Five Days in London by John Lukacs

Five days in London by John Lukacs focuses on the five crucial days in Europe from May 24 to May 28, 1940. This was a time of extreme crisis for Great Britain and for democracy. On the continent, Hitler’s armies were soundly and quickly defeating the armies of France and Great Britain. France was swiftly heading toward collapse. Europe, west of The Soviet Union, was looking like it would soon be under the complete domination of Germany. British forces in France, the British Expeditionary Force (B. E. F.), seemed in the opinion of everyone in the know to be headed for surrender. The invasion of Great Britain loomed.

The tenacious Winston Churchill had recently become Prime Minister of Great Britain. Churchill was absolutely determined to fight on to the end if need be. He was not going to compromise with Hitler, period. However, Lukacs illustrates how there were forces in the British government that were lobbying hard for a compromise, some would say a surrender, to Hitler.

Lukacs is somewhat hard on Great Britain’s Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax. The author details how Halifax was an ally of former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Halifax was a major advocate of the failed policy of appeasement during the years leading up to the war. In May of 1940 Halifax became the primary proponent of compromise and accommodation with the Nazis. During the dark days of May 1940, the Foreign Secretary, not without at least some good reason, seemed resigned to a German victory. 

Halifax advocated strongly for negotiations through Italy as an intermediary with the Third Reich. The Foreign Secretary hoped for a compromise that would retain most British sovereignty and independence, possibly at the price of some British colonial concessions to Germany. Churchill countered that such a peace initiative would be the beginning of a slippery slope that would at least lead to British disarmament as well as the installation of a pro-Nazi British government. Lukacs strongly sides with Churchill’s prognostications on the issue.

Lukacs does not impinge upon Halifax’s patriotism or values, but he is highly critical of his opinions and portrays him as a man who is terribly out of step with his times. At one point the author even describes Halifax’s personal memoirs as bland!

Lukacs explains how at this time Churchill was a new Prime Minister with an untested reputation. He was mistrusted by many elements in the British government. The conflict with Halifax could easily have led to his losing the position of Prime Minister and thus, Lukas contends, British defeat.

Lukacs writes,

“Hitler was never closer to his ultimate victory than during those five days in May, 1940”

By the end of May 28^th however, as a result of adroit political and rhetorical maneuverings, Churchill had established a position that was universally accepted by the British public and most of the establishment. Great Britain would go on fighting even in the face of short term calamities such as the loss of the B. E F. and the fall of France. Lukacs describes how even Churchill was surprised that in the coming days, at least the B. E F. was saved.

Churchill has written extensive memoirs, which I have not read. Lukacs contends that the Prime Minister actually held back details concerning the positions of Halifax and other defeatists out of magnanimity towards his colleagues.

Before reading this work I knew next to nothing about Halifax. Though Lukacs’s interpretation seems credible, I will withhold forming an opinion of such an important figure based upon this single account. 

Lukacs ends by detailing his presumptions about what a German victory against Great Britain would have meant. He argues that it would have been the end of the Western world as we know it, 

"Britain could not win the war. In the end America and Russia did. But in May 1940 Churchill was the one who did not lose it. Then and there he saved Britain, and Europe, and Western civilization.”

I find a flaw in Lukacs’s general reasoning. He too often lays out what he believes to be definitive consequences to hypothetical events. A few examples of these contentions: the loss of the B. E. F. would not have had an appreciable change in British resolve, if negotiations with Hitler were initiated they would have inevitably led to British surrender and British defeat would have led to eventual American capitulation to Hitler. Lukacs may be right about these things, but he too easily disregards other possibilities. With this said however, it is clear that had Great Britain been defeated, most imagined alternate histories would have indeed been much bleaker than the reality of the history that we know. 

This is a dramatic and riveting book. The five days of the title were truly a time of existentialist crises for Great Britain and for democracy itself. Lukacs details it all with accounts of War Cabinet meetings and maneuverings and military strategy, as well as with historical evidence concerning the mood and opinions of the people of Great Britain.

Ultimately, this book is a stirring celebration of Churchill and his actions. Great Britain looked into the jaws of an evil intent on devouring civilization and courageously fought it off.  Lukacs has written a testament to Churchill who did not flinch and who rallied the British public to do the same. The situation was indeed very bad in May of 1940. Without the luxury of hindsight, Halifax, in some ways, seemed to be a realist.

I would not recommend this book to readers who have little knowledge of the early days in of World War II in Europe. This is a book that digs deeply into a very tight subject and presupposes that the reader is equipped with basic background information. A very basic understanding of the European situation of the era is an almost mandatory prerequisite for comprehending this work. However, those familiar and interested in this period will find this to be an irresistibly interesting read. It is also a must for those who are interested in the behavior of governments and publics in times of crises. Even if one is cautious in accepting all of Lukacs’s contentions and “what ifs”, this is a story of one of the most pivotal five days in history and is instrumental in understanding the major events of World War II and the twentieth century.

Link to Churchill's June 4, 1940 Speech to House of Commons

Traitor To His Class - H.W. Brands

Traitor To His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands is a large and fairly comprehensive account of Roosevelt’s life and times. Brands has written an in-depth and thought provoking biography that should also be an entertaining page turner for anyone interested in this period of history, as well as for those interested in how the modern world came to be. This book is not without its flaws, however.

Brands’ biography is a mostly positive depiction of America’s 32^nd President. Born in 1882, Roosevelt was raised in a world of wealth and privilege.  He grew up near presidential power, being a cousin to Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, America’s 26^th President. His mother, Sara Ann Delano Roosevelt was possessive and at times domineering.

In 1905 Roosevelt married his cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt.  In 1918, Eleanor discovered that Franklin was having an affair. Afterward, she went on to have her own extramarital relationships and the marriage become more of a partnership. Eleanor’s life is in itself a fascinating story and Brands spends a good deal of pages exploring it.

Roosevelt worked his way up though both elected and appointed State and Federal government as well as Democratic Party positions. After an unsuccessful bid for Vice President in 1920, he contracted polio. The disease left him unable to walk without artificial aids for the remainder of his life.

Undeterred by the disability, Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York in 1929. After the onset of the Great Depression, he was well positioned for a Presidential victory in 1932. It is surprising that this great reformer was elected under a relatively conservative platform.

President Roosevelt shepherded America though the Great Depression. His “New Deal” was a series of laws that fundamentally changed the United States and still resounds into present times. Later, he was a key architect of the Allied victory in the Second World War.

Brands’ book is often very detailed. He provides a vivid account of Roosevelt’s life and career. The New Deal legislation, as well as the men who helped Roosevelt to design and implement it, are covered in intricate depth. The years leading up to and through World War II are similarly explored.

This book is not without some weaknesses, however. I found it slightly frustrating that, for all its attention to detail, in some aspects this biography seems to skim over key details and provides a weak analysis of certain important controversies and topics.

For instance, there is a somewhat heated debate these days concerning whether or not Roosevelt’s policies ended and/or ameliorated the Depression. Brands skirts around this issue. He does provide accounts of various Roosevelt Administration officials’ opinions and analyses of this question, but fails to provide detailed statistics or economic or objective political analysis to help understand it. In the book’s conclusion, Brands devotes a few paragraphs to the subject but I would have appreciated a little more space dedicated earlier on to the issue.

A similar treatment is accorded to the argument, which I call a myth, that in 1945 during the Yalta conference between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, that Roosevelt somehow gave away Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union. Brands does explain Roosevelt’s actions at the conference in a positive light and hints at the controversy. I feel that there was room for a more in-depth analysis here as well.

Likewise, Brands poorly handles what was the darkest moment of the Roosevelt administration, the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. After the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor, Americans of Japanese descent, who were born in the United States and who were American citizens, were rounded up and placed into camps for the duration of the war. To add insult to injury, most of these people had their homes, businesses and farms stolen by opportunistic neighbors who took advantage of their fellow citizens’ misfortune. This outrage, directly approved by Roosevelt, was one of the most egregious violations of the rights of American citizens during the twentieth century. To my surprise, Brands devotes only a few pages to this reprehensible, unconstitutional act. Furthermore, while conceding that it was prompted by hysteria, Brands almost excuses Roosevelt’s decisions here as occurring under the pressures of war.

Regardless of these flaws, this is a solid account of Roosevelt and his life. The author clearly portrays the fact that this President was one of the key makers of the modern world. In the first days of his administration, Roosevelt took steps to forestall the collapse of the American banking system. This bold and decisive action may vary well have staved off a revolution in the United States (my contention, not Brands’s). His New Deal Legislation changed the way that people throughout the world thought of government. These policies expanded the size and scope of government to unprecedented levels. It was characterized by massive public works projects, the American Social Security system, and government regulations in an entire host of areas such as finance, monetary policy, labor relations, etc.  Roosevelt did not invent many of these initiatives; he did, however, put them together into a package to forge what I would describe as a modern capitalistic democracy with a government aimed at promoting the social good. Twenty-first century democratic nations throughout the world are in part the legacy of Roosevelt’s policies.

If helping to invent the modern industrial and post industrial democracy was not enough, Roosevelt played a key, and I would argue the most important role, of any individual in defeating the Axis as well as shaping the postwar geo-political world. Well before America’s entry into the Second World War, Roosevelt focused the massive industrial production of the United States towards defeating the Axis. From 1937 on, Roosevelt began implementing a political and industrial strategy aimed at supplying Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union with massive military aid. This material assistance certainly changed the course of the war and allowed these nations to hang on against the Axis onslaught. Simultaneously, he maneuvered the United States into a policy of confrontation with Germany, Italy and Japan. By the time the war broke out, conflict between the United States and the Axis powers was inevitable. Of course, after the United States’ entry into the war, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin were the prime movers of allied strategy that led to the eventual defeat of the Axis. Though he did not live to see the post war world, he was instrumental in creating much of it. He championed the founding of the United Nations and firmly established the concept of an active and engaged American foreign policy that so affected the globe in the ensuing decades.

I must admit that I cannot discuss Roosevelt without being a little defensive. Though I certainly recognize the man’s shortcomings and believe that, like most major world leaders, he did some terrible things, I have an admiration as well as a little bit of a defense instinct for this President. This protective tendency on my part is the result of living at a time and in a nation where Roosevelt’s reputation as well as legacy are under attack by forces of the political far right. I must agree with Brands’ comment regarding the critics of the time,

“the objective and honest of those who had once denounced Roosevelt for class betrayal recognized that in a decade rife with fascists, militarists, and communists abroad and irresponsible demagogues at home, he was the best thing that could have happened to them."

If one wants to understand the modern world and how it got to be the way it is, then one must understand Roosevelt and his administration. It can be argued that this man was the most influential person of the twentieth century. As a student of history, despite Roosevelt’s defects, I am in awe of his accomplishments. Though it is difficult to say for certain how history would otherwise have played out, the world may look very, very different today had he not become the American President in 1932. This book is an informative and relatively complete account of his life and accomplishments.

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder

The world can be ugly and brutal. Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin subject is Eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s and the impact that both Hitler’s and Stalin’s murderous policies had on the population of the region. This time and place was as ugly and brutal as it ever got. The book is remarkably well researched and morbidly fascinating. It is also a difficult and troubling read. The subject of this book involves what are likely the darkest and most disturbing events in human history. This work catalogues killings upon killings. Tales of mass, intentional starvations, torture, and sadism abound here. Most distressing is the scale of death involved.  Not hundreds, not thousands, not even millions, but tens of millions of people were murdered and exposed to atrocities. This was perhaps the worst mass murder and in world history (I say “perhaps” as some scholars contend that the Mongols killed more people in the 13^th and 14^th centuries). It encompassed the Holocaust as well plenty of other barbarisms.

For those who are not familiar with Stalin’s crimes, he perpetuated horror on a comparable scale to Hitler. He practiced intentional mass starvations, mass shootings as well as multiple terror campaigns that were actually the model for many of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis.

As is often the case with insightful and well thought out books, there are many themes to contemplate here. One particularly important strand in the narrative is the exploration of the motivations behind the mass atrocities. From my experience, I find that that many people think of Hitler on very simplistic terms as “a madman who was trying to conquer the world.” I often encounter those who no nothing of Stalin. Some of those who know just a little bit about the Soviet leader have a vague notion that he was an evil dictator who liked to kill people (he was, but there is more to it).

As Snyder explains, both leaders pursued their own “Utopian Ideologies”. Stalin was attempting to collectivize agricultural production over a vast area, encompassing a huge population. A little later the Russian dictator began what is known as the “Great Terror”, the goal of which was to eliminate potential internal support for foreign invaders. These campaigns added up to an attempt to eliminate entire social and political classes, first through a planned, intentional famine, and later through a state sponsored terror, culminating in mass executions and nightmarish forced labor.

Hitler was attempting to establish a vast eastern empire, mostly for its agrarian potential. His plan was to exterminate and enslave the enormous populations currently occupying this segment of the earth. He envisioned a huge expanded Reich, stretching from Siberia to the Rhine that would be a paradise for the German people. Hatred for Jews was an added political and social motivator.

The result was genocide (this is a term that, as Snyder explains, he prefers not to use), untold misery, and the blackest moments in human history. Partial blame for these horrors can be laid upon fanatical, un-skeptical and uncompromising devotion to these ideas. These were belief systems so ill conceived and uncritically accepted that they led unspeakable horrors on a barely imaginable scale.

I do not want to give impression that I believe these crimes were committed solely because of mindless adherence to ideology. There were many other reasons, some connected and some not so connected to these horrendous philosophies. Ingrained racism and anti- Semitism, the depravations of First World War, the cult of personality, etc. were also major factors. However, one important lesson here is that blind faith in uncompromising mindsets and plans, reinforced by unceasing propaganda, can lead to terrible consequences.

Those interested in further reading into the hell that the world descended into during this era might want to try Niall Ferguson’s The War of the World. Though this is another book that is not a cheery read, Ferguson details the surge in killings and violence that occurred in the first half of the twentieth century and attempts to identify its causes.