CAMBRIDGE AS HISTORY: CHURCHILL, HITLER AND THE UNNECESSARY WAR

CAMBRIDGE AS HISTORY: CHURCHILL, HITLER AND THE UNNECESSARY WAR. It contains: the unnecessary war, great mistakes of the war.

1. CHURCHILL, HITLER AND THE UNNECESSARY WAR HISTORY CAMBRIDGE As (PAPER 2) PRESENTATION 17 1933-1939 module

2. F . H. Hinsley . Hitler’s Strategy Joachim Ribbentrop. The Ribbentrop Memoirs William Shirer. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich MacGregor Knox. Mussolini Unleashed, 1939-1941 Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy’s Last War Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Their Finest Hour Charles de Gaulle. Mémoires de guerre David Thomas. Battles and Honours of the Royal Navy Brooke C. Stoddard. World in the Balance The Perilous Months of June-October 1940 John Grehan. Churchill’s Secret Invasion Buchanan Patrick Joseph, Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World POWERPOINT BASED ON

3. Nothing must be done between England and Germany which would in any way violate the prestige of Great Britain . Adolf Hitler When Hitler realized that his original idea, the creation of a powerful Reich of all Germans allied to Britain, could not be realized, he tried to build and secure this Reich with his own military resources. In this way he created for himself a world of enemies. Joachim von Ribbentrop

4. Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, is a conservative history book by Pat Buchanan, published in May 2008. In it, Buchanan argues that both world wars were unnecessary, and that Britain's decision to fight in them was disastrous for the world. One of Buchanan's express purposes is to undermine what he describes as a "Churchill cult" amongst America's elite, and he focuses particularly on the role of Sir Winston Churchill in involving Britain in wars with Germany in 1914 and in 1939. THE UNNECESSARY WARS

5. Citing such historians as George F. Kennan, Andreas Hillgruber, Simon K. Newman, Niall Ferguson, Charles Tansill , Paul W. Schroeder, Alan Clark, Michael Stürmer , Norman Davies, John Lukacs , Frederick P. Veagle , Correlli Barnett, John Charmley , William Henry Chamberlin, David P. Calleo , Maurice Cowling, A. J. P. Taylor, and Alfred-Maurice de Zayas , Buchanan argues that it was a great mistake on the part of Britain to fight Germany in both world wars. In Buchanan's opinion, the results of British involvement in both world wars were a disaster for Britain, Europe and the world. GREAT MISTAKE TO FIGHT GERMANY

6. Buchanan argues that World War II could have been avoided if the Treaty of Versailles had not in his view been so harsh towards Germany. Buchanan views the Versailles treaty as monstrously unjust towards Germany, and argues that German efforts to revise Versailles were both moral and just. Buchanan calls those historians who blame Germany for the two world wars "court historians", whom Buchanan argues have created a myth of sole German guilt for the world wars. WW2 COULD BE AVOIDED

7. As a result of their humiliation at Versailles, argues Buchanan, the German people became more nationalistic and ultimately were willing to put their confidence in Adolf Hitler. Buchanan writes that there was a "Great Civil War of the West" which comprised both world wars and which Buchanan contends that Britain should have stayed neutral in rather than upholding an unfair Treaty of Versailles. Buchanan damns successive British and French leaders for not offering to revise Versailles in Germany's favour in the 1920s while the Weimar Republic was still in existence, which Buchanan argues influenced the German people to turn to Adolf Hitler. German BEING NATIONALISTIC

8. In Buchanan's view, Weimar-era German leaders like Stresemann , Brüning , and Ebert were all responsible German statesmen working to revise Versailles in a manner that would not threaten the peace of Europe, and were undermined by the inability and unwillingness of Britain and France to co-operate. Buchanan follows the distinction made by the German historian Andreas Hillgruber between a Weimar foreign policy which sought to restore Germany to its pre-1918 position and wished for some territorial expansionism in Eastern Europe, and a Nazi foreign policy for which the achievement of Weimar-era foreign policy was only the first step towards a larger programme of seeking Lebensraum via war and genocide in Eastern Europe. WORKING TO REVISE VERSAILLES

9. Since Buchanan argues that there was no moral difference between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, he maintains that Britain should have just allowed the German Nazis and the Soviet Communists to fight it out and destroy each other and await the course of events, whilst rapidly re-arming so as to be in a position to fight if necessary. Buchanan argues that the "guarantee" of Poland in 1939 was impossible to fulfil and only made the war inevitable. Buchanan argues that once Hitler came to power in 1933, his foreign policy was not governed strictly by Nazi ideology, but rather was modified by pragmatism. No to ideology, YES TO PRAGMATISM

10. Buchanan writes that Benito Mussolini was committed to the Stresa Front of 1935, and it was an act of folly on the part of Britain to vote for League of Nations sanctions on Italy for invading Ethiopia, as it drove Fascist Italy into an alliance with Nazi Germany. In Buchanan's view, the British were highly hypocritical in seeking sanctions against Italy for the Italo -Ethiopian war as he argues there was no moral difference between Italian imperialism against Ethiopia in 1935, and British imperialism against other African nations in the 19th century. BRITISH HYPOCRITICAL

11. Buchanan points out that Hitler regarded the Franco-Soviet Pact as an aggressive move directed at Germany and that it violated the Locarno Treaties, and he adds that Hitler had a strong case. Hitler employed this claimed violation of Locarno as a diplomatic weapon against which the French and the British had no answer, Buchanan argues. DIPLOMATIC WEAPONS

12. Buchanan accepts the picture drawn by the British historian A. J. P. Taylor in his 1961 book The Origins of the Second World War of the Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Józef Beck as a frivolous and irresponsible man incapable of understanding the magnitude of the crisis facing his country in 1939. Buchanan argues that rather than offering the "guarantee" of Poland that Britain could not fulfil, Chamberlain should have accepted it was impossible to save any Eastern European country from German aggression and instead set about re-arming Britain in order to be prepared for any future war with Germany, should it be necessary. THE ORIGINS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

13. Buchanan also writes that the United States should have remained non-interventionist with respect to the events of World War II. However , because the United States insisted the United Kingdom sever its alliance with Japan in 1921, this had the ultimate effect of leading to Japan to align itself with the Axis. Ultimately this led to the Japanese alliance with Germany and its attack on Pearl Harbour . Buchanan blames Churchill for insisting that the British Cabinet in 1921 give in to American pressure to end the alliance with Japan. USA’S ROLE

14. Buchanan concludes that if World War II had not taken place, the British Empire would have continued through the twentieth century. Buchanan favourably cites the 1993 assessment of Alan Clark that World War II “went on far too long, and when Britain emerged the country was bust. Nothing remained of assets overseas. Without immense and punitive borrowings from the US we would have starved. The old social order had gone forever. The empire was terminally damaged. The Commonwealth countries had seen their trust betrayed and their soldiers wasted”. THE BRITISH EMPIRE

15. Buchanan blames British statesmen for bringing Britain into the war against Germany, which not only caused the economic ruin of Britain but also brought Eastern Europe into the Soviet sphere of influence and brought Communism to power in China in 1949, all of which would have been avoided if only Britain had not "guaranteed" Poland in 1939. EASTERN EUROPE

16. Buchanan claims that for the most part American leaders in the Cold War followed the wise advice of George F. Kennan, who understood a strong Germany was needed as an American ally to keep the Soviet Union (Russia) out of Central Europe, and who did not rush into unnecessary wars with the Soviet Union, instead waiting patiently for the Soviet Union to fall apart of its own accord. THE NEED FOR A STRONG ALLY

17. Buchanan ends his book with an attack on George W. Bush, and argues that just as Churchill led the British Empire to ruin by causing unnecessary wars with Germany twice, so too will Bush lead the United States to ruin by following Churchill's example in involving the United States in an unnecessary war in Iraq, and passing out guarantees to scores of nations in which the United States has no vital interests, placing the United States in a position in which her resources are insufficient to fulfil her promises. TO THE PRESENT DAY

18. Buchanan expresses the view that just as Chamberlain's "guarantee" of Poland in March 1939 caused an "unnecessary war" with Germany later that year, that the United States's current guarantees of Eastern European nations are equally unwise, given that they require a declaration of war with Russia if a hostile regime were to ascend to power in that country and attack any of those countries. This despite the fact that the United States has no vital interests in Eastern Europe. Finally , Buchanan highlights the symbolism of George W. Bush placing a bust of Churchill in the Oval Office as evidence that Bush's neoconservative foreign policy was influenced and inspired by Churchill. THE UNECESSARY WAR