by Walter Reid
3 September
Eighth Army lands in Italy.
15 September
Mussolini restored to power at Lake Garda.
23 September
Badoglio signs armistice with the Allies.
13 October
General Mark Clark and 5th Army capture Naples.
13 October
Badoglio declares war on Germany.
18 November
Intensive bombing of Berlin by the RAF begins.
28 November
Teheran Conference.
28 December
Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin meet at Teheran.
1944
22 January
Anzio landings begin.
6 March
United States Air Force begin daylight air attacks on Berlin.
26 May
French Council for National Liberation declares itself the Provisional government of France.
4 June
Allies capture Rome.
6 June
D-Day.
13 June
First V1 Rocket bomb lands on Britain.
9 July
Allied troops capture Caen in Normandy.
1 August
Warsaw rising.
14 August
Allied troops land on the French Mediterranean coast.
24 August
Allies enter Paris.
8 September
First V2 Rocket lands on Britain.
11 September
Allied troops enter Germany.
12–16 September
OCTAGON.
9 October
Churchill in Moscow.
7 November
FDR’s fourth Presidential victory.
25 December
Churchill in Athens.
1945
4 February
Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt meet at Yalta Conference.
27 March
Last V2 Rocket lands on Britain.
12 April
Roosevelt dies. Truman President.
29 April
German forces in Italy surrender to the Allies.
1 May
Hitler commits suicide.
2 May
Berlin surrenders.
4 May
All military forces in Germany surrender to the Allies.
8 May
General Jodl signs the official surrender of Germany.
8 May
VE Day.
17 July
Potsdam Conference opens.
23 July
Atomic bomb tested.
26 July
Churchill resigns, following British general election.
Bibliographical Note
I have not thought it worthwhile to compile a bibliography. This book is the product of forty years’ reading of books by and about Churchill, prompted by a present from my parents in 1968 of the collection of essays edited by Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, Action this Day: Working with Churchill – still stimulating and valuable. The literature surrounding Churchill is vast. Zoller’s Annotated Bibliography of Works about Sir Winston S. Churchill runs to 432 pages. Much that is of importance is contained in slim volumes which stand apart from the more magisterial studies, and thus even a select bibliography would be too extensive to be helpful.
Some, but certainly not all, the works I have found most useful are referred to in the References that follow, where a full bibliographical record is given in the first reference to each book.
For a full bibliography, reference may be made to Zoller’s compilation. The Churchill Centre’s website (www.winstonchurchill.org) is also helpful.
Despite what I have said about the significance of the slim volumes, I must record the importance of the most magisterial of all, the great series of the official biography, begun by Randolph Churchill with Sir Martin Gilbert’s assistance, then written jointly by the two men, and finally, and for the most part, by Sir Martin Gilbert alone. These eight volumes are authoritative and painstakingly researched, but eminently readable, at times gripping. Their companion volumes of documents are of enormous assistance to the historian, and it is a matter of regret that they currently extend only to the end of 1941. The whole is an outstanding biographical achievement, on a scale that is unlikely to be repeated.
References
Chapter 1
1. Private communication, The Churchill Centre.
2. Quoted, John Ramsden, Man of the Century: Winston Churchill and his Legend since 1945 (London: Harper Collins, 2002). Quotation from pbk edn, p. 196.
3. David Reynolds, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (London: Allen Lane, 2004).
4. Quoted, Ramsden, Man of the Century, pbk edn, p. 199.
5. See Ramsden, Man of the Century, pbk edn, p. 202.
6. See, for example, Robert Blake and William Roger Louis (eds), Churchill, A Major New Assessment of his Life in Peace and War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). There are other well-researched critical studies, such as David Carlton Churchill and the Soviet Union (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000) and Tuvia Ben-Moshe, Churchill: Strategy and History (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991).
7. Howard, ‘The End of Churchillism? Reappraising the Legend’, in Foreign Affairs, September/October 1993.
8. C. Zoller, Annotated Bibliography of Works about Sir Winston Churchill (New York: M.E. Sharpe in association with the Churchill Centre, 2004), chapter 2; updated by personal communication from the Churchill Centre.
Chapter 2
1. See John Colville, The Fringes of Power, Downing Street Diaries, 1939–55 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985), p. 123.
2. A. Roberts The Holy Fox: A Biography of Lord Halifax (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1991), p. 199.
3. Quoted, F. Smith, Earl of Birkenhead, Halifax: the Life of Lord Halifax (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1965), p. 454.
4. M. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 6 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 313.
5. W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 1 (London: Cassell, 1948), p. 526.
6. See, for example, Blake, ‘How Churchill became Prime Minister’ in Blake and Louis, Churchill, p. 272.
7. Colville in J. Wheeler-Bennett (ed.), Action this Day: Working with Churchill, Memoirs by Lord Normanbrook and others (London: Macmillan, 1968), p. 49.
8. R. James (ed.), ‘Chips’, The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1967), p. 242.
9. N. Nicolson (ed.), Diaries and Letters of Harold Nicolson 1939–45 (London: Collins, 1967), 30 April 1940.
10. Quoted, A. Roberts, Eminent Churchillians (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1994), p. 141 et seq.
Chapter 3
1. Colville, The Fringes of Power, p. 195.
2. M. Soames, Clementine Churchill (London: Cassell, 1979). Quotation from pbk edn, p. 386.
3. J. Colville, The Churchillians (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1981), p. 115.
4. Colville, The Fringes of Power, p. 336.
5. Colville, The Fringes of Power, p. 238.
6. Colville, The Churchillians, p. 21.
7. Colville, The Fringes of Power, p. 273.
Chapter 4
1. Quoted, Colville, The Fringes of Power, p. 122.
2. Daily Herald, 21 May 1940.
3. J. Kennedy, The Business of War, The War Narrative of Major-General Sir J. Kennedy (London: Hutchinson, 1957), p. 80.
4. For an excellent account of the political constraints at this period, see L. Olson, Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), especially chapter 19.
5. Quoted, David Reynolds, ‘Churchill & the British “Decision” to Fight on in 1940’, in R. Langhorne (ed.), Diplomacy and Intelligence during the Second World War: Essays in Honour of F.H. Hinsley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 149 & 297.
6. Churchill to Chamberlain 1
0 May 1940, quoted D. Reynolds, From World War to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the International History of the 1940s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 77.
7. See M. Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, vol. 2, (London: Heinemann, 1994), p. 49.
8. Chamberlain Papers.
9. See Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 6, p. 828 et seq.
10. Soames, Clementine Churchill, p. 299 et seq.
11. Quoted, Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 6, p. 835.
12. Churchill to J.A. Spender Churchill papers, 20/29, quoted, M. Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, vol. 3 (London: Heinemann, 1999), p. 895.
13. See Gilbert, War Papers, vol. 3, p. 912 et seq; Hansard, 9 July 1941.
14. Gilbert, War Papers, vol. 3, p. 883 et seq.
15. Churchill to Clement Attlee and Lord Cranborne, Churchill Papers, 20/50, quoted by Gilbert, War Papers, vol. 3, p. 1717; Hansard, 29 April 1941.
16. C. Cross (ed.), Life with Lloyd George: the Diary of A.J. Sylvester 1931–45 (London: Macmillan, 1975), p. 281.
Chapter 5
1. Quoted P. Addison, Churchill: The Unexpected Hero (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 57.
2. W. Churchill, The World Crisis (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1923), Part 3, Chapter 10.
3. A. Marder, From The Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: the Royal Navy in the Fisher Era 1904–19 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), vol. 1, p. 255.
4. Quoted Addison, Churchill: The Unexpected Hero, p. 73.
5. Colville, The Fringes of Power, p. 403.
6. Quoted Martin Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 5 (London: Heinemann, 1976), p. 687.
7. Quoted M. Gilbert, Continue to Pester, Nag and Bite: Churchill’s War Leadership (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2004) published in the UK as Winston Churchill’s War Leadership, p. 7.
8. D. Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service (London: John Murray, 1997). Quotation from pbk edn, p. 397.
9. See, for a fascinating exploration of Churchill’s interest in intelligence, Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service.
10. Quoted Gilbert, Winston Churchill’s War Leadership, p. 48.
Chapter 6
1. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2 (London: Cassell, 1949), p. 157 et seq.
2. See J. Lukacs, Five Days in London, May 1940 (London: Yale University Press, 1999).
3. R. Jenkins, Churchill, (London: Macmillan, 2001), p. 610.
4. Ismay to Robert Sherwood, quoted Reynolds, In Command of History, p. 172.
5. See Halifax, Diary, 6 June 1940 quoted, Reynolds, From World War to Cold War, p. 82.
6. Chamberlain, Diary, 26 May 1940 quoted, Reynolds, From World War to Cold War, p. 81.
7. See David Reynolds, ‘Churchill the Appeaser? Between Hitler, Roosevelt and Stalin in World War Two’, in Michael Dockrill and Brian McKercher (eds), Diplomacy and World Power: Studies in British Foreign Policy, 1890–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 197 et seq.
8. Reynolds, In Command of History, p. 171.
9. See Colville, The Fringes of Power, pp. 140–1 (27 May 1940).
10. A.J.P. Taylor, ‘The Statesman’, in A.J.P. Taylor, R.R. James, J.H. Plumb, A. Storr and B. Liddell Hart, Churchill: Four Faces and the Man (London: Allen Lane the Penguin Press, 1969), p. 36.
11. Cabinet papers, 65/13, quoted, Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, vol. 2, p. 181.
12. Lukacs, Five Days in London: May 1940, p. 2.
13. D. Dilks (ed.), The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan 1938–1945, (London: Cassell, 1971), 27 May 1940.
14. C. Hill, Cabinet Decisions on Foreign Policy: the British Experience October 1938 – June 1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 185.
15. Quoted, J. Jackson, The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Quotation from pbk edn, p. 209 et seq.
16. See Reynolds, From World War to Cold War, pp. 113, 114.
17. Quoted, Gilbert (ed.), Churchill, Companion Vol. 3, Part 2, pp. 1494.
18. Robert Lloyd George, David and Winston (New York: Overlook Press, 2008), p. 235.
19. See David Reynolds, ‘Churchill & the British “Decision” to Fight on in 1940’, in Langhorne, Diplomacy and Intelligence during the Second World, p. 153.
Chapter 7
1. Lloyd George, David & Winston, p. 231.
2. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, p. 13.
3. Dilks (ed.), Cadogan Diaries, p. 301.
4. Ben-Moshe, Churchill: Strategy and History, p. 333.
5. Quoted, Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service, pbk edn, pp. 398–9.
6. Quoted G. Best, Churchill & War (London: Hambledon and London, 2005), pp. 169–70.
7. A.J.P. Taylor, ‘The Statesman’, in Taylor et al., Churchill: Four Faces and the Man, p. 36.
8. Basil Liddell Hart, ‘The Military Strategist’, in Taylor et al., Churchill: Four Faces and the Man, p. 197.
9. See Brian Bond, ‘Alanbrooke & Britain’s Strategy’, in Lawrence Freedman, Paul Hayes and Robert O’Neill (eds), War, Strategy, & International Politics: Essays in honour of Sir Michael Howard (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1992), p. 179.
10. Quoted, Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service, pbk edn, p. 223.
11. Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service, pbk edn, p. 229.
12. Rowan in Wheeler-Bennett, Action this Day, p. 250.
13. Churchill to Lord Woolton and Robert Hudson, 14 June 1941 Churchill papers, 20/36, quoted, Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, vol. 3, p. 802 – an ‘Action this Day’ memorandum.
14. Hansard, 7 May 1941.
15. Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, vol. 2, p. xxv.
16. Quoted, Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, vol. 2, p. 426.
Chapter 8
1. Quoted Reynolds, In Command of History, p. 147.
2. See Antoine Capet, ‘France in Churchill’s The Second World War’ in P. Chassaigne and M. Dockrill, Anglo-French Relations 1898–1998: From Fashoda to Jospin. Studies in Military and Strategic History Series (Basing-stoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 125–37.
3. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, p. 45 et seq.
4. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, p. 189.
5. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, p. 43.
6. See G. Corrigan, Blood, Sweat and Arrogance and the Myths of Churchill’s War (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2006), p. 236.
7. Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 6, p. 442.
8. E. Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. 2 (London: Heinemann, 1954), p. 76.
9. R. Tombs, That Sweet Enemy (London: Heinemann, 2006), p. 557.
10. Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. 2, p. 210.
11. Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. 2, p. 216.
12. See F. Kersaudy, Churchill and de Gaulle (London: Collins, 1981). Quotation from pbk ed, p. 65 et seq.
13. Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. 2, p. 218 et seq.
14. Colville, The Fringes of Power, p. 160.
15. Tombs, That Sweet Enemy, p. 560.
16. Colville, The Fringes of Power, p. 158.
17. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, p. 181.
18. See J. Jackson, The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Quotation from pbk edn, p. 12 et seq.
19. Jackson, The Fall of France. Quotation from pbk edn, p. 69 et seq.
20. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, p. 40 et seq.
Chapter 9
1. Kersaudy, Churchill and de Gaulle, pbk edn, p. 54.
2. Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. 2, p. 139.
3. Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires de Guerre, L’Appel, vol. 1 (Paris: Plon, 1954), p. 71.
4. See Corrigan, Blood, Sweat and Arrogance, p. 275.
5. E. Spears, Two Men who saved France: Pétain and de Gaulle (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1996), p. 164.
6. De Gaulle, L’Appel, p. 275 et seq.
7. Colville, The Fringes of Power, 13 December 1940.
8. S
ee S. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals (London: Collins, 1977). Quotation from p. 157, pbk edn.
9. Quoted, Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, p. 156, pbk edn.
10. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, p. 122, pbk edn.
11. D. Wragg, Sink the French: the French Navy after the Fall of France 1940 (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Maritime, 2007), p. 142.
12. See Capet in Chassaigne and Dockrill, Anglo-French Relations 1898–1998, p. 125–37.
13. Colville, The Fringes of Power, p. 185
14. Quoted, Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 6, p. 642 et seq.
15. Quoted, Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 6, p. 830.
16. Colville, The Fringes of Power, p. 311.
Chapter 10
1. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, p. 160, pbk edn.
2. Quoted, A. Danchev, ‘ “Dilly-Dally”, or Having the Last Word: Field-Marshal Sir John Dill and Prime Minister Winston Churchill’, in Journal of Contemporary History vol. 22, no.1 (January 1987), p. 22.
3. Quoted, Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, p. 118, pbk edn.
4. Personal communication to Roskill, quoted Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, p. 120, pbk edn.
5. Letter to John Colville, quoted, Colville, The Churchillians, p. 147.
6. See Reynolds, In Command of History, p. 183.
7. Reynolds, In Command of History, p. 184.
8. Colville, The Fringes of Power, p. 195.
9. Quoted, Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service, pbk edn, p. 229.
10. See Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service, pbk edn, p. 230.
11. Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service, pbk edn, p. 231–3.