#15 Troublesome Young Men

Troublesome Young Men by Lynne Olson is the account of the backstage negotiations it took to get Winston Churchill into power during World War II. It's interesting; I know a lot about WWII from the American point of view; it's such a comfortable war from our view. I mean, fighting never happened in our own borders like it did in Europe; we charged in and saved the day; and there was a clear evil side (and really, Nazis are if nothing else the ultimate evil) and so we were the undisputed good guys. All the wars since then have been so murky and unclear. We don't always win and when we do, it's an unsatisfying partial victory that refuses to completely coalesce into something we can be proud of.

Olson talks a lot about the system of Parliament during the time. Everyone knew each other; went to the same school, ate at the same clubs, slept with each other's wives, etc. So to differ in any way from your peers, even in your view of Hitler as a dangerous untrustworthy madman, was extremely difficult. A lot of the book relates the failed attempts to overthrow the appeasing Chamberlain and his government. You know how it ends, but Olson writes so well and so immediately that every time Cartland refuses to vote against the Conservative government, every time Churchill refuses to speak out against Chamberlain's hollow promises, every time the vote is called off or doesn't have enough votes, you bite your nails. It takes one hell of a writer to make a vote of no confidence a nail-biter. And then, 400 pages of failed negotiations and broken coalitions later, Leo Amery, a contemporary of Chamberlain's and an enemy of Churchill, stood up. He said to Parliament and to Chaamberlain: I do it with great reluctance, because I am speaking of those who are old friends and associates of mine, but they are words which, I think, are applicable to the present situation. This is what Cromwell said to the Long Parliament when he thought it was no longer fit to conduct the affairs of the nation: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go."

Thanks to Olson, you know how much it cost him to say these words. Amery and the other "troublesome young men" who overthrew Chamberlain were on the vast whole not rewarded for their efforts. (It says something about the British national character that Churchill looked at the men who put him in power as dangerous revolutionaries and excluded them from his government.) Amery was shrewd; he knew how much this betrayal would cost him. But he believed it needed to be said. And so he said it.