The High Cost of Victory
This is British historian Daniel
Todman’s second volume of his history of Britain’s involvement in World War II.
Like his first volume it is way too long (976 pages in the print edition) and
way too detailed for the lay reader. (See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2017/01/my-amazon-review-of-daniel-todmans.html ) Nevertheless
there is much to be learned for the dogged reader.
The book opens in early 1942 with
Britain on the run everywhere. Singapore falls, the Japanese navy runs riot in
the Indian Ocean, Rommel rules Africa, and the German army was just barely halted
at the gates of Moscow. But underneath the radar the Labour Party was actively
preparing for the postwar world. Todman is convincing that the root of Labour’s
surprising success in the 1945 election had its origins with the cradle to the
grave welfare state proposed by the Beveridge Report, the socialization of the
economy under the exigencies of wartime planning and the complete discrediting
of the Tory appeasement policy of the interwar years. To top it off Churchill
was rightfully far more interested in winning the war than in party building.
The Tories were adrift and Labour had focus.
Aside from presenting the high diplomacy
of the Big Three, Todman delves into British life on the home front, the impact
of the million American soldiers on the small island, the battlefield
conditions facing the average soldier, the importance of air power as a
defensive force rather than an offensive one and of the generally unsung
battles against the Japanese in Burma.
The war ends with Britain broke with
Keynes going hat in hand to Washington to seek needed credits and with Britain
in strategic retreat in Greece, India and Palestine. Simply put the empire
which was having difficulties before the war was completely overstretched after
it. All of this was foreshadowed at the Tehran conference in 1943 where Stalin
and Roosevelt took charge of the war over the protests of Churchill.
Although Todman highlights the horrors
of the Nazi concentration camps he has little sympathy for the displaced
European Jews seeking refuge in Palestine. He is also way too sympathetic to
the Labour government’s social reforms and nationalizations of industry. Of
course many reforms were necessary, but it was the Labour policies that were at
the heart of Britain becoming the “sick man of Europe” over the next 30 years.
I know this review hasn’t done justice
to Todman’s all-encompassing book. I only highlighted a few of the insights I
got out his book and a few of my criticisms. It is a long slog, but as I
mentioned at the start there is much to be learned here.
For the full amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2GNCCLBEWQH7U/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
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