The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965

William Manchester's third volume biography of Winston Spencer Churchill (WSC) Defender of the Realm 1940-1965 is based on his notes and assisted by journalist Paul Reid is a worthy addition and completes the 3 volume epic story of the life and history of WSC who along with FDR and Stalin led the Allies to victory against the Axis in WW II. It is an amazing story. This is a continuation of Manchester's earlier works The Last Lion: Vision of Glory 1874-1932 and The Last Lion: Alone, 1932-1940 and completes the story. William Manchester met WSC on a cruise from Britain to America in the 1950's and dedicated his life to capturing all the most salient aspects of the man many consider the person who saved Britain and for that matter Western Christian Civilization when it was at its most dire crisis in the 1939 - 1942 period. This is monumental work, well crafted and reads well. There appears to be no break in the prose style from Volume I thru Volume III which suggests that Mr. Reid studied Manchester's style and rythm to capture his writing method flawlessly. Not easy to do. Manchester had wrote another great biography on General Douglas MacAuthur, American Ceasar published in 1976 which is widely accepted as the definitive work of this 5 star American general who saved South Korea from conquest and slavery by the communist forces of Kim Il Sung in 1950 when he proposed and persuaded the General Staff to accept the plan of the Inchon landing instead of abandoning the mainland as most American generals and policy makers thought was the best and only course of action. This roughly 3000 page work of Vol I thru III will be seen as the same for WSC in the decades to come. There are no similar works that read as well as this. None that even come close to this quality reading and I have read quite a few WSC biographies and his books (he wrote roughly 50). I first became a Churchill fan when I was working in Lagos, Nigeria as an oil field expatriate in 1980 and there in the airport book store was Winston's autobiography "My Early Life". Nigeria being a former British Colony had a fair amount of symbols and artifacts of the British Empire even then. He wrote it in the 1920's when he was in his early fifties. If you really want to understand WSC you need to read this work because it shows how incredible lucky he was and how he had one heck of a guardian angel who spared him time and again for greater glory later in life. He was in four wars by the time he was 25 including the last calvary charge of the British Empire in the Sudan in 1898. However I digress........back to the last volume of Manchester's work which after decades of being discussed and was thought dead because Manchester had a stroke was thought not able to finish it has now been published finally in the Year of our Lord 2012. This volume begins with the invasion of France by the Germans in May of 1940. The Western allies of Belgium, France and Britain are in a defensive mode and seemingly in a strong position behind the Maginot Line. The allies are confident they are ready mainly; well, because they have more of everything except perhaps aircraft than Germany. They are thinking in WW I terms and this will cost them the Battle of France. Winston has just been appointed Prime Minister on May 10 which is the position he has assiduously sought most of his adult life and when he finally gets hold of the reigns of power it is a complete nightmare. As the Battle of France begins all seems well; but the Germans have a suprise in store for them. It is Manstein's and Guderian's plan (Case Yellow) to fake the main thrust thru Holland in a flanking attack thru the low lands. This is what Ally intelligence predicts Germany will do. Instead the Germans put their strongest attack force with most of the panzers in the Ardennes which is deemed nearly impenetrable. Besides the massive thick woods there is the barrier of the large fast-flowing Meuse river to stop any breakthrough. Everything looks well thru the eyes of the Allies that they are ready for any sort of attack. The Germans though have seen the future and realize that if they can catch the allies unawares and use a secret weapon and better tactics they can break the allies in two. So they fake with a strong attack thru Holland (Army Group B) making it appear to be the main thrust and while the allies surge there they cut thru the Ardennes (Army Group A) to reach the Meuse River which appears to be strongly defended. It is not. The secret weapon is the 88MM gun - a high velocity gun that can penetrate thick concrete gun houses and the defending tanks situated on the opposite side of the river. The Germans use their engineers to quickly build pontoon bridges. Stuka dive bombers are also used to destroy French tanks surging to stop the crossing. The Wermarcht know to mass their panzers while the ally tanks are mostly scattered - another big Ally mistake. The allies are pushed back and scattered from the Meuse, the Wermarcht pours through and panic ensues as the panzers speed towards the Atlantic coast. Fuel needed for the panzers is obtained from French petrol stations. For perhaps 48 hours the Allies have no idea what has happened as they are still focused on Army Group B where they are convinced the main fighting is taking place such is the confusion at the top levels. This is the dire situation that greets WSC in his beginning weeks as the PM in this Vol III. All hell has broken lose and his formidable ally - France has just received a mortal wound and the ally Belgium capitulates. According to WSC later in life he says that one of the biggest shocks of his life was after learning of the German breakthrough thru the Ardennes and the subsequent race to the channel by the same - He asked the French Military Leaders where their major reserves were to counter this breakthough. He was told that there was no such reserve forces to stop the panzers. All of this and more are covered in this wonderful book that has finally been released which covers the years 1940-1965 of the The Last Lion. Highest recommendation; you will not be disappointed. Strongly suggest you buy all three volumes of Manchester's epic historical work and also buy WSC's History of the English Speaking Peoples which won the Pulitzer prize in 1956 and which took WSC 20 years to write when he wasn't leading the British Commonwealth forces against the Axis forces. If there is something that WSC provides as a gift to future generations is that people should study history. Like historian Will Durant, WSC being the prolific student of history came to realize that history keeps repeating itself and that the more he studied history and the further he saw in the past; the further into the future he could see. This is most profound and is something that most people don't understand; WSC came to realize this gradually thru his study of history. That was WSC's special gift - the ability to see the future based on what he knew from the past because he studied it. He wasn't always right and he made many errors but he kept coming back into the arena and he was right on the major issues in defense of his people.

The late Mr. Manchester and his corroborator Mr. Reid have written an exquisitely orthogonal volume: ‘The Last Lion’ encompasses an American perspective on the most British of leaders, a riveting read stretching well past 1000 pages, and not least a treasure trove of fresh scholarship to contribute on perhaps the most important 20th century statesman, not to mention World War II (which comprises nearly all of the work). Simply put, if you think you know everything about the war – much less Mr. Churchill – I implore you to dive in; this is a doorstop, to be sure, but also probably the best non-fiction one I’ve ever tackled. The interweaving of war history with Churchill’s life – to be sure, from 1940 to 1945 they were impossible to separate – illuminates and magnifies both stories and ends up as perhaps the best testament to the subject imaginable: since he was so intimately involved in every aspect of the fight we see perspectives large and small – not to mention all their exhilarating and terrifying consequences. To match this intimacy Churchill’s obvious wartime strengths – boldness, fortitude, even stubbornness – receive full emphasis by the authors while their astounding scholarship matches these traits to (usually) admirable outcomes. Having access to just about anything Churchill ever wrote – not to mention “over 50 exclusive interviews with his friends, family and colleagues in the early ’80s” – Mssrs Manchester and Reid bring plenty of new material to the fore, not all of it complimentary (e.g., Churchill’s family relations, Stalin’s notorious scheming, FDR’s measuring war aims to political advantage). The crispness of these new insights only stands out more starkly against such a familiar backdrop. And even with obvious knowledge of the outcome, I found myself so immersed in the narrative that I truly wondered how in the dark early days of the war (e.g., fall of France, the Blitz) Churchill would rally his holdout nation against the seemingly invincible might of the Nazis. But rally he certainly does – and for a man in his mid-sixties at the war’s outbreak, Mr. Churchill’s uncanny energy and foresight are almost continually in evidence; obvious examples include his (largely ignored) warnings about Stalin’s ambitions in Eastern Europe (climaxed in his “Iron Curtain” speech, in Westminster, Missouri of all places), but lesser known ones (e.g., wholeheartedly pushing an *offensive* strategy in the eastern Mediterranean while Dunkirk was still in the headlines) arise at tantalizing intervals. Even the authors seem to betray some surprise at what they found, though in the context of the overall narrative it all makes perfect sense. The only demerit I could find other commenters have probably covered: the advantages listed above obscure the simple fact that this is more war history than biography; no doubt a few wanting more dirt on Mr. Churchill (not to mention his eccentric clan) and details on his postwar years will be disappointed. But no matter: this is the final word on a great leader, with the scope and detail to match his outsized accomplishments. Anyone with even a passing interest in the war, Churchill, British/European history, or even individual battles and military tactics I expect will come away uniquely satisfied.

Ce 3ème & ultime volume finalise la somme -unique sur le sujet- qu'avait entreprise William Manchester aujourd'hui disparu ; ce grâce à Paul Reid que s'était choisi l'auteur lui-même pour terminer son travail. L'édition anglaise de cette biographie est donc désormais achevée. Elle est du reste disponible dans un beau coffret regroupant les 3 tomes. Et pour le peu que j'en ai déjà parcouru, on ne voit pas que cet ouvrage a été rédigé à 2 mains ; enfin presque... Ce n'est que refermant le livre, et connaissant bien la plume de Manchester, que l'on peut douter. Les archives sont les siennes mais le traitement et l'expression ne me paraissent pas de sa facture. Or vu le contexte, Reid a fait un excellent travail. Manchester se distinguait par un coup de main, un "knack", particulier qui fit tout son succès : aller au tréfonds de son sujet d'étude pour fusionner la personnalité étudiée avec le cours des évènements en révélant des aspects historiques inédits mais vérifiés. Dans ce livre, ce sont les mémoires de Brooke ou le "flow" d'autres sources - tels Ismay, Colville etc. - qui alimentent le gisement. Dans cet ouvrage, vous verrez donc un traitement original du conflit mondial, du débarquement comme de l'entrée en lice des USA. Mais à mon sens, la personnalité de Winston - si abondamment présente dans les 2 précédents volumes - n'a pas été traitée pareillement. Elle est ici en retrait et il y manque ce que "Bill" aurait lui-même développé. Par exemple, il est inimaginable que Manchester n'ait pas dit plus sur le lien Winston/Monty et que l'auteur d'un fabuleux Mc Arthur ai eu si peu à dire ici sur celui-ci. Pour conclure, ce Manchester "putatif" même écrit uniquement par son co-auteur est bien meilleur qu'un authentique Manchester comme par exemple son écrit sur Rockefeller... Reste à savoir désormais si les éditions R.L. assumeront la traduction car cela fait maintenant 30 ans que le premier volume paraissait. On peut en douter, notamment vu ce qui est dit sur le Général de Gaulle, la France et leur place... Le savoir est instructif car il est rare d'aborder ces aspects par l'optique étrangère. Cette édition originale est en anglais sous couverture rigide ; ce dont était dépourvue l'édition fexible rouge de R.L. Elle comprend deux cahiers de photos.

Bellissimo, conoscevo i precedenti capitoli di William Manchester; lo standard è rimasto elevato. Peccato non esista ancora una versione in italiano Consigliabile.

Where to start? Simply speaking, "The Last Lion" is one of the five best book I've ever laid my eyes upon. Few man in history had the vision, courage, energy and will of Winston Churchill. Some would say that he was the savior of England during WW2, but make no mistake, he was the savior of the entire Western World. The thing I appreciate the most when I begin a book is to learn something. Well, I learned plenty. I won't disclose what's in it, but "The Last Lion" is a treasure of fascinating facts. In essence, through the authors pens, the reader is treated with Britain's version of the second world war; the fight to repel the German invaders, the struggle to stay alive, the numerous attempts to drag the US into the conflict and so on. The reader will learn through Churchill that WW2 evolved mainly from political concerns and not from military interest. In fact most military decisions were subject to political objectives and NOT with the goal of destroying the Axis army as fast as possible. With the war over, the Cold War started and another fascinating episode of Winston Churchill's life began... In a Century that saw Teddy Rosevelt, JFK, Gandhi, Ronald Reagan, Gorbatchev and Castro, Winston Churchill stands above all.

Outstanding piece of literature ! This book is exceptionally well written , detailed and highly and easily readable. In particular the first 50 pages or so, give the very best overview of Winston Churchill that I have have ever read, anywhere. These first introductory pages are superbly written, and give any reader a short, but highly comprehensive insight into this great man. The book thereafter is in chronological order, starting at his appointment as Prime Minister. As well covering all the many aspects of the progress of the war, the book contains intriguing accounts of the machinations of British politics throughout this hectic period. It regularly surprises the reader with additional "tit bits" about Churchill, his whims and fancies, as well as explaining his many controversial decisions. This really is a comprehensive book. It is part of a trilogy true, but frankly anyone interesed in discovering just what Churchill represented, how he conducted himself, how he dealt with so many controversial issues - and there were dozens and dozens of these during the 6 years of war - should at least read this single volume. It is never dry, never dull, never boring. It entertains, informs and draws admiration for this huge figure of British life, culture and above all, history. Apart from the occasional "Americanism " in the written word - eg.,"railroad" instead of "railway" etc. - this book is without fault. Excellent reading and VERY highly recommended

I read the first 2 volumes and was waiting very much the 3rd one. Now I know the story that it was not written by Manchester who died but Reid and it is in very similar style and very detailed and exciting to read.