Tag: winston-churchill

Review: The Hinge of Fate

Review: The Hinge of Fate

The Second World War, Volume IV: The Hinge of Fate by Winston S. Churchill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I find that I am liking each one of these volumes more than the last. The pleasure of this history is that, through the eyes of Winston Churchill, the war takes the shape of an enormous board game, played over months and years. Far removed from the gore of the front lines, Churchill sees the conflict as symbols on a map, which he needs to arrange in the most advantageous possible way—a game he plays brilliantly. This is not to say that he is frivolous or superficial. But warfare is far more palatable when experienced from the command chair than from the trenches.

Added to purely military decisions is the messier business of courting allies. Indeed, the best parts of this book describe Churchill’s cultivation of his relationships with Roosevelt and Stalin. Dealing with the Americans was relatively easy, as Roosevelt and Churchill seemed to have gotten along very well. Nevertheless, working so closely together required constant coordination of plans, both short-term and long-term; and Churchill sometimes struggled to get the American command to accept his military vision.

With Stalin, relations were far more tense. The Soviet leader is constantly demanding from Churchill fresh supplies and for a second front in France. Churchill, meanwhile, does his best to placate Stalin while firmly refusing to do what he feels is unwise. This culminates in his 1942 visit to Moscow, narrated in the two best chapters of the book. Churchill, sure that he will not be able to invade France in 1942, decides he must deliver this message personally if he is to maintain his working relationship with the Soviets. Stalin, at first, doesn’t take the news well, but by the end they are up all night, drinking vodka. In virtually any other circumstances, the two men would have been sworn enemies, and it is fascinating to see them try to cooperate.

The title of the book is quite apt, as it contains the battles that marked the beginning of the end for both Germany and Japan: Midway, Stalingrad, and Tunisia. These books, it should be remembered, are public memoirs rather than objective history; and so Stalingrad and Midway, being battles Churchill had nothing to do with, get only a cursory treatment. Northern Africa, on the other hand, occupies much of the book, as British and then American forces beat Rommel, invaded the Vichy territories, and finally won a decisive victory in Tunisia.

As a final thought, I am constantly surprised at how much I am learning from these books. Somehow, after a lifetime of World War II media, I knew close to nothing about operation “Torch,” and had no real idea of the significance of the Northern African campaigns. I was also unfamiliar with the Katyn massacres—Russia’s mass executions of Polish prisoners, an issue which Churchill felt he could not raise with the Soviets, for fear of hurting their relationship. Indeed, having been in Dresden just two weeks ago, I’ve had occasion to reflect that it was not only the axis who committed war crimes.



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Review: The Grand Alliance

Review: The Grand Alliance

The Grand Alliance by Winston S. Churchill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Churchill’s account of the Second World War continues. I am finding that these volumes have a kind of cumulative power, which far exceeds that of any single volume. As I slowly make my way through the war, month by month, campaign by campaign, theater by theater, the mind-boggling scale of the conflict is beginning to sink in. What would be major operations in other wars are here mere side-shows or diversions. To pick just one example, if the Anglo-Iraq War were to happen today, it would be considered a momentous event that dominated the news. But in the context of World War II, it hardly even registers.

Merely keeping track of all this—the troop strengths, the ships available to the Navy, the number of serviceable aircraft, all distributed literally around the globe—would strain any military organization today. Two silly but revealing examples illustrate just how many different places Churchill had to keep in mind. He insisted that Iceland be written with a (C) after it, so that it could never be confused with Ireland (R). And he also preferred that Iran be called “Persia,” since otherwise somebody might confuse it with Iraq. The very idea that people might mix up what countries to attack or defend I think says more about the scale of the War than any superlative could.

But the military organization is only half of the equation. For Churchill is always acutely aware of the political situation, in ways that strictly military commanders are not.

To pick a simple example, Churchill has occasion to criticize a general for putting a British regiment in a relatively safe zone, while sending colonial forces into battle—for the apparently superficial, but politically real, reason that it reflects poorly on the British government. Indeed, Churchill’s frustrations with General Auchinleck’s hesitations to attack Rommel in North Africa reminded me very much of Lincoln’s own admonishments to George B. McClellan to be more aggressive. In both cases, the political leader realized the value of at least appearing to have the initiative. Appearances are important when you are courting potential allies and public opinion.

Like Manny, I was also impressed by Churchill’s willingness to put politics aside in order to win the war. Few politicians in Britain, I imagine, were less sympathetic to Soviet Communism than Churchill. But as soon as Hitler made his great error and commenced Operation Barbarossa, Churchill did not hesitate to send vital supplies and equipment to his former foe, even though it weakened his own position—correctly predicting that a strong Russian defense would debilitate the German army. The tense and sometimes downright rude correspondence between Stalin and Churchill was especially interesting to read. Even then, at the beginning of their alliance, the Cold War was looming ahead.



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