|
Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World | 
 enlarge | Author: Patrick J. Buchanan
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy Used: $17.00
You Save: $12.95 (43%)
New (42) Used (8) from $17.00
Rating:  97 reviews
Sales Rank: 3188
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 544
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.8
ISBN: 030740515X
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.5311
EAN: 9780307405159
ASIN: 030740515X
Publication Date: May 27, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Clean copy. Dust Cover slightly worn with age and has marker on back along with library sticker on binding. First about 30 pages seem to have come in contact with water. Outside edge of pages have minor dirt grey in color. bottom edge of pages has a library stamp. Ships within 2 business days. All items guaranteed.
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Were World Wars I and II—which can now be seen as a thirty-year paroxysm of slaughter and destruction—inevitable? Were they necessary wars? Were the bloodiest and most devastating conflicts ever suffered by mankind fated by forces beyond men’s control? Or were they products of calamitous failures of judgment? In this monumental and provocative history, Patrick Buchanan makes the case that, if not for the blunders of British statesmen—Winston Churchill first among them—the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust might have been avoided and the British Empire might never have collapsed into ruins. Half a century of murderous oppression of scores of millions under the iron boot of Communist tyranny might never have happened, and Europe’s central role in world affairs might have been sustained for many generations.
Among the British and Churchillian blunders were:
• The secret decision of a tiny cabal in the inner Cabinet in 1906 to take Britain straight to war against Germany, should she invade France
• The vengeful Treaty of Versailles that muti- lated Germany, leaving her bitter, betrayed, and receptive to the appeal of Adolf Hitler
• Britain’s capitulation, at Churchill’s urging, to American pressure to sever the Anglo- Japanese alliance, insulting and isolating Japan, pushing her onto the path of militarism and conquest
• The 1935 sanctions that drove Italy straight into the Axis with Hitler
• The greatest blunder in British history: the unsolicited war guarantee to Poland of March 1939—that guaranteed the Second World War
• Churchill’s astonishing blindness to Stalin’s true ambitions.
Certain to create controversy and spirited argument, Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War” is a grand and bold insight into the historic failures of judgment that ended centuries of European rule and guaranteed a future no one who lived in that vanished world could ever have envisioned.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 92 more reviews...
 What Might (Not) Have Been May 28, 2008
Eric Mayforth (Houston, TX United States)
202 out of 244 found this review helpful
Patrick Buchanan has never been shy about taking positions that defy conventional wisdom. He does so again in this extremely well-written and well-documented book (there are over 1300 endnotes). Buchanan argues that both world wars, which constituted a "Civil War of the West", were not necessary and would not have taken place had unwise diplomatic decisions not been made by the major European powers.
In the opening decade of the twentieth century, Germany had a chance to form an alliance with Britain, but let the opportunity pass, as the Kaiser did not believe that England would ever reconcile with France. However, Britain did reconcile with its longtime adversaries, France and Russia, and in 1906 the British secretly agreed to back France should Germany attack. Had the Kaiser known that war with France meant war with Britain, he would have been more conciliatory, as he never wanted war with Britain. On the other hand, had Britain not been pledged to help the French when World War I did come, and had they stayed out of the war, Germany would have defeated France as they had in 1870, but there would have been no Nazi Germany and no Soviet Union as a result the war.
In the interwar years, Britain alienated longtime allies Japan and Italy, who eventually formed an alliance with Nazi Germany.
The Second World War came about, Buchanan believes, as a result of Britain's disastrous guarantee to protect Poland (which it was incapable of doing anyway). Hitler did not want war with Britain, as evidenced by the fact that he never attempted to build a strong navy. If Germany had moved east and had the democracies not intervened, Buchanan opines, Germany would have run into the Soviet Union and the result would have been a Nazi-Soviet war that the democracies would have watched from the sidelines. The totalitarian nations would have pounded each other to death, while the democracies would have had a chance to rearm and become stronger relative to a decimated Germany and a decimated Russia (and China might not have gone Communist, meaning that millions might not have been murdered there). As it worked out in real life, however, America and Britain had to push all the way eastward through France and only then into the western half of Germany. By the time that they did, the Soviets had clamped down on Eastern Europe. Buchanan judges Churchill harshly--Britain was bankrupt and lost its empire shortly after WWII.
The book is a stark assertion that history could have turned out much differently. And while Buchanan's thesis is certainly debatable, and while you may not agree with Buchanan's isolationism concerning today's world, this book is worth reading since it forces one to reexamine many previous assumptions held by most people (especially those who were born well after World War II and never have heard how history might have turned out differently) concerning the two world wars, and the book is sure to ignite debate on cable news shows and on the talk radio circuit.
 Outstanding and Very Timely! May 28, 2008
Loyd E. Eskildson (Phoenix, AZ.)
155 out of 195 found this review helpful
The question Buchanan addresses is not whether the British were heroic - that has been settled long ago for all time. Rather, the question is "Were their statesmen wise?" (Was WWII an unnecessary war?)
The second reason Buchanan gives for writing the book is to collapse the Churchill cult among America's elite that asserts defiance of the U.S. must be met very harshly, and such leaders seen as new Hitlers.
Churchill was the most forceful advocate in the British Cabinet for entering any Franco-German War in 1911. Most of England's leaders were against such, but relented in the face of popular pressure. Churchill saw an opportunity in this for himself to shine as a war leader - building on his prior record in the Boer War and elsewhere. Buchanan, however, sees a chain of "if only . . ." involving leaders from all the involved nations that not only brought WWI but the ensuing foundation for WWII as well as the rise of Lenin in Russia (followed by Stalin, et al).
The British rationale included preserving France as a great power (an early application of the "domino theory"), preserving British honor by standing behind a 70+ year-old treaty with Belgium (Germany saw moving its troops through Belgium to attack France on its weak side), retaining popular support (became bellicose when Belgium was involved), and Germanphobia. The conflict also became seen as "Good against Evil," and making the "world safe for democracy." Following this logic, leaders of the Dominions, without being asked, also were swept up in the war hysteria that ultimately dismembered not only the British empire, but three others as well.
Buchanan asserts that had England not entered the war, Germany would not have taken Lenin from Geneva to St. Petersburg to take advantage of the chaos and push Russia to sue for peace, and the U.S. would not have entered. Even if the Bolsheviks still came to power, the victorious German army would have quickly removed them.
Unfortunately, the mistakes continued. The mood of the country required an onerous peace treaty with Germany. One-tenth her people and one-eighth the territory were taken, as well as it overseas empire and all private property of its citizens in those colonies. Its army was restricted to 100,000, much of its navy seized, it was forbidden to build tanks, heavy artillery, or an air force, and Germany was assessed impossible reparations and forced to accept full responsibility for causing the war. P.M. LLoyd George and John Maynard Keynes, among others, saw the settlement as sowing the seeds of future conflict. The U.S., for its part, demanded that England not renew is 1902 alliance with Japan - pushing it into belligerency.
Hitler achieved great popularity by forcing other nations to allow former German areas to rejoin Germany. Chamberlin's error was not in reaching agreement with Hitler in Munich ("appeasement"), but failing to use the time it bought to rearm. Then, frustrated by Hitler's continued moves and embarrassed by Munich, Chamberlin gave Poland a promise to defend it - even though there was no way England could enforce such.
Actually it was in England's interest that Hitler move East towards Russia. Both England and Germany stopped communicating, misunderstood each other, and the war began. (Buchanan also presents considerable evidence that Hitler did not have a goal of world conquest - backed up by Hitler's actions, words, and writings.)
Hitler saw Russia as eventually attacking Germany, and with resources that would allow Germany to become self-sufficient. Thus, he attacked Russia, even after agreeing not to.
The end of Buchanan's book brings his summary of Churchill. Yes, a great leader in some ways, but hardly infallible - primarily because his actions largely led to WWI, WWII, and the rise of Stalin. Churchill also underestimated the role of aircraft and submarines vs. ships, caused neutral Norway to be taken by Germany, sold out Poland and other nations to appease Russia, initiated a number of tactical blunders, supported a naval blockade of Germany during WWII that starved 750,000, supporting civilian bombing of Germany during WWII - as well as the use of poison gas, fire-bombing, and germ-warfare on civilians.
Buchanan's belief that the hundred+ million killed in WWI, WWII, and the Stalinist purges could (should) have been prevented is documented from those involved at the time, as well as contemporary historians. "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War" also painfully makes clear how lack of communication between the parties sealed the momentum towards war, and jingoistic notions of patriotism were misused for incorrect assumptions and personal glory.
Finally, Buchanan sees a parallel between England 100 years ago and the U.S. We are now greatly overextended - forces in too many lands, too many defense guarantees, and pushing other nations around until they create new blocs (eg. Russia + China). He also notes that Bush II keeps a bust of Churchill in the Oval Office.
No book that I've ever read makes clearer the need for leaders to have a good grasp of history (eg. Britain not only allowed itself to be sucked into WWI via its treaty with Belgium, but into WWII as well, via a pointless pact with Poland), and full control of their emotions and motivations.
A must read for those interested in the 20th century Eurpoean conflagration. May 29, 2008
JanSobieski (United States of America)
103 out of 135 found this review helpful
What is it about popular opinion that ossifies the mind making it impervious to view points that do not conform to the prevailing orthodoxy. Buchanan has been vilified here and elsewhere for daring to suggest that in order to understand the calamities of the 20th century one must revisit the World War I.
He has dared to suggest that the Hun may not have been exclusively guilty for World War I and that the costs of World War II can be attributed to the titanic political failures of British statesmanship throughout the first 40 years of the 20th century. He does not exonerate the Germans, merely points out the other side of the story.
No one comes under more scathing criticism than Winston Churchill who has long been one of my heroes (I felt for instance he should have been named man of the century by Time magazine). Churchill, when his country was careening towards the precipice of WWI was positively giddy with excitement overwhelming cooler heads in the Cabinet at the time.
For daring to suggest an alternative perspective Buchanan has been smeared as an anti-Semite, a Germanophile, a Holocaust denier, a hater, a bigot, a racist - you name it, the left has pulled out the stops to discredit him.
But, despite being a great admirer of Churchill, I believe this is an important book that should be read by anyone interested in this period of history. Buchanan writes clearly and engagingly. Even if you don't agree with everything Buchanan says, I certainly do not, this book is certain to shake up your thinking.
Buchanan asks at the beginning of the book why European world hegemony was destroyed over 30 years at the beginning of the 20th century. Throughout the book he reminds us of the costs in lives, treasure and cultural confidence of the European 30 year war (World Wars I & II).
Buchanan does enjoy the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and exploits that advantage relentlessly. I also am of the opinion that Buchanan gives short shrift to the "other side of the argument." He is also not above a little distortion. For just one instance, Churchill made the comment that WWII was "an unnecessary war" and Buchanan uses that comment to buttress his argument that the war was unnecessary which is not at all what Churchill was saying. Churchill was saying that had we intervened EARLIER that the war could have been avoided. Also, had the Allies addressed the legitimate grievances raised by the Versailles Treaty we could have eliminated the seething resentment of the German people.
Buchanan never suggests that Hitler was not an odious despicable creature or that he should have been allowed to dominate the European continent but rather that the Allies, through their alliance with Poland created a "trip wire" that served only to undermine the interests of Britain, France and the United States. Instead, Germany should have been allowed to dissipate her energies to the East with the dual scourges of the 20th century destroying one another. Buchanan is not a Hitler apologist, but simply suggests that there were better ways to deal with Hitler than the diplomatic choices that were made.
From the book: "Thus did the British government, in panic over a false report about a German invasion of Poland that was neither planned nor prepared, give a war guarantee to a dictatorship it did not trust, in part of Europe where it had no vital interests, committing itself to a war it could not win. . . . In the Great War, Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Japan and the United States put together almost failed to prevent Germany from occupying Paris. Now, without Russia or America, and with Japan and Italy hostile, Britain and France were going to keep the German army out of Warsaw. . . . Britain a half-year earlier had resisted going to war for a faraway country with democratic institutions, well-armed military forces, and strong fortifications (Czechoslovakia), now promised to go to war for a dictatorship with less-than-modern armed forces and wide-open frontiers."
I recommend this book very highly despite it's controversial perspective. This book manages to flesh out the geopolitical complexities of dealing with Hitler giving context to diplomatic actions taken by Britain during this period. My only suggestion is to avoid the temptation to "pile on" and pigeon hole Buchanan as a Holocaust denier and anti-Semite. For the record, neither, in my opinion, is true.
 Buchanan is twisting the facts May 30, 2008
H. Eisenberg (NE New Jersey, USA)
95 out of 172 found this review helpful
A great many historians have said WWI was unnecessary and Buchanan adds little in this regard. Austria picked a needless fight with Serbia, and then German picked a needless fight with Russia, even though the rulers of the latter two nations were cousins. England had more justification for entering the war than just about anyone else after Germany without provocation viciously attacked Belgium for no reason other than to try to find an easy way to invade France. Britain was pledged to protect Belgian neutrality as part of its policy of trying to maintain a balance of power in Europe. That British policy dated back to the time of Napoleon and was why Britain fought the Crimean war, for example.
It is with regard to WWII that Buchanan completely misses the boat. In 1938 Hitler demanded that Czechoslovakia relinquish the Sudetenland, a region that had NEVER been part Germany. It had, however, been part of Austria before WWI, and most of its people were German-speaking. Hitler claimed the Czechs were persecuting the Sudeten Germans, which was nonsense as Czechoslovakia was the only democracy in that part of the world. Of course Hitler had a few Sudeten stooges who formed a local Nazi party and were led by Conrad Heinlein. If the Sudeten Germans really wanted out of Czechoslovakia Hitler could have and would have called for a plebiscite, as he did in the case of the Saar, which really was part of Germany. The real reason Hitler wanted the Sudetenland was because it contained Czech fortifications, without which Czechoslovakia could not stand up to a Nazi invasion.
And so Hitler demanded the Sudetenland, claiming the Czechs were persecuting the Sudeten Germans and threatened war if he didn't get it. To entice Britain and France into agreeing to this, Hitler declared "This is my last territorial demand in Europe." To those who claimed Hitler wanted the Sudetenland to make it easy for him to conquer all of Czechosolvakia Hitler declared that notion was absurd. "We want no Czechs" he said.
Desperate for peace Britain's Neville Chamberlain and France's Edouard Deladier agreed to give Hitler the Sudetenland and pressured Czechoslovakia to give it up, which it did. Chamberlain was happy, believing he had achieved a guarantee from Hitler that there would be "peace in our time."
Just four months later Hitler, without provocation conquered the rest of Czechoslovakia. It was Chamberlain, not Churchill, who had been made a fool of by Hitler and Chamberlain was angry. It was Chamberlain (not Churchill) along with Deladier who then decided they should guarantee Poland's integrity. When Poland was attacked in September 1939, it was Chamberlain, not Churchill, who led England to declare war on Germany. Up to that point Churchill was nothing more than a backbencher in Parliament and held no position in Chamberlain's government.
What everyone except Buchanan knows is that it was the Hitler-Stalin pact of August 1939 that set off world War II in Europe. Though Hitler hated Stalin, he did not believe he was as yet strong enough to fight Stalin over Poland, as Buchanan believes. Based on the fact Britain and France had not gone to war to save Czechoslovakia, Hitler did not think they would go to war over Poland and so he thought he would have another bloodless conquest.
Stalin was a horrible individual but Hitler was worse for one main reason--Stalin committed his atrocities within his own country, while Hitler was attacking and conquering other countries, thereby making him the greater threat to the peace of the world.
Stalin knew Hitler hated him and Stalin therefore wanted to make common cause with the West to contain Hitler, but Britain and France weren't interested and so he made his pact with Hitler, thereby setting the stage for the outbreak of war.
Hitler not only hated the Jews, he also considered the Slavic people to be racially inferior and wanted to kill off their leaders and then enslave the rest of them in the service of the vast Nazi empire he envisioned. Had Britain and later America not stood up to him, we would have ended up with a world in which Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were the only two superpowers with all other nations either conquered by them or cowered into doing whatever the superpowers wanted.
 Sometimes Perceptive, But Generally Wrongheaded June 4, 2008
John D. Cofield
58 out of 82 found this review helpful
This is a work which relies heavily on secondary sources. Mr. Buchanan quotes so liberally and lavishly that at times he seems to be merely paraphrasing Niall Ferguson or Paul Johnson, among many others. Despite the multitudinous quotations, Mr. Buchanan does work some of his own ideas into this book, but again most of them are merely rehashments of old America First Committee arguments dating back to the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Mr. Buchanan examines the outbreaks of World Wars I and II and finds that one country, Britain, and one man, Winston Churchill, are primarily to blame. His summary of pre-1914 diplomacy and of the missteps which led to the outbreak of war in August, 1914 is interesting, but he puts too much emphasis on the machinations of a cabal of British politicians, led by Churchill, which wanted war while other nations' leaders, like the Kaiser, desperately tried to keep the peace. Most historians would agree with Mr. Buchanan that there was a war party in Britain, but would also point out that similar cabals and conspiracies existed in the other European states that summer of 1914, and that when the conflict did break out it was less the result of active machinations than of missteps and misunderstandings on the part of everyone involved. Similarly, Mr. Buchanan excoriates the Treaty of Versailles' harsh treatment of Germany, but fails to fully describe the impact of treaties Germany itself had forced upon Russia and Rumania earlier in the war. In other words, Mr. Buchanan tends to excuse the excesses of the Germans while he boils over with anger at the excesses of the British and other Allies.
Mr. Buchanan continues in this vein in his description of the lead up to World War II. Once again Churchill is his primary villain who seeks to deny Germany its rightful place in the world. Mr. Buchanan does provide some interesting information on the various issues which led to the Rhineland, Anschluss, and Munich Crises of the 1930s, but once again he seems overwhelmingly eager to blame the British and Churchill and excuse the Germans and Hitler. He quotes again and again from official documents from the Third Reich to reinforce his arguments that Hitler did not want war, especially against Western Europe, and was merely taking advantage of opportunities which came his way. This seems somewhat ingenuous. How often did Hitler and the rest of the Nazis actually say clearly what they intended to do, and when they did say it, how often did they keep their word?
Mr. Buchanan would have preferred Britain and France to have ignored Hitler in the 1930s. He says this would have allowed Hitler to launch war eastward against the Soviet Union, ultimately weakening both dictatorships and saving millions of lives. Perhaps, but he does not give enough attention to another awful outcome of such a scenario, that one or the other would have triumphed and become even more powerful and threatening.
Throughout this book Mr. Buchanan fully displays his well known preconceptions: the West is in decline, Christianity is dying, Africans and Asians benefited from European colonization, Communism was more of a threat than Fascism ever was, etc. He also makes a good and somewhat surprising (for him) point: neither world war was really fought to save democracy or any other noble purpose, but like all conflicts were the end results of rapacity and greed. The most interesting part is his final chapter, in which he draws parallels between the Britain of the 1920s and 1930s and the United States of today.
This is an interesting but middle brow sort of work with nothing much new to say except some contentious revisionism here and there without a lot of substance behind it. If you've already studied World Wars I and II Mr. Buchanan's elementary attempt to rewrite history will generally amuse you. If you're not that familiar with the period you'd be better off to start with something like Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August.
|
|
|
|
| |
