Folly and Fratricide
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It has often been said that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. It might be added, that those who learn the wrong lessons from history will be punished by it. Such folly is the key theme of this striking work of revisionist history - one which will be of interest to every individual who wishes to learn from the past in order to avoid the errors of others.
The author, Mr. Patrick J. Buchanan, is an American Christian conservative - and his book reflects his inherent biases, (such as a tendency to overstate the crimes of Nazi and Soviet regimes, a wild exaggeration of the benefits of the British empire, and a failure to appreciate the damage and destruction inflicted by European imperialism, etc...) If one is prepared to overlook these prejudices and inadequacies, one is rewarded with one of the most radical historical treatises of the decade. There are few books that challenge the conventional wisdom regarding the World Wars as effectively and extensively as Mr. Buchanan's.
The tome's thesis is quite simple: it was primarily British folly, not German wickedness, that unleashed the two World Wars upon the globe and led to the ruin of Europe and the collapse of the British Empire. In the United Kingdom, this perspective is hardly new: it had been expounded and defended for decades by the late Professor A. J. P. Taylor among others. In the United States, however, World War Two is sacrosanct - for it is the archetypical 'good war', which is regularly employed to justify subsequent wars in the name of 'humanitarian intervention'. By challenging the myth of the 'good war', Mr. Buchanan implicitly skewers the justification for Kosovo, Iraq and other imperial crusades.
It is to the author's credit that he commences not with the Second World War, but with the First, and demonstrates how it might have been averted, or at least mitigated, had British Foreign Minister Edward Grey and a certain Winston Churchill not manoeuvred Britain into an alliance with France and pressed for confrontation with Germany. Misunderstandings on both sides (the German naval build-up that was meant to impress Britain, alarmed her instead) led to a conflict that Berlin sought to avoid. (Curiously, Mr. Buchanan fails to mention the role of the Zimmermann telegram - Germany's main diplomatic blunder - in sealing Berlin's defeat.)
The Treaty of Versailles is exposed as a blueprint for future strife, but the author goes further and explores the errors and injustices of the treaties of St. Germain and Trianon as well. This is followed by an important chapter on the failure to renew the Anglo-Japanese naval agreement (a subject hardly mentioned in most history textbooks). Then Mr. Buchanan enters into the central subject of the book: Europe's slow but steady descent into the Second World War. The folly of London and Paris - in alienating Italy, appeasing Germany when she should have been opposed and opposing Germany when she should have been appeased, is skilfully narrated in these pages. The sheer stupidity of Britain's guarantee to Poland is emphasized as the key cause of World War Two - a war which would cost both countries dearly.
The two main victors of the war, were of course, the United States and the Soviet Union - led by the leftists President Roosevelt and General Secretary Stalin respectively. Each was able to keep his country out of the war for roughly two years - and thus entered it in a relatively stronger position than either Britain or France. Neither hesitated to exploit the weakness of the British Empire to extract gains at London's expense - as the author demonstrates.
Yet the key figures of Mr. Buchanan's masterpiece are, as the title indicates, Sir Winston Churchill and Führer Adolf Hitler. The conventional wisdom portrays the former as a perspicacious hero while the latter is perceived as an irrational warmonger. Mr. Buchanan does not merely deflate these stereotypes: his study, for all practical purposes, reverses them. It is Churchill who emerges as eager for conflict - being in favour of British participation in both World Wars and often displaying a fondness for war itself. It is Hitler who backs away from conflict during the Sudeten crisis, who delays military action in order to find a peaceful settlement with Warsaw, who launches a peace offensive after German armies have thoroughly defeated Poland. It is Hitler, not Churchill, who seeks to end Anglo-German conflict, well aware of the difficulties that the collapse of the British Empire could entail. It is thus Hitler, who increasingly appears as the tragic protagonist of the war, whereas Churchill seems to be little more than a bloodthirsty fool, sacrificing his country's future to his obsessive hatred of Hitler.
The book ends with the author's lament that after the Cold War, his own country, the U.S.A., has set about committing the follies that doomed the British Empire. But there is a greater theme here than the collapse of decadent empires. It is the tragedy of fratricide - of nations and peoples of the same blood tearing each other apart over quarrels that could be settled diplomatically. It is this folly - the folly of seeking conflict instead of evading it, of creating enemies where none exist, of celebrating war instead of shunning it - that is responsible for the fall of the British Empire in the past, and the decline of the American empire in the present. Mr. Buchanan's book will hopefully deter future generations from repeating it.
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Easily the most interesting history book I have read
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When I read this book I realized I had been brought up on half-truths by people peddling the myth that fighting WWII was the best thing Britain ever did.
Buchanan's argument is that our we were led to war by a small number of warmongers (including Churchill), some strategic and tactical diplomatic blunders, and a failure to see how bad were the consequences of the path we were choosing.
Before you say, "That's preposterous, it's an insult to the pride of our nation and our war heroes", try to give it a go with an open mind. Most of us non-historians know little about the war except what our parents told us, popular opinion, and perhaps an official history book approved for use in schools but we think we know enough to conclude that a "revisionist book" has nothing to teach us. In fact the book is not revisionist, it just draws things together and makes some interesting, almost self-evident, arguments. Virtually everything in the book is supported by the statesmen of the day or professional historians. The book is cogently argued and comprehensively backed up by facts with about 1,500 references.
Unless you are a genuine expert on the war it is likely that you will find at least a dozen important facts that will make you say, "Wow, they never told me that!" Here are a couple of examples.
At the outbreak of the first World War, Germany had fought no wars in its 25 years under the supposedly warlike aggressive Kaiser. Churchill himself had seen more military action than nearly every soldier in the German army. In the century immediately preceding the war, Germany had fought 3 wars compared with Britain's 10, Russia's 7 and France's 5 (including attacking Germany in 1870).
In 1939, when Britain was courting Stalin and deciding to fight Hitler, Stalin had killed approximately 1,000 times as many innocent people as Hitler, including an enormous number of jews. (Hitler's death camps came a couple of years later).
The voting on the reviews of this book show just what a touchy subject it still is. More than 60 years on, it is still too painful for us to face the idea that the sacrifices we made, and the glory we achieved, came from a massive mistake that caused ourselves, and a lot of other nations, far more harm than good.
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Well worth reading
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Having previously read Corelli Barnett's "Collapse of British Power" I was interested to read a contemporary American view on Britain's role in the two world wars.
The subject is immensely complex and it is nonsense to say "British resonsible" for X or "Churchill responsible for Y". Thankfully, unlike some of the other reviewers here, Buchanan does not do this but instead builds a picture from his perspctive as an American (with biases one would expect). The evolution of the disasters was a mix of misunderstanding, secret plots, blunders etc. as well as cool calculation and strategic moves. Churchill made horendous errors, but then so did just about every participant. (and let's face it - who doesn't!) The Polish leadership comes off very badly for example. If only Colonel Beck had seen sense then everything would have been different too!
However, Buchanan gives his account in a coloquial easily readable style drawing on the work of other historians, including Barnett. This leads to some errors, for example he states more than once that Churchill participated in the "last cavalry charge of empire" however, this is not the case as the last large-scale cavalry charge was the relief of Kimberley (and cavalry in WW1) He also talks about the Kaiser being fearful of the "grand fleet" though this did not come into existence until 1914. However, this doesn't concern me as he clearly quotes from other historians and in this context such errors are not that significant.
The real thrust of the book concern the massive strategic errors made by British leaders. Not least of which was the failure to recognise which countries were the real threat. Buchanan does not shy away from confirming that the grand old US of A was the real and rapacious wolf in sheep's clothing. The US deliberatly destroyed and bankrupted Britain, as was official policy. The extent to which the US kicked and raped Britain while it was down is sobering. (All credit to Buchanan, as an American, for not glossing over this.) Yet, we went to war against a country that tried hard to avoid war with us and ultimately allied ourself with the most murderous regime of all- Stalin's soviet empire.
Buchanan does not in any way excuse the actions of the Nazi regime, far from it, but the key question was "was it worth it for Britain"? Read the book and judge for yourself!
Towards the end I felt Buchanan was rather over-doing the focus on Churchill. For example he holds him responsible for the policy of bombing cities. He asserts for example that the Germans would probably not have attacked British cities directly had we not done so. However, let's not forget that we were losing the "Battle of Britain" until we bombed Berlin and that the resultant shift of Luftwaffe focus saved the fighter bases, which in turn halted the invasion of Britain. There is no easy answer.
I would like to have seen Buchanan expand on the "what ifs" a little more. For example, if Britain had had an alliance with Germany (which the Germans were offering even in 1940), would Japan have attacked British colonies? Probably not? It was after all the US that was blockading and trying to criple Japan so it could dominant the Pacific - sound familiar?
The collapse of Empire led to the scramble to jetison the colonies, especially in Africa. Many would argue that his was not to their benefit (the speed of withdrawal that is, not the ultimate outcome) most African former colonies of Britain, France and Belgium are demonstrably worse off than they were at end of empire.
The Americans are making some of the same mistakes as Britain. China is the new rising power. Let's hope that the relative and inevitable American decline does not occur in such a catastrophic fashion. As I write, US support for the country of Stalin's birth looks ominous!
Read the book and judge for yourself:
Then read Barnett's book, mentioned above, for a fulsome account of British folly in seeing the US as an ally.
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A tough read for middle-aged Britons....but quite superb
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Like the other reviewers here, I wanted to hate this book. I'm one of the many middle-aged Britons watching their country lose its identity and sink into third-rate obscurity, compensated largely by the notion that Churchill led us to greatness by making the world free. Buchanan does not disagree with this view at all - in fact, he points out what a great war leader Churchill was. But Buchanan's analysis of the consequences of the war are incontrovertible. It broke Britain financially, made America, and replaced a psychopathic dictatorship which enslaved and murdered throughout Europe with another that did just the same. Britain never lifted a finger to save the country - Poland - that she went to war for. Churchill was not a great statesman. He made very bad decisions about Russia and the US, which he admitted himself, and which severely disadvantaged Britain and made it a very costly victory.
Buchanan's argument is that unlike Truman, Kennedy and Reagan, who all recognised the reality of what they could and couldn't defend, Chamberlain's Britain issued guarantees that were worthless bluffs. Britain could never have hoped to save the Czech Republic or Poland. He ponders whether NATO is doing the same thing right now, and what will happen if Russia decides that it wants to re-incorporate one of its old Baltic 'provinces'. As I write this, and Russia is invading Georgia, until recently a NATO candidate, I wonder how many of us would be willing to enter World War 3 because of the foreign policy of Georgia, or Latvia.Truman did't take on Russia over the Berlin blockade, and Kennedy did a deal with Krushchev to avoid frying us all over Cuba.
Buchanan links together the whole of twentieth century very carefully, so the whole historical context becomes clear. The victors of WW1 had dismembered Germany, creating a crippled country with major populations living in hostile neighbouring countries. From Britain, with an almost football-team-supporters view of history, anything which challenges our poorly-informed and childishly simple view of the battle of good over evil is patently nonsense. But where my daughter lives today, in the Czech Sudetenland, things are not so cut and dried. There, a terrible price was paid in ethnic cleansing, only for that country, like all Hitler's targets, to be occupied for a further 50 years by an equally barbaric regime.
This is a thoughtful and wide-ranging book. Unlike most modern histories it is not narrative entertainment ("... meanwhile, in a cellar on the other side of the city,..."), but a well-researched, well-argued presentation that has policy implications today. If you're happy with simplicity, then go ahead and dislike it. But it's hard to fault the history...
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Good history at last
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Buchanan argues correctly that both world wars were unnecessary, that the sainted Churchill was in fact flawed, that Britain as much as Germany provoked the wars, and that the consequence has been the decline of the West. It is refreshing to read some genuine history. He presents it well and generally argues his case convincingly.
I was a great admirer of Churchill and Roosevelt until I recognised some inconsistencies in the official histories and - horrors - to resolve them started reading contemporary accounts and declassified papers. I swiftly developed a distaste for these two charlatans, such that I now rate them about as amoral as Hitler. But after all, I must confess that I am a cynical sort - I cannot think of a single political 'world leader' of the last 65-years that I would have felt honoured to shake hands with.
Buchanan is in the vanguard of the process of dismantling the myths that the sycophants and Court historians have fed us. His analysis brings a greater grasp on the reality of the past to the wider public.
Read Buchanan if you are open minded and can bear uncomfortable truths. I personally think that he has not been as forthright as he could be; but that is understandable in this politically correct world.
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