Churchill’s six volume history of the 2nd Word War is a great set of books for anyone who wants a first hand introduction to history from the master himself. What he says about the Russians and the lack of international will is still highly relevant today.

I would just add one more excerpt to those Scott listed above:

Here is a line of milestones to disaster. Here is a catalogue of surrenders, at first when all was easy and later when things were harder, to the ever-growing German power. But now at last was the end of British and French submission. Here was decision at last, taken at the worst possible moment and on the least satisfactory ground, which must surely lead to the slaughter of tens of millions of people. Here was the righteous cause deliberately and with a refinement of inverted artistry committed to mortal battle after its assets and advantages had been so improvidently squandered. Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.–Winston Churchill

And I would agree with what Stuart said above. By allowing Czechoslovakia to be overrun by the Nazis France and Britain tossed away one of the best strategic advantages they had to contain German power.

People should keep this lesson from history in mind before accepting Russia’s occupation and partition of Georgia.

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[...] E­xc­e­r­pt fr­o­m [...]

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Scott

I have just finished reading Volume 1 of Churchill’s The Second World War, and what jumps out is that the critical failure came when Britain and France persuaded the Czech government not to put up a fight with Churchill and to give the Nazi’s the Sudetenland in exchange for a promise of non aggression from Hitler. The Sudetenland contained all of the elaborate fortifications that the brave Czech’s had built up.

At the time the Nazi’s were in no position to stand up to a British and French act of defiance as the German army was much smaller than that of France and ill equipped. By not standing up to the Germans the British also confirmed to the German generals that Hitler knew what he was doing, increasing his power immeasurably.

Germany ultimately concocted a reason to invade the Czech’s, interestingly enough the Poles who always get a lot of sympathy because of how things ended up for them ,acted abominably at this point and invaded part of Czechoslovakia knowing that the Czech’s couldn’t defend themselves.

I have been reading Churchill’s memoirs researching for my next volume of my recently published book “What Would Churchill Do? – Business advice from the man who saved the world”, which analyses the skills and talents Churchill used to manage WW2 and applies them to modern business. It is on Amazon.

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Thanks Doug. Yet another example of how Sen Reid (D), Rep Pelosi (D), and Osama Bin Laden were right in saying, The War in Iraq is lost/America cannot win.

[/sarcasm off]

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Also on this day:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h5g6j9jCMUKAPB08_aMvC8XnQqIQD92TU3C81

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