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Britain at Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War: 1938-1941
WINNER OF THE HWA NON-FICTION CROWN
A TIMES AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Britain's wartime story has been told many times, but never as cleverly as this.' Dominic Sandbrook
In the bleak first half of the Second World War, Britain stood alone against the Axis forces. Isolated and outmanoeuvred, it seemed as though she might fall at any moment. Only an extraordinary effort of courage - by ordinary men and women - held the line. The Second World War is the defining experience of modern British history, a new Iliad for our own times. But, as Alan Allport reveals in this, the first part of a major new two-volume history, the real story was often very different from the myth that followed it. From the subtle moral calculus of appeasement to the febrile dusts of the Western Desert, Allport interrogates every aspect of the conflict - and exposes its echoes in our own age.
A TIMES AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Britain's wartime story has been told many times, but never as cleverly as this.' Dominic Sandbrook
In the bleak first half of the Second World War, Britain stood alone against the Axis forces. Isolated and outmanoeuvred, it seemed as though she might fall at any moment. Only an extraordinary effort of courage - by ordinary men and women - held the line. The Second World War is the defining experience of modern British history, a new Iliad for our own times. But, as Alan Allport reveals in this, the first part of a major new two-volume history, the real story was often very different from the myth that followed it. From the subtle moral calculus of appeasement to the febrile dusts of the Western Desert, Allport interrogates every aspect of the conflict - and exposes its echoes in our own age.
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First published November 3, 2020
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About the author
Alan Allport
22 books21 followersAlan Allport is a Professor of modern British history at Syracuse University. He previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University. His book Demobbed: Coming Home after the Second World War was published by Yale in 2009 and won the 2010 Longman-History Today Book of the Year Award. In 2015, his book Browned Off and Bloody-Minded: The British Soldier Goes to War 1939-1945 was published by Yale. He is currently working on a two volume history of Britain in the Second World War, the first volume of which, Britain at Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War 1938-1941, was published by Profile (UK) and Knopf (North America) in 2020.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
May 14, 2023
I can't add a lot to some of the fine reviews that GR friends have already posted. The beauty of this book is the author's look at not only the political and military aspects of the time when Britain stood alone against the Nazi threat but also at the attitudes and actions of the British people. They were told to "Keep calm and carry on" and for the most part, they did. But the horrific experiences that they endured made changes in the culture and society which would affect the country in post-war times.
The author spends quite a bit of narrative on Neville Chamberlain and is brutally frank about his shortcomings as a Prime Minister. That is not to say that Chamberlain was a total disaster since he truly believed that he could work with Hitler to bring about an understanding that would prevent a declaration of war. And he had support from the appeasers in his government.......but oh, how wrong they were and Chamberlain's reputation was forever negatively coloured.
There is so much more in this book that could be discussed but then this review would be as long as the book itself. Needless to say, it is very well written, interesting, and factual. I would recommend it to all who are interested in what Britain was facing and how they met the challenge.
The author spends quite a bit of narrative on Neville Chamberlain and is brutally frank about his shortcomings as a Prime Minister. That is not to say that Chamberlain was a total disaster since he truly believed that he could work with Hitler to bring about an understanding that would prevent a declaration of war. And he had support from the appeasers in his government.......but oh, how wrong they were and Chamberlain's reputation was forever negatively coloured.
There is so much more in this book that could be discussed but then this review would be as long as the book itself. Needless to say, it is very well written, interesting, and factual. I would recommend it to all who are interested in what Britain was facing and how they met the challenge.
November 24, 2020
This was really an enjoyable read, describing events of global importance from the ground up, from the roots in British character even as that character is more complicated than it appears in gauzy retrospect.
Allport is fond of rendering more subtle some of the bright lines we repeat in the tight narrative that emerges about the past, for instance his realism about Churchill's willingness to compromise with the Nazis and Chamberlain's realistic options to choose anything other than what he did. Allport is really good at inhabiting the moment as it was rather than sacrificing it to lessons or inspiration for the future.
Allport is fond of rendering more subtle some of the bright lines we repeat in the tight narrative that emerges about the past, for instance his realism about Churchill's willingness to compromise with the Nazis and Chamberlain's realistic options to choose anything other than what he did. Allport is really good at inhabiting the moment as it was rather than sacrificing it to lessons or inspiration for the future.
August 26, 2020
This is a wonderful, very readable, account of Britain at war. This first volume takes us from 1938-1941 and begins with the odd comparison of the British as Hobbits and parallels between those in the Shire and their view of themselves as, ‘charming, absurd, helpless hobbits,’ as Gandalf calls them. Of course, there is always the image of the British muddling through and yet, as Allport says, the country was not as unprepared or gentle as they like to see themselves…
Allport is often very funny and forthright. Chamberlain is described as, ‘vain, mean, casually bigoted, boring, ungrateful, spiteful, obstinate and friendless,’ in a damning sentence, before the author then presents a more balanced picture of a man who has been remembered unkindly by history. Mind you, the British certainly do often present a picture of ‘muddling through,’ and there are several, almost laugh out loud moments, in this book. For example, in 1939, the War Cabinet arrive in Hove for a meeting of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council. Dropped at the Town Hall, they find it locked. Finding a clerk, Lord Halifax is questioned about whether he is really a government official and nothing is sorted until someone recognises the Prime Minister – ‘Chamberlain! Cor blimey!’ Luckily, the French delegation arrived later, by which time, hopefully, a meeting room had been sorted out…
The whole book is a joy. I look forward to reading the next book. If you are interested in WWII history; particularly from a British perspective, then you will love this.
Allport is often very funny and forthright. Chamberlain is described as, ‘vain, mean, casually bigoted, boring, ungrateful, spiteful, obstinate and friendless,’ in a damning sentence, before the author then presents a more balanced picture of a man who has been remembered unkindly by history. Mind you, the British certainly do often present a picture of ‘muddling through,’ and there are several, almost laugh out loud moments, in this book. For example, in 1939, the War Cabinet arrive in Hove for a meeting of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council. Dropped at the Town Hall, they find it locked. Finding a clerk, Lord Halifax is questioned about whether he is really a government official and nothing is sorted until someone recognises the Prime Minister – ‘Chamberlain! Cor blimey!’ Luckily, the French delegation arrived later, by which time, hopefully, a meeting room had been sorted out…
The whole book is a joy. I look forward to reading the next book. If you are interested in WWII history; particularly from a British perspective, then you will love this.
June 27, 2020
This is an unusual history book in that the first chapter deals with a comparison between JRR Tolkien's "Lord Of The Rings" and the structure of British (or more specifically English) society in the 1930's with English people seen as being similar to hobbits - "the close cousins of these artless, introverted and complacent people of the Shire". Various writers perpetuated the myth of "Poor England - leading her free, careless day to day life [...behaving] as though the World was as easy, uncalculating and well meaning as herself".
But, as the author, historian Alan Allport, points out:"the British people who fought and defeated Hitler from 1939 to 1945 were not nearly as innocent as Tolkien's hobbits - nor as unprepared for the viciousness of Total War, nor anything like as nice".
"Britain At Bay" is the first part of a two-volume history of Britain's role in World War II and the opening chapters continue to set the scene in 1930's Britain with details of the Irish Republican Army's 1939 bombing campaign, while Britain's Empire was also changing, marked by civilian unrest and "terrorist" attacks in the Middle East. The aftermath of the First World War saw Britain's aristocracy began to fail and the 1930's witnessed the continued rise of Britain's middle class as a Labour Government was defeated and a Conservative-led Coalition Government took control in the final years of peace.
However, World War II was about to bring not only a transformation of peoples' lives, but also a change in their values. The 1930's saw an embittered middle class whose taxes paid for the bulk of Britain's rearmament programme. The gap in income between them and the working class was narrowing and Conservatives realised that drastic new Government powers would be needed to help win any future war. A war which would usher in "a new kind of egalitarian democracy" in the form of a "People's War".
Back home, the Government had tried to foster a better understanding of the Empire's role, but this failed to make any long lasting impression on the British public, which led to the "myth" that - after the Fall of France in the summer of 1940 - Britain stood alone, a claim which the author dismisses as "pure fiction".
Although most of the Empire's peoples were incapable of defending themselves against the military might of Germany, Italy or Japan, Britain also had Dominions such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa which were provided much needed men and material to help Britain in the fight against the Axis powers.
But, even in the late 1930's Britain's future Prime Minister Winston Churchill regarded Fascists such as Italy's Mussolini and Spain's Franco as some sort of necessary evil and thought Hitler the right man for righting the wrongs of the treaty of Versailles.
Allport points out that, even at this late stage, there was no group of appeasers or one of anti appeasers in British politics and many politicians and public figures conceded that the Germans had "reasonable complaints" about the Versailles settlement. While most were appalled by the Nazis' treatment of their own people, it was felt that this was an internal German matter and there seemed to be many grey areas uniting both camps.
By 1938 and even early 1939, Chamberlain's opponents were definitely not "a harmonious chorus", with Churchill and other anti appeasers as uncertain as anyone else what would happen next.
The famed Munich Conference in September 1938 (one year from the outbreak of World War II) is described as "one of the most slapdash affairs in modern history". It ended with Chamberlain getting Hitler to sign a piece of paper which the former held aloft on his return home the following day. Later that day, he stated: "My good friends, this is the second time that there has come from Germany peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time". As we know, that peace didn't last and in March 1939, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia while the invasion of Poland in September 1939 was due to Chamberlain & Hitler drawing "exactly opposite conclusions from the Sudeten crisis the previous year". Chamberlain thought Hitler would back down from war over Poland. Hitler however felt he had the measure of "the little worms" he had met at Munich and was convinced Britain & France would betray the Poles just as they had betrayed the Czechs. However, although Chamberlain's appeasement tactics failed, they showed that he and the British nation had "gone to every reasonable length to try to prevent conflict with Hitler".
Allport dispels another popular myth - that of Britain's lack of preparation for war - contradicting the argument that Chamberlain failed to improve Britain's military defences in the years before World War II, providing a prodigious list of examples of increased defence spending by the Royal Navy, the RAF and even the British Army, although the latter received less funding than the Navy or air force and this was highlighted during the subsequent battles to save France and smaller nations from German occupation.
The RAF's decision not to support the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) meant that, if the Wehrmacht was successful in taking the Low Countries and Northern France, the Luftwaffe could use air bases there to deliver "an aerial knock-out blow" against Britain. In the aftermath of the disastrous Norwegian campaign, Chamberlain had resigned and Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, although, at the time this was seen by many as a temporary measure and that someone such as Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden would take charge and see Britain through the war.
Just as Churchill took office, the Germans invaded Belgium and within weeks France would sue for peace. Allport dismisses the idea that the French army was incompetent. Like the BEF, it suffered from a lack of promised vehicles and weapons and the inadequate training of many of its soldiers. Despite this a large number of French troops did not surrender until July 4th 1940 - 9 days after the Armistice came into effect. Even Churchill admitted that there had been a "lamentable failure" to support the French during the first year of World War II. However,while the decision to abandon France after Dunkirk "may not have been very noble", under the circumstances it was the right move to make. On the subject of the evacuation of most of the BEF and some French troops, Allport dispels the myth of that rescue being carried out by the Little Ships of Dunkirk, partly because many of those ships were manned by naval officers and naval ratings, but mainly because more than two thirds of those rescued were troops who embarked from the east mole of Dunkirk harbour on to Royal Navy ships. (The "mole" stretched nearly a mile out to sea).
Allport provides an in depth analysis of the Fall of France and Operation Dynamo (the evacuation from Dunkirk) and provides a similar analysis of The Battle Of Britain, the effects of "The Blitz" on London and various British cities, the war in The Mediterranean and the Desert War in North Africa.
He writes of the "historical myth making of 1940" when detailing the horrendous suffering of German and Italian internees, many of whom had fled their countries because they are anti-Fascist or anti-Nazi.
Throughout the book are eyewitness accounts and comments made by civilians and members of the various armed forces along with statements and speeches by politicians and public figures.
An analysis of The Battle Of Britain shows why the RAF was far better prepared than the Luftwaffe and why the latter switched from the bombing of RAF airfields to the attacks on London. There are some eye-opening statistics such as the fact that only 15% of fighter pilots ever shot down another aircraft during that battle.
Just as the Luftwaffe failed to win The Battle of Britain it also failed to have a major effect during its bombing campaigns of 1940 and 1941. A Government estimate showed that the Blitz on London and other cities had caused a 5% loss of national production. As Allport points out: "Such a meagre rate of attrition was never going to win the war for Hitler".
As for the effect of the Blitz on Britain's civilian population we learn that: "Bombing, it turned out, was something you could get used to."
Earlier in the book, Allport states: "Every time, during the Second World War, that the British tried to muddle through with inspired amateurism, the result was a disaster. Every time they accomplished something it was because of careful planning and professional expertise."
This latter statement is proved time and again as Allport challenges some of the existing historical interpretations of events such as Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the war against Germany's U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic and Britain's "special relationship" with the United States of America, which ultimately benefited the latter the most.
Many of the conventional views of the history of World War II are challenged by Allport and this will probably upset some readers, along with fans of Winston Churchill. For example, describing Churchill's dealings with his Service Chiefs, his aide Jock Colville stated that "Churchill fascinated and impressed the Service Chiefs, but he often exasperated them with proposals they deemed unrealistic, or, at their most extravagant, sheer fantasy". We are reminded that Churchill was the first major figure to publish a history of World War II. As stated earlier, Churchill was never a lone voice speaking out against Nazism, but that is what many people still believe to be true. (Not included here but I was reminded that in the run up to the 1945 General Election, which Churchill lost, he declared that Labour "would have to fall back on some form of a Gestapo" to impose socialism on Britain.
My review can't do justice to what is an epic work. This is a fascinating take on the history of Britain during the final days of peace and the opening years of World War II. Time and again I was reminded of the famous quote from director John Ford's Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance "when the legend becomes fact, print the legend". Recommended to all students of history.
My thanks to NetGalley and to Serpent's Tail / Profile Books for an ARC of this book in return for an unbiased review.
But, as the author, historian Alan Allport, points out:"the British people who fought and defeated Hitler from 1939 to 1945 were not nearly as innocent as Tolkien's hobbits - nor as unprepared for the viciousness of Total War, nor anything like as nice".
"Britain At Bay" is the first part of a two-volume history of Britain's role in World War II and the opening chapters continue to set the scene in 1930's Britain with details of the Irish Republican Army's 1939 bombing campaign, while Britain's Empire was also changing, marked by civilian unrest and "terrorist" attacks in the Middle East. The aftermath of the First World War saw Britain's aristocracy began to fail and the 1930's witnessed the continued rise of Britain's middle class as a Labour Government was defeated and a Conservative-led Coalition Government took control in the final years of peace.
However, World War II was about to bring not only a transformation of peoples' lives, but also a change in their values. The 1930's saw an embittered middle class whose taxes paid for the bulk of Britain's rearmament programme. The gap in income between them and the working class was narrowing and Conservatives realised that drastic new Government powers would be needed to help win any future war. A war which would usher in "a new kind of egalitarian democracy" in the form of a "People's War".
Back home, the Government had tried to foster a better understanding of the Empire's role, but this failed to make any long lasting impression on the British public, which led to the "myth" that - after the Fall of France in the summer of 1940 - Britain stood alone, a claim which the author dismisses as "pure fiction".
Although most of the Empire's peoples were incapable of defending themselves against the military might of Germany, Italy or Japan, Britain also had Dominions such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa which were provided much needed men and material to help Britain in the fight against the Axis powers.
But, even in the late 1930's Britain's future Prime Minister Winston Churchill regarded Fascists such as Italy's Mussolini and Spain's Franco as some sort of necessary evil and thought Hitler the right man for righting the wrongs of the treaty of Versailles.
Allport points out that, even at this late stage, there was no group of appeasers or one of anti appeasers in British politics and many politicians and public figures conceded that the Germans had "reasonable complaints" about the Versailles settlement. While most were appalled by the Nazis' treatment of their own people, it was felt that this was an internal German matter and there seemed to be many grey areas uniting both camps.
By 1938 and even early 1939, Chamberlain's opponents were definitely not "a harmonious chorus", with Churchill and other anti appeasers as uncertain as anyone else what would happen next.
The famed Munich Conference in September 1938 (one year from the outbreak of World War II) is described as "one of the most slapdash affairs in modern history". It ended with Chamberlain getting Hitler to sign a piece of paper which the former held aloft on his return home the following day. Later that day, he stated: "My good friends, this is the second time that there has come from Germany peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time". As we know, that peace didn't last and in March 1939, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia while the invasion of Poland in September 1939 was due to Chamberlain & Hitler drawing "exactly opposite conclusions from the Sudeten crisis the previous year". Chamberlain thought Hitler would back down from war over Poland. Hitler however felt he had the measure of "the little worms" he had met at Munich and was convinced Britain & France would betray the Poles just as they had betrayed the Czechs. However, although Chamberlain's appeasement tactics failed, they showed that he and the British nation had "gone to every reasonable length to try to prevent conflict with Hitler".
Allport dispels another popular myth - that of Britain's lack of preparation for war - contradicting the argument that Chamberlain failed to improve Britain's military defences in the years before World War II, providing a prodigious list of examples of increased defence spending by the Royal Navy, the RAF and even the British Army, although the latter received less funding than the Navy or air force and this was highlighted during the subsequent battles to save France and smaller nations from German occupation.
The RAF's decision not to support the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) meant that, if the Wehrmacht was successful in taking the Low Countries and Northern France, the Luftwaffe could use air bases there to deliver "an aerial knock-out blow" against Britain. In the aftermath of the disastrous Norwegian campaign, Chamberlain had resigned and Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, although, at the time this was seen by many as a temporary measure and that someone such as Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden would take charge and see Britain through the war.
Just as Churchill took office, the Germans invaded Belgium and within weeks France would sue for peace. Allport dismisses the idea that the French army was incompetent. Like the BEF, it suffered from a lack of promised vehicles and weapons and the inadequate training of many of its soldiers. Despite this a large number of French troops did not surrender until July 4th 1940 - 9 days after the Armistice came into effect. Even Churchill admitted that there had been a "lamentable failure" to support the French during the first year of World War II. However,while the decision to abandon France after Dunkirk "may not have been very noble", under the circumstances it was the right move to make. On the subject of the evacuation of most of the BEF and some French troops, Allport dispels the myth of that rescue being carried out by the Little Ships of Dunkirk, partly because many of those ships were manned by naval officers and naval ratings, but mainly because more than two thirds of those rescued were troops who embarked from the east mole of Dunkirk harbour on to Royal Navy ships. (The "mole" stretched nearly a mile out to sea).
Allport provides an in depth analysis of the Fall of France and Operation Dynamo (the evacuation from Dunkirk) and provides a similar analysis of The Battle Of Britain, the effects of "The Blitz" on London and various British cities, the war in The Mediterranean and the Desert War in North Africa.
He writes of the "historical myth making of 1940" when detailing the horrendous suffering of German and Italian internees, many of whom had fled their countries because they are anti-Fascist or anti-Nazi.
Throughout the book are eyewitness accounts and comments made by civilians and members of the various armed forces along with statements and speeches by politicians and public figures.
An analysis of The Battle Of Britain shows why the RAF was far better prepared than the Luftwaffe and why the latter switched from the bombing of RAF airfields to the attacks on London. There are some eye-opening statistics such as the fact that only 15% of fighter pilots ever shot down another aircraft during that battle.
Just as the Luftwaffe failed to win The Battle of Britain it also failed to have a major effect during its bombing campaigns of 1940 and 1941. A Government estimate showed that the Blitz on London and other cities had caused a 5% loss of national production. As Allport points out: "Such a meagre rate of attrition was never going to win the war for Hitler".
As for the effect of the Blitz on Britain's civilian population we learn that: "Bombing, it turned out, was something you could get used to."
Earlier in the book, Allport states: "Every time, during the Second World War, that the British tried to muddle through with inspired amateurism, the result was a disaster. Every time they accomplished something it was because of careful planning and professional expertise."
This latter statement is proved time and again as Allport challenges some of the existing historical interpretations of events such as Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the war against Germany's U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic and Britain's "special relationship" with the United States of America, which ultimately benefited the latter the most.
Many of the conventional views of the history of World War II are challenged by Allport and this will probably upset some readers, along with fans of Winston Churchill. For example, describing Churchill's dealings with his Service Chiefs, his aide Jock Colville stated that "Churchill fascinated and impressed the Service Chiefs, but he often exasperated them with proposals they deemed unrealistic, or, at their most extravagant, sheer fantasy". We are reminded that Churchill was the first major figure to publish a history of World War II. As stated earlier, Churchill was never a lone voice speaking out against Nazism, but that is what many people still believe to be true. (Not included here but I was reminded that in the run up to the 1945 General Election, which Churchill lost, he declared that Labour "would have to fall back on some form of a Gestapo" to impose socialism on Britain.
My review can't do justice to what is an epic work. This is a fascinating take on the history of Britain during the final days of peace and the opening years of World War II. Time and again I was reminded of the famous quote from director John Ford's Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance "when the legend becomes fact, print the legend". Recommended to all students of history.
My thanks to NetGalley and to Serpent's Tail / Profile Books for an ARC of this book in return for an unbiased review.
September 24, 2020
This sets out to challenge all the comforting myths that we have adopted about the Britain in the Second World War but it is not a contrarian revision. Instead it is a scholarly attempt to put things in the context of their time and reintroduce some significant episodes that have been crowded out of our collective conciseness by events that more conveniently fit the narrative that has been constructed. Churchill was not universally recognized as a great statesman when he assumed the premiership, for example. In fact he was the Boris Johnson of his day, just as Boris is not the Churchill of today.
I was worried when he strayed into the subject of Alan Turing and Bletchley Park that a cherished icon was to be smashed, but while saying that the code breaking was not the sole reason the British had an advantage over the Germans (as suggested in a recent appalling film) he places it in context of other factors that were influencing the Atlantic battle.
This book takes us up to the Japanese entry into the war. I’m looking forward to the next volume.
I was worried when he strayed into the subject of Alan Turing and Bletchley Park that a cherished icon was to be smashed, but while saying that the code breaking was not the sole reason the British had an advantage over the Germans (as suggested in a recent appalling film) he places it in context of other factors that were influencing the Atlantic battle.
This book takes us up to the Japanese entry into the war. I’m looking forward to the next volume.
June 24, 2020
This is an unusual history book in that the first chapter deals with a comparison between JRR Tolkien's "Lord Of The Rings" and the structure of British (or more specifically English) society in the 1930's with English people seen as being similar to hobbits - "the close cousins of these artless, introverted and complacent people of the Shire". Various writers perpetuated the myth of "Poor England - leading her free, careless day to day life [...behaving] as though the World was as easy, uncalculating and well meaning as herself".
But, as the author, historian Alan Allport, points out:"the British people who fought and defeated Hitler from 1939 to 1945 were not nearly as innocent as Tolkien's hobbits - nor as unprepared for the viciousness of Total War, nor anything like as nice".
"Britain At Bay" is the first part of a two-volume history of Britain's role in World War II and the opening chapters continue to set the scene in 1930's Britain with details of the Irish Republican Army's 1939 bombing campaign, while Britain's Empire was also changing, marked by civilian unrest and "terrorist" attacks in the Middle East. The aftermath of the First World War saw Britain's aristocracy began to fail and the 1930's witnessed the continued rise of Britain's middle class as a Labour Government was defeated and a Conservative-led Coalition Government took control in the final years of peace.
However, World War II was about to bring not only a transformation of peoples' lives, but also a change in their values. The 1930's saw an embittered middle class whose taxes paid for the bulk of Britain's rearmament programme. The gap in income between them and the working class was narrowing and Conservatives realised that drastic new Government powers would be needed to help win any future war. A war which would usher in "a new kind of egalitarian democracy" in the form of a "People's War".
Back home, the Government had tried to foster a better understanding of the Empire's role, but this failed to make any long lasting impression on the British public, which led to the "myth" that - after the Fall of France in the summer of 1940 - Britain stood alone, a claim which the author dismisses as "pure fiction".
Although most of the Empire's peoples were incapable of defending themselves against the military might of Germany, Italy or Japan, Britain also had Dominions such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa which were provided much needed men and material to help Britain in the fight against the Axis powers.
But, even in the late 1930's Britain's future Prime Minister Winston Churchill regarded Fascists such as Italy's Mussolini and Spain's Franco as some sort of necessary evil and thought Hitler the right man for righting the wrongs of the treaty of Versailles.
Allport points out that, even at this late stage, there was no group of appeasers or one of anti appeasers in British politics and many politicians and public figures conceded that the Germans had "reasonable complaints" about the Versailles settlement. While most were appalled by the Nazis' treatment of their own people, it was felt that this was an internal German matter and there seemed to be many grey areas uniting both camps.
By 1938 and even early 1939, Chamberlain's opponents were definitely not "a harmonious chorus", with Churchill and other anti appeasers as uncertain as anyone else what would happen next.
The famed Munich Conference in September 1938 (one year from the outbreak of World War II) is described as "one of the most slapdash affairs in modern history". It ended with Chamberlain getting Hitler to sign a piece of paper which the former held aloft on his return home the following day. Later that day, he stated: "My good friends, this is the second time that there has come from Germany peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time". As we know, that peace didn't last and in March 1939, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia while the invasion of Poland in September 1939 was due to Chamberlain & Hitler drawing "exactly opposite conclusions from the Sudeten crisis the previous year". Chamberlain thought Hitler would back down from war over Poland. Hitler however felt he had the measure of "the little worms" he had met at Munich and was convinced Britain & France would betray the Poles just as they had betrayed the Czechs. However, although Chamberlain's appeasement tactics failed, they showed that he and the British nation had "gone to every reasonable length to try to prevent conflict with Hitler".
Allport dispels another popular myth - that of Britain's lack of preparation for war - contradicting the argument that Chamberlain failed to improve Britain's military defences in the years before World War II, providing a prodigious list of examples of increased defence spending by the Royal Navy, the RAF and even the British Army, although the latter received less funding than the Navy of air force and this was highlighted during the subsequent battles to save France and smaller nations from German occupation.
The RAF's decision not to support the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) meant that, if the Wehrmacht was successful in taking the Low Countries and Northern France, the Luftwaffe could use air bases there to deliver "an aerial knock-out blow" against Britain. In the aftermath of the disastrous Norwegian campaign, Chamberlain had resigned and Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, although, at the time this was seen by many as a temporary measure and that someone such as Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden would take charge and see Britain through the war.
Just as Churchill took office, the Germans invaded Belgium and within weeks France would sue for peace. Allport dismisses the idea that the French army was incompetent. Like the BEF, it suffered from a lack of promised vehicles and weapons and the inadequate training of many of its soldiers. Despite this a large number of French troops did not surrender until July 4th 1940 - 9 days after the Armistice came into effect. Eben Churchill admitted that there had been a "lamentable failure" to support the French during the first year of World War II. However,while the decision to abandon France after Dunkirk "may not have been very noble", under the circumstances it was the right move to make. On the subject of the evacuation of most of the BEF and some French troops, Allport dispels the myth of that rescue being carried out by the Little Ships of Dunkirk, partly because many of those ships were manned by naval officers and naval ratings, but mainly because more than two thirds of those rescued were troops who embarked from the east mole of Dunkirk harbour on to Royal Navy ships. (The "mole" stretched nearly a mile out to sea).
Allport provides an in depth analysis of the Fall of France and Operation Dynamo (the evacuation from Dunkirk) and provides a similar analysis of The Battle Of Britain, the effects of "The Blitz" on London and various British cities, the war in The Mediterranean and the Desert War in North Africa.
He writes of the "historical myth making of 1940" when detailing the horrendous suffering of German and Italian internees, many of whom had fled their countries because they are anti-Fascist or anti-Nazi.
Throughout the book are eyewitness accounts and comments made by civilians and members of the various armed forces along with statements and speeches by politicians and public figures.
An analysis of The Battle Of Britain shows why the RAF was far better prepared than the Luftwaffe and why the latter switched from the bombing of RAF airfields to the attacks on London. There are some eye-opening statistics such as the fact that only 15% of fighter pilots ever shot down another aircraft during that battle.
Just as the Luftwaffe failed to win The Battle of Britain it also failed to have a major effect during its bombing campaigns of 1940 and 1941. A Government estimate showed that the Blitz on London and other cities had caused a 5% loss of national production. As Allport points out: "Such a meagre rate of attrition was never going to win the war for Hitler".
As for the effect of the Blitz on Britain's civilian population we learn that: "Bombing, it turned out, was something you could get used to."
Earlier in the book, Allport states: "Every time, during the Second World War, that the British tried to muddle through with inspired amateurism, the result was a disaster. Every time they accomplished something it was because of careful planning and professional expertise."
This latter statement is proved time and again as Allport challenges some of the existing historical interpretations of events such as Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the war against Germany's U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic and Britain's "special relationship" with the United States of America, which ultimately benefited the latter the most.
Many of the conventional views of the history of World War II are challenged by Allport and this will probably upset some readers, along with fans of Winston Churchill. For example, describing Churchill's dealings with his Service Chiefs, his aide Jock Colville stated that "Churchill fascinated and impressed the Service Chiefs, but he often exasperated them with proposals they deemed unrealistic, or, at their most extravagant, sheer fantasy". We are reminded that Churchill was the first major figure to publish a history of World War II. As stated earlier, Churchill was never a lone voice speaking out against Nazism, but that is what many people still believe to be true. (Not included here but I was reminded that in the run up to the 1945 General Election - which Churchill lost - he declared that Labour "would have to fall back on some form of a Gestapo" to impose socialism on Britain.)
My review can't do justice to what is an epic work. This is a fascinating take on the history of Britain during the final days of peace and the opening years of World War II. Time and again I was reminded of the famous quote from director John Ford's Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance "when the legend becomes fact, print the legend". Recommended to all students of history.
My thanks to NetGalley and to Serpent's Tail / Profile Books for an ARC of this book in return for an unbiased review.
But, as the author, historian Alan Allport, points out:"the British people who fought and defeated Hitler from 1939 to 1945 were not nearly as innocent as Tolkien's hobbits - nor as unprepared for the viciousness of Total War, nor anything like as nice".
"Britain At Bay" is the first part of a two-volume history of Britain's role in World War II and the opening chapters continue to set the scene in 1930's Britain with details of the Irish Republican Army's 1939 bombing campaign, while Britain's Empire was also changing, marked by civilian unrest and "terrorist" attacks in the Middle East. The aftermath of the First World War saw Britain's aristocracy began to fail and the 1930's witnessed the continued rise of Britain's middle class as a Labour Government was defeated and a Conservative-led Coalition Government took control in the final years of peace.
However, World War II was about to bring not only a transformation of peoples' lives, but also a change in their values. The 1930's saw an embittered middle class whose taxes paid for the bulk of Britain's rearmament programme. The gap in income between them and the working class was narrowing and Conservatives realised that drastic new Government powers would be needed to help win any future war. A war which would usher in "a new kind of egalitarian democracy" in the form of a "People's War".
Back home, the Government had tried to foster a better understanding of the Empire's role, but this failed to make any long lasting impression on the British public, which led to the "myth" that - after the Fall of France in the summer of 1940 - Britain stood alone, a claim which the author dismisses as "pure fiction".
Although most of the Empire's peoples were incapable of defending themselves against the military might of Germany, Italy or Japan, Britain also had Dominions such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa which were provided much needed men and material to help Britain in the fight against the Axis powers.
But, even in the late 1930's Britain's future Prime Minister Winston Churchill regarded Fascists such as Italy's Mussolini and Spain's Franco as some sort of necessary evil and thought Hitler the right man for righting the wrongs of the treaty of Versailles.
Allport points out that, even at this late stage, there was no group of appeasers or one of anti appeasers in British politics and many politicians and public figures conceded that the Germans had "reasonable complaints" about the Versailles settlement. While most were appalled by the Nazis' treatment of their own people, it was felt that this was an internal German matter and there seemed to be many grey areas uniting both camps.
By 1938 and even early 1939, Chamberlain's opponents were definitely not "a harmonious chorus", with Churchill and other anti appeasers as uncertain as anyone else what would happen next.
The famed Munich Conference in September 1938 (one year from the outbreak of World War II) is described as "one of the most slapdash affairs in modern history". It ended with Chamberlain getting Hitler to sign a piece of paper which the former held aloft on his return home the following day. Later that day, he stated: "My good friends, this is the second time that there has come from Germany peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time". As we know, that peace didn't last and in March 1939, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia while the invasion of Poland in September 1939 was due to Chamberlain & Hitler drawing "exactly opposite conclusions from the Sudeten crisis the previous year". Chamberlain thought Hitler would back down from war over Poland. Hitler however felt he had the measure of "the little worms" he had met at Munich and was convinced Britain & France would betray the Poles just as they had betrayed the Czechs. However, although Chamberlain's appeasement tactics failed, they showed that he and the British nation had "gone to every reasonable length to try to prevent conflict with Hitler".
Allport dispels another popular myth - that of Britain's lack of preparation for war - contradicting the argument that Chamberlain failed to improve Britain's military defences in the years before World War II, providing a prodigious list of examples of increased defence spending by the Royal Navy, the RAF and even the British Army, although the latter received less funding than the Navy of air force and this was highlighted during the subsequent battles to save France and smaller nations from German occupation.
The RAF's decision not to support the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) meant that, if the Wehrmacht was successful in taking the Low Countries and Northern France, the Luftwaffe could use air bases there to deliver "an aerial knock-out blow" against Britain. In the aftermath of the disastrous Norwegian campaign, Chamberlain had resigned and Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, although, at the time this was seen by many as a temporary measure and that someone such as Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden would take charge and see Britain through the war.
Just as Churchill took office, the Germans invaded Belgium and within weeks France would sue for peace. Allport dismisses the idea that the French army was incompetent. Like the BEF, it suffered from a lack of promised vehicles and weapons and the inadequate training of many of its soldiers. Despite this a large number of French troops did not surrender until July 4th 1940 - 9 days after the Armistice came into effect. Eben Churchill admitted that there had been a "lamentable failure" to support the French during the first year of World War II. However,while the decision to abandon France after Dunkirk "may not have been very noble", under the circumstances it was the right move to make. On the subject of the evacuation of most of the BEF and some French troops, Allport dispels the myth of that rescue being carried out by the Little Ships of Dunkirk, partly because many of those ships were manned by naval officers and naval ratings, but mainly because more than two thirds of those rescued were troops who embarked from the east mole of Dunkirk harbour on to Royal Navy ships. (The "mole" stretched nearly a mile out to sea).
Allport provides an in depth analysis of the Fall of France and Operation Dynamo (the evacuation from Dunkirk) and provides a similar analysis of The Battle Of Britain, the effects of "The Blitz" on London and various British cities, the war in The Mediterranean and the Desert War in North Africa.
He writes of the "historical myth making of 1940" when detailing the horrendous suffering of German and Italian internees, many of whom had fled their countries because they are anti-Fascist or anti-Nazi.
Throughout the book are eyewitness accounts and comments made by civilians and members of the various armed forces along with statements and speeches by politicians and public figures.
An analysis of The Battle Of Britain shows why the RAF was far better prepared than the Luftwaffe and why the latter switched from the bombing of RAF airfields to the attacks on London. There are some eye-opening statistics such as the fact that only 15% of fighter pilots ever shot down another aircraft during that battle.
Just as the Luftwaffe failed to win The Battle of Britain it also failed to have a major effect during its bombing campaigns of 1940 and 1941. A Government estimate showed that the Blitz on London and other cities had caused a 5% loss of national production. As Allport points out: "Such a meagre rate of attrition was never going to win the war for Hitler".
As for the effect of the Blitz on Britain's civilian population we learn that: "Bombing, it turned out, was something you could get used to."
Earlier in the book, Allport states: "Every time, during the Second World War, that the British tried to muddle through with inspired amateurism, the result was a disaster. Every time they accomplished something it was because of careful planning and professional expertise."
This latter statement is proved time and again as Allport challenges some of the existing historical interpretations of events such as Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the war against Germany's U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic and Britain's "special relationship" with the United States of America, which ultimately benefited the latter the most.
Many of the conventional views of the history of World War II are challenged by Allport and this will probably upset some readers, along with fans of Winston Churchill. For example, describing Churchill's dealings with his Service Chiefs, his aide Jock Colville stated that "Churchill fascinated and impressed the Service Chiefs, but he often exasperated them with proposals they deemed unrealistic, or, at their most extravagant, sheer fantasy". We are reminded that Churchill was the first major figure to publish a history of World War II. As stated earlier, Churchill was never a lone voice speaking out against Nazism, but that is what many people still believe to be true. (Not included here but I was reminded that in the run up to the 1945 General Election - which Churchill lost - he declared that Labour "would have to fall back on some form of a Gestapo" to impose socialism on Britain.)
My review can't do justice to what is an epic work. This is a fascinating take on the history of Britain during the final days of peace and the opening years of World War II. Time and again I was reminded of the famous quote from director John Ford's Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance "when the legend becomes fact, print the legend". Recommended to all students of history.
My thanks to NetGalley and to Serpent's Tail / Profile Books for an ARC of this book in return for an unbiased review.
November 26, 2025
sorry ich liebe einfach Geschichtsbücher und das hier ist wahnsinnig interessant, räumt mit vielen Mythen auf, ist nah an Menschen dran, gut erzählt auch wenn die Ereignisse bekannt sind, und ehrlich gesagt bin ich auf diese Weise auch einfach immer noch 13 und lerne gerne Dinge über den zweiten Weltkrieg nur diesmal nicht auf N24.
July 13, 2023
4.5 stars, marked up by Goodreads to five.
The author approaches the subject from a fresh point of view and does not hesitate to offer different conclusions from those which often are considered "settled." He presents much of the same evidence that we've seen before but then offers MORE evidence and different interpretations to buttress his conclusions.
This book has an extensive bibliography — almost daunting, one might say. I’m a big fan of adding to my “to-read” list after reading a really good book, but this is like drinking from the proverbial fire hose. Tons of primary sources and tons of recent scholarship — and Allport makes good use of all.
The early portion of the book sets the stage for the main discussion, developing the "character" of Great Britain as it approaches WW II. When he gets into the decisions of Chamberlain and other pre-war and early-war leaders, the author provides context showing why those decisions were made, reasons why what appears totally wrong in hindsight may have been reasonable at the time. He is an "explainer," not an apologist. See my progress notes for specific examples.
Summary: lots of "myth-busting" here.
The author approaches the subject from a fresh point of view and does not hesitate to offer different conclusions from those which often are considered "settled." He presents much of the same evidence that we've seen before but then offers MORE evidence and different interpretations to buttress his conclusions.
This book has an extensive bibliography — almost daunting, one might say. I’m a big fan of adding to my “to-read” list after reading a really good book, but this is like drinking from the proverbial fire hose. Tons of primary sources and tons of recent scholarship — and Allport makes good use of all.
The early portion of the book sets the stage for the main discussion, developing the "character" of Great Britain as it approaches WW II. When he gets into the decisions of Chamberlain and other pre-war and early-war leaders, the author provides context showing why those decisions were made, reasons why what appears totally wrong in hindsight may have been reasonable at the time. He is an "explainer," not an apologist. See my progress notes for specific examples.
Summary: lots of "myth-busting" here.
March 13, 2021
Erudite blockbuster that sets straight many common misconceptions about WW2 as it unfolded from a British perspective early in the conflict. The rank stupidity of Hitler--not the foresight and efficiency of British warfighting-- eventually ensured a Nazi loss, along with American intervention. Predictable as early as June 1941 with the stunningly self-destructive operation Barbarossa, there was no hope for the Wehrmacht after that due to the massively debilitating psychopathology of Hitler.
January 12, 2021
A portrait of Britain during first four years of World War II. Allport covers military and sociological history; an excellent book.
Read
August 30, 2025I received a free copy of this book. The following review is of my own thoughts, and has not been influenced by the author, the publisher or by NetGalley.
This one was extremely surprising. I didn't think that I would fall in love with this book; with the same fierceness of enjoyment as the books written by James Holland. Alan Allport, through this audiobook alone, has made me seek out if he had any other books. The sequel to this book (Advance Britannia: How the Second World War Was Won 1942-1945) is coming out in on the 25th of November, and I didn't even have to think. I've pre-ordered it on audiobook, and have asked for the physical copy as my Christmas present this year.
The narrator (James Langton) definitely enhances this book, but the writing of Alan Allport is more than enough to make this a book that you don't want to put down. I'd sit down, or go out on a walk, and tell myself I only had about an hour before I had to do something else. Yet, over two hours later, I'd still be listening, still be so enamoured by the story of various people during the War, that I wouldn't want to click that button to stop the audiobook.
That is what one of the greatest strengths of this book. The various people mentioned in it. Everyone is given a voice, even if it's only a snippet of their lives. There is the major sweep of the world before World War II, and then during the war itself, but interspersed is information that I never knew. Information that I had never thought of. He's not only writing of the English people, but also by the people that are affected by the English people. The various countries under the rule of Empire Britannia: Indie, Northern Ireland, etc. I don't remember any other book,, writing about how Britain was affected by World War II, that pulled in how the countries still controlled by the British Empire, and the ones who had won their independence, were thrown into the war as well. I can recall mentions of how, during the war, these countries committed troops to fighting the Axis, but not an in-depth look into how entangled they still were with Britain. Alan Allport's decision to begin this book at 1938, gives a fantastic background into what the world was like before the War. How Britain was like, before it got pulled into the War.
The author manages a brilliant balance of why Britain got involved in the war, and how. He also doesn't shy away from showing the faults of the country. Of how the politicians messed up, but not annihilating them in the process. He makes these people well-rounded, not exactly apologising for their faults but showing why they came to the conclusion they did. Chamberlain, while making some of the stupidest decisions considering Hitler, did have similar views to many others within the British government due to problems at home, and also views that there were other areas of the world that needed more immediate attention. British interests that were being threatned by other countries, such as in Asia.
I'd highly recommend this book. Yes, it's quite a long one but it is worth it. I've found a new history writer that I love.
Please place this on your TBR pile. I think you would be pleasantly surprised at how 'smooth' and 'easy' this book is, whether you are reading or listening to it. Alan Allport has taken a difficult subject, and made it not only accessible, but also portrayed it from a different angle.
5 Stars.
This one was extremely surprising. I didn't think that I would fall in love with this book; with the same fierceness of enjoyment as the books written by James Holland. Alan Allport, through this audiobook alone, has made me seek out if he had any other books. The sequel to this book (Advance Britannia: How the Second World War Was Won 1942-1945) is coming out in on the 25th of November, and I didn't even have to think. I've pre-ordered it on audiobook, and have asked for the physical copy as my Christmas present this year.
The narrator (James Langton) definitely enhances this book, but the writing of Alan Allport is more than enough to make this a book that you don't want to put down. I'd sit down, or go out on a walk, and tell myself I only had about an hour before I had to do something else. Yet, over two hours later, I'd still be listening, still be so enamoured by the story of various people during the War, that I wouldn't want to click that button to stop the audiobook.
That is what one of the greatest strengths of this book. The various people mentioned in it. Everyone is given a voice, even if it's only a snippet of their lives. There is the major sweep of the world before World War II, and then during the war itself, but interspersed is information that I never knew. Information that I had never thought of. He's not only writing of the English people, but also by the people that are affected by the English people. The various countries under the rule of Empire Britannia: Indie, Northern Ireland, etc. I don't remember any other book,, writing about how Britain was affected by World War II, that pulled in how the countries still controlled by the British Empire, and the ones who had won their independence, were thrown into the war as well. I can recall mentions of how, during the war, these countries committed troops to fighting the Axis, but not an in-depth look into how entangled they still were with Britain. Alan Allport's decision to begin this book at 1938, gives a fantastic background into what the world was like before the War. How Britain was like, before it got pulled into the War.
The author manages a brilliant balance of why Britain got involved in the war, and how. He also doesn't shy away from showing the faults of the country. Of how the politicians messed up, but not annihilating them in the process. He makes these people well-rounded, not exactly apologising for their faults but showing why they came to the conclusion they did. Chamberlain, while making some of the stupidest decisions considering Hitler, did have similar views to many others within the British government due to problems at home, and also views that there were other areas of the world that needed more immediate attention. British interests that were being threatned by other countries, such as in Asia.
I'd highly recommend this book. Yes, it's quite a long one but it is worth it. I've found a new history writer that I love.
Please place this on your TBR pile. I think you would be pleasantly surprised at how 'smooth' and 'easy' this book is, whether you are reading or listening to it. Alan Allport has taken a difficult subject, and made it not only accessible, but also portrayed it from a different angle.
5 Stars.
February 20, 2022
As an aficionado, for decades, of books about WW II, and Winston Churchill and Britain, I found “Britain at Bay” to be both marvelous and fascinating. The story takes Britain from 1938 to near the end of 1941, providing rare insights that I have found in no other pages.
His portrait of Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister for much of this period, is a fine example. He calls Chamberlain a “difficult person to like,” and spends pages disparaging the man and his actions. Then he retells the same story, marshaling facts that displayed the harsh realities facing Chamberlain, and how those facts affected the decisions that he made. I wasn’t totally convinced, but I had a better understanding of the man and his actions.
As the consumer of many books by and about Churchill, including “The Gathering Storm,” Churchill’s history of this period, which I read (twice), I thought that I had a good understanding of the history of this period. Alan Allport’s narrative goes from Big Picture descriptions of the course of the military actions to insights of the Home Front’s own travails. His portrayal of Winston is not fawning, but shows the man’s weaknesses as well as his strengths.
I look forward with anticipation to the sequel.
His portrait of Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister for much of this period, is a fine example. He calls Chamberlain a “difficult person to like,” and spends pages disparaging the man and his actions. Then he retells the same story, marshaling facts that displayed the harsh realities facing Chamberlain, and how those facts affected the decisions that he made. I wasn’t totally convinced, but I had a better understanding of the man and his actions.
As the consumer of many books by and about Churchill, including “The Gathering Storm,” Churchill’s history of this period, which I read (twice), I thought that I had a good understanding of the history of this period. Alan Allport’s narrative goes from Big Picture descriptions of the course of the military actions to insights of the Home Front’s own travails. His portrayal of Winston is not fawning, but shows the man’s weaknesses as well as his strengths.
I look forward with anticipation to the sequel.
March 15, 2025
What I really really wanted was a book about Britain in 1938, and as always I very much wanted to focus on ordinary people living ordinary lives. There’s a little bit of that in this book. In the final chapter, there’s a poignant diary entry of someone who saw 1941 as a truly momentous year – but not because of anything that happened in the global conflict. But because he fell in love.
I’m steeped in the period at the moment because of the current writing project, so I was happy to read through this. I find all history books very interesting in terms of what they’re not about. Sometimes you have to read between the lines and understand the context. When a book is published is just as important as the period it is supposed to be about. After all, there are gazillions of histories of the second world war, so why this one? Alan Allport is a British-born historian who is currently teaching in enemy territory (Syracuse University, New York), but we won’t hold that against him. I feel like teaching in the USA at the moment is very much like teaching in Berlin in 1938, however.
Published in 2020, this is clearly meant to be the first of a multi-volume history of the second world war. It takes us from the Munich crisis of September 1938 to the moment in September 1941 when the Japanese were just about deciding to attack the Americans. Rather neatly, then, this covers the beginning bits of the war, the “Britain Alone” bits (which were no such thing). But what is there to distinguish this book from so many others?
I think the answer lies in the phrase, “Well, actually…” which has been the beginning of many a pub and internet argument. Because what you won’t get in this book are straight retellings of all the things you think you know about WW2, which I suppose you could categorise as national myths that fed into the Brexit narrative (and still do), and which are on the same level of falsehood as the Serbian myth about the Battle of Kosovo etc.
So a lot of this is deliberately counter to the stuff I grew up being told. I mean, the Daily Express type “Britain stood alone” nonsense is hopefully not believed by many these days, but what about the following?
The Phoney War
Dunkirk
The Battle of Britain
The Blitz
Bomber Command
All of those ideas lurk in the background of this book, the kind of background noise that it is in an argument with. Now, I’m *quite* well educated, but I had failed to ever learn that the French saw Dunkirk in particular as a massive betrayal and abandonment, leaving them no option other than to surrender. In fact, tens of thousands of French troops were almost left behind on the Dunkirk beaches by British ships that refused, at first, to take them on. I guess that’s just a question of perspective. But I also had no idea that Dunkirk wasn’t even the last great evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the early summer of 1940. Just three weeks later, more tens of thousands of British troops had to be rescued from further down the coast.
I remember, at school age, being told quite clearly by someone that the British had an advantage in the war because we had radar and the Germans didn’t. I never even gave this idea the moment’s thought it would take to realise that radar can’t have been a big secret, because the pylons were all too visible. Of course the Germans had radar. But it was the telephone system that was more effective in co-ordinating our air defences. And as to the real effectiveness of those – well. Turns out. Pilots exaggerating their achievements in the air? Check. Multiple pilots reporting that they’d shot down the same plane, which was then counted several times in the “kill” statistics? Check. Neither side ever really knowing how many planes the other side had? Check.
The well, actually aspect of things like the Battle of Britain and the Blitz can be a little grating. Sometimes, when you read about incompetence and failure, you wonder how the allies could possibly have won at all. But there was incompetence on both sides. Far from being the incredible strategist and war leader he was reputed to be, Hitler made loads of unforced errors, as did Göring. The “killer blow” that was widely expected in 1938 just didn’t arrive. Gas masks were issued, but there were no gas attacks. They hammered Coventry, but then they left it alone. They blew up some airfields but then left them alone. They bombarded London for months on end, and then didn’t. So Britain survived, just, because no killer blow was ever really struck, no plan was ever followed through.
As to the RAF bombing the other side, well… actually. Again, pilots tended to report that they’d destroyed targets which turned out, when photographed from the air later, were largely left intact. The shameful story here is that they ended up just indiscriminately bombing civilians in cities because it was easier than trying to hit an oil refinery. By the end of 1941, when this book stops, they still hadn’t got anything like an effective aiming mechanism, and were more or less where they were when the war began:
"Bomber Command was not trained or equipped either to penetrate into enemy territory by day or to find its target areas let alone its targets by night. The only available bombsight available to it was little different from models used in the first world war. Navigation in enemy airspace remained a matter of looking out of the cockpit window. Early bombing trials suggested that perhaps three out of every hundred bombs dropped in daylight would hit their targets. At night, accuracy would presumably be far worse. Britain’s bombers in September 1939 were too small, underpowered and underarmed to present any kind of serious danger to German strategic targets."
And so on. As I said, it’s remarkable we won at all, but the remarkability isn’t down to our national character. It’s often down to pure dumb luck, stumbling around in the dark. As to the Blitz spirit so beloved of right-wing bores, well. A good two million people left London when the bombing started. In other words, the people who were likely to panic and run away did in fact run away. The people who remained were possibly cooler heads, but they were also people who didn’t feel they had much choice in the matter. Were they all down the London Underground singing Vera Lynn songs? Again, not really. About 45% of people just didn’t bother going to shelters.
One little sketch gives some idea of the true nature of the British character. In September 1939, after all the months of build-up, after the government leaflets, the issuing of gas masks, the drills and tests, the public information films and Pathé newsreels, there was an air raid test about 15 minutes after Chamblerain spoke to the nation. And the overwhelming response from the public was… confusion. Because, of course, very few people had paid a blind bit of attention to all the information pamphlets. Nobody knew what to do, where to go, nor even if the siren they heard was the warning or the all clear. The British public in 2025 remains as confused as ever, I think. That’s your Blitz spirit.
None of which is to say that there weren’t heavy losses, sacrifices, and hardships. The sheer number of ships sunk and planes shot down boggles the mind. The images of burning warehouses full of sugar and tea and essential supplies like rubber and grains make your heart hurt. The colossal waste of lives and matériel was simply incredible.
Anyway, good book. The only truly boring bit was the chapter about Lend Lease. The rest of it feels like a necessary counterbalance to all the Faragiste nonsense we’ve been putting up with for so long.
I’m steeped in the period at the moment because of the current writing project, so I was happy to read through this. I find all history books very interesting in terms of what they’re not about. Sometimes you have to read between the lines and understand the context. When a book is published is just as important as the period it is supposed to be about. After all, there are gazillions of histories of the second world war, so why this one? Alan Allport is a British-born historian who is currently teaching in enemy territory (Syracuse University, New York), but we won’t hold that against him. I feel like teaching in the USA at the moment is very much like teaching in Berlin in 1938, however.
Published in 2020, this is clearly meant to be the first of a multi-volume history of the second world war. It takes us from the Munich crisis of September 1938 to the moment in September 1941 when the Japanese were just about deciding to attack the Americans. Rather neatly, then, this covers the beginning bits of the war, the “Britain Alone” bits (which were no such thing). But what is there to distinguish this book from so many others?
I think the answer lies in the phrase, “Well, actually…” which has been the beginning of many a pub and internet argument. Because what you won’t get in this book are straight retellings of all the things you think you know about WW2, which I suppose you could categorise as national myths that fed into the Brexit narrative (and still do), and which are on the same level of falsehood as the Serbian myth about the Battle of Kosovo etc.
So a lot of this is deliberately counter to the stuff I grew up being told. I mean, the Daily Express type “Britain stood alone” nonsense is hopefully not believed by many these days, but what about the following?
The Phoney War
Dunkirk
The Battle of Britain
The Blitz
Bomber Command
All of those ideas lurk in the background of this book, the kind of background noise that it is in an argument with. Now, I’m *quite* well educated, but I had failed to ever learn that the French saw Dunkirk in particular as a massive betrayal and abandonment, leaving them no option other than to surrender. In fact, tens of thousands of French troops were almost left behind on the Dunkirk beaches by British ships that refused, at first, to take them on. I guess that’s just a question of perspective. But I also had no idea that Dunkirk wasn’t even the last great evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the early summer of 1940. Just three weeks later, more tens of thousands of British troops had to be rescued from further down the coast.
I remember, at school age, being told quite clearly by someone that the British had an advantage in the war because we had radar and the Germans didn’t. I never even gave this idea the moment’s thought it would take to realise that radar can’t have been a big secret, because the pylons were all too visible. Of course the Germans had radar. But it was the telephone system that was more effective in co-ordinating our air defences. And as to the real effectiveness of those – well. Turns out. Pilots exaggerating their achievements in the air? Check. Multiple pilots reporting that they’d shot down the same plane, which was then counted several times in the “kill” statistics? Check. Neither side ever really knowing how many planes the other side had? Check.
The well, actually aspect of things like the Battle of Britain and the Blitz can be a little grating. Sometimes, when you read about incompetence and failure, you wonder how the allies could possibly have won at all. But there was incompetence on both sides. Far from being the incredible strategist and war leader he was reputed to be, Hitler made loads of unforced errors, as did Göring. The “killer blow” that was widely expected in 1938 just didn’t arrive. Gas masks were issued, but there were no gas attacks. They hammered Coventry, but then they left it alone. They blew up some airfields but then left them alone. They bombarded London for months on end, and then didn’t. So Britain survived, just, because no killer blow was ever really struck, no plan was ever followed through.
As to the RAF bombing the other side, well… actually. Again, pilots tended to report that they’d destroyed targets which turned out, when photographed from the air later, were largely left intact. The shameful story here is that they ended up just indiscriminately bombing civilians in cities because it was easier than trying to hit an oil refinery. By the end of 1941, when this book stops, they still hadn’t got anything like an effective aiming mechanism, and were more or less where they were when the war began:
"Bomber Command was not trained or equipped either to penetrate into enemy territory by day or to find its target areas let alone its targets by night. The only available bombsight available to it was little different from models used in the first world war. Navigation in enemy airspace remained a matter of looking out of the cockpit window. Early bombing trials suggested that perhaps three out of every hundred bombs dropped in daylight would hit their targets. At night, accuracy would presumably be far worse. Britain’s bombers in September 1939 were too small, underpowered and underarmed to present any kind of serious danger to German strategic targets."
And so on. As I said, it’s remarkable we won at all, but the remarkability isn’t down to our national character. It’s often down to pure dumb luck, stumbling around in the dark. As to the Blitz spirit so beloved of right-wing bores, well. A good two million people left London when the bombing started. In other words, the people who were likely to panic and run away did in fact run away. The people who remained were possibly cooler heads, but they were also people who didn’t feel they had much choice in the matter. Were they all down the London Underground singing Vera Lynn songs? Again, not really. About 45% of people just didn’t bother going to shelters.
One little sketch gives some idea of the true nature of the British character. In September 1939, after all the months of build-up, after the government leaflets, the issuing of gas masks, the drills and tests, the public information films and Pathé newsreels, there was an air raid test about 15 minutes after Chamblerain spoke to the nation. And the overwhelming response from the public was… confusion. Because, of course, very few people had paid a blind bit of attention to all the information pamphlets. Nobody knew what to do, where to go, nor even if the siren they heard was the warning or the all clear. The British public in 2025 remains as confused as ever, I think. That’s your Blitz spirit.
None of which is to say that there weren’t heavy losses, sacrifices, and hardships. The sheer number of ships sunk and planes shot down boggles the mind. The images of burning warehouses full of sugar and tea and essential supplies like rubber and grains make your heart hurt. The colossal waste of lives and matériel was simply incredible.
Anyway, good book. The only truly boring bit was the chapter about Lend Lease. The rest of it feels like a necessary counterbalance to all the Faragiste nonsense we’ve been putting up with for so long.
December 2, 2020
Four + stars for Alan Allport’s “Britain at Bay” – a very well written history of Britain’s lonely journey during the first two years of World War II. Allport takes a welcome fresh look at a number of the key figures and events demonstrating time and again that conventional wisdom and simple explanations about history (and many other things) are almost invariably flawed. He provides a more balanced view of Neville Chamberlain, the too maligned Prime Minister who thought he could trust Adolf Hitler, musing that perhaps Chamberlain was guilty of “nothing more than wishful thinking.” Allport also takes a less idolized view of Winston Churchill, better putting him in historical context and removing some of the luster his biographers have bestowed while reaffirming his critical in leading the nation through its “darkest hour.” In this he improves on some of the recent and well written Churchill biographies,e.g., “Churchill, Walking with Destiny” by Andrew Roberts and “The Splendid and the Vile” by Erik Larson (both of which I recommend).
Having said all of this, no author can tell you the whole story of the first two years of Britain’s experience in World War II in only 467 pages, but if you want to find a good place to start, you’ll find no better, more lively or entertaining book than with Allan Allport’s excellent “Britain at Bay.”
Having said all of this, no author can tell you the whole story of the first two years of Britain’s experience in World War II in only 467 pages, but if you want to find a good place to start, you’ll find no better, more lively or entertaining book than with Allan Allport’s excellent “Britain at Bay.”
June 4, 2021
For this ardent Anglophile and lover of Tolkien, it was probably inevitable that a book setting out to debunk the "Shire-folk" myth of Britain's role in WWII would rub me the wrong way. Allport is a good writer, an excellent historian, and seems to have done his research well, but his persistent desire to undo conventional understandings seemed (at least to me) a weakness. At times it brings a helpful originality: what did contemporaries think of Chamberlain before his appeasement strategy was exposed, or how did the British government expect the people of England to respond before the Blitz before their mettle had been proved? Allbrook's strength is going back to the sources to (re)ask questions that we answer instinctively with the benefit of hindsight.
The weakness is the repeated debunking that lacks a corresponding positive vision. No, imperial Britain was not morally spotless; but to speak of an "Ulster kristallnacht" as an attempt to relativize British and German moral guilt is to ignore the obvious: there was no Ulster Auschwitz. Yes, set the record straight where historical hindsight has blinkered us; but don't confuse moral ambiguity for moral symmetry.
The weakness is the repeated debunking that lacks a corresponding positive vision. No, imperial Britain was not morally spotless; but to speak of an "Ulster kristallnacht" as an attempt to relativize British and German moral guilt is to ignore the obvious: there was no Ulster Auschwitz. Yes, set the record straight where historical hindsight has blinkered us; but don't confuse moral ambiguity for moral symmetry.
June 22, 2021
Born soon after WW2 to parents who had lived through the blitz in Liverpool and Coventry, I breathed in a very British view of the war and the world. That view was based on the experiences of my parents, good people who cared for others and saw the death and destruction caused by forces that self evidently were evil. To them, it was obvious and unquestioned that steps taken by the British were taken reluctantly but necessarily to prevent this unspeakable evil.
Allport offers a different view, one that is well researched and has a much more holistic scope. He opens by addressing what he describes as a popular notion of the British as being 'Shire folk' from The Hobbit: little people, inoffensive, kind, harmless and slow to take offence. But he argues the reality to be very different. He paints a picture of behaviour that was often simply inexcusable, both before and during the war. The treatment of Catholics in Northern Ireland, the barbaric treatment of innocent villagers in the middle east, the completely unjustified invasion of Iran (with its remarkable echoes in modern times), the deliberate targeting of the German population with bombing campaigns, the sinking of the French fleet, the list can go on.
But nor does he offer only the negative. He describes heroic acts, sacrifice and a resilient people. He also provides a balanced view of leaders, such as the unfairly pilloried Chamberlain and the perhaps over-vaunted Churchill.
Reading this book, reinforced my belief that nations, families, individuals cannot be simplistically labelled good or evil. Reality is far more nuanced. We are all capable of evil as well as heroism, hate as well as love. Britain was no exception. It was not populated by Shire folk even though I saw many Shire like qualities in my parents.
This book reminds me of the power of well researched history to provide a balanced view of the world, and hence ourselves and the circumstances in which we live. Allport and his fellow historians provide humanity with important lessons.
Finally, I am struck by how much the outcome of wars and battles were dependent on chance, personalities, weather, luck. The grand theme of good inevitably overwhelming evil is nowhere to be found in reality - which is perhaps not to be unexpected given the reality that the protagonists of war can perhaps never fit easily into such binary classifications.
Allport offers a different view, one that is well researched and has a much more holistic scope. He opens by addressing what he describes as a popular notion of the British as being 'Shire folk' from The Hobbit: little people, inoffensive, kind, harmless and slow to take offence. But he argues the reality to be very different. He paints a picture of behaviour that was often simply inexcusable, both before and during the war. The treatment of Catholics in Northern Ireland, the barbaric treatment of innocent villagers in the middle east, the completely unjustified invasion of Iran (with its remarkable echoes in modern times), the deliberate targeting of the German population with bombing campaigns, the sinking of the French fleet, the list can go on.
But nor does he offer only the negative. He describes heroic acts, sacrifice and a resilient people. He also provides a balanced view of leaders, such as the unfairly pilloried Chamberlain and the perhaps over-vaunted Churchill.
Reading this book, reinforced my belief that nations, families, individuals cannot be simplistically labelled good or evil. Reality is far more nuanced. We are all capable of evil as well as heroism, hate as well as love. Britain was no exception. It was not populated by Shire folk even though I saw many Shire like qualities in my parents.
This book reminds me of the power of well researched history to provide a balanced view of the world, and hence ourselves and the circumstances in which we live. Allport and his fellow historians provide humanity with important lessons.
Finally, I am struck by how much the outcome of wars and battles were dependent on chance, personalities, weather, luck. The grand theme of good inevitably overwhelming evil is nowhere to be found in reality - which is perhaps not to be unexpected given the reality that the protagonists of war can perhaps never fit easily into such binary classifications.
May 9, 2021
Excellent, in-depth look at the first few years of Britain's WWII experience. Alan Allport describes the political, economic, military, and social state of Britain (and Empire) in the 1930s and its impact on the war. He takes particular delight in reexamining long-held historical conclusions and tropes, including Chamberlin's appeasement strategy, the gentle, domestic nature of Britons pre-war (he calls this the "Shire folk" analogy), Churchill's reputation, and even the value of ULTRA intercepts, to name but a few.
Allport sprinkles his work with sources that are both informative and incredibly compelling. He frequently describes a strategic situation in a given month and then follows it with man-on-the-street information: a diarist from Coventry, period Gallup polling, quotes from Mass Observation teams (a social science project recording observations of quotidian Britons). He creates an engaging, more relatable story while providing context for strategic decisions made in a democracy.
I'm looking forward to his next volume, and I hope I can find some similar work covering America's WWII legends...but it will be tough to match Britain at Bay's impressive standard.
Allport sprinkles his work with sources that are both informative and incredibly compelling. He frequently describes a strategic situation in a given month and then follows it with man-on-the-street information: a diarist from Coventry, period Gallup polling, quotes from Mass Observation teams (a social science project recording observations of quotidian Britons). He creates an engaging, more relatable story while providing context for strategic decisions made in a democracy.
I'm looking forward to his next volume, and I hope I can find some similar work covering America's WWII legends...but it will be tough to match Britain at Bay's impressive standard.
December 1, 2020
First half.
This is the best kind of narrative history. Allport walks us through the beginning of WW2 in Britain. He stops along the way to consider the important and interesting questions. He has done the research and he has first rate historical judgment. His opinions are clearly stated, not snuck into the story, and forcefully argued.
Allport makes the case, for example, that;
Chamberlin was not as wrong headed or cowardly as usually presented. He was blinded by his own character and experience but he was a smart politician who had sensible explanations for his decisions.
The pre-war Government did a presentable job building up England's armed forces, given the political realities.
The English Air Force was overly focused on strategic bombing and horribly inadequate in battle support because the great military thinkers believed that infantry ground wars where a thing of the past.
British politics in the late 30s was not a battle between the working class labor voters and the rural and rich conservatives. It was a struggle for the support of the middle class.
Allport also loves a good digression. The book starts with a section on whether Tolkien's "Lord of the Ring" was a metaphor for the fight against European authoritarianism, which Tolkien always denied. Allport settles, instead, on the interesting idea that Tolkien's Hobbit Shire was a metaphor for how the English people saw themselves.
He also has a good chapter on the IRA terror campaign in England and Northern Ireland in the late 1930s. He uses it as an example of how England was not a united nation just before the war.
Allport is a stylish writer. He enjoys a good argument. He treats the reader as an adult.
This is the best kind of narrative history. Allport walks us through the beginning of WW2 in Britain. He stops along the way to consider the important and interesting questions. He has done the research and he has first rate historical judgment. His opinions are clearly stated, not snuck into the story, and forcefully argued.
Allport makes the case, for example, that;
Chamberlin was not as wrong headed or cowardly as usually presented. He was blinded by his own character and experience but he was a smart politician who had sensible explanations for his decisions.
The pre-war Government did a presentable job building up England's armed forces, given the political realities.
The English Air Force was overly focused on strategic bombing and horribly inadequate in battle support because the great military thinkers believed that infantry ground wars where a thing of the past.
British politics in the late 30s was not a battle between the working class labor voters and the rural and rich conservatives. It was a struggle for the support of the middle class.
Allport also loves a good digression. The book starts with a section on whether Tolkien's "Lord of the Ring" was a metaphor for the fight against European authoritarianism, which Tolkien always denied. Allport settles, instead, on the interesting idea that Tolkien's Hobbit Shire was a metaphor for how the English people saw themselves.
He also has a good chapter on the IRA terror campaign in England and Northern Ireland in the late 1930s. He uses it as an example of how England was not a united nation just before the war.
Allport is a stylish writer. He enjoys a good argument. He treats the reader as an adult.
September 1, 2020
A fascinating, well researched and engrossing history of Britain during WWII.
The author is talented storyteller and kept me hooked giving me a different point of view on how British people reacted to war.
I learned a lot and I think this is an highly informative book.
It's an excellent history book and it's strongly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
The author is talented storyteller and kept me hooked giving me a different point of view on how British people reacted to war.
I learned a lot and I think this is an highly informative book.
It's an excellent history book and it's strongly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
November 24, 2020
A well written and researched look at British war effort from 1938 through 1941. The author is not a revisionist but does take a second look at many of the myths the British tell themselves about themselves and the firsts years of the war.
If you are interested in the beginning of WWII this book is well worth your time.
If you are interested in the beginning of WWII this book is well worth your time.
March 27, 2021
An excellent history of this critical period, the author takes pains to separate the many myths that have accumulated over the years from the realities of what actually happened and why. Anyone with an interest in World War II or British history will want to read this. A second volume--presumably covering 1942-1945--is planned.
October 2, 2020
Only just started this book but I am hooked. This is,so far ,such an acessible history of the pre/early war years. I will update as I read on but have no doubt that my reviews will continue to be positive.
Update I have now finished and really enjoyed this book.
Update I have now finished and really enjoyed this book.
Read
December 1, 2020An excellent detailed history of Britain covering 1038 through 1941. A good addition to my WW2 collection.
January 11, 2021
Top notch history. Very well written.
February 17, 2021
The shire folk mythology and the stiff upper lip ethos and a country that probably did more to win world war 2 while also losing their empire to make it happen.
February 24, 2021
Well researched and written. Excellent read.
September 17, 2022
3.5 Stars
This lost half a star for the tiresome Shire-folk blathering.
This lost half a star for the tiresome Shire-folk blathering.
June 5, 2021
Britain At Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War by Alan Allport is focused on Britain in the years leading up to WWII and the first two years of the war. Allport digs through the mythology and the self-serving memoirs of the participants and digs up their contemporaneous communications e.g. Neville Chamberlain's letters to his sister and the crowds cheering him in Britain after Munich. The reasons that the French collapsed at the start of the war, mainly a failure of tactics rather than a collapse of morale. Great insight into how people reacted to the Blitz. How strategic bombing of the Ruhr was a complete failure. After winning the air battle over Britain, the RAF decided to fight in the air over France, with disastrous results. Franklin Roosevelt's initial reluctance to support Britain beyond their ability to pay for material beyond the US cash-and-carry rules. Allport doesn't stop at the strategy level, he includes vignettes of the lives of many individuals at the point where they intersect with these events.
Some myths busted: Even though the British had cracked German encryption, Churchill didn't fail to warn Coventry of an impending German air raid. The German U-Boat threat was beaten not just by ultra, but by better tactics, convoys, and more capable combat air craft. British heavy bombing was highly inaccurate, sometimes bombing the wrong city and even the wrong country.
Heavy bombing of factories had almost no impact on productivity. In fact, heavy bombing seems to have been oversold for a long time. The US Airforce couldn't beat the North Vietnamese.
In late 1941 the US cut off Japan's access to its petroleum and steel, which was a contributing cause of the Japanese decision to go to war with the US and attack the British Far East holdings for the oil and minerals. With Britiain's commitment to Europe it's, and the impending loss of its Ascian assets, it's likely tha they would have collapsed wihout the USA.
One fact, not discusses in this book, nor anywhere else that I'm aware of is why Hitler didn't try to finish off Britain before going after the Soviet Union. In my view, he was probably open to an accommodation with Britain along his racial lines.
Hitler was an Austrian, growing up in a ethnically diverse empire, with ubermenrchen (the Austrian Germans, and untermenchen, slavs, jews. He was interested in killing, not just the Jews, but all of the ethnicities present in those lands
n c
This book is probably the best book that I've read this year.
Some myths busted: Even though the British had cracked German encryption, Churchill didn't fail to warn Coventry of an impending German air raid. The German U-Boat threat was beaten not just by ultra, but by better tactics, convoys, and more capable combat air craft. British heavy bombing was highly inaccurate, sometimes bombing the wrong city and even the wrong country.
Heavy bombing of factories had almost no impact on productivity. In fact, heavy bombing seems to have been oversold for a long time. The US Airforce couldn't beat the North Vietnamese.
In late 1941 the US cut off Japan's access to its petroleum and steel, which was a contributing cause of the Japanese decision to go to war with the US and attack the British Far East holdings for the oil and minerals. With Britiain's commitment to Europe it's, and the impending loss of its Ascian assets, it's likely tha they would have collapsed wihout the USA.
One fact, not discusses in this book, nor anywhere else that I'm aware of is why Hitler didn't try to finish off Britain before going after the Soviet Union. In my view, he was probably open to an accommodation with Britain along his racial lines.
Hitler was an Austrian, growing up in a ethnically diverse empire, with ubermenrchen (the Austrian Germans, and untermenchen, slavs, jews. He was interested in killing, not just the Jews, but all of the ethnicities present in those lands
n c
This book is probably the best book that I've read this year.
September 11, 2021
This is a well researched well written and engaging history of Britain in the years 1938 - 1941. Allport covers a lot of ground, from a thorough description of Neville Chamberlain to discussing what life was like in England as the Great Depression ended to rearmament plans as the threat of Hitler grew to the politics of the Munich Agreement in 1938.
He gives a moment by moment description of the end of Chamberlain's Prime Ministership, which occurred literally on the eve of Hitler launching Fall Gelb, or Plan Yellow, the invasion of the low countries and France on May 10th 1940. Opposition to Chamberlain had been growing in Parliament, causing him to agree to a vote of confidence. Though he won by 80 votes, tradition said you needed 100 votes to truly win such a vote. So he went to the opposition Labour Party to ask them to publically give their support. By coincidence they were having a national convention. They returned with the message they were willing to express their support for the Conservative Party, but not personally for Chamberlain. He was a combative politician and was disliked by the opposition for this. So, he resigned as Prime Minister. Lord Halifax was next in line but declined tactically thinking that Churchill was such a well known character that he would be overshadowed. Next in line was Churchill, and right then the Wehrmacht attacked! This vaulted Churchill into the role he was made for, at just the time he was needed.
He is good on the Battle of Britain. German attacks, though guided by excellent pre war intelligence, were not planned in any systematic way to truly make a dent on either RAF defences or British economic power. They were terrifying and killed a lot of people, but were never an existential threat. Interesting that real factions in the RAF considered fighters with fixed guns in the wings to be obsolete and the turret only armed Boulton Paul Defiant to be the future. There was also a bomber mafia that had incredibly high hopes for the supposed destructive power of bombers.
The book is also good on the Battle of the Atlantic. Efficient convoys, escorts, radar, and increasing Coastal Command planes were all decisive vs the U Boats, and then there was Ultra - the reading of German codes. The fall of France had a real effect, though, and caused ships to have to go north around Ireland to get to the dense west coast ports of England and Wales.
He gives a moment by moment description of the end of Chamberlain's Prime Ministership, which occurred literally on the eve of Hitler launching Fall Gelb, or Plan Yellow, the invasion of the low countries and France on May 10th 1940. Opposition to Chamberlain had been growing in Parliament, causing him to agree to a vote of confidence. Though he won by 80 votes, tradition said you needed 100 votes to truly win such a vote. So he went to the opposition Labour Party to ask them to publically give their support. By coincidence they were having a national convention. They returned with the message they were willing to express their support for the Conservative Party, but not personally for Chamberlain. He was a combative politician and was disliked by the opposition for this. So, he resigned as Prime Minister. Lord Halifax was next in line but declined tactically thinking that Churchill was such a well known character that he would be overshadowed. Next in line was Churchill, and right then the Wehrmacht attacked! This vaulted Churchill into the role he was made for, at just the time he was needed.
He is good on the Battle of Britain. German attacks, though guided by excellent pre war intelligence, were not planned in any systematic way to truly make a dent on either RAF defences or British economic power. They were terrifying and killed a lot of people, but were never an existential threat. Interesting that real factions in the RAF considered fighters with fixed guns in the wings to be obsolete and the turret only armed Boulton Paul Defiant to be the future. There was also a bomber mafia that had incredibly high hopes for the supposed destructive power of bombers.
The book is also good on the Battle of the Atlantic. Efficient convoys, escorts, radar, and increasing Coastal Command planes were all decisive vs the U Boats, and then there was Ultra - the reading of German codes. The fall of France had a real effect, though, and caused ships to have to go north around Ireland to get to the dense west coast ports of England and Wales.
November 14, 2025
“Britain at Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1938-1941” by Alan Allport ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
“Britain at Bay” chronicles the British perspective of the Second World War through politics, battles and the home front from 1938-1941.
At the beginning of this book, Allport stipulates that this book is a story of failure, and it is. It’s the failure of appeasement, the fall of France, the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, being on the back foot in the battle of the Atlantic, losing Greece, losing Iran, understanding that the Indian subcontinent and Singapore are in danger from the Japanese, and the list goes on and on. As you read it, you wonder if those people will ever catch a break but as the 2 year mark of the war comes ever closer, you can feel the change in the wind.
This book is also incredibly detailed about the home front which is an area of the war that I haven’t spent a lot of time digging into outside of initial research 5-8 years ago. I chose to read this for my research into the home front and I’m so glad I did—especially when it comes to public sentiment. We sometimes forget that not everyone was on board with the war when it broke out. Politicians, sure, but what about the average Britain? Or the poor? Or the people who were displaced? Or lost loved ones. How did the manage to go on? This book also cracks into and examines the myths that have emerged from the war like the “keep calm and carry on” posters and the “Dunkirk spirit.”
This book is also filled with humorous hindsight and was just an overall delight to read. I also chose the perfect time to read it because the other half of this duology comes out in January (this first half was published in 2020).
“Britain at Bay” chronicles the British perspective of the Second World War through politics, battles and the home front from 1938-1941.
At the beginning of this book, Allport stipulates that this book is a story of failure, and it is. It’s the failure of appeasement, the fall of France, the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, being on the back foot in the battle of the Atlantic, losing Greece, losing Iran, understanding that the Indian subcontinent and Singapore are in danger from the Japanese, and the list goes on and on. As you read it, you wonder if those people will ever catch a break but as the 2 year mark of the war comes ever closer, you can feel the change in the wind.
This book is also incredibly detailed about the home front which is an area of the war that I haven’t spent a lot of time digging into outside of initial research 5-8 years ago. I chose to read this for my research into the home front and I’m so glad I did—especially when it comes to public sentiment. We sometimes forget that not everyone was on board with the war when it broke out. Politicians, sure, but what about the average Britain? Or the poor? Or the people who were displaced? Or lost loved ones. How did the manage to go on? This book also cracks into and examines the myths that have emerged from the war like the “keep calm and carry on” posters and the “Dunkirk spirit.”
This book is also filled with humorous hindsight and was just an overall delight to read. I also chose the perfect time to read it because the other half of this duology comes out in January (this first half was published in 2020).
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