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Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. By Patrick Buchanan. (New York: Random House,
Inc., 2008)

Would you believe me if I told you that 15 million lives could have been saved, and the

utterly devastating incident of World War II could have been completely avoided? In Patrick

Buchanan’s controversial book: Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War (published in 2008

by Random House Inc.), this is the exact point that he makes. He analyzes political struggles and

incorporates first-hand support in his argument that World War II was just a culmination of

foolish mistakes. He tended to focus on Britain’s mistakes and they ultimately started the war.

The author, Patrick Buchanan, has run in three different presidential elections and was recently

removed from a political analyst position in MSNBC after serving there for nearly eight years.

This book covers the course of Britain and Germany starting at the inception of World War 1 and

takes you through (generally in chronological order) the end of Winston Churchill’s life. I

believe that Buchanan is a great political analyst and does a great job balancing his own thoughts

with support from real events, but often gets off into barely relevant tangents that makes his

argument hard to follow and confuses the reader.

Buchanan opens his book with the first mistakes that lead to World War 1. He describes

the end of “splendid isolation” for Britain and the grudge spawning alliances of the early 1900’s.

As these alliances grew they formed the Triple Alliance and the French-Russian Alliance. This

end of splendid isolation, Buchanan argues, was the first mistake that led to the start of World

War I and consequently to World War II. Britain wanted a balance of power in Europe, but

Germany strived to unite Europe under one superpower country (which was Germany at that

time). This truth automatically made Germany, Britain’s opponent. And this created animosity

between the “Triple Alliance” and the “French-Russian Alliance”, describes Buchanan.
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Buchanan makes a note of Winston Churchill’s unnatural lust for war and the way he coaxed

Lloyd George into supporting the war with avid persuasion. This, the author says, was Britain’s

next mistake. The rise of the war party and Churchill’s strong voice in Britain made Germany

out to be the bully. This bully was made out to be a devil when they invaded Belgium on

August 4, 1914, says Buchanan. Consequently Britain declared war immediately after the

invasion with overwhelming from the public and house of commons. The author go’s on to

explain how Germany had not been in a single war since 1871, and Kaiser Wilhelm had never

even seen battle, so how could they be considered a bully or expansionistic at all? Buchanan

skips over the war and go’s right to Britain, and all of Europe’s next and most influential

mistake, the Treat of Versailles (not even really a treaty though). This “treaty” utterly cripples

Germany, says Buchanan, and creates nationwide bitterness for years to come. Buchanan also

argues that this lead directly to the rise of Hitler, and the author notes how Hitler’s first popular

speech was entitled “The Treaty of Versailles”. Britain however takes no heed of Hitler’s rise to

power despite warnings from Mussolini, and continues to de-militarize. Britain also destroys

their treaty with Japan which left them embittered and expansionistic just like Germany (this

being next on Britain’s failures).

Next Buchanan begins to describe how the next world war begins to unfold. Even after

Hitler had begun to mobilize, violating the Treaty of Versailles, Britain and France ignored

Hitler as a threat. Buchanan points out how Italy recognized Hitler as a threat and proposed an

Italian-French-English-German alliance. But of course, Churchill shot this idea down and

continued with his sulking over the failure of the Treaty of Versailles. Then at the Stresa

conference, France and Italy met to create a front against Hitler. Britain, however, was coy and

only wanted to warn Germany. Buchanan describes how Hitler was given way too much
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leniency on militarization and was able to mass up one of the strongest armies in the world. After

the failure of Versailles, Britain is embarrassed and makes its next mistake by casually granting

Hitler his demand of Czechoslovakia which was full of Germans. Then the popularity of

Germany began to decline again, but this time with just cause. And with this decline Britain

made its worst mistake in its countries history argues Buchanan. Britain issued a guarantee of

war to Germany if they were to invade Poland. This challenged Hitler (not a good thing) and

Buchanan says that it gave the decision of war to a madman and brainwashed country, resulting

in the deaths of 10 of millions and the ultimate fall of Britain. After the war Britain’s economy

failed, they lost India, lost Palestine, and 400 million men, describes Buchanan. The war ended

in the demise of many European countries and the rise of Stalin’s Russia. Buchanan eventually

finishes his book by describing “Hitler’s ambitions”, which never involved invading Britain, and

Churchill’s life which ended with him regarded as the “Man of the Century”.

In this book, Buchanan displays his great skills as a political analyst and historian, but

shows disregard for good organization. First, he is a masterful analyzer of political disputes and

the history of great leaders. As an example, he definitively shows how Hitler should have been

identified as a threat long before he actually was. ““German-Austria must return to the great

German mother-country… Common blood belongs in a common Reich” –Adolf Hitler, Mein

Kampf” quotes Buchanan from Hitler’s red flag work Mein Kampf. Buchanan shows here how

Hitler’s lust for the reacquisition of German lands lost in Versailles was strong ever since the

1920’s. It genuinely surprised me how much Hitler was actually ignored before the war, and the

way Buchanan explained it was very well supported. Later in the same chapter Buchanan says in

his own words:

“All of them [European statesman] knew that any German nationalist would
demand the same rectifications and adjustments of the frontiers laid down at
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Versailles. The claims Hitler would make were known in advance and largely
assented to by the elites of Europe as the preconditions of peace…They know
what was coming.”

Buchanan points out this obvious point that British and many French statesman refused to

recognize. He is saying that any man looking back could have seen Hitler’s demands and

seizures from a mile away. Not to mention all of Hitler’s tirades about Jews and Gandhi (which

Buchanan also includes as evidence to Hitler’s insanity) and his avid militarization, anyone could

have seen the war coming. But why did no one try to stop it? It was not just because they did not

notice Hitler. Buchanan also provides an answer for this: “No one wanted another European war.

…Few now believed it had been worth it. Three of the great houses of Europe had fallen, four

empires had collapsed, and nine million soldiers had perished. And what had it all been for?”

This quote demonstrates Buchanan’s understanding about what was really going on. The Allies

thought that by ignoring Hitler’s rise and attributing it to Germany getting back up after the

“fall” of Versailles is what the author is saying. He is truly impressive and informative in the

way he writes, and rarely leaves an idea unfinished. Buchanan clearly shows his understanding

of politics in the twentieth century and surely his ability to analyze it too.

Buchanan, however, does tend to wander on about subjects and often gets off of his main

point. In his chapter entitled “Fatal Blunder”, which is all about Britain’s final mistake with their

war guarantee to Poland, Buchanan gets very repetitive and somewhat disorganized. He uses

thirty-five pages just to tell the reader that Britain’s war guarantee was stupid, and it ultimately

began the Second World War. Also, about fifteen pages into the chapter, Buchanan suddenly

jumps nine years into the future where the war is over to describe what Churchill said in his book

describing World War 2. The whole chapter had been about Britain’s failure and how they

(including Churchill) had supported this seemingly crazy guarantee, and suddenly Buchanan is
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discussing how Churchill wrote about how the war guarantee was horrible and he never

supported it. Then immediately after this statement he go’s into what someone said about what

Churchill said 9 years after the fact. This all sounds pretty confusing I am sure. This kind of

confusion happened on multiple occasions, and although his ideas had few holes, they tended to

drag on and on. This, however, is only a minor flaw in Buchanan’s overall, very accurate book.

To conclude, Buchanan does a great job analyzing this war and all of the things that

could have been avoided to save millions of lives. This book definitely delivered on its promise

to prove the lack of need for a 2nd World War. It introduced new ideas that I’ve never heard of,

and as a not particularly political person, this book impressed me. Buchanan is a great politician,

thinker, and historian. His ideas may not always communicate things in the clearest of fashions,

but he always comes across educated and supported. In a way I enjoyed this book, but it was

generally boring and I often found myself forcing myself to read through a certain point.

Buchanan leaves his reader to make his own assumptions about what might have been, but he

makes sure that everyone knows what should not have been.