Churchill, Hitler, and the unncessary war - Essay Example

The Treaty of Versailles, and the punitive damages enforced against Germany, should stnad for nothing. Patrick Buchanan's book does its best to dismiss this complacency and show how British policymakers committed a number of blunders which led to the possibility of war becoming much more likely. One of the chief culprits of those blunders was Winston Churchill, largely lionized today. Throughout this insightful and instructive book, Buchanan takes on conventional wisdom and scores point after point.

Buchanan is best known as a conservative commentator in the United States. He has also run for president previously. He represents a Washingtonian wing of the Republican party, one which holds to the first president's most famous line: “Avoid foreign entanglements.” Buchanan is an ardent critic of American wars overseas and believes many of the conflicts which the U.S. has been involved in in the 20th century have been largely avoidable and unnecessarily costly. As such, he is known as an isolationist, and this book confirms that fact.

Buchanan draws on a wide reading of historical documents to make his point in this book. In his view, World War I was unnecessary, and partly caused by the British government's haughty behaviour towards to the Kaiser (Buchanan, 10). Likewise, the Second World War was unnecessary. . Buchanan takes an unconventional view on both the Kaiser and Hitler, but especially on Churchill who is often seen today as a secular saint. Much of the Churchill worship focuses on his oratory during the attacks on the United Kingdom.

There can be little doubt that these were stirring performances and that the man was an articulate and excellent speaker. For example, one of his most famous radio addresses went as follows: We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old (Churchill) This is stirring stuff.

It inspired millions of Britons not to give up and to continue fighting in the Battle of Britain. It is clear that the man who had ordered the senseless slaughter at Gallipoli in the First World War, was a fine speaker. But strategically he was a poor thinker. He had wanted war for a long time and thought of himself as a warrior (Buchanan, 281). As Buchanan makes clear, he lead Britain into a disastrous war with Germany. By the end of the Second World War, Britain was so bankrupt it had to give up much of