Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945
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Warlord is the definitive chronicle of Churchill's crucial role as one of the world's most renowned military leaders, from his early adventures on the North-West Frontier of colonial India and the Boer War through his extraordinary service in both world wars. Using extensive, untapped archival materials, Carlo D'Este illuminates Churchill's character as never before, exploring his strategies behind the major military campaigns of World War I and World War II—both his dazzling successes and disastrous failures—while also revealing his tumultuous relationships with his generals and other commanders, including Dwight D. Eisenhower.As riveting as the man it portrays, Warlord is a masterful, unsparing portrait of one of history's most fascinating and influential leaders during what was arguably the most crucial event in human history. The New York Times - Robert Kagan Winston Churchill's life spanned the last decades of the British Empire, and to read Carlo D'Este's enjoyable new biography is to recall the sequence of disasters that befell Britain between the final days of the Victorian era and its brush with extinction in World War II. American pundits these days speculate rather glibly about national decline and imagine that, if it comes, it is something that can be safely and intelligently managed. But genuine geopolitical decline is a serious and often deadly business. Churchill spent the better part of his life fending off increasingly dire threats to Britain's place in the world, and then to its very existence as an independent nation. A biography of Churchill is in some ways a biography of the British people, with all their remarkable successes, devastating failures, occasional silliness, arrogance and insouciance, and finally their incredible bravery.
A Note to the Reader xiIntroduction: Born for War xiiiPrologue: May 10, 1940 1Chapter 1 Toy Soldiers 5Chapter 2 "A Barren and Unhappy Period of My Life" 15Chapter 3 Sandhurst 27Chapter 4 A Young Man on the Make: The Fourth Queen's Own Hussars 39Chapter 5 The Jewel of Empire: India, 1896-1897 50Chapter 6 A Taste of War: The North-West Frontier, 1897 62Chapter 7 Soldier of Fortune 75Chapter 8 Omdurman 84Chapter 9 David Versus Goliath 98Chapter 10 The Boer War 108Chapter 11 The Great Escapade 120Chapter 12 "The red Gleam of War 134Chapter 13 Lessons Learned 142Chapter 14 Star Bright 150Chapter 15 The Odd Couple 163Chapter 16 "Alarm Bells Throughout Europe" 174Chapter 17 First Lord of the Admiralty 185Chapter 18 Lighting the Bonfire 198Chapter 19 The Architect of War 212Chapter 20 Churchill's Private Army 226Chapter 21 "Damn the Dardanelles! They Will be Our Grave." 237Chapter 22 The Reckoning 251Chapter 23 Penance 263Chapter 24 "In Flanders Fields" 277Chapter 25 "Winston's Folly" 287Chapter 26 "A Hopelessly Obsolete, Old-Fashioned Warrior" 299Chapter 27 The Shame of Munich 312Chapter 28 "Bring Back Churchill" 322Chapter 29 "Winston is Back" 334Chapter 30 Warlord in Waiting 344Chapter 31 The Norway Debacle 353Chapter 32 The Loneliest Man in Britain 367Chapter 33 "Action This Day" 377Chapter 34 Minister of Defense 388Chapter 35 The Central War Room 400Chapter 36 Disaster in Flanders Fields 411Chapter 37 Deliverance 422Chapter 38 "Don't Give Way to Fear" 432Chapter 39 "What a Summer to Waste on War" 444Chapter 40 "Set Europe Ablaze" 452Chapter 41London Burning 466Chapter 42 Wavell on the Hot Seat 482Chapter 43 The President and the "Former Naval Person" 497Chapter 44 Mediterranean Misadventures 509Chapter 45 Disaster in Crete 520Chapter 46 The Endless Desert War 533Chapter 47 "Colonel Shrapnel" 547Chapter 48 Chickens Roosting in the Far East 557Chapter 49 The Quest for Generalship 572Chapter 50 Getting it Right 580Chapter 51 Alamein: The Turning Point 595Chapter 52 Ike 603Chapter 53 Torch and Casablanca 608Chapter 54 Down the Garden Path 615Chapter 55 Amid the Ruins of Carthage 627Chapter 56 The Strategic Air Campaign 639Chapter 57 Stranding the Whale 649Chapter 58 Overlord at Last 659Chapter 59 Summer of Discontent 669Chapter 60 Victory 683Postscript 694Epilogue: The Last Farewell-A Look Back 696Notes 701Sources and Selected Bibliography 795Acknowledgments 809Index 813
