Which was Churchill's biggest wartime blunder?

[senojekips]

Politics (and absolute necessity), makes for strange bedfellows.

The fact that they worked together against a common enemy doesn't mean that Winnie trusted Stalin, (or vice versa).

 

[Lord Londonderry]

So true. Winnie never trusted Joe.

 

[Young Winston]

Churchill was an amazing man, even after considering his faults.

 

[sven hassell]

The sinking of The Prince of Wales and The Repulse.Churchill still believed in the supremacy of big battleships over that of aircraft carriers.

 

[Strongbow]

The sinking of The Prince of Wales and The Repulse.Churchill still believed in the supremacy of big battleships over that of aircraft carriers.

Yes, it was a terrible blow to Churchill.

It seems odd how the Australians were regularly being sucked into Churchills blunders.

 

[Del Boy]

GALLIPOLI

 

[mmarsh]

The sinking of The Prince of Wales and The Repulse.Churchill still believed in the supremacy of big battleships over that of aircraft carriers.

It wasn't that Churchill didn't believe in Airpower, the Battle of Britain and the Battle of the Atlantic proved how powerful airplanes were.

Churchill's mistake was the same as the Americans at Pearl Harbor, he severely underestimated the capability of the Japanese Naval Air Corps, in this case the incredible range of the Mitsubishi G4M.

 

[perseus]

I agree that Churchill and the Admiralty still underestimated air power, but it was intended to send the carrier Indomitable, the only such ship available after the Ark Royal had been sunk, but she had run aground in Jamaica.

The other problem was that the rush to send the capital ships to Singapore meant there would not be a large destroyer screen, essential to protect large ships from air attack.

The commander of force Z Phillips was not experienced in the role of aircraft at sea and did not make full use of the fighter aircraft available, as antiquated these were. As soon as fighters appeared in the sky the Japanese aircraft soon cleared off but by then it was too late and the damage was done.

 

[MontyB]

Well here is something a little different I think one of his bigger screw ups was ordering a halt to operation Compass and diverting troops from the desert army to the Greek campaign before they captured Tripoli and drove the Italians from the African theatre thus ensuring a foothold for the Afrika Korps and a further 2 years of fighting.

 

[perseus]

Yes, there is no doubt Churchill is to blame for this, the record makes it clear that just as in the case of Norway, Churchill urged this strategic choice in defiance of the military view. Wavell, Cunningham and Longmore stressed the weakness of resources in terms of existing or projected tasks. Churchill also seemed to ignore the latest ultra intelligence on German strength. Churchill chose Greece for political reasons and perhaps his pet idea of a Balkan front .

However what is less widely known is that he later Churchill had second doubts about this and signalled Cairo do not consider yourselves obliged to a Greek enterprise if it is to be another Norwegian fiasco. However Wavell now expressed the opinion that there were a fair chance of stopping the Germans, although the chiefs of staff still disagreed.

 

[MontyB]

Having watched post war interviews with General O'Conner he seems in little doubt that they could have both captured Tripoli and then gone on to Greece within the time frame set, Churchill's blunder was in ordering the halt of Compass after that even with second doubts it was too late troops were already diverted and the operation was at an end.

 

[mmarsh]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this:

How about the Canadian Dieppe Raid in 1942. It was Churchill that appointed the commander and OK-d the plan. He should have listened to Monty who wanted to scrap the RAID.

Dieppe was badly thought out, badly planned, and badly executed and resulted in a disaster.

 

[Ollie Garchy]

How about starting WWII? Does anyone really think that the fat racist really thought in the best interests of the working class? Then answer the following questions:

1. Did England emerge as a victorious nation?
2. What did England gain by Soviet domination of E. Europe?
3. How did the average English person live after 1945?

Most lived worse off. Period. One can send history down the memory hole, but the point is that England lost the war in all but name. Germany died. So what. Gain whatever satisfaction you want from the such a victory. England lost.

At the end of the day, what happened? England killed their own people...their own history.

Who will win? Asians, etc.

 

[Del Boy]

How about starting WWII? Does anyone really think that the fat racist really thought in the best interests of the working class? Then answer the following questions:

1. Did England emerge as a victorious nation?
2. What did England gain by Soviet domination of E. Europe?
3. How did the average English person live after 1945?

Most lived worse off. Period. One can send history down the memory hole, but the point is that England lost the war in all but name. Germany died. So what. Gain whatever satisfaction you want from the such a victory. England lost.



At the end of the day, what happened? England killed their own people...their own history.

Who will win? Asians, etc.

Why do you indulge in this complete rubbish and bilge. I am delighted to answer.

Churchill was not a fat racist, you are are confusing him with Goering, the slob who couldn't face his own music and looted Europe. Churchill destroyed the racists- remember?

1. Most certainly they emerged as a nation who had fulfilled their destiny by opposing a stinking little tyrant, and dumping him and his regime where it belonged - in the gutters of Berlin. They were above victorious, they emerged glorious.

2. They achieved by kicking the asses of the Nazis the freedom from the threat of enslavement for themselves and eventually for Europe.

3. You just know f-all about anything do you. I lived in England after the war, and it was immeasurably better than before. We had the Welfare State in place, and the returning armies in power through the Labour Party. Life was good - better than today if truth were told. England was passionately victorious, and life was good for the working man. On the other hand, I was in Germany after the war, and Herr Hitler had reduced his country to a great ****-hole, where you could buy whatever you wanted for 50 fags. 1 shilling and ninepence in those days, about 25cents.
I was in USA too - life was good.
So don't spout about what you don't know. As i said before, you will find the truth hurts, but on this thread you have asked for it.

England did its duty for the world and in the same circumstances would do the same again.



COMMAND THE FUTURE, CONQUER THE PAST.

 

[Doppleganger]

My answers:

1. Yes but in name only. Britain was no longer 'Great' and was impoverished and heavily in debt. Her colonies began to break away one by one and the hegemony established by Great Britain was usurped by 2 new hegemonies, one of which she was inclined to align with for various reasons.

2. Absolutely nothing. By backing one totalitarian empire against another we paid the inevitable price after the war was won. Did we back the right one? Repugnant and disgusting racial actions of the Nazis aside, Germany was far more interested in normal relations with the rest of the world than Soviet Russia ever was. By backing the Soviet Union a large part of Europe was plunged into an economic and political quagmire for the best part of 45 years. Totalitarian states today are turning to democracies because of economic failure. Post European rebuilding and growth was seriously curtailed as a result.

3. I don't know the answer to this offhand so will decline to comment. I'm guessing that it was a lot better for the Americans though.

 

[Ollie Garchy]

Why do you indulge in this complete rubbish and bilge. I am delighted to answer.

Churchill was not a fat racist, you are are confusing him with Goering, the slob who couldn't face his own music and looted Europe. Churchill destroyed the racists- remember?

1. Most certainly they emerged as a nation who had fulfilled their destiny by opposing a stinking little tyrant, and dumping him and his regime where it belonged - in the gutters of Berlin. They were above victorious, they emerged glorious.

2. They achieved by kicking the asses of the Nazis the freedom from the threat of enslavement for themselves and eventually for Europe.

3. You just know f-all about anything do you. I lived in England after the war, and it was immeasurably better than before. We had the Welfare State in place, and the returning armies in power through the Labour Party. Life was good - better than today if truth were told. England was passionately victorious, and life was good for the working man. On the other hand, I was in Germany after the war, and Herr Hitler had reduced his country to a great ****-hole, where you could buy whatever you wanted for 50 fags. 1 shilling and ninepence in those days, about 25cents.
I was in USA too - life was good.
So don't spout about what you don't know. As i said before, you will find the truth hurts, but on this thread you have asked for it.

England did its duty for the world and in the same circumstances would do the same again.



COMMAND THE FUTURE, CONQUER THE PAST.

I get a real kick out of what Germans call "Zeitzeugen" ... the historical eyewitnesses. I, for example, know only rudimentary "things" about contemporary (ie. modern) Germany, British or American policy. The "amateur" historian in me knows why. Most important government documents are released years after an event. Living in history often gives the illusion that you knew what actually happened. But you didn't. I don't. Nor does Merkel, Brown or Bush. Their memoirs will point that out.

Here are some three quotes by historians -- two of them are British academic superstars, the third is from the respectable Mises Institute.

(1) Tony Judt: "In 1945 Britain was insolvent. The British mobilized more completely,and for longer than any other country [sic]: in 1945 10 million men and women were under arms or making them, in an employed population of 21.5 million adults. Rather than tailor the British war effort to the country's limited means, Winston Churchill had gone for broke: borrowing from the Americans and selling British overseas assets to keep money and materiel flowing. As one wartime Chancellor of the Exchequer put it, these years saw 'England's transition from a position of the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation'. The cost of World War Two to Britain was twice that of World War One; the country lost one quarter of its national wealth". (paperback, p. 161)

(2) Richard Overy: "When people heard that the title of my next book was to be 'Why the Allies Won', it often provoked the retort: 'Did they?'. There are many ways of winning. With the passage of time it was become possible to argue that none of the three major Allies -- Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union -- won a won deal. Britain lost her empire and her leading world role; the United States found that they had traded one European enemy for another, an 'evil empire' apparently more dangerous and unfathomable than Hitler's; as for the Soviet Union, the cost of sustaining the super-power status won in 1945 eventually produced a crisis in Soviet society which led to its collapse in 1991. The three Axis states -- Germany, Italy and Japan -- have made no attempt to become major military powers again, but they all produced economic success stories instead. Germany and Japan have become the superpowers of the world market, and their citizens a good deal richer than the British, whose war effort almost bankrupted what had been one of the wealthiest economies in the world in 1939. When people ask 'Did they', these are the things they have in mind". (paperback, p. xiv)

(3) Ralph Raico: "When he was posted to India and began to read avidly, to make up for lost time, Churchill was profoundly impressed by Darwinism. He lost whatever religious faith he may have had through reading Gibbon, he said and took a particular dislike, for some reason, to the Catholic Church, as well as Christian missions. He became, in his own words, "a materialist to the tips of my fingers," and he fervently upheld the worldview that human life is a struggle for existence, with the outcome the survival of the fittest. This philosophy of life and history Churchill expressed in his one novel, Savrola. That Churchill was a racist goes without saying, yet his racism went deeper than with most of his contemporaries. It is curious how, with his stark Darwinian outlook, his elevation of war to the central place in human history, and his racism, as well as his fixation on "great leaders," Churchill's worldview resembled that of his antagonist, Hitler." (Internet)

Bibliography

1. http://www.amazon.com/Postwar-History-Europe-Since-1945/dp/1594200653
2. http://www.amazon.com/Why-Allies-Won-Richard-Overy/dp/039331619X
3. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/raico-churchill1.html

[By the way, you can keep throwing cheap shots, but you are making yourself look rather silly. You never present anything but your own opinion. Personal opinion is fine. But you should at least recognize that your own beliefs are not historical truths as written by modern scholars. I do not know you, but I assume you will just blow off Judt and Overy as fools. So, here, look at their careers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Judt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Overy

In any case, we seem to be talking about different things. But listen to yourself. Are all of these negative epithets really necessary? Of course, you will probably say that I started "it"...that seems to be in your nature].

 

[Del Boy]

This from the man who kicked this spat off with 'the fat racist'. Not only a weak insult but an absolute lie.

My last post stands for all to see. You asked the questions I answered them. No-one can tell me i don't know what it was like living in post-war England. I will wipe the floor with any of of your so-called experts any day of the week on such matters.

Defeating the Nazis was definitely Britains finest hour, Churchill its finest son. We would still go through hell for him again.

All the negatives were the price Britain paid, and knew that they were called on to pay. That's the nature of greatness. We survived poorer but unenslaved and proud and magnaminous.

All the rest is Destiny.

As for the opinions of your Austrian economic quotations, always remember this:-



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COMMAND THE FUTURE, CONQUER THE PAST.

 

[Doppleganger]

Defeating the Nazis was definitely Britains finest hour, Churchill its finest son. We would still go through hell for him again.

Oh I don't know about that Del Boy. There are arguably many things in the past that were better candidates for our finest hour. Like the Battle of Agincourt, Nelson's triumph at Traflagar, Wellington's victory over Napoleon to name just three. Also, wasn't it Churchill who ultimately authorised the Dresden firebombings which, whatever way you cut it, was an out-and-out war crime. One way to measure whether this is true or not is to ask whether the US or the UK could get away with a similar action on an Iraqi city today.

 

[Del Boy]

Hold hard there Doppleganger - not to diminish those events you list - but this WW11 was a war of survival against a black cloud of evil rampaging across Europe . I was at Agincourt you know. I stick to my guns on this point. By the way, just as a matter of interest, you disagree with Wellington on this point. He always said that the best thing he ever did in fighting was 'ASSAYE.' He always muttered the one word and never discussed it. He was asked the question many times.

As for Dresden. Well, anyone who lived through the nightly bombardment, would not agree with you. We waved our little fists and swore revenge. Our civilians were targetted and taunted nightly by Lord Haw-Haw glorying in who was to get it next. The Lutwaffe dished it out and Germany got it back in spades. That's war in the air, which Churchill had so often railed against.

 

[Doppleganger]

Hold hard there Doppleganger - not to diminish those events you list - but this WW11 was a war of survival against a black cloud of evil rampaging across Europe . I was at Agincourt you know. I stick to my guns on this point. By the way, just as a matter of interest, you disagree with Wellington on this point. He always said that the best thing he ever did in fighting was 'ASSAYE.' He always muttered the one word and never discussed it. He was asked the question many times.

It was a war of survival for the Poles, Ukranians and Russians but never for us. As far as this island is concerned I hold that events in our past were far more important.

As for Dresden. Well, anyone who lived through the nightly bombardment, would not agree with you. We waved our little fists and swore revenge. Our civilians were targetted and taunted nightly by Lord Haw-Haw glorying in who was to get it next. The Lutwaffe dished it out and Germany got it back in spades. That's war in the air, which Churchill had so often railed against.

Two wrongs do not make a right. The firebombing of Dresden was totally unnecessary and did nothing to bring about the conclusion of war.