Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945

Location: Home » esoterica » General AAS » Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945

Similar Items:

•	American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
•	Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
•	Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief
•	The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
•	The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description

Carlo D'Este's brilliant new biography examines Winston Churchill through the prism of his military service as both a soldier and a warlord: a descendant of Marlborough who, despite never having risen above the rank of lieutenant colonel, came eventually at age sixty-five to direct Britain's military campaigns as prime minister and defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito for the democracies. Warlord is the definitive chronicle of Churchill's crucial role as one of the world's most renowned military leaders, from his early adventures on the North-West Frontier of colonial India and the Boer War through his extraordinary service in both World Wars.

Even though Churchill became one of the towering political leaders of the twentieth century, his childhood ambition was to be a soldier. Using extensive, untapped archival materials, D'Este reveals important and untold observations from Churchill's personal physician, as well as other colleagues and family members, in order to illuminate his character as never before. Warlord explores Churchill's strategies behind the major military campaigns of World War I and World War II—both his dazzling successes and disastrous failures—while also revealing his tumultuous relationships with his generals and other commanders, including Dwight D. Eisenhower.

As riveting as the man it portrays, Warlord is a masterful, unsparing portrait of one of history's most fascinating and influential leaders during what was arguably the most crucial event in human history.

Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Knight Commander November 20, 2008
27 out of 28 found this review helpful

A retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, Carlo D'Este has had a second career as a historian. Using his military background, he has picked a narrow topic: the U.S. Army in the European theater of World War II and written some of the most informative and readable accounts of the war in print. His biography of General George S. Patton, Jr. is a work that anyone thinking of taking up this art form should read as an example of how to do it right.

With "Warlord," D'Este has moved into new territory, British military history. The readers should know that the story that unfolds on these pages is primarily European in nature. Although over half of this book is about World War II, the author is examining the British experience and that is a different topic from what he has done in the past. Pearl Harbor does not take place until page 556 (out of 700 of text) and even then, only as a dependent clause.

D'Este's research is extensive and creative. He has looked at Churchill's student records at Harrow and examined the papers of Lord Moran, the Prime Minister's personal physician. In between, he hits all the important archives.

The quality of coverage that comes from this exploration of the historical record is uneven, though, ranging from brilliant to merely adequate. The book is extremely weak on the World War I years. Serious Churchill buffs/fans/students will be disappointed. With that point made, most Americans know little of World War I and the discussion of the Great War should be more than adequate for general readers. D'Este also builds on this material. The book is much stronger when it gets to the World War II years, and the author connects much of what Churchill did in the 1940s back to the events of the 1910s, something that is uncommon in American writing on the Prime Minister.

A trait in D'Este biographies is that key figures other the principal subject have their moment to walk across the pages and voice their opinions and criticisms. The same is true here. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the head of the British Army for most of the war, often clashed with Churchill. D'Este pulls no punches and avoids the mistake of many biographers in siding with his subject, but he is better at narration than analysis in these moments. A number of other British generals, many of whom have ended up as forgotten figures, also get their moments and a generally sympathetic hearing from Churchill's biographer.

A clear strength is D'Este's efforts to develop Churchill's personality. He makes some keen observations, and the reader gets a good idea why Brooke found the man at times so infuriating and at others so inspirational.

Finally--and this is no little thing--this book is an easy, easy read.

5 out of 5 stars

The English Warrior November 16, 2008
15 out of 20 found this review helpful

Martin Gilbert and William Manchester have written muti-volume biographies of the long and fascinating life of Winston Churchill. They cover his fighting life from India and South Africa to the World Wars, his political life from party-switching to Prime Minister, and his personal life from his successful marriage to his career as a painter and writer. Mr. D'este has a narrow focus of exploring his military life through a half century of war, first as a participant and then as a decision maker. This book is a long (over 800 pages) but a nice introduction to his life of Winston Churchill. It picks its stories well (for Churchill had lots of stories) and tells them well. However for the reader who is familiar with the outline of Churchill's career, this book will be a review.

5 out of 5 stars

Churchill the Warrior November 27, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

Carlo D' Este states clearly that his purpose in writing this biography is to explore Churchill the warrior. The book, he says, "is less about events and more about Churchill the man -- his leadership, his triumphs, and his failures." D'Este succeeds in this goal.

D'Este describes Churchill as in company with men "born for war," such Frederick the Great, Oliver Cromwell and his own famous ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough. Churchill, D'Este maintains, cannot be understood if one approaches him as a politician or statesman who was destined to conduct a war but rather must be understood as a warrior who realized that politics forms a part of the conduct of war.

Men "born for war," including Patton, the subject of another excellent D'Este biography, never lose their romantic and self-centered approach to war--even after confronting its most horrible conditions. Most men who experience war hate it. Men like Patton and Churchill never lose their love for it. D'Este shows that Churchill was deeply conflicted about his feelings for war. Having experienced the horrors of war first hand, he empathized deeply with the soldiers and sailors (and their families) who bear the full brunt of the horrors of war. Yet because he personally loved the danger and fighting, he wondered if he could ever forgive himself for his love of war.

D'Este goes into great detail about Churchill's relationships with his generals and admirals in WWII. Churchill tended to try to micromanage his military leaders. Sometimes that was helpful, but with a good commander it made relationships very rocky.

This book is best read together with another biography of Churchill such as William Manchester's opus on Winston Churchill (two volumes, he was regrettably unable to complete the last volume before his death). Manchester's magnificent biography sets Churchill in his life and times. D'Este explores Churchill the warrior.

D'Este explores in greater detail than most biographies Churchill's aptitude for war demonstrated in his childhood play with toy soldiers, his time at Sandhurst, his polo playing, and his fighting in India, Egypt and South Africa. WWI and WWII are similarly well covered.

We also see Churchill with all his flaws: egotistical and self-centered. Yet we begin to see that what we consider as flaws are simply part and parcel of the indomitable personality that made Churchill great at both war and statesmanship.

Churchill's first great romantic love was Pamela Plowden, later the Countess of Lytton. Though never marrying (her father refused to give her hand to Churchill), they remained lifelong friends and D'Este reveals that their correspondence was auctioned by Christie's in 2003 for nearly 300,000 pounds. She said of Churchill many years later, "The first time you meet Winston, you see all his faults, and the rest of your life you spend in discovering his virtues."

I heartily recommend this biography for understanding a side of Winston Churchill that has not been explored by other biographers with such great depth and appreciation for his formation as a warrior and military leader.

As D'Este states in his introduction: "This is the story of the military life of Winston Churchill--the descendant of Marlborough who, despite never having risen above the rank of lieutenant colonel, came eventually to direct the military compaigns of his nation and, more than any other man, to save Britain from tyranny during his and his nation's finest hour."

5 out of 5 stars

Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill December 7, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

Carlo D'este has written what must be the definitive account of Winston Churchill from his earliest days of soldiering at Omdurman, the Boer War, WWI and through WWII. He finds Churchill's micro-management style both praiseworthy and damning particularly in the Dardanelles campaign in WWI and British intervention in Greece in WWII. Throughout his life Churchill was not one to easily backdown or be cowed by his betters. Indeed D'este concludes that there was no one else during WWII in British politics who could have rallied Britain at its time of greatest peril from Nazi aggression. Overall D'este has done an outstanding job of writing a balanced account about one of the giants of the 20th century.

5 out of 5 stars

Warlord: The Old Soldier Winston Churchill will never die in freedom loving breasts! November 26, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Warlord is a 700 page behemoth of a biography of Winston Churchill. It's author is noted military biographer Carlo D'ESte. His previous biographies of George Pattona and Dwight Eisenhower were excellent. This labor of love is well documented in primary and secondary sources. D'Este is a fan of Churchill but is unsparing in his warts and all picture of the 20th century's greatest Englishman! D'Este's prose is beautiflly and clearly written giving the reader a feel for wartime London and the many theatres in which the British Tommy and his GI cousin waged war in the greatest warfare waged on this battered and bleeding earth.
Churchill (1874-1965) was the eldest son of PM Lord Randolph Churchill and his American born mother was New York socialite Jenny Jerome. She had countless affairs; his father was cold, distant, sarcastic expecting little of little Winnie. Churchill wrote a biography of Lord Randolph as well as several volumes on World War I, World War II and other battles and adventures he experienced in his long life. Churchill won the Nobel Prize for Literature but was saddened that he had never won a Victoria Cross for combat heroism.
Churchill was a schoolboy at Harrow and a graduate of Sandhurst military academy. He dreamed of being a soldier from the time he played with tin soldiers. Churchill grew up as the wealthy ancestor of the famous Duke of Marlborough. He educated himself while in India while also playing polo. In 1908 he married Clementine Hozier. The couple had five childrem. Churchill loved living at his estate Chartwell along with countless pets. He enjoyed painting, writing and talking. He also loved long hot baths and dressing in a casual manner. Churchill was an inveterate smoker of cigars. He even piloted planes until his wife feared for his life. Churchill had boyish exuberance. His military decisions were sometimes not well thought out.
He saw and participated in the Cuban conflict, the Omdurman Campaign in the Sudan and was stationed in India for several years participating in action on the Northwestern frontier. His greatest fame came when he escaped from a Boer prison during the bloody war in South Africa. Churchill was a young man on the rise who wrote several books of his adventures winning him fame and a seat in Parliament. He served in Parliament for over sixty years switching parties and working in coalition governments in a variety of cabinet posts.
Churchill served as First Lord of the Admirality during World War I where he planned and took responsibility for the failed Gallipoli campaign. When this debacle transpired he became a wartime trench Colonel in France for several months. He was respected by his troops.
He spent years in the political wilderness scorned for his bellicose stance towards Hitler and Mussolin in appeasement minded England.
Churchill again served as First Lord of the Admirality in the early days of World War II. He became Prime Minister on May 10, 1941. Churchill was a great but flawed leader. His oratory inspired the British to keep fighting through the terrible days and nights of the Battle of Britain, the London Blitz, the capture of Singapore, Crete, Greece and the Middle East. Churchill had trouble getting along with the top brass. He like Eisenhower and worked with him in the planning of Operation Overlord. The Americans never bought his ideas to attack the Nazis in the Balkans and in the soft underbelly of Europe. His Norwegian campaign did not go well. Montgomery's stunning victories in the Middle East kept Churchill in office throughout the war. WSC was deeply disappointed to lose the first postwar election when he was replaced as PM by the Labour leader Clement Attlee.
Churchill's greatest vicotry was keeping England alive until help arrived from the United States. Along with the US, Soviet Russia under Stalin and the Commonwealth nations the war was at last won in 1945.
Churchill became the junior partner in the grand alliance with the US and the Soviet Union. He was a demanding boss who could be rude, irascible, condescending and possessed a massive ego! The world had to focus on him and his needs. Chruchill was a Victorian who saw his beloved British Empire dissolve in India, the Middle East and Burma. He was a tough man who would not brook failure or defeatism. Churchill hated cowardice. Churchill marshalled the English language and in plain but eloquent prose he was the voice of a defiant Britain against Nazi tyranny in Europe. His speeches dealing with blood, sweat, tears and toils will never die in the list of the world's greatest speeches.
The world Churchill knew had long faded from view when the gallant warrior gave up the ghost in 1965. Churchill was far from perfect but he was man who will forever be praised for his love of democracy. He was a warrior and politican the like of which we shall never see. Carlo D'Este is to be complimented on this excellent work which will become a classic.

Powered by Associate-O-Matic