Category: Winston S. Churchill

Armistice Day
“The Glorious Dead”: The Cenotaph, London. (Paul the Archivist, Creative commons)
Churchill on Armistice Day: War, Peace and Foreboding

Churchill on Armistice Day: War, Peace and Foreboding

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"Is this the end? Is it to be merely a chapter in a cruel and senseless story? Will a new generation in their turn be immolated to square the black accounts of Teuton and Gaul? Will our children bleed and gasp again in devastated lands? Or will there spring from the very fires of conflict that reconciliation of the three giant combatants, which would unite their genius and secure to each in safety and freedom a share in rebuilding the glory of Europe?" —WSC

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Anthony
Gettysburg, May 1959: WSC, Anthony Montague Browne, President Eisenhower. From the jacket of AMB’s book.
Winston Churchill on War, Part 3: Anthony Montague Browne

Winston Churchill on War, Part 3: Anthony Montague Browne

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"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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Atomic
“Beware the Bogeyman”: A week after WSC’s Iron Curtain Speech at Fulton, Stalin began warning Russians of the lurking warmonger. Leslie Illingworth in the “Daily Mail,” 13 March 1946. (Public domain)
Winston Churchill on War, Part 2: Atomic Age

Winston Churchill on War, Part 2: Atomic Age

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"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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War
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

Winston Churchill on War, Part 1: 1900-1932

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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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Christian
Coventry Cathedral was severely damaged in the Blitz of 14–15 November 1940. Churchill visited on 28 September 1941, with Provost Richard Howard and Mayor J.A. Moseley. At right in the second row is WSC’s ubiquitous bodyguard Walter Thompson. (Photo by Capt. Horton, War Office, Crown copyright expired)
What Winston Churchill Meant by “Christian Civilization”

What Winston Churchill Meant by “Christian Civilization”

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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
Winston Churchill with MacKenzie King, Quebec, August 1943. (Wikimedia Commons)
Shocking Facts: “Nuclear Armageddon” Then and Now

Shocking Facts: “Nuclear Armageddon” Then and Now

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"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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drunk
Where’s your glass, Prime Minister? Stalin toasts Churchill’s 69th birthday, Teheran, 30 November 1943. (Faces to camera: Air Marshal Portal, Anthony Eden, unknown, WSC, Marshal Voroshilov, Marshal Stalin, Averell Harriman, interpreter Pavlov.) WSC wrote: “The Marshal and his colleagues invariably drank their toasts from tiny glasses, taking only a sip on each occasion. I had been well brought up.” (Photo by Lt. D.C. Oulds RN, Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Churchill the Drunk. Or: Fasten Seatbelts on Bar Stools

Churchill the Drunk. Or: Fasten Seatbelts on Bar Stools

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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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Sybarite
Churchill’s Laurania: “It was the first rain after the summer heats, and it marked the beginning of that delightful autumn climate which has made the Lauranian capital the home of the artist, the invalid, and the sybarite.” (Woodcut by André Collot from the 1950 Monaco edition)
Churchill Quotations: “The Artist, the Invalid, and the Sybarite”

Churchill Quotations: “The Artist, the Invalid, and the Sybarite”

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Churchill only used "artist - invalid - sybarite" twice, and very early on. Evidently it didn't "stick" as well as others he repeated decades apart. If it had, he might have applied it to Morocco or the South of France, where he was all three of those things from time to time. He found both to be perfect for convalescing, painting, or enjoying the luxuries of life. (Of course, he knew where to stay!)

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West
Fourth Hussars Regimental Polo Team, India 1898-99. WSC is third from left. (Hillsdale College Press)
Algernon West and Churchill’s Disdain for “Superfluous Millions”

Algernon West and Churchill’s Disdain for “Superfluous Millions”

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The reader now has the context, and may decide whether Churchill's remark was an expression of imperialist racism, or the fashionable Darwin-Reade philosophy prevalent at that time. In the words of Mark Twain and several showmen before him: "You pays your money and you takes your choice."

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Soames
“Mr. Winston Churchill presents his compliments to Mr. Winston Churchill, and begs to draw his attention to a matter which concerns them both.” Reading the correspondence between the two Winstons, Baker Library, Dartmouth, with Barbara Langworth and librarian Philip Cronenwett. (Photo by the author)
Mary Soames Centenary 1922-2022: A Remembrance by a Friend

Mary Soames Centenary 1922-2022: A Remembrance by a Friend

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Mary Soames taught us all the most important rules any Churchill scholar must follow: never to proclaim what her father would do today; and strive to “keep the memory green and the record accurate.” She also taught us magnanimity—that what really matters is friendship, and trust. She was our guiding light—the person we sought to please with word committed to print on behalf of her great father.

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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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