How Churchill Waged War

How Churchill Waged War PDF Author: Allen Packwood
Publisher: Grub Street Publishers
ISBN: 1473893917
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
An analytical investigation into Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s decision-making process during every stage of World War II. When Winston Churchill accepted the position of Prime Minister in May 1940, he insisted in also becoming Minister of Defence. This, though, meant that he alone would be responsible for the success or failure of Britain’s war effort. It also meant that he would be faced with many monumental challenges and utterly crucial decisions upon which the fate of Britain and the free world rested. With the limited resources available to the UK, Churchill had to pinpoint where his country’s priorities lay. He had to respond to the collapse of France, decide if Britain should adopt a defensive or offensive strategy, choose if Egypt and the war in North Africa should take precedence over Singapore and the UK’s empire in the East, determine how much support to give the Soviet Union, and how much power to give the United States in controlling the direction of the war. In this insightful investigation into Churchill’s conduct during the Second World War, Allen Packwood, BA, MPhil (Cantab), FRHistS, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, enables the reader to share the agonies and uncertainties faced by Churchill at each crucial stage of the war. How Churchill responded to each challenge is analyzed in great detail and the conclusions Packwood draws are as uncompromising as those made by Britain’s wartime leader as he negotiated his country through its darkest days.

How Churchill Waged War

How Churchill Waged War PDF Author: Allen Packwood
Publisher: Grub Street Publishers
ISBN: 1473893917
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374

Get Book Here

Book Description
An analytical investigation into Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s decision-making process during every stage of World War II. When Winston Churchill accepted the position of Prime Minister in May 1940, he insisted in also becoming Minister of Defence. This, though, meant that he alone would be responsible for the success or failure of Britain’s war effort. It also meant that he would be faced with many monumental challenges and utterly crucial decisions upon which the fate of Britain and the free world rested. With the limited resources available to the UK, Churchill had to pinpoint where his country’s priorities lay. He had to respond to the collapse of France, decide if Britain should adopt a defensive or offensive strategy, choose if Egypt and the war in North Africa should take precedence over Singapore and the UK’s empire in the East, determine how much support to give the Soviet Union, and how much power to give the United States in controlling the direction of the war. In this insightful investigation into Churchill’s conduct during the Second World War, Allen Packwood, BA, MPhil (Cantab), FRHistS, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, enables the reader to share the agonies and uncertainties faced by Churchill at each crucial stage of the war. How Churchill responded to each challenge is analyzed in great detail and the conclusions Packwood draws are as uncompromising as those made by Britain’s wartime leader as he negotiated his country through its darkest days.

Churchill-Roosevelt-Stalin

Churchill-Roosevelt-Stalin PDF Author: Herbert Feis
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400875129
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 715

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Book Description
This is the story of the great coalition formed by the United States, Great Britain, and Soviet Russia to combat the Axis in World War II. Mr. Feis traces the ideas and purposes that governed each member of this alliance, and the gradual separation between the West and Russia as victory over Germany was achieved. While adding new information and new interpretation, Mr. Feis comprehends this "one war and three wills" as a whole, relating diplomacy and strategy to each other against the background of circumstance. The acts and characteristics of the dominating figures—Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin—emerge in new historical perspective as the story tells what they did and why. The narrative begins early in 1941 as the coalition is emerging and ends after the collapse of Germany in 1945. Among the dements arc: the early grasping of the Soviet government for territorial claims; the continuous discussion over strategy; the dramatic difficulties with the Soviet authorities over control of Italy, Poland, and Rumania; the variations in the plans for Germany, including dismemberment; the Casablanca, Moscow, Cairo, Teheran, and Yalta conferences; the spreading disquiet over Soviet intentions in Europe and the Far East. Originally published in 1966. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Churchill's Hellraisers

Churchill's Hellraisers PDF Author: Damien Lewis
Publisher: Citadel Press
ISBN: 0806540761
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
From award-winning war reporter Damien Lewis, the untold story of the heroic hellraisers who stormed a Nazi fortress—in one of the most daring raids of World War II . . . Winter, 1944. Allied forces have liberated most of Axis-occupied Italy—with one crucial exception: the Nazi headquarters north of the Gothic Line. Heavily guarded and surrounded by rugged terrain, the mountain fortress is nearly impenetrable. But British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is determined to drive a dagger into the “soft underbelly of Europe.” The Allied’s plan: drop two paratroopers into the mountains—and take the fortress by storm . . . The two brave men knew the risks involved, so they recruited an equally fearless team: Italian resistance fighters, escaped POWs, downed US airmen, even a bagpipe-playing Scotsman known as “The Mad Piper.” Some had little military training, but all were willing to fight to the death to defeat the Nazi enemy. Ultimately, the mission that began in broad daylight, in the enemy’s line of fire, would end one of the darkest chapters in history—through the courage and conviction of the unsung heroes who dared the impossible . . . “One of the most dangerous and effective attacks ever undertaken by this Regiment against the enemy.” —Lt Col Robert Walker‐Brown, MBE DSO, senior SAS commander “Action-packed . . . Battleground history buffs will be entertained.” —Publishers Weekly

No More Champagne

No More Champagne PDF Author: David Lough
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 1250071275
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
Meticulously researched by a senior private banker now turned historian, No More Champagne reveals for the first time the full extent of the iconic British war leader's private struggle to maintain a way of life instilled by his upbringing and expected of his public position. Lough uses Churchill's own most private records, many never researched before, to chronicle his family's chronic shortage of money, his own extravagance and his recurring losses from gambling or trading in shares and currencies. Churchill tried to keep himself afloat by borrowing to the hilt, putting off bills and writing 'all over the place'; when all else failed, he had to ask family or friends to come to the rescue. Yet within five years he had taken advantage of his worldwide celebrity to transform his private fortunes with the same ruthlessness as he waged war, reaching 1945 with today's equivalent of £3 million in the bank. His lucrative war memoirs were still to come. Throughout the story, Lough highlights the threads of risk, energy, persuasion, and sheer willpower to survive that link Churchill's private and public lives. He shows how constant money pressures often tempted him to short-circuit the ethical standards expected of public figures in his day before usually pulling back to put duty first-except where the taxman was involved.

Troublesome Young Men

Troublesome Young Men PDF Author: Lynne Olson
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429923644
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
A riveting history of the daring politicians who challenged the disastrous policies of the British government on the eve of World War II On May 7, 1940, the House of Commons began perhaps the most crucial debate in British parliamentary history. On its outcome hung the future of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's government and also of Britain—indeed, perhaps, the world. Troublesome Young Men is Lynne Olson's fascinating account of how a small group of rebellious Tory MPs defied the Chamberlain government's defeatist policies that aimed to appease Europe's tyrants and eventually forced the prime minister's resignation. Some historians dismiss the "phony war" that preceded this turning point—from September 1939, when Britain and France declared war on Germany, to May 1940, when Winston Churchill became prime minister—as a time of waiting and inaction, but Olson makes no such mistake, and describes in dramatic detail the public unrest that spread through Britain then, as people realized how poorly prepared the nation was to confront Hitler, how their basic civil liberties were being jeopardized, and also that there were intrepid politicians willing to risk political suicide to spearhead the opposition to Chamberlain—Harold Macmillan, Robert Boothby, Leo Amery, Ronald Cartland, and Lord Robert Cranborne among them. The political and personal dramas that played out in Parliament and in the nation as Britain faced the threat of fascism virtually on its own are extraordinary—and, in Olson's hands, downright inspiring.

Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare PDF Author: Giles Milton
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 1250119049
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Six gentlemen, one goal: the destruction of Hitler's war machine In the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now, his talents were put to more devious use: he built the dirty bomb used to assassinate Hitler's favorite, Reinhard Heydrich. Another, William Fairbairn, was a portly pensioner with an unusual passion: he was the world's leading expert in silent killing, hired to train the guerrillas being parachuted behind enemy lines. Led by dapper Scotsman Colin Gubbins, these men—along with three others—formed a secret inner circle that, aided by a group of formidable ladies, single-handedly changed the course Second World War: a cohort hand-picked by Winston Churchill, whom he called his Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Giles Milton's Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a gripping and vivid narrative of adventure and derring-do that is also, perhaps, the last great untold story of the Second World War.

When Britain Saved the West

When Britain Saved the West PDF Author: Robin Prior
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030018400X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
From the comfortable distance of seven decades, it is quite easy to view the victory of the Allies over Hitler’s Germany as inevitable. But in 1940 Great Britain’s defeat loomed perilously close, and no other nation stepped up to confront the Nazi threat. In this cogently argued book, Robin Prior delves into the documents of the time—war diaries, combat reports, Home Security’s daily files, and much more—to uncover how Britain endured a year of menacing crises. The book reassesses key events of 1940—crises that were recognized as such at the time and others not fully appreciated. Prior examines Neville Chamberlain’s government, Churchill’s opponents, the collapse of France, the Battle of Britain, and the Blitz. He looks critically at the position of the United States before Pearl Harbor, and at Roosevelt’s response to the crisis. Prior concludes that the nation was saved through a combination of political leadership, British Expeditionary Force determination and skill, Royal Air Force and Navy efforts to return soldiers to the homeland, and the determination of the people to fight on “in spite of all terror.” As eloquent as it is controversial, this book exposes the full import of events in 1940, when Britain fought alone and Western civilization hung in the balance.

Young Titan

Young Titan PDF Author: Michael Shelden
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451609922
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
An account of the World War II prime minister's early career covers his contributions to building a modern navy, his experimentations with radical social reforms, and his lesser-known romantic pursuits.

Churchill and Fisher

Churchill and Fisher PDF Author: Barry Gough
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
ISBN: 1459411366
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 658

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Book Description
A vivid study of the politics and stress of high command, this book describes the decisive roles of young Winston Churchill as political head of the Admiralty during the First World War. Churchill was locked together in a perilous destiny with the ageing British Admiral 'Jacky' Fisher, the professional master of the British Navy and the creator of the enormous battleships known as Dreadnoughts. Upon these 'Titans at the Admiralty' rested British command of the sea at the moment of its supreme test — the challenge presented by the Kaiser's navy under the dangerous Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Churchill and Fisher had vision, genius, and energy, but the war unfolded in unexpected ways. There were no Trafalgars, no Nelsons. Press and Parliament became battlegrounds for a public expecting decisive victory at sea. An ill-fated Dardanelles adventure, 'by ships alone' as Churchill determined, on top of the Zeppelin raids on Britain brought about Fisher's departure from the Admiralty, in turn bringing down Churchill. They spent the balance of the war in the virtual wilderness. This dual biography, based on fresh and thorough appraisal of the Churchill and Fisher papers, is a story for any military history buff. It is about Churchill's and Fisher's war — how each fought it, how they waged it together, and how they fought against each other, face to face or behind the scenes. It reveals a strange and unique pairing of sea lords who found themselves facing Armageddon and seeking to maintain the primacy of the Royal Navy, the guardian of trade, the succour of the British peoples, and the shield of Empire.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare PDF Author: Damien Lewis
Publisher: Quercus
ISBN: 1623659191
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
From the award-winning historian, war reporter, and author Damien Lewis (Zero Six Bravo, Judy) comes the incredible true story of the top-secret "butcher-and-bolt" black ops units Prime Minister Winston Churchill assigned the task of stopping the unstoppable German war machine. Criminals, rogues, and survivalists, the brutal tactics and grit of these "deniables" would define a military unit the likes of which the world had never seen. When France fell to the Nazis in spring 1940, Churchill declared that Britain would resist the advance of the German army--alone if necessary. Churchill commanded the Special Operations Executive to secretly develop of a very special kind of military unit that would operate on their own initiative deep behind enemy lines. The units would be licensed to kill, fully deniable by the British government, and a ruthless force to meet the advancing Germans. The very first of these "butcher-and-bolt" units--the innocuously named Maid Honour Force--was led by Gus March-Phillipps, a wild British eccentric of high birth, and an aristocratic, handsome, and bloodthirsty young Danish warrior, Anders Lassen. Amped up on amphetamines, these assorted renegades and sociopaths undertook the very first of Churchill's special operations--a top-secret, high-stakes mission to seize Nazi shipping in the far-distant port of Fernando Po, in West Africa. Though few of these early desperadoes survived WWII, they took part in a series of fascinating, daring missions that changed the course of the war. It was the first stirrings of the modern special-ops team, and all of the men involved would be declared war heroes when it was all over. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare focuses on a dozen of these extraordinary men, weaving their stories of brotherhood, comradely, and elite soldiering into a gripping narrative yarn, from the earliest missions to Anders Lassen's tragic death, just weeks before the end of the war.