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[inaudible]. >> the troops prepared to land predict and german guns, and they are on the shore. [background sounds]. [background sounds]. the arrival of motorized equipment marks the end of first phase of the landing rated vlc eyes have their lives of men now on the beaches and offer transports to more troops than on the short.

>> that was 77 years ago today on the shores of france. our guest is joining us from england, sir max hastings has written a book "overlord: d-day and the battle for normandy," and the forthcoming "operation pedestal," about one of the fiercest battles of world war ii. and came out f in 1984 and x hastings 77 years later do we have a different perspective on d-day. max: i was totally lucky when i brought that book was that i was able to interview a host of people of american and british and german who actually been there and you should never take all of the history about anything. [inaudible]. but they do give you a feeling for events on how they felt that is very hard to get such a book through and i was watching the activity and on one particular guy that interviewed, he was

very articulate guy who mentioned, he had landed on the beach on d-day and i asked him, i civil before it all happen, this huge event, how did all seem to you and he said, higgins, age 18, he said i just could not get my mind around the idea that i was about to invade france. and i was incredibly young and most of the guys work. we could see that tiny bit of it but it was really only long after it was all over that they understood as one of the part of the biggest events in human history nothing that one reason on d-day still has his fascination. in first of all, a lot of horse are both before and after the second world war, people have doubts whether this was the

right word i don't think anybody really doubts except a few lunatics that are guys in our parents or grandparents were the good guys in this event. and secondly, d-day was an absolute brilliant achievement is something that the addition americans and canadians did incredibly well. and like to take pride in order forefathers achieved there. peter: printed 939, two things what it a surprising could've it been prevented. max: it was not a surprise that was in 1939 and they were worried about it for six in the huge difference when 1914, the first of 1939 also in 1914, it was a shock. a colossal shock. and i was going through all of

the newspaper files in 1914 and what is amazing is that right up until two or three days before the war broke out, all the headlines in newspapers all over europe, they were about all source of stuff, they were about industrial disputes and they were about troubles in ireland and the british and they forked really focused on the fact this was happening and headed dramatic impact, but nobody in the end of july 1914 could see that this huge continent wide thing, and an awful lot of people who just read newspapers from right through from 1933 but later the democracies were going to have to take on that paper and they could see the war coming. it was a very slow birth predict and some historians have argued that they should've gone to war in 1938 over czechoslovakia.

i don't agree. i think that in 1938, a lot of people are so desperate to avoid the war isop to believe that you tcould argue with hitler and wht was dramatically different in september of 1939, was that hitler's behavior was such that everybody with half a brain could see that this guy with somebody you not do business and you could not negotiate with it would only bit dealt with by force of form. peter: what's the reputation today in great britain. max: will is pretty low because he has always remembered as a man inside away czechoslovakia. and i don'tki think he was a vey impressive prime minister. don't think he is a very impressive leader. but all national leaders can only go as fast as their nations will allow them to read in franklin roosevelt understand

this between 1939 in 1941, all the way through, dragging the united states into war franklin roosevelt was debt desperately anxious for the democracies of britain should not lose the war and he knew that he had to carry the american people with him until pearl harbor he knew that rhe couldn't carry them with him after the death and the declaration of war in the same like that iro argued in my own book, that is lucky he did not become prime minister until late 1940s because he was able to shuffle the blame after being on the battlefield in actually including many of 1940 and also. [inaudible]. but he was able to take over without putting the blame or the shame of all the stuff that chamberlain was response will form the first thing is before he became partners, temperament

with regard was very successful rather for politician and minister. he did terrific things for britain on domestic issues before 1938 within after he became prime minister, he never did anything right. and he would always remember as a man who signed the agreement that allowed hitler to take czechoslovakia. no way is a bit unfair but the writing of history is unfair rated. peter: will max hastings churchill as a warlord 1940 - 1945 came out in 2009. sue and i may say, i had fun writing the book. and churchill and he was such a fantastic character. and i really enjoyed it immensely writing the book and

sometimes it just seems like. peter: has his reputation changed. has his reputation changed. max: his reputation, i think the churchill was more admired in the united states today that he wasn't present but in particular in britain, as you may know is become entangled in this supporting of the slavery and racism and so on. the argument always as a historian what i am trying to do all of the time when i write about other periods is to close my eyes and think not how does this hold out in 31st century but how does it look to them after the times in which they lived. and i would not hesitate to say that he was it churchill was racist because everybody in his era was and he behaved and treated the black and brown people with a degree of condescension.

and even contempt. but so did all of his generation, he was a victorian and fellow inn the victorian er. one can't defend that pretty can't say that were trapped here. i remember and i had written about this in my book that the love of the british troops when they were stationed in india during world war ii fighting the japanese, the question arose whether the british private soldiers would have to salute the indian officers. and churchill said he would not have it. and he said you should be obliged to defer to a brown man. it was horribleer things to save our own time and one can't pretend but i think that it has been over done now. and whatever historical character, everybody was and you

have to say, did they do more good than harm. one would very strongly argue that churchill serviced the democracy and entirely were his feelings but i think that one has to also for example in 1944, it was a deaths under disastrous time and in which you had billions of people starving. in the british of course it was brutal. and of india, he appealed to the judge camping to send relief supplies to westbank. [inaudible]. and churchill said indians will have to learn to fight the battles is the prudish people have in this too was the most respond to say because the indians in those days were livingay on rations than far moe

so than anybody in britain. people were dying streets while white officers were able to eat unlimited eggs and bacon this was one of the most horrible episodes and churchill's career as a leader. and again i still believe that his great achievements far outweigh the others. and certainly well beyond people throwing paint on statues of churchill demanding the removed. it will to me, this is grotesque, ridiculous. we have to keep a certain portion and one of the hardest things with the movements that are going on at the moment about race and gender or political events in the past, very few things in life are plain and simple choices between good and evil. most things are the nuance and

the nuances i think you get lost in this ferocious debate when people now arguing that churchill was racist therefore his statue should be removed and all of the books about him should be re- written. this is childish and off a lot of people are driving this movements. boom and then you presently of the real history. peter: max hastings is the author about 30 books and a former editor-in-chief of the daily telegraph in the evening standard newspapers. and he is our guest on in-depth for the next few hours. max w hastings if you are 1900 late 1945 after the end of world war ii. when he remember, what are some of your earliest memory supposed rwere present. max: i grew up in the shadow of the war.

right along the housing which we lived in as a child is this huge empty space covered in ways which was the huge bomb site where it was destroyed by the bombs. and they still wore uniforms in the street and they were still freshening and one remembers especially the suites candy being rationed. the kids it was pretty painful. we so i wouldn't say that we suffered that much but we had mostly in the country. in one god used to everything was short. we were very poor. this had been ruined by the war and a lot of british people thought that about, totally unfair. that they had had the burden alone of resisting hitler in 19401941 of hitler. while russia was hitler's ally.

in the united states was still neutral and headedd seemed terribly unfair but that was the way it was. and the other thing that i've really stressed the whole of my life since my childhood pretty getting away from some of the stupid ideas. my father and my uncles and cousins all somehow all the men in my family have enjoyed the experience is of the war, my great uncle, he made his first parachute jump at the age of 61. in my father had been the sort of thing as well and very famous magazine which was the equivalent of a life magazine in britain. enjoy the work and special on the military and they spent most of my childhood telling stories to each other about what kind it was my mother would say towh me, don't listeno

them. your father and uncle lewis talk about the war and ghastly. and of course war is ghastly. in the united states had privilege in second world war invaded but britain as well had a pretty privileged war appeared in the russians occupied europe. i think one thing in particular once i started writing about wars, i thought that it was all about the soldiers. and actually, soldiers although their important part of this, some of them, anything for example the women who it occupied europe in world war ii and whatt it meant for millions of women's to be entirely the mercy of a teenager with a gun. and and it was and what they endured after the war was something that we had to think

about when we were very young but in my books, have come to realize what itco is. and every soldier in some cases manages to find the war exciting or enjoyable. throughout thousands who there was nothing enjoyable and theirl experiences are unspeakable and not pass this at all and i believe that we have to be willing to fight to defend the things that we believe in but i also think that one has to understand that there are awfulness of ward and nobody should after entered have to get into a war without thinking very carefully about what they're gettingg into. peter: and max hastings on world war ii and inferno in world war ii came out in 2011 why the name change. the copy i have is all heck let

loose was that the american version. max: i thought the title, the one that we used especially around the world, one that encapsulated to me, if you listen to the referenced stories again and again when they are talking about things that happened on the battlefield, they fall back on that cliché. and then he will say all heck was let loose a lot about that phrase. enemy encapsulates what happened. if you are very young man or a teenager, and you have been brought up maybe in a farming community in oklahoma or in the back streets of new york or oregon or wherever, and you've lived a life of peace and in a community of peace. and you suddenly find yourself on the deck of the destroyer or

flying perhaps in a be 17 or on the battlefield enormity. and you're seeing human beings literally blown to shreds before your eyes and your expect to keep running and finding in those circumstances nursing total things like this all around you. and the balance of the horror of the people saw that all heck let loose, the phrase seemed to me as we vividly to encapsulate what huge numbers of young men and women as well, experienced in the war. but mike publishers thought inferior note was a better title. if elected rather regret that because what i was trying to do with all help let loose is although the narrative of the war is there, of what happened between 1939 in 1945, really wanted to tell it is the people's story. from the bottom up and not from the top down but yes after the

great war leaders. and so forth predict a specific idea the war meant something different to the people to according to the way you lived and many of you were if you were in prison for instance he got up with the monotony of rations as incredibly dreary during the war and he complained hostilely about how dreary it was but on the other hand that if you lived in this for almost two years by the germans, since 800,000 people starved to death. a lot of people was had to go to cannibalism in the course of that seems to stay alive and everybody in britain, how much you complained about food nobody but i would believe that in

britain, it was successfully invaded by thed germans, i do believe that because it was part of the western democracy, i think that the people of prison whenever their hands of and the same is probably true in america. rather than to each other. it was the russians who they were accustomed to terrible hardships. until 1942 which killed a lot of people. and the russians were accustomed to living in these positions of ghastly starvation's. and i don't believe the british in the market people in such circumstances would have faced is much the russians did to get food out. and again, all the time and all hell broke loose what i was trying to do is that if you are a chinese for instance, not a lot of people l had no idea that the united states and britain lost about 400 each,0 in those

days. china lost about 15 million and of course russia 27 million. and the sufferings of the chinese, and again and try to bring them into the story because most people who study the second world war, you study the british or the american embassy and you don't really get into what was on but i think that in the 31st century for people like me to justify writing books about that. and we have to, not really the great revelations if only the great secrets. the generations scholars and the men and look at it in a new way especially the new human perspective. peter: "all hell broke loose" came out in 2011 and two years

later catastrophe and another in about world war i printed and forceful, max hastingss similarities between the two wars and did you find those and basically how did world war i start. max: [laughter] that's a huge question prayed and let me take the similarities first. it is become a cliché among a lot of people in britain and america and after the second world war certainly not compared to the first. but certainly, more terrible than the those of the first world war that took place in world war ii, with more casualties. it was the russians who were fighting them. and where the british and americans and is only relative of the british and the american troops especially the palmer approach and suffering through it as well and these suffered of

the terrible losses in first of first ward work and the only campaign in the second world war which the british and the americans were up against the same sort of experiences of the russians had was the normandy in june of 1944 everybody focuses on deep date which is a mistake. horrible people were killed in the days and weeks that followed in the losses and some infantry units, and again about the british and the americans was part of the campaign of the war but for most of the war, but the british and the americans were thinking if you reduced it to between the british and france in june of 1940 and d day in 1944, most of the british army in the british army were trading at home and even the famous men of the founding fathers.

that first day in action was june of 1944 and of course the germans and the o russians had been finding ferociously and suffered terrible losses all through the years before that. so to me the real lesson is that when you get huge wars and the industrial past have an awful lot of dying and killing. and before he in turn is going to happen before your region and the only thing that you're arguing about is who's going to the killing in the dying the british and americans were very fortunate at world war ii that the russians did most of the killing the dying. those necessary to overcome. whereas in world war i of course it was in drafts in the french especially the french would also the british and terrible casualties and run twice as many people in world war i and world war ii.

but those world war i experiences would be suicidal attacks in the face of machine guns coming up in world war ii but our parents and grandparents got lucky but most often, they didn't happen on our side. initiate a question about helpful for one started. i think the underlying cause was this, we now recognize the great wars are terrible things. that you want to think very very carefully before you get into great wars. one of the things that's helped keep the world safe and alive to the cuban missile crisis in 1962, was a jacky kennedy, established the guns of august about how war came about in 1914, almost by accident. he was determined about nothing like that was going to happen on his watch. he was determined not to find

himself sliding into war. of course the u.s. in 1962, was very enthusiastic about following the russian missiles and invading cuba. and kennedy wouldn't be becoming that but this is a huge danger if you got into a dramatic installation. not in 1914, germany especially was accustomed to regarding war as a usable instrument of policy and that germany had fought three wars after the preceding half-century against denmark, against austria, and in 1817 against france. all of which have been huge successes were germany and germany had was able to take the beach. until 1871 that russia was maybe

the leading competitor for the german state. most of the senior officers of what has been - has now been regarded war in 191491 as a usae as much as policy. [inaudible]. and many of them had the idea that they could see russia becoming ever more successful and they were profoundly uneasy. they thought that the best chance of feeding the russians was to fight a war in 1914 rather than holding off until 1916 or later. when the russians especially their weight social systems women come far far stronger. all of the people involved in 1914 what is terrifying is the immensity of the horror they

were facing. many of them genuinely believed that we did have our people in the streets in 19909014 as you will certainly did not predict that in any sensible nation. and they were foolish enough to think that they could see a lot the germans but s in 1949 and generally, most responding with deadly seriousness to go to work and in 1914 this foolish idea that they quickly could do something romantic and exciting. and all sorts of people which should've been a bunch into this terrible thought without thinking too much about it. in the german, i don't think he wanted a big war but he did want

a small war. in allowing these allies in austria to invade serbia and crush them would be good people and he gave the austrians what is been called by the stories of like check. it got lost to attacks serbia and even when russians would complain that they would fight in support serbia. [inaudible]. but everybody watched the scenario unfolding in these few weeks in the summer of 1914, with very few of them understanding the horror of what they were taking on. peter: now sir max hastings you did not mention the assassination of the arch to hungry. and generations of americans and schoolchildren have been taught that was the key. max: was a trigger, it was the trigger because it gave the

curious thing was the arch it was rather on june the 38. [inaudible]. that it was carissa nobody in austria-hungary much like france he was the heir of the austrian throne but nobody really liked him. and after he had been killed, the foreigners were amazed for the arch duke but the austrians also hungarians sees on this assassination as the excuse they had been looking for years to remove serbia from the map. and all sorts of trouble in austria-hungary was a mess and had 20 or 30 different minority nations. in all of these minorities had been rescued and they were

constantly moving. in rural from vienna and seeking - and that government was desperately anxious and concerned of overall these different bits of the empire. why they should fight this war in the empire and the countries like and all of the others and so on and so forth. but the austrians values are empire are enormously they wanted to hang onto it. and really, the austrians and the hungarians went to war to preserve an empire the most people would've told them they had no chance of hanging onto anyway. they thought that invading serbia was going to be in tidy things up as a whole that was going to end all of this nonsense of the serbia's. and and of course far from that, this is huge war with germany coming in behind austria-hungary

and russians coming in behind soviet read and of course on the other side, whom franson russia and the germans had a war plan whereby they took out france before they dealt with russians. so they told the french that they would accept the new challenges in 1914 if the front surrendered all of their but to guarantee in force and were not going this. and so the sort of mad progression of these two alliances coming up against each other, of course it was certainly the case of the assassination had provided the trigger for all of this. but the forces on the move in germany and impressed upon of what we have not mentioned is the politics of germany.

that the socialists who are very anti- militaristic lily was the largest party in the german parliament. in socialists, they had charged each other would not have allowed this to go to war. but one of the generals who hated the soviets and the idea of the parliament in democracy, they thought that the glory of another successful work what was just what was needed to see the socialists. and they talk about it with lots of people would've thought like this but they did and is almost readiness to which they went to war thinking that it could do them good. peter: and on top of this we have to remember that nicholas the second wasas overthrown durg world war i. max: he was more sensitive figure with the german kaiser. and he never - he was a very

weak man and he knew how fragile the russian empire was. and he realized better than most people, that russia was becoming engaged in a big war. could bring down the dynasty but he went ahead anyway because he was a weak man and those around him, they hated the germans. they thought this was an opportunity to see off the germans in the austrians. and nicholas probably saw more clearly than most, what this could mean after his dynasty. but to tell you, he was too weak a man to resist to say that we won't have any part of it. what is extraordinary is that the people around him. and also buddhist. they honestly believed that the germans that this was an opportunity to set russia's new power. and again, this was the bombing

of the benefits but where they were and again, there was all sorts of killing the t streets over the outbreak of war. peter: sir max hastings coming of the author of 30 books but two of these are a very broad look at world war i and world war ii and "all hell broke loose" andse "catastrophe 1914" and how you begin a project. sue and i suppose in a way that one - i had been studying war in particular, the wars of the 20th century, all my life. one can draw upon every time i start a book, i have a quite long knowledge in the last 50 or 60 years they picked up and even as a teenager i used to read hugely about war. my first job, i was a researcher

on a huge series on world war i for the great war. and i was only 17 rated and then went to oxford, and writers for that. it was the most distinguished lawyers of that rate of time and so i lived in the atmosphere even when i was very young. and then, i became a journalist. i started working closely with television and there seem to be a lot of wars in those days and i went to a lot of wars. including vietnam, several times. a couple of middle east wars. one in pakistan and one in gala and i became increasingly fascinated by the experience of war. and one just got the morris on the more i read, the more that i wanted to write aboutut it and i

foundut the worst fascinating tt people were willing to read about it and became a life because i feel lucky. so most of my books are designed to discourage people from going to war. but i suppose because i've learned a great deal about war, and grown with a lot of experience my latest book on the population pedestal which is about the british fleet and forged its way through terrain at the terrible cost of the summer of 1942. and it was 1982 that is a correspondent with the british and i went to the south atlantic and we captured - and then i was writing operation pedestal the last year or two but of the time saying in my mind's eye went the scenes that i had seen, the south atlantic and the 700

ships sinking in the plains of charlestown. an extraordinarily respectful, you can hardly believent it, you see these huge ships in the south atlantic stalled and you see these that had sunk. and the crest of the waves, it's as if they, and the sea is below and the way that young man behaved. in all those things having seen something of that, s it was a vy small war in comparison to anything that happened in world war ii. but one has seen what it would be like to be on the decks and those memories were very much alive in my mind. operation pedestal. peter: just to give you an idea of war death and military and civilians, these numbers are a little difficult to find.

and you get completely and will get maxax hastings' reaction tot but according to world population review and history .com, world war i, 9 million military and deaths in world war ii, 70 million at least in the korean war, about 5 million read in the vietnam war, about one point $3m. never going to talk to max hastings about some of his other books, and the vietnam war as well but, this is a call in program and once a month on tv on "c-span2", we invited author to talk about his or her body of work and sir max hastings is joining us from england for this month on this anniversary of d-day and here is how you can participate 202 and if you live in the east central time zone, you can call in at 748-8200 and if youf live in the mountain or pacific time zone, 748 - 8201.

now if you are watching us from the uk and he would like to call in, feel free to call in on either one off those numbers. and if you can't get through on the phone mind, still like to make a comment, you can send a text, this number is for text messages only. (202)748-8903. if you do send a text, please include the first name and your city so that we can identify you that way and also, facebook, instagram, twitter, you can make it, is there as well. apple tv is our handle and that is what you need to remember. so will begin taking those in just a few minutes. it backs we go back and you look at these were just numbers and i don't know if you can see this or not but inherently probably 9 million world war i and 70 million are those pretty accurate prayed. max: all those numbers have got to be not quite the distance but

for example you take of world war in china, in the figure most commonly used, is 15 million chinese dead. and they're trying to inflate the figure. but i don't think anybody knows is the honest truth, the huge numbers and the deaths. nobody really knows. of whom and in what areas of all you can say is that the numbers represent that we can be pretty sure that the british and the americans and the germans numbers are pretty accurate. but for a lot of other nations, just not for sure and i mentioned earlier, the 1944, we think that it was around a million people died of starvation. but then again, was some magnitude, nobody really knows. the only people that you really

want to believe other people who try to give you the exact numbers and pretend they know but they don't. and you take for example, people getting off of the casualties of normandy. and you know who died in normandy but very often nobody knows exactly which day they died on. because the casualty reporting got pretty confused and those first days. in the days that followed saw a lot of cases, you know noah you don't really know how many people died into the 16 don't know exactly but there are quite a few people having died sometime between june the sixth and eighth or ninth or whatever. but the great can except any figure, of certain numbers, of the magnitude is not necessarily true in the s same way, and of e point i like to make it because i think it's very important, all of us historians write about the

self. we are making are taking a stab of what happened. but if you ever see on the book jacket where is this is the definitive history or the definitive something there ain't no such thing as defendant t. we areuc all looking for the truth. it is incredibly difficult to arrive at an approximation of the truth because people who report on the combat reports, even from world war ii, you for example some units of the american state, nobody's going to write an official report. the infantry ran away they're going to say, they were in prepared positions. and they would name british units when i mentioned, they ran

away. the veterans came out of the woodwork for years and said it felt that you can't not say that. we are all heroes. it's amazing how many are so brave but not everybody is a hero and were all making our stab at the truth but were constantly struggling to get it right. peter: one of the small statistics that i found in "all hell broke loose" he reports that more people died crossing the street in london because of the blackout and were killed by the blitz. max: for literally crossing the street and funding, killed in traffic accidents during the blitz. in the blackout. that is true. in in the same way and no statistics is ironic one that in 1944, hitler began writing his weapons. his rockets and flying bombs on

dbritain. and they have devoted enormous bombing effort to knocking out the sites that these would be launched but remember it does result of this was more french and dutch people were killed by allied bombing of the d weapon sites in british people were killed in history. so that sort of the tip and the ironies of war there so many ironies of war read you can make a case if you left all of the lights on it would make a difference to the war in britain anyway. and certainly one of the things that america was fortunate to despair of these blackouts. and the five year of those blackouts in the britain especially on a winter night. peter: april 29, 1975, where

were you max hastings. max: [applause] i was very scared young reporter in the compounds of the u.s. embassy in saigon. i felt that in vietnam, i was this young distinguished reporter by chance but i had spent a lot of time there between 1970 and 1975 read once he became plain that we were seeing the drama i wanted to see it. and in fact when most of the americans son been tom and the evacuations of then last mornin, i told them that i was going to stay and follow saigon and the arrival of the north with mayonnaise. and i forget how many maybe

about a dozen other journalists would stay read all of the americans left. and without the australians and the british would want to stay. but around lunchtime, there was lots of shooting around the place, we saw one aircraft shot down in saigon in the morning while we were eating breakfast. there's just a lot of shooting going around. and what was what was more frightening and one was scared of the hand arcade the breakdown of order in saigon. in large numbers of the vietnamese. and they had been betrayed as they sought by the west. i thought it was pretty scary being a westerner up in the city. in around lunchtime on the last

day, i was in the bunkers with another british reporter much braver than me and he said to me, i think the next 24 hours in the city are going to be pretty unfocused i thought that certifies that afternoon i could see the helicopters coming in and out of this embassy compound. they were about a mile away and i just figured if my nerve was gone. it just didn't have the nerve. to hang on and see this thing out. so i trotted to the embassy and there wasnd a crowd of civilians in a push my way through them and there were some marines at the embassy. they helped me over the wall. and later that evening i got him

one of the evacuation of copters and i never regretted it. they showed me t the truth about myself i regretted that but sometimes you do the brave thing and the guys who stayed were braver than me. peter: coming in from cleveland ohio, you're on with military historian, max hastings. >> my question is, what is the way that history is right about a war when their country knows this for instance, had a gentleman in japanese historians write about world war ii. with their perspective. and it canti max hastings give e the name of any authors names. peter: thank you very much sir.

it. max: an extremely good question. in a terrific indifference. what i can say is the germans of britain absolutely have exemplary books about the german express for instance, the nearest thing to an official history, the history institute is recognized by all scholars as being quite outstanding objective accounts of germany's accounts of the second world war read of all of the oars in the japanese, i'm afraid, at it from a different angle, very depressing. the japanese don't want to go gthere. mostly important scholarly parts about world war ii in japan is done by american and british writers number for that the

japanese have a different position of the wars and especially about the behavior in china and told entered town in the japanese schools and ruby regarding bite westerners is a travesty. they just don't want to go there. and there's some other countries, it's interesting that france the only major on the allied side who have never produced an official history of the war because even to this day, the french would never agree and what took place the whole business of the collaboration of the germans. but all the important work of the french behavior during the second world war has been done by americans or british historians read it is a pity that they don't have any part. so very much from country from country varies but i would say that the germans and they would

come out with a whole string of exemplary books by german scholars read but not them afraid in cases of the japanese are the nations. peter: and max hastings as written as well armageddon, the battle for germany, 1944 - 45, that came out in 2004. and donald, new york city. good afternoon. >> good afternoon. good afternoon mr. max hastings in the first that i would like to say that my father participated in d-day and he was with the 82nd airborne and he jumped that ensemble and peace. i would also need germany when hitler was supposed to invade czechoslovakia was for my readings they went to a coup and

if britain and france supported them and they didn't, do you think this would've made a y difference if it happened and why didn't it happen and also the british journalist malcolm eldridge said that after the war uprising of 1944, churchill became as much of the teaser to scale and as chamberlain had been to hitler and i would like to know what you think of that predict. peter: "mobile going to leave it there, that is a lot of information. max: is a very difficult question whether there was a realistic prospect of the army before the war. i think the best historians is probably the best of these probably the best in the world. and made off with someone officers were strongly opposed

the bulk of the army was supporting and i think it's very debatable if there was enough support before the invasion, and if they would've overthrown hitler. my favorite historian and serve michael paris, he makes the point right after july 1944, was extraordinary is how the german resistance and we rightly honor the germans and soldiers and civilians who did oppose hitler and did their uttermost to get through this. but what ist amazing is the degree to which the bulk of the german people were not prepared to support him'm and i'm afraid that is very difficult to get rid of it. and by the western dimension in 1938 or in 1939.

a very doubtful whether the strength was there in germany and on the other hand, something we can't discount is things could've been changed is the plots as i'm sure you know came very close to success. that really could've changeded history. but churchill most western politicians i think rightly have a prejudiced against promoting the assassination of other leaders of the nation will leaders. i don't know, illinois seems to me that i find it difficult of american history and the fact that the american presidents especially jacky kennedy was enthusiastic about killing castro. it's a very dangerous force to be starting on assassinating foreign leaders so i'm not sure and i think the world what if

been grateful is the had succeeded but i'm still not quite sure. [inaudible]. of whether the western would wbeen well advised to have such conspiracies themselves. and as your second question, also arising. it is true that churchill was much less diluted than roosevelt about his ability to make but it is perfectly true that churchill believed that the power of his personality could create a working relationship with colin and that possibly could never exist and yes, churchill was very foolish to believe that the churchillo became different in 1945. and at the funeral he was so better than he would in some part him over invading the

russians. but you're absolutely right in making the point that the report a long time between 1941 and 1944, he diluted himself they could have an relationship with colin this was never on the card. but one of the most fascinating documents that i read in the british national archives, in may of 1945, churchill was so different about churchill's about the soviet takeover of poland. ... ...

indeed, the national archives there were 93ve pages of the pln for operation unthinkable to drive the red army out of poland. when the americans were asked about this very sensible they said under no circumstances. the british people would never have supported going to war with the russians when they could tell the russians with the great liberators but it's an extraordinary story. >> host: do you think roosevelt's health in january of 1945 during the yalta conference three months prior to his death affected his ability to negotiate with the russians? >> guest: there's no doubt at all that roosevelt was a very sick man at the time of yalta. i'm afraid some historians who believe the west could have

handled yalta very w differently and much more tougher. i don't agree. i think the truth is the russians got to eastern europe first. if we wanted a free eastern europe and we wanted a free hungary, free poland, we would've had to get there before the russians. the russians after suffering, 27 million dead, were absolutely determined that there were going to get the booty, get the rewards which meant the empire of eastern europe. i don't agree with the historians who believe roosevelt and churchill would take a tougher line that yalta that things could of been different. the red army t were already deep in eastern europe, starting with absolute determine to what russia had suffered. i'm not persuaded even if roosevelt had been the van he

was two or three years earlier that the outcome would've been significantly different. >> host: a reminder to our the uk if you can't get through on the phone lines and you can download any number you see up on the screen you can also send a text message, 202-748-8903. that protects messages only. please include your first name and your city. this text message comes from scott in danville virginia. he says i am a history teacher. my question is why did spain not join the axis powers during world war ii? if they had what they have helped germany when the war? >> guest: that's a very good question. the answer is although the general, spain'sen dictator, was quite a nasty human being as hitler and mussolini and stalin, but he also had a better sense of self-preservation.

he was unquestionably supported of the axis, but he was terrified of the royal navy, that it spain came openly into the war that the royal navy would block it spain, prevented from getting quite a lot of resources. the government of spain had just emerged in 1940 that, destructive civil war. what franco -- was hanging onto his own power. it was a tangled story of what he didn't. one rather bizarre aspect to it is that franco thought he might come in if hitler was willing to give him france's colonies in africa, morocco and tunisia and algeria. but at that stagege in 1941 when franco was bargaining with

hitler, that hitler still had hopes that vichy france would become a full ally of germany in the war. so he wasn't willing to trade the coloniess to franco. so that was another reason franco didn't come in. in. he sent a token division but he didn't take the last step. i personally believe there's a scenario, my favorite historian. he could have seized gibaltra

through spain. and by sending another couple of divisions to reinforce in north africa. i think he could almost certainly -- he could have got to cairo. british could have seen and didn't like churchill that just tried to depose churchill and tried to make the best they could. i think if spain had come in and germany and even delayed his

invasion of russia by a few months or a year, i think one can see things looking much more difficult for the western allies. but fortunately it didn't turn out that way. >> that speaks to your recent book, the battle to malta, doesn't it? >> yeah. what i'm trying to do, now that i reached the advanced age of 75. i'm a bit reluctant now to do more huge blockbuster books like vietnam or catastrophe. instead i'm trying to look at specific episodes which one can talk about why those things and i had never written a whole book about royal navy which i think was britain's most effective fighting force of world war ii just as the u.s. navy was americans most effective fighting force and i locked onto

operation pedestal and in 1942, close to starvation and the british attempted to run several convoys to the island and failed. the germans and italians had more than 600 aircraft all over mediterranean. they got italian service fleet and looked pretty desperate and if they couldn't get supplies to malta by september, 300,000 population could no longer be fed. the island would have to be surrendered. some people, the top of navy and british foreign forces, that's the way it's going to be, that's the way it's going to be. the malta in the grand scheme of things didn't matter that much. a lot of people thought russians were going to be defeated.

they thought while malta goes, we lost a lot of other stuff already, so what? churchill, he was in 1942 deeply politically embattled. he knew that many americans, many russians are foreseeing britain defeated so often in the battlefield didn't think much of this. there was an opinion poll, when americans who they thought was trying hard toast win the war, after america, the second choice was the chinese. the third choice the russians and the british didn't come near it. the british weren't up to much. in russia there was the same feeling that stalin told churchill, your navy runs away.

calls one of the arctic convoys from britain to russia have been disastrously defeated and broken up and most of the ships were american, most of the ships. and the whole credibility of britain as fighting ally is at stake. churchill was personally embattled. people were saying, all right, he talks a great game. he's always talking about victories but all we are seeing is defeats, british army had had to surrender to a smaller japanese army and another british army surrender to a smaller german army and the british people, we are feeling pretty disillusioned but to lose

malta, jewel in the mediterranean crown, lost to the access would be disastrous blow to the credibility of the whole empire. and so he gave the order to the navy that supplies have to be run to malta at any cost and they knew that having a chance of getting ships through they would need air cover. britain had lost 4 carriers in the war and we only had 7 left. smaller than american carriers. well, four of those carriers. four of the 7 were committed to operation pedestal along with two battleships, 7 cruises and 30 destroyers and submarines and these ships beginning of august 1942 were dispatch to cover 14 vessels to malta, what

followed 3 or 4-day battle which was one of the bloodiest naval battles of the western war. and sometimes when fleets put to sea, they weren't sure if they were going the find themselves engaged or not. knew that they were going to have the fight the battle of their lives and so they did. the first day august the tenth, nothing much happened. and the weather was gorgeous as it is in the mediterranean in that time of year and some of the young sillier people with the fleet, they start today think, maybe this is going to be the end and they didn't think that anymore after the next day, august 11th, because they were in the middle of a flyout for one of the carriers being sent to malta when suddenly everybody

hears the terrific noise and they start looking over to one of the other carriers, they see the carrier eagle had been hit, wham, wham, wham, wham, four torpedoes in a german u goat that got through the screen and the eagle began to topple, topple and topple with planes falling into the sea on its deck and hundreds of men falling into the sea too and 8 minutes eagle was hit. there was nothing left except bubble and debris and a lot of bobbing heads in the water. that was one of britain's 7 carriers gone. well, after that everybody knew that this trip was not going to be effective. and the second day they started, they knew from first light that it was going to be really rough and they knew that the enemy's air forces was going to be coming.

all through that day, 12th of august, attack after attack by german and italian submarines and german and italian aircraft, wave after wave of them. by about 5:00, 6:00 o'clock that day of august the 12th, every man was exhausted. the fighter pilots were exhausted, flying all day to try to drive off the waves of aircraft. the gunners on every ship were exhausted. they've been firing, extended ammunition. two italian submarines have been round and sunk, quite a few more driven off. so 5:00 o'clock second day, the british were thinking, well, it's been a terrible day, but we are still here. but all the rest was still intact but after that 5:00, 6:0e

next 24 hours, suffered one of the most disastrous losses in the war. first, a formation of bombers descended on the carriers, one of britain's newest carriers and home of the fleet, a thousand of men on the other ships with column descending and didn't achieve anything and one, two, three, 500 pounds, sorry a thousand pounds exploded on the -- and the whole ship was shrouded and what they have seen happen to eagle the previous day, oh, my god, here goes another carrier. miraculous a single blink from the situation under control. the ship could no longer fly

aircraft but it was still a flood, he looked like the british lost two carriers in 24 hours. they felt it was no choice but to order the carriers, remaining carriers and the battleships to turn around and head to gibbraltar and they couldn't do -- they couldn't convoy on the last day. the vessels were left to be escorted and of the destroyer and -- >> you know what, i'm going to interrupt you there max hastings, that's a little bit of his newest book, operation

pedestal of british navy and malta. let get our callers back and hear from mike, mike, thanks for holding, you're on with author max hastings. >> thank you, book tv and thank you, mr. hastings. my question was about the end of world war i, i was impressed with the various parties and what their thought into getting to world war i they had earlier. coming out of world war i, the method america is that woodrow wilson started the league of nations and even the good lord, even ten commandants which is pretty good and all of a sudden it was maybe a british or area, french politician who said it's about the end of the war and the treaty of versailles.

just a little of a candor about the british. perhaps lord gray and some other characters decided to butter up president wilson and contribute that the league of nations was his brilliant idea all by himself, perhaps. >> mike in lake side california, sir max. >> i can keep here all night if you brought a sleeping bag talking about this because it's one of the most complicated issues in history. i think the short points to make was never a good way to become a cliché among some students to say that the treaty was a disaster and unfair to germany. there was never going to be an easy way to -- to call an ending to sign a treaty after a war

that destroyed 3 empires but the allies did manage to pretty up, they had the worst of all words. they didn't occupy germany as they did in 1945 and they left germany to manage their own affair. and also germany was undamaged whereas france who suffered terrible damage in the war. germany had suffered almost no damage at all. and it was very easy for the german right wing to develop their theme after the war that germany had never really been defeated and stabbed in the back by a global communists and socialists. the ally decision to make germany sign this brutal treaty or apparently brutal treaty but not to occupy germany left the germans and the other thing

president wilson, his involvement, he was repudiated by the u.s. congress as you well know which was determined not to get involved in european problems. and because the united states was the only path with wealth and moral authority on undiminished by world war ii, the only part that might have been able to exercise some effective influence and stabilizing europe and in preventing the outbreak of world war ii and willing to do so. but the americans, many americans have hated the experience of being involved in europe, problems of world war i. there's no doubt that the public sentiment in america was very much with congress and not wanting america to have to get involved in europe's troubles but what i think by far, my friend, canadian historian, brilliant study of what happened

at versailles. it was never going to be an easy way to get out of world war i and if you study germany, whatever we got wrong, germany shopping list, if germany had been the victor in world war i, germany was going to rule the whole europe and germany the victim would have been posed to europe and far more brutal. >> let's hear from carol in charlottesville, virginia. >> i do have a question concerning vietnam war. had the johnson administration had not expanded our involvement in, you know, with combat troops into vietnam in mid-60's, it's easy to identify the positive consequences especially for the u.s., but just want to know have

you given some thought of what the negative consequences would have been had we not been more involved in vietnam and let's say the south had fallen in the late 60's instead. just want your thoughts on that, if you don't mind. >> thank you, sir. >> i personally believe it would have served the interest of the united states very well to stay completely out of indo-china. i've said in my book, the fundamental reason that the other side won and i have no time, i think that vietnamese horrible regime and terrorized their people including us in 1975 when they won the whole world. they won ultimately because they were vietnamese.

the problem always with america and vietnam was that the vietnamese don't like foreigners and foreign rules all the way through the regime, perceived as just that. it was well known that generals in couldn't get out without asking american advisers which side to get up. one of the things that one realize in early stage, of all the meetings in washington to discuss policy in vietnam, the vietnamese were never invited to attend the meetings but all the decisions were made by americans and all the way through, south vietnamese who i interviewed for my book he said, all the way, he said the communists could always taunt, you were occupied by

these foreigners. and i'm afraid it was ever a good way for america to be involved. but i think thesenationist wars, i'm afraid the best thing to do is to stay out of them. >> richard, ventura, california, please go ahead with your comment or question. >> i think it's appropriate that you were on today. i personally attended the 40th anniversary of d-day beaches in 1984 when touring france and i was in england in 1982 when i first became acquainted with you by reading your account and i've ensured your many books ever since. they are all great reads. >> thank you for those kind words. >> you're more than welcome. i've enjoyed it enormously. since you do reviews in do you have any comments in world war ii books, stalin's war which has

just come out and i'm reading. >> and what do you think of it, richard? >> well, it's sort of a revisionist history blaming in the sense stalin and saying, you know, in effect, he was in at the beginning and then he was in at the end, defeating the japanese and that a lot of this was really directed by him even as much as hitler. it's a very interesting take and i was wondering what sir max wish to say about that. >> thank you, richard. >> i very much dislike getting personally comments on fellow historians but i have to confess that i'm not an admirer of work and in all of the books he takes points and carries them too far. i'm afraid i think he's a

sensationalist and in earlier book about the outbreak of world war i, he sought to argue that it was entirely russia's fault because russia was determined to dominate. and he was sort of a bit right in that we seem to be a bit right in that he was quite right that the russians were keenly interested in the control but he widely overstated his theme and i have talk today some of my fellow historians about beacon's latest warning on stalin and i think there's a considerable measure of agreement that he just pushes some of his ideas far too far and search for headline grabbing material, i'm afraid no i don't really rate him the way i admire some of my other fellow historians. >> whenever we have an author on

in-depth, we ask him or her favorite books and here is what max hastings reported, guns of august by barbara, the young lions by irwin shaw, the london observer by raymond lee and eagle against the sun by ronald specter all american authors, 1945 to 1955 by harold yonner. we have a text message here about barbara tookman for max and it says in the guns of august barbara describes how the french general staff ignored the threat from the german army marching into france through

belgium. >> a lot of historians say she gets a lot of things wrong but she had a huge influence on me because i was very young when her book was push licked in 1962 and i thought narrative, she says that they're absolutely right. the french general are plans to war-planning for war was faunasically misread almost everything that the germans will likely do but the french were obsessed with the doctrine of attack and the french were -- ha what they were doing. >> we have about 30 minutes left

with our guest sir max hastings, military historian, former editor-in-chief, evening standard. mr. hastings, how does one become sir max? [laughter] >> mostly luck, i think. my contribution to newspapers and books and for these things one should never think that either i'm a better historian because -- highly respected, it's one of the silly british things, but, of course, we like and honor if anybody gives them to us. it's like winning literary prices. that's very much a matter of luck. and we all hugely enjoy and appreciate but one doesn't make too much of them. quite useful if you want to get

a table in a crowdie restaurant in london. >> who nominates you to be a sir and do you get knighted by the queen yourself? >> you do. that's all very exciting. the prime minister puts your name, the prime minister of the day which was tony blare and god knows i became critical of tony blare over the invasion of iraq. so if -- but, yes, you do. you get down on one knee and the queen taps you on the shoulder. my grandchildren are very interesting and would be able to see and it's a big moment. i'm a passionate admirer of the queen like a lot of people are. it was one of the most exciting days of my life.

>> do -- you said you're a big fan of the queen. are you a monarchist, is that a correct term to use? >> i think -- i guess i am a monarchist. when i think of some of the people that stand for president in britain, it's not the power that the queen has which she never uses anyway and denies that to anybody else. i think it's going to be a very difficult time when the queen dies because there are far more elizabeth, admirers of the queen than the monarchy. the royal family -- has had pretty bumpy times in the last few years. and certainly at the time of the monarchy in serious trouble in

late 1990's. close eyewitness and spent a lot of time with all of the players at that point. and the late 1990's when we feel like the monarchy was unraveling but it would be a mistake to think that everything is forever. if the british people would turn against the monarchy as it's always possible, it could go remarkably quickly. >> in the middle of all of these military history books that you have been writing and editing the daily telegraph and the evening standard, a book came out in 2010 called did you really shoot the television. [laughter] >> i want to read a quote from there and perhaps you'd like to expound on this a little bit. quote, my mother's capacity to make me quail remained undiminished. she was in her late 80's when i told her that i respected her decision to leave her entire estate to my sister, but that i

would love to have had one of her good pictures. a year or two later she telephoned and mentioned the picasso drawing i had always liked. would you like to buy it she asked, i choked. i said to my wife, penny, if i murder her i shall plead extreme provocation and no jury will convict me. [laughter] >> i wrote a little book of memoir in my childhood. they all had fairly exotic lives and it was perfectly true that we have a program on bbc in which you're interviewed about yourself and you choose records to take on island. i don't know, 30, 40 years ago, i was quite discreet of all our family.

i never really got along. she didn't hold back anything. my father with guns of the second world war, 10 or 11 or so, when parents were away, i would play with them and it was a miracle i didn't shoot anybody. that was one occasion, yes, somebody came up to me in a filling station and told the story. i said, yeah, did you really shoot the television. and i explained it was a very small set but nonetheless, i'm afraid, yes, i did when i was 10 or 11. it was not my finest hour. it's one of those stories i'm afraid i can't -- one of the reasons i'm so keep on gun control i do believe people like

me when kids shouldn't have access to firearms. >> please go ahead. >> thank you. sir hastings it's an honor to be able to ask you this question and to speak with you for a moment. what i'd like to go back to is when you first started talking about nation states and their doctrine of attack, using war as the main instrument of power. in 1914, in that time and culture and the political forces, i'm interested in your perspective insights into now, today's time using history in the present time, are we on path to go to war with iran, do you think that america and maybe israel itself is untasked to go to war with iran based on our political forces, senator cotton statements attacked the administration or even china as i see that they're misreading

what might be going on and i'm interested in your -- >> all right, ron, let's get sir hastings taste on the current world. >> there's a huge issue. >> one of the best things we have going for us is that in the nuclear world all sensible powers realize that war would be an absolute catastrophe. the best way to adverse a war is to be prepared to fight one by which i mean strong armed forces and it's one of the articles with bichir newspapers, most of all european partner and don't take receives or security seriously. i think that we have to have strong armed forces in order to have a realistic prospect of

deterring war but, on the other hand, all my experience with war both as a writer and having seened it firsthand is desperately careful. i remember before invasion of iraq and he just came back from washington in the end of 2002 where they were making the preparations for the invasion of iraq and i said, well, how does it look and he said, well, getting to baghdad will be -- what are they going to do when we get there and, of course, that proved remark and same way with iran. iran poses a very serious threat. the rule is iran are unpleasant people but not persuaded on going with iran or invading iran offer any good outcome because

huge country and what happens after. i think one has to exhaust, churchill was right. always better than world war. i think a different view, realistic prospect than say air strikes might take out iran's nuclear capability. i think there would be a case for this. everybody who i trust says that in this one uses nuclear weapons to destroy the nuclear facilities, very unlikely that it can be successful in knocking out nuclear capabilities. i think one has to be very careful and try every possible, the combination of diplomacy and sanctions and also the position of force before one actually results the use of force. i think war with iran would be a very serious step for the world.

>> you mentioned tony blare earlier when you got your knighthood but you're acquainted with the current prime minister, aren't you? >> i'm not an admirer of the current prime minister and i bitterly regret that he occupies the office that he does and i'm afraid our relations with europe would poison british politics and we are going through a very unhappy phase when i think the democracy is generally short talented people and it's very hard to say why good people don't want to go into politics, but boar sis johnson in tend i'm afraid, i don't think as a serious person and i wrote 3 or 4 years ago if johnson achieved the ambition to become prime minister, britain would have forsaken claim to be regarded as a serious country and i'm afraid nothing has happened then to change my view about that. but it matters less, the

leadership of the united states matters far, far more than the leadership with britain. britain these days, middle-size country and no doubt muddle through somehow but we were very much who is in charge in the united states is far more important because -- however you dress it up, the united states must always for the leader and we look to -- we in europe, everybody whom i respect, we look to america for moral and strategically leadership and unless america takes the lead, nothing important gets done in the world. >> is it fair to say sir max that britain has punched above its weight for several years. >> sorry -- >> punched above its weight for several years. >> britain has tried to but i don't think it really does. i'm talking to americans so much and i'm well aware of americans

always polite in their dealings with us and but i'm very conscious of -- i think americans, most americans i know deeply regret britain's rundown of armed forces, their armed forces nowadays and i think most americans privately at least in places in washington, they think we rather lost our sense of direction. i'm rather inclined to agree with them. so punching above one's weight, we certainly try today punch above our weight and it's difficult to justify britain having a seat at the un council. i don't think we are important enough to justify realistically, we are there. british government will cling onto dear life to cling onto it. >> david, rochester, new york, good afternoon. >> good afternoon, it's an honor

to speak with you, sir, and i have all your books in my library and i have a couple -- two quick questions. one leads to the other. i've been collecting for years a series of books, published in the 70's in england called the valentine illustrated history of world war ii and they were great, a lot of great picture, photographs and good -- some are british best historians at the time wrote for them including sir michael howard and also sir john keagan and i was wondering if sir john keagan is famous for the book the face of battle which talks about -- many historians have said it's the first book by a military historian to emphasize the common soldier as opposed to the generals and the tactics and everything and i wondered what

your opinion of that is, thank you very much. >> thank you, david. >> i totally agree. john keagan was a friend of mine. he changed the way that we look at military history. but military history before john was overwhelmingly about which division went this way and which division went that way. on the face of battle which although john is now dead for quite a while and you wouldn't thank me for saying this. it made us think about the reality of what war is like and instead of just thinking of it in terms of numbers of which division went what way, all of us who have followed john, writing about the history of war, which i like to say i write about history of war and not military history. we owe our debt to john because

he -- i think the book, i read it quite recently and still reads fantastically well. i mean, he looked at all of the things what battle is really like. for example, not everybody is a hero but in any -- in any given battle, probably about a quarter of your guys when you say, okay, a quarter of your guys will be up there with you and half of them will come along behind and another quarter will probably never get out of their trenches. that's not surprising. that's just the way that mankind is. but john actually got down to the nitty gritty of what fighting means and how people behave in a way that nobody really has before. and so i think we all owe terrific debt and admiration and it was enormous. >> john keagan has appeared on

the program on in-depth in 2003 you go to booktv.org and use the search function at the top of the page and type his name in there and you can watch that full interview. sir max hastings, how is your world war i book different than his world war i book? >> from john keagan? >> yes. >> well, i wrote a book about something very specific which was the outbreak of the war. john wrote a book, history of world war i. but -- but catastrophe, my book, what i tried to do is look at the manner in which the war, how the war started and what the first battles were like because there's a phrase in churchill he said no period of the war match it is extraordinary excitement and the extraordinary sensations of those first days and weeks and i thought this was so and i

quite often get people saying, i've written a book of 1914 and i am going to write about 1915, no, i shared all i have to offer about 1914. for instance. a lot of history in the past was totally nationalistic whether written by americans or british or whatever. i think that nowadays we all try to get away from that and try to see things in more and global terms and, for instance, i report to think out of the british army and sort of major factor and yet the british army, fought at the beginning of the war if belgium, the germans and the french had a thousand battalions each and even the

belgiums had more troops in the field than we did. i got fascinated. everybody thinks that 1916 was the bloodiest period. it wasn't. it was the 23rd 1914, the heaviest losses than anybody suffered in one day. i wanted to tell all of those stories of stuff that i had written in any other books. >> al in north las vegas, nevada. hi, al. >> the german generals in world war ii, after the war they wrote a lot of books saying, if it wasn't for hitler, you know, we would have did a lot better -- [laughter] >> and second question is the british navy today, how would you rate it as a sea power?

>> on the german generals, of course, yeah, they -- they sort of had a bit of a point because i've also heard -- in the days when a lot of british veterans were still alive to be interviewed, some of the senior officers who i interviewed in 1970's and 1980's, they would say i can't think how we ever won if hitler hadn't been on our side because hitler did make decisions that definitely help the ally, but, of course, the german generals' accounts were entirely self-serving and they were always trying to explain it would have been all right if left to them. i don't believe them. i think, for example, they went along with hitler's decisions even though they should have realized that germany was -- is not powerful enough and the german army was not powerful to take on russia and russia was vast and had enormous resources. i wouldn't buy the view of

german generals that if left to them they would have won. the royal navy today, i think we made a huge mistake committing oh to two enormously aircraft carrier to fly f-35's, we are a middle-ranking power. i think they are way out of our range. one of our carriers is in south china sea to show the flag with eight f-35's instead and because we can't afford anymore and i'm afraid the carriers, the navy has to be deployed to provide escorts for those carriers and it was the pentagon's office of that assessment that concluded 15 years ago that the future of carrier groups is very speculative in the new age sea to sea missiles and so on.

i personally think we would have done better if we had far more platforms but cheaper and cheaper platforms. so i think the royal navy is not well configured today with the huge distortion of the big carriers. i have my doubts if they are ever going to be deployed and if they are, we find ourselves up against the chinese, i think we could get a shock. >> 9 minutes left in our conversation with max hastings. tom, ann arbor, michigan. go ahead. >> mr. hastings, i am in awe of your understanding of the details associated with these different wars. i'd be interested in our absolute certify vagues of two generalizations that many clueless americans have, one ise

most peaceful periods in history and western europe as well. >> thank you, tom. >> let me say one first, again, michael howard, the british historian was so much my mentor and one of his phrases that he often used, he said we used the word peace far too much. the greatest good is not peace, it's stability and the reason that michael was among many people including richard hass, the president's of american foreign relations and american strategy groups think we are living in such grave time because stability is out of the window. we are living in unstable times

and the word certainty during the cold war that advantaged and you find awful lot of senior military on both sides of the atlantic, they almost -- you could predict what the soviet union might do and china was not a serious part. today there's uncertainties and i think the world looks dangerous and frightening place. they are absolutely right. statistically, fewer people die by violence each year and not what the headlines suggest at all. do i think these are very dangerous times and i think stability is -- is very elusive in the way which we now exist. i think we have to thread extremely carefully. i forgot what first question was. yeah, yeah. i think most historians agree

that one has to look on world war ii as an extension because really it was the long german war and on the other hand, i also, i've said it in one of my books that i think we would understand what will be better if we called world wars 2 because everybody got into world war ii for different reasons. the japanese were there for quite different reasons up from the germans and the americans came in for different reasons from those that the british and the french went in and in a way we sort of almost -- calling it world war ii. it was certainly different strands but the fundamental, you have to say in the end this was germany's two attempts to secure domination of europe and the second one after the first one, the big difference in 1918, a

lot of germans were ready to believe that they hadn't been beaten whereas the great australian, wrote in april 1945 in germany, he said in germany, i found no great sense of guilt but an absolute sense of defeat because of the level of destruction that had been imposed upon germany with cities flattened and so on and the germans were in absolutely in no doubt in 1945 thought they had been defeated in the way that they were in 1918. >> rachel in princefield, florida, hi, rachel. >> hi, can you hear me? >> we are listening. >> thank you. hello, mr. hastings. i like that you mentioned nuances. i know about metons and such complications. my question regards war culture,

however, this idea that men have evolved to make war of the male warrior hypothesis that men have a propensity for heroics and that war has provided competitive advantages. but also to keep young men off streets generally. i'm thinking of lionell tiger's group, men in groups among others, war as a platform for organizing young men into battle. it may be a naive or feminine question impossible to answer. >> i can answer -- i can answer your question in one sentence. one of the big changes in attitude is that i grew up in a very male-dominated household where all the men as i mentioned earlier had somehow to think they enjoyed world war ii and i grew up with a wildly

exaggerated idea of the importance and when i was young i wasted a huge amount of time parachuting with the army and going to wars and so on and so forth, but the older i've got and the more i've come together, awful lot of young men possessed physical courage which was rather exaggerated although can be useful in wars but actually i think moral courage is more important and i'm not saying anything here that i haven't written, written myself, but it's taken me many years to see this and i look back on my teens and 20's when i thought that it was the highest virtue and the implication of some of the stuff that you're saying is that war can be a very corrupting force for young men and i'm afraid it can be, yeah. >> let's hear from one last

caller, ken in torrence, california, last call today. >> thank you very much. i'm pleased to speak with you, mr. hasting. i'd like to ask you this, before he died, president kennedy intended to have 1,000 troops withdrawn from south vietnam and then, of course, he was killed and that directive was not carried out. do you take that as some sort of a sign that he would not have gotten into the quagmire that lbj did and secondly, if you were lbj, what would you have done to end that war in a way which you would have thought would have been satisfactory and -- >> thank you, and i will tell you max hastings, you two minutes to answer that very large question. >> with kennedy, we can never know, i personally think kennedy would have got out of vietnam because all his thinking was

directed toward reelection campaign in '64 and he repeatedly said, only so many concessions i can make for the colonies in one year in hope of reelection. but a long day's march between saying he wouldn't have gotten out of south vietnam and we can never know is the answer. i do not think he would have gotten out. as far as for lbj, i don't think he ever had good options. first good option was probably to cut his losses and get out as soon as after he took office. he too, he felt he had an enormous amount to proof and didn't feel able to do that. maybe american foreign policy quite a few periods in history is that stuff has been done to serve domestic american political rather than in accordance with the best judgment of the president of the day.

that's very often been the case but i don't think lbj ever had any good options in vietnam that probably the worst option is to escalate on the scale that he did. >> for the past 2 hours, we have been talking with best-selling author and military historian, former edtory in chief of the daily telegraph and the evening standard, max hastings. there's his website and his latest book operation pedestal as he noted he's working on a book on the cuban missile cries. we will look forward to that. thank you for the past two hours on booktv from england. >> thank you, peter, for having us. >> weekends on c-span2 bring you the best in american history and nonfiction books. saturday on american history tv at 2 p.m. eastern on the presidency, a discussion on the results of c-span's forth the

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