Max Hastings

Winston Churchill was the greatest war leader Britain ever had. In 1940, the nation rallied behind him in an extraordinary fashion. But thereafter, argues Max Hastings, there was a deep divide between what Churchill wanted from the British people and their army, and what they were capable of delivering. Himself a hero, he expected others to show themselves heroes also, and was often disappointed. It is little understood how low his popularity fell...

In 'Catastrophe 1914', Max Hastings answers how World War I could ever have begun. Ranging across Europe, from Paris to St. Petersburg, from kings to corporals, he traces how tensions across the continent kindled into a blaze of battles; not the stalements of later trench-warfare but battles of movement and dash where Napoleonic tactics met with we