The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill

Churchill was one of the greatest world leaders in the 20th century. And one of the most unlikely.He was what we would say a brat spoiled by privilege, horrible in school, but as a young man joined the military because he thought that would be the fastest way he could gain a position in Parliament.Which it did.He was fearless in battle. I would say even foolhardy, walking upright at the top of the British trenches during WWI to review his troops, despite being constantly shot at by the Germans.He was one of only several men who, during the 1930s, believed that Hitler was secretly violating the Treaty of Versailles which provisioned that Germany must accept "all the loss and damage" it caused during WWI.Churchill, in violation of his own Parliamentary laws, secretly met with a score of civil servants who gathered actual statistics on the secret build up of German war instruments. Throughout the 1930s he warned Parliament over and over again of the danger presented by Hitler's rise to power. He was completely ignored for years. But he held on, and when Hitler finally began his murderous conquest of Europe, at the last minute, Churchill was elected Prime Minister, and the rest, they say, is history.Churchill was a prodigious student of history, compiling *A History of* *the English-Speaking Peoples*.In it, he preserves the rousing speech of Queen Elizabeth to her troops during their war with the superior Spanish armada:"Let tyrants fear.I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts andcgoodwill of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, resolved, in the midst and heat of battle, to live or die amongst you, today down for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field."

NOTE: For whatever reason, it seems as though Amazon is lumping the reviews for all three of these volumes together. This is a review of the second volume of the trilogy.I thoroughly enjoyed Volume 1 of this trilogy, yet that book was incredibly dense. It was 1,000 pages long, and covered the first 58 years of the life of Winston Churchill. So even though it was a gratifying experiencing to read such a piece of work, it was a bit exhausting as well. I pledged I would take a “break” before tackling this, the second volume. This one actually intimidated me a bit more than the first – it was almost as long (about 800 pages) yet only covered eight years of the man’s life as opposed to fifty-eight. Eight years in 800 pages?? I was prepared to be very overwhelmed.Fortunately, this wasn’t the case. This book was actually, in my judgment, better than the first. Although many may disagree, you can’t argue that this book is significantly different in its presentation. The first volume was truly a biography, but this book didn’t really feel like a biography. This one was more of a history lesson of the English government during the 1930s. A country that was exhausted and decimated by “The Great War” the ended a little over a decade ago. A country that truly wanted to believe that the particular conflict was truly “The War to End All Wars”. A country that was anxious to move on and forget such an awful nightmare. Trouble is, there’s an odd little man in Germany named Adolph Hitler that is stirring up the pot, and seems to have an insane notion that his nation will rule the world with himself at the helm. Pretty much no one believes this lunatic, except for Winston Churchill. So this sets the story in motion.We must first remember that Churchill is at the lowest of lows in 1932 politically speaking. He’s a very brash, forward politician, and many of his decisions and opinions have sunk him in terms of credibility. He’s almost a laughing stock, or embarrassment, to the British government. This book begins with a quick recap of book one, and then, as sort of a preamble, details Winston’s daily activities from the moment he wakes up, until he goes to bed (usually about 20 hours later). Once this formality is out of the way, the real story begins.There are a lot of movers and shakers in the English government around this time. I would recommend having an easy access to Wikipedia handy if you’re not too familiar with names such as Stanley Baldwin, David Lloyd George, Edward VIII, Duff Cooper, Lord Halifax, and/or Neville Chamberlin. Ahh..Neville Chamberlin. This book, in many ways, is his story as well as Churchill’s. Chamberlin was Prime Minister of England during the majority of this time, and he comes across as a dim-witted dolt of a dullard. It’s a wonder that England survived. Had it not been for Churchill, it probably would not have survived.As Adolph Hitler starts to slowly build up Germany’s military, Neville Chamberlin and his cronies simply look the other way. After all, nobody wants a war again. So the majority of the Parliament scream “Appeasement”, and as Hitler bullies his way through Europe, Chamberlin comes across as a quiescent dog who won’t stand up to the man. We see Hitler not only conquer places like Austria and Czechoslovakia, but enslave the people, enforce cruel pogroms on the Jews, and sending everyone who won’t pledge their loyalty to the lunatic away to concentration camps. Yet Chamberlin is constantly turning the other cheek.Well, as history shows us, things go from bad to worse, and Churchill starts to slowly gain (back) respectability and trust. The masses start to realize that this man had been right all along, and when war is (finally) declared after Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Churchill finally receives a respectable post in the cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty. There’s a lot of work to do. England has fallen behind. Way behind. The only real ally they have at this time is France, yet that country has become a bit of a joke at this point with no real government nor respectable military, so England falters in many places, loses many lives at sea, and must slowly rebuild.This book concludes when Winston is made the new Prime Minister in 1940. The country now knows they need this man, yet he never gloats, never smirks with an attitude of “I told you so!”, he simply steps into what must be one of the hardest jobs of history that anyone has had to endure. Fortunately, since we know the outcome (which will come in volume 3), it’s a bit easier to read through this sad time in history, yet we still feel incredibly daunted by what Churchill, and the entire country, must have felt at the time.Throughout this book, there are small detours away from politics, and we do read a bit about the man himself. We read at times about vacations he took, or relationships with family members, yet oddly these seem like an annoying commercial during an intense television program. We simply don’t care as much, and want to get back to the real story. As a companion piece to this book, I would recommend William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”. Many of the scenarios and sentiments are identical, the only difference being Shirer uses Hitler as the “main character” of the story. Ironic because Shirer (a well-respected journalist at the time) is mentioned quite frequently within these pages. More ironic for myself, was that it was while I read the Shirer account, that it piqued my interest further in Churchill, which is why I decided to read more about this amazing man.A final thought about this book is that it sadly teaches, at least in my opinion, that we have an awful long way to go on this globe before we can ever achieve world peace. We have too many unstable countries run by authoritarian dictators to ever preach appeasement. Although the peace mongers truly have good intentions and dreams, I’m thoroughly convinced that, just like England in the 1930’s, if we truly want peace on our homeland, we must arm for war. Whatever the cost. A truly great lesson, albeit a sad one, can be learned from within these pages.

This is really an outstanding piece of work. For a start, it is highly readable. Extremely well written, not over poweringly statistical, easy on the eye and fast paced. The work covers Churchill's lonely years out of power in the 1930's. It then outlines his extraordinary prescience in identifying the real risks with the rise of Nazi Germany. It highlights especially his incredible personal (and lonely) determination to bring to the notice of the Governments - the first lead by Baldwin and then by Chamberlain - and his repeateded attempts to stir them into action in rearming and excercising far more caution in their dealings with Hitler. What I found particularly intereting was the absolutley appalling conduct of both prime ministers. Baldwin's blatant, cynical, obstinacy and obsession with appeasement lead to him publicly admitting, finally, that he had put his party before country. He had even deliberately lied/mislead Parliament about the risks in Europe, simply in order to secure his re-election. It exposes his conceit, vanity and self interest, and in incredible detail. Following Baldwin, the book moves on to Chamberlain. The poor conduct of Chamberlain is perhaps better known. His utter arrogance, stubborness and vainglorious manner in pursuing appeasement is beyond belief. However, unusually - but interestingly, this book fully exposes his cohorts, especially Halifax ( foreign secretary) Wilson, the civil servant/cabinet secratary and unelected "advisor" to Chamberlain. Refreshingly it excoriates the misconduct of Henderson, the arch-nazi sympathiser and appeaser, who served as the British ambassador to Germany. These people are clearly shown to be liars, deceivers, fools and schemers. That these people were then never, ever, brought fully to account at the outbreak of war, is appalling and reflects poorly on the establishment of public school, upper class politicians at this time. After the invasion of Poland and the losses of more than 100,000 innocent Polish civilians in air raids, Halifax was STILL holding out for the chance to negotiate a "peace with honour"settlement with Hitler! In fact, he would have happily given away part of the Empire if it meant Britain was left untouched by Hitler. Unbelievable!! The book vividly highlights the utter contempt held by Chamberlain and Halifax (especially), towards the Cezch peoples, Poles and those from the lowland countries of Europe. On public record, Chamberlain readily admitted to his limited knowledge of these peoples and indeed almost every other country in the world. Even Baldwin his predecessor, admitted the same lack of interest and knowledge of foreign affairs. Yet BOTH These Prime Ministers insisted on taking a personal lead in Anglo-French, German and eastern european countries. This book really damming of these two leaders and their fawning sychophantic cabinet members, very few of whom escape this authors exposure of their miserable, pathetic performance. The contempt held by these men for Churchill is also brought sharply to the readers attention. This book is comprehensive, but very readable. It does not attempt to cover Churchill's many flaws. It is not a another piece of Churchillian glorification. It recognises well his determination, stubborness his fanciful ideas - some bordering on recklessness. But it also highlights the man's true greatness. He THE man for the times, of that there can be no doubt. The book stirs the readers blood in its condemnation of the incompetence of British politicians and pre-war leaders, with their incredibly blinkered, head-in-the sand attitude to develpoments in Europe - and their implications for Britain and its Empire. Their failure to look above the parapet so very nearly cost Britain the war. I strongly recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in the events prior to the start of WW2. One cautionary point - the grammar in this work is APPALLING! The punctuation looks like someone threw a bucket of commas at it. It is so bad that towards the end of this excellent work, the reader could easily oget slightly irritated by the constant misapplication of the comma. The book has a surprising number of spelling mistakes, too. That aside, this book is an exceptional piece of highly researched, enjoyable, writing.

Excellent book. Manchester’s writing held my interest throughout, despite the innumerable details. I now have a better understanding of the buildup to WWII.

I love the Internet. One can go back to the archives of any newspaper or magazine and read old book reviews and see if the comments have stood the test of time. In the case of Manchester's first 2 volumes on Churchill the critics weren't very nice. A 28 year old and new NYTimes critic Michiko Kakutani called volume one a bore that covered no new ground. She preferred Martin Gilbert's 4,000 pages leading up to 1939 to Manchester's 2,000 pages to mid 1940. Other critics think Manchester was superficial and found some of his superlatives to describe Churchill or generalizations about English society to be grating. Many of the most important comments remain so today; that Manchester did not seriously research and refute criticism of Churchill that was available to him.Gilbert has written over 80 books on a variety of topics. As Churchill's official biographer many have concluded that he tossed is objectivity out and became too much of a fan. Where Manchester's second volume stands up well is it's dramatic depiction of Churchill standing up to issues of German rearmament and English Appeasement policies of MacDonald, Baldwin and Chamberlain. He does an excellent job recounting history and believes he has uncovered countless facts that strung together nearly reflect a conspiracy by the English government to hide the build up. He offers comments and insights at every turn which are welcome as his point is to educate and influence. As in volume one he quotes from a very broad set of diaries and sources that enrich the experience and he introduces many of the essential players of that era in ways that go beyond the biography.There are serious problems however. Manchester really likes Churchill and as a result his failures are recounted but not condemned and often excused. He was in the same camp as the appeasers in seeing Communism as the main threat and as such he held Mussolini and Franco in high regard. As Exchequer he lead England back on to the gold standard in the 1920's which contributed to economic collapse in the 30's. And his actions in Norway are excused as being watered down by Chamberlain's other cabinet ministers rather than the disaster that it was. His disrespect of just about everyone is explained away rather than discussed as a possible reason for his estrangement.Manchester frequently says Chamberlain was against rearmament because it would hurt the economy but Manchester never explains well the condition of England at that time. Given Manchester's earnestness in placing us within English culture at the time sighting the major books, plays and music of the time it's a startling gap particularly given the frequency of comments on Chamberlain's motives.Overall we do get a very strong case for how appeasement went wrong. It's riveting and provocative. We also get a view on Churchill's home life where he struggled to stay out of debt and seemed to have weak relations with his family. Manchester is clear in his view that Churchill was a lone voice that spoke out frequently and courageously and he sees him as a brilliant multi tasker writing books and articles at a furious pace while keeping up with developments in Europe through his own intelligence network. Unfortunately it feels one sided which may unfairly undermine Manchester's credibility. Had he incorporated and discussed some of criticism of Churchill in more detail I think he would still have been successful in depicting Churchill as he saw him but giving the reader a more rounded view, warts and all.