by Walter Reid
11 March
Master Lend-Lease Act passed by US Congress.
24 March
Rommel enters the Desert War.
6 April
Italian Army in Ethiopia surrenders to Allied forces.
21 April
Greece surrenders to Germany.
24 April
Evacuation from Greece.
25 April
Rommel enters Egypt.
8 June
Syria invaded by British and Free French forces.
15 June
Wavell opens BATTLEAXE.
21 June
Auchinleck replaces Wavell.
22 June
Hitler launches Operation Barbarossa.
14 July
Armistice in Syria with Vichy France.
9–12 August
Atlantic Conference, Placentia Bay.
12 August
German Army advances on Leningrad.
7 December
Pearl Harbor.
8 December
US declares war on Japan.
10 December
Japan sinks Prince of Wales and Repulse.
11 December
Germany and Italy declare war on US.
22 December
ARCADIA opens.
24 December
Free French seize St. Pierre and Miquelon.
25 December
Hong Kong surrenders.
1942
21 January
Rommel opens his second offensive.
8 February
Japanese troops land on the north-west corner of Singapore.
15 February
Singapore surrenders.
23 April
Luftwaffe bombs Exeter, Bath and other cities.
30 May
Harris orders the first 1,000-bomber attack on Germany at Cologne.
14 June
Rommel defeats Ritchie at Gazala.
20–25 June
Second Washington Conference.
21 June
Rommel captures Tobruk.
August
Auchinleck dismissed. Montgomery appointed to command Eighth Army.
12–17 August
Churchill in Moscow.
19 August
Dieppe raid.
30 August
Rommel defeated by Montgomery at Alam Halfa.
23 October
Montgomery opens Second Battle of El Alamein.
8 November
TORCH landings in North Africa.
11 November
Admiral Darlan surrenders French North Africa to Eisenhower.
11 November
Germany occupies Vichy France.
12 November
Britain recaptures Tobruk.
24 December
Darlan assassinated.
1943
18 January
Luftwaffe renews air attacks on London.
12–24 January
Casablanca Conference.
23 January
Eighth Army enters Tripoli.
25 February
British and US military aircraft begin round-the-clock bombing of Nazi Germany.
7 May
Allies capture Tunis.
12–27 May
TRIDENT.
13 May
Last Germans surrender in Tunisia.
27 May
Jean Moulin holds the first meeting of the Conseil National de la Résistance in Paris.
10 July
Invasion of Sicily.
25 July
Mussolini falls from power.
17–24 August
QUADRANT.
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 10 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.