Paul Addison

Many tributes have been paid to Alan Taylor, including some by old and close friends who knew him very much better than I did. My excuse for adding one more piece is that I would like to explain something of what he meant to younger historians who came within his orbit. Perhaps I shall end up speaking only for myself, but at any rate I can speak from experience as one of his pupils.

Winston Churchill wrote the heroic version of 1940. In the story as he told it the British were redeemed from the sloth and decadence of the Thirties by the catastrophes of Dunkirk and the fall of France. A welling-up of patriotism united all classes in a determination to fight on. By standing alone against Hitler in the summer of 1940, the British ensured that ultimately the war would be won and the evils of Nazism destroyed for ever.

The final volume of Martin Gilbert’s Life opens with Churchill celebrating the defeat of Germany in May 1945. He was 70 years old and completely exhausted. Two months later, he led his party to a shattering defeat at the general election. A lesser mortal would have taken the opportunity of retiring to the backbenches as an elder statesman. But Churchill fought back and carried on for another decade. After six frustrating years as leader of the Opposition, he returned to power as prime minister in 1951. Though disabled for a time by a severe stroke in July 1953, and harassed by colleagues who urged him to go, he struggled on until April 1955.

The latest volume of Martin Gilbert’s Churchill biography is the fifth he has published since taking up the task in 1968. This time he accompanies Churchill on the long march from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour to VE Day. The book has all the strengths and weaknesses of its predecessors. It is a superbly researched chronicle, almost wholly devoid of explicit historical interpretation. It is more like a compilation of source materials, expertly edited with a linking narrative, than a contribution to the many debates that have raged for so long on the subject of Churchill and the Second World War.