Search Results for: EU

Dresden
Dresden after the air attacks of February 1945. (Bundesarachiv)
Nashville (6): The Myth of Dresden and “Revenge Firebombing”

Nashville (6): The Myth of Dresden and “Revenge Firebombing”

The Martin Gilbert Learning Centre offers a free Zoom presentation by Lady Gilbert herself, on the 1945 bombing of Dresden. The date is Monday 13 February 2023 at 2pm Eastern, 11 am Pacific, 7pm Greenwich Mean Time. Email Deputy Director Dr. Bethany Gaunt to be put on the Zoom invitation list. Lady Gilbert will include Sir Martin's story about how a Soviet general corroborated the truth about who ordered the bombing—in Moscow!

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Speedsdter
1930 Packard Eight Model 734 Speedster Roadster at the 2018 Greenwich Concours d’Elegance. (Photo by Mr. Choppers, Creative Commons)
“One Brief Shining Moment”: Packard’s 1929-30 Speedster

“One Brief Shining Moment”: Packard’s 1929-30 Speedster

“For those who love speed coupled with utility features of general motoring, Packard builds its Speedsters. Perhaps it is the inherent flow of speed joined to the swift grace of smooth design that suggests these interesting body treatments. But Speedsters they all are, from test car to Runabout. For those who thrill to the maximum speed of an open car on an open road.” —Packard Motor Car Company

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Ripka
The dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, 1938-39. (1) Germany absorbs Sudetenland, October 1938. (2) Poland annexes Zaolzie, October 1938. (3/4) Hungary annexes Southern Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia, November 1938. (5) Germany invades remaining territory, establishes Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, March 1939. (6) A pro-Hitler government declares the Slovak Republic, March 1939. (Map by Jaro p., Creative Commons)
Churchill, Ripka, Appeasement and the Czech Debacle

Churchill, Ripka, Appeasement and the Czech Debacle

When Ripka said the Czechs would defend themselves, Churchill waxed emotional: “Tomáš.Masaryk was right,” he cried. “Death is better than slavery.” If war did come, he continued, mopping his eyes, this time they must wage it against the Boche so thoroughly that he wouldn’t recover for generations.... After a while he spoke of “Herr Beans,” as he pronounced the name of Czechoslovakia’s president, Edvard Beneš, Ripka continued: "Churchill called him one of the greatest men of our epoch, and praised the resolution of the Czechs to fight for freedom with such vehemence that he began to cry all over again."

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Goeben
SMS Goeben, from a prewar German postcard. (Europeana, Wikimedia Commons)
How “Goeben” Changed History, by Dal Newfield

How “Goeben” Changed History, by Dal Newfield

An obscure "What-If" of history: Had Goeben not passed the Dardanelles, it was very possible Turkey would have remained neutral in WW1. Absent Turkey, the Allies lost their only supply route to Russia. This loss was so serious that in 1915 Churchill felt it imperative to assault the Dardanelles. The resulting debacle was the principal reason Churchill was ousted from the Admiralty. Because of Goeben, the Russian armies starved for food and materiel. The Czar fell and the Bolsheviks took over.

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Love, Actually
Prime Minister Hugh with President Billy Bob, in “Love, Actually.” (Universal Pictures, romotional photo)
Telling Off the Prez: “Love Actually” Still Sings

Telling Off the Prez: “Love Actually” Still Sings

"I love that word 'relationship.' Covers all manner of sins, doesn't it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship.... We may be a small country, but we're a great one too—the country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter—David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot for that matter." Hugh Grant at his best.

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funeral
Eleanor Roosevelt at the Franklin D. Roosevelt funeral in Hyde Park, New York, 15 April 1945. (FDR Library, public domain)
Why Churchill Skipped the Roosevelt Funeral in 1945

Why Churchill Skipped the Roosevelt Funeral in 1945

The funeral quandary: “...everyone here thought my duty next week lay at home, at a time when so many Ministers are out of the country” (per Martin Gilbert). “P.M. of course wanted to go. A[nthony Eden] thought they oughtn’t both to be away together.... P.M. says he’ll go and A. can stay. I told A. that, if P.M. goes, he must.... Churchill deeply regretted in after years that he allowed himself to be persuaded not to go at once to Washington” (per Alexander Cadogan).

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Pocahontas
“Pocahontas Saves the Life of Captain John Smith,” painting by Johann Friedrich Engel, 1921. (Wikimedia Commons)
Pocahontas: Randolph Churchill’s Jibe at the Race Question

Pocahontas: Randolph Churchill’s Jibe at the Race Question

Pretend Indians

We all know how a cer­tain Amer­i­can politi­cian was nick­named “Poc­a­hon­tas,” years after claim­ing to be, with­out foun­da­tion, a native Amer­i­can. This has often been tried. Some­times, how­ev­er, it back­fires. “A friend got his son into a bet­ter pub­lic school by declar­ing he was trib­al,” a col­league writes. “Unfor­tu­nate­ly, they didn’t tell the boy, who was then invit­ed to an after-school meet­ing for those inter­est­ed in Indi­ans. My friend attempt­ed to cor­rect him­self, but he found that in that city, you can change your racial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion only once.” (Who writes these rules?)

Dur­ing a recent encounter with the med­ical world I received a ques­tion­naire with the inevitable ques­tion, “Race.”…

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Rhetoric
Congress, 26 December 1941: Churchill strikes a speaker’s pose inherited from his father. At left rear: William P. Cole (D.-Md.) temporary Speaker of the House. Right rear: Vice President and Senate President Henry Wallace (who occasionally cracked a smile). Left front: Alben Barkley (D.-Ky.), Senate Majority Leader, later Truman’s Vice President (thanks for the ID Prof. Warren Kimball). Can any reader identify the man at right front? Looks like Carl Albert (D.-Ok.), but he was not in Congress until 1947. (National Archives, Hillsdale College Press)
Scaffolding Rhetoric: Churchill in Congress, 1941

Scaffolding Rhetoric: Churchill in Congress, 1941

"When we look at the resources of the United States and the British Empire compared to those of Japan; when we remember those of China, which have so long valiantly withstood invasion and tyranny—and when also we observe the Russian menace which hangs over Japan—it becomes still more difficult to reconcile Japanese action with prudence or even with sanity. What kind of a people do they think we are?" With these words the Senators and Representatives stood roaring approval. He had them in his hands now.

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Armistice Day
“The Glorious Dead”: The Cenotaph, London. (Paul the Archivist, Creative commons)
Churchill on Armistice Day: War, Peace and Foreboding

Churchill on Armistice Day: War, Peace and Foreboding

"Is this the end? Is it to be merely a chapter in a cruel and senseless story? Will a new generation in their turn be immolated to square the black accounts of Teuton and Gaul? Will our children bleed and gasp again in devastated lands? Or will there spring from the very fires of conflict that reconciliation of the three giant combatants, which would unite their genius and secure to each in safety and freedom a share in rebuilding the glory of Europe?" —WSC

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Anthony
Gettysburg, May 1959: WSC, Anthony Montague Browne, President Eisenhower. From the jacket of AMB’s book.
Winston Churchill on War, Part 3: Anthony Montague Browne

Winston Churchill on War, Part 3: Anthony Montague Browne

"I tried to rally him. I spoke of the extraordinary life he had enjoyed...all he had said and done, of how he was almost universally popular and admired. In Germany in 1956, as he drove through the streets he was cheered. It astonished him. After all, it was not very long after the end of the war....How, I concluded, could he be so downcast? I noted his reply verbatim: 'Yes, I worked very hard all my life, and I have achieved a great deal—in the end to achieve nothing.'"

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