Coming up: Churchill: Master of Language

In prepa­ra­tion for Sir Winston’s 150th birth­day is my 800-page book, Churchill: Mas­ter of Lan­guage: The Ency­clo­pe­dia of His Great­est Words. The pub­lish­er is Hills­dale Col­lege Press, with an e-book by Roset­ta and a leather­bound lim­it­ed edi­tion by Eas­t­on Press. 

The fifth and final edi­tion of Churchill by Him­self, aka Churchill in His Own Words, adds 1500 new quo­ta­tions for a total over 5000. Its thir­ty-four chap­ters and sev­en appen­dices con­tain half a mil­lion words—the most mem­o­rable or amus­ing Churchill said. Includ­ed is an exhaus­tive index to key phras­es, peo­ple, places and events. Watch this site for fur­ther news.

Updat­ed from 2012, here is a quar­tet of fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions about what Churchill said (or didn’t say). Two are gen­uine and in the book. Two are in my “Red Her­rings” appen­dix of words Churchill nev­er uttered.

“If God wearied of mankind”

From Churchill’s last major speech in Par­lia­ment comes a quo­ta­tion devoid of his usu­al opti­mism. For some rea­son I can’t pos­si­bly imag­ine, this often comes up with regard to cur­rent glob­al affairs:

Which way shall we turn to save our lives and the future of the world? It does not mat­ter so much to old peo­ple; they are going soon any­way; but I find it poignant to look at youth in all its activ­i­ty and ardour and, most of all, to watch lit­tle chil­dren play­ing their mer­ry games, and won­der what would lie before them if God wea­ried of mankind. —House of Com­mons, 1 March 1955

“Not being scuppered”

If we could avoid get­ting scup­pered by God, Churchill hoped we might also avoid it in politics.

A read­er writes: “Can you con­firm that Churchill said this? He became prime min­is­ter again in Octo­ber 1951. A month lat­er he sup­pos­ed­ly announced three pri­or­i­ties to his pri­vate sec­re­tary, Jock Colville. Alleged­ly he said: ‘hous­es, red meat and not get­ting scup­pered.’ But I can’t find it in Colville’s Fringes of Power.”

It was quot­ed as you state it by the late Paul Addi­son in his out­stand­ing book Churchill on the Home Front (1992) 412, foot­not­ed to Fringes of Pow­er, the Colville diary, 22-23 March 1952. But Paul had the verb wrong.

What Churchill said was “not being scup­pered.”  As such it appears in Fringes of Pow­er (Hod­der & Stoughton first U.S. edi­tion. 1985), 644. Mar­tin Gilbert also has it in Nev­er Despair, vol­ume 8 of the Offi­cial Biog­ra­phy (Hills­dale Col­lege Press, 2013), 717.

The past: condemned to repeat it

A librar­i­an asked about the famous quote by George San­tayana (in The Life of Rea­son, 1905): “Those who can­not remem­ber the past are con­demned to repeat it.” She knew the quote was orig­i­nal­ly Santayana’s, but wished to know if Churchill said it. And if so, when?

I searched the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project data­base: 80 mil­lion pub­lished words by and about WSC. This includes his own 20 mil­lion (books, arti­cles, speech­es, let­ters, pri­vate papers). Alas I could find no occur­rence of San­tayana in any­thing Churchill said.  I could not even find key phras­es (“remem­ber the past”…”condemned to repeat it”). So Churchill nev­er repeat­ed Santayana’s phrase in so many words, though he cer­tain­ly shared the sentiment.

Churchill wor­ried also that knowl­edge of the past would mean “the most thought­less of ages. Every day head­lines and short views” (House of Com­mons, 16 Novem­ber 1948). But per­haps his best remark on the sub­ject was this:

When the sit­u­a­tion was man­age­able it was neglect­ed, and now that it is thor­ough­ly out of hand we apply too late the reme­dies which then might have effect­ed a cure. There is noth­ing new in the sto­ry. It is as old as the Sibylline Books. It falls into that long, dis­mal cat­a­logue of the fruit­less­ness of expe­ri­ence and the con­firmed unteach­a­bil­i­ty of mankind.

Want of fore­sight, unwill­ing­ness to act when action would be sim­ple and effec­tive, lack of clear think­ing, con­fu­sion of coun­sel until the emer­gency comes, until self-preser­va­tion strikes its jar­ring gong—these are the fea­tures which con­sti­tute the end­less rep­e­ti­tion of his­to­ry. —House of Com­mons, 2 May 1935, after the Stre­sa Con­fer­ence, in which Britain, France and Italy agreed—futilely—to main­tain the inde­pen­dence of Austria.

Shooting his son-in-law

A read­er asks if Churchill ever admired Mus­soli­ni. This doesn’t refer to the bou­quets he threw Il Duce in 1927, when he per­suad­ed Mus­so to repay the Ital­ian war debt. It sup­pos­ed­ly occurred in a con­ver­sa­tion involv­ing Churchill’s son-in-law, Dun­can Sandys, who mar­ried his daugh­ter Diana.

The sto­ry goes that toward the end of the Sec­ond World War, Sandys told Churchill that “Hitler and Mus­soli­ni have an even greater bur­den to bear, because every­thing is going wrong for them.” Sup­pos­ed­ly Churchill replied: Ah, but Mus­soli­ni has this con­so­la­tion, that he could shoot his son-in-law!

I will not dig­ni­fy that with quo­ta­tion marks because it is noth­ing Churchill said. It refers to the exe­cu­tion by fir­ing squad of Count Galeaz­zo Ciano (1903-1944). The non-quote orig­i­nat­ed in news­pa­per pro­pri­etor Cecil King’s war mem­oir, With Mal­ice Toward None (1970)—a diary note for 20 July 1944. But King added that it was “obvi­ous­ly con­coct­ed by some wag.” No oth­er source states that Churchill made any such statement.

In fact Churchill quite liked Dun­can Sandys and appoint­ed him to impor­tant gov­ern­ment min­istries. More believ­able is that Churchill said this about a son-in-law he thor­ough­ly dis­liked: Vic Oliv­er, née von Samek, an Aus­tri­an-born music hall come­di­an who mar­ried Sarah Churchill in 1936. Sup­pos­ed­ly Oliv­er asked WSC if he admired any ene­mies, and Churchill named Mus­soli­ni for being able to shoot his son-in-law. It is all rubbish.

What Churchill said

Win­ston Churchill’s first wor­ry was for his daugh­ter. If war came, he told Sarah, “you will be mar­ried to the ene­my.” —Sarah Churchill, A Thread in the Tapes­try (1965), 52.

To his wife, WSC declared Oliv­er “as com­mon as dirt. An Aus­tri­an cit­i­zen, a res­i­dent in U.S., and here on license and an Amer­i­can pass­port: twice divorced: thir­ty-six so he says. A hor­ri­ble mouth: a foul Aus­tro-Yan­kee drawl. I did not offer to shake hands.” —Mar­tin Gilbert, ed., The Churchill Doc­u­ments, vol. 10 (2008), 53.

True, Churchill called Mus­soli­ni every name in his book: ”whipped jackal”…”organ grinder’s monkey”…”absurd imposter.” But while Churchill men­tioned Ciano’s exe­cu­tion, he did not say say he approved:

[T]he suc­cess­ful cam­paign in Sici­ly brought about the fall of Mus­soli­ni and the heart­felt repu­di­a­tion by the Ital­ian peo­ple of the Fas­cist creed. Mus­soli­ni indeed escaped, to eat the bread of afflic­tion at Hitler’s table, to shoot his son-in-law, and help the Ger­mans wreak vengeance upon the Ital­ian mass­es whom he had pro­fessed to love. and over whom he had ruled for more than twen­ty years. —Broad­cast, Lon­don, 26 March 1944

Ital­ian par­ti­sans caught up with Mus­soli­ni in 1945, the same year Sarah and Vic divorced. Churchill had warmed slight­ly toward Oliv­er by then, though Vic had the infu­ri­at­ing habit of call­ing him “Pop­sie.” Churchill was upset over the breakup, main­ly think­ing about Sarah.

Desert Island Discs

For triv­ia fans, Vic Oliv­er was the very first guest on the long-run­ning BBC pro­gramme, “Desert Island Discs” in 1942. See Alex Hud­son, “The Cast­away Who Annoyed Churchill,” BBC News Mag­a­zine, 26 Jan­u­ary 2012.

Related reading

“All the Quotes Win­ston Churchill Nev­er Said,” Part 1 of 4 parts, 2018.

“Paul Addi­son 1943-2020: What Mat­ters is the Truth,” 2020

“‘Great­est Law-Giv­er’: The Truth Behind Churchill’s Mus­solli­ni Bou­quets,” 2022

“Myths of Dear Ben­i­to: Churchill’s Alleged Mus­soli­ni Com­plex,” 2024.

“Fas­cists of the Future Will Call Them­selves Anti-Fas­cis­sts,” 2020.