote in the Dutch edition of Volume 3. Michael Foot reviewed Volume 3 to say that when Barbarossa had been launched in June 1941 Churchill like many others had "grossly under-estimated
26058-420: The expansion of the French colonial empire . In 1873, Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors , which included Austria-Hungary , Russia and Germany. After the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War , the League was dissolved due to Austrian concerns over the expansion of Russian influence in the Balkans , an area they considered to be of vital strategic interest. Germany and Austria-Hungary then formed
26260-464: The final volume, appeared in 1953 after Churchill had once again become Prime Minister, but for appearances' sake it was pretended that Churchill had written it before his return to office in 1951. As various archives have been opened, several deficiencies of the work have become apparent. Some of these are inherent in the position Churchill occupied as a former prime minister and a serving politician. He could not reveal ongoing military secrets, such as
26462-428: The first five volumes had sold 1.75 million copies in the UK, 1.76 million in the USA and 77,000 in Canada. By April 1954 the six volumes had sold 2.2 million copies in the USA and another 2 million in Britain and the Empire. When Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, he intended to write a history of the war then beginning. He said several times: "I will leave judgements on this matter to history—but I will be one of
26664-452: The first of several "working holidays" in the Mediterranean, at a time when British people were only permitted to take £35 out of the country because of exchange controls . The New York Times agreed to share the cost, but Houghton Mifflin declined. After the last of Churchill's expenses-paid working holidays in 1951 (Walter Graebner's suggestions of a final one in 1952 were rejected both by his US Head Office and by Downing Street, as Churchill
26866-400: The first time on the Western Front. Several types of gas soon became widely used by both sides and though it never proved a decisive, battle-winning weapon, it became one of the most feared and best-remembered horrors of the war. In February 1916, the Germans attacked French defensive positions at the Battle of Verdun , lasting until December 1916. Casualties were greater for the French, but
27068-414: The first week. In July 1936 he claimed that a single Luftwaffe bombing raid on London would kill at least 5,000 people. In reality, German strategic bombing of British cities killed or wounded about 147,000 people between 1939 and 1945 and the major problem was not people being killed, but rather the homelessness caused by the destruction of houses and flats. Churchill admitted in The Gathering Storm that in
27270-486: The front. Serbian and French troops finally made a breakthrough in September 1918 in the Vardar offensive , after most German and Austro-Hungarian troops had been withdrawn. The Bulgarians were defeated at the Battle of Dobro Pole , and by 25 September British and French troops had crossed the border into Bulgaria proper as the Bulgarian army collapsed. Bulgaria capitulated four days later, on 29 September 1918. The German high command responded by despatching troops to hold
27472-408: The globe, some of which were subsequently used to attack Allied merchant shipping . These were systematically hunted down by the Royal Navy, though not before causing considerable damage. One of the most successful was the SMS Emden , part of the German East Asia Squadron stationed at Qingdao , which seized or sank 15 merchantmen, a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. Most of the squadron
27674-421: The high ground, while their trenches tended to be better built; those constructed by the French and English were initially considered "temporary", only needed until an offensive would destroy the German defences. Both sides tried to break the stalemate using scientific and technological advances. On 22 April 1915, at the Second Battle of Ypres , the Germans (violating the Hague Convention ) used chlorine gas for
27876-407: The historians." To circumvent the rules against the use of official documents, he took the precaution throughout the war of having a weekly summary of correspondence, minutes, memoranda and other documents printed in galleys and headed "Prime Minister's personal minutes". These were then stored at his home and Churchill wrote or dictated letters and memoranda with the intention of placing his views on
28078-402: The impression that Britain might be willing to take up Hess on his eccentric peace mission as a way to blackmail the United States into providing more aid. Churchill did not mention that he followed Eden's advice, which had the opposite effect from the one intended, not the least because Stalin thought that Britain was trying to make peace and took the British warnings about Operation Barbarossa as
28280-432: The impression that no arguments were made against the Greek expedition. The fact that Churchill was not allowed to mention the Ultra programme did not allow him to defend himself from one of the charges made against him, namely that by sending the Australians and New Zealanders to Greece, he weakened the Commonwealth forces in Libya and Egypt. Churchill's assumption that he could pull forces out of North Africa to defend Greece
28482-724: The in-house publishing staff may be accepted. In the final proof stage, page layouts are examined closely. Additionally, because final page proofs contain the final pagination , if an index was not compiled at an earlier stage in production, this pagination facilitates compiling a book's index and correcting its table of contents. Historically, some publishers have used paper galley proofs as advance copies or advance reading copies (ARCs) or as pre-publication publicity proofs. These are provided to reviewers, magazines, and libraries in advance of final publication. These galleys are not sent out for correction, but to ensure timely reviews of newly published works. The list of recipients designated by
28684-435: The introductions of tanks and aircraft . World War I was one of the deadliest conflicts in history , resulting in an estimated 10 million military dead and more than 20 million wounded , plus some 10 million civilian dead from causes including genocide . The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic. The causes of World War I included the rise of Germany and decline of
28886-422: The investigation and trial of Serbians linked to the assassination. Claiming this amounted to rejection, Austria broke off diplomatic relations and ordered partial mobilisation the next day; on 28 July, they declared war on Serbia and began shelling Belgrade . Russia ordered general mobilization in support of Serbia on 30 July. Anxious to ensure backing from the SPD political opposition by presenting Russia as
29088-493: The line, but these forces were too weak to re-establish a front. Galley proof In printing and publishing , proofs are the preliminary versions of publications meant for review by authors, editors, and proofreaders, often with extra-wide margins. Galley proofs may be uncut and unbound , or in some cases electronically transmitted . They are created for proofreading and copyediting purposes, but may also be used for promotional and review purposes. Proof , in
29290-402: The meeting on 16 May 1940, stating that Churchill made him like the rest of the French cabinet appear very defeatist. Churchill did not mention the intense debate within the Cabinet between 26 and 28 May 1940 where the Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax argued that France would soon be defeated and that Britain should use Mussolini as an "honest broker" to negotiate peace, but mentioned that Reynaud
29492-404: The meeting to coincide with the German attack on the Low Countries (in fact Chamberlain briefly tried to rescind his resignation, agreed the previous day, when the attack began). Churchill was briefly at a low ebb in June 1948 and asked his solicitor to check the contract to see if he could step down as the notional author of the work. The mood passed, helped in part by another "working holiday" in
29694-464: The memo he received from Cunningham after the Battle of Crete in May 1941 saying he never wanted to have Royal Navy warships without air cover again, and that the losses taken by the Royal Navy off Crete due to German and Italian aircraft were unacceptably high, very likely as it would have invited criticism of his deployment of capital ships to Singapore, where they were sunk by Japanese aircraft in December. Fortunately Luftwaffe aircraft were diverted to
29896-510: The misleading impression that in 1940 he wanted to fight on until the total destruction of Nazi Germany while in fact he was open to a negotiated peace provided Hitler was overthrown. Churchill did not mention his 4 September 1940 memo arguing that strategic bombing would so damage the German economy that the Wehrmacht generals would overthrow Hitler to make a favourable peace with no need for major land battles, just as in 1918 Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Wilhelm Groener had forced
30098-442: The number of lengthy direct quotes from documents and letters (many of which had been written with a view to eventual publication), and to include more detail in subsequent volumes about his first meetings with Eisenhower and Montgomery (very likely as this would have reduced the emphasis on Churchill's own central role). In June 1947 while Churchill was recovering from a hernia operation the Daily Telegraph gave permission to extend
30300-437: The objections that Freyberg, who had never commanded anything larger than a division, did not have the personality for high command led him to retain Wavell despite his lack of confidence in him. An entire chapter is devoted to Churchill's decision in August 1940 to send 154 tanks,-which were half of the entire tank force in the United Kingdom,-to Egypt (which Italy had invaded ) through the shorter and more dangerous route through
30502-409: The ocean, even to neutral ships. Since there was limited response to this tactic, Germany expected a similar response to its unrestricted submarine warfare. The Battle of Jutland in May/June 1916 was the only full-scale clash of battleships during the war, and one of the largest in history. The clash was indecisive, though the Germans inflicted more damage than they received; thereafter the bulk of
30704-485: The origins of World War Two in very personalised terms. Churchill wrote in an almost admiring tone that Mussolini was one of the exceptional leaders able to bend history to his will, and portrayed Il Duce as a man who perverted Italian politics by preventing the "normal" course of Italian history from occurring. Likewise, Churchill portrayed Hitler very much as a "Great Man" able to bend history to his will owing to his determination and intelligence, which suggests that Nazism
30906-400: The pilots of RAF Fighter Command , but said almost nothing about their commander Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding . Churchill insisted that he sacked Dowding in November 1940 only reluctantly and blamed the civil servants of the Air Ministry. Dowding was a shy, modest man virtually unknown to the British people during the Battle of Britain, and his sacking had attracted little media attention. It
31108-446: The press. Proofs created by the printer for approval by the publisher before going to press are called final proofs . At this stage in production, all mistakes are supposed to have been corrected and the pages are set up in imposition for folding and cutting on the press. To correct a mistake at this stage entails an extra cost per page, so authors are discouraged from making many changes to final proofs, while last-minute corrections by
31310-681: The protection of the " cruiser rules ", which demanded warning and movement of crews to "a place of safety" (a standard that lifeboats did not meet). Finally, in early 1917, Germany adopted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare , realising the Americans would eventually enter the war. Germany sought to strangle Allied sea lanes before the United States could transport a large army overseas, but, after initial successes, eventually failed to do so. The U-boat threat lessened in 1917, when merchant ships began travelling in convoys , escorted by destroyers . This tactic made it difficult for U-boats to find targets, which significantly lessened losses; after
31512-430: The publisher limits the number of copies to only what is required, making advance copies a form of print-on-demand (POD) publication. Pre-publication publicity proofs are normally gathered and bound in paper, but in the case of books with four-color printed illustrations, publicity proofs may be lacking illustrations or have them in black and white only. They may be marked or stamped on the cover "uncorrected proof", but
31714-431: The rails. Reynolds noted that Churchill portrayed himself in The Gathering Storm , as being in the political "wilderness" in the 1930s because of his prescient opposition to the appeasement of Nazi Germany, but the real reason was that in Opposition in 1930–1931 he had led a backbenchers' rebellion trying to topple Baldwin (who supported Indian self-government) as Conservative leader; this disloyalty led to his exclusion from
31916-404: The recipient is not expected to proofread them, merely to overlook any minor errors of typesetting. Galley proofs in electronic form are rarely used as advance reading copies due to the possibility of a recipient editing the proof and issuing it as their own. However, trusted colleagues are occasionally offered electronic advance reading copies, especially if the publisher wishes to quickly typeset
32118-431: The record, for later use as a historian. The arrangements became a source of controversy when The Second World War began appearing in 1948. Churchill was a politician, not an academic historian and was Leader of the Opposition , intending to return to office, so Churchill's access to Cabinet , military and diplomatic records denied to other historians was questioned. It was not known at the time that Churchill had done
32320-404: The removal of a rival, Churchill felt that Eden as Foreign Secretary would be more capable than Halifax of executing the foreign policy he wanted to see. In May 1949 Churchill wrote to Deakin that he had largely finished Volume 3. In July 1949 Pownall wrote to him that he had spent some time with Field Marshal Wavell going through the parts of Volume 3 which concerned him. Wavell commented that "on
32522-404: The role of a senior writer. He later recalled bringing proofs from the printers to Churchill at Chartwell in the evenings, to be worked on after dinner late into the night; he would sometimes take instructions from Churchill until after he had climbed into bed, turned out the light and removed his false teeth . He recalled condensing Goodwin 's 150 page account of The Blitz down to 3 pages over
32724-490: The same time. Churchill wrote that the British had a spy in the Afrika Korps and as such there was no excuse for Wavell's defeat in Operation Battleaxe in June 1941, for which Churchill sacked him. There was no such spy, but Churchill could not mention the secret Ultra intelligence; however, it is true that Churchill sacked Wavell believing that he should have been victorious given his intelligence advantage. The chapter "The Soviet Nemesis" about Operation Barbarossa featured
32926-433: The self-serving claims made by Wehrmacht generals after 1945 that during the 1938 Sudetenland crisis they would have staged a military coup to overthrow Hitler, which was prevented by the Munich Agreement . Churchill was informed by his researchers that these claims were dubious at best, and were clearly meant to be a rationalisation for serving the Nazi regime by blaming the British and French governments. In his coverage of
33128-424: The south of France and had to be rushed home privately. By autumn 1949, with a General Election looming, Churchill was conducting sporadic work on Volume 4 while still polishing Volume 3. Another working holiday was planned for late in the year but once again his interest was flagging. He had a discussion with Camrose of the Daily Telegraph about appointing Duff Cooper as a possible replacement as writer-in-chief of
33330-415: The term First World War was in September 1914 by German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel who stated, "There is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European War' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word". For much of the 19th century, the major European powers maintained a tenuous balance of power , known as the Concert of Europe . After 1848, this
33532-584: The threat posed by the closing of this gap was more important than competing with the Royal Navy. After Germany expanded its standing army by 170,000 troops in 1913, France extended compulsory military service from two to three years; similar measures were taken by the Balkan powers and Italy, which led to increased expenditure by the Ottomans and Austria-Hungary. Absolute figures are difficult to calculate due to differences in categorising expenditure since they often omit civilian infrastructure projects like railways which had logistical importance and military use. It
33734-420: The time Churchill did not regard the appointment of Halifax as an important change. In the late 1940s as he waited with barely veiled impatience for Churchill to retire as Conservative leader Eden wanted to airbrush the fact that he had very much liked and admired Adolf Hitler on first meeting him in 1935 and felt Hitler's foreign policy was limited to revising the Treaty of Versailles. However Eden had favoured
33936-407: The time as a sign that Dowding was not fit to command. A key moment in Their Finest Hour is the account of a meeting with Air Marshal Keith Park who commanded the Number 11 Group of Fighter Command that covered south-eastern England on 15 September 1940. He claimed that he asked the same question of Park that he had asked of Gamelin on 16 May 1940 "where are the reserves?" and in both cases received
34138-435: The type was free of defects (because type metal is comparatively soft, so type can get damaged). Once a defect-free galley proof was produced, the publishing house requested a number of galley proofs to be run off for distribution to editors and authors for a final reading and corrections to the text before the type was fixed in the case for printing. An uncorrected proof is a proof version (on paper or in digital form) which
34340-513: The urging of his son-in-law Christopher Soames he toned down a reference to the Polish seizure of Teschen from Czechoslovakia after Munich being "baseness in almost every aspect of their collective life" to "faults in almost every aspect of their governmental life". Churchill's comment that "the heroic characteristics of the Polish race must not blind us to their record of folly and ingratitude...the Poles were glorious in revolt and ruin; squalid and shameful in triumph [over Czechoslovakia in 1938-9]"
34542-411: The war by allowing British bombers to use Greek airfields to reach Romanian oil fields which supplied most of the oil used by the Wehrmacht. Churchill mentioned that he sent Eden on a visit to Turkey in January 1941 where he reported that President İsmet İnönü might be open to joining the war on the Allied side, which led Churchill to hope for a league of Turkey, Greece and Yugoslavia which would tie down
34744-429: The war ended with the Armistice of 11 November 1918 . The Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920 imposed settlements on the defeated powers, most notably the Treaty of Versailles , by which Germany lost significant territories, was disarmed, and was required to pay large war reparations to the Allies. The dissolution of the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires redrew national boundaries and resulted in
34946-413: The war involved British, French, and German colonial forces in Africa. On 6–7 August, French and British troops invaded the German protectorates of Togoland and Kamerun . On 10 August, German forces in South-West Africa attacked South Africa; sporadic and fierce fighting continued for the rest of the war. The German colonial forces in German East Africa , led by Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck , fought
35148-400: The war later in 1940, which did not happen. Churchill's contacts in the United States were mostly with Anglophile upper-class, WASP "Eastern Establishment" Americans who had been educated at elite universities like Harvard, Yale and Princeton and were unrepresentative of the broader American public. Churchill wrongly assumed in 1940 that most Americans were Anglophiles who would be so outraged by
35350-407: The war. Churchill ultimately dropped all references to the debate while mentioning that French Prime Minister Reynaud was willing to make concessions to Mussolini in exchange for brokering peace. In June 1950, the year after publication, Churchill agreed to tone down criticism of the Italian invasion of British Somaliland in August 1940, which he described as "our only defeat at Italian hands". This
35552-418: The west , which despite initial successes left the German Army exhausted and demoralised. A successful Allied counter-offensive from August 1918 caused a collapse of the German front line. By early November, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary had each signed armistices with the Allies, leaving Germany isolated. Facing a revolution at home , Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated on 9 November, and
35754-438: The whole [Churchill] has been very kind to me". In the summer of 1949 Churchill had another working holiday on Lake Garda in Italy. He had planned to work on Volume 4 but was delayed by criticism from the US publishers that the Volume 3 draft contained too much detail about British campaigns in the Mediterranean. Reves urged him to discuss his top-level talks with Roosevelt. Churchill had a mild stroke at Max Beaverbrook's villa in
35956-411: The wisdom of dispatching Australian and New Zealand soldiers to the defence of Greece in 1941. Menzies and Fraser both paid an extended visit to London in early 1941 to debate strategy with Churchill; Menzies's visit was only briefly mentioned while Fraser's visit was not mentioned at all. Churchill defended the decision to send an expedition to Greece on the grounds that it could have changed the course of
36158-468: The work of the code breakers at Bletchley Park , or the planning of the atomic bomb . As stated in the author's introduction, the book concentrates on the British war effort. Other theatres of war are described largely as a background. Churchill wanted to call the first volume Downward Path but changed the title at the insistence of his US publishers Houghton Mifflin, relayed to him via Emery Reves . Churchill later rejected other advice from Reves, to cut
36360-488: The work, but nothing came of this. In October 1949 Pownall and Kelly incorporated comments by the New Zealand War Historian on the Crete campaign and Cunningham the who criticised Churchill's account of the bombardment of Tripoli, but otherwise thought the book "a fair picture of the doings of the Fleet". The US publishers complained once again about too many long quotes from minutes and his wife Clementine complained at dinner in front of Walter Graebner thar "I got so tired of
36562-399: Was Prime Minister again by then), Time Life executives calculated that these had cost $ 56,572.23 of which Time Life had paid around $ 35,000 and the New York Times the rest; on the whole they judged this to have been a good investment to get a major writing project finished. Cassells (who had paid Churchill £40,000 for the entire series) made £100,000 profit from the first volume alone. By 1953
36764-494: Was a marvel – I really do not know how – I survived and maintained my position in public esteem while all the blame was thrown on poor Mr Chamberlain". This was excised from the published edition. Churchill's conduct of the campaign was later attacked by Stephen Roskill in the Official History of the Second World War in 1954, although Churchill deferred to the advice of Commodore Allen and Norman Brook not to press for changes. Churchill's account of how he became Prime Minister
36966-414: Was a successful First Lord of the Admiralty in 1939–1940 that allowed him to become Prime Minister on 10 May 1940. In The Gathering Storm , Churchill turned Baldwin "man of Middle England" image against him to devastating effect as he portrayed Baldwin as a petty and provincial politician unfit to be prime minister. As Conservative leader, Baldwin had been often been photographed in rural settings, dressed as
37168-462: Was after 1945 that Dowding came to be celebrated as a "quiet hero", hence Churchill's defensive tone about why he sacked him. In fact, Churchill had sacked Dowding because he believed that the narrow victory won by the Fighter Command was a sign of incompetence. Dowding's repeated statements during the Battle of Britain that the Luftwaffe was killing Fighter Command pilots faster than the Training Command could produce new pilots were viewed by Churchill at
37370-544: Was at the request of Major General Chater who blamed the collapse of the Vichy French in French Somaliland and late approval of his defence plans by the War Office and Colonial Office. Churchill agreed to amend subsequent editions. Reynolds noted that in Their Finest Hour Churchill sometimes engaged in national stereotypes. In his account of his summit with the French Premier Paul Reynaud on 16 May 1940, Churchill portrayed Reynaud along with Maurice Gamelin and Édouard Daladier as hopelessly defeatist figures, reflecting
37572-466: Was based upon his reading of the German codes and of Hitler's orders to Erwin Rommel of the Afrika Korps to stay on the defensive in Libya; he did not anticipate that Rommel, gambling that Hitler would not punish him for a successful offensive, would launch an unauthorised offensive which pushed the Commonwealth forces back to the Egyptian frontier. The chapter on the Battle of Crete was heavily based upon notes written by Bernard Freyberg who commanded
37774-403: Was challenged by Britain's withdrawal into so-called splendid isolation , the decline of the Ottoman Empire , New Imperialism , and the rise of Prussia under Otto von Bismarck . Victory in the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War allowed Bismarck to consolidate a German Empire . Post-1871, the primary aim of French policy was to avenge this defeat, but by the early 1890s, this had switched to
37976-434: Was engaged after an early typo that the French Army was "the poop of the French nation". Kelly wrote that this was "too near the truth to let it go" and that after a furious midnight call from Churchill to the publishers errata slips had to be included explaining that the intended word had been "prop"; he commented that it was reminiscent of the newspaper account of Queen Victoria "pissing over Clifton Suspension Bridge to
38178-416: Was further supplemented by dictated recollections of key episodes, together with queries about chronology, location and personalities for his team to resolve. Churchill finally obtained Cabinet approval to quote from official documents after negotiations with the Cabinet Secretary Edward Bridges . Churchill also wrote to many fellow actors requesting documents and comments. The books were largely written by
38380-412: Was given wide publicity by the Communist government in Warsaw as an example of the anti-Polish feelings of British leaders. The comments also annoyed Polish American opinion, as did another about Poland "grovelling in villainy", and were cut from the British edition. The Gathering Storm began to appear serialised in the newspapers in April 1948 just as the Soviets were suppressing Czechoslovakia and
38582-414: Was hanged". British historian David Reynolds noted that in Volume One, The Gathering Storm , Churchill skipped over the 1920s as his actions then did not support his self-image as a leader who was far-sighted about the Axis threat. Churchill criticised the "follies" of the victors of 1918 in drafting the Treaty of Versailles , which he viewed as too harsh towards Germany, but then contradictorily defended
38784-401: Was only Hitlerism, and that if Hitler had never lived, German history would have continued on as "normal". Churchill tended to downplay continuities in German history such as the imperialistic Second Reich war aims towards both Western and Eastern Europe in the First World War and the Weimar Republic 's absolute refusal to accept the borders with Poland imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. In
38986-448: Was precarious for much of 1940 as he took over the leadership of the Conservative Party in October 1940 when Chamberlain resigned owing to the bowel cancer that would kill him within a month. Churchill wrote that whoever led the Conservative Party would be the real leader of the country, and that he had "only executive responsibility" as prime minister without being the Conservative party leader. Churchill did not mention that his real concern
39188-472: Was published in book form in June and July as the Berlin Blockade began. The Gathering Storm was published in the USA on 2 June 1948. The message of 'the book was that appeasement of dictators always leads to war as they escalate their demands in response to concessions, and Churchill made it quite clear in several speeches in 1948 that he was referring to Stalin as much as Hitler. An early draft of Volume One had conceded that there "may be some substance" to
39390-654: Was refused. Early on the morning of 4 August, the Germans invaded, and Albert I of Belgium called for assistance under the Treaty of London . Britain sent Germany an ultimatum demanding they withdraw from Belgium; when this expired at midnight, without a response, the two empires were at war. Germany promised to support Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia, but interpretations of what this meant differed. Previously tested deployment plans had been replaced early in 1914, but those had never been tested in exercises. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover its northern flank against Russia. Beginning on 12 August,
39592-600: Was returning to Germany when it sank two British armoured cruisers at the Battle of Coronel in November 1914, before being virtually destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December. The SMS Dresden escaped with a few auxiliaries, but after the Battle of Más a Tierra , these too were either destroyed or interned. Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, Britain began a naval blockade of Germany . This proved effective in cutting off vital supplies, though it violated accepted international law. Britain also mined international waters which closed off entire sections of
39794-450: Was serving as the War Secretary at the time wanted to share credit for the bold decision to send the tanks to Egypt, and had Dill's role eliminated. Churchill mentioned in Their Finest Hour that he tried to bring his old mentor in politics, David Lloyd George, into his cabinet as an elder statesmen, but he did not mention that Lloyd George refused his offer because he expected him to lose the war. Lloyd George had met Hitler several times in
39996-599: Was some fighting in 1931 between Japan and China?" Churchill gave only very brief mentions of the crisis in Asia caused by Japan's invasion of China in 1937 along with increasingly strident Japanese claims that all of Asia should be in their sphere of influence, which gave a distorted picture of British politics as Neville Chamberlain 's government was very concerned that Japan might use a war in Europe to seize Britain's Asian colonies. Despite support for strategic bombing Churchill, judging by his "Memorandum on Sea-power" written on 25 March 1939, did not see air attacks on ships as
40198-441: Was that Lord Halifax would succeed Chamberlain as Conservative leader and that he wanted Halifax out of his cabinet as he believed that Halifax would bring him down as prime minister sooner or later. The opportunity finally came in December 1940 when Lord Lothian the British ambassador to the United States died, leading to Churchill to appoint Halifax as the new ambassador in Washington and make Eden his new Foreign Secretary. Besides
40400-586: Was the foundation of German foreign policy but in 1890, he was forced to retire by Wilhelm II . The latter was persuaded not to renew the Reinsurance Treaty by his new Chancellor , Leo von Caprivi . This gave France an opening to agree the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1894, which was then followed by the 1904 Entente Cordiale with Britain. The Triple Entente was completed by the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention . While not formal alliances, by settling long-standing colonial disputes in Asia and Africa, British support for France or Russia in any future conflict became
40602-400: Was willing to do so, thereby contrasting the supposedly craven and cowardly French and the stout and stalwart British. British historian Max Hastings noted that Churchill downplayed his own importance in seeking to continue the war in 1940. The picture that he painted of a British people solidly united under his leadership for victory over Nazi Germany was not true, and in May–June 1940 much of
40804-421: Was £10,000 and that of the Leader of the Opposition £2,000. However Walter Graebner of Life became concerned that insufficient progress was being made over the summer of 1947, during which time Volume One advanced from "Provisional Semi-Final" to "Provisional Final". He bought Churchill a new poodle to replace Rufus who had been run over at the Conservative Party Conference and persuaded his employer to pay for
#358641