CHURCHILL, VOL. IV
Stratton, Owen S.
Churchill, Vol. IV THE HINGE OF FATE, by Winston S. Churchill. Houghton Mifflin. 1,000 pp. $6. Reviewed by Owen S. Stratton IN The Hinge of Fate Winston Churchill carries his memoirs of World War...
...But these are minor details that scarcely count beside the great qualities of Churchill's prose, the high drama of the subject matter and of its presentation, and the fact that many of the materials of the book are not comments on history, but are its very stuff, having had much to do with bringing World War II to a successful military conclusion...
...the combined forces under Eisenhower invaded French North Africa...
...Others may find equal or greater interest in the light that Churchill throws on such varied subjects as a reconstitution of the British wartime government...
...The instructive value of The Hinge of Fate is, however, often far higher...
...Churchill urged his critics to vote against the government if they were so inclined...
...During the first half of the period covered in this volume, Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies were lost...
...and in May 1943 Gen...
...A reader of the chapters on the political management of the British Government, to take only one instance, is likely to make comparisons between the operation of the British system in wartime and some of the things we Americans are now experiencing partly as a result of our political institutions...
...and what might be called the domestic side of life in the Kremlin, in the account of which Churchill describes a late dinner with Stalin and Molotov in Stalin's quarters...
...Under British constitutional practice, Churchill and all his ministers would have been obliged to resign had the motion passed...
...The result was that only 25 members took advantage of his offer, and the prestige of Britain was strengthened wherever news wires ran...
...Alexander telegraphed Churchill "that the Tunisian campaign is over...
...If it cannot change it it should sustain it...
...For the iirst time, American forces and military leaders appear prominently on the stage of war, and for that reason alone the book will appeal to many readers...
...In a number of ways, however, this new installment of the memoirs has even more interest than The Gathering Storm, Their Finest Hour, and The Grand Alliance...
...In June 1942 a motion of censure was proposed in the House of Commons which baldly stated that the House had no confidence in the central direction of the war...
...In 1942 and 1943 there was not so much need as in the earlier war years for dramatic appeals rallying the British people to a desperate cause...
...The framework of The Hinge of Fate, as in the three earlier volumes of the series, is made of quotations from Churchill's directives, minutes, and telegrams, written in his capacities as Prime Minister and Minister of Defense...
...As might be expected from that, The Hinge of Fate contains less of the rolling Churchillian prose than the earlier volumes, and it is perhaps not quite such juicy reading...
...In the second part of the volume the story begins of the period of unbroken success for the United Nations: Japan was contained in the Solomons and lost the battle of Midway...
...and probably most readers will think that there is room for improvement in the maps...
...Churchill writes in The Hinge of Fate have less inherent drama about them than, for example, the Battle of Britain, which was described in Their Finest Hour...
...the author's views on the problems of India and his account of the Cripps mission...
...In winding up debate on the motion, Churchill said, "Everything that could be thought of or raked up has been used to weaken confidence in the Government, has been used to prove that Ministers are incompetent...
...British Commonwealth relations, particularly the strained ones that existed for a time between the home country and Australia...
...Rommel's Afrika Korps struck the British Empire forces in North Africa and drove them back so near to Cairo and Alexandria that Mussolini began preparations for his triumphal entry into one or both of these cities...
...All enemy resistance has ceased...
...Perhaps some people will find that Churchill is at times a little too arch for their taste...
...These "owe their importance and interest to the moment in which they were written," and Churchill says that he could not write them in better words now...
...Many events of which Mr...
...but—and here is the great point of contrast between the British system and ours—those who brought down the Government would thereby have incurred an inescapable responsibility for forming a new one and themselves carrying on the war...
...We are masters of the North African shores...
...Japan threatened British domination of the Indian Ocean and advanced to the northern approaches of Australia...
...There is no more to criticize in The Hinge of Fate than in the volumes that preceded it...
...to make the Army distrust the backing it is getting from the civil power . . . Sober and constructive criticism . . . has its high virtue...
...Reviewed by Owen S. Stratton IN The Hinge of Fate Winston Churchill carries his memoirs of World War II forward from the "onslaught of Japan" to the destruction of the Axis armies in Africa...
...Montgomery drove Rommel westward in retreat from Alamein...
...but the duty of the House of Commons is to sustain the Government or to change the Government...
...With this, what Churchill calls the "hinge of fate" was reached...
Vol. 15 • March 1951 • No. 3
