Author: Richard M. Langworth

Randolph Churchill
The White House, 9 April 1963. President John F. Kennedy declares Sir Winston Churchill an honorary citizen of the United States. On steps, front row (L-R): Undersecretary of State, George Ball, British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby-Gore, President Kennedy, Randolph Churchill. Back rows (L-R): Deputy Chief of Protocol William J. Tonesk (mostly behind Ball), Sylvia Ormsby-Gore, Randolph’s son Winston, President’s naval aide Tazewell Shepard. Secret Service agent Art Godfrey is at far right. (Photograph by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton. presented to Richard Langworth, 1988, public domain)
D-Day+80: National Celebrations, Eighty Years On

D-Day+80: National Celebrations, Eighty Years On

And so on 6 June 1944 we launched the great crusade, as Eisenhower put it (today perhaps politically incorrectly). Western civilization was saved. Yet it was not, William F. Buckley Jr. argued, “the significance of that victory, mighty and glorious though it was, that causes the name of Churchill to make the blood run a little faster....It is the roar that we hear, when we pronounce his name….The genius of Churchill was his union of affinities of the heart and of the mind, the total fusion of animal and spiritual energy."

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Peninsula
The landing of 4th Battalion, Australian troops at ANZAC Cove, Gallipoli, 25 April 1915. (Ernest Brooks, Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Gallipoli Peninsula 1915: Failure is an Orphan

Gallipoli Peninsula 1915: Failure is an Orphan

From May to November 1915, Churchill held a meaningless sinecure, his only task the appointment of rural judges. “Like a sea-beast fished up from the depths, or a diver too suddenly hoisted,” he wrote, “my veins threatened to burst from the fall in pressure. I had great anxiety and no means of relieving it; I had vehement convictions and small power to give effect to them.… I was forced to remain a spectator of the tragedy, placed cruelly in a front seat.”

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Straits
“Mount Ida and Plains of Troy” by William Wyllie, with HMS Queen Elizabeth bombarding of Turkish forts, March 1915, covered inshore by HMS Canopus. Wyllie’s title relates the nearby site of Homeric Troy, excavated a few years earlier. (Royal Museums, Greenwich, public domain)
Dardanelles Straits 1915: Success Has a Thousand Fathers

Dardanelles Straits 1915: Success Has a Thousand Fathers

It is widely believed that Churchill proposed the expedition to the Dardanelles Straits to bypass the static slaughter in Europe’s trenches. While this is true in the abstract, the plan was not his original vision, nor was it hatched overnight. Churchill and others first contemplated assaulting Germany and Austria-Hungary from the south. Churchill also proposed attacking Germany from the north, even as the Dardanelles operation was being approved by the War Cabinet.

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Marlborough
John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough. (Dulwich Picture Gallery, public domain)
Marlborough Drift: The Dallying Duke

Marlborough Drift: The Dallying Duke

John Churchill (not yet a Duke) "was hidden in the cupboard of Barbara Palmer (not yet a Duchess). After having prowled about the chamber the King, much upset, asked for sweets and liqueurs. His mistress declared that the key of the cupboard was lost. The King replied that he would break down the door.On this she opened the door, and fell on her knees on one side while Churchill, discovered, knelt on the other...."

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Manchester
Churchill and Clement Attlee (Hansard Society)
Churchill in Manchester: Clem in the Gents, Huns at Your Throat

Churchill in Manchester: Clem in the Gents, Huns at Your Throat

William Manchester offered two famous Churchill jibes, one original, the other borrowed. David Pitblado reliably confirmed Churchill's famous crack to Clement Attlee in the Gents Loo in the House of Commons. Churchill himself admitted that somebody else first said "The Hun is either at your feet or at your throat."

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The Gates of Auschwitz, with the slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei,” or “Work Sets You Free.” (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill, Terrorism of Any Stripe, and Bombing Auschwitz

Churchill, Terrorism of Any Stripe, and Bombing Auschwitz

"There is no doubt that this is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilised men in the name of a great State and one of the leading races of Europe.... Declarations should be made in public, so that everyone connected with it will be hunted down and put to death." —WSC, 1945

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Benito
Churchill wasn’t the last British statesman to wend his way to Rome. Chamberlain arrived in 1939, posed at the Rome Opera House with Il Duce and their respective foreign ministers, Halifax and Ciano. (Wikimedia Commons)
Myths of Dear Benito: Churchill’s Alleged Mussolini Complex

Myths of Dear Benito: Churchill’s Alleged Mussolini Complex

Churchill agreed to defer Italian war debt payments until 1930. Mussolini sent “the warmest expressions of gratitude” and offered him a decoration. Er, no, said WSC. (Imagine if that was among Churchill’s medals.) But Churchill's diplomatic boilerplate in Rome has been used to brand him as a fascist. In context, he referred to the Italians, not the British. And you tend to say polite things about a foreign leader when he has promised to pay back a lot of money.  

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Never
Harrow School, Middlesex, where WSC frequently returned as an “Old Boy” from the 1940s on. (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill Misquotes: Never give up and Definition of Fanatic

Churchill Misquotes: Never give up and Definition of Fanatic

The ranks of fake Churchill quotes reaches almost 200 in the next edition of "Churchill by Himself," and are meanwhile kept up to date on this website. These two are all over the web and constantly repeated. They probably stem from the many inaccurate “wit and wisdom” quotation books.

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Australia
American Embassy, Canberra. U.S. Ambassador to Washington after laying the cornerstone, 7 December 1941: “What do we do now?” State Department to Ambassador: “Keep building the thing or the Aussies will think we’re on the run.” (Photo by T. Luxwolda, Creative Commons)
Australia Stories: Peace in 1918, War in 1941

Australia Stories: Peace in 1918, War in 1941

1918: "If the peace which we are going to make in Europe should lead, as I trust it will, to the​ liberation of captive nationalities...it will remove for ever most of the causes of possible wars. The only sure foundation for a State is a Government freely elected by millions of people, and as many millions as possible. It is fatal to swerve from that conception." This brief letter abounds with Churchillian wisdom. Had only we followed it. If only we were following it today....

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violin
Uniquely made from cigar boxes formerly owned by Churchill, the RAF Club violin by former Churchill Arms pub owner Gerry O’Brien. (RAF Club)
Musical Interludes: Churchill and the Violin, 1886, 1928

Musical Interludes: Churchill and the Violin, 1886, 1928

"It is not widely known that Churchill once bought a cheap violin and essayed to prepare himself for the concert stage. The fancy passed. Unlike bricklaying, the musical art was tougher than it looked. About all he got out of it was a witticism from Philip Snowden, a government opponent, who said, 'I understand that Winston has taken up a new pastime—fiddling, and very appropriate, too.'" —Robert Lewis Taylor

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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
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