September 9, 2015

Finest Hour 168, Spring 2015

Page 45

Review by Antoine Capet

Pierre Assouline (ed.) À la recherche de Winston Churchill. Collection Tempus. Paris : Perrin, 2015. Paper. 159 pp. ISBN 978-2262049126. €7.00 (Kindle €7.95).


AssoulineThis reissue in the budget- priced Tempus series of a collection of essays first published in 2011 is most welcome. The origin of the publication is a radio program on the highbrow public station France-Culture, which was broadcast in July 2010. The format was a series of debates between a number of British and French historians moderated by Pierre Assouline, a well-known media figure and author in France. I remember listening and am pleased to see that the book version forms a near-complete verbatim transcript of the discussions. The only additions are very useful footnotes, giving references to the books cited, and a general preface by the editor.

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That preface offers a very short survey of the biographical literature with the not unexpected conclusion that it was the events of 1940 that “made” him. Most of Assouline’s introduction is rightly devoted to a re-assessment of Churchill’s standing in the world today. A very unusual—and most welcome—line of attack for what largely remains an intractable problem is that Assouline cites media other than books, film, radio, and television: he points to the success of unconventional ways of celebrating the Great Man, on Twitter, on Facebook, and a “Churchillisms” app for iPhone.  In other words, interest in Churchill is not confined to older people.

The first dialogue, Naissance d’un chef (Birth of a Leader), is between Professors Robert Tombs of Cambridge and John Keiger of Salford. Both are British specialists of French history, and unsurprisingly their debate first revolved around the nature of Churchill’s francophilia. Tombs defines it as a form of romantic francophilia nurtured by both Napoleon and Charles Péguy. Asked by Assouline what their favorite speech was, Tombs answered “We shall never surrender” (18 June 1940), while Keiger said that, though not a speech proper, he would choose Churchill’s retort to Chamberlain in 1938 on war with dishonor, not peace with honor. They concluded that Churchill remains the man of 1940, the emblem of Resistance—and that in the process he saved European civilization.

Next comes Le seigneur de guerre (The Warlord)—a dialogue between Professor Marc Ferro of Annales fame and Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac, the doyen of veterans of the Resistance who devoted their lives to writing its history. Ferro describes Churchill as “a kind of fighting lion, with both a great generosity and a great violence.” For his part, Crémieux-Brilhac confesses that he did not immediately perceive Churchill’s greatness when he first set foot on British soil in 1941 to join the Free French—it was only gradually that he realized that British Resistance was in fact largely due to Churchill’s inspiration.

François Delpla, who has written many French books on Churchill and the Second World War, and Professor Guillaume Piketty, who has translated a selection of Churchill’s speeches into French, were charged with discussing Le stratège (The Strategist). First, they both dismissed the common suggestion that he was a warmonger—but, to be fair, neither was he a pacifist: witness his fascination for new weapons. A delicate question is that of his relations with the military, because his form of reasoning was difficult to reconcile with that of his generals. Yet he always finally bowed to their arguments. Delpla and Piketty have a fascinating discussion of Churchill’s role in the tragedy of Oran in July 1940—they do not totally absolve him from responsibility, but they agree that he was in a no-win situation.

Professors Julian Jackson of Queen Mary, London, and Philippe Chassaigne of Bordeaux had the invidious task of discussing Churchill and France after Professors Keiger and Tombs. The subject is admittedly inexhaustible, but it is difficult for them not to rehearse the familiar arguments, notably on Churchill’s attitude to de Gaulle. Yet the exchange of views becomes very lively and extremely enjoyable when they discuss the respective literary merits of these two soldiers by training, and they conclude by deploring that de Gaulle did not receive the Nobel Prize for literature which, they both argue, he deserved as much as Churchill.

The book concludes on Le Bilan (The Balance-Sheet), an evaluation of Churchill’s achievements by Professors Anthony Rowley of Sciences Po (Paris) and François Kersaudy of Paris I. Rowley starts with a mixed judgment: the British owe a lot to Churchill between 1939 and 1942, since in fact he saved their lives, but he has a poor record in home affairs and was a disaster in economic policy. Kersaudy makes the point that without Churchill, Lloyd George as Prime Minister and the Duke of Windsor as King would have made a deal with Hitler—and the population would have followed: hence Churchill’s unique role. Rowley cannot disagree more: there would have been a surge in the British population, because the enemies of the democratic institutions were only a tiny minority, unlike in France. In many ways, this is the most informative of all the chapters, since the two debaters alternately agree and disagree— but always with excellent (and FrenchRepsometimes agreeably surprising) arguments.

All in all, this small book is a little gem, by people who know their Churchill in and out, and is highly recommended to Finest Hour readers who seek a pleasant way of brushing up their French.

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