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

Patrick J. Buchanan examines whether World Wars I and II were inevitable or necessary, or instead resulted from serious errors in judgment. He argues that blunders by British statesmen—particularly Winston Churchill—may have made possible the prevention of two world wars, the Holocaust, and the collapse of the British Empire. He also contends that decades of Communist oppression and Europe's loss of global influence might have been avoided. Buchanan identifies several key British and Churchillian mistakes: a secret 1906 Cabinet decision to commit Britain to war against Germany if she invaded France; the Treaty of Versailles, which he characterizes as vengeful and left Germany bitter and receptive to Hitler; Britain's decision, urged by Churchill, to end the Anglo-Japanese alliance under American pressure, which isolated Japan and encouraged militarism; and the March 1939 war guarantee to Poland, which Buchanan calls the greatest mistake in British history and a direct cause of the Second World War. The book presents a historical argument about how these decisions of judgment altered the course of the twentieth century and European power.