| Title | : | Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War, #6) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0141441771 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780141441771 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 947 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1953 |
Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War, #6) Reviews
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The final volume of Churchill's incredible history of WW II. There's absolutely nothing else like it, and he turns in another masterpiece. The things people quote most often are his bitterness about being voted out of office just as the war is ending, and Stalin's bare-faced lies concerning the atom bomb. He claimed to know nothing about it, which Churchill believed, but it later turned out that he'd had a spy in place who'd passed out all the secrets.
But here's the bit that made the greatest impression on me. The British strategy has finally come to fruition. Way back in Volume II, Churchill made an brilliantly prescient decision: rather than going into a defensive huddle and putting everything into defending Britain from the impending German invasion, he diverted resources to hold Egypt. He wanted the possibility of counter-attacking later on. We did indeed win the Battle of Britain, and we also kept Egypt. Then we marched across North Africa, won the Battle of El Alamein in Volume IV, took Tunis, and invaded Sicily. After that, we fought all the way up Italy and finally forced the remnants of the Axis forces to surrender there in late April, 1945.
Simultaneously, Germany was falling to a combined onslaught from Soviet, US and British forces. It was clear that the end was very near there too. The question was what to do with the newly victorious army that was sitting at the top of Italy. Churchill argued that they should turn East. He could already see that Eastern Europe was going to be carved up between Soviet and Anglo-American forces, and he wanted to get as large a slice as possible. But Eisenhower didn't like this. He felt that it sent a bad signal to our Soviet allies, and he decided to go West instead, to mop up the last pockets of resistance in Southern France. It turned out that this was the wrong call. As Churchill bitterly complains, if only they had taken his advice then a substantial amount of Eastern Europe would have avoided becoming Soviet satellite states for the next 50 years.
With hindsight, it's clear that Stalin would never stay allied to the US and Britain longer than necessary. As soon as Germany, their common enemy, was out of the picture, he had no reason to do so. Loyalty wasn't an important concept to him. Unfortunately, this wasn't obvious at the time.
It's very difficult to understand that your key ally is just about to become your enemy and will ruthlessly exploit your naive trust. Tragedy indeed. -
This is the last volume in Winston Churchill’s war memoirs. It begins with the D-Day Normandy landings. The two chapters on D-Day are almost desultory constituting of only 33 pages. He writes more on the intervention in Greece at Christmas, 1944 (almost 44 pages) where Britain wanted to prevent the ascendancy of the communist party.
Page 181 (my book)
Communism raised its head behind the thundering Russian battlefront. Russia was the delivery, and Communism the gospel she brought.
This volume is brilliant on the origins of the Cold War.
It all started in August 1944, when Stalin withheld his troops from “liberating” Warsaw. He let the Germans to the dirty work and they ruthlessly eliminated the Warsaw Polish resistance – so that Stalin’s troops would have no opposition. This was the first indicator of Stalin’s real intentions in Eastern Europe. Churchill (and Roosevelt’s) letters to Stalin to intervene and help the Polish resistance were ignored.
After the Yalta Agreements in February 1945, Churchill pleads passionately for the Soviet Union and Stalin to adhere to them, particularly for Poland, but to no avail. After all Stalin had millions of troops in Eastern Europe and verbal pressure from his two Allies was not going to deter him. Stalin, in violation of Yalta, was going to appoint his own stooges to the Polish Government (and to those in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria...) and was certainly never going to allow free and unfettered elections to take place. He never permitted British or U.S. representatives to roam freely in Eastern Europe.
Still the Yalta Agreements led to the formation of the United Nations and, importantly at the time, a promise from Stalin to attack Japan once the Germans had surrendered. Churchill, with his constant bickering with Stalin over the fait accompli in Poland seemed to overlook this Soviet pledge. The U.S. saw only years of bitter and bloody struggle with the proposed Japanese invasion – the first successful atomic bomb test only occurred in New Mexico in July, 1945. Prior to this the Allies needed Soviet military participation to overthrow Japan.
Having now read these six volumes (over 4,000 pages) one does gain insights into this man Churchill. Significantly the writing can be majestic, for example in this last volume his tribute on the death of Franklin Roosevelt and his victory speech at war’s end on May 13, 1945. The prose is filled with passion and there is no dryness to speak of. Someone mentioned that there are probably thousands of pictures of Churchill and in not one does he seemed bored with life. His writings reflect that.
Other observations:
Churchill brought a scientific and statistical approach to government. He wanted statistics constantly. He was able to use these for clarifications to pronounce and to judge.
He was a man of detail and would drill down to the source to determine the root of a problem. Also he was not beholden to protocol; obstacles and standard procedures could and would be removed.
Also in every volume Churchill writes page after page on the importance of Turkey in the war effort, and there were meetings with emissaries and government leaders – but nothing came of this.
He professed friendship and admiration for Franklin Roosevelt but I didn’t buy into this. Churchill needed U.S. might and production to win the war, more so after the fall of France. And he knew the U.S., having read its history and he had travelled there several times before the war. He felt the common ground between Britain and the U.S. – for language, democracy, personal freedom...
But Churchill and Roosevelt were two very different personalities and governed in divergent ways. Roosevelt was more politically astute – with Churchill it was more emotional and upfront. Roosevelt was more opaque and wouldn’t reveal all the cards in the deck. I could never see Roosevelt going into the details that Churchill would do almost on a daily basis; Roosevelt was much better at delegating. I would assume for example that Churchill wrote far more letters to Eisenhower then Roosevelt. The written word was far more important to Churchill. And Roosevelt was pragmatic, he knew at wars’ end that “the game” was to be between the U.S. and the Soviet Union – and Britain relegated to becoming a junior player. I don’t think Churchill wanted to acknowledge this new position.
However both were magnanimous and would not hold recriminations. And also both could be very flexible – if something didn’t work, try something else.
These six volumes constitute a magnum opus of the Second World War. They provide a very important and impassioned portrayal of those tumultuous years. -
Our strength, which had overcome so many storms, would no longer continue in the sunshine.
With that sentence, Churchill neatly summed up this last volume of his massive WWII collection...the coming victory of the Allies would mean the end of office for the Great Lion, the man who stayed true from beginning to end. The theme of this book is How The Great Democracies Triumphed, and so Were Able to Resume the Follies Which Had so Nearly Cost Them Their Life. Unlike the previous volumes, this one is more centered on politics as the post-war world began to come into play. The conniving Soviets, the bankrupt Brits, the still-don't-get-it French, and the we-pretty-much-trust-everyone Yanks all start divvying up the goods.
We cannot go running round into every German slum and argue with every German that it is his duty to surrender or we will shoot him.
It's been said that Churchill was the greatest civilian war leader of all time. His writing echoes that thought. When he is discussing the last gasps of Hitler's brood or, even better, taking the reader through the island-by-island battles of the Americans versus the Japanese in the Pacific theatre, it's almost impossible to stop reading. However, when Churchill goes off into the devious world of politics, it's a bit harder to pay attention.
Only just in time did the Allied armies blast the viper in his nest.
Decades later, hindsight has proven Winston Churchill correct in his view that the Americans had the chance to stop the Soviets before they raised the Iron Curtain. But unlike Churchill and his British subjects, the Yanks clearly were still newbies and still full of that heartland farmer trust which meant Roosevelt and Truman and Eisenhower were naive about the Soviets and the Chinese. The reader doesn't need to read between the lines here, as Churchill's frustration flows through. His bitterness is there, also. It's a bit hard to blame him, after all. His nation suffered, his nation became bankrupt, his nation lost its empire, and his nation was pushed aside by the Yanks and Soviets. When they discovered the progress the Nazis had made with missile science and what was in store for Great Britain had the war continued, one feels the fatigue. It all must have hurt him greatly.
In these great matters failing to gain one's way is no escape from the responsibility for an inferior solution.
As usual, the appendix section is outstanding. I could barely wait to get there, as here be the jewels in each of the six volumes. Churchill discusses women
("Women ought not to be treated the same as men"),
and Ireland
("we left the Dublin government to frolic with the Germans and the Japanese representatives to their hearts' content"),
the wrongs of the Versailles Treaty of WWI
("there would have been no Hitler"),
and the need for food for his own people
("we need another three or four thousand tons of fish, to help us through the hard years which are coming").
His letters and memos are magnificent.
While this wasn't my favourite volume of Churchill's WWII set, it resonated more than the others. Certainly, my respect for this man increased a hundredfold. Defy Hitler, hold back Stalin, partner with Roosevelt, withstand the destructive bombs, win the war...and get voted out of office. How the heck did he manage to survive all the stress?
Forward, unflinching, unswerving, indomitable, till the whole task is done and the whole world is safe and clean.
Book Season = Year Round (you shall not pass) -
This is the last of Churchill's volumes on WWII. This one had a different tone than the other ones. Perhaps because the issues in this volume had not been resolved at the time of writing, or perhaps because Churchill himself was disappointed at how things ultimately turned out (apart from winning the war that is). The theme of this volume is telling:
How the great democracies triumphed, and so were able to resume the follies which had so nearly cost them their life.
Not bitter about being kicked out of office as soon as the war was over, is he?
Because this book opened with D-Day, Hitler was soon reduced to a paper villain, unimportant because his fall was inevitable. The real evil of the time was Stalin. Even if you add all the fatalities of WWII at Hitler's feet, Stalin still killed more people. He was shrewd, cunning and a virtuoso at public appearances. He could lie to your face and smile. He openly called for the underground of Warsaw to rebel against the Germans, then left his armies 10 miles away until they had all been slaughtered to enter the city. Though it trivializes the war a bit, the image that keeps coming to mind is Hitler's Count Dooku to Stalin's Darth Sidious.
The present ineffectual design of the United Nations is the result of maneuvering to get Russia to join it. Field Marshall Smuts, who was tasked with finding a compromise that Russia would accept in forming the UN, optimistically wrote to Churchill,
The principle of unanimity will at the worse only have the effect of a veto, or stopping action where it may be wise, or even necessary. Its effect will be negative; it will retard action. But it will also render it impossible for Russia to embark on courses not approved of by the USA and the United Kingdom.
Russia soon proved that it would do as it liked and operated through its proxy states, even as early as before the Germans capitulated. Marshall Tito nearly got into open combat with Allied soldiers over the Italian port of Trieste, even though they were supposedly on the same side. When Churchill asked Stalin to reign in his underling, Stalin denied he had any influence over Tito at all.
It didn't help that France was actively empire-building and resisting all calls to free Syria and other held possessions and Greece was close to anarchy, with only British troops able to keep the peace. I think Churchill felt the war had only been paused and forsaw a rapid decline into anarchy with Russia a vulture, eager to devour the spoils.
Though the death of Roosevelt and Churchill's loss of political power enabled Stalin to set up puppet states all through eastern Europe, the Iron Curtain (Churchill coined the phrase) did not result in another world war. I think Churchill would have been surprised that the ideological conflict between democracy and communism never erupted into more than regional conflicts.
Through all of his distrust of Stalin, he was still as swayed by the dictator's personal magnetism as any. At the meeting where Truman told Stalin of the atomic bomb, Churchill reports, "I was certain that at that date Stalin had no special knowledge of the vast process of research upon which the united States and Britain had been engaged for so long." We know now that Stalin knew all about it. He had a spy at Los Alamos for years.
It is intriguing to think what would have happened if during the post-war negotiations, the Conservative party had stayed in office. The animosity between the US and USSR that developed would have been shared more equally by Great Britain it is almost certain. -
I love Winston and he fully deserved his Noble prize for writing. However, I don't know how a person can write a 6 volume tactical account of WWII and not once mention a concentration camp or what Hitler was doing to the Jews. How's that even possible?!
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Great read with lots of details about the ending of WWII. I would recommend this one.
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Battle of Italy, the Mediterranean conflicts, Normandy, and the division of Europe between the Soviet Union and the other Allies.
Why I started this book: While only the second book of the series was on the Navy's Recommended Reading list, I couldn't just read that one. I was eager to finish this series.
Why I finished it: My American prejudices prevented me from fully enjoying the last installment. I was frustrated by Churchill's insistence that it was American lack of foresight that let the U.S.S.R. gobble up Eastern Europe, especially Austria, and Yugoslavia; it was our selfishness that kept the atomic bomb research from the British; and mostly that it was his personal relationship with Stalin that could have worked out these issues if the Americans had only followed his lead. Followed by the idea that they should have flown a showcase bomber across Russia to demonstrate just how easy it was to bring a nuclear weapon to their former friend... cause that would have definitely calmed the Cold War tensions. Stalin is the definition of "does not play well with others" and I don't think that Churchill could have negotiated more favorable terms. Granted it's easier to be critical of Churchill's opinions because I know that the Iron Curtain fell without bloodshed just 40 years after it went up.
Read along:
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany for the German perstpective and
An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 for the American perspective close to 60 years after.
Side note: Churchill's history of the Second World War was originally published in six volumes:
1.
The Gathering Storm
2.
Their Finest Hour
3.
The Grand Alliance
4.
The Hinge of Fate
5.
Closing the Ring
6.
Triumph and Tragedy
Churchill then condensed these into four volumes, which have since been released as one, rather hefty, publication. The audio version of the unabridged recordings of Churchill's condensed volume, divided into four parts, as follows:
1.
The Second World War: Milestones to Disaster
2.
Alone: The Second World War (Condensed) Series, Book 2
3.
The Grand Alliance
4.
Triumph and Tragedy -
This volume concludes Winston Churchill's six-volume history of World War II. As previously noted, this is a highly personalized history, closely revolving around the Prime Minister's own participation in the military and political activities during the war. The book is constructed of two interwoven approaches: a narrative, chronological history of the war and a set of source material composed of telegrams, letters, and notes sent and received during the course of the action. Much of the latter involved Churchill's communications with President Roosevelt and Marshall Stalin. Churchill successfully recorded his perspective of the military and political struggles for future generations.
The importance of this final volume for American readers is that we gain a perspective on the British activity during the war, with particular emphasis on the military campaigns in Italy and Greece; Great Britain's efforts against the Communist partisans in Greece; and, Churchill's ultimately unsuccessful efforts to create an independent, post-war Poland. As to the latter, Churchill's efforts take on a rather quixotic quality; England was clearly not powerful enough in 1945 to put any military pressure against Stalin's Russian juggernaut in Poland and the United States did not have the political will to oppose the Soviets. Yet, Churchill continually fought for Polish independence, ultimately to no avail. He was turned out of office by the British voters and this effectively ended his ability to tilt his lance at the Polish windmill.
The book ends very abruptly with the close of the Potsdam conference which determined the fate of Eastern Europe and and the allies role in post-war Germany. We would like to have learned more about England's post-war recovery and the fate of the German state from the British perspective. -
Can somebody get this guy some f*cking landing craft please?
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The final of Churchill's volumes comes to an abrupt end with his surprising election loss immediately at the end of the war. I have been several years reading through these and, as always, Winston never is at a loss for words or opinions. Still convinced that every opinion he had was the best, we should give him credit for acceding to the demands of others as often as he did. He is quick to point out the error of thinking diverging from his own. I believe I will return to these often when seeking the proper words to confront enemies, encourage friends or communicate hard truth--Churchill was the master of all.
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4 stars because Churchill clearly just wanted to end the series. He flies through the Potsdam conference and has just a single paragraph about losing the election, for which he is rightfully very salty about, but it made this epic series end on a very soft note which I think could have been more formidable
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Brilliant last installment of Winston Churchill's World War II series that clearly outlines the surrenders of Germany and Japan to the Allies, the fateful decisions made about strategy and troop allocations among the different operations, from the Normandy landing to the Mediterranean to the Pacific theater and how these decisions shaped postwar Europe, particularly the formation of the Iron Curtain, the partition of Germany, and Soviet efforts to grab even territories that had been liberated by the Americans and British. Churchill remarks on the differences between how Roosevelt and Truman handled the war, how the invention of the atomic bomb and its use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed not only how wars could be fought, but the calculations behind the decisions connected with war. Also included are accounts of the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek against the Chinese communists, India gaining independence from Britain, its partition into India and Pakistan, and Churchill's thoughts on Gandhi and Nehru (given how we tend to lionize Gandhi today I was surprised at some of these!).
I listened to the audiobook of the abridged version and am now motivated to read the full version because there are so many things just touched on briefly that I want to learn about in more detail! In sum, an extremely interesting book that I know will take much re-listening to digest since it covers so much ground, and quickly too. -
Interesting insight. Amazing how he, just like before the war started, could so well predict what was to come. How might the world have been different if he had been listened to.
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The final chapter of Churchill's personal view of WWII. Almost worth just for Churchill's writing in addition to the insights he provides.
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The sixth and final volume of Churchill’s memoirs of the Second World War opens with the D-Day assault on Normandy and closes with the collapse of Nazi Germany, the opening moves of the Cold War, and the electoral defeat of Churchill’s Conservative Party. Churchill’s tenure as Prime Minister ended two weeks before the atomic bombings of Japan, and this is where the series ends – before the final defeat of Japan. This would be a very strange place to end a history of a war, but it makes sense given Churchill’s purpose: to record his memories and craft his place in history as British Prime Minister during the war. His memoirs end at the point his leadership of the nation ended.
Churchill’s frustration with the conclusion of the war is palpable. By the time Hitler died and the Germans surrendered, the American military dominated the war effort, giving American aims and ideology a dominant role in the evolving collapse of relations with Stalin’s Soviet Union. As the Germans were crushed ever deeper into their homeland within the Allied vice, Churchill portrays himself as waging a desperate but futile battle to awaken the Americans to the Communist threat. He repeatedly mourns the diversion of force from the Italian campaign to the ancillary invasion of southern France, and effort which doomed his hopes of a quick victory in northern Italy that would’ve allowed the western allies to swing north and east into Central Europe, forestalling a Stalinist entrenchment in the heart of the continent.
It’s hard to fully accept Churchill’s unsubtle blaming of America given his agreement with Stalin to divide eastern Europe into spheres of influence. Granted, there wasn’t much else the West could’ve done. The Russians were militarily dominant in Romania and Bulgaria, and extracting Stalin’s promise not to meddle in Greece – a promise which Stalin surprisingly kept – was probably the best one could hope for. Still, American generals and politicians no doubt had their own constraints of realpolitik, and I suspect Churchill could’ve been more fair to the Americans had he not been so concerned to paint himself in the best possible light.
Still, this is an invaluable insight into the mind of one of history’s greatest leaders. While acknowledging his imperialist and colonialist mindset which is no longer in fashion today, a mindset tinged with more than a hint of racial prejudice and British chauvinism, there should be no doubt that he was the right man for his time and place. He recognized Hitler’s threat far sooner than most, held his nation to the sticking point when she stood virtually alone against the dark master of Europe, and helped forge one of the greatest multicultural alliances in human history to defeat a monster bent on global tyranny and worldwide genocide. Winston Churchill deserves his place in the sun, and this final volume is a fitting conclusion to the memoirs of a remarkable man who, when his country most needed him, rose to the challenge with nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. -
Final book of the series, from D-Day to the Atomic Bomb and surrender of Japan. The title of the book is, again, appropriate to the history. Great triumphs: finally beating Hitler after 6 years (and almost 4000 pages in this series), beating Mussolini, and the Japanese empire. But all of this at a terrible cost of lives, the iron curtain falling over eastern Europe, Churchill's lost election, and FDR death just before the end of the war. This is probably the book with the most-known history of ww2; however, after spending so much time with this series, events do take a different toll. Reading about the death of FDR was particularly hard and emotional, after getting to know him through his many letters in all six books.
There were a couple of things that I did not enjoy as much. There was a lot of attention to the Polish problem, but no resolution was given at the end. Sure, there is the historical context, but I felt that Churchill could have ended that better. Also, the battle against Japan was very, very brief. I would have liked to know more from his perspective.
-- Review of the series: 5 STARS
Funny enough, I didn't give any of the six books 5-stars, but the overall series does deserve all five. It is simply so unique to have one of the most important stories of our time told by one of the major characters. Seldom do we get those chances. The personal letters between FDR, Churchill, and Stalin, gives a whole new perspective on the war and their characters.
I am glad this book was this long and full of details; sometimes even to an annoying level of details. In the long run, I appreciated that pace. It weights on you giving you a glimpse of what six years of war really are. Particularly, the second book when the axis are winning every single time, it is heavy and depressive and emotional, but with a strong foundation on the Churchill's relentless hope of victory.
There are of course some things that could be improved. Maps and locations were given without enough context and made the read sometimes difficult. Some places and countries have changed their names since then, so it does take extra effort to understand these details. Another point here is that this is the story told from the British side; therefore, eastern front gets little attention (I wanted to read more about the battle of Stalingrad) and the war against Japan. These topics are treated in the books, but not nearly close to other topics relevant to the British empire.
I am glad to have read this series and I would highly recommend it. But be aware, it is a long journey but an important one to take, in my opinion. -
Churchill's 6th and final volume of his Pulitzer prize winning insider history of the Second World War picks up from Closing the Ring (which is mainly about defeating Mussolini's Italy) and resumes with the allied D-Day operations. It ends rather abruptly with his loss of elections in Britain at the end of the war. This is by no means a thorough war accounting of all the remaining theaters of battle but rather a book filled with correspondences and vital meetings between "the big three" world leaders (Stalin, Roosevelt and himself, near the end after Roosevelt's death, Truman) as well as some further correspondences with generals and ambassadors, and his rising fears and alarm about postwar Europe. Many aspects of the overall war effort are merely summarized or left out of this particular volume--noticeably very little to nothing about the Jewish Holocaust, for one example--but much attention is paid to negotiations concerning what would become of Poland, Greece, northern Italy and other post-WWII intrigues. It is in the second half, entitled The Iron Curtain, that the narrative increasingly concerns itself with his disappointment that the democratic world leaders could not have greater resolve in framing a better postwar alliance ("how the great democracies triumphed and so were able to resume the follies which had so nearly cost them their life"), and his fears realized about Soviet intentions. There's a tone of "I told you so" to the organization of this volume. A very fine WWII book about diplomacy, growing tensions between allies, the prevailing thinking that led to climactic decisions, as well as an account of the prime minister's correspondences and travels. Highly engrossing and still worth a read today even if it can't help but be characterized by the times (Red Scare) it was compiled in (1953-just as Stalin's reign ended).
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I read all six volumes on-and-off for the past nine years. The first two volumes, which concern Churchill's "Wilderness Years," and the London Blitz period, have the best and most interesting writing. This is because Churchill is the sole protagonist throughout, rescuing Europe from fascism on a shoestring budget through his prescient strategic decisions. Volumes 3-6 feel much more ghostwritten and also have significantly more copy-pasting of the letters Churchill wrote during WW2 to his subordinates and to FDR/Stalin. Once the USA and USSR join the war in Volume 3, Churchill and the materially depleted British Empire increasingly take the back seat on every important decision. This becomes clearer and clearer to the reader as the war goes on, with Churchill lacking serious leverage as a junior partner to redirect American troop deployments to Italy, or to prevent sham elections in Poland, in this final volume.
You will already find the best excerpts and quotes from these books in other WW2 histories, as Churchill is the greatest writer who happens to be a politician who ever lived. Churchill's perspective on events is also characteristically self-serving and rose-colored. However, these volumes are a great introduction to WW2, so long as you also read them alongside contemporary histories by the likes of Max Hastings, Andrew Roberts, and Antony Beevor.
3.5/5 stars for the series as a whole. -
The theme of this final volume which concludes Churchill's memoirs of the second world war are perhaps a fitting moral to the entire war: "How the great democracies triumphed, and so were able to resume the follies which had so nearly cost them their life."
When I picked volume 1 down from my shelf (as an aside, I should mention these are first editions that my grandfather z"l purchased when first published), I did not think I would enjoy them as much as I did. My father-in-law reminded me that Churchill was an excellent and prolific writer.
What surprised me most about these volumes, or rather what I had never thought about, was the element of logistics in war. When we think of D-Day or Anzio or North Africa, we just think of the battles themselves. I had never focussed on the logistical elements--building landing craft, transporting and building up troops, training them, supply lines, etc. As important as the men firing guns were the people supplying the ammunition--in the factories, in transportation, etc. And perhaps most important the merchant marines shipping cargo across the seas.
All in all, I very enjoyable 6 volumes. -
'Triumph and Tragedy' by Winston S Churchill is the sixth and final volume of his WWII series. It is simply an incredible effort: masterfully organized; clean crisp writing; indisputable in documentation; it is history that reads like a novel.
WSC is clearly the man of the 20th century. These tomes rely heavily on his correspondence of the moment, in the form of cables to FDR and Marshall Stalin (or Uncle Joe as referred to by WSC and FDR in their personal correspondence with each other), and of minutes and memos to various British politicians, cabinet members, generals, King, etc. who were tasked with prosecuting the war and defeating Hitler. The scope of WSC's responsibility is unimaginable. He was intimately involved in all theaters, campaigns and many battles -- quick to ask just the right question, to encourage his generals tough times, and to assure them he had their back when a difficult decision was needed, and to congratulate them on their successes. Just imagine the stress on Dunkirk, The Battle of Britain, the U-boat menace on supply convoys from America to England and England to Russia, The North Africa Campaign, the slog up the Italian boot, the Japanese menace. His determination and resolve are unparalleled. What a man!!!
I was born in 1950 and WWII was a big influence on movies and books of my youth. But almost without exception they were written from the perspective of the USA and promoting our heroes: FDR, Marshall, Eisenhower, Bradley, Clark, Patton, Nimitz, Halsey, etc. Their British counterparts didn't get much of the spotlight. It gave me a much-too-long-delayed appreciation of their genius, talent, and service.
Five stars, essential reading, for this and the other five volumes, as well as the series in whole. Thank you Mr. Churchill -
"Theme of the Volume: How the Great Democracies Triumphed, and so were able to resume the follies which had so nearly cost them their life." Despite the Battle of the Bulge and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, for most of this volume, late 1944 to 1945, the preoccupation of Churchill and Stalin was dividing up Europe. At one point Churchill slips Stalin a paper on which is written
Rumania – Russia 90%, others 10%
Greece – Great Britain 90%, Russia 10%
Yugoslavia – 50%-50%
Hungary – 50%-50%
Bulgaria – Russia 75%, others 25%
Just cold and brutal.
But in the end, Britain had a weak hand and America was in a hurry to withdraw completely. And so the last half of the book is the drawing of the Iron Curtain, in Churchill's felicitous yet accurate prediction.
And so, 2020 gave me the gift of time to read a six-volume anything, and it took all of that for me to get a grasp of the immensity of an event from before I was born. And of course, as Putin haunts the American landscape, another reminder of Faulkner's Law - "The past is never dead. It's not even past." -
I just finished reading Winston Churchill's Triumph and Tragedy which is Volume 6 of Churchill's six volume masterpiece on the history of the Second World War. Suffice it to say that Churchill was ahead of his time and way ahead of the United States in seeing the danger of the Russian/Soviet menace! FDR and then Truman were too concerned with politics that might offend UJ. Churchill's response was we have to do something and the hell with worrying about offending Stalin. Great and insightful documents and letters are utilized throughout the volume. The Balkans and especially Poland are emphasized. Churchill eludes to and mentions the iron curtain well before his famous speech in Fulton, Missouri.
