In attacking my book "Churchill, Hitler and 'The Unnecessary War': How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World," Victor Davis Hanson, the court historian of the neoconservatives, charges me with "rewriting ... facts" and showing "ingratitude" to American and British soldiers who fought World Wars I and II.

Both charges are false, and transparently so.

Hanson cites not a single fact I got wrong and ignores the fact that the book is dedicated to my mother's four brothers who fought in World War II. Moreover, the book begins by celebrating the greatness of the British nation and heroism of its soldier-sons.

Did Hanson even read it?

The focus of "The Unnecessary War" is on the colossal blunders by British statesmen that reduced Britain from the greatest empire since Rome into an island dependency of the United States in three decades. It is a cautionary tale, written for America, which is treading the same path Britain trod in the early 20th century.

Hanson agrees the Versailles Treaty of 1919 was "flawed," but says Germany had it coming, for the harsh peace the Germans imposed on France in 1871 and Russia in 1918.

Certainly, the amputation of Alsace-Lorraine by Bismarck's Germany was a blunder that engendered French hatred and a passion for revenge. But does Teutonic stupidity in 1871 justify British stupidity in 1919?

Is that what history teaches, Hanson?

In 1918, Germany accepted an armistice on Wilson's 14 Points, laid down her arms and surrendered her High Seas Fleet.

Yet, once disarmed, Germany was subjected to a starvation blockade, denied the right to fish in the Baltic Sea, and saw all her colonies and private property therein confiscated by British, French and Japanese imperialists, in naked violation of Wilson's 14 Points.

Germans, Austrians and Hungarians by the millions were then consigned to Belgium, France, Italy, Serbia, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland and Lithuania, in violation of the principle of self-determination.

Germany was sliced in half, dismembered, disarmed, saddled with unpayable debt and forced, under threat of further starvation and invasion, to confess she alone was morally responsible for the war and all its devastation -- which was a lie, and the Allies knew it.

Where was Hitler born?

"At Versailles," replied Lady Astor.

As for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Germany imposed on Russia in 1918, is Hanson aware that the prison house of nations for which he wails, which was forced to disgorge Finland, the Baltic republics, Poland, Ukraine and the Caucasus, was ruled by Bolsheviks?

Was it a war crime for the Kaiser to break up Lenin's evil empire?

Two years after Brest-Litovsk, Churchill himself was urging Britain to revise Versailles, bring Germany into the Allied fold and intervene in Russia's civil war -- against Lenin and Trotsky.

As for my thesis that the British war guarantee to Poland of March 31, 1939, was the "Fatal Blunder" that guaranteed World War II and brought down the British Empire, Hanson is mocking:

"Buchanan argues that, had the imperialist Winston Churchill not pushed poor Hitler into a corner, he would have never invaded Poland in 1939, which triggered an unnecessary Allied response." Continued...