Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War

Crown Publishers, 544 pages

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Pat Buchanan apparently is not big on irony. He spends a great deal of time stating his claim that British hubris turned what would have been two regional wars into world wars but he doesn't feel the same hubris was misplaced in the building of the empire.

Buchanan notes that the British Empire produced the world's most "civilised" countries and left behind the fruits of that civilisation as well as former colonists who swell with pride at having been a part of it all. Although the British Empire, like all empires, was fated to fall, Buchanan writes, the speed of that fall was determined by the two world wars.

Buchanan, the conservative commentator and two-time presidential candidate, charges British statesmen, particularly Winston Churchill, with blundering into the wars, sparking the devastation of Europe and the collapse of the empire.

Among the mistakes Britain made were the Treaty of Versailles that humiliated Germany, Britain's capitulation to pressure from the Americans to drop its alliance with Japan and the issuing of a war guarantee to Poland.

"Had Britain not given a war guarantee to Poland in March 1939, then declared war on September 3, bringing in South Africa, Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand and the United States, a German-Polish war might never have become a six-year world war in which 50 million would parish," Buchanan writes.

Buchanan especially blames Churchill for blundering into World War Two, and contends that a "Churchill cult" among America's elite is still contributing to the United State's military actions.

The view of Churchill as a blundering villain will be hard for many to take. But Buchanan's theses that the Second World War was unnecessary, as was fighting Hitler, is sure to arouse anger.

There may have been blunders by British leaders. Germans may have resented the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler's ambitions may not have included world domination. But it's hard to support his argument that it was unnecessary to fight Hitler. One need look no farther than the concentration camps to know that.

Although much of Buchanan's book deals with World War Two and Churchill, he also writes that the United States should take heed of what happened to the British Empire, because America is overextended now just as the British Empire was before that war.