The Duel: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler

271 Pages·2001·26.344 MB·English

by  John Lukacs

T HE
DUEL
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THE
D U EL
The Eighty-Day Struggle Between
CHURCHILL AND HITLER
JOHN LUKACS
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
New Haven and London
Yale University Press paperback edition first published in 2001.
Cloth edition published 1990 by Ticknor & Fields.
Copyright © 1990 by John Lukacs
All rights reserved
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any
form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the
U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press),
without written permission from the publishers.
Printed in the United States of America
Map by Charles P. Segal
Library of Congress catalog card number: 00-10862,8
ISBN 978-0-300-08916-5 (pbk.)
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6
To the memory of
BRIGADIER CLAUDE NICHOLSON,
defender of British honor at Calais
and
ADAM VON TROTT ZU SOLZ,
defender of German honor in Berlin
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The sociologist, etc., deals with his material as if the out-
come were given in the known facts: he simply searches for
the way in which the result was already determined in the
factfc. The historian, on the other hand, must always main-
tain towards his subject an indeterminist point of view. He
must constantly put himself at a point in the past at which
the known factors still seem to permit different outcomes.
If he speaks of Salamis, then it must be as if the Persians
might still win....
— Johan Huizinga,
The Idea of History
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CONTENTS
I THE EIGHTY DAYS* DUEL I
II THE FIRST COINCIDENCE (THE IOTH OF MAY) 16
III THE SLIPPERY SLOPE (11-31 MAY) 53
IV ALONE? (31 MAY-30 JUNE) IO6
V GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1-30 JULY) 155
VI THE SECOND COINCIDENCE
(THE 3IST OF JULY) 195
VII AFTER FIFTY YEARS 211
EPILOGUE 222
References 227
Abbreviations of References 235
Short Bibliographical Essay 241
Acknowledgments 245
Index 247