Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Second World War

by Warren F. Kimball

Overview

World War II created the union between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, molding it from start to finish, while the partnership itself shaped many of the most significant moments of the war and the peace that followed. Their connection was truly forged in war.

Roosevelt and Churchill continue to fascinate both the World War II generation and those who have grown up in the world formed by that struggle. Here is an inside look at their relationship and the politics, strategy, and diplomacy of the British-American alliance. Warren F. Kimball's lively analysis of these larger-than-life figures shows how they were at the same time realists and idealists, consistent and inconsistent, calculating and impulsive. The result is an unforgettable narrative.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062034847
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/11/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	1190
Sales rank:	225,335
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Warren F. Kimball, Robert Treat Professor of History at Rutgers University, has written numerous books, including The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman. Kimball edited the acclaimed three-volume collection Churchill and Roosevelt, The Complete Correspondence. He lives in Somerset, New Jersey.

Read an Excerpt

Never were there two less likely-looking warriors. Winston Spencer Churchill was, to be candid, short and fat; "very pink and cuddly," commented one journalist's wife upon her first close encounter. His round red cheeks invariably prompted the description "cherubic," though nothing could be further from the truth. He waddled rather than walked and lectured rather than listened, talking endlessly about everything, the opposite of the virile, strong, silent leader that fiction idealized and John Wayne and Hollywood popularized. Much of his working time was spent lying abed, and when he did get up, it was often to prance around in soft slippers and pink bathrobe or his "siren suit" (designed to be pulled on easily in the event of an air raid), getups that brought derision from more than a few diarists. "A marvellous garment [Churchill's dressing gown], rather like Joseph's many-coloured robe," General Alan Brooke, the chief of the Imperial General Staff, acidly commented, going on to describe a typical evening's work with the prime minister.

"Finally at 2:15 A.M. he suggested we should proceed to the hall to have some sandwiches, and I hoped this might at least mean bed. But, no! We went on till ten to three before he made a move for bed. He had the gramophone turned on, and in the many-coloured dressing gown, with a sandwich in one hand and watercress in the other, he trotted round and round the hall, giving occasional little skips to the tune of the gramophone.
On each lap near the fireplace he stopped to release some priceless quotation or thought. For instance he quoted a saying that a man's life is similar to a walk down a long passage with closed windows on either side.As you reach each window, an unknown hand opens it and the light it lets in only increases by contrast the darkness at the end of the passage."

That image of English eccentricity must be balanced against the description of Churchill from a soldier in the ranks during a formal inspection: "He's a pugnacious looking b[astard]." But as Adolf Hitler found out, it was more than just looks.

Editorial Reviews

Kimball (The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman) is a rigorous scholar who can tell a story well. Here, he displays his talents as he demonstrates the central role of personal leadership in the Anglo-American alliance of WWII. Without Roosevelt and Churchill, Kimball explains, the alliance would have been similar to that between the Western allies and the Soviet Union: a tenuous coalition sustained by the negative imperative of a common enemy. Recent writing on the U.S.-U.K. alliance has emphasized wartime differences between the English-speaking powers. Kimball, in contrast, stresses the consistent willingness of the two nations' leaders to seek common ground on vital issues. This willingness was, he shows, crucial to an Allied victory that was by no means inevitable. Kimball's spirited narrative establishes the central significance of American support for Britain's holding action until the last half of 1941 brought the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. openly into the war. Roosevelt's implementation of a "Germany first" strategy, even after Pearl Harbor focused America's attention on the Pacific, was matched by Churchill's eventual acceptance of a cross-channel assault that meant the commitment of an exhausted Britain's final resources. Kimball also stresses Churchill's and Roosevelt's efforts to develop long-term cooperation with the Soviet Union. Ironically, their failure to do so was in part due to Stalin's suspicion of a "special relationship" whose success was, as Kimball so expertly argues here, the product less of common national values than of the determination of two great men. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Kimball (The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman) is a rigorous scholar who can tell a story well. Here, he displays his talents as he demonstrates the central role of personal leadership in the Anglo-American alliance of WWII. Without Roosevelt and Churchill, Kimball explains, the alliance would have been similar to that between the Western allies and the Soviet Union: a tenuous coalition sustained by the negative imperative of a common enemy. Recent writing on the U.S.-U.K. alliance has emphasized wartime differences between the English-speaking powers. Kimball, in contrast, stresses the consistent willingness of the two nations' leaders to seek common ground on vital issues. This willingness was, he shows, crucial to an Allied victory that was by no means inevitable. Kimball's spirited narrative establishes the central significance of American support for Britain's holding action until the last half of 1941 brought the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. openly into the war. Roosevelt's implementation of a "Germany first" strategy, even after Pearl Harbor focused America's attention on the Pacific, was matched by Churchill's eventual acceptance of a cross-channel assault that meant the commitment of an exhausted Britain's final resources. Kimball also stresses Churchill's and Roosevelt's efforts to develop long-term cooperation with the Soviet Union. Ironically, their failure to do so was in part due to Stalin's suspicion of a "special relationship" whose success was, as Kimball so expertly argues here, the product less of common national values than of the determination of two great men.

Publishers Weekly - Cahners\\Publishers_Weekly

From Kimball (History/Rutgers Univ.), who edited the collected correspondence of FDR and Winston Churchill, another look at the fateful partnership that helped win the Second World War.

FDR and Churchill first met in London in 1918, when the American was a visiting assistant secretary of the navy and Churchill a famous member of Britain's war cabinet. It was not, apparently, an auspicious meeting: Churchill offended Roosevelt years later by telling him he did not remember the encounter. Also, Churchill's attempts to cultivate political contact with Roosevelt when he was governor of New York and later president were unsuccessful, until WW II intervened. However, once the correspondence between the two finally began (even while Churchill was still a member of Neville Chamberlain's cabinet), the tone was set for the "special relationship" that ultimately resulted in the Atlantic Alliance. In sketching the personalities of the two partners, Kimball draws parallels and contrasts: Both were flamboyant speakers and masters of dramatic language, both generated intense personal loyalty, both were idealists with a pragmatic bent. Churchill was a master of detail who micromanaged, while Roosevelt left most of the details to subordinates. Kimball records the years of America's pro-British neutrality, in which the US supported Britain through lend-lease aid and assistance of an increasingly military nature, and the intensification of the relationship between the two leaders as the US and the Soviet Union entered the war. The Churchill-Roosevelt friendship set the tone for the sometimes tense, sometimes warm Anglo-American relationship, which Kimball follows through its high points and its lows (like the Yalta Conference, in which Roosevelt joined forces with Stalin in opposing some of Churchill's ideas). Ultimately, Kimball points out, the relationship played a crucial role in creating the "Holy Alliance" against fascism that ended the war and created the postwar world.

An absorbing examination of one of modern history's most dynamic friendships and its military consequences.

Kirkus Reviews

Penetrating dual portrait.. .. Literate, lively, and informed.. .. Immensely documented, balanced, and intelligent, this is a most rewarding study.

World War II History - Michael D. Hull

"Warren Kimball catches it all in this magnificent new analysis of Roosevelt and Churchill. It is a marvelous guide throughthe maze of World War II diplomacy, politics and strategy. Recommended without reservation or hesitation."-- Stephen E. Ambrose"Warren Kimball has studied the Churchill-Roosevelt relationship more carefully than anyone else; and his splendid newbook gives a compelling account, as penetrating as it is lively, of the partnership that saved the world." -- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

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