The Last Lion Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965

The Last Lion Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965 by William Manchester and Paul Reid

It is with great relief that I have finally finished this book along with its two predecessors.  The three “Last Lion” volumes of Churchill’s life took up more than 3,000 pages.  It was a lot of reading.  An awful lot of reading.  And I’m glad to have finally finished.  Don’t misunderstand me, this was a great book (as were the other two).  It was  just…..long.

The author, William Manchester, actually passed away of a stroke before he could finish compiling his notes for this final narrative, so author Paul Reid was brought in to mainly smooth the edges to make a coherent piece of work.  There are naysayers that found this less than completely satisfactory, but to be honest, I can’t tell any difference in the two author’s styles.  Also, it’s worth mentioning that Manchester knew he was too ill to continue and complete the trilogy, and Paul Reid was personally chosen by Manchester to bring the story of England’s most famous Prime Minister to a conclusion.

This book picks up right where volume 2 left off, and had we not known the history of Britain during World War II, we could easily describe the ending of volume 2 as a “cliffhanger”.  Churchill is elected Prime Minister during England’s darkest days, 1940, just as things were starting to get ugly, as they were essentially a country grossly unprepared for a major war.  Fortunately, there’s a lot of water surrounding England, and even more fortunate is that Germany doesn’t have that great of a navy – at least when compared to its air force and army.

So the only way Hitler and his goons can try to break the spirit of the British people is by bombing raids, which have now become a bit of legend.  The morale of the countrymen is upbeat, however, and to be completely honest, it’s a bit hard to see why.  It seems as though every page of the first half of this book details more and more tragedy, more battles lost, more ships sunk, more lives lost.  There never seems to be any hint that England will survive.  Yet Churchill is strong in his resolve, and manages to steer his people ahead with fiery speeches and unbridled optimism, even if all he has to offer is blood, toil, tears, and sweat.

Churchill is definitely one smart cookie.  Sure, the book goes into a lot of detail about his eating habits, his drinking habits, and his smoking habits (It seems he had a weakness for the evils of all three), yet this man is as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar.  As bad as things get, Winston Churchill is always looking ahead, and always keeping the interest of the vast British Empire in mind – which is actually still all over the globe when the war begins - when planning future conflicts.

Early on in the war, he’s smart enough to know England can’t win without Roosevelt and the Americans, yet the U.S. of A wants absolutely nothing to do with a war on another continent.    Still, Churchill begs and begs an inflexible Roosevelt, who really is at the mercy of his constituents.  He finally at least succeeds when the U.S. congress passes the Lend-Lease act, meaning, essentially that England can “lease” weapons from America.  Then, of course, Pearl Harbor happened.  You almost sense that Churchill was glad.  Of course, most of the USA is concentrated on fighting Japan, which really doesn’t help the European conflict much.

It seems like, out of nowhere, that the tide turns for the allies around 1943.  It’s a bit hard to pinpoint exactly how, since Germany seemed to not be able to do any wrong prior to then.  There are a lot of small things that added up:  The breaking of the German Enigma coding machine, the Germans thinking they could easily beat Russia in the sub-zero temperatures of the Eastern Front, the Italians (not good fighters), the use of Radar (England had discovered it, Germany had not), and the fact that as smart as Adolph Hitler was, he was still a crazed lunatic who wouldn’t listen to his advisors.

Around 1943, Churchill along with Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, start planning for the post-war Europe.  This will not be an easy task.  Stalin is equally as vile as Hitler, so negotiating with him is never a walk in the park, and Roosevelt as well seems to have his own agenda.  It’s almost as if Roosevelt and Stalin realize that the end of this war will essentially kill the British “Empire”, leaving the USA and Russia as the two superpowers, so why even bother much with Churchill?  Still, Churchill plods ahead as best he can.

This books has more.  Oh, so much more.  In addition to meticulous details of most of the major battles, there’s also Northern Africa, Southern Italy, the Vichy French, Burma, Shanghai, what to do with Poland, and many many members of the British Parliament.  Most in his home country regard Churchill as a hero, but when things are slow to recover after the war’s end, Winston is voted out and replaced by Clement Attlee whom Churchill describes as “A Sheep in Sheep’s Clothing”.  So problems still persist after the war, and Churchill gets absolutely no rest, and has the Prime Minister job again in 1951 (when he was 77 years old!)

About eighty percent of this book focuses on 1940-1945.  By the time the war ends, up until Churchill’s death in 1965, the author devotes a lot less reading space describing events post World War II.  One could almost argue that a volume 4 could have been written (no!  please!  no!)  

This book is the real thing.  There’s no need to read anything about Winston Churchill other than these three magnificent, yet lengthy volumes.  This man was a true hero, and I’m glad he lived a long life – despite being on the verge of death from all the wine, fancy food, and persistent cigars.  It’s sad to think of what history could have been had this man not been alive.