“Laboring forty years in the vineyard of his words, I am struck most by CHURCHILL’S JUDGEMENT. And as William Manchester wrote, ‘while his early reactions were often emotional, and even unworthy of him, they were usually succeeded by reason and generosity.’” —RML
“Churchill and his Military Commanders”

“Churchill and his Military Commanders”

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Part I: “War States­man­ship,” in “Churchill and his Mil­i­tary Com­man­ders,” by Eliot A. Cohen. Read in full on the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.

“The gen­er­als had in mind a con­cept of civ­il-mil­i­tary rela­tions to which many still, amaz­ing­ly, pay lip ser­vice: a world in which civil­ians pro­vide resources, set goals, and step out of the way to let pro­fes­sion­als do their work. War states­man­ship, in Churchill’s view, focused at the apex of gov­ern­ment an array of con­sid­er­a­tions and cal­cu­la­tions that even those one rung down could not ful­ly fathom.” 

Eliot A. Cohen is pro­fes­sor of strate­gic stud­ies at Johns Hop­kins School of Advanced Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies, and has served as Coun­selor of the Depart­ment of State.…

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Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

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“Sav­ing the Nations from Hell”: The “King­ly Con­fer­ence,” 1914 (Excerpt)

(Read more at Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project)

Churchill’s faith in per­son­al diplomacy—solving intractable prob­lems by meet­ings at the high­est level—was famous­ly expressed dur­ing World War II.

Less wide­ly known is Churchill’s 1914 pro­pos­al for a con­fer­ence of heads of state (includ­ing, it seems, French Pres­i­dent Ray­mond Poin­caré) in an effort to head-off World War I. The scheme failed, but not for Churchill’s lack of trying.

There is lit­tle on Churchill’s “king­ly con­fer­ence” in the lit­er­a­ture. There is no ref­er­ence in Churchill’s The World Cri­sis, Asquith’s mem­oirs, or biogra­phies by Man­ches­ter, Jenk­ins, Rose, Charm­ley and Birken­head, though Sir Mar­tin Gilbert includes in the offi­cial biog­ra­phy an excerpt from a cab­i­net mem­ber which records Churchill’s words in the cab­i­net of July 27th:

Churchill said we were now in a bet­ter than aver­age con­di­tion, & the fleet was at war strength….Churchill,…

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nonsense
Churchill Nonsense, Parts #1462-64

Churchill Nonsense, Parts #1462-64

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Nonsense #1462: Yachts

The Irish nov­el­ist George Moore orig­i­nat­ed the tale that Sir Winston’s moth­er Jen­nie, Lady Ran­dolph Churchill, slept with 200 men. Assum­ing she did so, say, between ages 20 and 60, she aver­aged five per year, a ten-week aver­age affair (if she had them one at a time, with a cou­ple days’ break in between). Which is a lot of lovers to main­tain, giv­en the state of Vic­to­ri­an and Edwar­dian locomotion.

How­ev­er ridicu­lous, the claim stuck, and is reg­u­lar­ly trot­ted out and embell­ished on a medi­um poor Jen­nie nev­er antic­i­pat­ed: the Inter­net. It occurs so often because it’s so easy to rat­tle off, and pruri­ent enough to raise a website’s Google Ana­lyt­ics—nev­er mind whether it is even feasible.…

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Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

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Per the pre­vi­ous post, I append for read­er com­ment the con­tents of my next book, Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty: What Churchill Stood For.

I have writ­ten on most of these mat­ters in the past; the book recasts it afresh. I also acknowl­edge and cross-ref­er­ence the work of experts who know far more than I, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the fields of geneal­o­gy and med­i­cine. I would be glad to hear your thoughts; please use the “con­tact” page.

The his­to­ri­an David Stafford wrote: “Myth only devel­ops and takes hold when the time is right, and the cli­mate has long been ripe for the emer­gence of myths about a wartime hero who stood firm against a total­i­tar­i­an foe and smote an evil empire.”…

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Myths about Churchill: Coming Up

Myths about Churchill: Coming Up

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Win­ston Churchill: Urban Myths and Real­i­ty: Lies, Fables, Myths, Dis­tor­tions and Things that Go Bump in the Night.

Not a day pass­es when Sir Win­ston Churchill, who proved him­self indis­pens­able when free­dom need­ed him, is not accused of some­thing, from alco­holism to war crimes—often with­out seri­ous attri­bu­tion, or through selec­tive quotes, arranged and cropped so as to advance the pre­con­ceived notion.

On that elec­tron­ic Speak­ers’ Cor­ner we know as the Inter­net, Churchill bub­bles in a gur­gling, dig­i­tal soup, where he can say any­thing, or do any­thing, from hid­ing his fore­knowl­edge of Pearl Har­bor to fire­bomb­ing Dres­den.…

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Avoidable War
Reviews of “Churchill and the Avoidable War”

Reviews of “Churchill and the Avoidable War”

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"I’ve touched on this before: if Hitler had been assassinated in 1937, he would have gone down in history as one of the greatest Germans. If assassinated in late 1941, before the tide began to turn, he would have gone down among Germans as a military genius. Horrible as it is to say or contemplate, it was necessary for him to stay around to the bitter end so that Germans could see what fools he made of them." —Manfred Weidhorn

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Paris
Paris, 13 November 2015: A Churchill Moment for M. Hollande

Paris, 13 November 2015: A Churchill Moment for M. Hollande

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“A Churchill Moment for M. Hol­lande” is excerpt­ed from my arti­cle in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor, 18 Novem­ber 2015.

Dear M. Hollande…

The news from France is very bad and I grieve for the gal­lant French peo­ple who have fall­en into this ter­ri­ble mis­for­tune. Noth­ing will alter our feel­ings towards them or our faith that the genius of France will rise again.  —Win­ston S. Churchill, 4 June 1940

On the 2015 Paris attacks: With every mur­der­ous threat to civ­i­liza­tion we are asked: “Where are our Churchills?” There isn’t one, and we should not expect one.…

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“Never Surrender,” by John Kelly

“Never Surrender,” by John Kelly

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Nev­er Sur­ren­der: Win­ston Churchill and Britain’s Deci­sion to Fight Nazi Ger­many in the Fate­ful Sum­mer of 1940, by John Kel­ly. Scrib­n­er, 2015, 370 pp., $19.88, Kin­dle $14.99.

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May 1940: Lord Hal­i­fax “sound­ed like a ner­vous solic­i­tor read­ing from a half-thought-out brief….When Churchill spoke of fight­ing on alone, the man­tle of his­to­ry—Agin­court, Water­loo, Trafal­gar, the Arma­da—sang through his sentences.”

Here is a well-writ­ten and orga­nized review of main­ly well-known events, retold with dra­mat­ic prose and crisp analy­sis. It’s an ide­al book for young peo­ple unfa­mil­iar with the scope of Churchill’s achieve­ment in 1940, and, indeed, for any­one who wants a good account of the events that saved West­ern civilization.…

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“Dieu protège la France”

“Dieu protège la France”

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Churchill’s words, com­piled in solidarity:

“The news from France is very bad and I grieve for the gal­lant French peo­ple who have fall­en into this ter­ri­ble mis­for­tune. Noth­ing will alter our feel­ings towards them or our faith that the genius of France will rise again.” —4 June 1940

“The House will feel sor­row at the fate of the great French nation and peo­ple to whom we have been joined so long in war and peace, and whom we have regard­ed as trustees with our­selves for the progress of a lib­er­al cul­ture and tol­er­ant civ­i­liza­tion of Europe.”…

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Was WW2 Avoidable?

Was WW2 Avoidable?

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con­tin­ued from pre­vi­ous post…

Churchill and the Avoid­able War

Pref­ace

This book exam­ines Churchill’s the­o­ry that “time­ly action” could have forced Hitler to recoil, and a dev­as­tat­ing cat­a­stro­phe avoid­ed. We con­sid­er his pro­pos­als, and the degree to which he pur­sued them. Churchill was both right and wrong. He was right that Hitler could have been stopped. He was wrong in not doing all he could to stop him. The result is a cor­rec­tive to tra­di­tion­al argu­ments, both of Churchill’s crit­ics and defend­ers. Whether the war was avoid­able hangs on these issues.

Chap­ter 1. Ger­many Arm­ing:  Encoun­ter­ing Hitler, 1930-34

“There is no dif­fi­cul­ty at all in hav­ing cor­dial rela­tions between the peoples….But…

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