Category: Research Topics

Shigemitsu
Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of the Japanese Government, on board USS Missouri. 2 September 1945. Lieutentant General Richard K. Sutherland, U.S. Army, stands opposite. Foreign Ministry representative Toshikazu Kase is assisting Mr. Shigemitsu. Interestingly, the U.S. uniform of the day was working khaki, contrasting with the formal dress of the Japanese. (U.S. Army Signal Corps, National Archives, public doman)
Mamoru Shigemitsu: “When you have to kill a man…”

Mamoru Shigemitsu: “When you have to kill a man…”

Q: Ambassador Shigemitsu

Churchill was crit­i­cized for his extreme­ly respect­ful let­ter to the Japan­ese Ambas­sador to Britain in Decem­ber 1941, when inform­ing him that their coun­tries were at war. Churchill’s response to crit­ics was, “After all, when you have to kill a man it costs noth­ing to be polite.” Was Shigemit­su acual­ly killed?  —W.H., New York

A: No, he lived on

Churchill was writ­ing in the abstract, so did not actu­al­ly pro­pose to slay the Ambas­sador. Mamoru Shigemit­su  was Japan­ese ambas­sador to the Sovi­et Union 1936–38 and to Britain 1938–41. Fol­low­ing Japan’s attacks of Decem­ber 1941 he received unham­pered pas­sage home.…

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resistance
German resistance to Hitler did operate early on. Georg Elser’s 7 November 1939 bomb in the Munich Bürgerbräukeller killed seven, and would certainly have killed Hitler, but after an unexpected short speech he left early. Elser was executed in 1945. (German Federal archives, public doman)
German Resistance: “Driven by the Restlessness of their Conscience”

German Resistance: “Driven by the Restlessness of their Conscience”

Questions on the Weiss Rose resistance

A Ger­man par­lia­men­tary jour­nal quotes Churchill on the Ger­man resis­tance to Hitler: “These men and women fought with­out help from with­in or with­out, dri­ven only by the rest­less­ness of their con­science.  As long as they lived they were invis­i­ble and unrec­og­niz­able to us. In their death, the resis­tance became vis­i­ble. Their deeds and sac­ri­fices are the foun­da­tion of the recon­struc­tion.” (Hans-Adolf Jacob­sen, Ger­mans Against Hitler, 3rd ed., Berto-Ver­lag, Bonn, 1960; Bar­ry Sul­li­van, Thresh­olds of Peace, 1979).  I can­not find the orig­i­nal doc­u­ment and some­what doubt its authen­tic­i­ty. …

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Danzig
Danzig in 1939. Yellow areas are Poland. (Map by Ziegelbrenner, Wikimedia Creative Commons)
Albrecht Forster and Churchill’s Danzig Moment, 1939

Albrecht Forster and Churchill’s Danzig Moment, 1939

An article argues that WSC supported appeasement and approved of Fascism. While this is a well-written critique, it tends to magnify specifics to justify generalities. It does not establish Churchill’s attachment to Fascism and Appeasement (although he approved of some forms of the latter). It does instruct us on the kinds of fascists Churchill dealt with in the 1920s and 1930s.

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Fulton
WSC and President Truman, flanking Truman’s military aide General Harry Vaughan, arriving at Fulton after a long night of poker (see http://bit.ly/2ZIUlRN), 4 March 1946. (US National Archives, public domain)
Churchill’s Consistency: The Fulton Warning Continues

Churchill’s Consistency: The Fulton Warning Continues

Excerpt­ed from “Churchill’s Steady Adher­ence to His 1946 ‘Iron Cur­tain’ Speech in Ful­ton,” writ­ten for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the Hills­dale post with end­notes and more images, please click here. (Part of the text is tak­en from “Iron Cur­tain 75 Years On,” while adding rel­e­vant timelines.)

Fulton then and now

Ini­tial­ly con­demned as a war­mon­ger for telling the truth about Sovi­et inten­tions in his 1946 “Iron Cur­tain” speech, Churchill was soon acknowl­edged as a prophet—sometimes by the same indi­vid­u­als and media who exco­ri­at­ed him. Churchill him­self nev­er backed off.…

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Begbie
“The Political Struwwelpeter,” 1899. (Flickr, The Commons, public domain)
Harold Begbie: “The Man Who Did God for the Westminster Gazette”

Harold Begbie: “The Man Who Did God for the Westminster Gazette”

“Harold Beg­bie” is excerpt­ed from an arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To view the orig­i­nal, click here. To SUBSCRIBE for fresh arti­cles week­ly from the Churchill Project, reach­ing 60,000 read­ers world­wide: Click here, scroll to bot­tom, enter your email address in the box enti­tled “Stay in touch with us.” Your email address is nev­er giv­en out and will remain a rid­dle wrapped in a mys­tery inside an enigma.

“The hand of destiny”

The Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project’s updat­ed bib­li­og­ra­phy of works about Churchill has pro­duced grat­i­fy­ing inter­est in ear­ly biogra­phies.…

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alliance
View from St. Paul’s Cathedral toward the Old Bailey after the Blitz, 3 January 1941. (H. Mason, Daily Mail, public domain)
Grand Alliance: A Way Out of the Second World War?

Grand Alliance: A Way Out of the Second World War?

Question:

“Pro­fes­sor John Charm­ley says in a pod­cast that Neville Cham­ber­lain believed a pre­war grand alliance against Hitler was not fea­si­ble. He was refer­ring to alliance between the UK and France and the Unit­ed States and USSR. Do you agree?”

Answer:

As Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) tells the Dis­trict Attor­ney (Lane Smith) in “My Cousin Vin­ny” (1992), “that’s a B.S. question.”

(To voir dire Miss Vito on “gen­er­al auto­mo­tive knowl­edge” the D.A. had demand­ed the igni­tion tim­ing of “a 1955 Chevro­let 327 V-8.” (Read­ers less mechan­i­cal­ly inclined than Miss Vito may enjoy her dev­as­tat­ing two-minute rebut­tal to this “trick question.”)…

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Munich
Munich, 1938: Mussolini and Ciano (last two at right) with Chamberlain, Daladier (who always looked like he was about to have a root canal) and HItler. (Wikimedia Commons)
Munich Reflections: Peace for “a” Time & the Case for Resistance

Munich Reflections: Peace for “a” Time & the Case for Resistance

Jour­nal­ist Leo McKinstry’s Churchill and Attlee is a deft analy­sis of a polit­i­cal odd cou­ple who led Britain’s Sec­ond World War coali­tion gov­ern­ment. Now, eighty years since the death of Neville Cham­ber­lain, he has pub­lished an excel­lent appraisal in The Spec­ta­tor. Churchill’s pre­de­ces­sor as Prime Min­is­ter, Cham­ber­lain nego­ti­at­ed the 1938 Munich agree­ment. “Peace for our time,” he famous­ly referred to it.  In the end, he bought the world peace for a time.

Mr. McK­instry is right to regret that Cham­ber­lain has been rough­ly han­dled by his­to­ry. “The real­i­ty is that in the late 1930s Chamberlain’s approach was a ratio­nal one,” he writes.…

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V1
A V1 flying bomb coming down on London, 1944. (Creative Commons, www.strijdbewijs.nl)
Churchill on the V1: Praise for Ingenuity, Horror over Effects

Churchill on the V1: Praise for Ingenuity, Horror over Effects

Excerpt­ed from a Q&A post on the V1 for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the unabridged arti­cle, please click here.

Robert Lusser and the V1 “Flying Bomb”

A jour­nal­ist writes about the life of her grand­fa­ther, Robert Lusser, chief design­er of the V1 fly­ing bomb. She searched for what Churchill said about the V1 in his mem­oirs of the Sec­ond World War. “He men­tions the weapon’s destruc­tion in 1944 but noth­ing of what he thought of the V1 mil­i­tar­i­ly. My grandfather’s papers sug­gest that Churchill praised the weapon after the war.…

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Armenians
Detail from a campaign poster by the American Committee for Relief in the Near East–Armenia-Greece-Syria-Persia . (W.B. King, Library of Congress, public domain)
Winston Churchill and the Armenian Genocide, 1914-23

Winston Churchill and the Armenian Genocide, 1914-23

Excerpt­ed from an arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, Sep­tem­ber 2020. For the com­plete text, an appen­dix of Churchill’s words on Arme­nia, more illus­tra­tions and end­notes, please click here.

The age-long mis­for­tunes of the Armen­ian race have arisen main­ly from the phys­i­cal struc­ture of their home. Upon the lofty table­land of Arme­nia, stretch­ing across the base of the Asia Minor Penin­su­la, are imposed a series of moun­tain ranges hav­ing a gen­er­al direc­tion east and west. The val­leys between these moun­tains have from time immemo­r­i­al been the path­ways of every inva­sion or counter-attack between Asia Minor in the west and Per­sia and Cen­tral Asia in the east….…

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Athens
Have you seen this much of your desktop in years? Not I! Archbishop Regent Damaskinos of Greece with his service advisors: Wing Cdr. Angelopoulos (Air Force) Lt. Col. Vassilikopoulos (Army), Lt. Cdr. Boudouris (Navy), Athens, 15 February 1945. (Imperial War Museum, Wikimedia Commons)
Athens, 1944: Some Lighter Moments in a Serious Situation

Athens, 1944: Some Lighter Moments in a Serious Situation

“There’s a lot of ruin in any nation…”

The Greeks are still not laugh­ing about their mid-1940s civ­il war, so lev­i­ty may be inap­pro­pri­ate. Nor was at the time was Win­ston Churchill. “There is a lot of ruin in any nation,” he once mused. In Athens, 1944, Britain was “respon­si­ble for build­ing up the nest of cock­a­tri­ces for EAM [com­mu­nist par­ti­sans] in Greece.” (His vocab­u­lary was broad: A cock­a­trice is a myth­i­cal, two-legged drag­on or ser­pent-like crea­ture with a cock’s head.)

Nev­er­the­less, the peace deal Churchill bro­kered between war­ring Greeks in 1944 had so many hilar­i­ous moments that, 75 years lat­er, we may be per­mit­ted to indulge in lighter aspects.…

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