Hi Johnny,
 
My name is C. Stephenson--I met you briefly during one of your visits to Lawrence. Anyway, I am the dramaturg for the B'srd Shrts and I am currently compiling playwright bio's for the program, and we thought it would be kind of snarky to do an interview format for your bio, since you are alive. 
 
(Also, I know Churchill is alive... but I can only manage so much :])
 
If that is okay with you, I was wondering if an e-mail format for the interview would be okay, as I'm not sure I could set up a phone interview quickly enough.
 
If so, let me know and I'll e-mail you back a document with the questions that you can fill in. Also please feel free to add anything pertaining to yourself as a playwright or simply as a person that you would like to be included. I have a small bio from Kathy and Tim I've looked at so hopefully I'll be able to cover a good amount.
 
Thanks,
C. Stephenson
 
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Hi C., 
 
Why don't you fire away, and we'll see how it goes? 
 
J. M. 
 
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Thanks for the quick response. Alright, firing away:
 
Q: Okay, I have to ask the typical protocol bio question of: Where were you born, when were you born, where did you grow up and does that or your family have any influence on your writing/authorship?
 Q: Favorite playwright? Favorite absurdist playwright?
 Q: What style is your typical go to style for playwrighting, or do you take the Churchill/Beckett “can’t categorize me” approach?
 Q: Thanks for serving in the military— I have the utmost respect for you, I come from a long line of servicemen. How much does that influence or seep into your dialogue/themes? I can’t imagine a life experience at that caliber not finding its way into your art in some way. I am a new mom and I find even when I try not too, essences of that find their way into my scripts.
 Q: What’s your biggest pet peeve in life or as an artist?
Q: Would you rather go to lunch with Samuel Beckett or Artaud? Care to explain? I think each would provide polarizing opposite effects. 
Q: Can you give a little overview of your process and approach to Cryptomnesia, or would that be a disservice to the show itself? Was there an object, idea, movement, etc. that influenced the creation?
 Q: Do you have a hidden talent?
 Q: If you could trade places with any person in history, dead or alive, who would it be? Such a lame question, but I think it says a lot. 
 Q: Anything else you’d like to share? 
 
Thanks for baring with my horribly cliche questions, I didn't have adequate time to prepare a nice thoroughly thought out interview. I'll conduct a better one if you're around during production--keep it in the dramaturgy notebook.
 
Thanks,
C. Stephenson
 
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Q: Okay, I have to ask the typical protocol bio question of: Where were you born, when were you born, where did you grow up and does that or your family have any influence on your writing/authorship?
 
I was born in Dallas, Texas in 1982. I grew up in Dallas, New Orleans, and Kansas City. I am sure that my childhood shapes my plays. I am the oldest child in a family with three sons and three daughters. My parents are Roman Catholic, or at least what passes for Roman Catholicism in the United States. Social context and family play decisive roles in shaping who we are, but writing is more specific than living because with writing we can edit, revise, and manufacture our wares. A short play like Cryptomnesia can only share the smallest fraction of common ground with its playwright.
 
 Q: Favorite playwright? Favorite absurdist playwright?
 
My favorite playwright, the playwright I spend the most time with, is Shakespeare. The tag 'absurdist' is more useful for audience members and critics than it is for the playwright or other artists; it helps audience members approach a piece with a certain wariness, and perhaps an openness to incredulity. One of my other favorite playwrights is Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare's contemporary and stylistic predecessor; I suppose I adopt an 'absurdist' framework when watching his plays, which I usually enjoy. Of the twentieth century playwrights, the works of Samuel Beckett remain the most accessible thanks to the 'Beckett on Film' series. But if I have a preference for Beckett over, say, Churchill or Albee, that probably has more to do with convenience and accessibility than it does with aesthetics.    
 
 Q: What style is your typical go to style for playwrighting, or do you take the Churchill/Beckett “can’t categorize me” approach?
 
Do they say that? Or, from a creative place, do they simply find 'style' unhelpful? If Churchill labeled herself 'absurdist,' she might not have written plays like Top Girls or Serious Money.
 
 Q: Thanks for serving in the military— I have the utmost respect for you, I come from a long line of servicemen. How much does that influence or seep into your dialogue/themes? I can’t imagine a life experience at that caliber not finding its way into your art in some way. I am a new mom and I find even when I try not to, essences of that find their way into my scripts.
 
What I saw and did in Iraq and Afghanistan alienated me from America. I mourn the disconnect between what we are, and what we could have been. I am very lucky, in that I have travelled through most of America, and much of the world, and have had the chance to respond to it.   
 
But when it comes to absurdism, I think it is more helpful to ask audience members, 'How do your own personal experiences shape your reaction what you are watching, listening, and feeling?' The playwright must be a little hands off; what we're making in Cryptomnesia is aesthetically closer to a mirror than to autobiography. It's not a landscape, or a character sketch, or a history.
 
The fact that human beings are capable of observing absurdist theater and responding to it intelligently is almost a miracle. But however they respond to it, that response probably has more to do with who they are and where they are from than anything else. The artists and the playwright anticipate the audience, but cannot lead them with a hook or tether.  
 
 Q: What’s your biggest pet peeve in life or as an artist?
 
Distracted acting. Waiting for laughs. Carelessness with handguns. The incessant meowing of cats.   
 
Q: Would you rather go to lunch with Samuel Beckett or Artaud? Care to explain? I think each would provide polarizing opposite effects. 
 
Artaud has been dead much longer, and I think his advanced decomposition would be least likely to spoil my lunch.
 
Q: Can you give a little overview of your process and approach to Cryptomnesia, or would that be a disservice to the show itself? Was there an object, idea, movement, etc. that influenced the creation?
 
When Tim commissioned the play, he asked me to think about what 'absurdism' might mean to students at Lawrence University. Last fall, I had the chance to survey the campus, sit in on classes, and meet the students. I also explored the university's past, and tried to understand what it looked like to the people in the present.
 
And, truth be told, I found I really liked Lawrence University. I had never been to a liberal arts college. I enjoyed the experience, and enjoyed observing what appeared to be the experience of the students and the professors. If absurdism involves some kind of confrontation with society--and I think it does--then my liking Lawrence presented a weird sort of dramaturgical problem. It took some work to get around that.
 
Given the absence of obvious targets, I took a look at the individual 'person' who happens to be at Lawrence, and what they look like in the wider, less comforting society. Eventually I wound up with an observation, and two questions: As strong the local society might be, the individual is not necessarily able to remain in such a comfortable place. What might take them out of that society, and what are the personal costs thereof? That was the starting point. The starting point was a sort of complete McMansion; the next step was to destroy the roof, and tear out the drywall, and find out if anything was alive beneath the carpeting and inside the frame of the house.  
 
 Q: Anything else you’d like to share? 
 
Yes, I suppose I would like to offer a few words about the other playwrights, and where I feel absurdism comes from.

A popular definition of 'absurd' proposes 'crazy, unreasonable, untimely' as a suitable meaning for the word. The aesthetics of absurdism suggest mystery, confusion, and perhaps 'cutting-edge' theatrics, but the artists associated with absurdism spend an awful lot of its time looking mournfully backwards. Antonin Artaud named his theater after a French playwright of the previous generation (Alfred Jarry), and Artaud harvests his damaged characters from deep in the European past. Samuel Beckett pulls many of his images from the devastated landscapes of the Second World War, and his characters incessantly attempt to remember--remember what? a story? a person? How exactly did they tumble into their current situation? How can they get it right? How can they do it better next time? Whereas Artaud offers visual ecstasy and religious voyeurism, Beckett offers comic circles and tragic cynicism. As a whole, the plays of Caryl Churchill defy any particular emotional landscape, through she also looks backwards towards realism and naturalism. Her play This is a Chair seems to reference the late twenties French painting called La trahison des images. The painting shows us a pipe, but is helpfully labeled, Ceci n'est pas une pipe: "This is not a pipe." And of course the label on the painting is correct; it is not a pipe, but rather a painting. But This is a Chair. Churchill explores the spongy limits of realism, the darkness that surrounds the everyday people that democratic-capitalism panders to. The three writers--Artaud, Beckett, Churchill--find themselves in a crazy, unreasonable, untimely moment. Whatever it is that they were looking for in their youths, it was not quite there, and the experience of its absence granted no secret wisdom that can help the next generation do any better. Comic circles, tragic cynicism. Realism with spongy limits. Visual ecstasy and religious voyeurism.

The techniques and mysteries of these writers trace back to the witches of Macbeth, Shakespeare's soliloquies, and the clipped in media res epics of Homer. But while these writers are decidedly Western in thought and action, one can also look further afield in the wide world and find theatrical art with a kindred spirit; the rhythmic mysteries of Noh drama come to mind, where the key 'event' of the play can involve an act listening, rather than an act of confrontation. There are others as well, but that's enough out of me.

Gopal, Sarvepalli. Jawaharlal Nehru: a biography, Vol. 1.  HUP (1976).     
 
In the final years of the British raj, Jawaharlal Nehru emerged as India's preeminent statesman and as a model of pragmatic leadership. The journey to that position led Nehru though the lecture halls of Harrow and Cambridge, but also a discipleship under Mahatma Gandhi, and nearly ten years imprisonment in British gaols. He emerged, in the end, as India's first prime minister and one of the longest tenured statesmen of the last century. 

The first volume of Sarvepalli Gopal's three volume biography emphasizes Nehru's steadfast development from a romantic nationalist into a courageous pragmatist. In the process, Nehru navigated four tense decades as a leading member of the Indian National Congress, the nationalist organization which used the tools of non-violence and non-cooperation to pry India away from an exhausted British empire. 

The independence of India was not an historical inevitability. Nationalist aspirations lacked shape and spirit prior to Mahatma Gandhi's entrance on the scene in 1915. In the shadow of Gandhi's lean, ascetic frame and his unyielding emphasis on social reform, Nehru and Congress overcame their association with British privilege and gave Indian nationalism a distinct, powerful, and popular voice. Their campaigns of non-cooperation and non-violence ebbed and flowed the like a tide throughout the interwar years. They rallied the uneducated masses, and rattled the nerves of the British raj. 

After years of struggle, the world-wide political conflicts surrounding the Second World War served as a catalyst to the fall of the British raj. The war opened the final chapter in Nehru's struggle for independence. The United Kingdom relied upon India as the second pillar of its military efforts; Britain brought India--a fifth of the world's population--into the war unasked. The war also depleted the resources of the Indian civil service, and required the British to hand increasing portions of power to domestic Indian interests and domestic Indian bureaucrats. Winston Churchill, Britain's war-time leader, nevertheless attempted to hold on to India with the mass arrest of Congress leaders and offers of post-dated settlements for independence. But the war strained the British to the breaking point and made a rapid compromise towards independence the only honorable political recourse. 

Nehru's Congress led the negotiations. Against Gandhi's wishes, Nehru accepted Muhammad Ali Jinnah's demands for a separate Pakistan. In the face of rising communal violence, Nehru firmly held the reins of Congress, and prevented the emergence of a strong ethnic Hindu party. Nehru merged social reform into Indian independence, and thus paved the way for a more liberal, democratic India even as Congress rejected further British intervention. He channeled the forces of nationalism, revivalism, and modernization as he and his allies established one of the largest countries on Earth. Gopal's first volume concludes at the dawn of an independent India on 14 August 1947; Nehru served India as prime minister until 1964. His premiership eventually wrestled with the creation of Pakistan, violent tensions with communist China, and all the challenges of the Cold War.

Gopal's biography expertly evokes the political environment surrounding Nehru's development, but the author also soberly demonstrates how personal attachment moderated Jawaharlal Nehru's political life. With touching devotion, Nehru's father and mother abandoned bourgeois comforts to follow their son into the dangerous politics of swaraj. Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal's father, emerges as a moderate and patient hero in the first half of the book; he openly acknowledges his relentless pride in his son's efforts, yet helps to curb Jawaharlal's radical, youthful tendencies. With the backing of his parents, Jawaharlal devoted himself to the cause of an independent India, and began disciplining his political ideas with a cautious ear towards Gandhi's sympathy for the Indian poor. Gopal also rises to the occasion when depicting the troubled but deeply felt marriage between Jawaharlal and Kamala Nehru. Nehru's personal relationships with his father, mother, wife and mentors conditioned his political involvement with touches of humanity and sudden bursts of patient compromise. 

Gopal is somewhat less successful in explaining Nehru's early rise to power in the United Provinces. Nehru's appeal as a well-travelled, well-educated, mid-career nationalist emerges clearly, but why did Gandhi and Annie Besant devote so much attention to the young man as early as 1914?  These connections remain somewhat mysterious in Gopal's present volume. Ostensibly, Motilal's connections as a powerful and wealthy lawyer played a decisive role helping his son meet these individuals, but the nature of the connections stands uncertain to a reader (such as myself) less familiar with the early years of the Indian nationalist movement.

Despite that one difficulty, Gopal presents the story of Nehru's development with candor and confidence. 

Many statesmen marshaled nationalist sentiment in the twentieth century: Churchill, Hitler, and Roosevelt; Stalin, Mussolini and Mao. Among them all, Gopal's Nehru emerges as the most effectively peaceful and virtuous in his rise to power, and the most magnanimous in his use of authority.

A.J.P. Taylor. The War Lords. Published by Hamish Hamilton (1977) and Penguin (1978).

I am including this entry in my 'book review' series, but it differs in nature. Rather than judging A.J.P. Taylor's The War Lords as a history book, I merely attempt to capture his argument.  I also try to emulate his clipped prose, when appropriate.

The War Lords stemmed from a lecture series that Taylor presented on the BBC. In the series, Taylor spoke completely off-the-cuff and without notes, as was his custom. For the book, he merely adapted and edited the type-written transcript of his lectures. The War Lords touches upon themes that Taylor explores with greater detail in other books; thus, readers familiar with A.J.P. Taylor will find much of the material redundant.  But he also turns his gaze in directions that he otherwise ignored--especially at the power and personality of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

It seems impossible to connect Taylor's use of the term 'war lord' to any other era, even periods as recent as the First World War. Taylor himself states "In the First World War, curiously enough, there were no war lords." The only other war lords he names are Attila the Hun and Napoleon. The criteria remain unclear for the title 'war lord.' In Taylor's opinion, the five individuals under review arose from very particular circumstances. They share characteristics with the demagogues of Athens, for they each made exceptional use of boldness and public charisma to define a path up to and through the Second World War.

Taylor begins the book with a breathless preface that offers a window into his powers of analysis. A full quote better demonstrates the effect than any summary:

"Five of the lectures are biographical studies of the men who exercised supreme power during the Second World War; the sixth explains why there was no such man in Japan nor indeed any supreme direction at all. There is a deeper theme. Most wars in modern times have been run by a confusion of committees and rival authorities. The Second World War was uniquely different. In September 1939 the British and French governments declared war on Germany. Otherwise virtually every great decision of the Second World War was made by one of these five men except when the chaotic anarchy of Japan intervened. Each of the five was unmistakably a war lord, determining the fate of mankind. Yet each had an individual character and method that makes generalisation difficult.

          "Three were avowedly dictators; two exercised their dictatorship with an outward respect for constitutional forms. One, Mussolini, was lazy. Three ran the operations of war from day to day, Stalin almost from hour to hour. Roosevelt observed the war with casual detachment until the moment for decision arrived. All had served in the First World War, though Roosevelt served only in a civilian office. Four were prolific writers; Roosevelt never wrote anything, not even his own speeches. Four were masters of the radio; only Stalin owed his power entirely to other means. Two were amateur painters; one was an amateur violinist. One was the grandson of a duke. One came from a rich professional family. One was the son of a customs official. Two were the sons of humble workers. Only one received a university education. One was happily married. One ran after every woman who came in sight. One was unhappily married. One was a widower. The fifth married only the day before he died.

          "This was a bewildering variety. But the five had some things in common. Each of them dominated the service chiefs. Each determined his policy of his country. All five were set on victory, though of course not all could achieve it. They provided the springs of action throughout the years of war. This was an astonishing assertion of the Individual in what is often known as the age of the masses."

Taylor concentrates on the wartime decisions and personal characteristics of the major figures of the Second World War. He sketches rapidly, and without great detail. He adds a bit of background, and concentrates on the eyes--he wants to know where his 'war lords' are looking, and why.

Taylor argues more persuasively and more consistently in another of his popular history books, The Illustrated History of the Second World War. But here his task is entertainment, rather than serious learning. As with his Illustrated History series, Taylor fills the book with captioned photos that prove as informative as his text; yet here the photos are much more narrow in scope, for they center around his 'war lords.' And, despite the term 'war lord,' political leaders rarely engage in anything visually striking. For the most part, the leaders stand or sit in the company of mentors, peers, and ministers, and smile or grimace at the camera.

The photos of Mussolini make an exception--Taylor expertly captures the way the "Western world" saw Mussolini during the height of his power: the able sportsman and the every-man, the courageous warrior and the elite politician. And so we see how a man who looks like a clownish fraud in the present resembled a charming futurist in the past.

MUSSOLINI

Taylor begins the book with Mussolini. In a way, the entire era of the Second World War began with Mussolini's rise to power, for he initiated the conservative world's love affair with the illusions of a fascist modernity. Mussolini projected an image of constancy in a time of doubt and strife, yet a constancy perfectly in tune with ever-increasing wealth and power and technological advancement; the image appeared seductive enough that many individuals fell into the grip. He represented a self-confident alternative to socialism.

Like Hitler, Mussolini "served in the trenches--and the Italian trenches were perhaps the worst trenches in Europe, with the harshest conditions, where nothing was done for the ordinary men." The harshness of the trenches distilled his early socialist leanings into an entirely new form of politics--20th century fascism.  He fed off of popular discontent. He organized ex-servicemen and formed task forces to resist the working-class socialist movements. Mussolini and his 'Black Shirt' party began to march throughout the country. When the army refused to intervene against Mussolini, the king of Italy made him prime minister. Mussolini's party concentrated power around him with tools of coercion, including murder.

While other countries felt buffeted from winds of distress and open political conflict, Italy projected an image of unity and modernity.

Mussolini built an image of Italy as a powerful military leader; the image proved far too successful for his own good. The shows of force deluded Mussolini, and led him astray. "As he looked at these masses of marching troops shown to him on the screen, he really believed that Italy had an army of five million. The actual figure was not much more than a million when it came to the point." He played the role of the every-man, he played the role of peace-maker (at Munich), and eventually he played the role of war lord. But in the role of war lord (as with the role of peace-maker) he could only play and project--he could not execute, nor achieve success.

He entered the war against Britain just before the collapse of France. He hoped for a share in German glory. But Britain failed to negotiate a peace, and instead won the Battle of Britain; unable to strike at Germany, Britain turned on Italy in both the Mediterranean and Africa. Thus Mussolini finally swung a sword he had shined for twenty years, only to find that it shattered when actually put to use against another European power. Such delusions are the cost of dictatorship; the dictator mitigates the risk of lost power, but maximizes the risk of bad information. When no one gains for creating their own interpretation of events, they quickly learn to keep their mouths shut.

The Italians began to look for a way out of the war, but the Germans did not allow Mussolini to capitulate at a reasonable hour. So Mussolini carried on as his power evaporated. Eventually, a partisan communist gunned him down. The partisans hung Mussolini upside down beside his mistress, Clara Petacci.

The image of the defeated Duce resonated strongly--even theatrically-- back in Britain. Laurence Olivier made use of it at the Old Vic to represent the conclusion of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, and Kevin Spacey recreated the image a few years ago for the conclusion of Richard III.

HITLER

A.J.P. Taylor interprets Adolf Hitler as an exceptional propagandist with the typical interests of a world leader: respect, security, and economic growth; Taylor's interpretation thus widely differs from the popular idea of Hitler as a madman and ruthless xenophobic, solely responsible for the ills of the Second World War. I am not interested in making a determination one way or the other, though I would say that his behavior--even his cruel xenophobia--fits well within the framework of human behavior during wartime, even if it sits outside of the Geneva convention. This does not make it morally excusable whatsoever. But it does suggest that 21st century moral conventions cannot help understand the psychological processes that governed his actions.

Hitler--like many Germans--despised the peace settlement that concluded the First World War. The economic depression and period of hyper-inflation afforded him the opportunity to rise to power on a wave of bourgeois discontent. Unable to effect a political revolt in 1923, he learned to pervert the constitutional process of the Weimar Republic and eventually assumed the chancellorship. He succeeded Hindenburg in the presidency, and also assumed the mantle of war minister in 1938, thus securing all the major positions of political power in Germany. He further consolidated power using the methods of Mussolini and Stalin though, in comparison with Stalin, he killed fewer people in the process (but left a far greater scar on the Western psyche).

Hitler's forces invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. This brought France and Britain into the war. He personally made the strategic decision to invade France, as he wanted to confront 'the greatest army in Europe' on his terms rather than theirs. He defeated them with unexpected swiftness, but then failed to completely defeat Britain.

Now Hitler faced a dilemma. He had an army, well-trained and tested, but no continental battles to fight. He lacked the naval power to seriously contest the British Isles. "By 1941, he was absolutely convinced that unless he struck a  blow against Russian first and knocked the Russians out, they would, one day, when perhaps his conflict with Britain had got more acute, turn against him; they would betray him." But the strike at Russia did not appear desperate or paranoid at the time. Most expected Russia's quick capitulation. Perhaps they thought Stalin's tyranny left him atop a house of cards, much like Mussolini.

This proved the gravest strategic error of the war. Within the year, the German army halted within sight of Moscow. "This was the turning-point of the Second World War," Taylor averred. "In June 1941, Germany was the acknowledge victor, dominant over the whole of Europe. In December 1941, the German forces halted in front of Moscow. They were never to take it... and from that moment, Hitler appreciated that total victory could not be achieved."

Hitler appears never to have attempted a compromise peace--he never even seems to have entertained it. He found Japan's attack on the United States inspiring, and "for this and for no other reason, he plunged, at the end of 1941, the very time of his Moscow disasters, into the Japanese War."

As he declared war on America, "he made at this time the most extraordinary remark: 'We have chosen the wrong side; we ought to be the allies of the Anglo-Saxon powers. But providence has imposed on us this world-historical mistake.'" It should, perhaps, sober the self-righteous 'Anglo-Saxon powers' that Hitler felt more kinship with the United Kingdom and the United States than with any other nation; this was not delusional; he recognized the seeds of his own sources of power in these advanced industrial nations. Rising working-class discontent and xenophobia struck fear into the electorates of both the United Kingdom and the United States.

Hitler envisioned a collapse of the Soviet-British-American alliance. It never occurred. Their differing ideologies and regime-types did not result in open conflict. The more Hitler held together his own regime, the more the Allies had to lean together to destroy him. He became the centrifugal axis of the alliance.

The responsibility eventually broke him, and caused more damage than the assassination attempt that left him crippled. He weakened, physically and mentally. He indulged in fantasy.

Taylor places the 'inspiration' for the horrors of the Holocaust more on the shoulders of Himmler, rather than Hitler, "though Hitler took it up." Taylor does not explore Hitler's xenophobia any deeper than that.

Taylor ends his discussion of Hitler on a strange and sympathetic note. "With his death and disappearance, Hitler performed a final service to the German people--he carried with him into obscurity the responsibility for the world war and the guilt for the crimes and atrocities with which it had been accompanied. As a result, the German people were left innocent."

No other 'war lord' intervened more effectively in strategy, and with greater success. His initial successes left his generals and civilian ministers in a poor position to seize the reigns as Hitler's abilities broke down.

CHURCHILL

The war ruined the image of Mussolini; the war saved the image of Churchill. He served in high public office for most of the 20th century, and experienced war as a young soldier, a journalist, and a politician. In the First World War, Churchill's career nearly died on the shores of Gallipoli; he recovered, and towards the end of the war he followed in Lloyd George's footsteps as the Minister of Munitions, and then Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. In between the loss at Gallipoli and his return to power, he served briefly in the trenches as an artillery officer.

Taylor however skips much of this, and the interwar years, and instead begins in May, 1940, "after the unsuccessful British campaign in Norway--a campaign, ironically, for which Churchill was mainly responsible and the failures of which were due  more to him than to Chamberlain, the prime minister who was actually discredited." Nevertheless, Churchill became prime minister.

Taylor remembers Churchill's assumption of the premiership as a contentious and uncertain moment; the confidence and glory only came in hindsight. But Churchill possessed gifts that suited him to the task. He could look back into history and draw useful lessons; he could look into the present and demand the most of modern technology. And he could put his ideas together coherently, even if some of those ideas deserved less attention than they received. Roosevelt once said of him, "Winston has a hundred ideas every day. One of them is bound to be right."

Perhaps most importantly, Churchill determined the direction of the conflict: it would go on, even after the fall of France in 1940. He ensured that the British Empire would not sue for peace, though the British could not defeat Germany on its own. Ultimately, Hitler was probably destined to lose the war to Stalin, but Churchill's insistence on continuing the fight ensured a prominent place for capitalist-democratic governance at the war's conclusion.

During the prosecution of the war, Churchill loathed open opposition. As a consequence he sacked Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the victor of the Battle of Britain. He sacked Auchinleck. He sacked Wavell. Each general won major victories; each suffered relatively minor defeats, and often made do with minimal resources due to Churchill's incessant striving on ineffective campaigns. But a certain amount of 'sacking' proved useful, as generals tire during the course of a war; furthermore, a general well-suited to defense may prove incapable of forming an effective offense. So Churchill's habit of sacking generals on a regular basis proved a boon, rather than a burden, even if he acted unjustly to the individual officers involved.

After the Dunkirk evacuation of May-June 1940, a pall settled over the forests of northern Europe; the war shifted to the Mediterranean. "If you ask what the Mediterranean campaign was about, why the British were ever in the Mediterranean, one can give the simple answer of the Second World War, as of the First on some occasions: they were there because they were there--because they were there. And being there, then they had better stay there and fight." The British did not return to the continent until 1944. They had colonial and territorial holdings in the Middle East, and they had armies in place. They used these armies, for there was no other way to prosecute the war.

Churchill worked with relentless energy. He wore out those who could not keep up. He spoke with "a mixture of high rhetoric and humor. His speeches sound better now perhaps than they did at the time, when they did not always come across very well, though they were undoubtedly inspiring. The fact that he was always so lively also brought inspiration to others..."

"He made many mistakes. All war lords make mistakes. Churchill's mistakes were the mistakes of hurrying too much, of wanting victory too soon and wanting it with inadequate means... when he could not do something effective, he would do something ineffective... Nevertheless, on most of the great issues, though not on all, he was restrained."

Interestingly, the last great imperialist sacrificed much of the Britain's credit in the eastern empire to defend the Mediterranean. The fall of Singapore signified the end of Britain's ability to safeguard its colonial interests.

But on the other hand he did not hesitate to work with Stalin, despite having previously run the wars of intervention. He shared in the glory with the United States and the Soviet Union, and mitigated the shallow bickering that took place among the allies in the First World War.

"At a time when his physical powers were waning, Churchill still continued to survey the whole field of war, and even the most critical would hesitate to say that anyone could have taken his place... there was in Churchill, a combination of the profound strategist, the experienced man and the actor. Not always the tragic actor; there was a rich comedy about him as well. No other war leader, I think, had the same  depth of personal fascination as Churchill... he combined, to the end, imperial greatness with human simplicity."

STALIN

"Most people, I suppose, regard Stalin as a monster." Yet at the time of the Bolshevik revolution he seemed 'a grey blur.' No one anticipated that he would become the most powerful leader of the Second World War, nor that he would have the greatest longevity in office.

He fought as a Bolshevik general in the wars of intervention; during that conflict, he ignored Trostky's instructions with an impunity that he never accepted from his own subordinates.  

Stalin seized power after the death of Lenin. First, he attacked the enemies of his friends, and then he killed off the friends that disagreed with him, or that offered palatable alternatives to his own ruthless approach. "So in 1939, when the Second World War began, Stalin stood alone, puzzled, suspicious, with nobody whom he respected, nobody whose opinions he accepted, and hardly aware of the world outside the Soviet Union." Hitler and the British suspected Stalin's isolation would be his downfall. Stalin may have agreed with them to extent, for he did everything in his power to avoid war with Germany. Hitler invaded anyway. The Germans crossed the Russian frontier on 22 June 1941.

But Stalin overcame his isolation, and under his authority the Russians withstood the assault of up to four-fifths of the German army, and all of its best divisions.

Russia did not accomplish this easily. In the early days of the war, Stalin had under-performing generals shot under the auspices of a court martial. No other 'war lord' had his generals shot for failure in the field.

Stalin managed the war on three vast fronts, and remained absolutely involved in raising, equipping, and fielding his forces. He managed the war to an even greater degree than Hitler, who trusted an extensive professional staff.

Stalin's army failed to take advantage of its superiority in men and resources early in the war. He simply lacked the patience to withstand German offensives without immediately counter-attacking. He lost many of his forces due to his rashness. But at Stalingrad and Kursk he learned patience, and shattered the German armies as they exhausted their energy on his entrenched forces.

Taylor argues that Stalin did not seriously think of political conquest during the Second World War. His sole aim was to beat Hitler. In this way, he closely mirrored the mindset of Churchill: 'I have only one aim in life--that is to beat Hitler. This makes everything simple for me.'

The Soviets lost twenty million people in the war. "The Russians, and Stalin personally, were set on total defeat [of Germany], on exacting the unconditional surrender of the Germans, long before Roosevelt formulated this."

"A number of those who were at the conferences remarked on the fact that both Churchill and Roosevelt brought with them a whole host of advisers... [but] Stalin could do all the negotiating, he could discuss all the military problems, he could discuss all the political problems and had an absolutely tight grasp of them. Whatever he had been in earlier years, he grew up into being a statesman; one who, without doubt, was totally devoted to the interests of his own country, but also of very great gifts and, in some ways, of considerable sentiment and responsiveness."

He possessed a savage sense of humor. He joked about shooting diplomats, generals, and friends; it's hard to see the humor in this, especially since he really did shoot diplomats, generals  and friends. But still, he had, like the other leaders of the Second World War, a sense of humor.

"Stalin I think, assumed, as so many people do, that the relations based on war would go on when the war was over: that there will be the same feeling of 'Well, we must agree because we're allies in a great war.' But, of course, what happened is that, when the war was over there was no longer the same intensity of need to agree. And Stalin was very quick to respond suspiciously."

"We know comparatively little about his last years. He became increasingly suspicious and the gifts and brilliance which he had shown appeared to vanish. Indeed, many people think, in the end, he became mad with suspicion, and was proposing a vast new liquidation.

"When he died, he was treated as one of the greatest heroes Soviet Russia had ever known, but thereafter he was lowered and degraded. At first, his remains were placed beside those of Lenin; nowadays, though, they have a more modest position under the Kremlin wall.

"The last word, perhaps, goes to Averell Harriman, who was American ambassador to Moscow during the Second World War. He found Stalin better informed than Roosevelt, more realistic than Churchill--perhaps the most effective of the war lords."

ROOSEVELT

A.J.P. Taylor distrusts Roosevelt; had Taylor written more on him, we might have learned that Taylor distrusts the American Presidency as an institution. Americans hold their presidents accountable for perceived economic performance. Interestingly, presidents have little control over the economy. So the sort of person who assumes the office--weirdly--posses incredible powers over the conduct of warfare, but little over that with which he most concerns himself, namely the economy. The individuals who occupy the office look distinct (and odd) when contrasted with totalitarian or parliamentarian leaders.

Unlike the other 'war lords' of the Second World War, Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not see uniformed military service during the First World War. Instead, he held a political post, the assistant secrataryship of the American navy.

"Roosevelt was also the odd man out in another way; he was totally political. If you look at the others, you will see that they had other interests. All of them wrote books, though of different kinds. Roosevelt never wrote anything, except rather casual private letters... However, some of the finest phrases [of his speeches], such as 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,' were inserted by Roosevelt at the last moment."

"His background did not prepare him at all to be a war lord," Taylor wrote. He came to power facing 'perhaps the worst crisis that any modern country has ever faced" though America was perhaps uniquely suited to overcoming the Great Depression, with its vast natural resources, potential for advanced industrialization, cheap labor, and population growth.

"Roosevelt had no preconceived ideas about economics or, for that matter, about war... I am tempted to say that he had no principles. I do not mean by that that he was wicked, but that he operated only in response to a situation, and decided only at the very last minute." In that way he fundamentally differed from Woodrow Wilson, the American president that entered the First World War, and idealistically sought to end all wars altogether. Roosevelt did have hopes, however, and those hopes centered around economic prosperity and the American economic system. And though the American economy performed well during the war, it worked best during times of peace. So he looked forward to the construction of the United Nations as an "essential way forward for mankind, and that it would work." In other words, that it could prevent another world war. And the United Nations certainly proved a useful instrument for keeping the Cold War from getting any hotter than it did.

Roosevelt let the war come to him. Though some of his opponents and naysayers look for conspiratorial evidence that he sought to drag the U.S. into the war, this seems not only absurd but contrary to his character. He waited for situations to develop and chose political solutions to economic, moral, and social situations. Of the 'war lords,' he most carefully managed his country's economic prowess. While the other nations bent their economic power solely towards the immediate conflict, the United States profited tremendously from the war. "Although the Americans supplied the weapons of war, they also squeezed Great Britain dry economically; and that was Roosevelt's deliberate policy."

Roosevelt did not place Great Britain unequivocally on the side of good. He (and many other Americans) distrusted European imperialism intensely.

Roosevelt imposed an economic embargo on Japan, which Taylor refers to as "a delayed declaration of war." Yet if it was a declaration of war, the United States made little effort to anticipate any attack. And prior to 7 December 1941, a series of absurd bureaucratic military blunders in Washington led to complete surprise during the attack at Pearl Harbor. Both Admiral Stark and General Marshall failed to act efficiently when intelligence officers relayed fears of an impending assault.

Before America ever engaged in actual combat operations, the embargo began strangling the Japanese economy, while the lend-lease program upheld the British economy. War was clearly on the way. "Pearl Harbor solved Roosevelt's problem, for he would have had great difficulty bringing the American people in to the war if it had not been for the Japanese attack on it and the German ultimatum that followed... From that time, Roosevelt was commander-in-chief of the American armed forces in practice as well as in theory." In other words, he did not involve himself in military affairs until the war actually began; he became a 'war lord,' but he was not a warmonger. In this way he differed significantly from Hitler and Mussolini, Churchill and Stalin.

Upon entering the war, Roosevelt made a number of decisive, non-obvious choices. First, he determined to defeat Germany before going after Japan. Second, he sent the American army to fight in North Africa and Italy prior opening a second front in continental Europe. He wanted to start fighting immediately (or at least as soon as possible), but the invasion of Europe required a greater build-up of arms than the Americans could manage in 1942. Taylor cynically states that Americans fighting in battle (or at least clearly on the way to fighting in a battle) would help ensure victory in the 1942 congressional elections; Taylor is probably right.

When it came to strategy, Roosevelt took an economic approach, both simple and wise: he felt that the way to win a modern war was to have absolutely more of everything than your opponent. And though it took awhile to get going, eventually he did.

"By 1944, Great Britain had become much overshadowed by this American power, which Roosevelt had developed by always setting the targets higher than any American industrialist thought would be possible, and these being achieved."

Roosevelt worked hard to establish and maintain a close working relationship with the allies. Unlike many Americans, he did not regard the Russians as totally divided from them by a barrier of principle. "Relations between West and East were warmer in Roosevelt's time, not because, as people say, he made unreasonable concessions, but because he was the only Western statesman of that period who really treated the Soviet Union as an equal." This represented a wise political move, for the Soviet Union possessed far more raw military power than any other country during the Second World War. But Roosevelt did not realize this at the time; rather, his political approach to diplomacy simply rested on the assumed courtesy of equal treatment; for the same reason, the Chinese dictator Chiang Kai-Shek received far more serious attention from Roosevelt than Churchill or Stalin.

Roosevelt set the United States on track for becoming the greatest power of the 20th century, for he found a sustainable path towards maintaining a balance of economic and military might. Counting soldiers represents a reasonable way of assessing military strength during a battle, but the easy (and unburdeonsome) buttressing of those soldiers over a period of many years signals the country's strength in the long run. And Roosevelt established a precedent for balancing economic development and military power such that the maintenance of his military arms never sank his country into an endless pool of debt, nor crippled its industry with centralized micromanagement.

JAPAN: WAR LORDS ANONYMOUS

"The Japanese have some claim, I suppose, to the original war lords. Their country, for some hundreds of years, was under the control of war lords--the samurai. And yet, in the Second World War, the Japanese diverged entirely from the pattern which I have been presenting in previous lectures: there was no Japanese war lord--no single figure who led Japan into war, who directed the war, who made the decisions, and so on."

 Tojo is often mistaken for a war lord. But in Taylor's view he merely represented a wide class of generals and admirals and politicians who contributed towards Japanese policy-making.

The Japanese withdrew from the world until forced open by American gunboats in 1867. Within an astonishingly short period of time, they adopted 'all the lessons of Europe' on constitutionalism, industrialism, and parliamentarianism. They elevated their religious figure, the emperor, into the position of head of state. They adopted modern military practices. "Modern Japan grew out of European history, and the Japanese view was that if they loyally, carefully, pedantically followed the European patterns, they would be transformed into an acceptable member of the great power family." In the early 20th century, Japan fought against the Russians and emerged victorious. In the First World War, they joined the allied cause, and suggested that the League of Nations adopt a clause laying down racial equality as a principle; they assumed it would be accepted.

But it was defeated by none other than President Wilson. And then the Americans placed a total ban on the migration of Japanese into the United States. "The Japanese learnt a lesson: the rules which applied to white men did not apply to what Churchill used to call 'those funny little yellow folk.' Racial equality was far from being achieved. This, among other things, no doubt made the Japanese more sensitive and more aggressive."

Japans political structure bore some unique characteristics. To prevent the emperor from the embarrassment of ever being wrong, the ministers and generals had to arrive at complete consensus before presenting a matter for his opinion. In the face of absolute consensus and zero information, the emperor could only nod his head and agree with the supposedly obvious course of action. Just as crucially, military leaders were responsible for making all military decisions--not just of strategy, but of overall action. And the Japanese established the convention of an 'autonomous supreme command,' so that military leaders worked entirely independently of civilian leaders subsequent an initial engagement. Once the country stepped on the accelerator and towards war, they effectively cut the brakes.

Officers both young and old wanted Japan recognized as a great power. Patriotism fueled this desire. And war seemed the way forward. So when any minister seemed incapable of pushing the country further towards greatness, an individual took it upon themselves to assassinate that minister. The internal political violence of Japan thus differed greatly from the more centralized party violence of Nazi Germany. "In a short space of time, two prime ministers were assassinated, one after the other, [and] also a number of generals and leading officers. From then on, all those who followed a cautious, sane policy did so with great stealth. If they appeared to be too cautious, they would be certain to be assassinated. Not that the Japanese ministers and officers feared assassination in itself; it was that their assassination made their policies ineffective. Therefore, far from the leaders conspiring to bring about war... they conspired to bring about peace or, at any rate, to slow things down."

The greatest impulse for a Japanese war of conquest stemmed from Great Depression. The Japanese had embraced free trade. But at the onset of the Great Depression the United States and Great Britain raised enormous tariffs; while the Anglo powers maintained a lock on their own overseas holdings, Japan faced a strangle-hold. They turned to the rest of the Far East, most of which fell under a disorganized Chinese federalist state. They encouraged revolt in one part of China, and invaded in another. This received international rebuke, but no action.

The tension increased dramatically with the fall of France and the heavy fighting over the skies in Britain. Both Japan and the United States thought they might avert war by ratcheting up the tension even further, and thus threatening their Pacific rival into relative silence.

The United States placed an oil embargo on Japan in 1941. Japan had no oil of its own. "It was clear to the Japanese that, within not more than 19 months, Japanese oil would run out and Japan would collapse as a great power."

And so they attacked Pearl Harbor, seized the Pacific islands, annihilated British resistance in Singapore and slashed through Burma.

They did not expect American and British capitulation, but rather hoped America would tire and agree to a compromise solution. This did not occur.

"The Japanese owed their ultimate defeat to two things. One was the incredible economic strength of the United States, which enabled it, by 1943, to conduct both the war in Europe and the war in the Pacific. Against all Japanese calculations, the Americans were clearing up both at the same time. The other thing which led to Japan's defeat was its terrible mistake of neglecting to provide itself with anti-submarine devices. By 1943, Japans mercantile marine had lost three-quarters of its strength... By the beginning of 1945, most of the Japanese civilians and some of the more cautious generals recognised that the war was lost."

With the dropping of the first atomic bomb, the emperor finally intervened. He said: 'We have resolved to endure the unendurable and suffer what is insufferable." Shortly after he made the decision, the Americans dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

MacArthur accepted Japan's unconditional surrender on 2 September 1945. The subsequent war tribunals spared the emperor of charges, but hung most of the high command, including Tojo.

So ended the Second World War.

                                                                          * * * * * *

A brief assessment:

While The War Lords lacks the incisive insight of A.J.P. Taylor's other books, it still suggests an interesting and thought provoking argument: Each of the 'war lords' of the Second World War wielded vast powers with surprising autonomy vis a vis the leaders involved in other major conflicts in the 20th century; yet despite this similarity, each of the war lords came to power in remarkably different ways. Two fascists, a totalitarian socialist, a parliamentarian, and a president all conducted the Second World War with autonomy and independence.

Taylor does not probe into the causes of these similarities. He simply acknowledges them. He also makes little effort to demonstrate the autonomy of each of the 'war lords,' though he does the show the steps which prevented the emergence of a war lord in Japan.

Did the war lords truly act with autonomy during the Second World War? Why were they able to act freely without reference to constituents? In other words, was the brief era of autonomous war lords just a mirage?

One can imagine, for example, that because each of the leaders rose to power with a commitment to non-negotiable peace, they therefore had to sustain a commitment to war to prevent their hitherto allies and henchmen from turning on them. That would seem like a powerful constraint on behavior. Yet it remains plausible that someone like Churchill or Hitler simply refuses to acknowledge the plausibility of compromise. In such a situation, their own mind offers the greatest constraint upon their actions.

Rankin, Nicholas. A Genius for Deception: How cunning helped the British win two world wars, 1914-1945. OUP (2008). 

In A Genius for Deception, author Nicholas Rankin uncovers the British use of camouflage, fraud, deception, propaganda, and counter-espionage throughout the First and Second World War. He builds his narrative in chronological order. Beginning with the First World War, Rankin depicts the personal efforts of dozens of unique individuals struggling against an enemy abroad. His narrative favors obscure misfits, such as painter-turned-camouflager Solomon J. Solomon, as well as legendary figures such as T.E. Lawrence, George Bernard Shaw, and Winston Churchill. The examination of disparate stories requires reeling narrative leaps across geographical space, such that one page focuses on creating dummy corpses in France while the next leaps to the Mediterranean to study guerrilla tactics. On all fronts Rankin locates protagonists with pluck and gumption--and occasionally enough luck to pull off their tricks. The British civilians and soldiers try just about anything once in order to defeat the Axis. The range of characters includes Joan Pujol, a double-crossing spy sending Hitler bad information, and Dudley Clarke, a fastidious and imaginative staff officer masking the true strength of the British armed services in Egypt. The story of A Genius for Deception partly becomes the story of Dudley Clarke, as no one besides Churchill in the Second World War seemed as intent to fool the Axis powers at every turn. Not all gambles paid off, but they certainly kept Rankin's protagonists occupied throughout the war. 

In the UK, the book's title changes to Churchill's Wizards: The British Genius for Deception 1914-1945. I suppose that Churchill's name might sell more books in Britain than in the U.S., but I think it is a misleading title. Churchill features prominently throughout the book, but more as one of many operators rather than leader of a coven. 
         
The book works best when Rankin describes the early battles of the British in the Second World War. Here, the author takes advantage of his own family history (he had two relatives fighting at the time) to place cataclysmic battles in personal perspective. The book works less well when Rankin attempts to defend his thesis: namely, that the British possess a cultural taste for cunning and deception that helped them win major global conflicts. He provides evidence of cunning and deception, but only weak explanations of why the British version of these traits surpasses that of others. More interestingly, I think he makes an error of causal inference; by that, I mean he attributes the use of deception tactics to helping win the war, but that the tactics more correctly helped save lives. If a German bomb struck a fake tank rather than a real one, it made little difference to the outcome of the war, but a tremendous difference to the individuals inside the tank.
           
Winning a war is hard to do. It better serves human imagination if we know that the Allies won both the First and Second Worlds Wars with sheer strength, and not sleight of hand.

In an earlier entry I reviewed The Viceroy’s Journal. The book made me a fan of its author, Viceroy Archibald Wavell. His frankness cuts ice like butter. And even when he finds himself on the wrong side of popular history, he paces himself through his actions with a disarming insistence on decency.

Like most generals of his generation, the First World War shaped his behavior in the Second, and in the intervening years. Many survivors of the First World War turned against the military and government service altogether, but Wavell’s early education and stoic coolness combined to ensure that he would serve his country for life. He could not speak off the cuff very well, but he wrote eloquently and effectively in private. He also published two popular works. The first was Generals and Generalship, derived from a pair of formal lectures he gave at Cambridge. The other was Other Men’s Flowers, a collection of all the poems that Wavell memorized throughout his life. Both of the slim books proved popular with soldiers during the Second World War.

Early on in his career, Wavell served as a personal liaison to General Sir Edmund Allenby. Wavell viewed Allenby as a mentor and role model. Allenby navigated a difficult political environment in Egypt at the close of the First World War. Much to Churchill’s chagrin, Wavell’s liberal tendencies and experiences under Allenby gave him the wherewithal to take an active role in Indian independence rather than passively waiting for the end of the Second World War. As Viceroy, Wavell saw his duty as careful balancing act: managing a transitional phase of Indian governance without undermining the precarious position of Britain’s war leader, Winston Churchill.

Serving under Allenby also gave Wavell the opportunity to see the value of experimentation and risk taking in warfare; Allenby led the allied forces to victory against the Turks with limited resources and a great deal of unconventional support.

Wavell played a crucial role in Wingate’s development as a battlefield commander. The start of this came in July 1937, when the Army placed Wavell in command of forces in Palestine and Transjordan. Arab unrest led to outbreaks of violence against both British troops and Israeli settlers shortly thereafter. Wingate, assigned to a relatively minor role as an intelligence staff officer, flagged down Wavell’s car and pitched to him his idea for Special Night Squads to defend Israeli settlements against violent attack. Wavell’s acquiescence to Wingate’s request provided Wingate his first opportunity to train unconventional forces and fight in combat.

Wavell made use of Wingate on two more occasions, first in Abyssinia against the Italians, and then in Burma against the Japanese.

The following notations about Wingate come from the book Viceroy’s Journal, as edited by Penderel Moon. I have shaped my quotes so that they demonstrate something of Wavell’s character and interests, and therefore the quotes are not as direct as they might otherwise be.

The following entries understate Wavell’s personal entanglement with Wingate and the Chindits. Brigadier Bernard Fergusson, mentioned in the December 29, 1943 and May 8, 1944 entries, later wrote a short biography of Wavell, as well as an account of Chindit operations called Beyond the Chindwin. Additionally, Wavell’s son, Archie John Wavell, was an officer in the Black Watch, one of the key units under Wingate’s command during Operation Thursday in March 1944. 

                                                                    ******

[Pg 15] August 23, 1943. 

Cabinet meeting with 2nd XI present, practically all 1st XI being still in Canada. Proposal to appoint Mounbatten to the S.E. Asia Command, with Stilwell as Deputy, and Giffard as commander of Land Forces, was announced. There was some criticism but general feeling was that appointment should be accepted since Chiefs of Staff and Americans approve.
            
P.M. is still in Quebec. I hear that Wingate has apparently ‘sold himself’ well there and his ideas are to havea  good run. I expect P.M. will now claim him as his discovery and ignore the fact that I have twice used Wingate in this war for unorthodox campaigns and that but for me he would probably never have been heard of. I gather they are at last realizing the difficulty of communications in Assam and Burma which I have been trying to impress on P. M. for nearly two years.

[Pg 37] November 17, 1943. 

M.B. [Mountbatten] came again on 15th to tell me about the Cairo meeting… we also spoke of the parachute demand; he still seems to think that to double the demand (from 100,000 to 200,000 [per month], the original demand having been 35,000) is a mere trifle for India; as it only meant giving up 2% total cloth: I pointed out that 2% of India’s population was 8,000,000 which was quite a large number to go short of clothes.

            Wingate left today after convalescing here for a week. He a little reminds me of T. E. Lawrence but lacks his sense of humour and wide knowledge, is more limited but with greater driving power.

[Pg 43] December 29, 1943. 

Bernard Fergusson turned up unexpectedly yesterday evening for an ight, and I had a talk with him about his experiences with 77 Bde in Burma. He says the venture was well worth while, and that Wingate’s theories are right, though the troops did not do all that Wingate claimed that they did. He said Wingate was, and is, extremely difficult—impossible at times—and he had many rows with him, but he still believes in his ideas. He was apprehensive about his forthcoming role, if he had to go in and come out again as he did not feel we could abandon the Burmans who helped us to the vengeance of the Japanese a second time…

[Pg 60] March 18, 1944. 

Saw both M.B. [Mountbatten] and [Lt.-Gen. Sir Henry] Ponwall and talked to them of situation on Burma frontier. It shows the respect they have for the Japaense tactics and fighting that though they have something like twice the Japanese strength available ion the Chin Hills-Chindwin-Manipur front and have known for months that the enemy were about to attack, they are both feeling rather apprehensive of the result; and have taken aircraft off the ferry route to China to fly into Manipur another division from Arakan. The 17th Division is being pulled back from Tiddim area by Japanese action against their communications, although in numbers we must be superior. How does the Jap do it? The simple answer ist hat we have a very ponderous L of C [Line of Communication] and the Jap has practically none at all; we fight with the idea of ultimate survival, the Jap seems to fight with the idea of ultimate death and contempt for it, when has done as much harm as possible. The flying in of Wingate’s two brigades [Operation ‘Thursday’] seems to have been a remarkable performance after an initial set-back in which there were about 150 casualties from crashed or lost gliders. But so far the Jap appears to have taken no notice of this force in his rear, his independence of communications is remarkable.

            M.B. is prepared to back me up on food problem and agrees that Americans must be told the situation officially if H.M.G. will not find imports. [reference to the Bengali Famine.]

[Pg 61-62] March 28, 1944. 

Last day or two comparatively quiet, usual interviews and papers, but I have actually managed to find a little time to work on the dispatch I ought to have written as C-in-C last year… The C-in-C spoke of the fighting on the Assam border where the Japs seem to be making headway. Large numbers of our troops are being concentrated in Assam, including I think 2nd Division; this will throw a very heavy strain on communications.

            Was told later in the morning that Wingate was missing from an air trip over Burma. I heard later that he had almost certainly been killed in an air crash between Imphal and Silchar.

[Pg 69-70] May 8, 1944. 

I got back yesterday from a short tour to Sikikim. A long days travel on May 2; left Delhi 6 a.m., landed Hassimara about noon and then had to cross a river by elephants, a flood having taken the bridge. Then a long motor drive to Gagtok were we arrived at 9 p.m…

            I left Gagntok on May 6th and flew to Sylhet in Assam. I spent the night at Sylet and visited H.Q. 3rd Indian Division—the headquarters of what were Wingate’s raiding columns, now Lengtaigne’s [Maj.-Gen. Lentaigne]. Lentaigne is good, I think, more orthodox and less highly strung than Wingate, who possible was killed at the right moment both for his fame and the safety of the division. But he was a remarkable man and I am glad that I was responsible for giving him his chance and encouraging him. My dealings with him, in three campaigns, were almost entirely official and I never knew him well enough to like or dislike him.

            I had hoped to see [my son] Archie John but he had flown into Burma a week before. Tired of waiting for vacancy in the Black Watch he had taken one in the South Straffords. I believe the column he has joined is likely to be flown out soon, but I expect Archie John will try to stay on with his own regiment or some other column. I hope his health will stand it. I saw Bernard Fergusson, complete with bushy beard, whose brigade had just been flown out. He was well, but a little upset by his failure to win his first pitched battle, at Indaw against the Jap airfield. He had had a hard time marching down from Ledo through the jungle, said it was surely the only recorded instance of a brigade marching 250 miles in single file.

            We had a long fly back, nearly 7 hours, as we were in a slow machine, and did not reach Delhi till nearly 7.45 p.m.

-------------------------------------- --------------------------------

Sources:

Fergusson, Bernard, rev. Robert O'Neill, and Judith M.  Brown. “Wavell, Archibald Percival, first Earl Wavell (1883–1950).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. OUP 2004-2013.

Wavell, Archibald Percival. The Viceroy’s Journal. Ed. by Penderel Moon. OUP, 1973.

Sykes, Christopher. Orde Wingate: A Biography. The World Publishing Company, 1959.    

David Reynolds, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War, 2004. 645 pp. 

David Reynolds seeks to shed a "revealing light on Winston Churchill's three most important personae--historian, politician, and soldier;" in the process, Reynolds finds himself creating an image of Churchill far more complex than a mere portrait, for he sketches the bureaucratic, emotional and political landscape in which Churchill created his memoirs of the Second World War. In the summer of 1945, Churchill's party lost its majority to Labour. Surprised at his sudden loss of political power, he cobbled together a band of military officials and academics and wrote one of the defining accounts of the Second World War. Publishers on both sides of the Atlantic paid him a fortune for the rights to serialize and publish the words produced through his "Syndicate" of writers. Critical reaction labeled him a hero, not just for his wartime efforts, but for his ability to write his will on the pages of history. He received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1953. In the growing shadows the of Soviet expansion, he cast the Second World War as an unnecessary conflict, "a tragedy in which the misjudgments and kindly dreams of men of good will in our country encouraged wickedness elsewhere to seize its opportunities." Churchill, throughout the war years, used glittering oratory to collapse dissenting opinion and mitigate wartime fears; the powers of oratory stayed with him, and showed themselves at full force his books of history. Churchill, more than any other British statesman of the time, offered hope for victory--he sold hope better than anyone else. Yet after the war, his memoirs and Post-war speeches exacerbated Cold War tensions, and his historical imagination left a lasting (and somewhat incorrect) impression on the minds of many admirers. Churchill intentionally distorted history, sometimes to suit his ego, but just as often to preserve state secrets or to shape the Cold War. For example, to mask British use of technology, Churchill pretends that foreign spies, rather than code-breaking machines, provided most of the actionable intelligence he used in the Mediterranean campaigns.

Despite Reynolds simultaneous interest in wartime history, literary analysis, and biography, his story navigates the rough waters of Churchill's life with remarkable calm. Reynolds offers smooth transitions through seemingly disparate subjects. Even as he admires Churchill, Reynolds shows that Churchill used his memoirs to disparage political opponents, and to craft history to fit his own particular vision. Reynolds' lengthy quotations and historical framing preclude his readers from absolutely needing ready access to Churchill's books; ready access, nevertheless, certainly helps, because the original books grant a sense of pacing, storytelling, and emphasis that Reynolds' descriptions cannot match. Yet In Command of History represents a magnificent and exhaustive introduction to Churchill's magnum opus. Reflecting on his own writing, Churchill coined a phrase that surely Reynold's can empathize with in a unique way after completing 645 pages of fine print: 'To begin with it is a toy, then an amusement, then it becomes a mistress and then it becomes a masters and then it becomes a tyrant and, in the last stage, just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.'

Reynold's comparison of Churchill's memoirs to accurate historical ledger and various drafts of the memoirs does not debunk Churchill. The original documents paint a more interesting picture, with a man shaping the story of the Second World War in a nuanced and complicated way. Churchill sold a more virtuous and less objective vision to the masses; the proper way to read such a work requires either dogmatic nestling of the text, or else a painful exploration of alternative outcomes at nearly every juncture. In the past half century, many intelligent 'Churchaholics' took the easy way out and gulped the nectar, the way children take to sugar. These Churchaholics manage to find their own views in perfect accord with Churchill's, largely because they never bother to learn or understand the complexity of the underlying story--it would be terribly inconvenient for them to discover that history can pose irresolvable riddles and moral dilemmas. Reynold's book cannot protect Churchaholics from their own narcissism, but it does help rescue a thinking-persons Churchill. The seas of history require an able navigator with plenty of talent, a lot of luck, and a sense of purpose, and that is the Churchill that Reynold's preserves. 

Bayly, Christopher and Tim Harper. Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941-1945.  Allen Lane, 2004.       

In Forgotten Armies, Bayly and Harper embark on a five year odyssey of British Asia during the hell-fires of the Second World War. The authors encounter nearly the full spectrum of humanity: fools, cowards, leaders, and luminaries, but very few heroes; the tensions of British Asia and the Japanese conquest sharpen even the most virtuous of spirits into blades too quick to cut. Racism and class distinctions, prior to the war, make for sordid lives bent towards economic necessity. With the Japanese invasion of 1941, the economic basis for social order disintegrates, yet the terrible distinctions remain. The British imperial power fails to protect its subjects, especially the socially and economically disadvantaged minorities. British Asia collapses in a rush of blood and disillusionment. The fall of Singapore, in particular, stands as a historic embarrassment. In a failed defensive effort with little effort and less planning, a garrison of 85,000 men surrenders to a Japanese assault force of 30,000. Many thousands die in the aftermath. The Japanese conquest feeds off of anti-British sentiment throughout the region, and turns 40,000 captured Indian troops into a detachment of the Japanese army. The Japanese shock troops, rather than liberating British colonies, induce wave after wave of ethnic violence, and glory in the rape of women and the humiliation of men. The British never manage to call the bluff of the overstretched Japanese forces, but eastern monsoons accidentally collude with the Battle of Midway to halt the Japanese expansion. The British Empire crawls back, but never returns to its pre-war position of dominance.

            The book earns its title. One can read a history of the Second World War (as I did just last week) and not hear more than a paragraph about anything that Bayly and Harper uncover. The authors render the political context of the fighting with authority and candor. They maintain a neutral stance towards most agendas and parties, though they exhibit sympathy for nationalist feelings, if not nationalist leaders. The authors write beautifully, and their sense of humanity urges them to include details that others might miss, such as 1942's surreal conjunction of mass starvation in Burma, the kerosene burning of the corpses, and the unusual beauty and quantity of Assam butterflies before the monsoon rains.