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REVIEW BY CALUM HENDERSON
When Tim Bouverie’s first book Appeasing Hitler appeared in 2019, it was generally considered to be something of a stunning debut: an eloquent and well-researched history of one of the most written-about periods in British history that put all previous accounts in the shade.
Bouverie’s latest book, Allies at War, is in many ways a follow-up to his first, as it looks at the diplomacy of defeating Hitler that replaced the failed efforts to pander to him. This diplomacy was truly global in scope, involving not just the ‘Big Three’ powers of the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union, but many other nations around the world.
Of course, when war broke out in September 1939, there was no guarantee that there would be such a thing as a ‘Big Three’ at all. Hitler and Stalin were then allies, having agreed a cynical pact to carve up Poland between themselves. The United States was led by a president sympathetic to the plight of Europe but restrained by the widespread mood of isolationism in his country. And then there was Britain, led still by Neville Chamberlain, which – as Bouverie is at pains to point out – barely wanted American involvement in the war.
What changed all this was the cascade of events that followed between autumn 1940 and winter 1941, a period Bouverie convincingly argues to be the hinge moment of the century. Something that becomes clear from this book is the extent to which the Allies were driven together not by any great love for each other, but instead by the boldness of their Axis enemies.
First, there was the decision by Germany to invade Russia in June 1941, in breach of the pact that Stalin had so naively believed Hitler would honour. Then, that December, came the stunningly audacious attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. This destroyed isolationism overnight and brought America firmly into the war, much to Churchill’s delight. Finally, just days later, there was the insane decision by Hitler to declare war on America, an uninvadable nation with the potential to become, as Roosevelt himself put it, a huge arsenal for democracy.
Unnatural allies
Churchill and Roosevelt were both immensely complicated men, and not necessarily natural allies. Bouverie reminds us of their awkward first meeting, back at the end of the First World War, which was not a success and which Churchill to his embarrassment later forgot. But, once he became Prime Minister in May 1940, the President was quick to recognise the British had the best, indeed the only, man for the job. Though this initial warm rapport would soon cool due to their very different outlooks – Churchill wanted to save the British Empire; Roosevelt wanted it dismantled, and each constituent nation given the right to choose its own future.
In dealing with his even more unlikely ally, Joseph Stalin, Roosevelt certainly made some major errors at first – such as promising Russia a second front as early as 1942, which would have been a disaster had it been carried out. He seems to have had a blind spot with the Russian leader, deluding himself into thinking he could ‘handle’ Stalin the same way Chamberlain believed he had Hitler in his pocket during the appeasement crisis.
Indeed, the whole story of the ‘Big Three’ could be read as the slow growth of Stalin’s power at the expense of his two nominal allies. Churchill was being squeezed out as the war progressed and British influence waned. Although the United States was unquestionably growing in stature, Roosevelt himself was ailing by the war’s end (he died in April 1945, before Hitler), as Russian troops conquered much of Eastern Europe.
Churchill and Roosevelt were both complicated men, and not necessarily natural allies.
By that final spring, with German defeat a certainty, Churchill grew concerned over the fate of countries such as Poland, for which Britain had entered the war in the first place. Plans were even drawn up – appropriately titled ‘Operation Unthinkable’ – to take the fight to the Soviet Union after Germany had been finished off. But Bouverie rightly decries this idea as ‘insane’. Russian power was colossal, and it wasn’t going anywhere. Looking back on this period, the uneasy alliance was bound to turn on itself once the enemy that brought them together had been vanquished.
Global outlook
Allies at War by no means focuses solely on the ‘Big Three’ powers. Bouverie spends a good chunk of the early part of the book looking at the Anglo-French relationship, which was uneasy at the best of times – but always considered important, at least by London. This explains why Churchill never broke with de Gaulle, despite the notoriously difficult Free French leader giving him enough excuses to do so. For a while, the Americans found Vichy easier to deal with.
Bouverie also looks at Ireland, led during the war by Éamon de Valera, an oddly insular figure who would have quite openly welcomed victory for the Axis. The hard efforts of the British to keep Francoist Spain out of the war, largely to preserve Mediterranean access for the Royal Navy, are fascinating to read about as well. So too are the accounts of the largely forgotten operations in the Middle East, conducted to keep oil reserves out of German hands.
The book also considers the presence of Nationalist China, which lost around 15 million people during the war (half as many as the Soviet Union) and for which there was huge American sympathy. Bouverie considers China a forgotten ‘fourth ally’, with the potential to become – as Roosevelt was correct in anticipating – a major global power. That the author encompasses so many countries, as well as the ‘Big Three’, is a major strength of this book.
It has been written in just over six years, the author says, admitting embarrassment that it took him as long to research as the duration of the events he describes. But Bouverie should not be embarrassed. As with his first book, the quality of the research is obvious. But, above all, Bouverie is an excellent writer, with a very fluent style that makes Allies at War a joy to read.
Allies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler
Tim Bouverie
Bodley Head, hbk, 688pp (£25)
ISBN 978-1847926227
