With Winston Churchill At The Front

A unique and absorbing account of Churchill’s life during World War I, as written by his battalion’s adjutant who would later become his friend. Following his resignation from the Government after the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, Winston Churchill’s political career stalled. Never one to give in, Churchill was determined to continue fighting the enemy. He was already a Major in the Territorial Reserve and he was offered promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and with it command of a battalion on the Western Front. On 5 January 1916, Churchill took up his new post with the 6th (Service) Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers. The battalion’s adjutant was Captain Andrew Dewar Gibb who formed a close relationship with Churchill that lasted far beyond their few weeks together in the war. Dewar Gibb subsequently wrote an account of his and Churchill’s time together in the trenches. Packed with amusing anecdotes and fascinating detail, Gibb’s story shows an entirely different side to Churchill’s character from the forceful public figure normally presented to the world. Churchill proved to be a caring and compassionate commander and utterly fearless. Despised on his arrival, he was adored by his men by the time he departed . . . Supplemented with many of Churchill’s letters, the observations of other officers and additional narrative, this is the most unusual and absorbing account of this part of Churchill’s life that has ever been told. Praise for With Winston Churchill at the Front “A good book for anyone interested in Churchill, and also for those who might want to learn more about command at the front during the Great War.” —The NYMAS Review “This is a view of Churchill different from every episode in his memorable life.” —Roads to the Great War

Following his resignation from the Government after the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, Winston Churchill's political career stalled. Never one to give in, Churchill was determined to continue fighting the enemy. He was already a Major in the Territorial Reserve and he was offered promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and with it command of a battalion on the Western Front. On 5 January 1916, Churchill took up his new post with the 6th (Service) Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers. The battalion's adjutant was Captain Alexander Dewar Gibb who formed a close relationship with Churchill that lasted far beyond their few weeks together in the war. Dewar Gibb subsequently wrote an account of his and Churchill's time together in the trenches. Packed with amusing anecdotes and fascinating detail, Gibb's story shows an entirely different side to Churchill's character from the forceful public figure normally presented to the world. Churchill proved to be a caring and compassionate commander and utterly fearless. Despised on his arrival, by the time he departed he was adored by his men. Supplemented with many of Churchill's letters, the observations of other officers and additional narrative this is the most unusual and absorbing account of this part of Churchill's life that has ever been told.

An analytical investigation into Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s decision-making process during every stage of World War II. When Winston Churchill accepted the position of Prime Minister in May 1940, he insisted in also becoming Minister of Defence. This, though, meant that he alone would be responsible for the success or failure of Britain’s war effort. It also meant that he would be faced with many monumental challenges and utterly crucial decisions upon which the fate of Britain and the free world rested. With the limited resources available to the UK, Churchill had to pinpoint where his country’s priorities lay. He had to respond to the collapse of France, decide if Britain should adopt a defensive or offensive strategy, choose if Egypt and the war in North Africa should take precedence over Singapore and the UK’s empire in the East, determine how much support to give the Soviet Union, and how much power to give the United States in controlling the direction of the war. In this insightful investigation into Churchill’s conduct during the Second World War, Allen Packwood, BA, MPhil (Cantab), FRHistS, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, enables the reader to share the agonies and uncertainties faced by Churchill at each crucial stage of the war. How Churchill responded to each challenge is analyzed in great detail and the conclusions Packwood draws are as uncompromising as those made by Britain’s wartime leader as he negotiated his country through its darkest days.

The conclusion of the great statesman’s epic five-volume history of World War I. The fifth and final volume of Winston Churchill’s “remarkable” series, The World Crisis: The Eastern Front tells a gritty, true-to-life account of the combat in eastern Europe—written by someone whose decisions had a profound impact on the success of war efforts both in the East and in the West (Jon Meacham). While the battle for modern civilization was being fought on the Western Front during World War I, an equally important war—with equally high stakes—was being fought on the Eastern Front, between Russia, Germany, and Germany’s Austrian allies. It’s rare that a historical account of World War I documents in as much detail the events of the Eastern Front as those of the West. Churchill’s account was one of the first to do so, telling the story of an armed conflict that was shockingly dissimilar from its counterpart in the West. “Whether as a statesman or an author, Churchill was a giant; and The World Crisis towers over most other books about the Great War.” —David Fromkin, author of A Peace to End All Peace

November 1915: disgraced and stripped of high office, Winston Churchill heads to the trenches to fight.A quarter of a century before his "finest hour" in 1940, Britain's future Prime Minister faced a very different kind of crisis. As First Lord of the Admiralty at the start of the First World War, he found himself blamed for the catastrophic military fiasco of the Dardanelles. Thrown for the first time into the political wilderness, he decided to rejoin the British Army and take his place on the Western Front.The first standalone account of this period of his life published since the 1920s, CHURCHILL IN THE TRENCHES reconstructs his six months near the Belgian town of Ypres. It reveals he how he gradually won over the troops he commanded -- the tough but traumatised 6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers. And it tells the largely unknown story of how amid mud and squalor, one of the 20th century's most memorable characters became one of its greatest leaders.