The Second World War [antikvár]

Preface I have been composing this book for more than thirty years. During the war I gave monthly commentaries in Oxford and other towns, stjr-veying the events of the previous month and sometimes speculating on what was likely to happen next. At the end of the war I summarized its history in a series of radio talks for the Danish service of the BBC, talks no doubt irretrievably lost. Ever since then I have been increasing my knowledge and deepening my understanding. Now I begin to think that I have something useful to say. Thirty years afterwards is about the right time to look at the Second World War with detachment. Interest in it is still strong, as the flow of war books shows, and we are far enough away to shake off some of the contemporary passions and illusions. I do not write as a partisan of any group or country, though I happen to think that my country fought on the right side, and where I make a judgment on controversial topics, it is after careful consideration of all the available evidence. The Second World War was fought in three seas or oceans (the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Pacific) and in four major land campaigns (Russia, North Africa and the Mediterranean, western Europe, and the Far East). Each of these wars had a different character, and historians have often treated them in independent narratives. I have tried to bind them together : to remember that when Pearl Harbor was attacked, the Germans had been halted in front of Moscow; that when Stalingrad was besieged, the British were winning the Battle of El Alamein- and that when the Anglo-Americans landed in Sicily, the Russians were winning the Battle of Kursk. The victory of 1945 was an Allied victory, to which all three great Allies contributed to the best of their ability and resources. I express my gratitude to the audiences at Aylesbury, Banbury, Oxford, Reading, Wolver-ton and elsewhere, who first encouraged me to think historically about the Second World War. I also express my gratitude to the University of London for enabling me to give the substance of the first chapter as the Creighton Lecture for 1973. A.J.P.T.