WINSTON Churchill’s primary aim during the Second World War was not to liberate Europe from fascism but to protect the long-term interests of the British Empire, a new book aiming to “totally transform popular perceptions” of the famed prime minister argues.
In Empire First, Graeme Bowman puts forward the case that Churchill actually wanted to ensure that Operation Overlord – the codename for the 1944 D-Day landings that marked the beginning of the end for Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany – never happened.
Instead, Bowman – who was taught at Strathclyde by the eminent Scottish historian Sir Tom Devine before completing a PhD at King’s College, Cambridge – argues that the war-time prime minister wanted to see major operations launched in the Mediterranean and Aegean to protect the British Empire’s control over the Suez Canal.
