Posted on 06/20/2008 8:12:50 AM PDT by kellynla
So asks Newsweek's cover, which features a full-length photo of the prime minister his people voted the greatest Briton of them all.
Quite a tribute, when one realizes Churchill's career coincides with the collapse of the British empire and the fall of his nation from world pre-eminence to third-rate power.
That the Newsweek cover was sparked by my book "Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War" seems apparent, as one of the three essays, by Christopher Hitchens, was a scathing review. Though in places complimentary, Hitchens charmingly concludes: This book "stinks."
Understandable. No Brit can easily concede my central thesis: The Brits kicked away their empire. Through colossal blunders, Britain twice declared war on a Germany that had not attacked her and did not want war with her, fought for 10 bloody years and lost it all.
Unable to face the truth, Hitchens seeks solace in old myths.
We had to stop Prussian militarism in 1914, says Hitchens. "The Kaiser's policy shows that Germany was looking for a chance for war all over the globe."
Nonsense. If the Kaiser were looking for a war he would have found it. But in 1914, he had been in power for 25 years, was deep into middle age but had never fought a war nor seen a battle.
From Waterloo to World War I, Prussia fought three wars, all in one seven-year period, 1864 to 1871. Out of these wars, she acquired two duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, and two provinces, Alsace and Lorraine. By 1914, Germany had not fought a war in two generations.
Does that sound like a nation out to conquer the world?
As for the Kaiser's bellicose support for the Boers, his igniting the Agadir crisis in 1905, his building of a great fleet, his seeking of colonies in Africa, he was only aping the British, whose approbation and friendship he desperately sought all his life and was ever denied.
In every crisis the Kaiser blundered into, including his foolish "blank cheque" to Austria after Serb assassins murdered the heir to the Austrian throne, the Kaiser backed down or was trying to back away when war erupted.
Even Churchill, who before 1914 was charging the Kaiser with seeking "the dominion of the world," conceded, "History should ... acquit William II of having plotted and planned the World War."
What of World War II? Surely, it was necessary to declare war to stop Adolf Hitler from conquering the world and conducting the Holocaust.
Yet consider. Before Britain declared war on him, Hitler never demanded return of any lands lost at Versailles to the West. Northern Schleswig had gone to Denmark in 1919, Eupen and Malmedy had gone to Belgium, Alsace and Lorraine to France.
Why did Hitler not demand these lands back? Because he sought an alliance, or at least friendship, with Great Britain and knew any move on France would mean war with Britain -- a war he never wanted.
If Hitler were out to conquer the world, why did he not build a great fleet? Why did he not demand the French fleet when France surrendered? Germany had to give up its High Seas Fleet in 1918.
Why did he build his own Maginot Line, the Western Wall, in the Rhineland, if he meant all along to invade France?
If he wanted war with the West, why did he offer peace after Poland and offer to end the war, again, after Dunkirk?
That Hitler was a rabid anti-Semite is undeniable. "Mein Kampf" is saturated in anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws confirm it. But for the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust.
Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the Final Solution was on the table.
That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable. Then the trains began to roll.
And why did Hitler invade Russia? This writer quotes Hitler 10 times as saying that only by knocking out Russia could he convince Britain it could not win and must end the war.
Hitchens mocks this view, invoking the Hitler-madman theory.
"Could we have a better definition of derangement and megalomania than the case of a dictator who overrules his own generals and invades Russia in wintertime ... ?"
Christopher, Hitler invaded Russia on June 22.
The Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but a consequence of the war. No war, no Holocaust.
Britain went to war with Germany to save Poland. She did not save Poland. She did lose the empire. And Josef Stalin, whose victims outnumbered those of Hitler 1,000 to one as of September 1939, and who joined Hitler in the rape of Poland, wound up with all of Poland, and all the Christian nations from the Urals to the Elbe.
The British Empire fought, bled and died, and made Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. No wonder Winston Churchill was so melancholy in old age. No wonder Christopher rails against the book. As T.S. Eliot observed, "Mankind cannot bear much reality."
The Schiffs and Warburgs had put money on both sides.
Tragic. But the Lord had other plans.
One of the best political cartoons I’ve ever seen was in 1992 when Pat was running for President. It depicted him giving a speech with the caption ‘Mein Kampaign’.
Hitler was willing to let the Jews emigrate to Palestine, but the Brits didn't want to upset the Arabs
You folks might be interested in chiming in. Who knew that British foreign policy was responsible for the Holocaust? Who knew that Hitler DIDN’T really mention the final solution in 1935 as I had been taught years ago! Pat has ENLIGHTENED ME! ;-)
Just another failed politician carving out a niche for himself. Al Gore’s got environmentalism. Pat’s got pro-Nazi historical revisionism. Hey, even Pat’s got bills to pay. Might as well do something you love!
“Pat rewrites history again. Britain didnt lose her empire because of the world war.”
If Pat had been a lying writer during WWII, he probably would have been rounded by Israel as a Nazi supporter or worse.
Hitler knew the history of Napolean in Russia and accordingly planned his invasion for an earlier kickoff but got bogged down trying to bail out his hopeles Italian ally. He probably convinced himself that with a mechanized army the results would be different.
He’s regularily published by conservative sites like Townhall and World Net Daily. Though the latter can’t really be called Conservative. I don’t know what the hell it is really.
I try to like Pat but he just makes it so damn hard.
He’s right about a lot of things but when he misses, he really misses.
The Holocaust is a losing issue for him. He doesn’t know near as much as he thinks he knows so he should just keep his damn mouth shut on this issue. I think this one issue has ruined him, politically.
At some point the remaining John Birchers will die off, and Pat will be out of business. But I agree, he's a useful idiot for the left. I almost think he does it on purpose, out of spite for being rejected.
Take those two sentences and dissect them.
I agree that the extermination of Jews and others was not a cause of the war.
And in some cases, it was a consequence of the war in occupied lands....maybe....France, Italy, the Balkans , the USSR admittedly...over a million Jews I think etc.
But most of the victims came from Poland and Germany-Austria which would have happened even without a “World War”....neither a cause or consequence of the broader war but would have happened anyway after the Poland invasion.
So Pay is only partly right and in whole wrong.
For someone who is on occasion quite astute, he is very wrong on some key matters.
Why on earth does Pat think France and England should have just sat on their hands after Poland was invaded?
Where Hitler really screwed up was declaring war on the US and breaking his peace with Russia too early.
Pat takes too much liberty with the fact that most Jews and others were killed after 1940.
Pat has no staying power. That’s why he is always trying to re-invent himself. He’s a whiner.
He said it again on the Howie Carr Show. He is nuts. He blamed Poland for the war as well. All Hitler wanted was Danzig he said.
10 years WFB and National Review read Pat Buchanan out of mainstream conservatism due to his nascent anti-semitism.
Congressman Billybob
I wonder if it is too late for Pat to file papers to run for the Presidency in Iran?
It seems he would be a shoe in.
It's easy to get into Russia. It's hard to get out.
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