You miss my point - which was that Goebbels most assuredly didn’t have the last word. I think that honour belongs to Lech Walesa some 40 years later.
Cheers,
Cliff
After decades of the Soviet yoke, & with their eastern lands & peoples still in foreign hands today… a real win… sure…
I wouldn’t go too hard on Churchill about Poland. There was nothing he or Roosevelt could do about it. The Russians were an army of occupation and not going to leave. Short of continuing the war by turning on the Russians with a very uncertain outcome and much more bloodletting, Poland was going to be in Russian sphere of influence. Churchill was keenly aware of the tragedy of this and knew full well that England and France had gone to war because of their treaty with Poland. In the end Realpolitik prevailed, but on that score also, Realpolitik also saw the dissolution of the Soviet empire and the release of Poland from the Russian Bear’s grasp. What do you suggest Churchill should have done about it?
Not got into bed with Stalin at all…
Nazi Germany was an existential threat to the UK. Stalin at the time was not. Churchill’s primary duty was to the UK, not Poland.
Ol’ Winnie wasn’t actually known for his long-term thinking-consequences-through though, was he?
He was also an admitted ‘Rat’ politician [ swapping sides]…
& odd though that while Hitler’s war aims regarding the British Empire were actually pretty close to Churchill’s…
Stalin & Roosevelt saw to it that neither Adi’s nor Winnie’s hopes came out of the war too well… let alone poor bloody Poland…
Would you have launched a war on the largest and possibly the most experienced army in the world at the time (May 1945) when you were still looking at wanting help with the Japanese. All the allied nations were war weary and many were broke, many had no armed forces and did not recover for years after the end of WW2.
It was a fact that the Soviets controlled large parts of Europe at the end of WW2 but also a fact there was not the capability nor will for the politicians or public to go to war with a former ally right away.
In 1939 Britain and France were going to assist Finland against the Soviets, in 1941 it was a case of Stalins Soviet Union was fighting the Axis and so taking pressure off the Allies, a simple case of My enemy’s enemy is my friend does not matter if you like them or not.
Churchill supported and instigated many programs and reforms that were very forward thinking and some that are still in existence today despite being brought in over 100 years ago, he like anyone is flawed and if all you want to see are the bad points then that is what you will find.
Swapping sides is not a bad thing is it, could mean he stuck by his morals as opposed to a political affiliation or class affiliation or peer and friends pressure.
Never seen any actual evidence that suggests what Hitlers real thoughts were on the British Empire except internet claims not backed by any written work.
Until 1918 Poland was not a separate State being part of Russia, Prussia and Austria from 1795, being part of the Lithuanian - Polish Commonwealth for about 200 years prior iirc.
Successive US governments wanted the British Empire to be broken up (as naturally they wanted the US to be the dominant world power) lots of things were done before-during and after WW2 to ensure that happened (as well as after WW1, some more obvious than others).
In 1920 Poland and the Soviet Union were at war as the SU considered Poland to still be part of the SU (by right that it was part of the Russian Empire which they took over), the Poles of course won.
I must say, JAW, that your condescention towards Churchill is fairly breathtaking.
Most people will agree that Churchill was a rather flawed individual - he made a lot of mistakes. Most of us do. Few of us, however, have been under the kind of pressure he was under having to defend an empire that was under attack all over the world while having all of your merchant marine and food supply sunk out from under it at the same time while going bankrupt and awaiting invasion. One wonders how well you would stand up under the circumstances. England needed a leader who could marshall flagging spirits and awaken the bulldog that had slept too long under the secure mantle of “empire”. Churchill did that and more. Certainly it was much better than Chamberlain waving a worthless piece of paper for the press blathering about “peace in our time.”
As for “rat” politician, it is a courageous man who has the strength of conviction to change his mind in public. Churchill announced in parliament during one of his earliest speeches that he might change his mind from time to time - better that than the hobgoblin of suicidal “consistency”.
Few people in here seem to realize or discuss the fact that Great Britain was functionally bankrupt at the end of World War I. It didn’t take a great deal to bring it back to the brink in WWII, especially after the Great Depression. When in extremis Britain sought emergency loans for ships, food and armaments from the only possible source at the time - the United States (and Canada), the US was restrained from doing so under any other conditions than “cash and carry”. Many foreigners decry the “chintziness” of the US for this, but they ignore the fact that it was the law of the land until changed. This changed with the passage of Lend-Lease when it became, basically, a gift.
Regardless of the outcome of the war, Britain, along with the Netherlands and France, was going to lose her colonies. Dreaming of Empire is not the same thing as the ability to retain it. Simply put, whether the west liked it or not, its moment - a very long moment - had passed.
About the rise of the SU and the US after the war, I’m reminded of something DeGaule once said: “We’d like to be the big dog, but we are not the big dog.” That’s Realpolitik. Postwar, large countries with large resources within their borders would henceforth hold sway unless they really screwed the pooch. The SU already wounded its pooch; whether or not the US does so, remains to be seen. We have made plenty of mistakes so far. European states without their far-flung empires are European states and what they achieve is dependent on their own ingenuity and entrepeneurial spirit and ability to innovate and compete and export.
Withal, JAW, the thinly-veiled snarky undertone of your writing style is a bit suprpising. Walk a mile in Churchill’s shoes and tell me how it feels.
This line irritates me more than most. The war was won by leadership AND good “followship”. Of the two, leadership may be the more crucial because it steers the ship, but without good soldiers to back it up, that won’t work either. A lot of individuals say that “this and that would have been won if only ‘they’ had listened to the generals.” Generals in Britain and the US work under civilian political leadership and direction. Period. They take orders from their elected officials who can cashier them at any time, which is as it should be.
R.744, your tendency to over-personalise, emote & become dismissive… does you no credit…
& I doubt that Churchill ever ‘walked a mile’ in his life…
Alliances with the Devil [ or their atheistic real-politic corporeal entity in the form of Stalin] does the partner no credit…
Not Hitler, nor Churchill either, in my view, both showed rank opportunism which they came off the worse for…
… in supping with Stalin, as the old saying goes…
“If you sup with the Devil, use a long spoon”…
…said the pot calling the kettle black…
Would that coloured kettle be aware of its cast irony? L.O.L…
Constant personal opinion not supported or backed by evidence does not constitute any form of truth, just your opinion.
That’s your opinion,& you are free to expound on it of course…
However, the historical facts about Churchill are not likely directly personal to us… in a particular sense…
He covered a few hundred miles alone, on foot and jumping trains, in enemy country during his escape in the Boer War.
So far as the European / Nazi war was concerned, I don’t agree.
Dutch and British colonies in Asia and South East Asia remained under Dutch and British control until the Japanese invaded.
The French lost Indo-China as a result of the German conquest of France, but only because Japan pressed for right of entry.
Although there were independence movements of varying degrees in all those colonies, and in India which was not invaded by Japan, they had no prospect of success until Japan overthrew the European colonial occupation and demonstrated that Asians could do so. The Japanese reinforced this in a rather hypocritical way by presenting the invasion and colonial occupation and exploitation of those countries as liberating them from the European colonialists.
When Japan was defeated, the displacement of the European colonial powers combined with reinvigorated independence movements and the new UN declarations about self-determination etc ultimately resulted in the death of European colonialism in Asia and South East Asia.
Germany’s contribution was limited to starting a war which, when Germany invaded the USSR and seemed on track to win in 1941, encouraged Japan to strike south in pursuit of its own objectives.
As for ‘regardless of the outcome of the war, Britain etc … were going to lose their colonies’, Germany and Japan both embarked upon expansionist wars of colonial conquest. Had they won, the only difference would have been that the former colonies of Britain etc would have become colonies of Germany and Japan, under much harsher rule and exploitation.
That’d be a major surprise to our politicians.
No, but Churchill considered it and, IIRC called for detailed military analysis on the prospects, but decided not to press on against the Soviets.
Which is why we need to distinguish between Churchill the inspirational national leader; Churchill the outstandingly successful grand strategist; and Churchill the erratic and occasionally outstandingly blundering military strategist.
For all his faults, Churchill was a great national leader, who rallied Britain to resistance in circumstances that would have been very daunting to most. This achievement was all the more impressive in view of the fact that he was hardly popular before the war - and being right is certainly no guarantee of popularity. He certainly had weaknesses as a military strategist. His persisting attraction to “back door” attacks (Gallipoli, Italy …) had proved costly, and had cost many lives. On the other hand, while Gallipoli was a total failure, the invasion of Italy did take the country out of the war and drew the Germans into another, ultimately costly distraction, and another “back door” assault - the invasion of southern France - helped to make the German position in the country impossible, and brought Allied forces in North Africa and Italy into the European battle much more economically than might otherwise have been achieved. His delusion about the possibility of securing the British Empire in the aftermath of war is understandable; his world view was “imperial”, and the absolute need for US involvement left him with little option as to the long-term implications - even if these had been clear. On balance, his leadership in WW2 alone excused quite a lot in terms of blunders, brandy and cigars … Best regards, JR.