Year: 2020

Munich
Munich, 1938: Mussolini and Ciano (last two at right) with Chamberlain, Daladier (who always looked like he was about to have a root canal) and HItler. (Wikimedia Commons)
Munich Reflections: Peace for “a” Time & the Case for Resistance

Munich Reflections: Peace for “a” Time & the Case for Resistance

Comments 0 Comments

Jour­nal­ist Leo McKinstry’s Churchill and Attlee is a deft analy­sis of a polit­i­cal odd cou­ple who led Britain’s Sec­ond World War coali­tion gov­ern­ment. Now, eighty years since the death of Neville Cham­ber­lain, he has pub­lished an excel­lent appraisal in The Spec­ta­tor. Churchill’s pre­de­ces­sor as Prime Min­is­ter, Cham­ber­lain nego­ti­at­ed the 1938 Munich agree­ment. “Peace for our time,” he famous­ly referred to it.  In the end, he bought the world peace for a time.

Mr. McK­instry is right to regret that Cham­ber­lain has been rough­ly han­dled by his­to­ry. “The real­i­ty is that in the late 1930s Chamberlain’s approach was a ratio­nal one,” he writes.…

Read More Read More

V1
A V1 flying bomb coming down on London, 1944. (Creative Commons, www.strijdbewijs.nl)
Churchill on the V1: Praise for Ingenuity, Horror over Effects

Churchill on the V1: Praise for Ingenuity, Horror over Effects

Comments 0 Comments

Excerpt­ed from a Q&A post on the V1 for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the unabridged arti­cle, please click here.

Robert Lusser and the V1 “Flying Bomb”

A jour­nal­ist writes about the life of her grand­fa­ther, Robert Lusser, chief design­er of the V1 fly­ing bomb. She searched for what Churchill said about the V1 in his mem­oirs of the Sec­ond World War. “He men­tions the weapon’s destruc­tion in 1944 but noth­ing of what he thought of the V1 mil­i­tar­i­ly. My grandfather’s papers sug­gest that Churchill praised the weapon after the war.…

Read More Read More

Paul Courtenay
Sara and Paul Courtenay (seated) on Paul’s 80th birthday, 2014. Back row (L-R): grandchildren Celeste, Constance, and Charles; daughter Caroline; sons James and William; daughter Lucy; grandchildren Theo, Flynn, Victoire, Delilah. Front row (L-R): grandchildren Bertie, George, Alfie, Hector, Tabitha.
Paul Courtenay 1934-2020: No Better Definition of a Pro

Paul Courtenay 1934-2020: No Better Definition of a Pro

Comments 3 Comments
"As I observed him regarding with calm, firm and cheerful gaze the approach of Death, I felt how foolish the Stoics were to make such a fuss about an event so natural and so indispensable to mankind. But I felt also the tragedy which robs the world of all the wisdom and treasure gathered in a great man's life and experience, and hands the lamp to some impetuous and untutored stripling, or lets it fall shivered into fragments upon the ground."

Read More Read More

Welsh
St David’s Day Celebration, Cardiff Bay, 1 March 2009. (National Assembly for Wales, Creative Commons)
Winston Churchill on the “Unconquerable Welsh” and Lloyd George

Winston Churchill on the “Unconquerable Welsh” and Lloyd George

Comments 0 Comments
"[Lloyd George] was the greatest Welshman which that unconquerable race has produced since the age of the Tudors. Much of his work abides, some of it will grow greatly in the future, and those who come after us will find the pillars of his life's toil upstanding, massive and indestructible; and we ourselves, gathered here today, may indeed be thankful that he voyaged with us through storm and tumult with so much help and guidance to bestow." —WSC

Read More Read More

Official Biography
At 31 volumes, eight narrative and 23 of documents, the Official Biography, “Winston S. Churchill,” is the longest on the planet. (Photo: Hillsdale College)
“Winston S. Churchill”: The Triumphant Story of the Official Biography

“Winston S. Churchill”: The Triumphant Story of the Official Biography

Comments 0 Comments

This his­to­ry of the Offi­cial Biog­ra­phy was first pub­lished in Finest Hour 190, Fourth Quar­ter 2020

“We go back a long way,” Hills­dale Col­lege Pres­i­dent Lar­ry Arnn recent­ly remind­ed me. “I knew Dal New­field.” He real­ized that would invoke a fond mem­o­ry. A few still remem­ber the man respon­si­ble for where some of us are today.

Dal­ton New­field was a Sacra­men­to army vet­er­an who had admired Win­ston Churchill since he saw him live dur­ing World War II. In 1970, I shrank away from Finest Hour after the first eleven issues. I was clear­ing the decks for an auto­mo­tive writ­ing career in New York City.…

Read More Read More

Armenians
Detail from a campaign poster by the American Committee for Relief in the Near East–Armenia-Greece-Syria-Persia . (W.B. King, Library of Congress, public domain)
Winston Churchill and the Armenian Genocide, 1914-23

Winston Churchill and the Armenian Genocide, 1914-23

Comments 0 Comments

Excerpt­ed from an arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, Sep­tem­ber 2020. For the com­plete text, an appen­dix of Churchill’s words on Arme­nia, more illus­tra­tions and end­notes, please click here.

The age-long mis­for­tunes of the Armen­ian race have arisen main­ly from the phys­i­cal struc­ture of their home. Upon the lofty table­land of Arme­nia, stretch­ing across the base of the Asia Minor Penin­su­la, are imposed a series of moun­tain ranges hav­ing a gen­er­al direc­tion east and west. The val­leys between these moun­tains have from time immemo­r­i­al been the path­ways of every inva­sion or counter-attack between Asia Minor in the west and Per­sia and Cen­tral Asia in the east….…

Read More Read More

Athens
Have you seen this much of your desktop in years? Not I! Archbishop Regent Damaskinos of Greece with his service advisors: Wing Cdr. Angelopoulos (Air Force) Lt. Col. Vassilikopoulos (Army), Lt. Cdr. Boudouris (Navy), Athens, 15 February 1945. (Imperial War Museum, Wikimedia Commons)
Athens, 1944: Some Lighter Moments in a Serious Situation

Athens, 1944: Some Lighter Moments in a Serious Situation

Comments 1 Comment
“There’s a lot of ruin in any nation…”

The Greeks are still not laugh­ing about their mid-1940s civ­il war, so lev­i­ty may be inap­pro­pri­ate. Nor was at the time was Win­ston Churchill. “There is a lot of ruin in any nation,” he once mused. In Athens, 1944, Britain was “respon­si­ble for build­ing up the nest of cock­a­tri­ces for EAM [com­mu­nist par­ti­sans] in Greece.” (His vocab­u­lary was broad: A cock­a­trice is a myth­i­cal, two-legged drag­on or ser­pent-like crea­ture with a cock’s head.)

Nev­er­the­less, the peace deal Churchill bro­kered between war­ring Greeks in 1944 had so many hilar­i­ous moments that, 75 years lat­er, we may be per­mit­ted to indulge in lighter aspects.…

Read More Read More

Democracy
As Churchill addressed Liverpool Dockworkers, 25 April 1941, British forces were withdrawing from Greece. 3 1/2 years later they were back, and Churchill was under fire for interfering with democracy. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
“Antithesis of Democracy” (Or: Winston Churchill & Portland)

“Antithesis of Democracy” (Or: Winston Churchill & Portland)

Comments 0 Comments
Churchill’s stunning relevancy

It is remark­able how we still encounter in Churchill words of astound­ing cur­ren­cy. A friend in Port­land, Ore­gon asked for ver­i­fi­ca­tion of a Churchill quo­ta­tion: “A love for tra­di­tion has nev­er weak­ened a nation, indeed it has strength­ened nations in their hour of per­il….”  (“The Tasks which Lie Before Us,” House of Com­mons, 29 Novem­ber 1944.)  A good, sol­id max­im, but not out of the ordinary.

AND THEN my eye fell across what Churchill said a week later.  Its cur­rent appli­ca­tion, to Port­land among oth­er places, is remarkable. December 1944 Only two months after Greece had been lib­er­at­ed from Ger­man occu­pa­tion, left­ist ele­ments of the gov­ern­ment resigned and began an armed rebel­lion.…

Read More Read More

Hull
Any lies galloping here? U.S.. Secretary of State Cordell Hull (right) confers with British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden during the Second World War. (U.S. State Department, public domain)
Galloping Lies, Bodyguards of Lies, and Lies for the Sake of Your Country

Galloping Lies, Bodyguards of Lies, and Lies for the Sake of Your Country

Comments 3 Comments

About lies. Can you please advise whether or not Sir Win­ston Churchill said: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”  Many thanks. —A.S., Bermuda

That one lies with Cordell Hull

It was Franklin Roo­sevelt‘s Sec­re­tary of State, Cordell Hull, not Churchill. I have a slight vari­a­tion of it in the “Red Her­rings” appen­dix of  Churchill by Him­self, page 576: “A lie will gal­lop halfway round the world before the truth has time to pull its breech­es on.”  Although com­mon­ly ascribed to Churchill (who would have said “trousers,” not “breech­es”), this is def­i­nite­ly down to Hull.…

Read More Read More

Pilecki
The show trial of Capt. Witold Pilecki, sentenced to death and executed March 1948. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
Witold Pilecki: A Brave Pole Who Did His Best for Liberty

Witold Pilecki: A Brave Pole Who Did His Best for Liberty

Comments 1 Comment

Excerpt­ed from Richard Cohen and Richard Lang­worth: “Witold Pilec­ki: A Deserv­ing Addi­tion to “The Right­eous Among the Nations,” for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. Mr. Cohen is a real estate lawyer based in Lon­don and head of the Essex Branch of the Jew­ish His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety of Eng­land. For the full text and illus­tra­tions please click here.

War aim or by-product?

Jack Fair­weath­er, The Vol­un­teer: One Man, an Under­ground Army, and the Secret Mis­sion to Destroy Auschwitz. (The sto­ry of Witold Pilec­ki.) New York: Harper­Collins, 2019, $28.99, Ama­zon $20.49, Kin­dle $13.99.

By 1 August 1946 the world knew the full truth of the Holo­caust.…

Read More Read More

RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
Links on this page may earn commissions.