Can anything new be said about the second world war? Unexpectedly the answer is yes. Here are just a few of the surprising facts that I learned from this revelatory book. The Belgian army in 1940 was twice the size of the British Expeditionary Force. (The US army in 1940 was smaller still, smaller than those of Portugal or Sweden.) Almost all the French troops evacuated at Dunkirk chose to be repatriated rather than join the Free French. In 1942 pro-Russian feeling in Britain was so strong that War and Peace became a bestseller. Even in January 1945 the Japanese still had 1 million troops in Manchuria. The Indian prophet of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi, considered Hitler “not as bad as he is depicted”. And so on.
Tim Bouverie has reverted to a traditional form to present the past afresh. His focus is not on the battlefield, nor on the Home Front, but on the relations between the allies who opposed Hitler. In the foreground are the leaders, especially Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, of course; but there are also walk-on parts for the foreign ministers, the ambassadors, the emissaries and others who participated in their discussions. This is a work of old-fashioned diplomatic history, which provides new perspectives on subjects that seemed familiar. One of its merits is to present the choices that faced the allied leaders as they appeared at the time, rather than with the benefit of hindsight.
