Month: July 2017

“Dunkirk” film: What if Hitler had Launched an Invasion?

“Dunkirk” film: What if Hitler had Launched an Invasion?

Inva­sion in 1940? Tim­o­thy Egan pos­es a thought­ful ques­tion in The New York Times. What if Hitler, not hes­i­tat­ing after Dunkirk, had rapid­ly launched an inva­sion of Britain? In con­vey­ing the movie Dunkirk‘s impor­tance, Egan’s first para­graph is a much bet­ter intro­duc­tion than the film provides: For more than a thou­sand years, the tribes of Europe have stared into the gun-met­al-gray chop of the Eng­lish Chan­nel and thought of con­quest. “We have six cen­turies of insults to avenge,” said Napoleon. I was just there, on the same spring week when the great bedrag­gled scraps of the French and British armies were cor­nered for slaugh­ter by the Nazi war machine 77 years ago.…

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A Love of the Hot-Water Bottle: Wartime Anecdotes

A Love of the Hot-Water Bottle: Wartime Anecdotes

Furry Hot-Water Bottles: Churchill was fond of cats, though in their nature, they didn't always return his affections. Nelson was a formidable grey tom which Churchill brought from the Admiralty when he moved to Downing Street in 1940. The aggressive Nelson soon chased away the previous resident, a holdover from Chamberlain, which the Churchill family had christened “Munich Mouser.” Nelson was congratulated.

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“Rascals, Rogues and Freebooters”: Churchill and India

“Rascals, Rogues and Freebooters”: Churchill and India

“Rascals, Rogues and Freebooters”

“Pow­er will go to the hands of ras­cals, rogues, free­boot­ers; all Indi­an lead­ers will be of low cal­i­bre & men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and sil­ly hearts. They will fight amongst them­selves for pow­er and India will be lost in polit­i­cal squabbles.”

The state­ment above is attrib­uted to Churchill. I can­not find it, as a speech or in a book. Although it is wide­ly and increas­ing­ly quot­ed in the Indi­an press and, giv­en what is hap­pen­ing, he seems to have been prophet­ic! —K.P., India

This post has the dis­tinc­tion of engen­der­ing the most com­ment among the 500 on my web­site.…

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Churchill Myth and Reality at Nashville, Oct. 14th

Churchill Myth and Reality at Nashville, Oct. 14th

Nashville, Tenn., October 2017

The Churchill Soci­ety of Ten­nessee held its autumn ban­quet pro­gram in Nashville on the evening of Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 14th. Our guest speak­er, Richard M. Lang­worth, CBE dis­cussed “Win­ston Churchill: Cur­rent Con­tentions.” Some 200 mem­bers and friends attended.

Resid­ing in Moul­ton­bor­ough, New Hamp­shire and Eleuthera, Bahamas, Lang­worth is a writer and pub­lish­er of works on Win­ston S. Churchill and auto­mo­tive his­to­ry. His newest book is Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty: What He Actu­al­ly Did and Said (McFar­land, August).

Churchill Works

Lang­worth is also author or edi­tor of A Connoisseur’s Guide to the Books of Sir Win­ston Churchill, Churchill in His Own Words, Churchill By Him­self and nine oth­er books about Churchill.…

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Is the Movie “Dunkirk” Dumbed Down?

Is the Movie “Dunkirk” Dumbed Down?

Reviews of Christo­pher Nolan’s new film on Dunkirk, which take quite oppo­site points of view.

Dunkirk without Context

Dorothy Rabi­nowitz, in The Wall Street Jour­nal, pro­claims “the dumb­ing down of Dunkirk.” Mr. Nolan, she writes:

…con­sid­ers Dunkirk “a uni­ver­sal story…about com­mu­nal hero­ism.” Which explains why this is—despite its impres­sive cin­e­matog­ra­phy, its mov­ing por­trait of suf­fer­ing troops and their rescuers—a Dunkirk flat­tened out, dis­con­nect­ed from the spir­it of its time, from any sense even of the par­tic­u­lar mighty ene­my with which Eng­land was at war.

When an event in his­to­ry has become, in the mind of a writer, “uni­ver­sal” it’s a tip-off.…

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Lady Randolph & Winston Churchill on Blenheim

Lady Randolph & Winston Churchill on Blenheim

I am asked what Churchill wrote and thought about his birth­place, Blenheim Palace, Wood­stock, Oxford­shire. The first words I recall are those of his moth­er Jen­nie: “with par­don­able pride.” They occur ear­ly in The Rem­i­nis­cences of Lady Ran­dolph Churchill (1908). I always loved her descrip­tion. One regrets the decline of peo­ple who can write like Jen­nie. She ranked with Lady Diana Coop­er, and I think her son’s writ­ing tal­ent was inher­it­ed from her.…

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Churchill’s 1943 Speech to Congress

Churchill’s 1943 Speech to Congress

A friend writes ask­ing for the audio of Churchill’s sec­ond of three speech­es to Con­gress, and pos­es a ques­tion: “Roo­sevelt attend­ed nei­ther the 1941 nor 1943 speech­es. Why not?”

Click here for clear audio of the 50-minute speech.

Pres­i­dents nev­er attend speech­es to Con­gress by for­eign heads of state or gov­ern­ment. Part of this is cer­tain­ly cour­tesy, so as not to steal focus from the guest. In a deep­er sense, it is an asser­tion of the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers between Con­gress and the Exec­u­tive. A sim­i­lar tra­di­tion in Britain is when the House of Com­mons slams the door on Black Rod, when he sum­mons Mem­bers to the House of Lords to hear the Queen’s Speech.…

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Korea, an Old Conundrum, and Mr. Churchill’s Wisdom

Korea, an Old Conundrum, and Mr. Churchill’s Wisdom

Korea was a prob­lem in 1952—as it is today. “Is the Prime Min­is­ter aware of the deep con­cern felt by the peo­ple of this coun­try at the whole ques­tion of the Kore­an con­flict?” an oppo­si­tion Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment asked the-then Mr. Churchill.

“I am ful­ly aware of the deep con­cern felt by the hon­or­able mem­ber in many mat­ters above his com­pre­hen­sion,” Churchill quipped. Which avoid­ed respond­ing to an unan­swer­able question.

Self-Preservation’s Jarring Gong

How do you answer the Kore­an ques­tion? There are no good choic­es. The Sino-Russ­ian pro­pos­al for the U.S. to aban­don joint mil­i­tary exer­cis­es in exchange for anoth­er promise by the North to stop build­ing mis­siles and test­ing nukes is a non-starter.…

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