H-Diplo Review Essay
Ian Kershaw. Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941. London and New York: Penguin, 2007. pp. xxiv, 624. ISBN 978-0-713-99712-5.
Review by Gerhard L. Weinberg, University of North Carolina, Emeritus
Published by H-Diplo on 4 November 2007
The author of a recent excellent two-volume biography of Adolf Hitler has selected ten decisions made in the early stages of World War II for careful examination. One might argue about the choices selected, but even if one could argue for a different selection, a reviewer ought to deal with the book the author wrote, not one he might have written. In each of the cases Kershaw carefully examines and recounts the background to the decision, explains the options if any as seen by the decider, points to the presence or absence of dissenting voices at the time, and delineates how and why the decision actually taken came to be.
The first decision examined is that of the British government in May-June 1940 to continue to fight against Germany after the fall of France. While this reviewer¹s reading of the evidence does not make the division between the views of Winston Churchill and Lord Halifax as clear cut as Kershaw does, no one is likely to disagree with the judgement that this decision was of enormous significance for the subsequent course of the war. Perhaps the account would have been more accurate if Kershaw had noted that in 1938 Churchill had privately informed the government of Czechoslovakia that if he were in power, he would follow the same policy as Neville Chamberlain, a policy he publicly attacked in his subsequent writings. And if Kershaw had noted that the fighter planes that won the Battle of Britain were not purchased at the 5 & 10 the day after Churchill became prime minister but had been ordered by Chamberlain over the opposition of the Labour Party, his account of the latter siding with Churchill in the decision to continue fighting would be easier to understand ...
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