Question: Did Churchill abandon Poland?

The Anglo-Polish Alliance was signed on 25 August 1939 but was tentatively agreed to as early as 31 March 1939: The British would come to Poland’s aid in the event that they were invaded by a foreign power. No country was named. Britain lived up to her agreement with Poland when Germany invaded. However, in about a fortnight after the German invasion, the Soviet Union invaded Poland and the British did nothing. When the Polish Government asked the British Foreign Office for aid against the Soviets, Foreign Minister Halifax responded that the Anglo-Polish alliance was restricted to Germany.

Winston Churchill became the new Prime Minister on 10 May 1940. The Soviets occupied Poland for nearly two years. Churchill had to know the intent of the Communists, and yet he did nothing. On 22 June 1941 Churchill crawled into bed with Stalin. Where was the statesmanship in that? Of course, you know all these things.

Was Churchill’s fight with Hitler a personal one? He knew that Communism was just as evil as Nazism. He had nearly two years to contemplate what to do about Russia. Churchill had several choices. The best choice would have been to let the Soviet Union and Germany slug it out. We are not talking about hindsight because Churchill had a clear choice then, and time to study his options. The Communists had a much longer history of oppression than the Nazis. —W.S. via email

Answer: Poland before the war

Thank-you for your observations, which are best considered in context of the time. Many factors need to be considered here.

Poland owed her independence to the Allied victory in 1918. Yet the 1938 Polish government was hardly a passive neutral, having joined the Germans and Russians in dismembering Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement.

Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck, who admittedly didn’t expect a German assault on his country, took advantage of the Munich affair. Claiming that the Czechs were mistreating their Polish minority, Poland invaded and seized Teschen, a Czech industrial district with 240,000 people, and three other districts. In Parliament, Churchill was furious:

The British and French Ambassadors visited Colonel Beck, or sought to visit him, the Foreign Minister, in order to ask for some mitigation in the harsh measures being pursued against Czechoslovakia about Teschen. The door was shut in their faces.

The French Ambassador was not even granted an audience and the British Ambassador was given a most curt reply by a political director. The whole matter is described in the Polish Press as a political indiscretion committed by those two Powers, and we are today reading of the success of Colonel Beck’s blow.

I am not forgetting, I must say, that it is less than twenty years ago since British and French bayonets rescued Poland from the bondage of a century and a half. I think it is indeed a sorry episode in the history of that country, for whose freedom and rights so many of us have had warm and long sympathy.¹

Promises kept

In March 1939, Hitler absorbed what had been left of Czechoslovakia after Munich. Realizing now that Germany would never be appeased, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain issued a British guarantee to Poland. “Here was decision at last,” Churchill wrote, “taken at the worst possible moment and on the least satisfactory ground, which must surely lead to the slaughter of tens of millions of people.”²

When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, Britain kept her promise to declare war on the aggressor. But the ground was indeed unsatisfactory: British chiefs of staff had earlier informed the Poles (who understood) that there was nothing practical they could do on the Western Front without the French, who did nothing. Poland was defeated in a few weeks. By prearrangement with Hitler, Stalin helped himself to his share. The Second World War was on.

Churchill forever blamed Poland for complicity in Hitler’s designs by Beck’s rapaciousness in Czechoslovakia. He repeated his charges in his war memoirs, causing him trouble with exiled Poles, who published pamphlets attacking what they saw as a small matter compared to the depredations of Nazi Germany.³ In the face of such criticism Churchill waxed philosophic: “There are few virtues the Poles do not possess, and few mistakes that they have ever avoided.”⁴

What we know in hindsight

Did Churchill make the right choice between the Third Reich and Soviet Union? “My thought has always been that Nazism had absolutely no eschatology, and would wither on the vine,” William F. Buckley Jr. once remarked. “Only the life of Hitler kept it going, and I can’t imagine he’d have lasted very long. The Communists hung in there for forty-six years.”⁵

That is arguably true, but we know this in what Churchill called “the afterlight.” Churchill’s attitude was based on the situation as he saw it at the time.

Until 1939, the Russians had not moved beyond their own territory. Long after Poland had been conquered by the Reich, Churchill remained open to an understanding with Moscow. Even though the Russians and Germans had signed a non-aggression pact, he thought it would ultimately clash with Russian national interests.

“Favourable reference to the Devil”

In the event, Hitler took care of that with his invasion of Russia in June 1941. “If Hitler invaded Hell,” Churchill famously cracked, “I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”⁶

With Russia invaded and America still neutral, Churchill was desperate for allies. It was logical to conclude that Germany not Russia was the greater expansionist threat. No one could see far ahead, yet no one worked harder than he for Poland’s independence after the war. No one more admired the valiant Poles who fought with the Allies from 1940 to D-Day and beyond.

Churchill’s many efforts to secure an independent Poland are on record. Sadly, the war ended with Soviet power spread over Eastern Europe. One Russian who grasped what Churchill was trying to do was Ambassador Ivan Maisky. Our review of his diaries may be of interest.

Endnotes

¹ Winston S. Churchill (hereinafter WSC), House of Commons, 5 October 1938, in Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, 8 vols. (New York: Bowker, 1974), VI: 6009-10. For Beck’s view of German intentions see Melchior Wańkowicz, Poklęsce. Prószyński i Spółka (Warsaw 2009), 612.

² WSC, The Gathering Storm (London: Cassell, 1948), 271–72.

³ Studnicki, W., An Open Letter from a Polish Political Writer to Mr. Winston Churchill. (London: privately published, 1948). Kwasniewski, Tadeus, An Open Letter of a Chicago Waiter to Winston Churchill. (Chicago, privately published, 1950), subtitled Let’s Face the Truth, Mr. Churchill. Both writers attacked Churchill’s critique, in The Gathering Storm, of Poland’s participation in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.

⁴ WSC, House of Commons, 16 August 1945, in Richard M. Langworth, ed., Churchill by Himself (New York: Rosetta Books, 2015), 279.

⁵ William F. Buckley Jr. to the author, quoted in “William F. Buckley: A True Churchillian in the End,” 2020.

⁶ WSC, Chequers, 21 June 1941, in Langworth, Churchill by Himself, 276.

Further reading

Connor Daniels, “Why Churchill Allied with Stalin,” 2021.

Warren F. Kimball: “Ghost in the Attic: Churchill, the Soviets and the Special Relationship, 2021, in two parts. Part 1 and Part 2.

Richard M. Langworth, “The Maisky Diaries,” edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky,” 2016.

_____ _____, “Facing the Dictator: Stalin, 1946; Hitler, 1938,” 2021.

When did Churchill  first read Mein Kampf, and did he have any early reaction to it?” Of Mein Kampf in his war memoirs, he wroe:

…there was no book which deserved more careful study from the rulers, political and military, of the Allied Powers. All was there—the programme of German resurrection, the technique of party propaganda; the plan for combating Marxism; the concept of a National-Socialist State; the rightful position of Germany at the summit of the world. Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.[1]

“But he writes nothing about it before this.

A: 1935, if not sooner

The answer is undetermined, but we can narrow down the time frame. I looked for this in my Hitler chapter of Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality. I searched his correspondence for mentions of Mein Kampf from 1925, when it was first published. Churchill did not read German and there is no indication that he saw the German editions at that time.

There is no evidence that Churchill read Mein Kampf until at least 1933[2]. Most likely, Martin Gilbert reports, he read it in 1935 (see below). But he was aware of Hitler earlier. His friend Sir Ian Hamilton furnished the first reference to Hitler in Churchill’s official biography. In October 1930. In the September federal elections, Hitler’s National Socialists soared from 12 to 107 seats, second highest in the Reichstag. The ruling Social Democrats fell slightly to 143, the German Communist Party tripled its seats with 77.

Hamilton and Cuno

Churchill was anxious to know what this election foretold. Hamilton passed him the views of the German shipping magnate and onetime chancellor, Wilhelm Cuno. What Hamilton described as Hitler’s “scoop” was, according to Cuno, natural and hopeful:

He said that out of the 32 million people in Germany there were 29 million who were finding life just about intolerable and they were absolutely fed up with it. In their minds they had resolved to sweep away the whole of the existing system of compromise, makeshift and trying to win their way back by slow degrees on the old lines.

They were jolly well going to have a try at something entirely new and the whole question, for people like himself who had something to say with the steering of the ship of State, was whether the change would be to the right or to the left. If to the right it would be an accentuation of nationalism: if to the left it would be internationalism. They had got their swing to the right and he hoped that the responsibility of power would make this new Government more moderate in action than it had been in words.[3]

Cuno was however likely to put a favorable spin on the Nazi surge. Two years later he would join Wilhelm Keppler as a financial advisor to Hitler. His death in 1933 spared him whatever ignominy that might have attached to him through further association. The worst that can be said of Churchill over this early intelligence from Germany was that he too hoped for moderation. Like many others, he misgauged the depth of Hitler’s prejudice and hate. But it didn’t take him as long as most others to realize the truth.

Mein Kampf in 1935

The first known Churchill encounter with Mein Kampf was five years later—two years after Hitler took power and the first English edition was published. By then, as Martin Gilbert tells us, he was fully up to speed:

Churchill was also well informed about the internal situation in Germany. Three months earlier, on 10 December 1935, at Churchill’s own request, L.G. Montefiore had sent him a full translation not only of the Nuremberg Laws, under which the Jews of Germany had been deprived of their basic rights as citizens, but also of the detailed administrative regulations, whereby those Laws were to be put into force. On March 10 the Duchess of Atholl sent him two copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, the original German edition and the English translation.[4]

Katharine Stewart-Murray, 8th Duchess Atholl was determined that Churchill should know the truth. The English translation of Mein Kampf sent to the London publisher was watered down to soothe British nerves. Atholl sent Churchill

copies of those passages which had been expurgated in the translation. “Sometimes,” she wrote, “the warlike character of the original is concealed by mistranslating.” In one of the expurgated passages Hitler advocated a German alliance with Italy and Britain, in order to isolate France. In another he described France as “our bitterest enemy.” And in a third he declared: “the life of a people will be secured not by national grace, but by the strength of a victorious sword.” The Duchess of Atholl also sent Churchill extracts from Hitler’s speeches with copies of those more extreme paragraphs which had not been circulated to the foreign press.[5]

The Duchess of Atholl…

…is one of the forgotten heroines in Churchill’s battle against appeasement. Lynne Olson’s Troublesome Young Men finely describes this feisty Scotswoman, the first Conservative woman Member of Parliament to hold ministerial office:

For Kitty Atholl, Mein Kampf served as a call to battle. No longer the docile backbencher who wanted to “smooth matters over,” she became an outspoken foe of appeasement. She again joined forces with Churchill, this time in his campaign to awaken Britain to the dangers posed by Hitler and the need for rearmament. Like Churchill, she received confidential information from knowledgeable sources about the rapid pace and size of German rearmament, which she passed on to him and to officials in the Foreign Office…. Many Tories in her constituency, which contained more than its share of aristocrats, landed gentry, and retired military officers, were outraged.[6]

By the time of the Munich accord, the Duchess was thoroughly repulsed by Chamberlain’s actions. She made speeches denouncing the agreement, and published a pamphlet about it. For this the Conservative whip was withdrawn and Chamberlain sent surrogates to oppose her in a by-election. She lost her seat in November 1938, and a few months later Chamberlain himself came to defend his policies in Scotland.

Churchill was furious. On a visit to the Highlands, another friend told him Chamberlain was coming and asked where she should set up the podium. “It doesn’t matter where you put it,” Churchill replied, “as long as he has the sun in his eyes and the wind in his teeth.” His famous lisp often surfaced strongly at times of great emotion. So this came out: “shun in hish eyesh and the wind in hish teeth.”[7]

Endnotes

 1. Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm (London: Cassell, 1948), 42.

2. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 2 vols., (Berlin: Eher Verlaf, 1925-26). An abridged English edition was first published by Hurst & Blackett, London, on 13 October 1933, though excerpts appeared in The Times during July.

3. Ian Hamilton to Churchill, 24 October 1930 (Churchill Papers: 8/269), in Martin Gilbert, ed., The Churchill Documents, vol. 12, The Wilderness Years 1929-1935 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2009), 208-09.

4. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 5, Prophet of Truth 1922-1939 (Hillsdale College Press, 2009), 704.

5. Ibid.

6. Lynne Olson, Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007), 167.

7. Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill (London: HarperCollins, 1994), 23.

Fateful Questions, September 1943-April 1944, nineteenth of a projected twenty-three document volumes in the official biography, Winston S. Churchill, is reviewed by historian Andrew Roberts in Commentary. 

These volumes comprise “every important document of any kind that concerns Churchill.” The present volume sets the size record. Fateful Questions is 2,752 pages long, representing an average of more than eleven pages per day. Yet at $60, it is a tremendous bargain. Order your copy from the Hillsdale College Bookstore.

Here is an excerpt from my account, “Fresh History,” which can be read in its entirety at the Hillsdale College Churchill Project.

Questions: Science

A criticism frequently leveled at Churchill is that he was so fixed on defeating Hitler that he never looked ahead—to the problems of the peace as well as the likelihood of a powerful, proselytizing Soviet Union. Proof that Churchill recognized the Soviet danger is well documented in this book; he also looked toward the years of peace, and the potential of science for good or ill. (Professor A.V. Hill, who married a sister of John Maynard Keynes, was Independent MP for Cambridge University, 1940-45.)

30 October 1943. Winston S. Churchill to Professor A. V. Hill. (Churchill papers, 20/94).

Dear Professor Hill, I am very glad to have the opportunity to send through you my greetings and good wishes to Indian men of science and especially to the six Indian Fellows of the Royal Society, of which I am honoured to be myself a Fellow.

It is the great tragedy of our time that the fruits of science should by a monstrous perversion have been turned on so vast a scale to evil ends. But that is no fault of science. Science has given to this generation the means of unlimited disaster or of unlimited progress. When this war is won we shall have averted disaster. There will remain the greater task of directing knowledge lastingly towards the purposes of peace and human good. In this task the scientists of the world, united by the bond of a single purpose which overrides all bounds of race and language, can play a leading and inspiring part.

Questions: Recrimination vs. Magnanimity

Churchill famously deplored blaming British and French leaders for mistakes in the years leading up to the Second World War: “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present,” he declared after France fell in June 1940,“we shall find that we have lost the future.” He made good that magnanimous philosophy on many occasions—as these excerpts suggest, concerning Prime Minister Chamberlain and French General Georges. (Brendan Bracken was Minister of Information.)

4 October 1945. Winston S. Churchill to Brendan Bracken: Prime Minister’s Personal Minute M.638/3  (Churchill papers, 20/104)

In the film “The Nazis Strike” I must ask that the section showing Mr. Chamberlain’s arrival at Heston Airfield after Munich, and also the shot of his going fishing with a reference to the “tired old man of Munich” should be cut out, otherwise I could not be associated with the series. The story would run quite well from the signature at Munich to the meeting in Birmingham where Mr. Chamberlain made his declaration that we would support Poland, &c.

*****

19 October 1943. Winston S. Churchill to Alfred Duff Cooper: excerpt.  (Churchill papers, 20/94)

Personal and Secret: With regard to General Georges. In my opinion he is a very fine, honourable Frenchman. For him I feel a sentiment of friendship which started to grow when we made our tour of the Rhine front together a month before the War. I do not think he was to blame for the catastrophe, except that he ought to have been very much stronger in demanding the retirement of Gamelin at the outbreak of war. Much of his strength and energy was expended in opposing Gamelin, but the inherent rottenness of the French fighting machine and Government would have denied victory to any General.

Moreover, Georges is crippled from wounds received both in the late War and the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia. I do not forget, though this is a point which should not be mentioned to the French, that when Petain and Weygand at Briand in May 1940 were clamouring for our last reserves and resources, including the last Fighter Squadrons, well knowing that the battle was lost and that they meant to give in, it was Georges who informed our Military Liaison Officer that the French Government would ask for an armistice and that we should take our steps accordingly.

Questions: The Second Front

The greatest Anglo-American-Soviet strategy questions were over how much to throttle back the campaign in Italy (which had begun in September 1943) in support of “Operation Overlord,” the invasion of France, which all three allies agreed was the most direct route to Berlin and must go forward in 1944. Though this subject dominates our volume, these documents frame the debate. Among other things, they  illustrate that Churchill was not the only British leader who fumed over lost opportunities in Italy.

25 October 1943. General Sir Alan Brooke: diary. (“War Diaries, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke,” page 56)

It is becoming more and more evident that our operations in Italy are coming to a standstill and that owing to lack of resources we shall not only come to a standstill, but also find ourselves in a very dangerous position unless the Russians go on from one success to another. Our build up in Italy is much slower than the German, and far slower than I had expected. We shall have an almighty row with the Americans who have put us in this position with their insistence to abandon the Mediterranean operations for the very problematical cross Channel operations. We are now beginning to see the full beauty of the Marshall strategy! It is quite heartbreaking when we see what we might have done this year if our strategy had not been distorted by the Americans.

*****

26 October 1943. Lord Moran: diary. (“Winston Churchill, the Struggle for Survival,” pages 130–31)

The PM is already beginning to have his own doubts and hesitations….His face was glum, his jaw set, misgivings filled his mind. “Stalin seems obsessed by this bloody Second Front,” he muttered angrily. “I can be obstinate too.” He jumped out of bed and began pacing up and down. “Damn the fellow,” he said under his breath. And then he rang for a secretary. When he began dictating a telegram to the Foreign Secretary I got up to leave the room. “No, Charles, don’t go. This,” grumbled the PM, “is what comes of a lawyer’s agreement to attack on a fixed date without regard to the ever-changing fortunes of war.”

Alex’s [Field Marshal Alexander] fears had upset the PM. His mind was now made up. He turned to the secretary, who held her pencil ready. “I will not allow the great and fruitful campaign in Italy to be cast away and end in a frightful disaster, for the sake of crossing the Channel in May. The battle must be nourished and fought out until it is won. Molotov must be warned,” the PM continued striding to the door and back, “that the assurances I gave to Stalin about ‘Overlord’ in May are subject to the exigencies of the battle in Italy. Eisenhower and Alex must have what they need to win the battle, no matter what effect is produced on subsequent operations. Stalin ought to be told bluntly that ‘Overlord’ might have to be postponed.”

*****

29 October 1943. Winston S. Churchill to Anthony Eden. Prime Minister’s Personal Telegram T.1764/3 (Churchill papers, 20/122)

Most Immediate. Most Secret and Personal. There is of course no question of abandoning “Overlord” which will remain our principal operation for 1944. The retention of landing-craft in the Mediterranean in order not to lose the battle of Rome may cause a slight delay, perhaps till July, as the smaller class of landing-craft cannot cross the Bay of Biscay in the winter months and would have to make the passage in the Spring. The delay would however mean that the blow when struck would be with somewhat heavier forces, and also that the full bombing effort on Germany would not be damped down so soon. We are also ready at any time to push across and profit by a German collapse. These arguments may be of use to you in discussion.

 *****

30 November 1943. Winston S. Churchill and Josef Stalin: notes of a conversation, Soviet Embassy, Teheran (Cabinet papers, 120/113)

Most Secret. The Prime Minister said that he was half American and he had a great affection for the American people. What he was going to say was not to be understood as anything disparaging of the Americans and he would be perfectly loyal towards them, but there were things which it was better to say between two persons.

We had a preponderance of troops over the Americans in the Mediterranean. There were three to four times more British troops than American there. That is why he was anxious that the troops in the Mediterranean should not be hamstrung if it could be avoided, and he wanted to use them all the time. In Italy there were some 13 to 14 divisions of which 9 or 10 were British. There were two armies, the 5th Anglo-American Army, and the 8th Army, which was entirely British. The choice had been represented as keeping to the date of “Overlord” or pressing on with the operations in the Mediterranean. But that was not the whole story.

*

The Americans wanted him to attack, to undertake an amphibious operation in the Bay of Bengal against the Japanese in March. He was not keen about it. If we had in the Mediterranean the landing craft needed for the Bay of Bengal, we would have enough to do all we wanted in the Mediterranean and still be able to keep to an early date for “Overlord.”

It was not a choice between the Mediterranean and the date of “Overlord,” but between the Bay of Bengal and the date of “Overlord.” He thought we would have all we wanted in the way of landing craft. However, the Americans had pinned us down to a date for “Overlord” and operations in the Mediterranean had suffered in the last two months. Our army was somewhat disheartened by the removal of the 7 divisions. We had sent home our 3 divisions and the Americans were sending theirs, all in preparation for “Overlord.” That was the reason for not taking full advantage with the Italian collapse. But it also proved the earnestness of our preparations for “Overlord.”

 

Questions: Bombing Civilians

Churchill’s questioning of Allied “carpet bombing” is well established in this volume. Churchill was concerned over bombing civilians in the forthcoming invasion of France. Here he voices his worries to the Supreme Commander; in the event, Eisenhower convinced him that certain French casualties would have to be expected.

3 April 1944. Winston S. Churchill to General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Churchill papers, 20/137)

Top Secret. Personal and Private. My dear General, The Cabinet today took rather a grave and on the whole an adverse view of the proposal to bomb so many French railway centres, in view of the fact that scores of thousands of French civilians, men, women, and children, would lose their lives or be injured. Considering that they are all our friends, this might be held to be an act of very great severity, bringing much hatred on the Allied Air Forces. It was decided that the Defence Committee should consider the matter during this week, and that thereafter the Foreign Office should address the State Department and I should myself send a personal telegram to the President.

The argument for concentration on these particular targets is very nicely balanced on military grounds. I myself have not heard the arguments which have led to the present proposal. The advantage to enemy propaganda seem to me to be very great, especially as this would not be in the heat of battle but a long time before. Would it not also be necessary to consult General de Gaulle and the French National Committee of Liberation? There were many other arguments that were mentioned, and I thought I ought to let you know at this stage how the proposal was viewed.

Questions in the House

Despite his burdens, Churchill routinely faced Questions in the House of Commons. He did so with relish and skill. From many questions and answers, this exchange on “Basic English” provides an example.

Willie Gallacher, a frequent critic, was Communist MP for West Fife, Scotland. Henry Wedderburn, Conservative MP for Renfrew, was jibing Churchill over one of his invented words, “triphibian,” referring to British prowess on land, on sea and in the air. The Prime Minister responded with one of his favorite archaic words, “purblind”….

4 November 1943. House of Commons: Questions

Sir Leonard Lyle asked the Prime Minister when the Committee of Ministers set up to study and report upon Basic English are expected to reach their conclusion?

The Prime Minister: I hope to receive the recommendations of this Committee before very long.

Sir Lonard Lyle: When we do get this Report will the BBC be asked to adopt it, or will they still continue to use Basic BBC?

The Prime Minister: Basic English is not intended for use among English-speaking people but to enable a much larger body of people who do not have the good fortune to know the English language to participate more easily in our society.

Mr. Gallacher: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider introducing Basic Scottish?

Mr. Wedderburn: Does Basic English include the word “triphibious”?

The Prime Minister: I have tried to explain that people are quite purblind who discuss this matter as if Basic English were a substitute for the English language.

 

Questions: Will he die when it’s over?

Little escaped the wide net of Sir Martin Gilbert, who assembled a virtual day-by-day record of Churchill’s life. From here the Hillsdale team has assembled them in readable form, attaching a host of footnotes and cross references. Occasionally we include published recollections. Here is one by Lady Diana Cooper: a startling and grim prediction she heard from Clementine Churchill. Fortuitously, in this case, Clementine was wrong.

 12 January 1944. Mary Soames: recollection. (‘Clementine Churchill’, page 350)

Diana Cooper recounted a “curious calm and sad conversation” with Clementine, after a dinner in Marrakesh:

“I was talking about postwar days and proposed that instead of a grateful country building Winston another Blenheim, they should give him an endowed manor house with acres for a farm and gardens to build and paint in. Clemmie very calmly said: “I never think of after the war. You see, I think Winston will die when it’s over.”

She said this so objectively that I could not bring myself to say the usual “What nonsense!” but tried something about it was no use relying on death; people lived to ninety or might easily, in our lives, die that day…. But she seemed quite certain and quite resigned to his not surviving long into peace. “You see, he’s seventy and I’m sixty and we’re putting all we have into this war, and it will take all we have.”  It was touching and noble.

Churchill and the Avoidable War

Preface

This book examines Churchill’s theory that “timely action” could have forced Hitler to recoil, and a devastating catastrophe avoided. We consider his proposals, and the degree to which he pursued them. Churchill was both right and wrong. He was right that Hitler could have been stopped. He was wrong in not doing all he could to stop him. The result is a corrective to traditional arguments, both of Churchill’s critics and defenders. Whether the war was avoidable hangs on these issues.

Chapter 1. Germany Arming:  Encountering Hitler, 1930-34

“There is no difficulty at all in having cordial relations between the peoples….But never will you have friendship with the present German Government. You must have diplomatic and correct relations, but there can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi power….That power cannot ever be the trusted friend of the British democracy.” —Churchill, 1934

Some claim Churchill was “for Hitler before he was against him.” To say he admired Hitler is true in one abstract sense. He admired the Führer’s political skill, his ability to dominate and to lead. With his innate optimism he even hoped briefly that Hitler might “mellow.” But in his broad understanding of Hitler, Churchill was right all along: dead right.

Chapter 2. Germany Armed: “Hitler and His Choice,” 1935-36

Recently [Hitler] has offered many words of reassurance, eagerly lapped up by those who have been so tragically wrong about Germany in the past.  —Churchill, 1935

It is widely stated that Churchill admired Hitler, to the point of suggesting that if Britain had been defeated it could have benefitted from someone like him. Herein we examine Churchill’s contentious essay, “Hitler and His Choice,” in the Strand Magazine, 1935. We also evaluate Churchill’s mid-1930s warnings of the perils of disarmament.

Chapter 3. The Rhineland :“They had only to act to win,” 1936

“Mr. Baldwin explained [to French Foreign Minister Flandin] that although he knew little of foreign affairs he was able to interpret accurately the feelings of the British people. And they wanted peace. M. Flandin says that he rejoined that the only way to ensure this was to stop Hitlerite aggression while such action was still possible.” —Churchill, 1948

Churchill later stated that Hitler could have been stopped when he marched into the Rhineland in 1936. This on the evidence is true. At the time, though, Churchill failed to press the issue. Hoping for office under Baldwin, who had become prime minister once again, he chose not to buck his party’s leader, clinging to a hope that the French would act alone; but they would not move without tacit British support.

Chapter 4. Derelict State: The Austrian Anschluss, 1938

            “Europe is confronted with a programme of aggression, nicely calculated and timed, unfolding stage by stage, and there is only one choice open, not only to us, but to other countries who are unfortunately concerned—either to submit, like Austria, or else to take effective measures while time remains….” —Churchill, 1938

In 1935 Hitler assured Austria of her independence. In February 1938 he summoned the Austrian Chancellor in February 1938, demanding appointment of a Nazi Interior and Security Minister. In London, The Times stated that “no one but a fanatic” would believe this meant a “Nazified Austria.” A month later, Hitler proclaimed an Anschluss, or union with Austria. Churchill did not see this coming, though he had warned in a general sense, and his prescience was justified. Czechoslovakia, he predicted, would Hitler’s next conquest.

Chapter 5. Munich’s Mortal Follies, October 1938

            “Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness….I do not grudge our loyal, brave people, who were ready to do their duty no matter what the cost….but they should know the truth. They should know that there has been gross neglect and deficiency in our defences; they should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road.” —Churchill, 1938

The Munich agreement, which entrenched Hitler in power and gave him Czechoslovakia with its military factories, is held today the classic example of fatal appeasement. Yet a curious narrative has evolved that Munich was actually wise, since it gave the Allies another year to arm. Less often remarked is that it also gave Germany another year, and even German sources agree the Nazis were less formidable in 1938. What was there about fighting them in 1939-40 that made it preferable? Was it Hitler’s eradication of Poland in three weeks, the Low Countries in sixteen days, France in six weeks? This chapter also examines the credible 1938 plot to overthrow Hitler. After Munich the plotters despaired. Most were later executed.

Chapter 6. “Favourable Reference to the Devil”:

The Russian Enigma, 1938-39

            “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest. —Churchill, 1939

As Churchill predicted, Munich sealed Czechoslovakia’s fate. In mid-March 1939, Czech President Emil Hácha, threatened with the bombing of Prague, agreed to German occupation of the rest of his country, which was renamed the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia—an arrangement which “in its unctuous mendacity was remarkable even for the Nazis.” This chapter examines Churchill’s evaluation of the Soviet versus Nazi danger; his conclusion that the latter was the greater threat; his urgent efforts to encourage an understanding with the Russians; and the rebuff his prescriptions received by the British (and to some extent the Soviet) government.

 Chapter 7. Lost Best Hope: The America Factor, 1918-41

            “America should have minded her own business….If you hadn’t entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917….there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany.”

Google this alleged 1936 quotation and you’ll find a half dozen citations unquestioningly attributing it to Churchill—a striking reversal of his off-stated view that America could not avoid “world responsibility.” As World War II approached these alleged words resurfaced. Churchill sued the perpetrator and won. How he handled this peculiar case illustrates his consistent belief that the United States could not isolate itself—and that with American support the war could have been prevented.

Chapter 8. Was World War II Preventable?

“Embalm, cremate and bury—take no risks!”

“Here is a line of milestones to disaster. Here is a catalogue of surrenders, at first when all was easy and later when things were harder, to the ever-growing German power. But now at last was the end of British and French submission. Here was decision at last, taken at the worst possible moment and on the least satisfactory ground, which must surely lead to the slaughter of tens of millions of people.” —Churchill, 1948

This chapter contrasts British, French and German rearmament between Munich and the outbreak of war. It also looks at Churchill’s failed efforts to promote collective security with Russia and the United States. It examines the lost year when Prime Minister Chamberlain rebuffed overtures by Stalin and Roosevelt. Meanwhile, Hitler secured his eastern flank with a Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact.

 Summary: What Churchill Teaches Us Today

            “The word ‘appeasement’ is not popular, but appeasement has its place in all policy. Make sure you put it in the right place. Appease the weak, defy the strong. It is a terrible thing for a famous nation like Britain to do it the wrong way round…. Appeasement in itself may be good or bad according to the circumstances. Appeasement from weakness and fear is alike futile and fatal. Appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble and might be the surest and perhaps the only path to world peace.” —Churchill, 1952

            To her father’s admirers the late Lady Soames would always offer a commandment: “Thou shalt not say what my father would do today.” Modern situations are vastly different. The threat today is diffuse; in its totality it is by no means comparable to that embodied by Nazi Germany.

Was Churchill right that World War II was preventable? The answer is probably “yes—but with great difficulty.” Was he right that it is foolish to put off unpleasant reality “until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong”? Undoubtedly. The problem for leaders today is to judge when discretion should take priority over action, when diplomacy is yet a feasible option—and when and how to deploy a bluff.

Churchill and the Avoidable War will cost you the price of a cup of coffee. You can read it in a couple of nights.  You may then decide if Churchill was right that the Second World War could have been prevented. Click here for your copy.

Churchill called it “The Unnecessary War…. If the Allies had resisted Hitler strongly in his early stages…he would have been forced to recoil, and a chance would have been given to the sane elements in German life.”

The Second World War was the defining event of our age—the climactic clash between liberty and tyranny. It led to revolutions, the demise of empires, a protracted Cold War, and religious strife still not ended. Yet Churchill maintained that it was all avoidable.

This book is available as a Kindle Single or an illustrated paperback via Amazon USA and Amazon UK. I would be most grateful any reader posts  a short review on the Amazon pages. Just go to the Amazon page and scroll down to “reader reviews.”

For book reviews by Manfred Weidhorn, Warren Kimball and Charles Crist, please click here.

The war problem as Churchill saw it

This book examines Churchill’s argument: his prescriptions to prevent war, not in retrospect but at the time. Here are his formulas, his actions, the degree to which he pursued them. Churchill was both right and wrong. Hitler was stoppable; yet even Churchill did not do all he could to stop him. The text covers what really happened—evidence that has been “hiding in public” for many years. It is thoroughly referenced with over 200 footnotes to Churchill’s words and those of his contemporaries.

We must bear in mind that for ten years before war began Churchill was out of office. He had no plenary authority. But he did have stature, and the challenges were great. There was the rise of Hitler; the rearming of Germany; violations of the Versailles Treaty. There was the push for German hegemony, the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria. Then came the Munich Agreement and the  seizure of Czechoslovakia. Along the way were many missed opportunities for useful relationships with Russia and America. Of course the challenges were Britain’s alone—particularly in the cases of the Rhineland and Czechoslovakia.

Churchill’s warning

It is proper to consider the lessons of the past as a guide to similar challenges now and in the future. But as Churchill wrote:

Let no one look down on those honourable, well-meaning men whose actions are chronicled in these pages, without searching his own heart, reviewing his own discharge of public duty, and applying the lessons of the past to his future conduct.

We must avoid applying the fatal decisions of the Avoidable War to today’s problems. Yet that is what we do. His words were applied from the 1948 Berlin blockade through the Cold War. More recently they were quoted over the Korean and Vietnam wars, the Suez and Cuban crises. Even more recently we heard and hear them about Palestine, North Korea, Iran, Russia, China….

Contents 

Chapter 1. Germany Arming: Encountering Hitler, 1930-34

Chapter 2. Germany Armed: “Hitler and His Choice,” 1935-36

Chapter 3. Churchill and the Rhineland: “They had only to act to win,” 1936

Chapter 4. Derelict State: The Austrian Anschluss, 1938

Chapter 5: Churchill and Munich: Lost Opportunities and Mortal Follies, October 1938

Chapter 6. “Favourable Reference to the Devil”: The Russian Enigma, 1938-39

Chapter 7. Lost Best Hope: The America Factor, 1918-41

Chapter 8. Was World War II Preventable? “Embalm, cremate and bury—take no risks!”

Summary: What Churchill Teaches Us Today

More articles on the Avoidable War

“Churchill’s Hitler Essays: He Knew the Führer from the Start,” 2024.

“Churchill’s War Memoirs: Simply Great Reading,” 2023.

“Hitler’s Sputtering Austrian Anschluss,” 2020.

“Munich Reflections: Peace for ‘A’ Time and the Case for Resistance,” 2020.

“The Indian Contribution to the Second World War,” 2017

The most touching and durable vision left by Mr. Maier comes toward the end of this long book: the famous White House ceremony in April 1963, as President Kennedy presents Sir Winston Churchill (in absentia) with Honorary American Citizenship—while from an upstairs window his stroke-silenced father, Joseph P. Kennedy, watches closely, with heaven knows what reflections:

Whatever thoughts raced through the mind of Joe Kennedy—the rancor of the past, the lost opportunities of his own political goals, and the tragic forgotten dreams he had once had for his oldest son, could not be expressed. His weak, withered body, with its disfigured mouth, no longer served him…could say nothing in his own defense.

This is a readable book, elegantly written, which commits some errors. It contains much known information, except perhaps for encyclopedic revelations of which Churchills and Kennedys were sleeping with whom. In some ways one is reminded of a description applied by Warren Kimball to Volume 3 in the Manchester Churchill trilogy The Last Lion: “A nice cruise down a lengthy river you’ve sailed before.”

Meetings and consequences

The biographies surround occasions when the two families meet (or collide): 1933, 1935, 1938, and so on. Much of what we read about John F. Kennedy’s remarkable affinity for Churchill has been recorded earlier, by Barbara Leaming, in Jack Kennedy: The Education of a Statesman (2006).

Along the way are interesting takes. Churchill’s interest in secret intelligence, for example, is traced to the Boer War, when young Winston “performed a bit of reconnaissance work, posing as a civilian riding a bicycle” in the Boer capital of Pretoria. Mr. Maier tracks the Joe Kennedy-Churchill relationship thoroughly, establishing that it began in 1933 (five years before JPK became Roosevelt’s Ambassador to Britain), when he and Churchill did some joint business involving the liquor trade. This, he suggests, might today be termed influence peddling—but Churchill held no office from 1929 to 1939.

Mr. Maier gets quite a few Churchill points wrong. There’s an incomplete account of the scandal involving Lord Alfred Douglas, who in 1916 libeled Churchill (“short of money and eager for power”), accusing him of manipulating war news to benefit his mentor Sir Ernest Cassel. Maier might have added that Churchill sued and won…or that in 1941, when Douglas published a sonnet praising the now-prime minister, Churchill forgave him on the spot, saying, “Time ends all things.”

Balanced criticism

Perhaps it is hard nowadays to credit many people with kindness and altruism, like Sir Henry Strakosch, who took over Churchill’s portfolio and preserved WSC’s dwindled finances. Maier calls this a “bailout plan…considered more a gift than graft by Churchill and his benefactors….” But graft is “the unscrupulous use of a politician’s authority for personal gain.” Strakosch never made one demand of Churchill. He acted only in appreciation for the man and the leader.

Churchill the imperialist is not ignored. “Winston showed little enthusiasm for the revolutionary spirit of independence among those living in former colonies of the British Empire such as India, South Africa, Kenya, or even neighboring Ireland,” Maier writes. Not so fast! What about his post-1935 encouragement to Gandhi and Nehru; his loyalty to Smuts, who opposed Apartheid; praise of locally-ruled Kenya in 1908; his instrumental role in the 1921 Treaty that brought independence to Ireland? Against such omissions, the canard that Churchill wanted to use “poison gas” against Iraqi tribesman stands in some contrast.

In World War II, Maier writes, “when the Communist guerrillas threatened to take control of Yugoslavia, Churchill underlined his concern by sending his only son.” No: Churchill had determined that Tito’s Communists were “killing more Huns” than the royalists, and sent his son to aid Tito. And Tito was not a “Soviet puppet.”

Kennedys and Winston

Maier says Joe Kennedy “blamed Roosevelt and Churchill for the death of his son Joe Jr.” No specific evidence exists for this.

A media kerfuffle was raised by the book’s report that after the war, WSC told Senator Styles Bridges (R., N.H.) that America should nuke Moscow before the Russians got their hands on the bomb. This was perfectly legitimate to record, but raised shock headlines among the ignorant media. As noted elsewhere, the story is not new. Churchill often voiced apocalyptic notions to visitors to observe their reaction. He never made that proposal to any plenary U.S. authority. As Graham Farmelo wrote in Churchill’s Bomb: “This was the zenith of Churchill’s nuclear bellicosity.” He soon softened his line, telling Parliament in January 1948 that the best chance of avoiding war was “to arrive at a lasting settlement” with the Soviets. Maier doesn’t acknowledge Churchill’s change of view until 1952. He adds that Churchill “would drop the bomb if he could.” That is simply unproven. And unlikely.

* * *

Other basic errors include the assertion that Winston’s father never visited him at school, that Churchill’s war memoirs comprised four volumes, that the Munich Agreement was in 1939, that Egypt was a former British colony (508). Among the trivial are mis-titling a Churchill article and identifying “Toby” the green parakeet as Churchill’s “white canary.”

Churchill’s description of Munich as a “choice between War and Shame” was not said in Parliament; “MBE” does not stand for Member of the British Empire. Lord and Lady Churchill, Lady Nancy Astor or “Sonny” Marlborough never existed. Tw0 nannies are misnamed: Elizabeth Everest (not “Everett”) and Marriott Whyte (not “Madeleine White).”

Fathers and sons

The book finishes with thoughtful reflections. Jack and Bobby got on much better with their father than Randolph with his, Maier suggests. Yet the Kennedy sons were far from their father in outlook and policy. After Joe’s stroke, “Jack and Bobby interacted with their father as they always did, as if he might suddenly talk back to them.” But poor Randolph Churchill just talked back. “I do so very much love that man,” Randolph says in tears, after being pointedly ejected from the Onassis yacht following a flaming attack on his aged father, “but something always goes wrong between us.”

Did Winston spoil Randolph to the point of disaster? Or did he subconsciously communicate a wish that Randolph could never be his equal? Did Joe Kennedy accept early on that great political prizes would not be his, but  for his sons? Mr. Maier leaves his readers to draw their own conclusions. His summary well crafted summary:

This legacy between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, the eternal questions about families and fate, and our lasting impression of greatness, were all part of the shared experience between the Churchills and the Kennedys. In the twentieth century, no two families existed on a bigger world stage…. With courage, wit, and unforgettable determination, both Winston S. Churchill and John F. Kennedy helped define and save the world as we know it today.

That is a bit of overreach: comparing the lengths of their careers and the scales of the two salvations. But save it they did.