"Imagine today's world had there been no Winston Churchill" Topic

"The History of the world is but the biography of great men,"said the 19th century author Thomas Carlyle, sparking the never-ending debate among social scientists about whether leaders make history or history makes leaders.

Carlyle spoke these words exactly 100 years before Winston Churchill would become prime minister, taking leadership of Britain during its most desperate moments in World War II.

Did Churchill determine events or would things have gone the same way with someone else in charge? To know, we must imagine history without him.

Who would have become prime minister in his place on May 10, 1940, when Neville Chamberlain resigned over his failed appeasement of Adolf Hitler at Munich?…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Interesting point. Don't remember reading that it was quite that close a call.

On the other hand, a lot would have depended down the road on Japan and to a lesser extent Italy – could the Japanese have ignored the British holdings in Asia when building their empire?

If not, would Germany have sat and watched as their ally went to war?

Would Italy have given up its ambitions in the Balkans and Africa?

What If covered this with Churchill getting knocked down in New York, by a Taxi.

I do not like Churchill, But Britain needed him at that precise moment in time.

I think it was the only politician to bring his country into war without the prospect of gaining something but only to lose it.Today perhaps a Britain with a policy more European alliance with Germany, would have kept the colonies, for the maintenance of which would have been needed good relations with the Japanese. Allies of the United States' USSR would see reduced their weight internationally and would be engaged in supporting the ally. The two unknowns would be France and Italy suffering from the dualism between the two hierarchs.

I am no fan of Churchill, but I don't know anyone else who could have got Britain through 40 and 41. That said, he came with severe baggage: his obsession (don't know what else to call it) with the 'soft underbelly of europe', and his vacillations right up to the last moment about actually launching Overlord were a major strain on the alliance.

Whatever one's opinion of Churchill is, he was the right man at the right time, and for that I'm ever thankful. It would be a very dark world if Halifax had come to power.

Lets not forget something, Churchill wasn't a dictator- he led a democratic national government that carried out political decisions by the war cabinet- not Churchill by himself and all military planning was done by the Imperial general staff. He did have pet projects where he had influence and got his way and there were others were wiser heads prevailed. What he was, was a good figurehead who said populist things and helped boost the nations flagging morale in its darkest days. As one US commentator remarked- he wasn't particularly good but he was the best the Brits had (or words to that effect). One of the key things that Churchill did was see clearly the need to bring in the US and with his half American parentage he managed to do this in a way that might have been much harder than for any other possible leader.

The biggest problem Churchill had and maybe the best thing the military had was that to many in the military remembered Gallipoli and could rein in his wilder schemes.

Lastly Churchill comes out of WW2 as a success- however Churchill was not only a politician but an historian too..and he managed to get "his" history of the war published very quickly which largely became the received wisdom view of the war and showed him in a very favourable light.

I'll give credit where it is due but some of the hagiography about Churchill the visionary is rather off putting to myself. Especially when his views are cherry picked by certain groups- for example if you mention to the average person "Churchill" and "European Union" you would be rather surprised at his ideas.
But that,s another story.

I see that it is always difficult to judge really who has been transformed into a hero. I just seems inappropriate to rely on the words of those who have been benefited by such failure. commentator USA would do better to explain why his president and Stalin treated him as a useful idiot.

Well, Lord Halifax certainly would have been more useful to Hitler than Churchill

Not sure what the outcome would have been, but a German attack on Russia earlier in the year – and without Lend-Lease Aid to the Russians (just read a very interesting book about how much aluminium and food were sent to Russia) it very well might have been ugly indeed for the Russians -and the rest of the world

I must confess to liking Churchill, who did certainly have some unlikeable traits but was the master of the quotable quote