Britain is rewriting its history

Britain is rewriting its history

Published: 17 October, 2011, 01:22

When I first arrived to live in the UK, one of the things that struck me was the British people’s belief that the UK on its own (some would add with a bit of help from the US) won World War II. Every time I heard it, it made me choke. I was grateful my grandparents had never heard it, believing till the last minute of their lives that the British were their allies in World War II, not realizing how much they were underappreciated by them. I do understand each country writes its own history, but what a sad history not to recognize the rest of the world’s fight against Nazism and the suffering that it brought to millions on this planet.
And so what a pleasant surprise it was for me to stumble across a newly published book by British historian Max Hastings, “All Hell Let Loose,” that attempts to rewrite the history of World War II, putting everything in perspective and correcting nearly 70 years of mistaken beliefs. It is even more pleasing that the historian who decided to do it is arguably the most renowned and respectable historian in the UK.
The first record that Hastings decides to put right is the role of the Soviet Union in the war. He fights the postwar myth of the British and American roles in the victory, pointing out that 90 percent of Nazi soldiers who died in combat were killed on the Eastern Front.
The massive scale of death in the Soviet Union was also previously underestimated in the UK. Hastings reminds us that the city of Leningrad alone lost more people than the British and American armies combined.
Writing about the siege of Leningrad, Hastings remarks with fascination: "It is unthinkable that British people would have eaten each other rather than surrender London or Birmingham – or would have been obliged by their generals and politicians to hold out at such a cost."
It is a well-known fact that most of the 630,000 people who died during the siege of Leningrad died of starvation, but Hastings adds remarkable details that help readers realize the scale of the disaster. He describes an entire trainload of cats being sent to the city in 1943. All of the cats in Leningrad had been eaten during the siege, and there were none left to combat the plague of rats that were feasting off the dead.
When Hastings talks about Britain and the Western allies, he tries to correct the triumphalist and self-righteous messages. The historian outlines that many actions by the Western allies would, had they been committed by the Germans, have been considered a war crime – such as the shooting of prisoners, for example. He minimizes the contribution of the US army, which has so far remained unchallenged in the Western world. The author describes the Americans as having “cherished a hubristic belief in their own virtue, and consciousness of their own dominance.”
However, Hastings is particularly hard on the British, making clear that Britain, after courageously defying Hitler in the anxious months of 1940-41, played a remarkably diminished role in the defeat of both Germany and Japan as the war progressed. He then outlines that “the British nation’s single greatest achievement of the war” was breaking the Enigma code, but even that was due to help from the Poles, a fact that is often forgotten.
Hastings is appalled by the British treatment of the people in their colonies. He outlines that the 1943 Bengal famine, in which at least one million people died, was due to the neglect of the British rulers, highlighting Churchill's "brutal insensitivity, which left an irreparable scar on Anglo-Indian relations."
The author goes on to unveil another myth that the war took place in the Western world, and the major casualties were those of the Western allies. In reality, the war left 60 million dead, a similar number displaced, and hundreds of hundreds of cities destroyed. World War II took place in the skies, the oceans and the lands of five different continents. It embraced fighting in the Arctic, jungles and deserts. Hastings insists we should never forget that no fewer than 15 million Chinese died, a fact that puts the experience of the Western allies into an unfamiliar perspective.
This book promises to not be a comfortable read for most Brits, as it requires them to completely change their perception of World War II, and especially the role that the UK played in it, a role that was hugely overestimated by previous historians.
However, “All Hell Let Loose” is not only for a British reader. This book is so much different from most books written about World War II that it definitely deserves attention all around the world. Hastings takes a completely different approach to writing about World War II. While describing the course of events, he focuses on human experience. The book depicts what the war was like to live through, whether you were a starving child in Leningrad, a soldier in North Africa, or a civilian in Dresden. The author brings together many different human stories, and touches on almost every country in the world.
The book is the culmination of Max Hastings’ 35-year-long research into World War II. A month after its publication, “All Hell Let Loose” has already earned the reputation of the best book ever written on World War II.
But is it possible for one book to destroy the myth of Britain’s victory over Hitler? Can one book change the way British people understand history? Of course not. How many people actually pick up a history book after they leave school? Until the school books are penetrated by these “new revelations” and understood by school teachers in the UK, people in this country will continue shocking the Russians they meet with their narrow-minded, triumphalist beliefs.