Quotations Archives - Page 24 of 31

Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (2)

30 April 2017

Fateful Questions

Fateful Questions, September 1943-April 1944, nineteenth of a projected twenty-three document volumes in the official biography, Winston S. Churchill, is reviewed by historian Andrew Roberts in Commentary.

These volumes comprise “every important document of any kind that concerns Churchill.” The present volume sets the size record. Fateful Questions is 2,752 pages long, representing an average of more than eleven pages per day. Yet at $60, it is a tremendous bargain. Order your copy from the Hillsdale College Bookstore.

Here is an excerpt from my account, “Fresh History,” which can be read in its entirety at the Hillsdale College Churchill Project.…

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75 Years On: What We Learn from the Fall of Singapore

26 April 2017

This article first appeared as “Churchill and the Fall of Singapore” in The American Spectator, 22 February 2017.

“There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away…people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves dwelling in a fool’s paradise.” —Winston S. Churchill, 1950

On the last day of January, 1942, the British blew up Singapore’s central causeway to the mainland in a vain attempt to stop the onrushing Japanese.…

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Thoughts on National Churchill Day 2017: TheQuestion.com

8 April 2017

Q: TheQuestion tries to provide our readers with the most reliable knowledge from experts in various fields. As we celebrate National Churchill Day, April 9th, we would appreciate your thoughts on three questions. These are currently posted without responses on our website: Was Winston Churchill really that good an artist? What made him a great leader? What was his greatest achievement?

TheQuestion: Churchill as Artist

Please take a virtual tour of Hillsdale College’s recent exhibition of Churchill paintings and artifacts. Here your readers can decide for themselves. The consensus among experts, however, is that Churchill was a gifted amateur.…

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Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (1)

2 April 2017

Fateful Questions, September 1943-April 1944, nineteenth of the projected twenty-three document volumes, is reviewed by historian Andrew Roberts in Commentary.

The volumes comprise “every important document of any kind that concerns Churchill, and the present volume is 2,752 pages long, representing an average of more than eleven pages per day.” Order your copy from the Hillsdale College Bookstore.

Here is an excerpt from my account, “Fresh History,” which can be read in its entirety at the Hillsdale College Churchill Project.

Fateful Questions: Excerpts

Fastidiously compiled by the late Sir Martin Gilbert and edited by Dr.…

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Trump, Russia, and Churchill’s Wisdom

8 March 2017

Published 8 March 2017 on the Daily Caller, under the title “A Lesson on Russia for Trump.” Their title, not mine; I do not presume to offer anyone lessons.

“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” —Winston Churchill, 1939

“If Putin likes Trump, guess what, folks, that’s called an asset, not a liability. Now I don’t know that I’m going to get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do. But there’s a good chance I won’t.” —Donald Trump, 2017

Russia National Interests

Trump-Churchill comparisons are invidious and silly.…

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Galloper Jack Seely, Churchillian

11 February 2017

A colleague asks if it’s true that Churchill comrade Jack Seely was “arrested for arrogance” in the Boer War! It doesn’t sound to either of us like an arrestable offense, but fits the character—a lordly aristocrat-adventurer, and thus almost inevitable Friend of Winston.

A Churchill biographer, Esme Wingfield-Stratford, agreed: “Gallant Jack Seely, from the Isle of Wight…a light-hearted gambler with death, was about the one man who could claim a record to compare with that of Winston himself.”

C.N Trueman thinks that Jack Seely could not have lived in the 21st century. “He truly belonged to an era associated with the British Empire and the attitudes embedded into a society that at one point had a government that controlled a quarter of the world.”…

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Pearl Harbor +75: All in the Same Boat. Still.

7 December 2016

A slightly extended version of my piece on Pearl Harbor: “How, 75 years ago today, we were saved,” in The American Spectator, 7 December 2016….

Seventy-five years ago today, Winston Churchill was pondering survival. Hitler gripped Europe from France to deep inside Russia. Nazi U-boats were strangling British shipping; Rommel’s Afrika Korps was advancing on Suez. Britain’s only ally beside the Empire/Commonwealth, the Red Army, was fighting before Moscow. America remained supportive…and aloof.

Eighteen months earlier he had become prime minister. No one else had wanted the task. “God alone knows how great it is,” he muttered, his eyes filling.…

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Cockran: A Great Contemporary

22 November 2016

Q: How important was Congressman Bourke Cockran’s influence on the young Churchill?

A: Very. The late Curt Zoller was the first to write in depth about Bourke Cockran. This man played a vital but little understood role in forming young Churchill’s political philosophy. In 1895, Zoller wrote, when young Churchill traveled to New York on his way to Cuba,

…he was greeted by William Bourke Cockran, a New York lawyer, U.S. congressman, friend of his mother’s and of his American relatives. Winston’s Aunt Clara was married to Moreton Frewen. (The peripatetic “Mortal Ruin” would later badly edit Churchill’s first book, Story of the Malakand Field Force.)…

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Churchill on the Broadcast

17 November 2016

The question arises, has anything been written on Churchill’s radio technique? Did he treat radio differently from other kinds of public speaking? How quickly did he take to the broadcast?

“The Art of the Microphone”

An excellent piece on this subject was by Richard Dimbleby (1913-1965), the BBC’s first war correspondent and later its leading TV news commentator. His “Churchill the Broadcaster” is in Charles Eade, ed., Churchill by his Contemporaries (London: Hutchinson, 1953). Old as it is, the book remains a comprehensive set of essays of the many specialized attributes of WSC.

Dimbleby offers four areas of discussion: the technical background, the drama of World War II, the factual material, and Churchill’s methods of delivery.…

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Mosul and Churchill’s Wisdom: Put a Lid on It!

24 October 2016

Churchill’s wisdom speaks to us across the years. Take the controversy of whether we blab too much in advance about military operations, like Mosul.

In the October 19th presidential debate, Mr. Trump said the U.S. and Iraqis forfeited “the element of surprise” in publicizing the coming offensive against Mosul. This, he insisted, allowed Islamic State ringleaders to remove themselves from the danger zone: “Douglas MacArthur, George Patton [must be] spinning in their graves when they see the stupidity of our country.” Earlier in the week he had asked: “Why don’t we just go in quietly, right?…

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