BRITISH academic circles are in turmoil over a rare challenge to the mystique surrounding one of the country's greatest heroes, World War II leader Winston Churchill.
A new biography of Churchill rejects the traditional post-war image of the pugnacious cigar-smoking prime minister, arguing that he lost more than he gained in the war against Nazi Germany. English historian Dr John Charmley has created a storm with Churchill: The End of Glory which questions the wisdom and competence of Churchill, for decades an untouchable popular hero.
Dr Charmley's book suggests that Churchill, obsessed with defeating Hitler, resisted real opportunities for peace with Germany. He argues that Churchill's insistence on crushing Hitler impoverished Britain in a war that cost it its empire, left it dependent on the United States and handed Eastern Europe to another demagogue - Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
''Churchill stood for the British Empire, for British independence and for an 'anti-Socialist' vision of Britain,' '' Dr Charmley writes. ''By July 1945 the first of these was on the skids, the second was dependent solely upon America and the third hadjust vanished in a Labour election victory. . .it was indeed the end of glory.'' Dr Charmley argues that the British peace lobby was particularly strong in the early summer of 1940 - including Dunkirk but before the fall of France on June 23 - and that Churchill himself openly contemplated a negotiated settlement with Hitler in cabinet on May 27. The following day the prime minister, who had been in office for less than a month, had to fight hard to persuade his colleagues that war remained a viable option.
Yet Hitler had shown time and again in the prelude to the invasion of Poland that his word was worthless, and by invading Prague in March 1939 convinced Churchill that his gut assessment of the Fuhrer's intentions was essentially correct.
In Dr Charmley's analysis, the best option open to the cabinet was to undermine Hitler's position by cultivating ''non-ideological Nazis'' such as Goering, just as it later cultivated Marshal Pietro Badoglio in Italy.