Month: January 2016

Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

“Sav­ing the Nations from Hell”: The “King­ly Con­fer­ence,” 1914 (Excerpt)

(Read more at Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project)

Churchill’s faith in per­son­al diplomacy—solving intractable prob­lems by meet­ings at the high­est level—was famous­ly expressed dur­ing World War II.

Less wide­ly known is Churchill’s 1914 pro­pos­al for a con­fer­ence of heads of state (includ­ing, it seems, French Pres­i­dent Ray­mond Poin­caré) in an effort to head-off World War I. The scheme failed, but not for Churchill’s lack of trying.

There is lit­tle on Churchill’s “king­ly con­fer­ence” in the lit­er­a­ture. There is no ref­er­ence in Churchill’s The World Cri­sis, Asquith’s mem­oirs, or biogra­phies by Man­ches­ter, Jenk­ins, Rose, Charm­ley and Birken­head, though Sir Mar­tin Gilbert includes in the offi­cial biog­ra­phy an excerpt from a cab­i­net mem­ber which records Churchill’s words in the cab­i­net of July 27th:

Churchill said we were now in a bet­ter than aver­age con­di­tion, & the fleet was at war strength….Churchill,…

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Churchill Nonsense, Parts #1462-64

Churchill Nonsense, Parts #1462-64

Nonsense #1462: Yachts

The Irish nov­el­ist George Moore orig­i­nat­ed the tale that Sir Winston’s moth­er Jen­nie, Lady Ran­dolph Churchill, slept with 200 men. Assum­ing she did so, say, between ages 20 and 60, she aver­aged five per year, a ten-week aver­age affair (if she had them one at a time, with a cou­ple days’ break in between). Which is a lot of lovers to main­tain, giv­en the state of Vic­to­ri­an and Edwar­dian locomotion.

How­ev­er ridicu­lous, the claim stuck, and is reg­u­lar­ly trot­ted out and embell­ished on a medi­um poor Jen­nie nev­er antic­i­pat­ed: the Inter­net. It occurs so often because it’s so easy to rat­tle off, and pruri­ent enough to raise a website’s Google Ana­lyt­ics—nev­er mind whether it is even feasible.…

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Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

Per the pre­vi­ous post, I append for read­er com­ment the con­tents of my next book, Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty: What Churchill Stood For.

I have writ­ten on most of these mat­ters in the past; the book recasts it afresh. I also acknowl­edge and cross-ref­er­ence the work of experts who know far more than I, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the fields of geneal­o­gy and med­i­cine. I would be glad to hear your thoughts; please use the “con­tact” page.

The his­to­ri­an David Stafford wrote: “Myth only devel­ops and takes hold when the time is right, and the cli­mate has long been ripe for the emer­gence of myths about a wartime hero who stood firm against a total­i­tar­i­an foe and smote an evil empire.”…

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Myths about Churchill: Coming Up

Myths about Churchill: Coming Up

Win­ston Churchill: Urban Myths and Real­i­ty: Lies, Fables, Myths, Dis­tor­tions and Things that Go Bump in the Night.

Not a day pass­es when Sir Win­ston Churchill, who proved him­self indis­pens­able when free­dom need­ed him, is not accused of some­thing, from alco­holism to war crimes—often with­out seri­ous attri­bu­tion, or through selec­tive quotes, arranged and cropped so as to advance the pre­con­ceived notion.

On that elec­tron­ic Speak­ers’ Cor­ner we know as the Inter­net, Churchill bub­bles in a gur­gling, dig­i­tal soup, where he can say any­thing, or do any­thing, from hid­ing his fore­knowl­edge of Pearl Har­bor to fire­bomb­ing Dres­den.…

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