Search Results for: EU

Churchill’s Choice: Hitler vs. Stalin

Churchill’s Choice: Hitler vs. Stalin

I find the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Churchill quite dis­gust­ing. It is typ­i­cal British-Amer­i­can arro­gance to ignore the out­come of WW2 for the peo­ples of East­ern Europe, not to speak of the Ger­mans. Churchill knew from the begin­ning about the ter­ri­ble fate of the Rus­sians and many oth­er East Euro­pean peo­ples under Bol­she­vist dic­ta­tor­ship. He obvi­ous­ly didn’t care. He was obsessed with anti-Ger­man hatred. Know­ing that he bombed Ger­man cities, killing thou­sands of civil­ians long before the Ger­mans were retal­i­at­ing, makes him in my opin­ion even worse than Hitler. Why  did he go into alliance with Stal­in against the Ger­mans?…

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Danube
(Photos by author)
Viking’s Danube Waltz (7): The Pleasures of Prague

Viking’s Danube Waltz (7): The Pleasures of Prague

June 7-9th: Prague, Czech Republic “You Must Remember This…”

con­clud­ed from part 6…

Two full days in Prague, an option­al extra on the Danube Waltz Tour, costs an addi­tion­al $1500 per cou­ple, and includes three nights at the very hand­some new town Hilton. Break­fasts there are the same com­pre­hen­sive assort­ment from nuts to soup that we encoun­tered aboard ship. The coach ride from Pas­sau, Ger­many, takes four hours through the his­toric Sude­ten­land, the dis­pute over which end­ed in the fate­ful Munich Agree­ment of 1938, last stop on the road to the Sec­ond World War.…

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Ripka
“Peace for our time.” Chamberlain arrives from Munich after the Sudeten agreement. (Wikimedia Commons)
“Iran is Not Nazi Germany…

“Iran is Not Nazi Germany…

…And Mark Steyn is not Win­ston Churchill,” writes Tim Reuter in Forbes.

—a rather thought­ful piece, though a bit harsh on Mr. Steyn, who offered exact­ly the right take on Neville Cham­ber­lain. He was “an hon­or­able man who believed he was act­ing in the inter­est of his coun­try.” That was also how Churchill eulo­gized him after Chamberlain’s death in 1940.

It is reas­sur­ing to know that Iran is (thank good­ness) not Nazi Ger­many; and that the Iran nuclear deal and Munich are not anal­o­gous. But some of Mr. Reuter’s sen­tences rest uneasi­ly next to each other.…

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Churchill on Socialism

Churchill on Socialism

This quo­ta­tion is now going around the web, broad­ly attrib­uted to Churchill. Is it accu­rate? “Social­ism is a phi­los­o­phy of fail­ure, the creed of igno­rance, and the gospel of envy, its inher­ent virtue is the equal shar­ing of mis­ery.” —M.S. via email.

It is more or less cor­rect, but it’s a trun­cat­ed ver­sion of two sep­a­rate com­ments, run togeth­er to make them more inter­est­ing (in the eye of the drafter).

“Social­ism is the phi­los­o­phy of fail­ure, the creed of igno­rance, and the gospel of envy.” —Perth, Scot­land, 28 May 1948, in Churchill, Europe Unite: Speech­es 1947 & 1948 (Lon­don: Cas­sell, 1950), 347.…

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Viking’s Danube Waltz (2): Bratislava

Viking’s Danube Waltz (2): Bratislava

Bratislava

con­tin­ued from Part 1….  

June 2: Bratisla­va, Slo­va­kia 

If the Viking Leg­end is any exam­ple, you don’t need to wor­ry about table ser­vice. The wait staff, most­ly Fil­ipino, could not have been more atten­tive, but at the same time nev­er struck us as fawn­ing or gra­tu­itous. Our favorite waiter’s name tag read “Neri.” It turned out that he’d opt­ed for that because his real name wouldn’t fit: Alde­fon­so Ner­ia. He and his col­leagues were gems, always look­ing out for us, and soon began to save a nice place for four by throw­ing nap­kins over chair backs at a well-sit­u­at­ed table.…

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Budapest
Parliament, Budapest
Viking’s Danube Waltz (1) Budapest

Viking’s Danube Waltz (1) Budapest

We Cruising alternative

If your idea of a cruise is float­ing around the sea with thou­sands of peo­ple and 24/7 enter­tain­ment, food and drink, a Viking Riv­er Cruise is not for you. Which is exact­ly why we took one, with two con­ge­nial friends and 180 fel­low pas­sen­gers, from May 31 to June 7 aboard Viking Leg­end, start­ing in Budapest, with three days’ option­al side trip to Prague, stay­ing at the Hilton. We came away high­ly sat­is­fied and impressed with the crew and orga­niz­ers, even though orga­nized leisure is not our thing. We like to get out into a coun­try and nib­ble the grass, as Churchill said, going where whim and the road take us.…

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Today
Churchill at Harvard, 6 September 1943, with President James Conant. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Winston Churchill: Not Much to Say Today?

Winston Churchill: Not Much to Say Today?

Every turn of events has its unique features. Understanding them, and applying principles to them today, is still the challenge. The challenge for leaders today is to judge whether discretion should take priority over boldness, whether diplomacy is a feasible option, and when and where to deploy a bluff. In these areas, Churchill’s experience is an invaluable guide, because human nature is unchanging.

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Churchill and Professor Lindemann, Lord Cherwell

Churchill and Professor Lindemann, Lord Cherwell

I reviewed the 1940-45 vis­i­tors books at Che­quers. I was struck by how often Lord Cher­well (Fred­er­ick Lin­de­mann) was there—far more than fam­i­ly and staff. He vis­it­ed more than Brack­en and Beaver­brook, or the Chiefs of Staff. What do you make of him? What’s best to read on him? —A.R., London

Most frequent visitor

After the death of the F.E. Smith, the first Lord Birken­head, Fred­er­ick Lin­de­mann, Lord Cher­well (1886-1957) was prob­a­bly Churchill’s clos­est friend. His sig­na­ture is also the most fre­quent in the vis­i­tors book at Chartwell, where it appears 86 times, more than any­one else (Bren­dan Brack­en only 31, although vis­i­tors usu­al­ly signed only when stay­ing overnight, and Brack­en fre­quent­ly returned to Lon­don).…

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Churchill-Mussolini Non-Letters

Churchill-Mussolini Non-Letters

(Or: “You Haven’t Looked Hard Enough”)

“The Untold Sto­ry of Mussolini’s Fake Diaries” (Dai­ly Beast, 12 April 2015) eval­u­ates Mussolini’s sup­posed diaries, let­ters or doc­u­ments ped­dled over the years, while rais­ing some incrim­i­nat­ing charges, or sup­po­si­tions, about Win­ston Churchill:

Before the war, Churchill offered Il Duce a deal. After the war, British intel­li­gence tried to destroy their cor­re­spon­dence…. When Churchill became prime min­is­ter in May 1940 he tried, in a series of let­ters, to dis­suade Mus­soli­ni from join­ing the Axis pow­ers. He was ignored. Three weeks lat­er Italy joined Nazi Ger­many and declared war on Great Britain.…

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