The Second World War (book series)
The Second World War is a history of the period from the end of the First World War to July 1945, written by Winston Churchill. Churchill labelled the "moral of the work" as follows: "In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill". These had been the words which he had suggested for the First World War memorial for a French municipality. His suggestion had not been accepted on that occasion.
Churchill compiled the book, with a team of assistants, using both his own notes and privileged access to official documents while still serving as Leader of the Opposition; the text was vetted by the Cabinet Secretary. Churchill was largely fair in his treatment, but wrote the history from his personal point of view. He was unable to reveal all the facts, as some, such as the use of Ultra electronic intelligence, had to remain secret. From a historical point of view the book is therefore an incomplete memoir by a leading participant in the direction of the war.
The book was a major commercial success in Britain and the United States. The first edition appeared in six volumes; later editions appeared in twelve and four volumes, and furthermore there is also a single-volume abridged version.
Finance
Churchill received the first offer for his War Memoirs from a US newspaper syndicate, King Features, at 6.36pm on the day of his resignation as Prime Minister. He initially declined as it would have meant losing his tax status as a "retired author" which exempted his earnings from previous books from the then 90% rate of income tax.Churchill was eventually tempted in November 1945 by a suggestion from Marshall Field III of the Chicago Sun that he donate his papers to a family trust, after which he would only be taxed on his income as "editor" of any book written using them. By February 1946 Churchill's tax advisors had drawn up a detailed plan along these lines. He returned to England in late March from the US, where he had delivered his "Iron Curtain" speech at Fulton, Missouri. In early April he had more meetings with solicitors and tax advisors. On 3 May 1946 Churchill met with Henry Luce and Walter Graebner of Time Life.
Lord Camrose and Emery Reves negotiated further finance deals. Churchill wanted payment up front, and received £40,000 from Cassells. He probably could have made more had he made a deal for royalties rather than a lump sum. However, lucrative deals were also signed for publication by Houghton Mifflin in the United States, serialisation in Life magazine, The New York Times, in Camrose's The Daily Telegraph in the UK and the Murdoch Press in Australia. Volume 1 was serialised in 80 magazines across the world, and was published in 50 countries in 26 languages. Along with other deals for the publication of his personal papers Churchill appears to have secured around £550,000. The books made him a rich man for the first time in his life. At the time the salary of the Prime Minister was £10,000 and that of the Leader of the Opposition £2,000,.
However Walter Graebner of Life became concerned that insufficient progress was being made over the summer of 1947, during which time Volume One advanced from "Provisional Semi-Final" to "Provisional Final". He bought Churchill a new poodle to replace Rufus who had been run over at the Conservative Party Conference and persuaded his employer to pay for the first of several "working holidays" in the Mediterranean, at a time when British people were only permitted to take £35 out of the country because of exchange controls. The New York Times agreed to share the cost, but Houghton Mifflin declined. After the last of Churchill's expenses-paid working holidays in 1951, Time Life executives calculated that these had cost $56,572.23 of which Time Life had paid around $35,000 and the New York Times the rest; on the whole they judged this to have been a good investment to get a major writing project finished.
Cassells made £100,000 profit from the first volume alone. By 1953 the first five volumes had sold 1.75 million copies in the UK, 1.76 million in the USA and 77,000 in Canada. By April 1954 the six volumes had sold 2.2 million copies in the USA and another 2 million in Britain and the Empire.
Writing
When Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, he intended to write a history of the war which had been underway for nine months. He said several times: "I will leave judgements on this matter to history—but I will be one of the historians." To circumvent the rules against the use of official documents, he took the precaution throughout the war of having a weekly summary of correspondence, minutes, memoranda and other documents printed in galleys and headed "Prime Minister's personal minutes". These were then stored at his home and Churchill wrote or dictated letters and memoranda with the intention of placing his views on the record, for later use as a historian. The arrangements became a source of controversy when The Second World War began appearing in 1948. Churchill was a politician, not an academic historian, and was Leader of the Opposition, intending to return to office; so his access to Cabinet, military and diplomatic records denied to other historians was questioned.It was not known at the time that Churchill had done a deal with Clement Attlee and the Labour government which came to office in 1945. Attlee agreed to allow Churchill's research assistants access to all documents, provided that no official secrets were revealed and the documents were not used for party political purposes. Churchill's privileged access to documents and his knowledge gave him an advantage over other historians of the Second World War for many years. The gathered documents were placed in chronologies by his advisers, and this store of material was further supplemented by dictated recollections of key episodes, together with queries about chronology, location and personalities for his team to resolve. Churchill finally obtained Cabinet approval to quote from official documents after negotiations with the Cabinet Secretary Edward Bridges. Churchill also wrote to many fellow actors requesting documents and comments.
The books were largely written by a team of writers known as "The Syndicate". The name comes from horse racing, as Churchill had recently become a racehorse owner. Peter Clarke writes that the Syndicate was run with "businesslike efficiency tempered by the author's whims" by William Deakin. They included Hastings Ismay, Henry Pownall and Commodore Gordon Allen. By February 1946 Churchill's tax advisors had drawn up a detailed plan for his memoirs. Returning to England in late March from the US he engaged William Deakin. Churchill met Deakin on 19 March 1946. In early April, whilst having more meetings with solicitors and tax advisors, Churchill met with Ismay. A year earlier Ismay had sent Churchill a printed copy of the minutes of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council of 1939–40, and in the third week of May Churchill sent him a dictated account of the events leading up to the outbreak of war. Ismay replied with comments and some recollections of his own. By September 1946 Churchill was dictating some chapters on the Battle of France in 1940, which he planned to send to Ismay for comments, whilst warning him that they would be further checked by the "young gentlemen" he would employ, and that they would not be published for several years.
Clarke comments that the books were very much "a collaborative effort", far more so even than Churchill's Marlborough in the 1930s when he had already come to rely heavily on drafts written by specialist researchers. Churchill had the greatest personal input into Volume One. The barrister Denis Kelly was in charge of Churchill's massive personal archive. Kelly increasingly took on the role of a senior writer. He later recalled bringing proofs from the printers to Churchill at Chartwell in the evenings, to be worked on after dinner late into the night; he would sometimes take instructions from Churchill until after he had climbed into bed, turned out the light and removed his false teeth. He recalled condensing Goodwin's 150 page account of The Blitz down to 3 pages over the course of ten days' work, only for Churchill to sharpen his prose "like a skilled topiarist restoring a neglected and untidy garden figure to its true shape and proportions." Kelly was paid £1,200 per annum over the three year period of 1950–2.
Charles C Wood formerly of Harraps was hired as a proofreader. Sir Edward Marsh also fulfilled that role. Wood, similar in age to Churchill and long retired, was engaged after an early typo that the French Army was "the poop of the French nation". Kelly wrote that this was "too near the truth to let it go" and that after a furious midnight call from Churchill to the publishers errata slips had to be included explaining that the intended word had been "prop"; he commented that it was reminiscent of the newspaper account of Queen Victoria "pissing over Clifton Suspension Bridge to the cheers of her loyal subjects".
The typescript was also vetted by the new Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook. Brook took a close interest in the books and rewrote some sections to ensure that British interests were not harmed or the government embarrassed. Brook read three successive proofs of Volume One and became in David Reynolds' words almost "an additional member of the Syndicate".
Churchill's personal input into the books declined over time and by 1951 the Syndicate were increasingly writing much of the work in Churchill's style. Peter Clarke uses the phrase "School of Churchill", referring to Peter Paul Rubens' system of delegating much of the work of painting to apprentices and outside experts. Churchill finally released the Syndicate, to whom he had been paying combined salaries of £5,000 per annum, in 1952. Triumph And Tragedy, the final volume, appeared in 1953 after Churchill had once again become Prime Minister, but for appearances' sake it was pretended that Churchill had written it before his return to office in 1951.