Would Britain Have Surrendered to Nazi Germany Without Churchill?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 22 май 2024
- Would Britain Have Surrendered to Nazi Germany Without Churchill?
The host of History Hit's 'Warfare' podcast James Rogers sits down with author and military historian John Buckley in the (IWM) Churchill War Rooms to discuss his new book: 'The Armchair General: Can You Defeat the Nazis?'
Listen to the Warfare podcast here: play.acast.com/s/the-world-wars
In this episode, the two discuss why and how Winston Churchill was chosen to replace Neville Chamberlain, whose policy of appeasement had failed to secure peace in Europe, and how his characteristics enabled him to lead Britain through its so-called Darkest Hour. How did Churchill manage to defeat his greatest political rival Lord Halifax to become prime minister? And what might have happened if Churchill hadn't been chosen to lead the country?
How close was he to making a peace deal with Hitler? When was Britain closest to losing the war? What made Winston Churchill the ideal wartime leader? Find out in this video!
John's book invites you to take the hotseat and make the key decisions that swung the result of the Second World War. It focusses on eight pivotal moments: Britain's Darkest Hour, 1940; The War in North Africa; Stalin's War on the Eastern Front; The Pacific Battle of Midway; The Dresden Bomber Offensive; Casablanca; Arnhem and Operation Market Garden; The Bomb and Hiroshima.
Sign up to History Hit TV now and get 14 days free: access.historyhit.com/checkout
And remember, as RUclips subscribers, you can sign up to History Hit TV today with code RUclips and enjoy 50% off your first 3 months!
For more history content, subscribe to our History Hit newsletters: www.historyhit.com/sign-up-to...
#historyhit #winstonchurchill #churchillwarrooms
John Buckley definitely knows his stuff.
My father was evacuated from Dunkirk on 1st June. He knew how serious it was that the army had lost the majority of its equipment, but he says he never doubted that we'd win. Both he and my mother said that the country underwent a dramatic change in attitude when France capitulated; half measures had ended, it was a fight to the death.
Churchill's brilliance was that he could put words eloquently to what people thought.
I tend to think we would have capitulated without Churchills resolve I don't know what the outcome would have been for the world would anyone care to speculate?
@@pjmoseley243 And I tend to agree with you. As I said, the general population had it in them to resist, and the wrong person at the top might very well have been replaced eventually, but not after a series of wrong decisions leaving us in an even weaker situation.
As for what happened in the future; Russia would have received no support, and while I respect the enormous contribution she made, the material contribution by both Britain and the USA is often not appreciated, and at a time when those materials and the ships at risk were in desperately short supply.
Invasion of Europe by USA would have been impossible. And what would have happened in the far east?
Such speculation could be without end.
In 1939, Hitler was a dangerous dictator but not yet the ethnic cleansing monster he became. If Hitler had been allowed to take on Stalin (an already well proven despot) the Nazis would probably have won. Would that have led to a different style of Cold War? Who knows. We are not allowed to discuss the issue.
LOL! You’re father shouldn’t have even been at Dunkirk…the stupidity of sending a half trained army - working class men who were malnourished was tantamount to mass murder, by Churchill etc. The Wehrmacht laughed at the state of our troops - saying they would “feed them up, make them into true men” while they were POWs…most of the history you will here in the west about this period is a bunch of liberal bs.
@@davidelliott5843 I doubt it. Russia had an entire subcontinent East of the Urals, and Hitler's weakest military characteristic, was lack of concern for logistics. The shortest is blitzkrieg was the greater the victory. The longer the siege, the more disastrous the results.
I was lucky enough some years ago to tour the Churchill War Rooms. It was fascinating! So claustrophobic.... I could have spent all day poking around, reading the stories and listening to the speeches. Everyone who gets the chance should see them.
I believe Churchill was the unique difference between the UK not making peace with the nazi Germany. If Churchill had not recognised the dangers then the world as we know it today would never have evolved.
I went from Canada to London in '89 and spent a morning touring the War Rooms and then that afternoon went over to the Old Bailey and watched the trial of an IRA terrorist. Later that evening atttended a Jeffrey Archer play at The Strand which was called 'Exclusive' and had Paul Scofield as it's lead character. Afterwards topped it all off with a few pints at The Maple Leaf pub. A fascinating day for sure! 😊
This side of history is rarely discussed. Thank you for this presentation
It's discussed constantly! It's one of the biggest alternative history subjects ever!
Wow, this was such an insightful discussion on the pre-Churchill era and the mood in Parliament during the Second World War. It's fascinating to learn about the options Churchill had before him when everything had gone horribly wrong on the continent. And just the fact that the Cabinet War Rooms in London played such an iconic role during the war is incredible. Thank you for sharing this video and I'm excited to learn more about the decisions made during this time in history!
Britain declared war on and then attacked Germany, after years of coordinated passive aggression against Germany.
Adolf Hitler and Germany were striving for peace with Britain before Churchill's warmongering ever reached its fever pitch in September 1939.
I realize that most nations have systematically indoctrinated their population(s) with a completely fabricated/false narrative but the truth is readily available to anyone who wants to learn/know the truth.
0:47
0:48
'5 Days in London' by John Lukacs - an American author - is really the most definitive and magisterial history of those crucial few days. Well worth a read to those interested in history.
Halifax made one of the most important decisions of the 20th century when he pulled out of becoming PM, he new he didn't have the stomach to be a war leader he had only ever shot grouse etc on his estate in Yorkshire, Churchill had seen was had been in the trenches and had the character to lead the country
Halifax was an out and out coward and appeaser. Hitler would have had him shot as soon as they had captured GB.
The war room or Churchills' war room was so good. A very good crash course into who Churchill was, and the hardcore determination of the British to win. Lack of air, tight quarters, no daylight left me drained. can't imagine with the noise of phones, typewriters, alarms, sirens, and unendening smoking clogging the limited air.
I believe the WarRoom was designed and put together before Churchill became prime minister. Chamberlain may have been doing everything to avoid another War. But his government was preparing for the possibility that England would soon be at war.
Got my dad this book for Christmas and he loves it.
Great and insightful interview
The books you should have bought are Pat Buchanan’s Churchill and the Unnecessary War, and Peter Hitchens “The Phony Victory”. Both books do a great job of disabusing the nonsense Churchill put in his post war diaries, as well as the persistent myths we have created today. Educate yourself….watching youTubes like this will make you angry because you will see the lies and nonsense that they convey.
@John 😂 Most amusing. Only in Britain could we persuade ourselves that the piss sodden, incompetent clown that was Churchill could be canonized. From his fck up in South Africa to Gallipoli, to Treasury, to the war years of Norway, North Africa, the loss of the Empire in the east, the guy was absolute disaster. But you see when the dust settled in 1945 we couldn’t tell ourselves that we had fcked up royally - that our political class were utter intellectual pygmies - not in the rubble and the rations - we had to cling to the idea of a moral calling; and that necessarily meant having to invoke Churchill as a “great man”
It’s one of the most pernicious myths in the UK, and still affects our attitudes today: the pathetic rallying around the Ukraine - when the rest of Europe is practically ambivalent. Like the good little puritans we really are have to exhibit our morality before all else. The fact is that clowns like Halifax, Chamberlain and Churchill fcked up royally with the Polish guarantee (yes Churchill backed it). How colossally stupid! Knowing full well you had no ability to aid the country. And all Hitler wanted was fcking Danzig which was German anyway. So we went to war because we couldn’t persuade the Poles to hand back Danzig. Instead we end up tossing away our accumulated wealth of empire for a country Churchill later threw to Stalin anyway. it’s Churchill you can really throw a brick at: waxing lyrical about the Polish nation’s independence, giving grandiose moral oratories on the matter right up until Yalta, before, behind closed doors, throwing them to what he knew to be the terror of Bolshevism.
Just to end, his waxing lyrical about Stalin being a great man at Yalta was not flattering statesmanship to a psychopathic tyrant: he actually admitted to Eden upon his return that he “truly thought Stalin was a “man we can trust”, that he has evolved” to paraphrase. The man was wobbly on every intellectual position he held.
While I disagree with his economics, views on empire and Gallipoli, I will forever respect Churchill for standing up to evil when the time needed it most.
It was a desperate situation and he outdid himself, well done.
Just like Johnson, May & Sunak have. Oh, sorry wrong discussion. Ignore that first line.
Wow were the national socialists bad guys really? I wouldn't say so. I would say it was wrong for the world that the elite put churchill into position. Thus nowadays europe is still not ruled by europeans. Basically the whole world isn't free if I think about it because it's not just europe obviously.
Very fair comment.
He also made some massive errors later in the war, and so his judgment as a military leader was, on the whole, pretty bad.
But boy did he save the west in 1940.
@@executivedirector7467 Like in Athens 1944 when 28 civilians were killed in Athens. It wasn’t the Nazis who were to blame, it was the British. Churchill’s shameful decision to turn on the partisans who had fought on our side in the war sowed the seeds for the rise of the far right in Greece today
Churchill once said such: between humiliation and war you choose humiliation, but after humiliation you will still face war.
It is the most profound insight into the matter. This is not only moral courage but also wise calculation of the real situation.
For someone like Hitler, his desires are endless. He may be happy for a few years if UK "in term" to him in 1940, but after he consolidate his grasp in Europe or even occupation of Russia, he would be much stronger. Then will he still be happy the term wth UK? No! And after UK "in term" wth Hitler, UK would lose any support from US. At that time, when a isolated small UK would face a much larger and stronger Germany , any option is left rather than surrender?
he wasn't wrong.he recognised it as playground politics.
Fascinating post and very well presented ...
The greatest line in the film "Darkest Hour" (amazing; I never saw Gary Oldman, I could only see Winston) was after the "..never surrender." speech in the House. If it was true, someone asked Halifax (Lord Halifax) 'What just happened?' and Halifax said; "Winston mobilised the English language and sent it off to war." If that was true, it was a fabulous line.
I visited the War Rooms in about 1978/79, long before it was open to the general public. You had to take your own torch (flashlight) and I took a miners cap lamp I used for caving (potholing.) We must have spent 2 - 2.5 hours going miles through the maze of tunnels, with dozens of anecdotes from the guide. His name was Christian Truter and he was amazing - I hope he got an OBE!
Actually, I believe the phrase came to prominence when used by John F. Kennedy, although he was not the author of it. “He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” (The president was quoting Edward R. Murrow of CBS News).
Its rumoured that after this speech Churchill said "And we'll fight them with the butt ends of broken beer bottles because that's bloody well all we have . "
I think it was a very bad film.
@@landsea7332 We'll throw beer bottles at them if we have to
Churchill's war cabinet situation is very much like Abraham Lincoln's. He had a small group of advisers from both sides of the political spectrum. Very similar to what Churchill did.
Brilliant & informative video. 📹
Thank you for sharing. 😁
" Five Days in London, May 1940" John Lukacs, excellent book on this subject.
The best way to avoid war is to convince the other side you'll fight it without restraints.
It's interesting that nearly all the leading advocates of Appeasement were men who had never served in combat (for many reasons: age, health, etc) while most of the loudest critics of the policy in Parliament were combat veterans of the the Great War. Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, for examples.
Interesting perhaps, but not necessarily a factor, since wars often start and end with politicians.
Critics of the policy, stated in this video as the wrong policy, this is just dreaming out loud, whether it was possible to appease is beside the point, of course public opinion wished to be convinced that war was required, the policy was successful at every level, that war was inevitable does not mean failure of policy in 1930s. Halifax also fought in 1914-18, and it was fortunate having civilian PMs however much the military minded were miffed.
Yes the British War Cabinet Crisis is one of the defining moments of the 20th Century ( May 26th to 28th , 1940 )
With most of the BEF trapped at Dunkirk , the estimate given to the War Cabinet was that only 45,000 could be evacuated .
Churchill and Lord Gort knew they were in a hopeless position because Bletchly Park knew the physical locations of the Enigma machines .
In context , the US was maintaining its position of isolationism and the Soviets had a non aggression pact with Hitler .
Paul Reynaud was in London explaining that the French military situation was desperate .
The Italian Ambassador baited Lord Halifax into meeting and then switched the topic to offering to mediate a negotiations .
During the next few days , there were a series of heated meetings of the War Cabinet .
Lord Halifax argued they could loose most of the BEF and then the Luftwaffe would Britain into submission.
as such , they should listen to what terms were being offered .
Churchill argued that Hitler never honoured any agreement and would turn Britain into a slave state
They would get better terms if they fought it out .
Halifax threaten to resign , which would have brought down the government .
In the end , Churchill did an end round on Lord Halifax and persuaded the 25 member outer cabinet to keep fighting .
This is one of the defining moments of the 20th Century because if Britain negotiated terms , Hitler could have unleashed the entire Wehrmacht on the Soviets in the spring of 1941 .
This would have resulted in either Hitler or Stalin winning , and the world would have become a different place .
.
In his one interview , Gordon Welshman explained that Bletchly Park was not breaking the Enigma codes during the Battle of France . However , using triangulation , they knew where the Engima machines were , and which German army commander each Enigma machine was assigned to . Recall the famous photo of general Heinz Guderian
standing in a communications truck .
Lord Gord was receiving this information and after the French Generals reneged on the number of divisions
for the Wegard "plan" he made the decision to evacuate the BEF on the evening of May 25th , 1940 .
The next morning the Admiralty in London sent orders to Vice Admiral Ramsay to start Operation Dynamo .
.
Agreed. Definitely an incredible moment in history.
Just would want to add that the USSR might not have fought without allies, and it's possible Hitler and Stalin might have done some kid of deal. The actual striclty-military calculus isn't much different in 1941 whether Britain is in the war or not IMO. In the west, all was at a stalemate with neither the British nor the Germans able to land a major blow on the other. The Germans had the initiative even after losing the BoB. The bombing campaign was meaninglessly weak at that point; no significant ground combat was happening; the war at sea was incredibly important only in the context of Britain and Germany being at war.
Stalin always suspected the western powers of trying to maneuver the USSR and Germany into war (he was not totally wrong about that) so I really wonder, if Britain had made peace and WW2 essentially ended in the summer of 1940, whether the USSR and Germans would have fought.
@@executivedirector7467 The single most chilling thing I've ever read about WWII was something Stalin told his daughter after the German invasion of the Soviet Union began: "It's too bad the Germans invaded us. TOGETHER, WE COULD REALLY HAVE DONE SOME THINGS." This tells me that Stalin was an opportunist who would have co-operated with Hitler to get things they both wanted without any great concern about their very different politics.
@@hughmungus1767 Every political leader is an opportunist. I suppose the larger issue we are getting at in this conversation is the set of choices available, and the options, for anyone living in Europe in the 1920s-30s-40s. There were three forces in conflict: fascism, communism and liberal democracy. Whichever of these got ganged up upon by the other two was going to lose. It all could have turned out very differently.
This was very good.
Interesting and informative.
Very informative, thanks guys - Churchill's takeover of power wasn't obvious in 1940. What we often forget is that Chamberlin was dead by November 1940, so a change was coming that year even if it hadn't happened in May.
It's odd that NC's death wasn't mentioned. It was an interesting history of what happened in 1940, but didn't really explore the clickbait title much - what would have happened without Churchill?
@@rogink - Actually the title of this video seems like click bait , but the author did not want to give away all the contents of his book . The War Cabinet Crisis is one of defining moments of the 20th Century , yet for some reason its very poorly explained by historians . I've written major points about it above .
Most historians agree that without Churchill , with the BEF trapped at Dunkirk , and the US holding its position of isolationism , there is no other British politician at the time that would have stood up to Hitler . I suspect Attlee would would have been the closest .
@Fidd88 j
@Fidd88 He built a Britain worth living in. Thatcher tore it to pieces.
@Fidd88 She took its soul and sold it to a bunch of spivs.
Read a book about George VI and Churchill last week next one on the German war economy.
"Surrender" is a term the British would never have used, they might have "come to terms" under different circumstances. Hitler would have been happy to leave them and (most of) their empire intact, just pledged not to interfere with his plans for the rest of Europe.
Churchill once said such: between humiliation and war you choose humiliation, but after humiliation you will still face war.
It is the most profound insight into the matter.
For someone like Hitler, his desires are endless. He may be happy for a few years if UK "in term" to him in 1940, but after he consolidate his grasp in Europe or even occupation of Russia, he would be much stronger. Then will he still be happy the term wth UK? No! And after UK "in term" wth Hitler, UK would lose any support from US. At that time, isolated small UK face a much larger and stronger Germany , any option is left rather than surrender?
Churchill recognized and realised that any agreement struck with Hitler was worthless.
Chamberlain gets a bad rap: he never really believed that Hitler's signature on the document he brought back from Munich was a guarantee of peace, he just wanted written proof of Hitler's duplicity when he reneged on his word (and occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia)
And he wanted to assure people that (at least for the immediate time being) war was not breaking out.
Hitler had less problem with Britain
Keeping the empire than the yanks.
They had an anti colonial attitude.
Being British background I couldn't
Give a dam about Europe.
Most of them folded to Hitler like
Cowards, weren't worth fighting for.
It's sad the UK and Germany fighting
When they had more in common
Than any of the other European
Countries.
I think Hitler was a great admirer of the British Empire, and he didn't support any independent movements in British colonies like India. He was even disappointed when Japan conquered Singapore in February 1942 because it weakened the British power in the Far East. The British Empire might have lasted longer if Churchill and other British leaders had made a pact with Hitler in 1940-1941 and stayed neutral when the war against the Soviet Union started. Stalin was also a cruel dictator to the Soviet citizens and neighbouring countries as well. Hitler's main political goals were in continental Europe, not in overseas colonies.
I know what the temperature was like today with the middle east. I can't imagine how difficult Roosevelt had to work to convince the public that we needed to join the war effort. So many were still around who remembered WW1. There was no media like today, Americans couldn't see what was happening in Europe in a manner we can observe Ukraine for example.
Excellent. The German weakness was that one man had too much power. There was no person able to steady him in his decision making. He became too obsessed on Russia that he failed to see how the bombing and the submarine campaigns were steadily weakening the British effort. His almost casual declaration of war on the United States was a gamblers stroke that failed to see the number of chips the American had on the table. or maybe he failed to understand that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had psychologically reversed sentiment in the United States. Were his diplomats in DC so unaware of the meaning of the APPLAUSE Roosevelt had received from Congress, or that the President was determined to take on Hitler first and had the support of the most powerful elements in American society?
Excellent
Splendid stuff.
Love your work 👍
Thank you!
An interesting view of tumultuous times. However, I'm a little surprised no mention was made of the role of Attlee and Morrison who provided Churchill with a counter balance to the more appeasement minded Chamberlain and Halifax.
I really like these videos, very informative and intelligent.
In effect, Chamberlain was buying time to rebuild Britain's resources and forces.
I think he did buy some time to prepare.
@@paulwilson7234 he also allowed the nazis to underestimate him and Britain as a whole not realising the strength of the Royal navy and the RAF nore our resolve in the face of the enemy we brits do not surrender and we love a good fight
He pushed for a budget increase for the RAF. Without that the battle of Britain could not be won
Hitler called it "British Perfidy"
In effect, yes. However, isn’t it difficult to attribute any real farsighted strategy to his handling of Germany?
Britian was never asked to "surrender" - only to negotiate a peace to end the state of war she had declared on Germany. Hitler wanted to end the war and invited the British to negotiate to that end several times. There was no talk of anybody's "surrender" until the Allies demanded Germany's "unconditional surrender" beginning in January, 1943.
but it makes a good clickbait headline.
The 'appeal to reason' of 19 July, 1940. Also known as 'surrender or we bomb you.' What invitations to negotiations? A lot of neos make such claims, but never reply when asked to provide actual source material.
How did the Russian agreements with Germany work out for them? You are right, Britain declared war on Germany, AFTER Germany launched an invasion of Poland. Damned British warmongers!
Churchill used it in one of his famous speeches just before the Battle of Britain: 'We shall fight them ... we shall never surrender'.
Hitler like Putin, just wanted peace.
Exactly. Hitler never wanted war with Britain. Churchill's unconditional surrender accounted for a few more million deaths.
Early this year I visited the War Museum and that was amazing
Sir Churchill is one of my favorite people in history and I loved that place
Sir Churchill? Who's he?
@@Palimbacchius Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, the greatest PM Britain got ever
@@Hamphield Yes, HE was a godsend in WW2, but there was never anybody called "Sir Churchill".
Sir Winston, or Mr Churchill were (and are) your options.
Nice and interesting
Why Churchill? This is somewhat glossed over, but I do note that it is mentioned Churchill became PM while not being the leader on the Conservatives, which remained with Chamberlain. In short, Churchill did not have the full support of his own party, and became PM as he had the support of Labour MP's in the House of Commons. Thus, while he had the support of a majority of MP's, he lacked a majority in any one party. As far as British preparedness goes, that is a Chamberlain achievement; he ramped up production, especially of aircraft which led to the victory over the skies of England. The Germans completely underestimated this output. They knew the respective strengths in numbers, but did not understand the capacity of British industrial output to replace losses. Germany could not match them, they often had planes sitting on the ground waiting for critical parts. It didn't help that they lost more fighters through take off and landing than in combat, planes they struggled to fix. Chamberlain must also be credited with including Churchill in his war cabinet. What I'm suggesting is that the path to victory was laid before Churchill took office.
That was cool!
Yes. Halifax would have opened negotiations. Our foremost Churchill expert - Andrew Roberts - is quite insistent on this point.
Using, for Heaven's sake, Benito Mussolini as a 'neutral' arbiter!
I remember watching a BBC play on T.V, I think it was in the early 60's. It told a what-if story about a Britain which had signed an Armistice with Germany and was occupied. It ended with the British and German armies fighting the Russians. In my memory Michael Cain played a British officer in the story.
I'd love to hear more about the BBC play. I had a search but couldn't bring anything up - it would be fascinating to watch
Sounds similar to SS-GB (book by Len Deighton).
@@terrainsightswithsuper_ter4943 The programme was called The Other Man. I believe it was also a book by the same name.
Have you read Fatherland by Robert Harris...is a good read...
I wish you had a recording of it. 'The Other Man' is a lost film, probably wiped by the network along with most of pre-1970s UK programming.
The trouble was Chamberlin was dealing with a megalomaniac who had no intention of honouring agreements...Did Chamberlin realise this, possibly. He bought Great Britain a little time to rearm and prepare for the invertible..
Anyone, and I mean anyone, who believes a dictator will keep his word is a megalo-idiot
Yes Chamberlain was actually a superb PM who has been sadly denigrated in the post war period. Thankfully some modern Historians are re-examining his career and role and yes he did buy time to make everything else possible.
@@derrickfield8957 good man Field, he was superb - and Churchill inherited all the good work, rather like Baldwin remarked, Churchill out of office was Churchill kept fresh to be the war minister - said Baldwin, aware it would be Churchills chance.
they are all feckin meglomaniacs in international politics!They really are the most psychopathic entities(i hesitate to call them human beings) on the planet.
By agreeing to the Munich deal, Chamberlain gave Hitler the physical means to go to war in 1939 by handing over the entire armaments industry of Czechoslovakia to Germany. That industry and weapons stockpiles supplied a third of German military capacity for the 1940 and 1941 offensives
I heard that in the private diaries of many of the top British Military officers that they thought that Britain was fighting against the wrong enemy and that the USSR was the enemy that Britain should have been fighting against.
Where did you hear that?
While I don't know if that's true, it wouldn't surprise me. The officer corps was heavily weighted towards the upper class and those twits were naturally on the right politically.
Land Sea. Many thanks for your interesting informative post. Chicanery even in wartime.I have always been a champion for Winnie. But he was a bastard at times when he could have shown some generosity to those who helped save our country with their expertise. Cheers😊
Thank You . I'm no expert , but IMO the easiest way to understand Churchill is that at the core of his beliefs was that every man must due his Duty for Britain and the British Empire .
With this mind , so many of the decisions Churchill made make sense . Again , there is a very strong sense of Duty .
The knock against Churchill was that he was an Imperialist - but he was a strong believer in Britain's history of Democracy - Churchill Despised Fascists and Communism .
.
I can fill in the American thinking. When Churchill was imploring FDR for help, FDR sent ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, later head of the OSS, to go to England and bring back an honest assessment of whether or not GB really CAN withstand Germany. Churchill knows he has only one shot so tells Donovan’s guides to show him everything they’ve got from Chain Home and especially Bletchley Park AND the Enigma set up and decoder. It didn’t hurt that Donovan was the US version of Churchill-a real big picture, think outside the box and blur the lines of legality if it helps win the war. Who knows what FDR would have done had he sent anyone besides a Donovan type.
The Professor's 'new' book was published in October 2021.
It’s a big YES
A clear answer......... YES*
On May 10th , 1940 , when Churchill became PM , he established a coalition government .
10:06 The War Cabinet members were Churchill , Lord Halifax , Attlee , Greenwood and Chamberlain plus the Secretary
and top advisers in the military .
Also , Churchill did not seem to hold a grunge against military leaders who stood up to him .
This included Lord Gort , Alan Brooke and Hugh Dowding .
That's a strange combo at the end there - Gort and Dowding would indeed be removed from their positions. Gort, it's arguable, deserved it, but Dowding - who led Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain - didn't deserve it?
Dowding was an unacknowledged genius, as was Keith Park. Both men were treated shamefully after the initial danger had passed, and Park would have a second summer in charge of the air defence of Malta, further proving his worth. The hagiography that surrounds Churchill obscures the fact he made some catastrophically bad decisions.
@@Hartley_Hare The treatment of Dowding was indeed a disgrace. The excuses given were shambolic (big wings and radars) and I suspect everyone knew it. He waited until after the war to vent his anger, but it got him nowhere. So much for, "Never, in the field of..."
Small consolation, at least he got to be played by Laurence Olivier in the Battle of Britain film.
@@carthagodelenda9014 I've heard a story - it may be apocryphal - that at the premiere of said film, the whole theatre gave Dowding a standing ovation. A fairly motley consolation, but at least it's something.
@@Hartley_Hare I hope that's true. Thanks for the story. :)
We Brits shall never surrounder!
Except to mass immigration.
When the House lambasted Chamberlain over the Narvik campaign, Churchill DID stand up, defend the PM and admit his own part!! He did NOT throw Chamberlain under the bus at all!
Chamberlain bought us the time to begin to rearm and prepare for the inevitable. I personally am convinced that Halifax and his supporters would have surrendered. Just my feeling and opinion.
I agree
"Surrender" is the manipulative framing of this video. The UK would have made peace. There would have been no cold war. Britain wouldn't have had post war mass non-white immigration. The country would have been more happy and prosperous today.
@@shornsheep3118 really? Are you crazy? You could not trust them. Look what happened to Russia
We would have had colour imgration regardless . Uk took India's to all other Africa too run it they would have been kick out as occupies eventually.
@@shornsheep3118 wow! Your racism is showing.
There would have been a peace treaty with the Axis powers. Very difficult to say what would have happened thereafter - British empire stays neutral, or ends up fighting the Soviets or even the Axis powers later down the line. One thing's for sure - even though Britain was on the winning side, the war was an utter disaster for the country, which was physically wrecked, crippled by debt for decades (mostly to the US government and banks) and hastened the loss of the empire.
The end of Imperial power was foreseen from the early 1930s at the latest.
Well thought out answer totally right.
Yes, absolutely.
Good discussion. Those few days in late-May, determined so much of our subsequent history--and Churchill was at the center of it. I would take issue with two matters:
1) That Gallipoli was a poor plan. First of all, the idea was sound. if Russia had been kept from descending into Bolshevism, think how much of the 20th century would have been altered. for the better Second, the responsibility for the failure can not all be assigned to Churchill. A good deal has to lie with the military execution.
2) Often not mentioned is that Chamberlain was also concerned about the Soviets. He postulated quite accurately, that if Briain had gone to war in 1938, all of Eastern Europe would have fallen to the Soviets.
Hard to know but probably not as being on an island gave them an major advantage plus the already existing naval strength.
Buckley sounds a LOT like Richard Burton!!
Nothing Chamberlain worked for fell apart, his firm made screws. A newsreel said appeasement abroad when Chamberlain was relaying to Musso that he should relay to Hitler that aggression would lead to war. The public became very confused, and to this day the confusion legacy survives, not least because of politics. Churchill wrote of the same visit to Musso that Chamberlain was attempting to keep Italy and Germany apart, again not appeasement at all. Appeasement is a myth, just a useful term, and historian Medlicott advised it be quoted only because it was not a policy and the word is used today to say surrender and spineless that does not apply to the 1930s. Medlicott advised academia but the myth continued.
A wonderful historical coverage video about Britain 🇬🇧 war house 🏠 remarkable figures ( Churchill, Chamberlin, Hallyfax)...Chamberlin was not a defeatist figures while he carried British population peacefulness desired at that time..while Churchill correctly understood Germany 🇩🇪 competitive to Britain 🇬🇧 was a strategic matters & Nazism never accepted British dominant on eastern & western Europe content after 1940 ...Nazism accepted total capitulate of British front Nazism authority similar to occupied France 🇫🇷...Churchill created bravely attitude for Britain while he knew severe weaknesses of British Ringling empire.. while the US intervened within WW2 after securing its global dominate politically, economically & planned how starting destructions of old imperialism systems after WW2... Churchill was not manipulated US president...he knew what he did.
Churchill was fully aware that the Germans stood no chance of successfully invading in 1940 (maybe later, if AH hadn't invaded Russia) - so certain that he despatched, by sea, the only decent British armoured units to Egypt in 1940. He kept up the pretence of a possible German invasion, but knew full well that due to the RAF and the RN it was never a realistic possibility.
The RAF came close to being destroyed in the summer of 1940 and the Germans had serious plans for invasion. The navy was certainly an ace card, but German air superiority could have cancelled that.
In summary, an invasion would have been a risk and a bit of a long shot - but those were exactly the sort of odds Hitler went for.
Yes , and the Wehrmacht was just not capable of launching D Day style assault on an enemy held beach . They didn't have command of the sea , or any specialized landing craft of any kind ,and no way of getting a tank onto a beach . It would have been a bloodbath .
Bernard provides an excellent analysis of Operation Sealion here
ruclips.net/video/YnPo7V03nbY/видео.html
Churchill's greatest fear was the Battle of the Atlantic . Also, note the Luftwaffe was targeting port cities - the London Docks , Bristol , Portsmouth , Cardiff , Belfast , Liverpool , Glasgow and they had a disastrous attempt at Newcastle . So this was more of a siege - which could have forced Britain out of the war .
.
As one who lived throuht it l fully agree. Logistically the Germans didn't have forces to make a successful channel crossing
@@harpo345 " The RAF came close to being destroyed in the summer of 1940 "
From Eagle Day ( August 13th ) to August 31st, fighter command was in a Battle of attrition . Both RAF and Luftwaffe pilots were exhausted. Losses during these 2 weeks were 139 fighter command : Luftwaffe 247
The most serious concern was the number of Fighter Command pilots and exhaustion .
But they were not close to being destroyed - Sept 15th clearly demonstrates this .
.
The French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier was also in the Munich Conference. To stop Hitler, it would require the Anglo-French alliance to fight a land war. Britain at the time only had enough to equip an army of five-division strong. So, the French had to be the senior partner in this effort but Daladier chose not to assert himself. What else could Chamberlain do but to buy time? In 1939, Britain finally managed to assemble a force of about 13 divisions. It still wasn't enough but you could see Chamberlain's option in 1938.
On land, British power was pretty minor compared to France. That had been the expectation since 1919. The French army was huge and well equipped. But very poorly trained and led.
I think both Britain and France dreaded German air power and what they considered the likely event of cities being bombed with tens of thousands of civilian casualties. So yes, they wanted to buy time.
Munich of course led directly to the Hitler-Stalin deal. So a high price was paid.
@@executivedirector7467 There were these Anglo-Soviet-French negotiations for a triple alliance against Nazi Germany after the Munich Conference. The protracted talks for the triple alliance came to nought but Chamberlain had to be surprised by the speed Stalin and Hitler could reach a deal between them so soon after the triple alliance talks collapsed.
@@tvgerbil1984 The USSR had been seeking an anti-German defensive alliance for several years before Munich.
*R.V. Jones speaks to Churchill late 1946* - Not a man for the working class.
Jones - "I told him that I did not like the way the country was going, with strikes and the clamour for a 40-hour week..."
Churchill - "I could have given them a 40-hour week - if they would work for 40 hours!"
pg. 522 "Most Secret War" R.V. Jones (C) 1978
The UK lost it's superpower status, it's overseas colonies, strengthened Russia. Sure Germany lost too but this war ended pretty poorly for the Brits.
Yeah no doubting that
People criticize the August 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact but they overlook one salient point.
In April 1939 USSR Foreign Minister, Maxim Litvinov, proposed a united front with UK and France against Nazi Germany. They both rejected it. Litvinov was replaced with Molotov who signed the August 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.
Can you dig deeper below the surface of those clever people, and also wonder at their sanity? April 1939 saw UK declare allegiance to Poland, and Stalin rejected building on that foundation.
Yes they would have. Why does this even have to be asked? Anyone with a sense of history knows how others were wishing to placate Hitler.
Agree with a lot of this however it was as much the disorganisation and in-fighting of the French Army (and a lot of population too) that allowed a quick German victory rather than the incredible organisation and tactics of the Germans.
Don't forget the role of the Labour party and Atlee, they would have probably refused to serve under Halifax. Like the great war with Asquith, and his incompetent leadership, a multi party coalition was the only real way forward.Atlee, Ernie Bevin & Morrison and others were key on the home front .Factors totally ignored by the likes of Alexander d'Piffle Johnson and other superficial observers
Except for the fact of the left wing focus on opening a eastern front to support Stalin. They also forgot Stalins non aggression pact with Hitler in 1940.
Churchill at his best during the first two years. After that he was a pain in the ass to the military and the Allie’s. He didn’t want to do the D- day invasion. He tried with hall he had to stop it.
You have been watching the movie and believing it, rather than reading about the facts.
No he didn't. He tried hard to stop a PREMATURE invasion and it is true that he favoured an assault to the East to take Germany before the Soviets got there because he knew Stalin. Roosevelt did not understand the threat from Stalin though.
@@nerdyali4154 He's on record opposing OVERLORD until the spring of 1944, i.e., when it was way too late to do anything else.
Churchill had some wonderful qualities, and some truly great moments of leadership. He also had some terrible qualities and cooked up a lot of idiotic ideas. He was human.
I think Churchill was a great orator and was the spine that stopped the Foreign Secretary from trusting Mussolini to broker a peace deal with Hitler. Churchill was, however, at his worst when imposing his will on military strategy. He pulled divisions away from North Africa when the Army was on the brink of winning the whole campaign to face debacle in the Balkans and Greece. The soft underbelly of Europe was another of his disastrous ideas as was the failure to properly arm our forces to defend Malaya and Singapore.
Given the state of Britain today I wish we HAD surrendered.
Churchill was the right man at the right time...... And yes I said "man"
Why would you not say man?
@@anthonyfuqua6988 Got to be careful of the wokesters as they get offended easily.
@jetsons101 I'm pretty centrist but a man is a man. You wouldn't call him a lady. Maybe person. This whole woke shit is blown out of proportion.
@@anthonyfuqua6988 Even a lot of the students and teachers at my kids' high school are burned out on W0KE.
genuinely trying to maintain peace and being manipulated by a fascist are not mutually exclusive.
it still amazes me how quickly he was dumped when the war was won.
Lord Halifax wanted to make peace and we know what would have happened a little later.
What was not covered in this video was that Churchill, by wanting to carry on with the war after the Summer 1940 setbacks, depended upon getting US support and involvement. By 1940 it should have been clear to all British politicians that the US, as a price for it's support, was going to insist on the dismantling of the British Empire. So even though the British emerged on the winning side in 1945, they were a spent force as a "World Power" and was broke. If the war had ended in 1940 the British Empire might have lasted for decades longer and it's finances might have been in a better position.
The "grateful Brits" voted Mr.Churchill before the end of the war. That's why I sit on the part of me that's English heritage.
Yep..
The question is moot - if it wasn't for Churchill, Britain would never have started WWII, so it would not have had any need to surrender.
The main thing is “Churchill” understood & believed in the English mentality and unyielding character, as for Gallipoli, he never got the back up our Navy promised him.
He’s Winston Churchill, both he and Nelson are exactly what we should all strive to be.
Queen Elizabeth the Second is the Greatest and best in all our History.
He was a fat slug
Twice he tried to have the Australian troops stopped from going home Once in the Med and once at Ceylon
He was so vindictive that he sent out clapped out Spit MkVs when we should have got the MkIX
It was only through Bob Menzies badgering the Royal household that we eventually got the MkVIII
He was willing to let Australias North be abandoned to the Japs at the Brisbane line [ the Tank traps are still near my home town] Which was why Curtin offered Australia as a base to the USA
Back-up or not, it was a terrible disaster and ineptly planned. Churchill should have taken a lot more blame than he ever did.
@@nevillewran4083 And when 28 civilians were killed in Athens, it wasn’t the Nazis who were to blame, it was the British. Churchill’s shameful decision to turn on the partisans who had fought on our side in the war sowed the seeds for the rise of the far right in Greece today.
@@mikefraser4513 I had to google your reference. All I'd known was the verious resistance groups were riven & fought each other as much as the Germans.
It does sound like Churchill, sowing seeds for many poisonous fruit to germinate.
As an Aussie I resent his dispatching Aussie troops to Greece & Crete in 1941. It was against Australian command wishes but their strong protests were denied.
Result, a failure at all levels, with a high proportion of our diggers captured and many of the rest feeling like failures.
I always respect Churchill's leadership skills but I know he shed a shitload of blood to acheive his goals.
@@mikefraser4513 Quite right. British forces in Greece in 1944-45 allied themselves with pro-nazi forces and fought against the very people who had been the anti-nazi resistance.
Personally I think Chamberlain's biggest problem politically was lack of credibility - both politically and to the electorate. Given his previous erroneous trust of Hitler he had demonstrated a, possibly fatal, lack of judgment of others. Would Britain, and its public, have trusted him to lead them in a war against a country whose leader he had professed trust for only a couple of years previously. At that point I think Chamberlain's position was untenable and he had to go, in favour of someone who the public /would/ trust and get behind.
Churchill had consistently been against Hitler and vocal in his opposition, and so whether his political colleagues agreed, publicly he was the perfect choice as he read the country's mood correctly whereas Chamberlain and Halifax didn't.
in april 1939 , Hitler told Chamberlain , I'll give you peace in the west in exchange of a free hand on the east(Soviet Union) , Halifax could've taken that as point of negotiation, Hitler would agree to pull out of France and the west if Britain let them that free path way to east to his lebensraum , Hitler had 0 interest on France or the british empire , and he was not hostile to european colonization like the americans , Churchill capitulated when he sigh up the atlantic charter in 1941, the deal that Stalin and Roosevelt(FDR) got from Churchuil was beyond anything that Hitler ever asked to Britain
I'm not convinced that Hitler would have needed to be bought off or that Italy could have got much in the way of British territories in return for peace. Hitler never originally intended to invade Britain and really wanted to turn east against the USSR. Fighting the British was expending vital resources and he would probably have been happy to make peace and avoid a war on two fronts. The quid pro quo would be that Britain would have to accept German dominance of the European continent.
Me and this man would have been friends.
Probably yes
Interesting but misleading tag line. They only talk about British surrender in the last 4 minutes of the video. Most of the video is about Churchill va Halifax and how Churchill became leader.
its usually sold before you wok up
Congratulations! You spent 25 minutes not answering the question in the title.
*Let's not forget that Britain and its government surrendered the Channel Islands to the Germans for the entire duration of the war. Therefore, Hitler did occupy some British territory for years, whether you'd prefer to forget about it or not.*
*Pedantic - Channel Islands just off the French Coast !*
Perhaps you might buy a map, looke where the Channel Islands are, and then ask yourself exactly how Britain could possibly have sought to defend them?
Even after the contest of Normandy, the Allies ignored the Channel Islands.
Trivial exception. Apart from the people who lived there, zero people gave a damn about the channel islands in WW2.
@@executivedirector7467 US forces in the Pacific did the same with a number of small islands garrisoned by the Japanese. The casualties required to take them would have been significantly greater than any strategic benefit.
What *were* Churchill's options. In was in the past.
No!
Title is misleading: should be Churchill’s Tallest Rival.
I meant the photo caption of course. Haven’t watched the video but assume gent in pic is Lord Halifax.
If Sunak was in power then,certain surrender
See, I’m more convinced after watching Tik’s video, that Chamberlain’s appeasement was appropriate due to England being totally unprepared for war. They were not prepared even during the war.
Because of people like you and Chamberland, we still have dictators around the world, and will continue to do so as long as your gene pool populates the earth. Cowards One and all!! (I will not correct the spelling of the disgraced Prime Minister, he is unworthy of even pronouncing his name)
'He bought us time' was what I heard said by my grandparents when speaking of Chamberlain. They always gave him credit for what we might now see as delaying tactics. Maybe or maybe not deliberate, but it bought us a little more time to work on preparing!
He successfully bought time.
That said, the west paid a very high price for that time. It lost Czechoslovakia as an ally. It gained a year to prepare, but the Germans also got that same year. It led to the USSR abandoning their multi-year policy of trying to ally with the west in favor of negotiating with the nazis instead.
So, small-picture, Britain gained some time to re-arm. Big-picture, they did so in a far weaker strategic context.
A really stupid question because Britain did not need to 'surrender'. Hitler wanted a deal, leaving him free to deal with the Soviets - and this deal is probably what he would have got under Halifax, though Halifax would certainly have been a tough negotiator. One thing that Hitler would have insisted on is British help in the war with the Soviets, not necessarily troops, but certainly in the form of military equipment and workers. Churchill was canny in pressing for resistance instead of negotiation because he always believed America would come into the war, and he was proved right in the end.
With Mussolini as the impartial arbitrator, Halifax would have needed to have been a very tough negotiator indeed, and there is little evidence to support that contention.
Insisting that Britain contribute military equipment and 'workers' ( presumably just as the conquered European states provided the required number of slave labourers, would have meant that the 'deal' you propose would have been more of a French style armistice/surrender.
Totally, unnecessary on Britain's part, when invasion was never a realistic possibility.
God bless Churchill and the British army!
No, next question …
The Holy Fox would not have been "a safe pair of hands." He was born with only one hand!
I regret that nobody mentioned the disastrous coalition's decision not to attack the Raich (Germany) right after declaring War on 3 September at the time when Germany was involved in launching the war on Poland. Western Germany's border was absolutely defenseless and the whole army was thrown on Poland.
War could be won in no time and
England and France could keep their promises instead they betrayed Poland and they were indirectly but partially responsible for millions of deaths. Sorry, for such a strong, possibly provocative statement. I welcome the comments!?
The main theatre of war in WW2 was the Eastern front where 85% of German soldiers died. I know we Brits don’t like to hear it but we were a) a side show and b) not alone as we exploited our entire Empire to support us, killing millions of Bengalis on the way.
Still well done, once we were on the right side of history.
You fixate upon the Ground War. You lack to account for the role of the bomber offensive, which both hamstrung German industry, largely prevented the Luftwaffe supporting the German army on the Eastern Front, and required a major concentration of artillery & personnel around German cities. You also ignore the major German effort to produce & crew U-boats for the Atlantic & Mediterranean campaigns. Not, of course to mention the war against Japan, in which the Soviet Union was neutal until, literally, the last week or two.
By the way, your indoctrinators have misled you. Commonwealth countries were self-governing and chose, as democratic nations, to declare war independently of Britain. India, though still governed by Britain, never had any form of conscription, yet 2.5 million Indians fought on the allied side. Perhaps they knew what a Japanese occupation would mean to them?
Oh, and your error about the Bengal Famine. Actually, the Bengal Famine had a number of causes, among which were the number of refugees from Japanese held areas, the inability to import food from those same areas, stockpiling by hoarders and, perhaps worst of all, the Bengal administration, which tried to minimise the crisis. The worst that could be said of Churchill was that he should have known what was taking place, but didn't. After all, in 1943, he had little else to worry about.
You could also add the refusal of FDR to allow the transfer of merchant shipping, by the way. What is without dispute, except by those who choose to blame Churchill for everything since the Black Death, is that once he did find out, he transferred food distribution to the British Indian Army, and had grain convoys diverted from Australia to India.
I appreciate, of course, that you won't believe any of this, as it doesn't suit the agenda with which you have been programmed by your indoctrinators.
It's ironic that Churchill said V is for victory and London got blitzed blitzed by flying V's ✌️
Ways were found to combat this not effectively at first but got better and better by the time the government found the ways to defend against what were the first cruise missiles and followed by the first ICBMs .only whollistic answer is attack launch sites and personell of same ,Inc scientists any leftover after could be used in say putting a man in space or similar
A drunken man is not gonna change his mind. Churchill with his alcohol saved England.
Thank god for Churchil
There was a wonderful line in The World at War: "He was the finest Englishman in a thousand years and he came along just when we needed him most." (I don't remember who said it but I agree 100%.)
Yes, and they would with Starmer, Davey and the various woolly nationalists too. Appeasement, in every situation requiring decisiveness, is their trait and mantra.
Of course the disappointment in Norway underlined the question of national government and that is what the anxious state of affairs now led to, but the price was set by the Opposition, they refused to join any Chamberlain government. It really is politics that people rant that Chamberlain was the target of all who voted against the government, and he was cheered louder than Churchill when the House reconvened, pure gold said Baldwin, who when PM had thought of Churchill as being kept fresh for the possibility of war and thus the possibility of being PM. Churchill offered Chamberlain the Exchequer, the price was too high however, Chamberlain accepted President of the Council in order to encourage Cabinet unity, again on account of Labour negativity toward him, and the head case critics have been saying Lord President ever since, the idea that the Birmingham Mayor was at last put in his place. And Churchill encouraged them in 1948 by forgetting all inconvenient facts, thus he would talk Cannes not Canning, of Lord President not Chancellor, of the Opposition not what Chamberlain asked him at the succession meeting. Historians really should know better than allow the public to imagine that Churchill routed all when sober and many even when drunk, it was Chamberlain who defeated Hitler.