October 2022 - Richard M. Langworth

Winston Churchill on War, Part 3: Anthony Montague Browne

30 October 2022

"I tried to rally him. I spoke of the extraordinary life he had enjoyed...all he had said and done, of how he was almost universally popular and admired. In Germany in 1956, as he drove through the streets he was cheered. It astonished him. After all, it was not very long after the end of the war....How, I concluded, could he be so downcast? I noted his reply verbatim: 'Yes, I worked very hard all my life, and I have achieved a great deal—in the end to achieve nothing.'"

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Winston Churchill on War, Part 2: Atomic Age

25 October 2022

"Then it may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.…The [atomic] deterrent does not cover the case of lunatics or dictators in the mood of Hitler when he found himself in his final dug-out. That is a blank…."

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Battle of the Somme, July 1916: Indian cyclists at a crossroads on the Fricourt-Mametz road. (Photo by John Warwick Brooke, public domain)

Winston Churchill on War, Part 1: 1900-1932

21 October 2022

Churchill's reputation as a warrior tends to obscure his efforts for peace. Of peace he sometimes despaired, especially toward the end of his life. Herewith are some of Churchill’s words on war and peace from "Churchill by Himself." Part 3 will consider why he regretted, in his final years, that despite all his efforts, peace still did not prevail in the world.

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What Winston Churchill Meant by “Christian Civilization”

15 October 2022

When Churchill referred to Christian civilization, he did not mean to exclude Jews or Buddhists or Muslims. Just as, to him, the word “man” meant humanity, his allusions to Christianity embodied principles he considered universal. He meant the Ten Commandments (a “judgmental” set of moral imperatives now expunged from certain public places). He meant the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule. He meant charity, forgiveness, courage.

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Shocking Facts: “Nuclear Armageddon” Then and Now

10 October 2022

"Churchill's style of tossing ideas around with his companion, often to test their effect, mistakenly inclined Moran to give these half-formed thoughts and suggestions a status of hard fact." And not just Moran. Bridges and King were certainly taken aback sufficiently to record Churchill's contemplation of nuclear war.

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Churchill the Drunk. Or: Fasten Seatbelts on Bar Stools

5 October 2022

Churchill did have an astonishing capacity, and most historians grant him a decided preference for lubrication. But Lockhart is no more reliable than others. from Alan Brooke to Bessie Braddock, who attributed to alcohol a Churchill who worked and harangued 18 hours a day and was often exhausted…. Yet apparently not drunk enough to debate Empire Free Trade—or to spark Lockhart’s imagination.

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