Buchanan and Churchill
Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, by Patrick J. Buchanan. New York: Crown. 544 pp. $25.95
A Review published in The Wanderer . Since this is my unedited text, any errors are the fault of the author and not of The Wanderer. Check out their website at http://thewandererpress.com/.
In his latest book, Patrick J. Buchanan has confronted one of the dominant historical myths of the 20th century, the myth of “the last good war” and the heroic British Prime Minister who not only rallied his nation to victory but, unlike Franklin Roosevelt, refused to be taken in by the schemes of Joseph Stalin. In describing this consensus of history teachers, editorialists, and History Channel watchers as a myth, I do not mean to say that it is entirely or even predominantly untrue. Myths usually include more than a little truth, but myth-makers whittle and polish the rough edges of reality in order to produce a fable that can be easily learned and repeated. Inevitably, reality is further distorted with every retelling until we are left with a simplistic morality play in which virtuous Yankees defeat wicked Confederates, or high-minded cowboys and frontiersman defend their women from murderous thieving redskins—though this latter example, like so many American myths, has been turned upside down, converting the thieving redskins into peace-living Native Americans, whose superior civilization was destroyed by greedy and violent capitalist exploiters.
[amazonify]030740515X[/amazonify]According to the myth of the World Wars, the United States entered World War I to stop two evil and militaristic German Empires from conquering and subjugating the peace-loving peoples of Europe. The noble Woodrow Wilson, at the end of the war, proclaimed the lofty principles of world peace and self-determination that were invoked to destroy the Prussian war machine and break up the Austro-Hungarian Empire into happy little states inhabited by contented peasants. Ignored in the blissful recitations of the myth are several inconvenient facts: Neither Slovak nor Croat peasants were especially content to be included in states run, respectively, by Czechs and Serbs; the Prussian war machine was no more a threat to world peace than the war machines created by their enemies; and many European and American statesmen viewed the Versailles Treaty as the direct cause both of the rise of Hitler and the second World War. Equally ignored is the Wilson administration’s shaky legal basis for entering into a conflict that appeared to concern the United States very little and in which both sides were guilty of violations of international law.
In this wonderful book, which should be read by all Americans who love their country, Patrick Buchanan has launched a devastating attack on the myth. Because the author makes no assumptions about the historical literacy of the United States, people who have not recently boned up on the history of 20th Century can use this volume as a refresher course that narrates the big events and portrays the leading figures. Buchanan makes the period come alive, as he highlights the ambiguous character of many eminent statesmen of the 20th century. The central figure, of course, is the brilliant and mercurial Winston Churchill, who changed sides so often that hardly anyone trusted him. Rejoining the Conservative Party in 1924, which he had abandoned for the Liberals 20 years earlier, Churchill quipped, “Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat.” Churchill was nothing if not ingenious.
Buchanan is quite right to emphasize the political influence of Churchill’s family—he was directly descended from John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough--but he might well have devoted a few pages to pointing out that Marlborough was a glory-seeking general and statesman, who betrayed the king who had relied on him and spent much of his career jockeying for power. Winston, who wrote a massive biography of his famous ancestor, modeled his own career on Marlborough’s.
The Churchills tended toward melancholy and dissipation: Winston’s father Randolph was like his son an unreliable maverick, whose irregular habits may have caused the illness (probably syphilis) that took his life at an early age. Winston’s son Randolph is best remembered as the binge-drinking companion we meet in Evelyn Waugh’s diaries. It is remarkable that Winston, who suffered from his family’s predilection for alcoholism, accomplished as much as he did.
Unlike many revisionist historians, Buchanan does not demonize Winston Churchill or deny his excellent qualities: the keen intelligence that early on discerned the Soviet menace, the battlefield valor that would be translated into the moral courage to take unpopular positions, and the political astuteness that enabled him to hold the reins of power throughout most of the War.
He does, however, draw up a formidable set of charges against him: recklessness as the First Lord of the Admiralty who clamored for war with the German empires, folly in arguing for military retrenchments in the dangerous period between the two wars and in urging capitulation to U.S. demands to put and end to the alliance with Japan, an action that served to justify the Japanese attack on Britain’s far-eastern passions, arrogance in securing sanctions that gave Mussolini, by now fearful of Hitler, no choice but to cement his alliance with Germany, obtuseness in writing the entirely unnecessary blank check to Poland, guaranteeing her security and making the Second World War inevitable and giving international legitimacy to Stalin, and finally, his stubborn intransigence toward Nazi Germany that prevented any possibility of a negotiated settlement that would have eliminated or reduced the slaughter of the war and possibly saved the lives of millions of European Jews. When these charges are added to Churchill’s apparent inability to understand Stalin’s plans to take over Eastern Europe, they make a serious indictment of an allegedly great statesman’s career.
The net result of Churchill’s blundering and blindness was the loss of the British colonial empire, the enslavement of Eastern Europe, and a Cold War the weighed heavily on American taxpayers for four decades. Churchill does not bear the burden alone. It goes without saying that equally grave mistakes were made by colleagues like Anthony Eden and by Franklin Roosevelt and his successive cabinets, but the debunking of Churchill’s infallibility is an important step toward recovering a sane and balanced view of the world wars.
Buchanan has made a strong case for the prosecution, though he may not have quite secured a conviction. It is not easy to evaluate Hitler’s motives, and, while he might have been content to have left Britain alone, it is in the nature of ideological empires to expand. One emergency after another is required to justify the assumption of so much power, and the wealth brought by conquest is the fuel that permits the total state to continue functioning. Mussolini may have allowed himself to be driven into the Fuhrer’s arms, but he had his own imperial ambitions that would have sooner or later dragged Italy into imperial adventures the Italian army was not prepared to sustain.
Sober or drunk, Churchill made more than his share of mistakes, and while his admirers have painted altogether too flattering a picture of their hero, one should beware of trusting too much to the judgment of his sometimes envious rivals. David Lloyd-George and Stanley Baldwin had good reason to be suspicious of Winston, but neither Lloyd-George’s hysterical bellicosity nor Baldwin’s pacifism, in retrospect, evince much deeper wisdom or patriotism than Churchill’s own ad hoc approach to foreign affairs, as helter-skelter as his policies sometimes seems. In his diary Count Ciano, who was Mussolini’s son-in-law and foreign secretary, compared the Duce with Churchill, and envied the British their possession of a prudent diplomat who (unlike his own boss) did not make a fool of himself in his public performances.
Mr. Buchanan’s title would suggest that the scope of his book is limited to what historian John Lukacs has called “the duel” between Churchill and Hitler. In fact, half of the book is devoted to events that took place before the outbreak of the war and nearly one fourth to the origins of World War I, the conduct of the war, and its aftermath. While this broader canvas permits the author to paint his anti-myth with broader strokes, it means that he cannot go into the documentary details that would render his arguments more persuasive to careful readers of history. On the other hand, by beginning his tale in the early 20th century (apart from a few broad references to earlier decades), he is unable to set the Great War in its proper context, which certainly includes France’s burning desire to get revenge for her defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.
These are minor quibbles. Buchanan is not an historian but a journalist and polemicist, using an historical backdrop for contemporary political debate. He states his aim directly, even bluntly in the introduction:
"There has risen among America’s elite a Churchill cult. Its acolytes hold that Churchill was not only a peerless war leader but statesman of unparalleled vision whose life and legend should be the model for every statesman, To this cult, defiance anywhere of U.S. hegemony, resistance anywhere to U.S. power becomes another 1938. Every adversary is “a new Hitler,” every proposal to avert war “another Munich.” Slobodan Milosevic, a party apparatchik who had presided over the disintegration of Yugoslavia—losing Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia—becomes the Hitler of the Balkans for holding Serbia’s cradle province of Kosovo. Saddam Hussein, whose army was routed in 100 hours in 1991 and who had not shot down a U.S. plane in forty thousand sorties, becomes “an Arab Hitler” abut to roll up the Persian Gulf and threaten mankind with 'weapons of mass destruction.'"
So, to undermine the neoconservative campaign for U.S. global hegemony, Buchanan has set out to destroy the myth of the “necessary war” that justifies our latter-day imperialism. It is a bold thesis, one that needs stating, and it would be churlish, probably, to point out that when Slovenia seceded from Yugoslavia in June of 1991 and Croatia in September, the President of the Federal Executive Council was a Bosnian Croat Ante Markovic, not Milosevic, who was then only Prime Minister of Serbia. And, while Sadddam’s war machine may not have amounted to much in the second Gulf War, he had provoked the Iran-Iraq War in which he used chemical weapons that killed vast number of Iranian civilians. If Saddam represented no direct threat to the United States, he was, nonetheless, a violent dictator who threatened not only Iran but also Israel.
I cite these two examples, especially the former, to give some idea of the difficulty of writing historical essays without a very firm grasp of the evidence. If there is a serious flaw in Buchanan’s book, it is the heavy reliance on secondary sources—recent biographies and history books—and the neglect of primary sources, even when they are easily available in published form. An egregious omission is Warren Kimball’s edition of the Churchill/Roosevelt correspondence, but the correspondence and papers of most of the major statesmen he discusses are accessible. These are minor matters, perhaps, and they should not distract us from Buchanan’s accomplishment.
In examining the career of Winston Churchill, Patrick Buchanan has made a highly valuable contribution to American political debate. In praising and recommending the book, I should be less than candid if I did not acknowledge my friendship with the author and my profound agreement with his overall point-of-view. When Christian conservatives seek to understand the revolution that has devastated the world of their fathers, they cannot do better than to turn to Pat’s spirited defense of old republican principles and his relentless attack on the sacred cows who have too long monopolized the pastures of the American conservative mind.
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Dr Fleming's point about WWI is, I think, the one Mr Buchanan is trying to dodge. US intervention changed the course of that war and made possible (inevitable?) the harsh peace imposed on Germany. That drove the Germans into the arms of Hitler, which set off WWII. Ending WWII required a huge sellout to Stalin, thus setting off the cold war. The US entered WWI, I think, to protect the investments of the US munitions industry, owed vast sums by France and GB, which, like all the participants in the war, were on their knees at the end of 1916. And, of course, Hitler and the Holocaust led to the creation of Israel, today's main political problem. The history of 20th century Europe is in fact a monumental American screw-up, not some dastardly plot by a sinsiter, Bela Lugosi-like Churchill to bamboozle a high-minded but naive, James Stewart-like America.
I've just finished reading Buchanan's book and this one is by far his best. I completely agree with Dr. Fleming that it should be read by all Americans. His previous books read more like collections of essays or old columns somewhat polished. They were all over the map and research was often slipshod. There were occasional brilliant insights, but no consistency.
PJB's present work, on the other hand, is thoroughly and meticulously reasoned and researched. His ability to present the best arguments and positions of the opposite side and then extract what is true and demolish what is false is near-Thomistic. I suspect that what really must have upset John Lukacs about this book and caused him to give it such a nasty review is not so much that Lukacs is a Churchill idolator, but the fact that PJB was able to use so much evidence provided by Lukacs against Churchill.
Details aside, I can't say that I learned anything fundamentally new from the book. I was raised in an anti-Churchill, anti-FDR household which considered WWII and just about all other wars to be unnecessary. But it's definitely satisfying to have the case all laid out.
Demurrer. One can believe that WWI was a terrible mistake (which is actually the mainstream view now), and one can deplore the neocon misuse of Churchill, without going so far in debunking the greatest Western statesman of the 20th century and making too generous judgments about Hitler's motives.
Do we really want the Nazi regime to have dominated European civilisation? Is Churchill alone really responsible for the exhaustion of the British Empire? America had no statesmen and America played the leading role in forcing the dissolution of the Empire after WW II in the putative interest of the natives.
Speaking as a 30 something, suspicious of the Cold War, and America First all the way, I concluded that ignoring the Good War, and focusing on the First World War, was how we might spend, say, 'our' last 10-15 years 'together' on the Post-Cold War Right in consensus until some new Young Turks arise on the Right where debating the validity of the July 44 plot (which Chronicles editors were wise to pick up on) is more important than Churchill/Roosevelt war mongering and Stalin apologists--not that they will be any better as leaders or historians or writers or classicists.
I have just closed up Bill Kauffman's new book, and remain unsure I need to read this one. Reading the reviews, it looks like he causes a certain reaction based on age and a compartmentalized Right than can put individual Hitler/pan-Germany/historical Prussian Eastern Frontier policy in a tidy box (as Dr. Wilson, respectfully, just did--the Nazi regime or the Prussian regime that just wanted to hear the Allies would okay a coup?), like the Cold War, with no compelling context, just a what if appeal, for the generation of skeptics floundering on the contemporary dissident Right more interested in Oswald Mosely than this Churchill chap as it relates to the time period.
The challenge is really to say anything good about Churchill or the Second World War at all, and if I read Dr. Fleming correctly, Buchanan may actually 'get' this point, intentional or not, with his book, as if he is writing a myth we might have consensus agreement between the generations of a rapid torch passing, at least for the time being.
While I do not fully share Clyde Wilson's admiration for Churchill, I too demur when it comes to PJB's blanket condemnation. Buchanan's book is not a piece of history, much less well-researched history. It is an essay designed to provoke controversy. John Lukacs' critique, by the way, is a predictable expression of disgust from a brilliant scholar who has earned the right to his opinion and to our respect. All the angry young conservatives are denouncing Lukacs. I wonder why they do not go after the editors who knew what Lukacs would write and who set up their supposed friend and partner.
Re Mr. Kenny's #1, "US intervention changed the course of that war and made possible (inevitable?) the harsh peace imposed on Germany" -- no, it did nothing of the kind. Ludendorff's great spring 1918 offensive known as the Kaiserschlacht was broken entirely by the French & British by the end of July of that year. Pershing's boys had a peripheral role in the Argonne sector at the tail-end of the proceedings, when Germany's goose was well and truly cooked. Had America not intervened at all, the war would have been won by the Allies in the winter of 1918-1919 anyway.
Dr. Fleming, you beat me to it. The debate the Kukacs' review has stirred has really shocked me. I didn't realize Lukacs was so polarizing. The debate at Taki Mag is now many posts and very many comments long. Some people have criticized TAC for what most seem to agree was an unwise choice, but the majority of the posts have been either pro or anti Lukacs (or pro or anti nationalism or pro or anti anti-anticommunism). Who knew?
Red Phillips (@7):
I think that part of the problem is that Lukacs cannot easily be tucked into a box, classified, and set up on a shelf. Many of those who are attacking, not his review (which is of course open to debate), but his entire body of work (let alone making the absurd claim that all that work has been generated in order to suck up to the powers that be) show no real sign of having read, much less grappled with, any of it. A few cite short quotations without any indication that they have the foggiest idea what they mean (a pretty good sign that they simply went mining for words to support an argument they intended to make anyway).
To claim, for instance, that Lukacs's professed anti-anticommunism was in any way an attempt to downplay the atrocities committed by communist regimes is absurd. Lukacs turned "anti-anti" (as he has repeatedly explained) because of what anticommunism was doing to this country, his adopted home.
So, since they can't slap a label on Lukacs and be done with him, they simply lash out with invective and attribute to him positions and purposes that he has never held. It's clear, to anyone who knows Lukacs or has even a passing familiarity with his works, that the review was to be expected.
What isn't clear is why the American Conservative would commission the review, nor why those who have taken such great offense at it that they will attack not only the whole body of Lukacs's work but make the most un-Christian comments about him as a man aren't resigning from the editorial board of the American Conservative and swearing that they will never write for the publication again.
If the tables were turned, of course, they wouldn't hesitate to explain such actions as sycophancy or money-grubbing opportunism.
"a simplistic morality play in which virtuous Yankees defeat wicked Confederates"
One might also mention the counter-myth, "a simplistic morality play in which wicked Yankees defeat virtuous Confederates." Border Ruffians and Quantrill go unmentioned in that myth.
Dr. Wilson at #3 is quite correct: Pat Buchanan is right on the First World War, wrong on the Second. Dr. Fleming has written a thoughtful review. In the past I have clashed sharply with Mr. Richert. Lately, less so. Today he at #8 is both gentlemanly and scholarly in defending the great and noble John Lukacs.
Scruton and Lukacs are the best real conservatives alive.
WWII presents a complicated puzzle as it seems to, in part, reflect the consequences of imprudent actions (the US oil embargo against Japan, the UK's treaty with Poland, the Versaillies Treaty). Yet, it also fits the idea of a necessary war (even with its horrible destruction.) Churchill played a role no one else was willing to play in Britain. He was right about Hitler. It is simply difficult to see how the war could have been avoided. (Perhaps the point is more when and where it could have been fought.)
But Dr. Fleming's points about Churchill that depart from Buchanan seem to rebut the myth as much the critique he describes from Buchanan. The mythology of Churchill is not really out of admiration for him or the country that he loved, but as an ideological tool. If Churchill was essentially, a pragmatist (imperfect, of course), then he would never have indulged the ideological caricatures of himself or his work in WWII as has occurred particularly in the last 10 years. Wouldn't he have laughed at the degree to which "appeasement" is bandied about regarding any tinpot dictator? (After all, Churchill never made any efforts against Franco either before, during or after the war.)
It seems that just presenting the accurate view of Churchill as a flawed, complex, but prudent and courageous man would serve to rebut the neocon abuse of him. (I haven't read Dr. Lukacs critique of Buchanan's book. Still, I would think he holds no truck with the mythologizing of Churchill in serve to neocon aims.)
Sid Cundiff @10
"Scruton and Lukacs are the best ( BEST ?) real conservatives alive."
What a useless superlative !! The best you know ? The best you have met or read ? The best in their fields ? History ? Philosophy ? Classics ? Linguist ? Theologian ? Ideologue ? Teacher ? Writer ? Speaker ? Breadth ? Depth ? Piety ? Holiness ?Knowledge ? Wisdom ? Understanding ? Informative ? America ? Europe ? China ? Thailand ? OR Did you mean to say your "favorite" or the ones you "admire most" as conservatives ?
#11 - Mr. Wilder, if you haven't read Dr. Lukacs review of the book, maybe you should. Here is the link.
http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_05_19/article2.html
Lukacs compares PJB to David Irving, but considers PJB more dangerous for employing "half-truths" rather than the outright lies he attributes, albeit without particulars, to Irving. It is not a review; it's a hatchet job. I've read some of Irving's books and found them very informative and truthful as far as I could tell. What he has said in speeches or newsletters is another matter. But it is plain that Lukacs brings Irving into the review in order to smear Buchanan by making him out to be worse than someone widely considered an apologist for the Nazis - this despite the fact that PJB does not use Irving as a source even once.
I've also read some of Lukacs' books and he has some interesting insights in some areas, but he is an idolator of Churchill and as rabid as any Hollywood leftist on the subject of anti-communism.
Mr. Richert is quite right about the abusers of John Lukacs (a Weaver Award winner) not having read or understood him.
Mr. Buchanan's argument rests upon a good deal of might-have-been speculation about diplomatic maneuverings. If I understand the argument, it is being suggested that 1)mean ole Churchill made war on Hitler even though Hitler did not intend Britain any harm, and 2) mean ole Churchill forced the Japanese to attack the U.S. (actually, the Japanese attacked the U.S., British, French, and Dutch colonies and forces in Asia). I suggest that some folks need to get out their Occam's razor and sharpen it up.
These are pretty convoluted speculations. The simple fact is that the civilised world would have had to confront German and Japanese aggression sooner or later. Britain is to be admired for holding to this Christian mission alone. The bottom line is that the British Empire, despite flaws that can be found in any large human action, was a great civilising force, something that Germany never was or could have been. It is preposterous, not to say morally perilous. to blame Churchill rather than Hitler for the damage to the West done by WW II.
I say this as one whose ancestors fought against the British three times, beginning with Bacon's Rebellion. Other of my ancestors left Germany to escape the earlier insanity of the Thirty Years War.
It is even more preposterous to blame Churchill for the appeasement of Russia carried out by the Communist- riddled and otherwise addle-pated FDR administration. The British Empire was a great civilising influence. What can be said for the exports of the Yankee Empire which has succeeded it? Bombs and vulgarity
Thanks to Dr. Fleming for such a thoughtful review. As stated, given Lukacs previous attacks on Pat, a hatch job was not only predictable but sought for.
Even so, Lukacs' linking of Buchanan to Irving was disgraceful, even for Lukacs, as was his insinuation that his book is full of 'Half-truths' and deliberate misquotes. As for Buchanan's thesis, it is of course correct. We are going down the same path as the Brits, and the Polish guarantee was stupid and unnecessary.
As for Churchill, the man loved war and the resulting deaths of millions mostly civilians, never bothered him. He was quite happy to sign an order to obliterate a German town as long as he had his cigar and brandy
Had it not been for the A-bomb, unforeseen by all, WW III would have followed WW II as night follows day. Churchill's war killed millions, handed over 1/2 of Europe to Stalin, and lead to Cold war which costs us Billions and lasted 50 years. I think we could have contained Hitler at much less cost.
Dr. Trifkovic @6
John Mosier argues in "The Myth of the Great War" that, as a matter of fact, US intervention "changed the course of that war and made possible ... the harsh peace imposed on Germany." As I recall: 1. US intervention did not happen overnight; the Germans had time to run the numbers on how American troops would change the odds; 2. This audit contributed to the German high command's decision to make that daring offensive --before the American numbers had a chance to tell; 3. This audit and battlefield losses brought the war to an end with Germany admitting defeat; 4. Given a clear winner and such terrible losses, France and Britain could, and did, insist on their terms. US intervention should be considered in a broader understanding of the word. As one reviewer wrote, "It is absurd to say that the Americans did not affect the outcome because they did not fight such bloody slugging actions as the Somme or Passchendaele. The classic aim of the military leader is to destroy the enemy while sustaining minimal casualties. This the Americans achieved. Whether they did it "objectively", by fighting battles, or "subjectively", by destroying the enemy's morale, is irrelevant."
Lukacs has spoken negatively of Irving. No disagreement on my end.
Meantime, Lukacs' portrayal of Russians is considered acceptable enough by many.
Part of the ***** up standards evident in mass media, academia and body politick.
It is a fundamental error to equate the American and British empires. The British, given their situation and history, had little choice but to become a maritime power, seeking markets and colonies abroad and working to keep a balance of power in Europe. The American reach into empire was unnecessary and deliberate and a violation of all previous wisdom. From its beginning to this moment the American Empire has served the economic interests and ideological fancies of the Yankee (Northeastern) capitalist (Republican) elite. It was Yankee capitalists and missionaries who pulled the U.S. into involvement with Hawaii, the Philippines, and China, long before the entry into WW I. It was they who proclaimed global democracy throughout the 20th century and made it a fixed policy during World War II and since. None of this was historical necessity or in the interests of the American people. It was the product of the greed, incompetence, power lust, and fecklessness of our ruling class. At least the British were often good at what they did.
With all due respect to Dr Trifkovic, and since I think this is not a peripheral issue, I feel obliged to comment that US intervention on the Western Front in 1918 was strategically decisive in the defeat of Germany (and therefore the Central Powers too). While it is technically true that the British and French had turned back the spring-summer 1918 offensives without much US aid, the French were utterly wasted by the fall of 1918 and the British were not far behind (by Oct, among the BEF, only the Australians, Canadians, and a handful of British divisions were really capable of offensive action any longer). Everyone except the AEF had pretty much wasted away, Mar-Oct 1918 was one huge bloodbath in the West, and no one but Pershing had reserves left. AEF performance in the Meuse-Argonne -- still the bloodiest American battle ever faught -- was frankly incompetent, but American war resources were functionally limitless at that point compared to the Central Powers. Hence the urgent need for Ludendorff to press for peace in late Oct before the home front fell apart utterly. It is clear to me, as a specialist on WWI, that but for US intervention -- thank you, Prof Wilson -- the Great War would have wound down in some sort of compromise peace before the end of 1918, with all sides exhausted, which would have freed hands for the Germans and Austrians -- who, we easily forget, had won the war in the East a year before, and occupied much of that part of Europe -- to crush the rising but weak Bolshevik menace in 1919.
The creation of the Bolshevik empire as a result of WWI was the key fact that made WWII inevitable (regardless of who ruled Germany). I am puzzled that Prof. Wilson is such an admirer of the British Empire and not the "Yankee" one. One need only look around the present day world to see the lingering mess the British left behind (practically every conflict in the world has its origin or was exacerbated by British imperialism). Perhaps he does not object to messy imperialism per se but only to "Yankees".
I agree with you, Mr. Van Oosbree. For Professor Wilson to suggest that Britain needed to have an empire and that we were right to help prop it up, is just incredible. By that logic, Israel has a right to establish hegemony throughout the Middle East, and that we are obliged to militarily uphold it.
Professor Wilson says "the British, given their situation and history, had little choice but to become a maritime power, seeking markets and colonies abroad and working to keep a balance of power". One could just as easily make the same case for the Japanese; but we instead chose to contain Japan in favor of a China obviously destined to become Communist, and to protect British colonial possessions in Asia.
Besides, what good did the Empire ultimately do for the British people? It served to bankrupt their nation, and paved the path for their present takeover by hostile Third World immigrants ("first you conquere the barbarians, and then the barbarians conquer you").
I have to wonder if Dr. Wilson so dislikes Buchanan for the warm words he has said for Lincoln and for his broadsides against "Free Trade", that he wants to disagree with any point Buchanan makes just to be contrarian.
So why was the review assigned to Lukacs? In hind-sight it almost seems like a paleo publicity stunt. Is it working, or will it backfire?
This debate has already descended to the silly and now it borders on the needlessly divisive.
Anyone who has read John Lukacs in the pages Chronicles knows he’s not a neoconservative nor should he have to defend himself from such charges. Perhaps TAC should not have allowed him
to review Buchanan’s latest book gieven his views about Buchanan. Certainly they should not have allowed any line that compared Buchanan to David Irving in the pages of a magazine Buchanan helped to found, which is insulting and demeaning. But Lukacs has his reasons for criticizing Buchanan’s work and they have nothing to do with spreading “democracy” all around the world or defending Israel without question. When did love of Churchill become a litmus test?
One can argue, quite rightly in my opinion, that Buchanan’s World War II revisionism is an unproductive area of study. This is not to say Buchanan is wrong in saying the British should not have
made any security guarantees to the Poles they weren’t going to keep. That the war was the death knell of the British Empire (and the French for that matter and for colonialism in general) and that FDR manipulated the U.S. into war with Japan. However, I can recall
during the 2000 camapaign Buchanan making the same arguments in a book he published back then and getting lambasted by WWII veterans who think that anyone who questions their sacrifices and that of their fallen buddies deserves to be lynched. It’s doubtful he could have gone into any American Legion Hall in the country back then and not have been given the same kind of welcome Jane Fonda would receive in such places. To them it’s unthinkable anyone would say such things.
World War II is an outgrowth of World War I. One would not have happened without the other and the forces unleashed by the “Great War” made it inevitable World War II would happen. To me one
can make very good arguments against U.S. invovlement in that war and criticize the British for allowing the greatest tragedy ever to occur in the West and East for that matter to take place.
Of course, one must admit in saying such things, there are no World War I veterans around now to fight back against such talk compared to the “Greatest Generation.” But even immediately
after WWI there was much disallusionment about the war and why it took place and even wonderment at whether the U.S. picked the right side to fight on. This led directly to the repudiation of
the Versaillies Treaty and the election of Warren Harding in 1920.
Back then, the U.S. could stay out of foreign entanglements. By 1945 however, that became impossible. World War II changed a lot of things in this country, but it would not have happened without first “war to end all wars.”
I don't at all see that Prof. Wilson is saying that it was America's duty to rescue or prop up the British Empire. He is saying, I believe, that the Empire was not necessarily a bad thing, especially when compared with other empires, and that Britain's situation made a development of overseas shipping a necessity and thus some kind of empire an inevitablity. Britain was, after all, our ally and our mother country, and to deny the bonds of history, interest, and affection would be absurd. Going to war in WWI was probably unnecessary, but the case is not so clear when it comes to Nazi Germany, Nationalist Japan, and Fascist Italy, all of whose regimes depended in part upon expansion.
It is also ridiculous to claim that Prof. Wilson, who only a few months ago suggested that an entire issue be devoted to PJB's previous book, dislikes Buchanan. Isn't it still possible to respect a man generally yet disagree with him on important points, without being accused of personal motives?
When I read some of the internet discussion on this book and Lukacs' review, I nearly gagged to think that this is what conservatism has come to, ignorant twerps assailing the reputation of one of the few remaining conservative thinkers resident in America. Yes, he goes overboard in his praise of WC, but then he is old enough to remember the period and feel gratitude for Britain's heroism. Even the stubbornly anti-war Robinson Jeffers admired the British for their gallantry during this time. As a real historian, I should think, Lukacs would have been a bit put off by the meager research and sweeping generalizations of Buchanan's book and not inclined, as Pat's friends are, to give him the benefit of the doubt or to recognize that he is more interested in debunking a dangerous myth than in doing historical research. Why should anyone have expected him to lay off?
Sean S makes a good point, and Red P has put an important question on the table. Why not ask the editors of TAC why the chose someone they knew would hate Buchanan's book? While you're at it, ask them why they spiked Buchanan in the past and Samuel Francis or why they mistreated their founding publisher, whose money kept the thing going, and why he felt he had to leave.
PS It is absurd to equate any neoconfederate mythology, preached by an obscure minority, with the textbook historical lies taught about the War. Quantrill and Anderson operated as guerillas and committed atrocities on their own account, but it might be good to recall the atrocities committed not just by this or that band of Jayhawkers but by the Union army in Missouri. The Lawrence raid was staged as revenge for the death and mutilation of Missouri women that resulted from the barbaric treatment they received at Union hands, but these atrocities pale in comparison to the systematic war crimes committed by Sheridan and Sherman with the knowledge and approval of the Union high command. Please, T.P., peddle your bubblegum card history some place else.
Excellent book.I would,however,extend the decline of the British,French and Dutch colonial projects to as much American post-war foreign policy as any war losses.Eisenhower and Kennedy were no allies of European power and were content with the debacles of Suez,Algeria,Indochina,Rhodesia,etc.American "culture" has had an additionally corrosive effect.So in the end ,if indeed the West is in terminal decline(which I don't accept) there have been many other causes after 1945.Look at the American creation of Kosovo...can't blame Churchill for that one.But maybe that was Winnie's greatest unintended legacy: a Europe dominated by the US and USSR.Fortunately,the USSR is gone and Russia is back.That's a glimmer of hope.As for the USA...
Thank you, Dr. Fleming
21. My point was that on net the British Empire was a civilising influence on the world while the American Empire is merely unnecessary, violent, and tawdry. The British Empire did leave some problems behind, in part because it was forced out of many places too soon by American pressure. The British did not create any more messes than Woodrow Wilson and FDR. And almost all the American messes have been unnecessary, not botched extraction from long existing situations. And the British Empire did result in the great commonwealths, the U.S., and many other places, like India, being better off than they might have been.
That cannot be saaid about America in Vietnam, Kosovo, or Iraq.
22. I never said it was America's duty to prop up the British Empire. My standpoint was that America should have remained isolationist and could easily have avoided critical involvement in Asia I do not dislike Mr. Buchanan whom I have praised in print and in speech countless times. I do dislike broad-swinging speculative history, which does, as the great John Lukacs suggested, tend toward half-truths.
In this case I don't think critiquing Churchill and the British contributes anything constructive toward our understanding of or coping with the Yankee Empire. I do not so much want to excuse the British as to avoid using British errors to excuse Germans and the U.S.
I have read several of Prof. Lukacs' books, to my great benefit, and have read his review of Buchanan's latest book twice. Lukacs' point about half-truths, taken from Aquinas, is that they are more dangerous than lies. Dangerous doesn't translate into worse in all ways. Danger constitutes a potential evil. A lie, at one level, is simply bad in itself. A lie can be a cause of greater evil down the road, absolutely. But a lie, once ferreted out, usually can be recognized for what it is. With a half-truth, that is considerably more difficult -- and, in fact, even ferreting it out is surely more difficult. On this basis, a half-truth can be called more dangerous -- not more odious, not more venal, simply more dangerous because it can do its damaging work with less likelihood of being detected and potentially for a considerably longer time.
In much of the reaction posted on this blog, there seems to be a mentality that says, "You attacked my champion, therefore you must be wrong, and in addition, something must be wrong with you." This is rather sophomoric.
#30 Joel Writes
"In much of the reaction posted on this blog, there seems to be a mentality that says, “You attacked my champion, therefore you must be wrong, and in addition, something must be wrong with you.” This is rather sophomoric."
Well, not quite Joel. The problem is that Professor Lukacs wrote :
"Here is a difference between Patrick Buchanan and David Irving. The latter employs falsehoods; Buchanan employs half-truths. But, as Thomas Aquinas once put it, “a half-truth is more dangerous than a lie.”
This is rather sophomoric for a gentleman of Lukacs stature. He surrendered to the temptation so available and often preferred in our times, to use a cluster bomb when straight shooting or even a sling shot would have been sufficient. This tenuous and rhetorical use of associations is always misleading, like saying, "Although Professor Lukacs, like David Duke, believes ... he does not infer, as Mr. Duke so often does, that ...." A popular and silly device that could have been avoided under a less complicated agenda than the editors of TAC evidently had in mind. Life is complicated and brief. Too short for betraying friends and searching endlessly for new foes. I say, a blessing to Pat and Professor Lukacs and a plague on the house of TAC. Cheers
Buhanan reveals nothing new by telling us that Churchill was flawed. It was Violet Asquith who put it most succinctly:'the first time you meet Mr Churchill you are aware of all of his faults. You then spend the rest of your life discovering his virtues'.
Contrarily, I believe that Lukacs was well aware of the adulation that many TAC readers have for Mr. Buchanan and saw fit to issue a warning that they should check themselves and not dispense with critical thinking.
Since like Mr. Parshall, we're just expressing opinion without support or facts:
I like cheese and walks on the Beach.
Thank You.
#32 - I'm a reader of TAC (usually the on-line version) though not a subscriber. My thinking concerning Mr. Buchanan has actually been quite critical. I never have and still don't trust him politically and I consider his other books uneven. The problem is Dr. Lukacs' uncritical adulation of Churchill and his uncritical anti-anti-Communism. Had Blessed Theresa of Calcutta written PJB's book, she would have found herself compared to David Irving by Dr. Lukacs.
BTW, I reserve my sparse magazine subscription funds for one publication only - CHRONICLES.
Kirt Higdon (@35):
"Uncritical adulation"? Lukacs certainly admires Churchill, but in his numerous books and articles on Churchill and World War II, he is clearly aware of many of Churchill's faults as well. That may not come across in a short review of Buchanan's book, but that's no no reason to assume that Lukacs's hundreds of thousands of words on Churchill are all "uncritical."
As for "uncritical anti-anti-Communism," I'm not sure what you mean. If you are basing your understanding of Lukacs's anti-anticommunism on the basis of the warped presentation of it by certain sophomoric writers on the internet over the past week, then I can understand how you might come to this conclusion.
If, on the other hand, you were to read Lukacs's explanation of his anti-anticommunism, you'd understand that he regarded extreme anticommunism as a hindrance to a realistic foreign policy with regard to Russia; and that, perhaps more importantly, he recognized that the ascendancy of anticommunism among conservatives was leading the latter to justify the centralization of the American state and the destruction of American liberty. This, in fact, was Lukacs's main reason for breaking with his friend William F. Buckley and National Review.
Anyone who agrees with Justin Raimondo's criticism of Buckley and NR (in Reclaiming the American Right) for abandoning a commitment to liberty in pursuit of the communist menace should similarly find Lukacs's argument compelling.
One might disagree with Lukacs's anti-anticommunism (as, for instance, my friend Tom Piatak does), but it's hardly accurate to call it "uncritical."
Thanks, as always, for the kind words about Chronicles, and, even more importantly, for backing them up with your subscription.
There are some folks out there who are partisans of something they call the "Anglosphere". They like to sentimentalize British imperialism and are prone to their version of the white man's burden (America should take up where Britain left off). America is not Britain and this is not 1900. We lack the ruthless, competent and confident elite they possessed (our elite possesses only one of those qualities). Empires require head cracking to maintain; Americans will crack heads but like to pretend that they would never do such a thing - the hypocrisy weakens the will to continue head cracking. Lastly, the peoples we would imperialize won't stand for it anymore. We don't face fuzzie-wuzzies armed with spears charging Maxin guns. Our antagonists have guns and IEDs and know how to use them. All these things our imperialist precursors learned to their cost. Unfortunately, some people never learn!
Or perhaps we face the end of ideology, and what matters now is who we are not what slogans we shout. Lukacs fights for a dream that has been turned into a religion/ideology prophesized by the likes of New Republic/ Weekly Standard, and hence another "ism" destined for the dustbin.
37. I don't believe anyone here has advocated America taking up the "white man's burden" or American imperialism. All are arguing quite the opposite. Please discuss the issues rather than engage in attributing imaginary motives to others. You always recur to the ad hominem, expressing your dislike of others rather than points to be pondered by all. Your reference to the "Anglosphere" which no one has mentioned or advocated, shows that you think in lifeless categories, labelling rather than understanding. This is all too typical of today's "thinkers."
Buchanan has given a number of interviews lately on this book. He expresses an admiration for the British Empire while comparing its mistakes to our own as our leaders are currently making them. For example, he attacks Churchill's unconditional alliance with Poland, a nation known for its bellicose chauvinism and delusions of war-prowess, that gave it the power to start WWII by pulling the British Empire into whatever local squabbles it might start. In the interview I heard, he clearly blamed WWII to the perfidies of the US after WWI and to Poland. No caller challenged him on this.
He also stated explicitly that Hitler openly admired the British Empire more than any world leader and was doing everything he could to avoid the coming catastrophe which he feared in millennialist terms. Churchill's legacy is not only of giving Poland the power of starting that war, but also of ending the British Empire with all its civilizing influence for ever.
"If, on the other hand, you were to read Lukacs’s explanation of his anti-anticommunism, you’d understand that he regarded extreme anticommunism as a hindrance to a realistic foreign policy with regard to Russia; and that, perhaps more importantly, he recognized that the ascendancy of anticommunism among conservatives was leading the latter to justify the centralization of the American state and the destruction of American liberty."
Thank you, Scott.
George F. Kennan, with whom Lukacs developed a friendship stretching five decades, deeply regretted that in his initial exposition of the Containment policy, he did not make it sufficiently clear that Containment rested upon consistent POLITICAL and ECONOMIC -- rather than military -- opposition to Soviet aggrandizement. U.S. aid to anticommunist forces in Greece (in the wake of British withdrawal), as well as military aid to Turkey, had already been approved by the Truman Administration by the time Containment was announced as the official U.S. policy, and Kennan supported the Greek package, although not the Turkish one, as a singular case. With the Greek instance excepted, Kennan believed that Western Europe, essentially, was the only sphere that justified U.S. military aid and, potentially, military action. Kennan later, and fulsomely over the years, explained his regrets at not having spelled out what he did and did not mean by Containment. The Government, of course, quickly ratcheted up its policy, in the name of Containment, to one driven by military considerations, essentially regardless of location. Thus did U.S. military aid and entanglement (as well as all manner of intelligence hijinks) begin to proliferate around the world -- in a process almost immune to abatement -- along with the centralization of power and near deification of the military that so much define our climate yet today.
The realistic foreign policy of Kennan, expounded mainly from outside the halls of government, generally has met with Lukacs' sympathies. Given what U.S. foreign policy has become, this is much to Lukacs' credit. And even in his review of Buchanan's book, he acknowledges that Buchanan (incidentally, also an admirer of Kennan) has generally sized up the contemporary issues of U.S. empire correctly. I might remind readers, as well, that Lukacs in his clearly reverberating comparison of Buchanan and David Irving notes that a salient difference between the two is that Irving "is obsessed with what is and what is not true of the Holocaust. Buchanan is not." To say that Buchanan comes out favorably in this assessment by Lukacs would be a gross understatement.
Prof Wilson: I am perfectly correct that the motivation for some neo-imperialists is some notion of an Anglosphere (if you enter Angloshere in Google, you will get 159,000 hits. They make interesting reading). Historically, Anglophilia has been one of the motivations for foreign interventions by the USA. Buchanan believes this also, so making the point is germane to an analysis of his book. Such analysis may be ad hominem but was not directed against any particular respondent at this site (who are overwhelmingly anti-interventionist). Perhaps the more fundamental point here is that some of us do not have the same "mother country" attachment to Britain as others and are thus less tolerant of pro-British policies we see as contrary to American interests. Buchanan is certainly in this camp.
#41 Mr. Joel Parshal:
"To say that Buchanan comes out favorably in this assessment by Lukacs would be a gross understatement."
Well, I think that would depend upon the patient's assessment and not the doctor's.
"The good news is that the heart defibulator worked. The bad knews is that it kicked on while the patient was showering, it knocked him out of the tub into a porcelian lavatory where he died from a concussion."
Mr. Parshal, a spokesman for the doctor said," While there is more work to be done in adjusting these devices, he is quite pleased with the fact that it did do what it was designed to do."
I am surprised that a scholar such as Dr Fleming is under the impression that Churchill wrote a blank cheque to Poland in the summer of 1939, when Churchill was out of office and in in no position to write any political cheques. Churchill returned to office,for the first time in 10 years, in September when the war with Germany started.
In public Churchill had welcomed the guarantee to Poland if only because it committed Britain and France to resist further German ambitions. However in private he, and Lloyd-George
and others were clear that the guarantee made no sense without a military agreement with the Soviet Union.
For a few years Churchill had promoted a Grand Alliance of Britain,France and the Soviet Union to deter Hitler and prevent war. It was this advocacy he had in mind when he told Roosevelt that WW2 should be called The Unnecessary War.
When Churchill came to write the first volume of his memoirs, The Gathering Storm ,in 1948 he was advocating, by historical illustration ,the formation of a Western alliance to deter Russia, as he had done earlier in his Fulton speech in 1946.
This time Churchill was listened to,especially in America.Here we come to a mystery.
The policy adopted by President Reagan was fully in line with Churchill's ideas and the President kept a bust of Churchill in the War Room at the White House, or so I have read. The policy worked. Russia was stopped and there was no WW3. Mr Buchanan is a great admirer of Reagan and worked for him yet he seems to think Churchill was a hopeless chump. There is a contradiction here which I would be interested to here explained.
I won't bang on too much. It is right to emphasize, however, that Britain was never a great power because she had an empire: she had an empire because she was a great power.That power was based on British industrial and commercial primacy.
As that primacy faded with an industrializing world the empire was fated to pass away. In the middle decades of the 19th century, when British power was at its apex, British statesmen understood that the empire would go the way of the American colonies and saw no reason to get upset about the prospect. They were right, at least from Britain's point of view. However the process could have slower, with benefit to the former colonies.
Anyone doubting the vast sweep of Dr. Lukacs' anti-anti-communism should read his essay entitiled "The Poverty of anti-Communism". Here is the link.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+poverty+of+anti-communism-a054336469
Who are the anti-Communists he opposes? Starting with George Fitzhugh, a southern writer of the mid-19th Century, they include Frank Kellog, Secretary of State to Coolidge, Huey Long, Father Couglin, Hitler, Taft and all the America First crowd, Eisenhower, Buckley, Burnham, McCarthy, Reagan, Hannah Arendt and others. Are there any anti-Communists of whom Lukacs approves? Well, there's Lukacs (yes he considers himself an anti-Communist as well as an anti-anti-Communist), there's Churchill (no prizes for guessing that one) whose great historical contribution, according to Lukacs, was being far sighted enough to let Stalin have eastern Europe, and that's about it. Lukacs recruits De Toqueville posthumously as an anti-anti-Communist.
Strangely missing from Lukacs list of anti-Communists are those who actually held power in the US and waged destructive wars against Communist forces - Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson. My suspicious mind suggests that their absence from Lukacs' list is due to the fact that no one considers them to have been "men of the right" and it is against the right, whether actual or just so perceived, that Lukacs directs his venom.
Indeed, I urge all readers to read the essay, as well as to note that this is the article that constituted a decisive break between Lukacs and William F. Buckley. Indeed, the three men that the National Interest had respond to Lukacs's article were Buckley, Robert Conquest, and Nathan Glazer. And readers should read their responses as well, and decide who has the better part of the argument.
Strangely missing from Mr. Higdon's comment, especially since he believes that Lukacs has an animus against men of the right (and of the right alone), is this quotation from Lukacs's essay:
After reading the essay, readers will be able to judge for themselves into which camp Lukacs falls.
It should be noted, too, that Mr. Higdon is spinning the truth to say that Lukacs "opposes" the men listed. He notes their anticommunism (and refers to it as an "ideology"), but to write that (for instance) "As early as 1854, George Fitzhugh, an intellectual defender of the South, wrote that the enemies of the Southern order were 'Communists'" is simply a statement of fact, not an attack.
Again, I understand well the desire to defend Mr. Buchanan, particularly among those who not only admire him (as I do myself) but agree entirely with this latest book (which, sadly, I don't). But that doesn't mean that such folks need to attack all that John Lukacs has written, or to try to make him into a man of the left when, in fact, he is, as he states, a reactionary, and clearly farther to the right than most people who write for the American Conservative.
One final note: Someone somewhere (I can't find it right now) expressed puzzlement concerning Lukacs's lack of admiration for Hannah Arendt. You can find a very good summary of his (entirely correct) reasons for dismissing her Origins of Totalitarianism in the essay to which Mr. Higdon linked.
After 60 years of anti-communist hysteria promulgated by the political right, including in his day Pat Buchanan, we are left with close to 100,000 American war dead and an out of control military/industrial/state-security apparatus that is destroying our remaining liberties and sucking us dry financially.
Reading these attacks on John Lukacs makes the mind reel at the utter blindness of these critics to what is happening to our country.
I really have nothing to add given the expansive discussion at hand. I just want to register my dismay at a scholar of John Lukacs scope, engaging publicly in what appears to be a personal dislike of Mr. Buchanan and his "politics".
The contrasting with David Irving, the questioning of Pat's motives or "inclinations" (while at the same time saying he's not, saying "In this review it is not my proper business to speculate about Buchanan’s inclinations. I must restrict myself to questioning his arguments."), and the implication that Mr. Buchanan is doing something worse than lieing, all paints a rather unappealing picture. Not to mention the forum used for his critique, a magazine in which Mr. Buchanan has a heavy hand. It feels like a man, who comes into another mans house, and drinks the last beer in the fridge without asking. Not a corporal offense by any means, but, it might merit and invitation "outside" if you were thirsty enough.
I'm still an admirer of Mr. Lukacs, and will still look forward to his articles, and any future works. I'm just disappointed. You know what I mean? Kind of like when you first realized your Daddy couldn't bench press five hundred ponds. Mr. Lukacs doesn't seem to be able to do, something I thought he could....namely, offer a level headed critique of Mr. Buchanan without sullying the waters.