The second of the issues about Churchill arises from my reading of Pat Buchanan’s book, “Churchill, Hitler and the unnecessary War.” I like Buchanan’s books but disagree with most of what he writes here. He blames Churchill and Edward Grey for WWI. This prompted me to get a biography of Edward Grey, who was Foreign Secretary from 1905 to 1916 and I think it is fair to say, he had much to do with the beginning of the war. I disagree about Churchill who did not hold a post in the Liberal administration until he became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. In this role he is given credit for getting the fleet ready for war. He did not have a role in the crisis of July 1914 which led to it.
In The Second World War, his role was mostly early warning about Hitler and his ambitions. He spent the 1930s warning that Britain should rearm as Germany was doing. He was ignored. His warnings were so dismissed that his columns and radio broadcasts were stopped during the height of appeasement.
There is an interesting issue that Churchill had nothing to do with. The last moment Guarantee to Poland. His statement at the time and in his book, was:
‘Here was decision at last, taken at the worst possible moment and on the least satisfactory ground, which must surely lead to the slaughter of tens of millions of people. Here was the righteous cause deliberately and with a refinement of inverted artistry committed to mortal battle after its assets and advantages had been so improvidently squandered. Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.’
Buchanan makes fair case that, had Chamberlain not done his last minute and hopeless Polish Guarantee, Hitler might have gone on to attack Poland and then the Soviets and avoided war with France and Britain. There was no chance of avoiding war altogether once the Germans had occupied the Rhineland and been left alone. Czechoslovakia was a more difficult case. The Czechs might have been able to defeat the Germans in 1938. Perhaps Hitler would not have risked it.
By 1939 and with Poland landlocked and far away from France and Britain, there was no chance the guarantee would do anything but create a larger war. Poland, in fact, had carved off part of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and had no moral case for help. IT was a disastrous error but it was made by Chamberlain, not Churchill.
If Britain and France done nothing when Hitler divided Poland with Russia would he have been able, a year or two later, to conquer Russia? What would have been the odds of being successful against Russia if there had been no Western Front against Britain? But if successful against Russia, and once he’d consolidated his victory what are the odds that he would have attacked France and Britain?
I agree that not taking action against the re-occupation of the Rhineland and not capitulating on Czechoslovakia were disastrous errors. And whatever the morality of declaring war when Poland was invaded, it was a disastrous error for France and Britain to not immediately invade Germany rather than do nothing for 8 months until the Germans attacked them.
Fair points but my argument is that, having the other facts in force, the Polish Guarantee was disastrous. The “Phony War” was just one more example of their fecklessness. Churchill did not become PM until May 10 ,when the Germans invaded France, By that time, the French campaign was lost