Churchill and absolute power

If Churchill had the same power to run the war as Hitler did, i.e. dictatorial, how badly would the war have gone for Britain? Would we be reading books about the ten mistakes that cost Britain the war?
 

abc123

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If Churchill had the same power to run the war as Hitler did, i.e. dictatorial, how badly would the war have gone for Britain? Would we be reading books about the ten mistakes that cost Britain the war?


Well, Churchill's power wasn't much smaller than dictatorial, only UK was more civilised country than Germany in that period...;)
 
Depends on when he assumes the same level of power. If it comes soon enough, we could see a scenario where war is declared upon the Soviet Union, with the Finnish Winter War.

At the very least, there would be little cooperation with the other powers. Roosevelt and Stalin would tire very quickly of his shenanigans and I'm quite sure when post-war comes around (because there's no avoiding a Nazi defeat), there's going to be a reservation of power sharing in regards to Britain.
 
Thanks. just doing it for fun tbh. I'd like to collate Churchill's harebrained schemes for bombing soviet oil installations, grabbing swedish iron ore mines, attempted landings god knows where (the baltic? Crimea?) and let him carry them out without opposition from his ministers or the armed forces.
Churchill as UK fuehrer would certainly be a fun read although I know it's not possible in reality. Can you imagine downfall with churchill in his bunker in westminster blaming the cowards in the army etc. Lol.
 
Churchill, according to Brooke, had the highest sence of democracy. He was very good at pushing his generals, questioning them, challenging them, etc. but he never overstepped the line.

He probably got more out of them like that, getting them to "think out the box", etc.

There is a Churchill quote i have pinned n the office: Apparantly from 1940/41, where it did not look so good, talking to his generals:

"your best may not be good enough, you have got to be successful".

if Churchill had dictatorial powers, I don;t think he would have launched any of the more absurd schemes. Those were there to challenge his generals to be less stuck in the past.

Just a thought.

Ivan
 
You don't need the dictatorial powers, just replace Alanbrooke as CIGS with someone much less able to handle Churchills many "creative" schemes.

If reports are to be believed (and they may of course have been exagerated), it was almost a daily task to quash a new fantastic scheme.
 
That's a good Churchillian quote Ivanotter. I love Winston to be honest, but I liked the idea of a fictional Churchill world where he would throw out a crazy plan and everyone would have to say 'yes prime minister'. Perhaps a POD around the time of the general strike with revolution frights wobbling the establishment and emergency powers that somehow become longer term constitutional ammendments. Various crises, foreign and domestic during the depression and the rise of Hitler's Germany provide more excuses for (a gradual) erosion of UK democracy until by the start of the war Churchill has inherited a position of absolute (war emergency) power where whatever the PM says is the law or can be made the law.

Germany invades Poland, Churchill declares war and sends the RAF to bomb Russian oil fields.
Russia attacks Finland, a BEF lands in Norway and crosses into Sweden..everyone is pissed off at Britain.
and so on and so on until British Stalingrads occur during later war Balkan invasions or attempted landings in Norway or wherever.
It's more of a dark comedy scenario where the ASBs are having a laugh at humanity's expense.
 
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