Churchill Defiant: Fighting On 1945-1955, by Barbara Leaming. London: Harper Press, 394 pages.
“Great captains must take their chance with the rest. Caesar was assassinated by his dearest friend. Hannibal was cut off by poison. Frederick the Great lingered out years of loneliness in body and soul. Napoleon rotted at St. Helena. Compared with these, Marlborough had a good and fair end to his life.” —Winston S. Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times, 1936, Book Two.
A decade on, still a book to readReaders sometimes ask for the best books to read on Churchill’s career after the Second World War.…
N.B. “Be Ye Men of Valour” is from the original Appendix IV in my book Churchill By Himself. It was deleted in the later edition, Churchill in His Own Words, to make room for an index of phrases. Concluded from Part 2…
From the Book of MaccabeesOn 19 May 1940, Churchill made his first broadcast as Prime Minister, a speech which lifted the hearts even of former critics:
A tremendous battle is raging in France and Flanders. The Germans, by a remarkable combination of air bombing and heavily armoured tanks, have broken through the French defences north of the Maginot Line, and strong columns of their armoured vehicles are ravaging the open country, which for the first day or two was without defenders.…
N.B. “A House of Many Mansions” is from the original Appendix IV in my book Churchill By Himself. It was deleted in the later edition, Churchill in His Own Words, to make room for an index of phrases. Continued from Part 1…
“A house of many mansions”The New Testament Gospel according to St. John, Chapter 14, contains an inspiring passage that Winston Churchill absorbed as a boy:
1. Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.…
N.B.”The Biblical Churchill” was the original Appendix IV in my book Churchill By Himself. It was deleted in the later edition, Churchill in His Own Words, to make room for an index of phrases.
Churchill’s Biblical storehouse“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” —St. John 14:2 [1]
We have often said of our own British Empire: “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” So in this far greater world structure, which we shall surely raise out of the ruins of desolating war, there will be room for all generous, free associations of a special character, so long as they are not disloyal to the world cause nor seek to bar the forward march of mankind.…
Reprised below are my small contributions on Churchill and the great Irish statesman and thinker Edmund Burke (1729-1797). It was eclipsed in 2019 in a brilliant speech by Andrew Roberts which the Hillsdale College Churchill Project offers here. Dr. Roberts spoke after receiving The New Criterion 7th Edmund Burke Award for Service to Culture and Society. He also discusses Churchill on Burke in a video interview with James Panero.
2. Churchill on BurkeA reader writes:
I’d like to congratulate you on Churchill by Himself, but I could not find any Churchill comments on Edmund Burke in the index.…
