Churchhill was responsible for the rescue of a substantial number of British soldiers from Dunkirk and his unorthodox use of civilian boats was done in something like 2 weeks after taking office.
He bypassed the normal avenues of war to bring the magnetron directly to US companies who had the financial and research capacity to develop it into a devastating aviation weapon.
I don’t know how many British wartime inventions were a direct result of Churchill but the atmosphere of innovation was likely due to his influence.
Like I said, he had great gifts as a wartime leader.
Which is probably necessary to accumulate a string of military disasters, at least in a parliamentary system. If you’re an ordinary political leader, you’re going to be replaced after the first one or two major disasters. Only a political leader with some great strengths is going to be able to survive causing some major disasters and be able to stay in office to cause more disasters.
My sources include “Catastrophe 1914” and other histories of the Great War, but this excerpt from Wikipedia’s entry on the disastrous Austro-Hungarian Galicia offensive will suffice.
*"Holger Herwig estimates Austro-Hungarian losses of 100,000 dead, 220,000 wounded and 100,000 captured. According to Prit Buttar, the Austro-Hungarian army lost 324,000 men in Galicia, including 130,000 as prisoners, while the Russians lost 225,000 men, of which 40,000 were captured. Other authors estimate 400,000 Austro-Hungarian losses, or “one-third of the Austro-Hungarian Army’s combat effectives”, and 250,000 for the Russians.
The Russians had pushed the front 100 miles (160 kilometers) into the Carpathian Mountains, completely surrounded the Austrian fortress of Przemyśl and started a Siege of Przemyśl which lasted for over a hundred days. The battle severely damaged the Austro-Hungarian Army, destroyed a large portion of its trained officers, and crippled Austria. Though the Russians had been utterly crushed at the Battle of Tannenberg, their victory at Lemberg prevented that defeat from fully taking its toll on Russian public opinion."*
The one thing Russia had in its favor for a long time was the ability to squander the lives of huge numbers of troops because it could readily replenish them. Austria-Hungary didn’t have that luxury.
this I don’t get. Dunkirk was a complete non-military stroke of genius and if left to the military it would not have happened at all. It was literally done in a couple of weeks after he took office.
Between this and his push for technological solutions is a massive, and I mean MASSIVE, reason we were able to defeat Hitler. People don’t understand just what a big deal the transfer of technology to the US meant. If it were not for airborne radar then German submarines would have continued to sink the merchant ships moving supplies to England.
I don’t see where the line can be drawn between politician and military leader when it comes to Churchill.
So what’s the issue here- that he, a politician for all these, save Gallipoli, directed them to fight somewhere? War after all, is just politics by other means.
If that’s the case, then we can blame Abraham Lincoln for First Manassas, and Franklin Roosevelt for Pearl Harbor. Both did things either proximately or beforehand that caused these battles to go badly for the United States- Lincoln directed McDowell to attack, and Roosevelt moved the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor.