There has long been talk in academic circles about the possible culpability of the British in the Second World War, that the war became more brutal when British planes started terror-bombing cities in Germany. And this was at the beginning of the war, before all the horrors we know today were unleashed.
The British had very few resources in 1940, as the Germans had driven them out of Europe and the war was essentially over for them. However, they had a lot of bombers, which is why they started the ruthless raids not only on military facilities but especially on civilians.
From today’s perspective, much of this looks like terrorism. And the man behind the controversial military strategy was of course Winston Churchill. The events were brought back into focus by an interview Tucker Carlson did with popular historian Darryl Cooper,
This article is not about absolving the Germans of blame, no, they will continue to bear the major responsibility for most of what happened during the war. But it is always interesting to see the nuances and to understand what shaped the war.
And of course we can reflect on the exploits of Churchill, who took his country to war with Germany because Poland was attacked, and at the end of the war Poland was given to the Soviet Communist autocrat Stalin. And much of central Europe ended up behind the Iron Curtain. And his own country lost its imperial status and was divided into all its constituent parts.
Yes, there are some nuances to discuss here. The great victory often proclaimed by the Western powers was rather hard to digest, giving the Communists huge advantages around the world, as well as two controversial atomic bombs also dropped on civilians in Japan by the victors to end the war.
Without going into too much detail, the interesting thing about many wars is how they are described afterwards, and how they are mythologised. 1945 was the birth of the modern world, when the United States became a superpower at the expense of the crumbling British Empire and a Europe in ruins. Much focus was placed on the suffering of the Jewish people, and rightly so, but often forgotten are the other civilians who lost their lives, totalling over 38 million (!) civilian Russians, Germans, Chinese, Japanese, Poles, Yugoslavs, Hungarians, Greeks etc etc.
And the propaganda lives on long afterwards. Let me take a ridiculous, but telling example. Hitler is often described as a short little man, although at 173 cm he was probably of average height for his time, but Churchill at 168 cm was not. We can go even further back in history. Napoleon, who is sometimes described as being almost dwarfed, was around 168-70 cm, which was also normal in France for that era. Admiral Nelson, on the other hand, was about 5 cm shorter than Napoleon, but you rarely hear that mentioned. Winners write history, and often rewrite it in the most banal of ways.
