About this user
"Identify the side which will win..."
"Intervene sufficiently early in a war so as to make a difference valued highly by new allies, but not so early that undue national effort is required."
"When in serious doubt [about who will win], stay neutral."
This admirable intellect has not one word to say in this chapter about the differences between just war and the other kinds, or about high-toned statesmanship and low politics. His advice on these pages is mere Machiavellianism. His guides for coalition warfare are the obvious, shallow ones of the uncourageous neutrals of 1939 and 1940 and 1941. Gray is a man who really believes in national defense and national power. But there is a principle here: power, shorn of moral force, is a hollow and sometimes even an ugly thing.
That is part of the answer to our question of how Churchill created the great coalition. He gave the world a political and moral vision. The vision was that of the democracies standing up against better armed tyrannies and prevailing with moral force until such time as they could win with material force.
The best illustrations of just how far he would go to make that vision tangible may be his proposals for unifying Britain with France and with the USA. In the wake of the war, and the victory, these proposals for joint citizenship seem odd. In fact, when France was falling in 1940 and the suggestion was first made that the British and French peoples should be joined in common citizenship, it struck Churchill as odd. De Gaulle agreed to it, although he thought it was odd. Yet the reality is that these two created a formal proposal, and within days Churchill got aboard a train in London for a trip to France to finalize the pact of mutual citizenship. But before the train could leave, word came that France had fallen. The idea expired on the spot.
Less well known is a similar gesture Churchill made to the United States three years later. At Harvard in 1943, speaking on the theme of "Anglo American Unity," he raised the prospect that our common tongue might one day develop into a "common citizenship." He did this again at Fulton, in 1946.
Age
36
Country
France
