December 2019 - Richard M. Langworth

Churchill’s Christmas, 1882-1947: Halcyon and Sterner Days

24 December 2019 Comments 0 Comments

“Churchill’s Christmas” is excerpted from a two-part article for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. For the complete text with footnotes, please click here.

To Churchillian colleagues, and most of all those who have encouraged and supported our Churchill work at Hillsdale College so many years: thank-you for being our friends.

Washington, 24 December 1941

“Let the children have their night of fun and laughter… Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.…

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revisioon — “It was a great work, and I wish you could now add another chapter to your own career.” The ghost of John Churchill looks over our author’s shoulder. (E.H. Shepard in Punch, 2 November 1938)

How Churchill Polished and Improved His Writing by Constant Revision

19 December 2019 Comments 0 Comments

Condensed from “Constant Revision,” an article under my pen name for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. For the complete text click here.

Revision and redraft

We are asked: “As I recall Churchill labeled his manuscripts something like “draft,” “almost final draft” and “final draft.” Do you recall what those categories were?”

We cannot establish that he routinely used those labels. Instead he tended to use “revise” or “revision.” Frequently his finished draft was marked “final revise.” It often took a long time before, with a sigh of relief, his private office staff reached that point.…

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British Election for Dummies: Churchillian Reflections from Afar

13 December 2019 Comments 5 Comments

…In which an ignorant Yank with a slight remembrance of history ponders the implications. (Friends in Hertfordshire write: “What an election. Let’s hope now we can move on and sort this country out and become Great Britain again.🇬🇧“) Electoral map image reproduced under the Creative Commons -Share Alike 4.0 International license. For a detailed map with results by name or constituency, see Bloomberg News. Piers Morgan on ardent anti-Brexit actor Hugh Grant: “Hugh’s sorry now. Corbyn’s celebrity fans weep into their almond milk lattes.” Note: Even Grant approved Johnson’s campaign ad, spun off of Hugh’s charming film “Love Actually.”…

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Churchill and the White Russians: The Russian Civil War, 1919

8 December 2019 Comments 0 Comments

Extracted from “Churchill: A Million Allied Soldiers to Fight for the White Russians?” for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, November 2019. For the original text click here.

A reader refers us to The Polar Bear Expedition: The Heroes of America’s Forgotten Invasion of Russia 1918-1919 (2019). It repeats a misunderstanding about Churchill’s role in aiding the White Russians against the Bolsheviks. By the spring of 1919 in Russia, we read:

…the cat was out of the bag: whether its allies—English, French, White Russians—liked it nor not, the U.S. was pulling out. On March 4, the British War Cabinet decided to follow suit, ignoring the arguments of the virulently anti-Bolshevik Winston Churchill, who as secretary of war had proposed increasing the Allied commitment in Russia to one million men.…

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McKinstry’s Churchill and Attlee: A Vanished Age of Political Respect

4 December 2019 Comments 0 Comments

Churchill and Attlee: Allies in War, Adversaries in Peace, by Leo McKinstry. New York: London, Atlantic Books, 736 pages, £25, Amazon $25.66. Excerpted from a book review for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. For the original text, click here.

The McKinstry Epic

Leo McKinstry’s book 738 pages—twice the size of the previous Attlee-Churchill book and is riveting from cover to cover. Scrupulously fair, McKinstry tells the story, backed by a voluminous bibliography, extensive research and private correspondence. Thus he captures Churchill’s generosity of spirit, and Attlee’s greatness of soul.

“Sometimes turbulent, often fruitful, theirs was a relationship unprecedented in the annals of British politics,” McKinstry concludes.…

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