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# Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World

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desertcart.com: Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World: 9780307405166: Buchanan, Patrick J.: Books

Review: Missed chances and bad judgments equals tragedy! - In this excellent piece, Pat Buchanan makes some excellent points which conflict with the conventional wisdom about some of the most important events of the Twentieth Century. Many readers will disagree and perhaps even be offended by Buchanan's analysis. However, the author rigorously annotates his points, not just in footnotes but quotes of primary sources in the text of the book. Most readers have doubtless made up their minds about the causes of World Wars I and II. This book will, at the very least, challenge most readers to re-examine many of their opinions. While I do not accept all of Mr. Buchanan's arguments, they are worthy of respect, and can shake up one's settled beliefs. The first theme that Mr. Buchanan challenges is the notion that the First World War was essentially the product of German and Austrian aggression against the reluctant Allied Powers. While Austria is seen as the unwise bully that it was, Mr. Buchanan points out that in his 25 years as the German Kaiser, neither Kaiser Wilhelm or his nation had been involved in a single war. Britain, by contrast, had fought ten wars during this period including the bloody and recent Boer War. France had been involved in numerous bloody colonial wars as well. Buchanan provides copious evidence that the Kaiser was trying to avert war even at the eleventh hour, and that Britain could, and should, have averted war by simply refusing to commit to a war in continental Europe. Regarding this first theme, Winston Churchill comes in for savage criticism by Buchanan. Buchanan's theme is that Churchill's appetite and ardent desire for war was pivotal in causing England to guaranty Belgium's defense, which guaranty very likely made war inevitable. Buchanan documents in depressing detail the utter fecklessness of European diplomacy both before and after the First World War. Those who feel it necessary to take heed of the opinion of the elites of these countries would do well to study this component of the book. Buchanan documents, as have others before him, that both the First and Second World Wars are primarily the product of wretchedly incompetent management of international relations on the part of Britain, France, Germany, and others. Buchanan's main themes continue unto the Second World War. His main thesis is that it was Britain's guaranty to go to war if Germany attacked Poland that triggered the global war. He makes a strong case that this guaranty put the question of global war into the hands of a Polish government which immediately became intransigent once it received this guaranty. Buchanan believes that Hitler would have accepted terms over the question of Danzig and the Polish Corridor that Poland otherwise could, (and, he says, should) have found acceptable. Danzig was, after all, formerly a part of Germany until the Versailles Treaty, and its inhabitants almost to a person desired to be part of Germany. Given the facts that at the time Britain had only two battle-ready divisions, a minuscule air force, and that its Navy could not influence any German-Polish conflict in a meaningful way, Buchanan argues that the guaranty was essentially inexplicable. Once again, Buchanan savages Winston Churchill, who was again instrumental in causing Britain to make the guaranty that Buchanan believes triggered "the unnecessary war." Most readers, myself included, will not buy all of Buchanan's arguments. Regarding the fecklessness of European diplomacy, and the causes of the First World War, I think that Buchanan is on solid ground. Other researchers before Buchanan have found the First World War to have been an avoidable tragedy that the European states should have been able to avoid. Buchanan's Second World War arguments are somewhat more problematic. There is little evidence that any country anytime ever had much luck negotiating with Hitler, and it is far from clear that Britain's guaranty caused the German-Polish conflict or that its absence would have prevented it. Hitler seemed willing to invade neighboring countries on almost any pretext and with a complete disregard to ordinary Western standards of decency. Notwithstanding that fact, Buchanan makes a pretty good case that Hitler was an opportunist, and that he was not without justification in seeking return of the Sudetenland and of Bohemia. Had he stopped there, and negotiated return of Danzig without war (which Buchanan says would have happened absent the British guaranty) we might be living in a very different world. Who can say? Personally, I still think that Hitler was determined to fight a bloody war against Russia and persecute the Jews and other nationalities and ethnicities that he hated. Ultimately, it seems that Hitler was bound to fight such a war, but Buchanan makes some case that the world might have been better had Germany and Russia fought their war without the Western Allies being involved. Each reader must decide for him or her self. I don't accept this thesis. Mr. Buchanan's most insightful analysis is at the very end of this piece. He argues, as discussed above, that inept European diplomacy in which Great Powers went to war for non-vital reasons, was the cause of the World Wars. He then contrasts this with US diplomacy from World War I to the end of the Cold War. During this time American leaders refused to be easily drawn into conflicts and joined the World Wars only in their latter stages (particularly the First) thereby avoiding in significant degree, the horrendous casualties that many others suffered. Even more significantly, once America became the leading world power, American diplomacy repeatedly avoided war-starting confrontations by refusing, not without anguish, to fight wars for non-vital interests to America. Hence America's refusal to fight wars over Soviet interventions in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, or even the Cuban Missile Crisis. The contrast between the success of America in winning the Cold War without a World War (albeit with some sizable errors such as Vietnam) and European fecklessness in managing to start two world wars in 25 years, is stark. This is a truly fascinating insight which in my opinion is the major contribution of this book. This book is interesting, readable, and provocative. It will cause most readers to at the very least re-examine what they think about the causes of the two great wars of the Twentieth Century. For that, this one merits five stars. Highly recommended. RJB.
Review: Misleading title, but great history - A more accurate title for this book would be something along the lines of, "Causes and Consequences of WWII, as Derived from Other Histories." In writing this book the author has taken the historical writings of about 200 different historical tomes and synthesized them into a single volume of a mere 420 pages (principle text only, and not including 75 pages of notes and bibliography). The book is an easy read, which is remarkable given the large number of references (sometimes conflicting) used by the author. Here's why I love this book: 1. The writing is superb - I found the book easy to read, and hard to put down. 2. Mr. Buchanan lays blame for WWII (as well as WWI) where he believes blame should be laid, as very well supported by his numerous citations and quotations. Accordingly, Mr. Buchanan's conclusions are well supported. 3. Mr. Buchanan raises questions that any observant reader should also be raising, and then provides essentially immediate answers to the questions. 4. The writing is about as unbiased as possible. Mr. Buchanan offers alternative explanations for the actions of individuals, and lets the reader decide what is the best explanation. This book should be read by anyone pondering the question of how and why WWII came about. It is not the end-all definitive tome on answering that question, but it does provide a critical piece to the puzzle, and perhaps more importantly, provides the reader with links (via the bibliography) for further study. (I purchased 9 books cited in the bibliography for my own further study.) Notwithstanding the title and forward in this book, it is not just a rant against Churchill - it is also an excellent history of the motivations and events that lead up to WWII. This book should be read along with "Freedom Betrayed" (by Herbert Hoover, re WWII and FDR). If you read "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War" and "Freedom Betrayed", you will be enlightened as to the so-called "Good War". WWII was not a war against the alleged tyranny of Nazi Germany. Rather, the European part of the war was brought about primarily by the personalities of Churchill, Neville Chamberlain, Hitler and Beck (the Polish leader in 1939). Stalin merely facilitated the European part of the war. To make it a truly World war, FDR did everything he could to antagonize Germany and Japan into attacking the U.S., with successful results (and the loss of 400,000 American lives). If you have any thoughts about WWII being the "good war", ask yourself these two questions: (i) If the British objective of WWII was to fight German aggression, why did they turn a blind eye towards similar Soviet aggression?; (ii) If the U.S. objective of WWII was to fight Japanese and German threats to the U.S., what was the real threat to the U.S. from Germany and Japan in June 1941? If you look for answers to these questions, you will find that WWII was not a war against tyranny, but rather a war of personalities. I am a bit of an amateur historian, and have thus far primarily placed my study of the casus belli of WWII on investigating why FDR drug the U.S. into WWII (and to a lesser extent, why Britain gave Poland a guarantee in 1939 - but with no real satisfactory answer as to the latter question). This book provides at least one satisfactory answer as to why Britain decided to drag itself into WWII. As I've always contended, the more one can read on a subject, the better one will be facilitated in forming a reasoned opinion thereon. This book should be part of any study on the casus belli of WWII.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #24,762 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #37 in German History (Books) #59 in Political Leader Biographies #88 in World War II History (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,057 Reviews |

## Images

![Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71J9SB3Rb3L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Missed chances and bad judgments equals tragedy!
*by R***N on May 26, 2010*

In this excellent piece, Pat Buchanan makes some excellent points which conflict with the conventional wisdom about some of the most important events of the Twentieth Century. Many readers will disagree and perhaps even be offended by Buchanan's analysis. However, the author rigorously annotates his points, not just in footnotes but quotes of primary sources in the text of the book. Most readers have doubtless made up their minds about the causes of World Wars I and II. This book will, at the very least, challenge most readers to re-examine many of their opinions. While I do not accept all of Mr. Buchanan's arguments, they are worthy of respect, and can shake up one's settled beliefs. The first theme that Mr. Buchanan challenges is the notion that the First World War was essentially the product of German and Austrian aggression against the reluctant Allied Powers. While Austria is seen as the unwise bully that it was, Mr. Buchanan points out that in his 25 years as the German Kaiser, neither Kaiser Wilhelm or his nation had been involved in a single war. Britain, by contrast, had fought ten wars during this period including the bloody and recent Boer War. France had been involved in numerous bloody colonial wars as well. Buchanan provides copious evidence that the Kaiser was trying to avert war even at the eleventh hour, and that Britain could, and should, have averted war by simply refusing to commit to a war in continental Europe. Regarding this first theme, Winston Churchill comes in for savage criticism by Buchanan. Buchanan's theme is that Churchill's appetite and ardent desire for war was pivotal in causing England to guaranty Belgium's defense, which guaranty very likely made war inevitable. Buchanan documents in depressing detail the utter fecklessness of European diplomacy both before and after the First World War. Those who feel it necessary to take heed of the opinion of the elites of these countries would do well to study this component of the book. Buchanan documents, as have others before him, that both the First and Second World Wars are primarily the product of wretchedly incompetent management of international relations on the part of Britain, France, Germany, and others. Buchanan's main themes continue unto the Second World War. His main thesis is that it was Britain's guaranty to go to war if Germany attacked Poland that triggered the global war. He makes a strong case that this guaranty put the question of global war into the hands of a Polish government which immediately became intransigent once it received this guaranty. Buchanan believes that Hitler would have accepted terms over the question of Danzig and the Polish Corridor that Poland otherwise could, (and, he says, should) have found acceptable. Danzig was, after all, formerly a part of Germany until the Versailles Treaty, and its inhabitants almost to a person desired to be part of Germany. Given the facts that at the time Britain had only two battle-ready divisions, a minuscule air force, and that its Navy could not influence any German-Polish conflict in a meaningful way, Buchanan argues that the guaranty was essentially inexplicable. Once again, Buchanan savages Winston Churchill, who was again instrumental in causing Britain to make the guaranty that Buchanan believes triggered "the unnecessary war." Most readers, myself included, will not buy all of Buchanan's arguments. Regarding the fecklessness of European diplomacy, and the causes of the First World War, I think that Buchanan is on solid ground. Other researchers before Buchanan have found the First World War to have been an avoidable tragedy that the European states should have been able to avoid. Buchanan's Second World War arguments are somewhat more problematic. There is little evidence that any country anytime ever had much luck negotiating with Hitler, and it is far from clear that Britain's guaranty caused the German-Polish conflict or that its absence would have prevented it. Hitler seemed willing to invade neighboring countries on almost any pretext and with a complete disregard to ordinary Western standards of decency. Notwithstanding that fact, Buchanan makes a pretty good case that Hitler was an opportunist, and that he was not without justification in seeking return of the Sudetenland and of Bohemia. Had he stopped there, and negotiated return of Danzig without war (which Buchanan says would have happened absent the British guaranty) we might be living in a very different world. Who can say? Personally, I still think that Hitler was determined to fight a bloody war against Russia and persecute the Jews and other nationalities and ethnicities that he hated. Ultimately, it seems that Hitler was bound to fight such a war, but Buchanan makes some case that the world might have been better had Germany and Russia fought their war without the Western Allies being involved. Each reader must decide for him or her self. I don't accept this thesis. Mr. Buchanan's most insightful analysis is at the very end of this piece. He argues, as discussed above, that inept European diplomacy in which Great Powers went to war for non-vital reasons, was the cause of the World Wars. He then contrasts this with US diplomacy from World War I to the end of the Cold War. During this time American leaders refused to be easily drawn into conflicts and joined the World Wars only in their latter stages (particularly the First) thereby avoiding in significant degree, the horrendous casualties that many others suffered. Even more significantly, once America became the leading world power, American diplomacy repeatedly avoided war-starting confrontations by refusing, not without anguish, to fight wars for non-vital interests to America. Hence America's refusal to fight wars over Soviet interventions in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, or even the Cuban Missile Crisis. The contrast between the success of America in winning the Cold War without a World War (albeit with some sizable errors such as Vietnam) and European fecklessness in managing to start two world wars in 25 years, is stark. This is a truly fascinating insight which in my opinion is the major contribution of this book. This book is interesting, readable, and provocative. It will cause most readers to at the very least re-examine what they think about the causes of the two great wars of the Twentieth Century. For that, this one merits five stars. Highly recommended. RJB.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Misleading title, but great history
*by J***D on March 10, 2015*

A more accurate title for this book would be something along the lines of, "Causes and Consequences of WWII, as Derived from Other Histories." In writing this book the author has taken the historical writings of about 200 different historical tomes and synthesized them into a single volume of a mere 420 pages (principle text only, and not including 75 pages of notes and bibliography). The book is an easy read, which is remarkable given the large number of references (sometimes conflicting) used by the author. Here's why I love this book: 1. The writing is superb - I found the book easy to read, and hard to put down. 2. Mr. Buchanan lays blame for WWII (as well as WWI) where he believes blame should be laid, as very well supported by his numerous citations and quotations. Accordingly, Mr. Buchanan's conclusions are well supported. 3. Mr. Buchanan raises questions that any observant reader should also be raising, and then provides essentially immediate answers to the questions. 4. The writing is about as unbiased as possible. Mr. Buchanan offers alternative explanations for the actions of individuals, and lets the reader decide what is the best explanation. This book should be read by anyone pondering the question of how and why WWII came about. It is not the end-all definitive tome on answering that question, but it does provide a critical piece to the puzzle, and perhaps more importantly, provides the reader with links (via the bibliography) for further study. (I purchased 9 books cited in the bibliography for my own further study.) Notwithstanding the title and forward in this book, it is not just a rant against Churchill - it is also an excellent history of the motivations and events that lead up to WWII. This book should be read along with "Freedom Betrayed" (by Herbert Hoover, re WWII and FDR). If you read "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War" and "Freedom Betrayed", you will be enlightened as to the so-called "Good War". WWII was not a war against the alleged tyranny of Nazi Germany. Rather, the European part of the war was brought about primarily by the personalities of Churchill, Neville Chamberlain, Hitler and Beck (the Polish leader in 1939). Stalin merely facilitated the European part of the war. To make it a truly World war, FDR did everything he could to antagonize Germany and Japan into attacking the U.S., with successful results (and the loss of 400,000 American lives). If you have any thoughts about WWII being the "good war", ask yourself these two questions: (i) If the British objective of WWII was to fight German aggression, why did they turn a blind eye towards similar Soviet aggression?; (ii) If the U.S. objective of WWII was to fight Japanese and German threats to the U.S., what was the real threat to the U.S. from Germany and Japan in June 1941? If you look for answers to these questions, you will find that WWII was not a war against tyranny, but rather a war of personalities. I am a bit of an amateur historian, and have thus far primarily placed my study of the casus belli of WWII on investigating why FDR drug the U.S. into WWII (and to a lesser extent, why Britain gave Poland a guarantee in 1939 - but with no real satisfactory answer as to the latter question). This book provides at least one satisfactory answer as to why Britain decided to drag itself into WWII. As I've always contended, the more one can read on a subject, the better one will be facilitated in forming a reasoned opinion thereon. This book should be part of any study on the casus belli of WWII.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent review of the diplomacy of the two world wars
*by J***R on September 2, 2019*

I am no fan of Pat Buchanan, considering him to be just another blow hard. I was impressed by his opposition to Gulf War II (unlike John Kerry and Hillary Clinton), and his pungent statement after the war was over, "Well, Mr. President. Where are the weapons of mass destruction?" On a blog site I was doing my usual thing of defending Chamberlain from the charge of appeasement when I was attacked as being under the influence of the ideas in this book. Having not read the book, I thought why not? It was only $1.99 on Amazon. Buchanan is no historian, but he has read a lot of history. This book is logical, well written, and well referenced. About 2/3'rds is a well written account of the diplomacy of the world wars, or better said, the mistaken diplomacy which led to those wars, and their unhappy aftermaths. I have read quite a bit about this, and what he writes is consistent with what I have read elsewhere. This is a nice account though with many details I had overlooked or forgotten. I highly recommend this book for that alone. The other 1/3rd is a critique of Winston Churchill. It is quite negative. Thus, this book has been highly criticized. The negative reviews I have read are essentially attacks on Buchanan, not on anything he actually says in his book. Very briefly, Buchanan puts the blame on England for the global nature of what would have been wars confined to the European mainland. I did not know that England had no treaty to come to the aid of anybody in Europe if they were attacked prior to WW I. What existed was a small clique of English and French politicians and military people (Churchill was very prominent in this clique) to come to the aid of France in case of war. Nobody else knew this. They used the excuse of the violation of Belgium neutrality to come into the war, but that would not have mattered in any event. Germany would have defeated France if not for English intervention, and the war dragged out for four bloody years. The upshot was the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the coming to power in Russia of the Communists. The Versailles treaty was an abomination. Nobody disputes that today. When Hitler came to power, he demanded revision of that treaty. Nobody could dispute the merits of his arguments. The treaty had unfairly penalized Germany and all German ethnics, millions of whom had lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The demand that all ethnic Germans should be incorporated into a modern German state was in complete accordance with Wilson's principles, but only the Germans were denied this opportunity, and Hitler pushed it. The big mistake was allowing the Germans to re-militarize the Rhineland, which could have been easily prevented. Anyhow, after incorporating Austria and the Sudetenland, without firing a shot, he demanded the Polish corridor through eastern Prussian be given up to Germany. It was Germany territory. The Poles at this time were ruled by a military junta. They balked. Hitler threatened. It is claimed, and there is ample documentation, that Hitler had no intention of going to war over this. He wanted Poland as an ally against Russia, and up until now he had gotten what he wanted by bluffing. Out of the blue, England offered Poland a guarantee of its "independence." The Poles hadn't asked for it and gave nothing in return. This promise morphed into an unconditional promise to come to its aid if attacked. The Germans were astounded. England had just made the same error the Kaiser had made in giving Austria a blank check to handle its Serbia problem. So, Poland refused to discuss the Polish corridor, Hitler attacked, thinking that England would be crazy to honor its promise. Hitler had made it very clear that he wanted no war with England. England then dragged in its Empire into the war, and WW II, which could have been confined to Eastern Europe, became a global war. Otherwise, Hitler would have kept going East and finally gotten into a war with the Russian Communists. At the end of WW II, Germany was destroyed, tens of millions were dead, 19 million Germans were ethnically cleansed from Eastern Europe, Communist USSR controlled all of Eastern Europe, and China fell to the Communists. Polish independence was a joke, and millions of Poles had died in the war. And, the English Empire was destroyed. There is a MUCH, MUCH, more. Read the book if interested in this period of history. Churchill played a prominent rule in pushing England into both these wars. When Churchill got into English politics in about 1901, the English Empire was at its zenith. When he left politics in 1955, the English Empire was no more. This is the basis for the harsh critique. The fact that by today's standards he was a complete racist and imperialist just adds to the irony. The supreme irony is that Hitler was a supporter of the English Empire. He offered England a peace deal which was very generous to England. FDR and Stalin both wanted to see the English Empire destroyed. Today we say that WW II is justified by the Holocaust. Keep in mind that the Holocaust, in 1939, was still in the future. That would be like the Japanese saying that they were justified in bombing Pearl Harbor because we bombed Hiroshima. The fate of the Jews in Europe played no role in the march to war nor in the conduct of the war. And, it is clear, that the Nazi's used the war as a cover for their Final Solution.

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