Churchill's Triumph: A Novel of Betrayal
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| Churchill's Triumph: A Novel of Betrayal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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For eight days, beginning on Saturday, February 3, 1945, the most powerful men in the world ? Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin ? met at the Black Sea Resort of Yalta, where in the most momentous conference of the century, they preceded to divide up Europe. This novel, told from Churchill's point of view, takes you behind the scenes and brings you into the minds and hearts of the big three leaders: the dominating and seemingly all-powerful Joseph Stalin, with the largest army, and the mission of expanding the Soviet Empire; an ailing and fragile Roosevelt, willing to make whatever compromises he felt he had to in order to bring Stalin and Russia into the final campaign against Japan; and Churchill, the least powerful of the three, but the most far-sighted, who could not count on Roosevelt as his ally, and could not tame the avaricious Russian bear, determined to gobble up the nations around and beyond it. Like a fly on the wall of history, the reader becomes a hidden witness to these monumental negotiations, witnessing negotiations that would betray the heroic struggle of millions who died and fought in the Great War.
Meanwhile, a Polish count who has taken on the persona of a deceased soldier appears in Churchill's suite to reveal one of the great unknown secrets of that time: the Soviet's systematic execution of thousands of Polish officers at Katyn, the mass murder that the Russians eventually blamed on the Germans. His courageous defiance of the German army's occupation of his village, and his village's fate at the hands of the victorious Russian army, serve as a profoundly moving subplot to the larger story. Churchill's Triumph allows the reader to eavesdrop on the world's most powerful men, as they lie, cheat, and deceive each other as they struggle to reach agreement and secure their places in history. All the historical aspects of the story are accurate, down to the last detail, including the spice Stalin put in his vodka. A bestseller in England, Churchill's Triumph received widespread press coverage and reviews: "His portrait of Churchill is as masterly as ever: a wonderful compound of bluster, sentimentality, grumpiness and indefatigable physical energy. There are the usual elegant metaphors... In the tragedy of Poland burning while statesmen fiddled, Dobbs has found a theme worthy of his powers." --Sunday Telegraph "How do you delight the profit-maximising big retailers while at the same time writing something dark and moving? Michael Dobbs knows how...Dobbs knows his sources, but the dialogue is his own: good, clean, moving briskly and underpinned by the record, it conveys historical truth. As for Poland, it suffered all the horrors. Dobbs writes about the country with tight passion, transferring to his fictional village, Piorun, the rape, murder and savage enforcement by Germans and Russians which, so far away and so little regarded, actually happened. The old women weeping, the houses burned down, the bodies left promiscuously on the street are history set out for the attention of novel-readers, memorable instruction in human grief... Furiously told and compelling, Churchill's Triumph is a thinking man's bestseller." --The Guardian "Dobbs astutely and dramatically portrays the real story of Yalta, the mighty tussle between the three men upon whose political skills and strength of character the rest of the world would depend... The novel is a triumph because of the author's fine appreciation of history and his meticulous eye for detail." --The Times. "Michael Dobbs brings the Second World War to a resounding close... Dobbs portrays Churchill as being all too human - oversensitive and easily hurt by friendship betrayed, and conjures up Roosevelt's stricken response beautifully... Dobbs is a fine writer and neatly sums up the appeal of historical novels. Not only can they fill in the gaps left by an inaccurate, incomplete or contradictory factual record, but they can capture the spirit of the thing. Dobbs has certainly done that here." --Daily Telegraph "It's all too easy to forget that you're not reading an insider's account of ht real events that shaped the modern world. Dobbs clearly has an instinctive feel for what makes powerful men tick." --The Mail on Sunday "Although it's a novel rather than a work of non-fiction, Churchill's Triumph brings into vivid focus that one wintry week in Georgia when Europe's fate was decided. It's a compelling story, expertly told, and builds on the totally credible portrait of Britain's cantankerous but brilliant wartime leader Dobbs has drawn in his earlier novels.... Dobbs is one of the brightest and best mass-market storytellers around." --The Scotsman "A brilliant drama tracing the human side of the leaders who held the future of the world in their hands, showing the delusions, paranoia, compromises and betrayal which come with statesmanship in times of crisis." --Yorkshire Post "The novel is also a reminder that war is about people and interwoven with the events at Yalta are tales of other individuals, from Polish refugees and starving Russian children to Churchill's own children and the German troops fleeing the advancing Red Army. It's a moving story of human tragedy you won't want to put down." --Scottish Sunday Post "The real Churchill brought to life." --Western Morning News "Dobbs provides an absorbing account of the events that took place at Yalta. The book vividly brings to life one of the pivotal events of the twentieth century. Dobbs' impeccably researched novel brings flesh to the bones of a highly significant historical event." --Glasgow Herald "The drama and despair of this momentous meeting are captured perfectly and Dobbs shows rare talent for reading between the lines of official history." --Northern Echo "Dobbs presents the historical facts with such skill and pace... A rattling good yarn. This is another winner." --Nottingham Evening Post "The novel brings the passion of war to life." --Teesside Evening Gazette "A huge success" --South Shields Gazette "A considerable achievement in its own right, I've rarely ever felt so involved and so moved by a historical novel." --Professor John Ramsden, Author of Churchill ? Man of the Century "The beauty of the dialogue in the book is that you can imagine Churchill saying the words... but the star of this book is Churchill's valet Mr. Sawyers. The interplay between the two is superb. I thoroughly enjoyed it." --Iain Dale, 18 Doughty Street TV |
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| 07-03-08 | 4 | (NA) |
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I found "Churchill's Triumph" to be an excellent example of historical fiction. I enjoyed the books insight into not only Churchill, but also Roosevelt and Stalin. The subplot throughout the book concerning Poland and the mysterious plumber, Nowak, was chilling in it's portrayal of the treatment of Poland by the Germans as well as the Russians. I highly recommend this novel.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2008-11-15 11:23:45 EST)
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| 04-24-08 | 5 | 2\2 |
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Michael Dobbs in his most recent historical novel, Churchill's Triumph: A Novel Of Betrayal spins another mesmerizing portrayal of one of the greatest statesman, Winston Churchill who, as we are reminded at the very beginning of the book stated: "History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passions of former days."
Dobbs in his latest foray into the life and times of Churchill brings us back to Yalta in February of 1945 just before the end of World War II when a week-long series of historic meetings involving the leaders of the three largest nations of the world, Russia, England and the United States gathered. It was here where the brutal Stalin, the aging yet feisty Churchill and an ailing Roosevelt met and came with their own agendas as to how to deal and carve up Europe once Hitler was defeated. As in his past historical novels, Dobbs acts as if he were a fly on the wall as he construes what transpired and what was said during the various conversations among the three leaders. Roosevelt was particularly interested in the creation of the United Nations to replace the League of Nations, Stalin was steadfast in his desire to completely destroy Poland and Germany, and Churchill was concerned about protecting the frontiers of Poland as well as making sure of its freedom. However, as we read, it was not too much of each of the leaders to cheat and betray one another and in so doing leave a lasting legacy that would have dreadful ramifications not only affecting Europe but also the Far East. As Dobbs points out, it was quite ironic that it was Molotov the Russian Foreign Minister who informed the others how the war would be finished. It was this same Molotov who thought little of executing starving peasants and children as young as twelve, and who had endorsed the massacre in the forests of Katyn. This same beast planned the destruction of the kulaks, deporting and obliterating millions of innocent people long before Hitler entered the scene. And it was the same Molotov who signed the pact with his German counterpart, von Ribbentrop that flung the world into war. The idealist Roosevelt was so wrapped up in his desire to create the United Nations and to get Russia involved in the war on Japan that he didn't mind selling off Poland and half of Europe to Stalin. And both thought very little of betraying not only the Chinese but also the British with their wheeling and dealing. Churchill was quite upset about losing Poland however, justly or mistakenly he assumed he could not save her on his own. To Churchill, he had nothing to fight with, except words, and he realized that words alone wouldn't do the job. Poland was to be buried beneath a table of lies. Moreover, if Poland was lost, what else might he lose? As he stated, win the war, yet lose the peace-the timeless legacy of fools. Dobbs informs us in his Acknowledgments that he tried to remain true to the course of events pertaining to the happenings at Yalta. He does admit to omitting huge chunks of the proceedings while at the same time taking dramatic liberties with other parts, yet for the most part what he has written about the major events actually did happen. In order to effectively capture the flavor of events and Churchill's betrayal, Dobbs interlaces into the narrative the fictional character Marian Nowak as well as the fictional town of Piorun. Churchill's Triumph: A Novel Of Betrayal is a fast paced novel blending known facts with fiction and to classify it as historical fiction would be to rob it of its realism and distinctiveness. Dobbs has re-imagined so vividly that cusp of time when the destiny of the world was planned out by three men who perhaps with the exception of Churchill were not too troubled about the outcome of their decisions. All that matter was to fulfill their own agendas and be damned with the aftermath. Norm Goldman, Publisher & Editor Bookpleasures (Review Data Last Updated: 2008-06-22 11:10:38 EST)
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| 01-22-07 | 4 | 4\4 |
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"Old men, worn down by war, who couldn't properly finish what they had begun. It summed up the story of Yalta." - Author Michael Dobbs, in CHURCHILL'S TRIUMPH
From February 4 - 11, 1945, Churchill, Stalin and FDR met at Yalta in the Crimea to tie up the loose ends of World War II. Each had an agenda: the American President wanted the establishment of the United Nations, Russia's entry into the war against Japan, and his personal place in history; the British Prime Minister wanted a free Poland (as, unstated, a block to Soviet westward expansion); the Communist Party Secretary General wanted territory in Eastern Europe and spoils. In the end, it was the wily, rapacious Stalin that dominated the conference. FDR, exhausted and sick and with only eight weeks to live, no longer had the mental energy to perceive and resist Uncle Joe's duplicity. And Winston, though he fought like a lion, was, much like the British Empire, no longer relevant to the larger designs of the world's two new superpowers, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. CHURCHILL'S TRIUMPH, presumably solidly based in the factual history of the summit, is a fictional narrative of the conference as seen through the eyes of Winston, who, apparently ignored and abandoned by his friend Roosevelt, is beside himself with frustration at his inability to alter the course of diplomacy and appeasement. Perhaps the most engaging character of the story is that of Churchill's manservant, the loyal but cheeky Frank Sawyers, a real person who, unfortunately, exited history after leaving his master's service in 1946. (Loyal readers of Michael Dobb's will remember Sawyers from a previous book in the Churchill series, Churchill's Hour. Indeed, Google "Frank Sawyers" and there's virtually no information on the man beyond his inclusion in the author's books - a pity.) CHURCHILL'S TRIUMPH suffers, I think, from the inclusion of a fictitious subplot involving a refugee Pole, Marian Nowak, held virtual prisoner by the Russians and pressed into service by his jailers as a plumber at Churchill's borrowed Crimean residence, the Vorontsov Palace. The uneasy relation between the British PM and Nowak, which carried through to the end of the book set in 1963, allowed Winston to pronounce what he thought his nebulous triumph at Yalta to have been. But to me, this subplot seemed contrived and, at its conclusion, overly melodramatic . Another sidebar, this taking place in the fictitious Polish village of Piorun, was sufficient to illustrate the validity of Winston's ominous forebodings regarding Soviet intent in Eastern Europe. The Yalta story, as the basis for a novel about Churchill, is powerful enough by itself and doesn't need embellishment. Particularly revelatory of the conference were the words of Octavius from Shakespeare's "Julius Ceasar" quoted by the PM as they put their signatures to paper in the concluding signing ceremony: "Let us do so, for we are at the stake and bayed about with many enemies. And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, millions of mischiefs." (Review Data Last Updated: 2008-01-28 11:29:02 EST)
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| 01-21-07 | 4 | 5\5 |
| Reviewer | Permalink | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Old men, worn down by war, who couldn't properly finish what they had begun. It summed up the story of Yalta." - Author Michael Dobbs, in CHURCHILL'S TRIUMPH
From February 4 - 11, 1945, Churchill, Stalin and FDR met at Yalta in the Crimea to tie up the loose ends of World War II. Each had an agenda: the American President wanted the establishment of the United Nations, Russia's entry into the war against Japan, and his personal place in history; the British Prime Minister wanted a free Poland (as, unstated, a block to Soviet westward expansion); the Communist Party Secretary General wanted territory in Eastern Europe and spoils. In the end, it was the wily, rapacious Stalin that dominated the conference. FDR, exhausted and sick and with only eight weeks to live, no longer had the mental energy to perceive and resist Uncle Joe's duplicity. And Winston, though he fought like a lion, was, much like the British Empire, no longer relevant to the larger designs of the world's two new superpowers, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. CHURCHILL'S TRIUMPH, presumably solidly based in the factual history of the summit, is a fictional narrative of the conference as seen through the eyes of Winston, who, apparently ignored and abandoned by his friend Roosevelt, is beside himself with frustration at his inability to alter the course of diplomacy and appeasement. Perhaps the most engaging character of the story is that of Churchill's manservant, the loyal but cheeky Frank Sawyers, a real person who, unfortunately, exited history after leaving his master's service in 1946. (Loyal readers of Michael Dobb's will remember Sawyers from a previous book in the Churchill series, Churchill's Hour. Indeed, Google "Frank Sawyers" and there's virtually no information on the man beyond his inclusion in the author's books - a pity.) CHURCHILL'S TRIUMPH suffers, I think, from the inclusion of a fictitious subplot involving a refugee Pole, Marian Nowak, held virtual prisoner by the Russians and pressed into service by his jailers as a plumber at Churchill's borrowed Crimean residence, the Vorontsov Palace. The uneasy relation between the British PM and Nowak, which carried through to the end of the book set in 1963, allowed Winston to pronounce what he thought his nebulous triumph at Yalta to have been. But to me, this subplot seemed contrived and, at its conclusion, overly melodramatic . Another sidebar, this taking place in the fictitious Polish village of Piorun, was sufficient to illustrate the validity of Winston's ominous forebodings regarding Soviet intent in Eastern Europe. The Yalta story, as the basis for a novel about Churchill, is powerful enough by itself and doesn't need embellishment. Particularly revelatory of the conference were the words of Octavius from Shakespeare's "Julius Ceasar" quoted by the PM as they put their signatures to paper in the concluding signing ceremony: "Let us do so, for we are at the stake and bayed about with many enemies. And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, millions of mischiefs." (Review Data Last Updated: 2008-01-29 11:29:06 EST)
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