Tag: Charles de Gaulle

Lalique
The large Lalique cockerel (circled behind the sofa) has enjoyed pride of place at Chartwell since de Gaulle presented it to Clementine Churchill during the Second World War. (Photo by Ciaran McKrickard, National Trust Collections with thanks to Katherine Carter)
French Magnanimity: De Gaulle’s Gift of a Lalique Cockerel

French Magnanimity: De Gaulle’s Gift of a Lalique Cockerel

“The conversation turned to the French Fleet, and Clementine said she hoped that its ships and crews would carry on the fight with us. De Gaulle curtly replied that what would really give the French Fleet satisfaction would be to turn their guns ‘On you!’ (meaning the British). Winston tried to mediate but Clementine interrupted him, and said in French: ‘No, Winston, it is because there are certain things that a woman can say to a man which a man cannot say, and I am saying them to you—General de Gaulle!’” After this verbal fracas, the General was much upset, and apologised profusely, and later presented her with the Lalique.

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Joan
His words about Joan comprise he rarest spin-off from Churchill’s “History of the English-Speaking Peoples.” (Photo courtesy Marc Kuritz, and the Churchill Book Collector)
Churchill on Joan of Arc: Joan as an Agent of Brexit? Maybe not…

Churchill on Joan of Arc: Joan as an Agent of Brexit? Maybe not…

Excerpt­ed from “Angel of Deliv­er­ance: Churchill’s Trib­utes to Joan of Arc,” pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the com­plete arti­cle with end­notes and added illus­tra­tions, click here.

“Her gleaming, mystic figure…”

Churchill waxed elo­quent on Joan of Arc in 1938. His words would like­ly not pass with today’s min­ders of Polit­i­cal Correctness:

We see her gleam­ing, mys­tic fig­ure in the midst of the pikes and arrows, and it need­ed not her mar­tyr­dom to win her can­on­iza­tion as a saint not only from the Pope but from the mod­ern world.…

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Redburn
“It was such a happy day.” Owermoigne, Dorset, 28 September 1995. L-R: Jaime Snell Mendoza, Ashley Redburn, Elizabeth Snell, Gert Zoller, Richard Langworth, Margaret Redburn, Garry Clark, Curt Zoller. (Photo by James Snell)
Absent Friends: Ashley Redburn 1914-1996: “England Hath Need of Thee”

Absent Friends: Ashley Redburn 1914-1996: “England Hath Need of Thee”

This trib­ute to an extra­or­di­nary Churchillian was writ­ten twen­ty-three years ago in 1997. Please par­don ref­er­ences to con­tem­po­rary events no longer in the news, though it would seem that some oth­er Red­burn thoughts are star­tling­ly relevant.

Ashley Redburn, Anglo-American

Cyn­ics some­times sug­gest that West­ern Civ­i­liza­tion needs a war every few gen­er­a­tions to main­tain its sense of val­ues and faith in itself. Ash­ley Red­burn was a man who believed it. “Eng­land,” he declared grim­ly, “needs to be con­quered in war and occu­pied by a venge­ful ene­my before its spir­it can be revived. Ger­many and France between them have ruined Europe for two cen­turies.…

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Cooper
Diana (in the driver’s seat as usual) and Duff Cooper, who preferred American cars and drove the best of them, in this case a UK-market 1937 Packard. So I can almost forgive them for misfolding the top and using it for a pooch-perch.
“Darling Monster”: Diana Cooper and Her Remembrances of Churchill

“Darling Monster”: Diana Cooper and Her Remembrances of Churchill

Dar­ling Mon­ster: The Let­ters of Lady Diana Coop­er to her Son John Julius Nor­wich 1939-1952, Chat­to & Win­dus, 2013, 520pp.

Lady Diana Duff Coop­er had a pen­e­trat­ing mind and bril­liant pen, capa­ble of cap­tur­ing a time when women con­sid­ered the world laden with oppor­tu­ni­ty for fulfillment.

She proved this with her famous sev­en-year per­for­mance in Max Rein­hardt’s “The Mir­a­cle.” Her “Win­ston and Clemen­tine,” first pub­lished in The Atlantic just after Sir Winston’s death, was as fine a trib­ute to the Churchill mar­riage as we are like­ly to encounter.Her col­lab­o­ra­tion with her husband’s ambas­sador­ship to France was notable.…

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Henry
“The Pool of England”: How Henry V Inspired Churchill’s Words

“The Pool of England”: How Henry V Inspired Churchill’s Words

Excerpt­ed from “Churchill, Shake­speare and Hen­ry V.” Lec­ture at “Churchill and the Movies,” a sem­i­nar spon­sored by the Cen­ter for Con­struc­tive Alter­na­tives, Hills­dale Col­lege, 25 March 2019. For the com­plete video, click here.

Shakespeare’s Henry: Parallels and Inspirations

Above all and first, the impor­tance of Hen­ry V is what it teach­es about lead­er­ship. “True lead­er­ship,” writes Andrew Roberts, “stirs us in a way that is deeply embed­ded in our genes and psyche.…If the under­ly­ing fac­tors of lead­er­ship have remained the same for cen­turies, can­not these lessons be learned and applied in sit­u­a­tions far removed from ancient times?”…

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Brexit
Churchill at The Hague, 7 May 1948 (in a Packard, I am proud to say): “A high and solemn responsibility rests upon us here of a Europe striving to be reborn. If we allow ourselves to be rent and disordered by pettiness and small disputes, if we fail in clarity of view or courage in action, a priceless occasion may be cast away forever.”
Brexit: Leadership Failures Over Four Generations

Brexit: Leadership Failures Over Four Generations

Quotation of the Season

So they go on in strange para­dox, decid­ed only to be unde­cid­ed, resolved to be irres­olute, adamant for drift, sol­id for flu­id­i­ty, all-pow­er­ful to be impo­tent. So we go on prepar­ing more months and years—precious, per­haps vital, to the great­ness of Britain—for the locusts to eat. —Churchill, House of Com­mons, 12 Novem­ber 1936

Brexit Bedlam

For me the most adroit analy­sis of Britain’s Brex­it Bed­lam we can read to date was by Andrew Roberts in the Sun­day Tele­graph. You can reg­is­ter for free to read the article.

Will this be the year May ends before April?…

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Kiss
Churchill with General de Gaulle during an inspection of French troops at Marrakesh in Morocco, January 1944. (War Office – Wikimedia Commons)
Origins: “I’ll kiss him on all four cheeks”

Origins: “I’ll kiss him on all four cheeks”

Q: Churchill’s Kiss: A Cheeky Affair

I found myself using an alleged Churchill wit­ti­cism I have long known, but could not find in your book, Churchill’s Wit: The Defin­i­tive Col­lec­tion (2009). As I have it, Churchill was prepar­ing to meet Mar­shal Stal­in, and a diplo­mat­ic advi­sor said, “He will prob­a­bly expect to kiss you on both cheeks.” “Oh, that’s all right,” said Churchill, “as long as he doesn’t want to be kissed on all four.” Can you ver­i­fy this one?

My own main area of schol­ar­ly research is Samuel John­son, anoth­er sub­ject often mis­at­trib­uted. Good quote col­lec­tions more than just the quo­ta­tion and its source.…

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AZ
Before the microphones, 1940. (Library of Congress)
AZ Quotes: A Cornucopia of Things Churchill Never Said

AZ Quotes: A Cornucopia of Things Churchill Never Said

Much of my labor in the Churchill Vine­yard involves research­ing quo­ta­tions “AZ.” My 650-page books and ebooks, Churchill by Him­self and Churchill in His Own Words, are the largest sources of Churchill’s phi­los­o­phy, max­ims, reflec­tions and ripostes accom­pa­nied by a valid source for each entry. There are 4,150 entries, but a new, expand­ed and revised edi­tion is com­ing. It will include a much larg­er appen­dix of “Red Herrings”—oft-repeated pas­sages he nev­er said but con­stant­ly ascribed to him.

“Red Her­rings” are part of what quotemas­ter Nigel Rees calls “Churchillian Drift.” (Click here for the full descrip­tion.)…

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