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Bowman on Churchill and D-Day: “What’s Not Trite is Not True”
- By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
- | November 13, 2023
- Category: Books
Graeme Bowman, Empire First: Churchill’s War Against D-Day. Greenock, Scotland: Self-published, 2022, 520 pages, paperback £15.99, e-book £9.99. Not currently on Amazon US or UK. Available from the author at https://bit.ly/3QjWmBp.
Churchill was dragged into D-Day (Operation Overlord) by his U.S. and Russian allies, says Scottish historian Graeme Bowman. Right to the last, Churchill preferred the “soft underbelly” route to Germany through Italy. This is not a new charge. What is new is the argument that he was motivated by ignoble self-interest: securing the Mediterranean, Suez and Britain’s Eastern empire.
In the words of Arthur Balfour, Empire First offers “some things that are trite and some things that are true, but what is true is trite and what is not trite is not true.”1 Of course Churchill’s instincts were to cross to Italy after the Allies had taken North Africa. He also saw the strategic need to “shake hands with the Russians as far to the east as possible.”2 That does not mean he doggedly opposed Overlord. And without Churchill, the invasion would have been harder.
Here’s the windup
Chapter 1, “Jolly Little Wars Against Barbarous Peoples” starts with the race card. A Churchill quote from 1952: “When you learn to think of a race as inferior beings, it is difficult to get rid of that way of thinking. When I was a subaltern, the Indian did not seem to me equal to the white man.”3
When Churchill said that, he had not been a subaltern for fifty years! Worse, his words are trimmed to distort their meaning. His preceding words were: “When I was in Lloyd George’s Government I wanted to bring in radical reforms in Egypt, to tax the Pashas and make life worthwhile for the fellaheen. When you think….” etc.4 Arguably, “you” refers to British opponents of reform, not himself.
And don’t expect to find Churchill’s 1944 remark to War Cabinet colleague Sir Ramaswamy Mudaliar: “The old notion that the Indian was in any way inferior to the white man must disappear…. We must all be pals together. I want to see a great shining India, of which we can be as proud as we are of a great Canada or a great Australia.”5 That wouldn’t fit the narrative of this breathless condemnation.
On we go, to twenty-six of Churchill’s mother’s lovers—“alleged and confirmed.” What, not 200, as a scurrilous biographer once asserted? Next comes Winston’s “dysfunctional” upbringing. Being “too dim for the law,” he enrolls at Sandhurst. He proves “an academic mediocrity”—yet graduates eighth in a class of 150! Did anyone proofread this book?
In the Army he lives a life of “indolence and indulgence punctuated by intense bursts of soldiering.” Amidst all that indolence he managed to serve in four wars on three continents, publish five books before age twenty-five, and earn a small fortune lecturing.
Now for the pitch
If you have had enough of this, and believe me I have, let’s consider the main thrust of Empire First: That Churchill opposed D-Day almost up to the Normandy landings. “We are often only shown one side of Churchill, his good qualities,” Dr. Bowman told the Greenock Telegraph. “He did do the right thing in 1940, but his mistakes such as his opposition to D-Day have been completely ignored.”6
The only thing wrong with this is that it’s completely untrue. Churchill’s hesitations over D-Day have been documented since the issue first arose in 1942—and with far greater effect than this book. Consider please the Churchill Project Bibliography.
In The Second Front and Mr. Churchill (1942) the Communist MP Willie Gallacher echoed Stalin’s demand for an immediate invasion of France. In Mr. Churchill’s Anden [Other] Front (1947), another Communist, Kai Moltke, argued that Churchill never wanted Overlord. In Ruzvel’t, Cherchill: Vtorol Front (1965) Soviet author Iskander Undasynov made the argument again. Yet Dr. Bowman says his is a wholly new critique.
All right, perhaps no one paid attention to Communist agitators. But there was more. In Winston Churchill and the Second Front (1957) the distinguished military historian Trumbull Higgins argued that Churchill’s concentration on the Mediterranean was the result of “colonial” thinking and a desire to minimize British casualties. In Winston Churchill und die Zweite Front (1984) Peter Böttger reiterated those charges. In Keith Sainsbury’s Churchill and Roosevelt at War (1994), a scholarly “reinterpretation” of the two leaders explained how Churchill through D-Day assured the end of British greatness. (Rather the opposite of Dr. Bowman’s argument).
Enter the movies
“When D-Day is portrayed in television documentaries,” Dr. Bowman continued, “you don’t get any sense of ongoing debate or discussions of what is going on behind the scenes.”
Churchill starring Brian Cox (2017) is wholly built around the myth that Churchill opposed D-Day to the very last. That is no more accurate a charge than it was in 2017. Churchill had sought “a lodgment on the continent” since the British left Dunkirk in 1940. His concept of floating “Mulberry Harbors” for landing tanks and equipment dated back to 1917. Nevertheless, Mr. Cox flaunted his ignorance in interviews, repeating a host of canards, including the nonsense that Churchill had wanted to invade Germany over the Alps.7
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Heart of the argument
Dr. Bowman doesn’t buy it. “Churchill wanted to put the British Empire first,” he told the Greenock Telegraph. WSC “had to be pressured into D-Day by the Soviets and the Germans. [He] wanted to pursue a west allied operation [sic; he must mean Western allies] in the Mediterranean, Italy and the Balkans, and controlling the Eastern Mediterranean and Suez. Churchill was pursuing a Brexit military strategy, putting the British Empire before the liberation of Europe. He had a parochial view of the world…. You could say that Churchill was the first Brexiteer.”8
How Brexit compares is obscure. Brexit was about regaining sovereignty from a federal Europe, not regaining the British Empire.
Non-smoking gun
One example will suffice of this book’s many misinterpretations. Bowman quotes Churchill on 19 April 1944, to Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sir Alexander Cadogan. (The brackets are his): “[Overlord] has been forced upon us by the Russians and by the United States military authorities.” The quote is truncated and out of context; and, by “forced upon us,” Churchill was likely not even referring to Overlord.
On 15 April, Cadogan had asked Churchill to clarify publicly what was meant by “Unconditional Surrender.” President Roosevelt announced this policy to the press at the 1943 Casablanca Conference. Loyally, Churchill “backed him up,” as he wrote Cadogan on April 19th. But “this matter is on the President.”9 (See Addenda.)
In replying to Cadogan, Churchill spends four paragraphs on “Unconditional Surrender,” not D-Day. In the fifth paragraph Churchill thinks it “wrong for the Generals to start shivering before the battle.”
What battle? Dr. Bowman inserts “Overlord” in brackets. It is more likely that Churchill referred the upcoming campaign across France. Especially when he adds (in words not quoted by Bowman): “We have gone in [to the invasion] wholeheartedly.” In a final paragraph, Churchill returns to “Unconditional Surrender.” There is nothing here to suggest any opposition to Overlord
Churchill on D-Day, 1941
The record is full of evidence proving that Churchill had demanded a “lodgment on the continent” since 1941. His reluctance to invade prematurely was based on his recollection of the Gallipoli disaster in 1915. “War was war but not folly,” he told Stalin, “and it would be folly to invite a disaster which would help nobody.”10 That did not mean Churchill opposed invading France. Here is some of the evidence:
“[Floating harbors, later called Mulberries] must float up and down with the tide. The anchor problem must be mastered. The ships must have a side-flap cut in them, and a drawbridge long enough to overreach the moorings of the piers. Let me have the best solution worked out. Don’t argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves.”11
“You [Mountbatten] will take charge of the commandos. You will continue the command raids to keep the Germans on their toes—but above all so you may learn the technique of getting a lodgment back on the continent. And you will devise the appliances, the appurtenances and the techniques necessary to get back onto the continent…. The whole of the south coast of England is a bastion against invasion from the Germans. You will turn this bastion into a springboard for our invasion! Unless we can land on the continent and beat the Germans in battle, we shall never win the war. All our headquarters are thinking defensively, except yours. Yours will think only offensively. You will go ahead and plan the invasion of Germany and you will let me know as soon as may be convenient when you will be ready to invade.”12
1942-43
“It seems to me that it would be a most grievous decision to abandon Round-up [original code name for Overlord]. Torch [the invasion of North Africa] is no substitute for Round-up…. All my talks with Stalin, in Averell’s [Harriman’s] presence, were on the basis of a postponed Round-up, but never was it suggested that we should attempt no Second Front in Europe in 1943, or even 1944.”13
“There is of course no question of abandoning ‘Overlord’ which will remain our principal operation for 1944. The retention of landing-craft in the Mediterranean in order not to lose the battle of Rome may cause a slight delay…. The delay would however mean that the blow when struck would be with somewhat heavier forces….”14
“Our army was somewhat disheartened by the removal [from Italy] of the seven divisions. We had sent home our three divisions and the Americans were sending theirs, all in preparation for ‘Overlord.’ That was the reason for not taking full advantage with the Italian collapse. But it also proved the earnestness of our preparations for ‘Overlord.’”15
“A great deal of the impulse and authority”
A more honest conclusion about his attitude toward D-Day is evident from such material. In his war memoirs, Churchill summarized his case:
In view of the many accounts which are extant and multiplying of my supposed aversion from any kind of large-scale opposed-landing, such as took place in Normandy in 1944, it may be convenient if I make it clear that from the very beginning I provided a great deal of the impulse and authority for creating the immense apparatus and armada for the landing of armour on beaches, without which it is now universally recognised that all such major operations would have been impossible.”16
Dr. Bowman is from Greenock, Scotland, which played a noble part in Britain’s war effort. Perhaps its historians might now busy themselves with a travelogue. They could tell of an old man’s courageous journeys from Greenock into U-boat-infested seas in pursuit of victory in a global war. Or they could describe the ships and munitions built in Greenock to support the “lodgment on the continent” the old man had supported since 1941. They might even mention the Mulberry Harbors, the old man’s conception that made possible a successful D-Day.
Addendum: Cadogan to Churchill, 15 April 1944
Sir Alexander Cadogan to Winston S. Churchill (Premier Papers 44/252), provided by kind courtesy of the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge.
1: The British Political Officer at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force has communicated to the Foreign Office at the request of Mr. Stettinius a telegram which the latter has sent to General Marshall and Mr. Cordell Hull, conveying the views of General Eisenhower and Bedell Smith upon the need for clarifying publicly the term “unconditional surrender.”
2: Mr. Stettinius’ proposals will have to be discussed with the Americans at an early date and before this is done it will be necessary for the Foreign Office to receive further guidance upon the whole matter from the War Cabinet.
3: I submit a draft paper embodying the Foreign Office views which you might care to circulate to the Cabinet.
Note: Churchill has minuted at the bottom on 19 April “I do not agree with the paper & cannot subscribe to it.” He then adds what looks like “Let me talk it over.” — Churchill Archives Centre
Addendum: Churchill to Cadogan, 19 April 1944
Winston S. Churchill to Sir Alexander Cadogan. Prime Minister’s Personal Minute M.446/4, (Churchill papers, 20/152). From The Churchill Documents, vol. 19, 2478-79 (Hillsdale College Press).
- This matter is on the President. He announced it at Casablanca without any consultation. I backed him up in general terms. Subsequent correspondence with the President has shown him very much disinclined to remodel his statements now. He has given us several examples.
- I have pointed out to the Cabinet that the actual terms contemplated for Germany are not of a character to reassure them at all, if stated in detail. Both President Roosevelt and Marshal Stalin at Teheran wished to cut Germany into smaller pieces than I had in mind. Stalin spoke of very large mass executions of over 50,000 of the Staffs and military experts. Whether he was joking or not could not be ascertained. The atmosphere was jovial but also grim. He certainly said that he would require 4,000,000 German males to work for an indefinite period to rebuild Russia. We have promised the Poles that they shall have compensation both in East Prussia and, if they like, up to the line of the Oder. There are a lot of other terms implying the German ruin and indefinite prevention of their rising again as an armed Power.
- On the other hand, they know that unconditional surrender was interpreted in a very favourable manner in the case of the Italians, and we see now what the Roumanians are offered if they will turn their coats, as they have so often done.
- By all means make a historical summary of events and circulate it to the Cabinet. Personally I am not going to address the President on the subject. For good or ill, the Americans took the lead, and it is for them to make the first move.
- I may say I think it all wrong for the Generals to start shivering before the battle. This battle has been forced upon us by the Russians and by the United States military authorities. We have gone in wholeheartedly, and I would not raise a timorous cry before a decision in the field has been taken.
- The Cabinet should certainly consider the matter, but we should wait until Mr. Eden’s return. It is primarily a United States affair.
Endnotes
1 Winston S. Churchill (hereinafter WSC) to Sir Stafford Cripps, quoting Arthur Balfour, 19 October 1942, in Martin Gilbert, ed., The Churchill Documents, vol. 17, Testing Times, 1942 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2013), 1293.
2 WSC, 2 April 1945, in Richard M. Langworth, Churchill by Himself (New York: Rosetta Books, 2016), 287.
3 WSC to Lord Moran, 1952, in Moran, Churchill: The Struggle for Survival (London: Constable, 1966). 394.
4 Ibid. Churchill was in Lloyd George’s government from 1917 to 1922. Fellaheen, referring to Egyptian peasant farmers, is an Arabic word for “ploughmen” or “tillers.”
5 Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny (New York: Viking 2018), 785.
6 Lorraine Tinney, “Greenock historian writes book about Churchill and WW2,” Greenock Telegraph, 9 October 2023, accessed 16 October 2023.
7 Richard M. Langworth, “Churchill Bio-Pics: The Trouble with the Movies,” in The American Thinker, 5 August 2017, accessed 17 October 2023.
8 Greenock Telegraph, ibid.
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9 WSC to Sir Alexander Cadogan, 19 April 1944, in Martin Gilbert & Larry P. Arnn, eds., The Churchill Documents, vol. 19, Fateful Questions, September 1943-April 1944 (Hillsdale College Press, 2017), 2478-79. Reproduced in entirety in the appendix.
10 WSC to Stalin, Moscow, August 1942, in Langworth, Churchill by Himself, 301.
11 WSC, Closing the Ring (London: Cassell, 1952), 66. This had first occurred to Churchill in 1917.
12 WSC to Lord Mountbatten in appointing him head of Combined Operations October 1941. Mountbatten to the Churchill Society of Edmonton, 11 April 1966.
13 WSC to Roosevelt, 24 November 1942, underscoring his commitment to the invasion of France. WSC added, “The President lost no time in correcting this misunderstanding” Langworth, Churchill by Himself, 301.
14 WSC to Anthony Eden, 29 October 1943, in The Churchill Documents, vol. 19, 703.
15 WSC conversation with Stalin, 30 November 1943, ibid., 1028.
16 WSC, Their Finest Hour (London: Cassell, 1949), 224.