Category: Research Topics

Greeks
“Was there no ancestral spirit to conjure up before this unfortunate Prince, the downfall of his House, the ruin of his people—the bloody cellar of Ekaterinburg?” L-R: Olga, Maria, Nicholas II, Alexandra, Anastasia, Alexei, Tatiana at Livadia, Crimea, 1913. (Photo by the Levitsky Studio, public domain)
Russians and Greeks: “Falling Below the Level of Events”

Russians and Greeks: “Falling Below the Level of Events”

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Churchill to Grey: "I beseech you at this crisis not to make a mistake in falling below the level of events. Half-hearted measures will ruin all, and a million men will die through the prolongation of the war. You must be bold and violent. You have a right to be. Our fleet is forcing the Dardanelles. No armies can reach Constantinople but those which we invite, yet we seek nothing here but the victory of the common cause." Grey and the Foreign Office "felt as we did. They did all in their power. It registers a terrible moment in the long struggle to save Russia from her foes and from herself.”

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Iroquois
“Sh— I think I can hear a little war coming in the East.” Sidney Strube in the Daily Express, 23 January 1920. Poland and Russia were at war and War Minister Churchill was beating tom-toms, according to the Express. The paper’s owner, Lord Beaverbrook, was often amused when his cartoonists lampooned his friend Winston. (Public domain)
Chief Great Leader: The Myth of Churchill’s Iroquois Ancestors

Chief Great Leader: The Myth of Churchill’s Iroquois Ancestors

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"Race: human. But if, as I imagine is the case, the object of this enquiry is to determine whether I have coloured blood in my veins, I am most happy to be able to inform you that I do, indeed, so have. This is derived from one of my most revered ancestors, the Indian Princess Pocahontas, of whom you may not have heard, but who was married to a Jamestown settler named John Rolfe." —Randolph Churchill, way out in fiction, to South African Immigration officers in the days of Apartheid.

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motorist
Churchill at the wheel of his Wolseley 10, 1925; the bulb horn was used frequently in assorted mad rushes. (Author’s collection)
Winston Churchill as Motorist: Always in a Hurry

Winston Churchill as Motorist: Always in a Hurry

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Habitually late, Churchill would typically “pile into the Humber around 5:30 for a 7:00 speech a hundred miles distant. As his chauffeur swings into the high road, Churchill crouches, with a flask, on the edge of the back seat and urges him to greater speeds. Once, doing 80 on a curve, a rear tyre blew and “a van full of irate constables screeched to a halt alongside. They had been trying to catch the runaway for miles.” Realizing who it was, they helped fix the tyre. “Churchill made no sign of apology but cried, ‘Drive off!’ The constables saluted humbly.”

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Zinoviev
Bolshevik leaders write a letter of defiance to then-British Foreign Secretary George Curzon, 1923. L-R: Semyon Budyonny, Alexei Rykov, Mikhail Kalinin, Sergey Kamenev (mustachios), Leonid Krasin (fedora), Karl Radek (smoking pipe), Nikolai Bukharin, Georgy Chicherin( writing); Lev Kamenev (gesturing), Christian Rakovsky (arm raised) Leon Trotsky (goatee) , Demyan Bedny (facing the others), Maxim Litvinov (glasses), Joseph Stalin, Grigory Zinoviev. (Krasnyi Perets, public domain)
Churchill and the Red Scare: The Zinoviev Letter

Churchill and the Red Scare: The Zinoviev Letter

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The conspiracy theorists have not got round to accusing Churchill of actually writing the Zinoviev Letter–at least as far we know! It is virtually certain that he was not involved in the forgery, though he initially accepted it as genuine. He did take political advantage of the Zinoviev uproar. Even if it were forged, he said, it was nothing new where Bolsheviks were concerned. He called Ramsay MacDonald a “futile Kerensky.”

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Murray
Churchill visiting President Eisenhower at his Gettysburg farm, 6 May 1959. Sergeant Murray stands behind them. (Hillsdale College Press)
Remembering Eddie Murray, Churchill’s Bodyguard 1950-65

Remembering Eddie Murray, Churchill’s Bodyguard 1950-65

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"Murray's devotion to Churchill was genuine, and I have no doubt that if danger had threatened he would have stood before him. He certainly made the great man’s life easier and the Boss, I think, had a real affection for him. It was Churchill’s inevitable reaction to stand up for any member of his entourage who was under attack. As Lady Churchill once said (looking at me rather pointedly): 'Winston is always ready to be accompanied by those with considerable imperfections.'" —Anthony Montague Browne

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Peninsula
The landing of 4th Battalion, Australian troops at ANZAC Cove, Gallipoli, 25 April 1915. (Ernest Brooks, Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Gallipoli Peninsula 1915: Failure is an Orphan

Gallipoli Peninsula 1915: Failure is an Orphan

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From May to November 1915, Churchill held a meaningless sinecure, his only task the appointment of rural judges. “Like a sea-beast fished up from the depths, or a diver too suddenly hoisted,” he wrote, “my veins threatened to burst from the fall in pressure. I had great anxiety and no means of relieving it; I had vehement convictions and small power to give effect to them.… I was forced to remain a spectator of the tragedy, placed cruelly in a front seat.”

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Straits
“Mount Ida and Plains of Troy” by William Wyllie, with HMS Queen Elizabeth bombarding of Turkish forts, March 1915, covered inshore by HMS Canopus. Wyllie’s title relates the nearby site of Homeric Troy, excavated a few years earlier. (Royal Museums, Greenwich, public domain)
Dardanelles Straits 1915: Success Has a Thousand Fathers

Dardanelles Straits 1915: Success Has a Thousand Fathers

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It is widely believed that Churchill proposed the expedition to the Dardanelles Straits to bypass the static slaughter in Europe’s trenches. While this is true in the abstract, the plan was not his original vision, nor was it hatched overnight. Churchill and others first contemplated assaulting Germany and Austria-Hungary from the south. Churchill also proposed attacking Germany from the north, even as the Dardanelles operation was being approved by the War Cabinet.

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Marlborough
John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough. (Dulwich Picture Gallery, public domain)
Marlborough Drift: The Dallying Duke

Marlborough Drift: The Dallying Duke

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John Churchill (not yet a Duke) "was hidden in the cupboard of Barbara Palmer (not yet a Duchess). After having prowled about the chamber the King, much upset, asked for sweets and liqueurs. His mistress declared that the key of the cupboard was lost. The King replied that he would break down the door.On this she opened the door, and fell on her knees on one side while Churchill, discovered, knelt on the other...."

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The Gates of Auschwitz, with the slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei,” or “Work Sets You Free.” (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill, Terrorism of Any Stripe, and Bombing Auschwitz

Churchill, Terrorism of Any Stripe, and Bombing Auschwitz

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"There is no doubt that this is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilised men in the name of a great State and one of the leading races of Europe.... Declarations should be made in public, so that everyone connected with it will be hunted down and put to death." —WSC, 1945

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Hitler essays
Hitler at a march-past of the purged SA in Nuremberg, September 1935. (Standing second from left, Hermann Göering.) By then the SA was losing power and influence. Its numbers were more than halved by 1938. (Charles Russell Collection, National Archives and Records Administration, public domain)
Churchill’s Hitler Essays: He Knew the Führer from the Start

Churchill’s Hitler Essays: He Knew the Führer from the Start

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"The astounding thing is that the great German people, educated, scientific, philosophical, romantic, the people of the Christmas tree, the people of Goethe and Schiller, of Bach and Beethoven, Heine, Leibnitz, Kant and a hundred other great names, have not only not resented this horrible blood-bath, but have endorsed it and acclaimed its author with the honours not only of a sovereign but almost of a god.... Can we really believe that a hierarchy and society built upon such deeds can be entrusted with the possession of the most prodigious military machinery yet planned among men?" —WSC, 1937

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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