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
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Rating:  115 reviews
Sales Rank: 2846
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
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
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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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 110 more reviews...
 Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World December 2, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Patrick J. Buchanan's thesis is that Britain made a crucial error in guaranteeing to Poland what it admitted it couldn't guarantee to Czechoslovakia. In effect it agreed to go to war with Germany with an army it didn't have to defend a country that mere moments before had invaded and gobbled up part of one of its neighbours. What, he asks, would have happened if it had not done so? Almost certainly Germany would have gone on to invade Russia and Britain would have gone on to revitalize its industrial base in peace. Bankrupting the country and divesting it of its empire was hardly what Britons wanted. I have always been an admirer of Churchill but now, after reading Buchanan, I wonder if I should be. Did he not personally lead the country into a ruinous war that left the Socialists in power? Interesting thoughts.
 oh dear.... November 23, 2008
0 out of 15 found this review helpful
hello... this is the real world calling... if you know not what you talk and write about... please be quiet.... jeeesssss
 Tough Questions. Few Answers. November 18, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
They say war makes strange bed-fellows but WWII had some of the strangest. Buchanan has tackled a thorny subject- and once you start asking the sort of questions he asks, it's hard to stop. Could someone tell me why Russia was allowed to invade Poland and Germany was not? Why would 'racist' Hitler ally himself with 'yellow' Japan? Why would Hitler declare war on the U.S.? Why were the Nazi death camps not bombed? Why would Eisenhower allow Berlin to be taken by the Soviets (an indescribable slap in the face to Great Britain)? Why would the Allies join with the Soviets, who had there own death camps, there own violent expansionist policy and a dictator who was more psychotic and power-hungry than Hitler? Why were the civilian targets of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasake bombed for no other reason than cold-blooded revenge? (people still perpetuate the myth that Japan was unwilling to surrender before the A-bombs were dropped). Why, why, why...
An important book that needs to be read and understood November 17, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Pat Buchanan has written an important book, a book that needs to be read and understood by all those who are comfortable in their assumptions about the causes of World War 2. The main thesis of Buchanan's book is simple: Hitler did NOT want a world war, he wanted a war against the Soviet Union ONLY. It was the British government who sparked off the 'unnecessary' global war by offering an unconditional guarantee to Poland.
Of course, those who view Hitler as some kind of inhuman, satanic monster, will consider this argument as heresy, but cool, rational thinkers will be persuaded by the weight of the evidence presented in this book. Appeasement, contrary to what is generally believed, was not an ineffective policy when dealing with Hitler. Initially, it worked. The reason it did not work in the end is because the British government had no clear idea of what 'line in the sand' should be set for Hitler. Forsaking Czechoslovakia and backing Poland made no sense. You either backed both or neither. For what possible reason was Poland more important to Britain than Czechoslovakia? Surely the 'line in the sand' should have been drawn in the West, where British and French military power could make a difference, not in Poland, where the Western powers would not be able to intervene? This shows the utter muddle of British policy towards Germany in this period, vacillating between supercilious disinterest and outraged harshness. There was never a clear consistency. And inconsistency in foreign policy often leads to disaster.
Chamberlain proved himself to be a weak leader, not because he failed to resist Hitler, but because he failed to resist Churchill and the 'war party' in the House of Commons, who were bent on war with Germany regardless. Even in 1939 Hitler manifestly had no intention of invading Poland; he wanted Danzig and the 'corridor' area, where large numbers of ethnic Germans resided, not Poland itself. Hitler had stated repeatedly in 'Mein Kampf' and numerous speeches that his life's objective was the destruction of 'Bolshevism'. Polish recalcitrance on Danzig was actively encouraged by the British guarantee, which removed any reason for Poland to back down. War was the result.
Would peace in Europe have been safe without the British guarantee to Poland? Almost certainly not, but that is not the point. It would have bought Britain time to better prepare herself for war, and allowed Germany and the Soviet Union to fight each other to exhaustion. Perhaps more importantly, it would have given safety to the Jews of Western Europe, who would not have perished at the hands of the Nazi regime. There was nothing the Western powers could have done about events in Eastern Europe anyway.
Buchanan's thesis is not new, much the same has been written by historians like John Charmley and even AJP Taylor, but it is unfortunate that in the lionisation of Winston Churchill it is often forgotten that he was one of those politicians who were willing to plunge Britain and other Western countries into a war that was disastrous for them.
Great book to read November 16, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have been reading about the war and W.S.Churchill for some 30 years and I must say this is one of the most facinating book. It really shows the different options Britain had before the start of the second world war. I could not put it down.
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