Churchill and WarWinston Churchill saved Britain and Europe by his incomparable leadership in the Second World War. His involvement in war, hoever, stretched over a far longer period and was one of the main themes of his long life. Cavalryman at Omdurman, infantry colonel in the trenches of World War I, First Lord of the Admiralty, as well as a wartime Prime Minister, he also wrote copiously about war as war correspondent, journalist and historian. Personally brave, he was both excited and repelled by war, and was a powerful strategic thinker. Geoffrey Best shows the importance of war in Churchill's career as a whole, from his early days as a hussar in India to his attempts to control the threat of the nuclear bomb. His leadership in the Second World War, which is fully covered, owed much to what he had learnt from earlier wars. Churchill and War, which is not afraid to tackle the question of his strategic bombing of Germany, is a rounded portrait of Churchill the warrior. |
Contents
Blenheim | 1 |
Visiting the Siegfried Line with Brooke and Montgomery | 16 |
The Sudan and South Africa | 17 |
Amateur Admiral | 33 |
Antwerp and Gallipoli | 51 |
Mud and Munitions | 65 |
3 | 82 |
From Peace to War | 91 |
Firing a Tommy Gun 1944 | 178 |
Crossing a bridge with Brooke and Montgomery 3 March 1945 | 178 |
The Family at War | 185 |
Atoms for War | 201 |
Atoms for Peace | 221 |
A Mind for War | 245 |
The Conduct of War | 271 |
Bladon | 293 |
Democratic Warlord | 113 |
The Grand Alliance | 131 |
Strategy | 149 |
War Direction | 165 |
Notes | 299 |
Bibliography | 331 |
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Common terms and phrases
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