Friday Focus - Churchill’s Soft Underbelly in 1943
In this talk, join author Graeme Bowman as he discusses his latest book Empire First: Churchill’s War Against D-Day, which critically approaches and challenges WWII and Churchill’s role within it.
Date: Friday 06 December 2024
Time: 13:00 - 13:30
Venue: Online
Category: Public lectures, Hunterian
Website: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/friday-focus-churchills-soft-underbelly-in-1943-tickets-972053577417?aff=oddtdtcreator
Many people view WWII as the Dad’s Army opening titles - a straightforward struggle between good Tommies and bad Nazis and they experience no difficulty in reconciling ‘Brave Little Britain Standing Alone in 1940’ with Britain as the ‘Greatest Empire The World Has Ever Seen’.
Graeme Bowman offers a more nuanced view of WWII in Empire First: Churchill’s War Against D-Day, arguing that - far from being the great scourge of Nazism - Churchill tried to undermine Overlord for 1944 and ensure it never happened. In its place, he advocated a ‘Soft Underbelly’ Strategy which prioritised British oil and Empire interests in the Mediterranean over liberating western Europe from fascism and, by so doing, was trying to implement a ‘Brexit’ military strategy which could have produced a very different Cold War.
Graeme’s book is based on original research conducted at the National Archives, the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives and numerous other locations. Most WWII books start in the 1930s with Appeasement and Hitler’s rise, but Empire First opens in the 1870s with Churchill’s birth and Britain purchasing Suez Canal shares, and this long perspective informs Graeme’s analysis.
The Friday Focus talk programme features a different speaker each week, sharing a deeper insight into our exhibitions and collections, and work going on behind the scenes at The Hunterian. We hold the talks every Friday at 1pm online over Zoom. Talks are approximately 20 minutes long with time for questions afterwards.
Find out more about our upcoming Friday Focus talks.