How Britain, standing alone, persevered in the face of near-certain defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany 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.
But it conveys its knowledge with a winking wit that aptly captures the sensibility of the unsung Irish who relaunched civilization. BONUS MATERIAL: This ebook edition includes an excerpt from Thomas Cahill's Heretics and Heroes.
It was never entirely clear why he was believed to be one. After all, if it was common knowledge among a strikingly callow group of nineteen-year-olds then it suggested a security breach even more grotesque than those habitually endured ...
Nothing like it had ever been seen before. This book explains why the extraordinary collecting frenzy took place.
Conquer We Must tells the complex story of this military decision-making, revealing how politicians attempted to control strategy--but had little influence on how the army, navy, and air force actually fought.
Among the British and Churchillian errors were: • The secret decision of a tiny cabal in the inner Cabinet in 1906 to take Britain straight to war against Germany, should she invade France • The vengeful Treaty of Versailles that ...
Draper, Operation Fish, 362. 35. “Business World,”New YorkTimes, July30, 1940; “Two British LinersBring 372 Children ... 24toBank of Canada,”File A18171, Gold Earmarked forB. of E. RoutineShipments via Eastern PortsJune–July 40,Bank of ...
P. 77. W. S. Churchill. Ibid. Source: David Pryce-Jones, Literary Review, April 2001. P. 22. The Storm of War. Ibid. The Storm of War. Ibid. P. 84. Pétain. Williams. Pp. 441–2. Fighters in the Shadows. Robert Gildea.
Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence (Barrie & Jenkins, 1975) Luck, Hans von, Panzer Commander (Cassell, 2002) MacGregor Burns, James, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom 1940– 1945 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ...
"Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Crown Publishers in 2009"--T.p. verso.
Pickcrsgill used some four hundred yards of top-quality bunting— worsted wool manufactured, ironically, in England. Each stripe had to be twenty-three inches wide, and as the bunting was woven in strips no wider than eighteen inches, ...