WOUK, Herman

The Winds of War

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He (Hitler) is really a very, very prudent man. If he can make it in Poland without war, he'll do it. Otherwise, he'll not move. Not now. Perhaps in ten years, when he's built Germany up enough.

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Yes, here the Germans sit at the heart of Europe, Henry, these perplexing first cousins of ours, simmering and grumbling away, and every now and then they spill over in all directions, with a hideous roar. Out they pour from these lovely little towns, these fairy-tale landscapes, these clean handsome cities—wait till you see Cologne, Nuremberg, Munich, even Berlin and Hamburg—out they bubble, I say, these polite blue-eyed music lovers, ravening for blood. It gets a bit unnerving. And now here's Hitler, brining them to a boil again.

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Churchill was exactly the kind of brilliant amateur meddler in military affairs that Hitler was. Both rose to power from the depths of political rejection. Both relied chiefly on oratory to sway the multitude. Both somehow expressed the spirits of their peoples and so won loyalty that outnumbered any mistakes, defeats and disasters. Both thought in grandiose terms, knew little about economic and logistical realities, and cared less. Both were iron men in defeat. Above all, both men had overwhelming personalities that could silence rational opposition when they talked.”

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Then followed an incredible tactical blunder. With the British expeditionary force helplessly retreating toward the sea, but far behind in the race and about to be cut off by Guderian’s massed tanks, the Führer halted Guderian on the River Aa, nine miles from Dunkirk, and forbade the tank divisions to advance for three days! To this day nobody has factually ascertained why he did this. Theories are almost as abundant as military historians, but they add little to the facts. During these three days the British rescued their armies from the Dunkirk beaches. That is the long and short of the “miracle of Dunkirk.

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There is no morality in world history. There are only tides of change borne on violence and death. The victors write the history, pass the judgments, and hang or shoot the losers. In truth history is an endless chain of hegemony shifts, based on the decay of old political structures and the rise of new ones. Wars are the fever crises of those shifts. Wars are inevitable; there will always be wars; and the one war crime is to lose. That is the reality, and the rest is sentimental nonsense.

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