Politics and strategy

This is a book about political matters. It is about how Churchill became established as prime minister in succession to Neville Chamberlain, and how he and his government saw and tackled the great issues of the war as they emerged during the remainder of 1940 and early 1941: Hitler's attack on France and its subsequent fall; the Battle – and defence – of Britain; the defence of Egypt and the Middle East; diplomatic relations with Greece, the Balkans and Turkey, and the question of military intervention there. The book concludes with the decision, reluctantly reached by the cabinet in March 1941, to send British troops to Greece.

The book concentrates on the the first months of Churchill's wartime leadership – from his becoming prime minister in May 1940 to his committing British troops to Greece in March 1941. For most of the period Britain was fighting alone. The war, therefore, and Churchill's leadership, had a character different to that of the later years when first the Soviet Union, and then the United States and Japan entered the war, in June and December 1941 respectively. None the less, the views about the nature of British interests, which were to dominate the closing stages of the war, had their origins in this early period.

Churchill established his dominance over the conservative party and in the country during these months, and set about securing British interests – first the security of Britain and then that of the Middle East.