Category: In the News

“Rats in a Hole”: Churchill’s Apology

“Rats in a Hole”: Churchill’s Apology

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Imag­ine if the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States declared, “We will dig out ter­ror­ists ‘like rats in a hole.” Many would applaud and think maybe they had mis­judged him. Or would they?

A col­league sends an exchange in the House of Com­mons on 7 March 1916. “Colonel Churchill,” recent­ly returned from the Front but still a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, was speak­ing about the naval war with Ger­many. British naval plan­ners must pro­vide, Churchill was saying,

against what will be a con­tin­u­al­ly increas­ing ele­ment of the unknown. I must also just point out anoth­er argu­ment which shows that, great as were the anx­i­eties with which we were faced in the first four months of the War, they have not by any means been removed, or, indeed, sen­si­bly dimin­ished by the course of events.…

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Churchill’s Average Voter

Churchill’s Average Voter

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(Or: “Churchillian Drift,” Part 1,398….)

On the eve of the British Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Metro UK declares: “Win­ston Churchill said the best argu­ment against democ­ra­cy is a five-minute con­ver­sa­tion with the aver­age voter.”

This is alas a reap­pear­ance of an ever-pop­u­lar red-her­ring quote that Churchill nev­er said.

Churchill had thought­ful cri­tiques of democ­ra­cy. See in par­tic­u­lar his essay on “Mass Effects in Mod­ern Life” in his book, Thoughts and Adven­tures. But he also had more respect for the aver­age vot­er than this non-quote sug­gests. In the House of Com­mons on 31 Octo­ber 1944 he said:

At the bot­tom of all the trib­utes paid to democ­ra­cy is the lit­tle man, walk­ing into the lit­tle booth, with a lit­tle pen­cil, mak­ing a lit­tle cross on a lit­tle bit of paper [we still vote that way in New Hampshire]—no amount of rhetoric or volu­mi­nous dis­cus­sion can pos­si­bly dimin­ish the over­whelm­ing impor­tance of that point.…

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Gallipoli
Dardanelles and Gallipoli (Wikimedia Commons)
Dardanelles-Gallipoli Centenary

Dardanelles-Gallipoli Centenary

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The original idea for forcing the Dardanaelles was not proposed by Churchill, who initially doubted it. His First Sea Lord, Fisher, who later deserted him, at first supported it. Churchill was First Lord not “Lord” of the Admiralty; Prime Minister Asquith was not at that time a Lord. The landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula were not originally part of the plan.

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Churchill-Mussolini Non-Letters

Churchill-Mussolini Non-Letters

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(Or: “You Haven’t Looked Hard Enough”)

“The Untold Sto­ry of Mussolini’s Fake Diaries” (Dai­ly Beast, 12 April 2015) eval­u­ates Mussolini’s sup­posed diaries, let­ters or doc­u­ments ped­dled over the years, while rais­ing some incrim­i­nat­ing charges, or sup­po­si­tions, about Win­ston Churchill:

Before the war, Churchill offered Il Duce a deal. After the war, British intel­li­gence tried to destroy their cor­re­spon­dence…. When Churchill became prime min­is­ter in May 1940 he tried, in a series of let­ters, to dis­suade Mus­soli­ni from join­ing the Axis pow­ers. He was ignored. Three weeks lat­er Italy joined Nazi Ger­many and declared war on Great Britain.…

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Martin
(Photo: Lady Gilbert)
Sir Martin Gilbert CBE, 1936-2015 (2)

Sir Martin Gilbert CBE, 1936-2015 (2)

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The time you won your town the race, We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down,Townsman of a stiller town. So set, before its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade, And hold to the low lintel up, The still-defended challenge-cup. —Housman

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Martin Gilbert
Martin in 1982, discussing his “Desert Island Disks” for a castaway island. The audio may be found at https://bbc.in/3Y8JRe0. (Photo: BBC)
Sir Martin Gilbert CBE, 1936-2015 (1)

Sir Martin Gilbert CBE, 1936-2015 (1)

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Each one of us recalls some little incident—many of us, as in my own case, a kind action, graced with the courtesy of a past generation and going far beyond the normal calls of comradeship. Each of us has his own memory, for in the tumultuous diapason of the world's tributes, all of us here at least know the epitaph he would have chosen for himself: "He was a noble historian, a kind and decent man."

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funeral
(Jack de Nijs for Anefo, Netherlands National Archives, public domain)
Churchill’s Funeral, 50 Years On: His Words Still Call to Us

Churchill’s Funeral, 50 Years On: His Words Still Call to Us

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In the time since his funeral I learned that Churchill’s life and thought—the eerie relevancy of his challenges and experiences—still call to us across the years. There will always be scoffers, who portray him as an anachronism. “In doing so, it is they who are the losers,” Martin Gilbert concluded, “for he was a man of quality: a good guide for our troubled present, and for the generations now reaching adulthood.”

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Churchill Funeral vs March in Paris?

Churchill Funeral vs March in Paris?

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An arti­cle in the Chris­t­ian Post equates Pres­i­dent Obama’s absence from the March in Paris with Pres­i­dent John­son skip­ping the 1965 Churchill Funer­al. The John­son sto­ry has gone around a lot late­ly, but it is nei­ther accu­rate nor a fair comparison.

Pres­i­dent John­son, suf­fer­ing from a bad case of flu, sent Chief Jus­tice Earl War­ren and Sec­re­tary of State Dean Rusk to the Churchill Funer­al. In his offi­cial state­ment John­son said: “When there was dark­ness in the world…a gen­er­ous Prov­i­dence gave us Win­ston Churchill….He is history’s child, and what he said and what he did will nev­er die.”…

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Paris
September 4th, 1936: Churchill with General Maurice Gamelin during French Army of the South East maneuvers. Gamelin, head of the French General Staff, was sacked on 17 May 1940 as Hitler’s armies overran France. (Agence Meurisse, © Gallica Digital Library, Wikimedia Commons)
“The Prophet Churchill”: Paris 2015

“The Prophet Churchill”: Paris 2015

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"Our difficulties come from the mood of unwarrantable self-abasement into which we have been cast by a powerful section of our own intellectuals. They come from the acceptance of defeatist doctrines by a large proportion of our politicians.… If we lose faith in ourselves, in our capacity to guide and govern, if we lose our will to live, then indeed our story is told." —Churchill, 1933

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Recognizing Cuba

Recognizing Cuba

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“I was, I think, the first in this House to sug­gest, in Novem­ber 1949, recog­ni­tion of the Chi­nese Communists….I thought that it would be a good thing to have diplo­mat­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion. But if you recog­nise any­one it does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that you like him. We all, for instance, recog­nise the Rt Hon Gen­tle­man, the Mem­ber for Ebbw Vale.”*  —Win­ston S. Churchill, 1 July 1952.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Pres­i­dent Obama’s Decem­ber 17th announce­ment restor­ing diplo­mat­ic rela­tions with Cuba, a col­league writes: “Final­ly we’ll have access to tru­ly great healthcare.”

Fun­ny. Actu­al­ly top tier Cuban health­care is main­ly for par­ty mem­bers. There is a tiered sys­tem.…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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