Author guest post from John Harte.

Author John Harte’s most recent publication by Pen & Sword Military in the UK was released in May, 2025, entitled Churchill’s Enemies 1927-1940. Winston Churchill’s major enemies were the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, as well as Islamist fanatics in the Middle East.

Political and social historian John Harte was born in England during the rise of Nazi Germany. He has specialized in writing about dictators of authoritarian regimes ever since he discovered a postwar plot by Sir Oswald Mosley to take over Britain in 1949. Harte travelled all over the British Isles to compile a dossier of provincial fascist splinter groups – led mostly by petty criminals – under a variety of different names who intended to combine, and took photos of their leaders. His dossier was presented in parliament by the leader writer of the Sunday Pictorial, while John also gave a scoop to Picture Post. The scandal ended Mosley’s political career.

Harte subsequently visited the Volkswagen works in Wolfsburg, Germany to interview postwar Germans and write about their experiences in Nazi Germany. He followed by travelling to Tito’s Yugoslavia in 1961 with a Croatian interpreter, to interview Tito’s youngest partisan who had fought against Nazi Germany. He returned to Zagreb years later in its war of independence. So that Harte has experienced authoritarian regimes at first hand, and observed the decline of nations. The result is that his books on authoritarian dictatorships bear the hallmark of first-hand experience.

John Harte chose to use Winston Churchill’s experiences – both in and out of office – as a framework for his Churchill’s Challenges and Churchill’s Enemies, since Winston Churchill spent his entire life struggling against Communist, Fascist, and Islamist fanatics. His two books with Pen & Sword Military (Plus his true life espionage story about how Soviet Russia stole the secrets of the first atomic bomb; namely The Race For The Atom Bomb), describe and explain the following crises:

1. The Middle East Crisis from 1918, after the Allies defeated the German-led Turkish Ottoman Empire, and Churchill was appointed Colonial Secretary to sort out the chaos, define new frontiers, and install new Arab kings.
2. The Russian Crisis from the revolution in 1917, when Churchill attempted to prevent Communism from spilling over the borders of Soviet Russia during its civil war.
3. The Rise of Fascism in Nazi Germany, when Churchill was out of office and attempted to warn Britain’s governments of impending danger to the British isles and the world.

As a corollary of the rise of the Nazis, Harte also describes “The Hitler of the Middle East.” He was the Mufti of Jerusalem, who collaborated with the Nazis in Berlin and laid the groundwork for the present-day crisis in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. All of the three author’s books with Pen & Sword Military explore the historic causes that led to today’s catastrophes. Churchill’s Enemies has been praised for its comprehensive scope. The International Churchill Society noted Harte’s examination of how “the scrawny little second lieutenant” became a global leader.

Order your copy here.