The Phoney Victory: The World War II Delusion

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P. Taylor, in his Origins of the Second World War, traces Britain’s seemingly involuntary tumble into war a little further back than our 1939 pledge to come to the aid of Warsaw. Our premature declaration of war on Germany led to national bankruptcy, loss or Empire and other territories, and that we should have waited until we were good and ready, and perhaps coinciding with the USA entry into the war, thus not losing most of our military equipment and thousands of troops at Dunkirk and then classed it as a victory and emblazoned the name ‘Dunkirk’ on Regimental colours when in fact it was the worst British army defeat ever. This state of affairs does not given credence to the idea that the United Kingdom was fighting for democracy in Europe.

The Phoney Victory: The World War II Delusion - Peter The Phoney Victory: The World War II Delusion - Peter

When it comes to Polish history, it is not that Mr Hitchens occasionally screws up and fails to make the facts and his revisionist claims agree: he always screws it up. However all that was to change on the 7th of December 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearle Harbour.

Far from being inscribed in the annals of shame, the episode, though certainly disgraceful, is almost entirely forgotten.

Phoney Victory World Illusion by Peter Hitchens - AbeBooks Phoney Victory World Illusion by Peter Hitchens - AbeBooks

Once such approval is claimed - by George Bush, Tony Blair, or even Vladimir Putin - the mythology of the 1939-45 War is set in motion. When war broke out in September 1939, the German pocket battleship Graf Spee, commanded by Hans Langsdorff, was patrolling in the Atlantic.I have personally experienced the type arguments and reactions questioning the myths of WWII has amongst my country man. The author feels that the RAF would have been better employed staying at home to protect the mainland and used extensively in the battle of the Atlantic and later used more extensively on D Day plus. On the very day that Churchill fulfilled his life's ambition, Germany had, that morning, invaded France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. It seems quite a thin book for the vast amount of material that Peter Hitchens has covered in its 280 pages. However, as far as I am aware my dad was always very much aware of Churchill's many flaws, failures and mistakes.

The Phoney War - Britains Start to WW2 | Imperial War Museums

This led to the famous surprise attack through the valleys of the Ardennes forest, directly into north-eastern France, that destroyed the French Army. Victory in the Battle of the River Plate, the first major naval engagement of the Second World War, was a great boost to British morale during the ‘Phoney War’. Outside his (large) area of expertise, “The Phoney Victory” is akin to a tale of a man who walks 30 feet in front of his house with his smartphone and comes back home five minutes later to alert his wife to sensational news that Americans did not land on the moon.In turn, when on March 27, 1943, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, Mr Hitchens’s “civilised” hero, met in Washington with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, he “expressed his fear that Hitler might actually accept an offer from the Allies to move Jews out of areas under German control” (Memorandum of Conversation by Mr. On 10 May 1940, Germany also launched attacks on France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, bringing the stalemate in western Europe to an end. In the years since the declaration of peace in 1945 many myths have sprung up around the conflict in the victorious nations.

The Phoney Victory: The World War II Illusion: Peter Hitchens

Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications. No, he is not saying that the Holocaust did not happen or that the bombing of Hamburg and Dresden was as bad as the former.At the same time, Hitchens rightly states that Poland was not a “bastion of democracy,” as it was governed by an authoritarian and anti-Semitic regime.