British Guilt for World War One. From the late 19th century through to 1914, many Britons feared Germany’s growing success in world trade. Some politicians and officials made secret arrangements to weaken Germany by a war. These were hidden even from most Cabinet ministers.
This explains the British government’s odd behaviour during the long crisis after the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne by Serbian terrorists. Russia was ready to go to war to prevent Serbia being punished. France was expected to join in a war against Germany. But it was widely expected that the British Empire would stay neutral. And when Germany asked if Britain would mind much if Germany violated Belgian neutrality, they were given the impression it would not. Only when the war had started was British public opinion persuaded that Britain was now obliged to go to war over the issue.
Incidentally, most Jews were against the war against Germany. At that time, Tsarist Russia was the main anti-Semitic power. Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary had largely accepted Jews as useful, if not exactly equal.
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How Hitler Might Have Had a Victorious Peace. An exerpt from ‘White Knights in Blue-Collar Armour’, imagining how Hitler might have made peace with Britain after the Fall of France.
White Knights in Blue-Collar Armour. How World War Two and the Cold War moved the USA far to the left of what it had been.
Britain’s Purely Imperialist War Against Nazi Germany. Churchill was concerned about saving the British Empire. George Orwell wanted something much less radical than actually emerged: a socialist version of the Empire with Britain still dominant.
Hitler’s English Inspirers. Review of a book that details all of the connection. That it went far beyond the handful of Britons who remained pro-Hitler during World War Two.
Hitler and the Tories. Hitler’s rise would have been impossible if he had not been treated as a normal and sometimes useful politician by a large section of the British Tory Party. A possible ally in the Imperial end-game, in which the main issue was Britain maintaining its status as the world’s number one power.
Raymond Williams in World War Two. How he was a pacifist in the 1930s, but came round to the idea that war was necessary. How he joined the Communist Party, and why he left it.
Churchill and ‘The Few’. He praised the British bombers who were going after targets in Germany, as well as British fighters defending against German bombers. And was intent on repeating the World War One tactic of starving Germany into surrender.
Why Churchill Admired Mussolini. The matters left out by most of his biographers.
How Churchill was Close to Fascism. He developed similar ideas, and his opposition to Hitler was based just on fear of Germany becoming stronger than the British Empire.
British and US Genocide. The standard Anglo view of the two World Wars was used to justify the Second Gulf War. It wasn’t true. Fascism and Hitler flourished for many years with the encouragement of Britain’s National Government. Including details of how mainstream Science Fiction before World War Two was sometime positive or neutral about genocide.
The British Empire, the USA and Hitler. How it was almost by accident that the Anglos became Hitler’s foes
The British Empire and the Fifty Years War. A series of wars including the two World Wars were mostly a failed attempt by Britain to save its global dominance.
More on Fascism and the World Wars.
From two magazines, Problems and Labour Affairs. To subscribe, see the Athol Books website.
Long Revolution 