Conquer We Must by Robin Prior

This book is a military history of Britain from 1914 to 1945, covering what Winston Churchill described as a new Thirty Years War, and takes it title from his speech delivered on the 19th of May 1940, which included these words: " Behind us gather a group of shattered states and bludgeoned races upon whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall ".

It details the many failings of the British military during both World Wars, as well as the reprehensible abdication of responsibility during the appeasement years, yet in the end it is a history of what was a necessary triumph, if democracy and civilisation were to be saved. Despite the number of nations fighting on the Allied side in the two great wars, it was Britain alone who fought against the forces of darkness from beginning to end, and had we lost either then certainly Europe, and in the second war, the world, would have seen the end of what we still hope is the journey towards the light. It is not too much to say that, while a victory for the Kaiser would have seen the Continent return to rule by a feudal monarchy, victory for the Nazi demons would have meant the end of Christian civilisation.

The First World War saw repeated failures by a General Staff still fighting as if this was one of the colonial wars of Empire, rather than the first truly industrialised war. In the age of the machine gun, and later the tank, senior officers persisted in regarding the calvary as a valid method of attack, despite the fact that such tactics should have been regarded as finished after Churchill's charge at Omdurman. At sea the only fleet action, the battle of Jutland, although resulting in the German High Seas fleet never venturing out of port again, could hardly be regarded as a triumph, given that we lost more ships and men than them, while the war in the air did not become as significant as it was to become in the second war. While the caricature of Haig and other staff officers in Richard Attenborough's film Oh! What a Lovely War was somewhat unfair, it was nevertheless true that the former's insistence of setting unrealistic targets led to an enormous number of needless deaths.

However, in 1918 the British Expeditionary Force finally thoroughly defeated the Germans. Together with our valiant allies the French, who lost so many brave men at Verdun, and elsewhere, we won on the battlefield, something which the Nazis denied with their 'stab in the back' myth. Clearly, we should have gone on to occupy Germany, which would have prevented Hitler's later lies being believed.

At the Armistice in 1918 we had the largest navy, the largest air force, and the most efficient army in the world. Yet twenty years later, following what Churchill described as the ' years the locusts ate ', we faced the terrible power of Nazi Germany with a tiny army, an ageing, although still the largest, navy, and an air force with tremendous potential, but outnumbered by the Luftwaffe. The political class, infested with numerous appeasers, and illusions about Hitler as a bulwark against Bolshevism, took us to the brink of a defeat, which would have meant the end of our nation. Even now we owe apologies to Czechoslovakia, which was betrayed by that bumbling idiot Chamberlain, and which suffered decades of totalitarian occupation as a result.

Thanks to Churchill, and the steadfast courage of the British people, we won through, but once again we endured a series of reversals, and defeats, as chronicled in this book. The debacle of Norway, the evacuation at Dunkirk, the fall of Tobruk, and of Singapore, made victory seem unattainable, yet after El Alamein, and with the entry of the Soviet Union, and the US on our side, we won through. We could not have done so without these mighty allies, but they could not have won had we gone down in 1940, as American aid to Russia would not have been possible without the British Isles in allied hands, the relentless bombing of Germany industry would not have hampered Hitler, and the Americans would have faced a navy derived from the German, Italian, French, Japanese and British fleets. Given the almost unlimited potential of America she would probably have survived, but would have then had to live in a world dominated by fascists.

Someone from Mars, reading this book, and who knew nothing of history, would have assumed until they reached the end that Britain could not have won either war, yet we did. In truth the hero of the story is Churchill, despite the Dardanelles, and the occasional times when he was more wrong than right. Nevertheless, his exhortation " Conquer We Must "  came true, and the greatest evil ever to have afflicted mankind driven back, something which those ignorant morons of today's social media should remember, rather than obsessing about events from centuries ago.