Churchill: Strategy and History 9781685858643

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CHURCHILL

CHURCHILL Strategy and History Tuvia Ben-Moshe

LYNNE RIENNER PUBLISHERS HARVESTER WHEATSHEAF

Published in the United States of America in 1992 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 and in the United Kingdom in 1992 by Harvester Wheatsheaf 66 Wood Lane End, Hemel Hempstead Hertfordshire HP2 4HP A division of Simon & Schuster International Group © 1992 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ben-Moshe, Tuvia. Churchill, strategy and history / by Tuvia Ben-Moshe. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55587-142-9 1. Churchill, Winston, Sir, 1874-1965—Military leadership. 2. Great Britain—History, Military—20th century. 3. Strategic forces—Great Britain—History. I. Title. DA566.9.C5B38 1991 941.084'092—dc20 90-26495 CIP

British Cataloguing in Publication Data Ben-Moshe, Tuvia Churchill: strategy and history. I. Title 941.082092 ISBN 0-7450-1179-9

Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48.

Contents

List of Maps Acknowledgments Introduction 1 From Isolation to "Continental Commitment," 1900-1914

vi vii 1 7

2 From the Baltic to Gallipoli, 1914-1915

29

3 "How Are We to Win the War?" 1916-1918

71

4 History and the "Continental Commitment," 1919-1939

83

5 The Genesis of the "Mediterranean Strategy," 1940-1941

121

6 The Formation of Anglo-American Strategy, 1941-1942

167

7 The "Mediterranean Strategy" at Its Height, 1942-1943

197

8 "First Catch Your Hare": The Political Dimension of Strategy

225

9 "This Battle Has Been Forced Upon Us": Overlord, 1943-1944

245

10 Grand Strategy: The Soviet Menace and the End of the War, 1943-1945

277

11 Conclusions: Churchill in War and Peace

317

Appendix: List of Operation Code Names Notes Bibliography Index About the Book and the Author

335 337 381 387 397

Maps

Europe in 1914

28

Europe and the Mediterranean in 1939

122

The Central and Eastern Mediterranean and The Aegean Islands

139

vi

Acknowledgments

I

owe the Leonard Davies Institute for International Relations of The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and the Friends of the Hebrew University in Britain, a debt of gratitude for their financial assistance. I also would like to acknowledge with thanks those authors and publishers for quotations I have used from works of which they hold the copyright. I am particularly grateful to Houghton Mifflin, Heinemann, and the staff of the Public Record Office, London. I am grateful to all those at Lynne Rienner Publishers who helped in the preparation of the book. Special thanks are due to Professor Dan Horowitz, to Professor Norman Rose for his valuable advice, to Professor Stuart Cohen for his competent translation and comments, and to the late Meir Verete, a distinguished scholar, whose memory I keep with affection. Finally, I am also lucky to have two friends, Dr. Menachem Hofnung and Mr. Avner Halperin, whose friendhip has supported me during many arduous days. Other intimates, to whom I am enormously indebted, have preferred to keep their anonymity: to C.S.F., J.A., H.H., and H.R. Tuvia Ben-Moshe Haifa University Summer 1991

vii

Introduction

In all battles two things are usually required of the Commander-in-Chief: to make a good plan for his army and, secondly, to keep a strong reserve. . . . To make a plan, through reconnaisance of the country where the battle is to be fought is needed. . . . But in order to make his plan, the General must not only reconnoitre the battle-ground, he must also study the achievements of the great Captains of the past.

T

h e s e lines are not taken from the works of M a r s h a l de Saxc or Clausewitz, but from a short essay written by Churchill that he entitled "Painting as a Pastime." In that piece, Churchill praised painting as a source of pleasure and a hobby, and depicted the artist as a general who directs battles on his canvas. 1 Indeed, he employed terms, similes, and metaphors taken from warfare to describe almost every field of human activity. Thus, for instance, he likened the scientific community to an army that advances farther than any other: "The most remote and perilous point which is occupied by the furthest advance patrol becomes immediately occupied by the whole strength of the army." 2 This literary style impressed some of Churchill's audiences, but annoyed others.5

Almost all of Churchill's writings were concerned with wars and their consequences. Even his History of the English Speaking Peoples, the most general of his books, is devoted almost entirely to consecutive analyses of wars, international relations, statesmanship, and the depiction of battles. Social, economic, and scientific matters, as well as developments in political thought and philosophy, are virtually ignored.4 Altogether, Churchill had little interest in the modern and revolutionary intellectual trends of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, be they Marxist or Freudian. In response to the suggestion that he read Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa, a book that caused a stir in both academic and nonacademic circles when first published in 1929, Churchill remarked: "I cannot undertake to mix myself up in the troubles of Samoa. I have quite enough of my own to look after in Epping." 5 His short association with the great masters of Russian literature ended after an invitation to write an

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CHURCHILL: STRATEGY A N D HISTORY

article on Tolstoy's Anna Karenina: "I have read 'Anna Karenina' and am not much attracted by these thin-skinned, self-disturbing Russian boobs," was his dismissive comment.® As to English literature, his taste was conservative. The historian J. H. Plumb defined it as a mixture of "the Bible, Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens and a little Trollope, topped off with Rudyard Kipling." To this list must be added R. L. Stevenson's Treasure Island, which he read dozens of times. Churchill painted, and for an amateur was a good artist; but he had no great interest in art.7 He was interested in technology, and especially in its military implications; but he possessed only the most rudimentary knowledge of the various natural sciences. Above all, Churchill almost instinctively avoided deep enquiry and reflection on the essence of the human nature and spirit. The Anatomy of Courage, the distinctive work written by Churchill's personal physician on a subject that might have been expected to interest a man of his own experience, he dismissed as "all this psychological nonesense."8 Churchill was an extreme extrovert, who sought in action and in incessant contact with the outside world a refuge from all thought and meditation about his own inner self. That was why he showed little interest in or understanding of the inner motivation of others.' This was true of both his attitude toward his contemporaries and friends and his analyses of the activities of the heroes of history. Churchill's enthusiasm for warlike activity is renowned. In his youth he pursued wars all over the globe with what amounted to desperation; by the time he was first elected to Parliament at the age of twenty-eight, he had already been involved in wars on three continents. Men who worked at his side were amazed by the satisfaction and pleasure that he evinced during the two world wars. Even when he became seriously ill during World War II, "events," in h