Assault on Winston Churchill, 2018: A Reader’s Guide

Assault on Winston Churchill, 2018: A Reader’s Guide

Assault count: Since I am los­ing track, I thought it would be con­ve­nient to cre­ate an index to smears of Win­ston Churchill fol­low­ing the film Dark­est Hour. Note the sim­i­lar­i­ty of top­ics. Many writ­ers feed off each oth­er, repeat­ing the same dis­proven argu­ments. Nev­er do they check Churchill quotes or The Churchill Doc­u­ments —which prove them irre­triev­ably wrong. The order is most recent first.
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Update for 2019

Assault of 29 March: The Ezine Scroll-in report­ed that Churchill’s poli­cies caused the drought that caused the Ben­gal Famine. (Not enough to be Prime Min­is­ter, he must also be a farmer, since he need­ed to know Irri­ga­tion.) This was a huge red her­ring. It was not drought but a cyclone that destroyed the rice crop plus the road and rail links. Oth­er fac­tors includ­ed Japan’s inva­sion of Bur­ma and the refusal of Indi­an mer­chants to release grains while prices were ris­ing. Soil sam­ples prove noth­ing. Refut­ed on Facebook
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The same sto­ry was retread­ed by the South Chi­na Morn­ing Post on 12 April. To its cred­it (and this is a well-regard­ed news­pa­per), the Post pub­lished a rebut­tal four days lat­er. (The his­to­ri­an this refers to but does not men­tion is Arthur Her­man, pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.)

Assault and battery…

Assault of 10 Octo­ber: His­to­ri­an Andrew Roberts was attacked for, besides over­look­ing old chest­nuts, two new ones. Appar­ent­ly Churchill drove Gertrude Bell to sui­cide and deval­ued the pound. Some­how, how­ev­er, when he ran the trea­sury, the pound gained in val­ue. Response on this website.
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Assault of 5 Octo­ber: Retired U.S. astro­naut Scott Kel­ly tweet­ed a point about civic decen­cy: “One of the great­est lead­ers of mod­ern times, Sir Win­ston Churchill said, ‘in vic­to­ry, mag­na­nim­i­ty.’” Matthew D’Ancona nice­ly wrote in the Evening Stan­dard: “Like a mete­or storm bom­bard­ing a cap­sule in orbit, furi­ous trolls attacked him on social media.” Churchill was “as good as Hitler.” He was respon­si­ble for the Ben­gal Famine.  He was a big­ot, mass-mur­der­er and racist. Kel­ly fold­ed like a three-dol­lar suit­case. “Did not mean to offend by quot­ing Churchill. My apolo­gies. I will go and edu­cate myself fur­ther on his atroc­i­ties, racist views which I do not sup­port.” This baloney was most impor­tant­ly refut­ed by Andrew Roberts in the Dai­ly Tele­graph:  “Of course Churchill was a great leader. It was utter­ly craven of Scott Kel­ly to apol­o­gise for say­ing so.” (Text avail­able upon request.)

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Assault of 15 March: Adri­ja Roy­chowd­hury, “An unpop­u­lar racist,” Indi­an Express (Prais­ing Mus­soli­ni, pre­fer­ring Nazis to Com­mu­nists, Ben­gal famine, poi­son gas.) Response by Richard Lang­worth in the Com­ments sec­tion (lim­it­ed to 1000 char­ac­ters and no links).

Assault of 10 March: Shashi Tha­roor, “Hol­ly­wood rewards a mass mur­der­er,” Wash­ing­ton Post. (Ben­gal famine, bomb­ing Irish pro­test­ers, poi­son gas, hat­ing Indi­ans.) Response by Soren Geiger, Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, in The Amer­i­can Spectator.

Assault of 9 March: Shree Parad­kar, “Win­ston Churchill, the bar­bar­ic mon­ster,” Toron­to Star. (Ben­gal famine, Kenya, Greece, “Aryan stock” quote.) Response by Ter­ry Rear­don, Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.

Assault of 2 March: “…The Castlerosse Affair,” Jour­nal of Con­tem­po­rary His­to­ry. (Writ­ten ver­sion of Churchill’s sup­posed affair with Doris Castlerosse.) Response by Richard Lang­worth, Amer­i­can Spectator.

Assault of 25 Feb­ru­ary: “Churchill’s Secret Affair,” UK Chan­nel 4. (Churchill cheat­ed on his wife in a four-year affair.) Response by Andrew Roberts, The Spec­ta­tor & Hills­dale Churchill Project.

Assault of 23 Feb­ru­ary: Tom Black­well, “Some won­der if he was more war crim­i­nal…” Nation­al Post. (Ben­gal famine, though in this one case the author does quote a few defend­ers.). Response on this website.

Assault of 23 Jan­u­ary: Louise Raw, “…Don’t for­get his prob­lem­at­ic past,” The Inde­pen­dent. (Kenya, Ben­gal Famine, Welsh strik­ers, hate for Indi­ans, Islam­o­pho­bia, etc.) Response on Facebook.

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Near­ly forty years ago an equal­ly great Churchill per­for­mance, Robert Hardy in The Wilder­ness Years,  was received with equal acclaim by press and pub­lic. Most impor­tant­ly, there was no cho­rus of hate, no trumped-up charges, no hint that Churchill’s over­all record was in any­thing except pos­i­tive. Alas times have changed.

 

2 thoughts on “Assault on Winston Churchill, 2018: A Reader’s Guide

  1. I’m not sure what you are ask­ing. The famine was exac­er­bat­ed by three main things: the weath­er, the Japan­ese inva­sion of Bur­ma, and hoard­ing by local mer­chants. British pol­i­cy was to win a world war. The doc­u­ments are con­clu­sive that the British did all they could, in that con­text, to relieve the star­va­tion, and even­tu­al­ly did. Of course Churchill (and the War Cab­i­net) were respon­si­ble. So was the Viceroy, Field Mar­shall Wavell. With­out them, the Ben­gal Famine would have been worse.

  2. Those doc­u­ments prove what: that the Ben­gal famine of 1942 was not exac­er­bat­ed by British pol­i­cy, or that Churchill was not respon­si­ble for the pol­i­cy, or that British pol­i­cy­mak­ers could not have known that their poli­cies were hav­ing this effect?

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