The book chronicles Churchill’s first year in office (May 1940 to May 1941), and the professional and personal struggles he had to face on the eve and during the fury of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, as if the deck was automatically stacked against him.įirst of all, Churchill - after surviving a decade in the political wilderness - wasn’t even the first choice to succeed Neville Chamberlain as prime minister (in fact, King George VI preferred Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax over Churchill). How Churchill handled this impending invasion and protect the interests of the British empire and its people is the subject of Erik Larson’s latest best seller The Splendid and the Vile.

So what was handed to the new prime minister was a true - yet unenviable– test of leadership during a time of extreme crisis. Even Churchill’s hope of getting the isolationist United States on board for at least some semblance of aid to help Britain to keep Nazi Germany at bay from landing on the shores of Dover was a long shot President Franklin Roosevelt had other matters on his plate, including his candidacy for an unprecedented third term in the White House. The Nazi leader hoped to do it by land (in a plan that he labelled “Operation Sea Lion”) or by air, through the might of the German Air Force (aka the Luftwaffe).īook review: The Splendid and the Vile by Erik LarsonĪnd to make matters worse, Britain, like its geographical location within the European continent, felt like it was alone, cut off from the rest of the world. Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Norway and France have already - or were about to - fall to the blitzkrieg manner of the Nazi war machine, and Britain was next on Hitler’s list. However, it was exactly five years before that Churchill assumed the office of British prime minister, at a time when Britain was facing the biggest crisis in its history. One of the people who joined the royal family on the balcony during that moment of triumph was its Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.

On May 8, 1945, as the jubilant citizens of London enthusiastically celebrated the end of hostilities in Europe, King George VI and his family (including the future Queen Elizabeth II) appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to salute the British people for their valiant service during six very difficult years of war. The Splendid and the Vile – Exactly 75 years ago this month, Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies, which officially ended the European theatre of the Second World War.

Erik larson splendid and the vile