It's unusual for Hitch to vascillate with statements like this: "By the time Churchill and Clement Attlee had outpointed Chamberlain and Halifax and the other capitulationists and formed a serious government, it was probably already too late."
There's several military history lessons within this review. I haven't time to elaborate. Enjoy.
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In a vertiginous space of time, the wretchedly equipped B.E.F. was forced to deal with exorbitant demands from Paris that the French essentially be lent the bulk of the Royal Air Force; with a cowardly sellout on their left flank by King Leopold of Belgium; and with intelligence from German sources (in one case anti-Nazi and in one case not) about the precise date when Generals Guderian and Rommel would roll forward and carry the swastika flag into the Low Countries. As if this were not enough, the war cabinet in London, still reeling from the ease with which Hitler had defeated another British “expedition” to Norway, was seriously entertaining a proposal of “mediation” from Benito Mussolini. ( I find it somehow humiliating — no, make that nauseating — even to have to read about this latter episode.)
But this is the sort of thing a true Frenchman will never get nauseated about. Wheeling and dealing with the enemy so as to get out of a fight? Why, this is the essence of sophistication! You can bet your last nickel that, were the likes of Daladier & Blum & co in charge in England in 1940, they would have struck a separate peace with Hitler and Mussolini, in no time.
Yes, MFT, this piece of history is relevant to the present. One can see the same archetypes across centuries and oceans. I'd elaborate on the parallels, but I gotta run earn my daily bread.
Right, AI. Bread is important. Here's another excerpt from Hitch: By the time Churchill and Clement Attlee had outpointed Chamberlain and Halifax and the other capitulationists and formed a serious government, it was probably already too late.
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