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The Phoney Victory: The World War II Delusion

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Writing on Operation Fish, he rather conveniently chooses to gloss over the fact that earlier, Britain did something much more cynical to Poland than what the U.S. did to Britain (which could be justified by the fact that in 1934, Britain defaulted on its enormous debt to the U.S.), namely Britain confiscated all gold of the Polish state that the Polish army managed to rescue from occupied Poland in September 1939 (he merely mentions that “Britain was even borrowing from the Czech government in exile”, p. 88) - not in exchange for ships or food (like the U.S. did) but to charge Poland for... the planes used by Polish pilots in the Battle of Britain! Using Peter Hitchens’s inept metaphor, he might as well claim that Britain has, "like a hyena", “dismembered” Channel Islands by taking them from Nazi Germany. Peter Hitchens does something unexpected and daring with his “The Phoney Victory” book: he tries his hand in the history field, and the result is intriguing. Full of reminiscences of his childhood, fastidious source criticism coupled with uncritical remarks verging from quirky to uninformed, this must-read book make contemporary reader long for the days of slowpoke steamers and toy soldiers (“My little plastic replica was an object of devotion, even idolatry, though nobody at my cathedral choir school would ever have thought to point it out”). Navy is the subject that is closest to Mr Hitchens's heart and the one about which he is most emotional and nostalgic, to the point of sounding slightly surreal at times; he writes about HMS "Prince of Wales": "Every intricate part of her was made according to traditional measurements of England, feet, inches, pounds and hundredweight" (p.167) - a bit like a loony CDs collector who believes that Japanese record pressings offer superior sound to their German editions. As an American this was a very interesting read. Peter has a quote that I like, "If you do not have an empire, you are living in somebody else's." I am very ready to admit that the American Empire is the large and dominant one right now, even if we do not view it as such. Much of Hitchens' ire towards the British government during the war is their kowtowing to American demands and the breakup of the British Empire due to American interference and demands. I think this has much to say about the current state of Anglo-American relations and what the future could hold for our two countries. However, I believe that the largest critique I have is "hindsight is 20/20." It may have been bad for the British to behave in certain ways during the war, especially towards the USA, but I am less confident than Hitchens is in the British government's knowledge of their choices and their affects at the time. Still worth a read as an American even though it is not aimed at us as much as the UK. Condition: Very Good. Very Good condition. Shows only minor signs of wear, and very minimal markings inside (if any).

The Phoney Victory: The World War II Delusion - Peter The Phoney Victory: The World War II Delusion - Peter

Richard Evans is provost of Gresham College and former regius professor of history at Cambridge. His books include “The Pursuit of Power: Europe, 1815-1914” (Penguin) Peter Hitchens believes that in Britain, myths about World War II infest policy making and cause bad decisions. World War II is the “good war,” appeasement is bad, and Churchillian rhetoric beyond reproach. Britain stood “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the United States of America in a “special relationship.” This is the most interesting books I have read and given such a low rating. The basic premise is that it is a myth that England won the war after an heroic lone stand against Hitler. (I often remembered the Thames TV series, World at War, which was about a war in which England defeated Germany with some help from the Soviet Union. . . and oh, yes America was there too.) Hitchens takes the stand thatHowever, I'm pretty sure there's still a sizable portion of the public that have a rather rosy image of those catastrophic years, but I can't help but think this was probably necessary to keep the country functioning during a period of rapid decline. This book does challenge notions and narratives that have existed since the war, of that I have no doubt, however I do question exactly who all these people are that he is trying to engage. As I have argued, he is hardly a trailblazer in many of these arguments - there is a wealth of analysis out there and often easily accessible. Why am I not persuaded? This fine book (and you should buy and read it for the good debunking it does) reminds me of an early draft of my dissertation. I made a case for a particular reading of Plato . . .covering all my bases. The entire thing failed when my advisor asked in so many words: “Maybe. You have answered the objections, but why believe this to start?” Condition: New. KlappentextrnrnChallenges commonly-held assumptions on World War II, A provocative, but considered narrative style, Major new book by leading columnist Peter Hitchens. Similarly, he is flying in the face of many years of research by German historians when he claims that the German armed forces in the war were fighting for military objectives that would have been regarded as legitimate by the democratic governments of the Weimar Republic that pre-ceded Hitler’s rise to power: it is very doubtful indeed whether Weimar’s foreign minister, Gustav Stresemann, would have approved the invasion of France, Denmark, Norway or even Czechoslovakia, let alone the Soviet Union.

The Phoney Victory: The World War II Illusion - Peter The Phoney Victory: The World War II Illusion - Peter

Christopher was not always right, but he was interesting and boldly opined. Brother Peter is more in my tribe (being a theist), but proves that theism does not prevent intellectual cussedness. Peter Hitchens always is worth reading whether arguing against thoughtless drug legalization or in defense of values now forgotten. My dad would have agreed with Peter Hitchens revised view of Churchill. However, as far as I am aware my dad was always very much aware of Churchill's many flaws, failures and mistakes. My dad was far from alone, it's worth remembering that Churchill and the Conservative Party lost the 1945 general election.Peace, precarious peace, depends now, more than ever, on our casting off these fantasies of chivalry and benevolence, and ceasing to hide the savage truth from ourselves." Peter Hitchens is, by his own admission, a “scribbler” and not a historian. He omits to broach the geopolitical implications that could have emerged from not declaring war against Nazi Germany in 1939. Giving Nazi Germany a free hand in continental Europe would have meant a larger demotion of the geopolitical position of the United Kingdom than the one that the country suffered as a result of the outcome of World War Two. However, the outcome of World War Two created the end of the internal balance of power in Western Europe, which is now being threatened, to a certain extent, by the exiting of the United Kingdom from the European Union. The period of peace and prosperity that emerged from the ashes of World War Two was due to the participation of the United Kingdom in World War Two, which prompted the reformation of the political culture in Germany and the demarcation of its geopolitical claims of Germany to the commercial realm. I could not believe that Hitchens didn't take the threat of invasion of England seriously. The only explanation of Germany's aerial offensive in the summer of 1940 was to prepare the way for an invasion. Could it have succeeded? No. This has been war gamed and analyzed to death. At best, the Germans would have done a great deal of damage to the destroyer fleet which would have made the British victory a Pyric one.

The Phoney Victory: The World War II Illusion - Goodreads The Phoney Victory: The World War II Illusion - Goodreads

A stimulating challenge to the pieties of the official British history of World War II, Hitchens argues that Britain's decision to go to war in 1939 was a miscalculation of historic importance; that the so called 'special relationship' between the USA and Britain during the war (and since!) was far more a coldly calculating move by America to squeeze the British dry before taking over their role as superpower; and that Britain's conduct of the war consisted of, in addition to the humiliating defeat at Dunkirk and loss of Singapore, bombing German civilians in a manner that should be considered a war crime. An otherwise stimulating read is somewhat marred by a conclusion that descends into a rant against modern Britain, but is entertaining nonetheless. To briefly summarise the book's thesis, while Mr Hitchens deplores the German National Socialist regime, he rejects the simplistic "goodies vs baddies" narrative, Britain did not join the war to fight tyranny and racism, nor is he convinced that we were at any real threat of invasion from Germany and that our bombing of German cities constituted a war crime. No, he is not saying that the Holocaust did not happen or that the bombing of Hamburg and Dresden was as bad as the former. Still, we cannot overlook the inhumane barbarity that was inflicted on the German population during the war and as a result of the Potsdam Agreement. Peter Hitchens has long been one who has not shied away from unpopular truths, and this book is iconoclastic even by his standards. While many "bulldog patriots" find it impossible to imagine a patriotic right-wing commentator criticising Britain's role in World War II, Mr Hitchens shatters the myth that only crazy SJWs or professional race-baiters can be critical of Winston Churchill et al. Admittedly, this book is not a work of original scholarship, yet nor is it a work of propaganda. The author summarises the arguments of established historians in this challenging synthesis. Hitchens also asserts the common belief of Eurosceptics that joining the EU meant Britain’s “absorption into the European Union – the continuation of Germany by other means” without presenting any evidence in support of this bizarre contention (we should remember for instance that Margaret Thatcher, who seems to have become something of an unperson among Tory Europhobes, was largely responsible, among other contributions, for the creation of the single market). Even stranger is his apparent belief that the UK was bankrupted by the war, leading to a collapse in living standards, whereas in fact a mere decade and a half later, largely as a result of sloughing off the huge expense of maintaining a useless overseas empire, Britain was entering the boom years of the Sixties, with rapidly rising living standards. The Mail on Sunday columnist, relying on a handful of eccentric studies, argues that September 1939 was the wrong moment for Britain to go to war against Germany.Peter Hitchens examines what I have long suspected to be true, but perception was obscured by prevailing narratives. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin meet at Yalta in February 1945 – Image link

Peter Hitchensâ?Ts Eurosceptic take on the Second World War

Mr Hitchens claims that this extended operation was mostly a waste of time and money and just a propaganda exercise where French and British brave men and women, of which over a hundred parachuted to their brutal ends in France and Germany and were never heard of again, and that we pulled ‘romance’ out of the operation by romanticizing glamorous women and even making films about them. I would argue that it kept the Germans on their toes in France and used up no end of German troops and Gestapo agents, and was a good precursor for gaining intelligence in the run-up to D Day. My dad was the occupying British Army in postwar Europe and told a few stories, at least one which, remembering it brings tears to my eyes. So he was aware to some extent of the suffering of the German civilian population. But I'm not sure he knew just how horrific it was, or the scale of the suffering.

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