Category: Winston S. Churchill

revisioon
“It was a great work, and I wish you could now add another chapter to your own career.” The ghost of John Churchill looks over our author’s shoulder. (E.H. Shepard in Punch, 2 November 1938)
How Churchill Polished and Improved His Writing by Constant Revision

How Churchill Polished and Improved His Writing by Constant Revision

Con­densed from “Con­stant Revi­sion,” an arti­cle under my pen name for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the com­plete text click here.

Revision and redraft

We are asked: “As I recall Churchill labeled his man­u­scripts some­thing like “draft,” “almost final draft” and “final draft.” Do you recall what those cat­e­gories were?”

We can­not estab­lish that he rou­tine­ly used those labels. Instead he tend­ed to use “revise” or “revi­sion.” Fre­quent­ly his fin­ished draft was marked “final revise.” It often took a long time before, with a sigh of relief, his pri­vate office staff reached that point.…

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Election
Blue: Conservatives. Red: Labour. Yellow: SNP. Orange: Liberal Democrats. Pink: Democratic Unionist Party. Dark green: Sinn Féin. Medium green: Plaid Cymru. Light Green: Green Party. Yellow-orange: Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. White: Speaker of the House of Commons. (Wikimedia / Creative Commons)
British Election for Dummies: Churchillian Reflections from Afar

British Election for Dummies: Churchillian Reflections from Afar

…In which an igno­rant Yank with a slight remem­brance of his­to­ry pon­ders the impli­ca­tions. (Friends in Hert­ford­shire write: “What an elec­tion. Let’s hope now we can move on and sort this coun­try out and become Great Britain again.🇬🇧“) Elec­toral map image repro­duced under the Cre­ative Com­mons-Share Alike 4.0 Inter­na­tion­al license. For a detailed map with results by name or con­stituen­cy, see Bloomberg News. Piers Mor­gan on ardent anti-Brex­it actor Hugh Grant: “Hugh’s sor­ry now. Corbyn’s celebri­ty fans weep into their almond milk lattes.” Note: Even Grant approved Johnson’s cam­paign ad, spun off of Hugh’s charm­ing film “Love Actu­al­ly.”…

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White Russians
Admiral Kolchak and Anna Timiryova (his lover, seated to his right), with head of the British mission General Alfred Knox and English officers observing military exercises on the Eastern Front of the Russian Civil War, 1919. (Public domain, Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill and the White Russians: The Russian Civil War, 1919

Churchill and the White Russians: The Russian Civil War, 1919

Extract­ed from “Churchill: A Mil­lion Allied Sol­diers to Fight for the White Rus­sians?” for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, Novem­ber 2019. For the orig­i­nal text click here.

A read­er refers us to The Polar Bear Expe­di­tion: The Heroes of America’s For­got­ten Inva­sion of Rus­sia 1918-1919 (2019). It repeats a mis­un­der­stand­ing about Churchill’s role in aid­ing the White Rus­sians against the Bol­she­viks. By the spring of 1919 in Rus­sia, we read:

…the cat was out of the bag: whether its allies—English, French, White Russians—liked it nor not, the U.S. was pulling out. On March 4, the British War Cab­i­net decid­ed to fol­low suit, ignor­ing the argu­ments of the vir­u­lent­ly anti-Bol­she­vik Win­ston Churchill, who as sec­re­tary of war had pro­posed increas­ing the Allied com­mit­ment in Rus­sia to one mil­lion men.…

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McKinstry
Winston Churchill, Dr. H.V. Evatt (Australian Minister for External Affairs), Clement Attlee (Deputy Prime Minister) and Air Vice-Marshal C.R. Carr (AOC No 4 Group) visiting a Yorkshire-based Halifax squadron, 15 May 1942. Churchill wears the uniform of an Honorary Air Commodore, 615 (County of Surrey) Squadron, to which he was appointed in April 1939. (Imperial War Museum, Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
McKinstry’s Churchill and Attlee: A Vanished Age of Political Respect

McKinstry’s Churchill and Attlee: A Vanished Age of Political Respect

Churchill and Attlee: Allies in War, Adver­saries in Peace, by Leo McK­instry. New York: Lon­don, Atlantic Books, 736 pages, £25, Ama­zon $25.66.  Excerpt­ed from a book review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the orig­i­nal text, click here.

The McKinstry Epic

Leo McKinstry’s book 738 pages—twice the size of the pre­vi­ous Attlee-Churchill book and is riv­et­ing from cov­er to cov­er. Scrupu­lous­ly fair, McK­instry tells the sto­ry, backed by a volu­mi­nous bib­li­og­ra­phy, exten­sive research and pri­vate cor­re­spon­dence. Thus he cap­tures Churchill’s gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it, and Attlee’s great­ness of soul.

“Some­times tur­bu­lent, often fruit­ful, theirs was a rela­tion­ship unprece­dent­ed in the annals of British pol­i­tics,” McK­instry con­cludes.…

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Argentia
Continuity of purpose since 1941: A NATO fleet entering the harbor of Stavanger, Norway, 1975. (Isaac Newton, Creative Commons)
Researching the Atlantic Conference, Argentia, Newfoundland, August 1941

Researching the Atlantic Conference, Argentia, Newfoundland, August 1941

 A Question about Argentia

I am research­ing events and indi­vid­u­als at the first “sum­mit” between U.S. and British lead­ers. This was the “Atlantic Con­fer­ence” at Argen­tia, New­found­land on 9-12 August 1941. Most his­to­ries focus on the sum­mit meet­ing, con­se­quent­ly exclud­ing crit­i­cal meet­ings between oth­er high rank­ing indi­vid­u­als. Argen­tia was cer­tain­ly also a mil­i­tary meet­ing. Strat­e­gy, tac­tics and materiel were like­wise dis­cussed. Can you help me devel­op a list of the indi­vid­u­als who involved? Sir John Dill, Admi­ral Ernest J. King, Lord Beaver­brook and Sir Alexan­der Cado­gan were not there to sim­ply to attend din­ners.…

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Wilderness Years
Robert Hardy at Hillsdale, where we were privileged to host him in 2015 and 2016. (Hillsdale College)
“The Wilderness Years” with Robert Hardy: Original Review

“The Wilderness Years” with Robert Hardy: Original Review

“Churchill: The Wilderness Years”

The Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project has just repub­lished “Scal­ing Ever­est,” Robert Hardy’s rec­ol­lec­tions of play­ing the Wilder­ness Years Churchill. They are from 1987, his speech to one of our Churchill Tours, at the Reform Club, Lon­don. We are grate­ful to his execu­tors, Jus­tine Hardy and Neil Nis­bet-Robert­son for per­mis­sion to reprint. For Part 1, click here.

I thought the occa­sion appro­pri­ate to repub­lish my orig­i­nal review of the “Wilder­ness Years” from 1981, some years before we met. I thought at the time I had “laid an egg”—in Churchill’s phrase­ol­o­gy, not RH’s.…

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Titanic
RMS Titanic departing Southampton, 10 April 1912 (Wikimedia Commons / public domain)
What Sank the Titanic? Hopefully Not Churchill Again

What Sank the Titanic? Hopefully Not Churchill Again

Titanic redux

On 10 April 1912, the world’s largest pas­sen­ger lin­er set out on her maid­en voy­age from Southamp­ton, Cher­bourg and Queen­stown to New York. Four days lat­er, she struck an ice­berg and sank in under three hours, killing 1514 peo­ple. Titan­ic has been a bit­ter­sweet, fas­ci­nat­ing news item ever since.

On 26 Octo­ber the Dai­ly Mail report­ed British Chan­nel 5 TV pro­duc­tion, “Ten Mis­takes that DOOMED the Titan­ic.” If you saw this, please let me know if one of the mis­takes named is Win­ston Churchill. (See below.) We are always watch­ful for the onward march of invin­ci­ble ignorance.…

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health care
1944 was a good time for WSC to think about health care. In January, meeting with Generals Eisenhower and Alexander in Tunis, the patient (in his famous dragon-bespangled dressing gown) was just recovering from a near-death encounter with pneumonia. (Wikimedia Commons: UK government photo, public domain)
Winston Churchill on Health Care (1): “The Inheritance of All”

Winston Churchill on Health Care (1): “The Inheritance of All”

Q: Churchill on health care

(Updat­ed from 2009). A state­ment by Churchill on health care has been offered to show that he would sup­port U.S. heath care reforms. My Catholic parish pub­lished the afore­men­tioned state­ment in its week­ly bulletin.

“What Would Churchill Do? Here’s an inter­est­ing quote. It’s from for­mer British Prime Min­is­ter Win­ston Churchill explain­ing his view on  health care and gov­ern­ment in 1948. ‘The dis­cov­er­ies of heal­ing sci­ence must be the inher­i­tance of all. That is clear. Dis­ease must be attacked, whether it occurs in the poor­est or the rich­est man or woman sim­ply on the ground that it is the ene­my.…

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Atatürk Erdogan
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Webtekno, Istanbul)
Turkey, Erdoğan, David Goldman and Winston Churchill

Turkey, Erdoğan, David Goldman and Winston Churchill

In the light of recent con­tro­ver­sy over the right pos­ture to take over Turkey and the Kurds, this three-year-old post seems as instruc­tive as ever. Updat­ed and republished.

David Goldman, Teacher

The 2016 Hills­dale Col­lege Alas­ka cruise aimed to edu­cate, and so it did. I learned more from David Gold­man about Erdoğan, Turkey and the Mid­dle East in an hour than from any­thing I’ve read over the last five years.

David Gold­man, a New York econ­o­mist, is a colum­nist for First Things mag­a­zine and writes under the name “Spen­gler” for Asia Times Online. Pre­vi­ous­ly he was the glob­al head of cred­it strat­e­gy for Cred­it Suisse, and head of fixed income research at Bank of Amer­i­ca.…

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war shame
Churchill to Moyne (circled): “We shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a little later.” Coalition ministers, May 1940. Standing L-R: Sir Archibald Sinclair, A.V. Alexander, Lord Cranborne. Herbert Morrison, Lord Moyne. Captain Margesson, Brendan Bracken. Seated L-R: Ernest Bevin, Lord Beaverbrook, Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill, Sir John Anderson, Arthur Greenwood, Sir Kingsley Wood. (Imperial War Museum / public domain)
Churchill’s words: Choosing between War and Shame—and getting both.

Churchill’s words: Choosing between War and Shame—and getting both.

It is fre­quent­ly asked: What did Churchill say about those who trade hon­or for peace hav­ing in nei­ther in the end?

“War and Shame”

There are two quo­ta­tions. The first was Churchill in a let­ter to Lloyd George on 13 August 1938, just before the Munich Con­fer­ence, which led to World War II a year later.

I think we shall have to choose in the next few weeks between war and shame, and I have very lit­tle doubt what the deci­sion will be.

Ref­er­ence is Churchill by Him­self, page 256, quot­ing Mar­tin Gilbert, ed., The Churchill Doc­u­ments, vol.…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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