Winston's War: Churchill, 1940-1945

by Max Hastings

  1032 “Sit down, butcher!”: Macmillan, p. 619, December 27, 1944.

  1033 “Of course this affair is a sort of ‘super Sidney Street’”: Ibid.

  1034 “This Wednesday has been an exciting”: Soames, ed., Speaking, p. 509, December 28, 1944.

  1035 “a short crack followed by”: Lancaster, Spectator, November 12, 1965.

  1036 “Anglo-American differences and British military action”: USNA, RG59, Box 11, State Department Surveys of Public Opinion on International Affairs, 1943–1975.

  1037 “an orgy of recrimination”: USNA, RG59, Box 11, p. 500, January 21, 1945.

  1038 “The general reaction is that although the British attack”: Nicholas, p. 494, January 7, 1945.

  1039 Office of War Information and State Department surveys: USNA, RG59, Box 11, Survey No. 22.

  1040 “Despite recent press comment sympathetic to the British”: USNA, RG59, Box 11, State Department Surveys of Public Opinion on International Affairs, 1943–1975, No. 19.

  1041 “Terrible Cabinet, first on Greece”: Eden, p. 506, January 12, 1945.

  1042 “You know I cannot give you”: Quoted in Gilbert, Road to Victory, p. 1138.

  1043 “France cannot masquerade as a Great Power”: Churchill to Eden, January 19, 1945.

  1044 “You wouldn’t like my job”: Holmes diary, January 14, 1945, quoted in Gilbert, Road to Victory, p. 1148.

  1045 “In all his moods”: Holmes letter to Gilbert, February 12, 1985, quoted in ibid.

  1046 “It is a mistake to try to write out”: Churchill to Eden, January 4, 1945.

  1047 “Smuts and I are like two old love-birds”: Colville, p. 553, January 17, 1945.

  1048 “Why are we making a fuss”: BNA, FO954/26/382.

  1049 “Make no mistake, all the Balkans”: Colville, p. 555, January 23, 1945.

  1050 “Let us think no more of Hitlee”: Ibid., p. 554, January 20, 1945.

  CHAPTER TWENTY: YALTA

  1051 “As the purely military problems”: Harvey, p. 365, November 11, 1944.

  1052 “I have great hopes of this conference”: Hansard, January 18, 1945.

  1053 “Impossible even to get near basics”: Eden, p. 511, February 2, 1945.

  1054 “What a hole I’ve brought you to!”: Holmes diary, February 3, 1945, quoted in Gilbert, Road to Victory, p. 1172.

  1055 “A terrible party, I thought”: Eden, p. 512, February 4, 1945.

  1056 “Big Three”: New York Times, February 4, 1945.

  1057 “During the past year, Britain”: USNA, RG59, Box 1, Opinion Studies, Special Poll, March 22, 1945.

  1058 “We had the world at our feet”: Quoted in Gilbert, Road to Victory, p. 1174.

  1059 “Our guards compared Churchill to a poodle”: Beria, p. 137.

  1060 “What a crook that man must be”: Chuev, p. 76.

  1061 Soviet eavesdroppers laughed heartily: Beria, p. 138.

  1062 “It has gone to my heart”: CAC Martin Papers, MART2.

  1063 “I do not suppose that at any moment in history”: Sarah Churchill, Keep on Dancing, pp. 75–76.

  1064 “I am free to confess to you”: Soames, ed., Speaking, p. 512, February 1, 1945.

  1065 “We must do what we can”: BNA, CAB120/170.

  1066 “followed so swiftly on the heels”: BNA, PREM4/77/1B/359.

  1067 “even if we go to the verge of war”: Colville, p. 566, February 28, 1945.

  1068 He voiced aloud his fear: Ibid., p. 562, February 23, 1945.

  1069 “he had never been more distressed”: Brooke, p. 665, February 22, 1945.

  1070 “Churchill wants a bourgeois Poland”: Zhukov, 3:216.

  1071 “We see unprecedented unanimity”: Pravda, February 18, 1945.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE FINAL ACT

  1072 “I cannot agree that we are confronted”: Kimball, 3:568.

  1073 “calculated to hasten the disintegration”: BNA, PREM3/12/2, April 20, 1945.

  1074 “In the full tilt of war”: Browne, p. 248.

  1075 Portal had advocated heavy bombing of Rome: BNA, AIR8/436.

  1076 “It was a relief to get Winston home”: Brooke, p. 678, March 26, 1945.

  1077 “I’m an old man and I work hard”: Leslie, pp. 142–43.

  1078 “The PM is now becoming”: Colville, p. 592, April 24, 1945.

  1079 “What do you think?”: Zhukov, 3:224.

  1080 “His vanity was astonishing”: Colville, April 26, 1945.

  1081 “I have been much disturbed at the misunderstanding”: April 29, 1945.

  1082 “I fear terrible things have happened”: BNA, FO954/20.

  1083 “We have moved a long way”: Moran, p. 277, February 7, 1945.

  1084 “I hoped that they would raise their glasses”: Ismay, p. 394.

  1085 “I can’t feel thrilled, my main sensation”: Brooke, p. 688, May 7, 1945.

  1086 “There is no doubt that the public has never understood”: Ibid., p. 689, May 8, 1945.

  1087 “Without him England was lost for a certainty”: Ibid., p. 590, September 10, 1944.

  1088 “in which case there was always a possibility”: Colville, p. 128.

  1089 “the significance of the link-up of the Red Army”: Pravda, April 29, 1945.

  1090 “From the present point of view”: BNA, FO954/26c.

  1091 “Winston delighted, he gives me”: Brooke, p. 690, May 13, 1945.

  1092 “Russian bear sprawled over Europe”: Ibid., p. 693, May 24, 1945.

  1093 “We received reliable information”: Zhukov, 3:322.

  1094 “The overall or political object is to impose upon Russia”: BNA, CAB120/691.

  1095 “The idea is of course fantastic”: Brooke, p. 693, May 24, 1945.

  1096 “again discussed the ‘unthinkable war’”: Ibid., p. 695, May 31, 1945.

  1097 “In the attached report”: Ibid.

  1098 In London, the Unthinkable file was taken: BNA, FO954/26c.

  1099 On July 3, 1940, the American general: Lee, p. 10, July 3, 1940.

  1100 “It would be the highest honour”: Eden, p. 522, February 16, 1945.

  1101 “There are … many who think that this war”: Stebbing, November 27, 1940, quoted in Garfield, p. 24.

  1102 “It is clear that the Churchill government”: Wall Street Journal, December 13, 1944.

  1103 “[I am] in the throes of a mental political upheaval”: Mayhew, ed., pp. 234–35.

  1104 “Well, Prime Minister, I know one thing”: Quoted in Levin, Standardbearer, p. 246.

  1105 “They have saved this country”: Colville, p. 433, August 30, 1941.

  1106 “We have been the dreamers”: Foot, p. 505.

  1107 “One of the most extraordinary things”: IWM, Papers of Mrs. E. Elkus.

  1108 “a jingo election which is terrifying”: Harvey, p. 383, June 10, 1945.

  1109 “I won’t have it … I must have”: Moran, p. 319, July 10, 1945.

  1110 “Churchill was extraordinarily angry”: Rzheshevsky, pp. 519–24.

  1111 “My hate had died with their surrender”: Churchill, Second World War, 6:545.

  1112 “I shall be only half a man”: Moran, p. 313, July 8, 1945.

  1113 “I respect the old man, but he is difficult”: Zhukov, 3:325.

  1114 “He had absorbed all the minor American”: Brooke, p. 709, July 23, 1945.

  1115 During an Allied reception: Zhukov, 3:336.

  1116 “He is again under Stalin’s spell”: Eden, July 17, 1945.

  1117 “Of all the western leaders Churchill”: Beria, p. 135.

  1118 “a lot of people talked a lot of nonsense”: Colville, p. 273, October 22, 1940.

  1119 “no one in our conference delegation”: Kumanyov, p. 303.

  1120 “I still cannot comprehend”: Chuev, p. 85.

  1121 “You must not think of me any more”: Wheeler-Bennett, Action, p. 262.

  1122 “The rest of my life will be holidays”: Moran, p. 353, July 27, 1945.

  1123 he co
ntributed about £35: CAC, Churchill Papers, CHAR1/379/12–20.

  1124 “Winston’s mind has a stop in it”: Eden, p. 350, November 9, 1942.

  1125 “I do not believe in this brave new world”: Moran, p. 224, September 20, 1943.

  1126 “Churchill sees history—and life”: Berlin, pp. 4, 12.

  1127 “After it was over I was on my way”: Eden, p. 551, July 27, 1945.

  1128 “Why don’t you tell them to go to hell?”: Nicolson, p. 238, August 7, 1942.

  1129 “No, I am a privileged domestic”: Kennedy diary, LHA, February 16, 1941.

  1130 “He would no more think of consulting a party”: Gardiner, Prophets, p. 234.

  1131 “Dull cabinet without PM”: Brooke, p. 388, March 8, 1943.

  1132 “His countrymen have come to feel”: Moran, p. 13, December 23, 1941.

  1133 “I should have liked my father”: Mary Soames to the author, May 23, 2004.

  Select Bibliography

  The published literature on Winston Churchill is enormous. My own library includes more than a hundred titles by or about him, and over a thousand books on World War II, many of which have been marginally useful in writing this book. It seems meaningless, however, to catalogue them all. The list below details only works extensively consulted or explicitly quoted in my own text.

  Addison, Paul. Churchill on the Home Front, 1900–1955. Cape, 1992.

  Aglan, Alya. La Résistance sacrifiée: Le Mouvement Libération-Sud 1940–1944. Flammarion, 1999.

  Ambrose, Stephen. Eisenhower: The Soldier. Allen & Unwin, 1984.

  Amery, Leo. The Empire at Bay: The Leo Amery Diaries, 1929–1945. Edited by John Barnes and David Nicolson. Hutchinson, 1988.

  Andrews, Christopher, and Oleg Gordievsky. KGB. Hodder & Stoughton, 1990.

  Annan, Noel. Changing Enemies. HarperCollins, 1995.

  Astley, Joan Bright. The Secret Circle: A View of War at the Top. Hutchinson, 1971.

  Astley, Joan Bright, and Peter Wilkinson. Gubbins and SOE. Leo Cooper, 1993.

  Atkinson, Rick. An Army at Dawn. Henry Holt, 2004.

  ____,The Day of Battle. Henry Holt, 2007.

  Attlee, Clement. As It Happened. Viking, 1954.

  Bailey, Roderick. The Wildest Province. Cape, 2008.

  ____, ed. Forgotten Voices of the Secret War. Ebury Press, 2008.

  Barclay, George. Fighter Pilot. William Kimber, 1976.

  Barker, Elisabeth. Churchill and Eden at War. Macmillan, 1978.

  Barnett, Correlli. The Desert Generals. Allen & Unwin, 1983.

  ____. The Audit of War. Macmillan, 1986.

  Bayly, Christopher, and Tim Harper. Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941–45. Penguin, 2004.

  Beaumont, Joan. Comrades in Arms. Davis-Poynter, 1980.

  Bellamy, Chris. Absolute War. Macmillan, 2007.

  Bennett, Ralph. Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy. Hamish Hamilton, 1989.

  Beria, Sergo. My Father Beria: In the Corridors of Stalin’s Regime (Moi oets Beriya: V koridorakh stalinskoi vlasti). Moscow, 2002.

  Berlin, Isaiah. Personal Impressions. Hogarth Press, 1980.

  Best, Geoffrey. Churchill: A Study in Greatness. Hambledon, 2001.

  ____. Churchill and War. Hambledon, 2005.

  Billotte, Pierre. Le Temps des Armes. Plon, 1972.

  Birkenhead, The Earl of. Halifax: The Life of Lord Halifax. Hamish Hamilton, 1965.

  Blum, John Morton. Years of War, 1941–1945: From the Morgenthau Diaries. Houghton Mifflin, 1977.

  Bohlen, Charles E. Witness to History, 1929–1969. Norton, 1973.

  Bond, Brian. Liddell Hart: A Study of His Military Thought. Cassell, 1977.

  Bonham Carter, Violet. Champion Redoubtable: The Diaries of Violet Bonham Carter. Edited by Mark Pottle. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998.

  Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson. Everyman, 2004.

  Brendon, Piers. Winston Churchill: An Authentic Hero. Methuen, 1984.

  Broad, Richard, and Suzie Fleming. Nella Last’s War. Sphere, 1983.

  Brooke, Alan. War Diaries, 1939–1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke. Edited by Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001.

  Browne, Anthony Montague. Long Sunset: Memoirs of Winston Churchill’s Last Private Secretary. Cassell, 1995.

  Bryant, Arthur. The Turn of the Tide. Collins, 1957.

  _________.Triumph of the West. Collins, 1959.

  Butcher, Harry C. Three Years with Eisenhower. Heinemann, 1946.

  Butler, J. R. M. Grand Strategy, Vol. 2. HMSO, 1957.

  ______. Grand Strategy, Vol. 3, Parts 1 and 2. HMSO, 1964.

  Cadogan, Alexander. The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan. Edited by David Dilks. Cassell, 1971.

  Calder, Angus. The People’s War. Cape, 1986.

  Carlton, David. Churchill and the Soviet Union. Manchester University Press, 2000.

  Chandos, Lord (Oliver Lyttelton). Bodley Head, 1962.

  Channon, Henry. Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon. Edited by Robert Rhodes James. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967.

  Charmley, John. Churchill: The End of Glory. Harcourt Brace, 1993.

  ______. Churchill’s Grand Alliance: The Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1940–1957. Harcourt Brace, 1995.

  Chuev, Feliks. 140 Conversations with Molotov (Sto sorok besed s Molotovym). Terra, 1991.

  Churchill, Sarah. Keep On Dancing. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981.

  Churchill, Winston S. The World Crisis, 2 vols. Odhams, 1927.

  ______. Speeches, 1938–45. 5 vols. Vol. 1 edited by Randolph Churchill. Vols. 2–5 edited by Charles Eade. Cassell, 1941–45.

  ______. The Secret Session Speeches. Edited by Charles Eade. Cassell, 1946.

  ______. The Second World War. 6 vols. Cassell, 1948–54.

  ______. Great Contemporaries. Leo Cooper, 1990.

  ______. My Early Life. Touchstone, 1999.

  Clarke, Peter. The Cripps Version. Allen Lane, 2002.

  Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Edited by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton, 1976.

  Colville, John. The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955. Hodder & Stoughton, 1985.

  Court, W. H. B. Coal. Longman, 1951.

  Craig, Norman. The Broken Plume. IWM, 1982.

  Cunningham, Andrew Browne. A Sailor’s Odyssey. Hutchinson, 1951.

  Dalton, Hugh. The War Diaries of Hugh Dalton. Edited by Ben Pimlott. Cape, 1986.

  Danchev, Alex. Very Special Relationship: Field Marshal Sir John Dill and the Anglo-American Alliance. Brasseys, 1986.

  Davie, Michael, and Anne Chisholm. Beaverbrook. Hutchinson, 1992.

  Davis, Kenneth S. FDR: The War President. Random House, 2000.

  de Gaulle, Charles. War Memoirs. Vol. 1, Call to Honour, 1940–42. Collins, 1955.

  ______. War Memoirs. Vol. 2, Unity, 1942–44. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1959.

  D’Este, Carlo. Fatal Decision: Anzio and the Battle for Rome. HarperCollins, 1991.

  ______. Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life. Henry Holt, 2002.

  ______. Warlord: Winston Churchill at War, 1878–1945. Harper, 2008.

  Djilas, Milovan. Wartime. Secker & Warburg, 1980.

  Dokumenty Vneshnei Politiki, 1940–22.12.41. Moscow, 1999.

  Dykes, Vivian. Establishing the Anglo-American Alliance: The Second World War Diaries of Brigadier Vivian Dykes. Edited by Alex Danchev. Brassey’s, 1990.

  Eden, Anthony. The Eden Memoirs: The Reckoning. Cassell, 1965.

  Ehrman, John. Grand Strategy. Vols. 5 and 6. HMSO, 1956.

  Eisenhower, Dwight David. The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower. Vol. 1, The War

  Years. Edited by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. Johns Hopkins, 1970.

  Ellis, L. F. The War in France and Flanders. HMSO, 1953.

  Elmhirst, Sir Thomas. Recollections. Privately published, 1991.

  Fisk, Robert. In Time of War. Andre Deutsche, 1983.

  Fleming, Peter. Invasion 1940. Hart-Davis, 1957. Foot, Michael. Bevan. McGibbon & Ke
e, 1962.

  Foreign Relations of the United States. The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, Washington, D.C., 1955.

  _____. The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943. Washington, D.C., 1961.

  _____. The Conferences at Washington, 1942. Vol. 3. Washington, D.C., 1961.

  _____. The Conferences at Washington, 1941–1942, and Casablanca, 1943. Washington, D.C., 1968.

  _____. The Conferences at Washington and Quebec, 1943. Washington, D.C., 1970.

  _____. The Conference at Quebec, 1944. Washington, D.C., 1972.

  Fraser, David. Alanbrooke. Collins, 1997.

  French, David. Raising Churchill’s Army. Oxford, 2000.

  Gardiner, A. G. Prophets, Priests and Kings. London, 1914.

  _____. The Pillars of Society. Dent popular edition, 1916.

  Garfield, Simon. Private Battles: How the War Almost Defeated Us. Ebury, 2006.

  Gibb, Andrew. With Winston Churchill at the Front. Gowans & Gray, 1924.

  Gilbert, Martin. Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1940–41. Heinemann, 1983.

  _____. Road to Victory: Winston S. Churchill, 1942–45. Heinemann, 1986.

  _____. Never Despair: Winston S. Churchill, 1945–1965. Heinemann, 1988.

  _____. Churchill: A Life. 8 vols. Henry Holt, 1991.

  __. The Churchill War Papers. 3 vols. Heinemann, 1993–2000.

  _____. In Search of Churchill, John Wiley, 1994.

  Gildea, Robert. Resistance, Reprisals and Community in Occupied France. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 2003, pp. 163–85.

  Golovanov, Alexander. The Long-Range Bomber Force: Memoirs of the Chief Marshal of Aviation. Tsentrpoligraf, 2007.

  Gunther, John. D-Day. Hamish Hamilton, 1944. Haffner, Sebastian. Churchill. Haus, 2003.

  Hammond, Nicholas. Venture into Greece. William Kimber, 1983.

  Harriman, W. Averell, and Elie Abel. Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941–1946. Random House, 1975.

  Harris, Sir Arthur. Bomber Offensive. Collins, 1947.

  Harrison, Mark, ed. The Economics of World War II. Cambridge, 1998.

  Hartwell, Lord. William Camrose: Giant of Fleet Street. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1992.

  Harvey, Oliver. The War Diaries of Oliver Harvey, 1941–1945. Edited by John Harvey. Collins, 1978.

  Hassett, William. Off the Record with FDR. Allen & Unwin, 1960.