In his short new biography of Winston Churchill, author Peter Caddick-Adams writes than the recipe for Winston Churchill’s success during his wartime premiership of 1940-45 can be found in the First World War. He argues that Britain’s survival under Churchill was precisely because the nation, and its leaders, had undergone a “dress rehearsal in 1914-18; conscription, rationing, convoys, air raids, mass production, womens’ uniformed services, coalitions and war cabinets. It had all happened before.” Churchill, who himself had served in war cabinets during the earlier world war, understood the art of the possible.
