Tag: Great Contemporaries

John Churchill First Duke of Marlborough (mounted in red coat) at the Battle of Blenheim, 1704. (Painting by John Wootton, 1682-1764, National Army Museum, public domain)
Churchill’s Inspirations Bedizen the Pages of History

Churchill’s Inspirations Bedizen the Pages of History

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Excerpt­ed from “Which His­tor­i­cal and Con­tem­po­rary Fig­ures were Churchill’s Inspi­ra­tions?” Writ­ten for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, Feb­ru­ary 2020. For Hillsdale’s com­plete text and illus­tra­tions, please click here.

We are often asked which his­tor­i­cal and con­tem­po­rary per­son­ages most influ­enced Win­ston Churchill’s thought and states­man­ship. One is right to start with Lord Ran­dolph Churchill, Napoleon, Clemenceau and Marl­bor­ough. The clas­sics open anoth­er avenue. Read­ers can find pithy remarks by Churchill on many of the fol­low­ing fig­ures in Churchill by Him­self.

Lord Randolph Churchill

His father was the first of young Winston’s polit­i­cal inspi­ra­tions, and the sub­ject of his first biog­ra­phy.…

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Shaw
The great protagonists (Wikimedia Commons and Hillsdale College Press)
Churchill and George Bernard Shaw: Less than Meets the Eye

Churchill and George Bernard Shaw: Less than Meets the Eye

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We are constantly asked to verify the famous exchange. Shaw writes: “Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend—if you have one.” Churchill replies: “Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second—if there is one.” Though it’s lovely repartee, both of them denied it.

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Wilderness Years
Robert Hardy at Hillsdale, where we were privileged to host him in 2015 and 2016. (Hillsdale College)
Robert Hardy’s Estate Auction: All Memories Great and Small

Robert Hardy’s Estate Auction: All Memories Great and Small

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Robert Hardy’s estate went under the ham­mer in Glouces­ter­shire yes­ter­day. It com­prised an eclec­tic scrap­book of his grand life. There was even the brass plaque of Siegfried Farnon, the iras­ci­ble York­shire vet. RH endeared him­self as Siegfried for nine­ty episodes on “All Crea­tures Great and Small.” . Alert­ed late, I tried for one of his Churchill rings, but the bid­ding went far beyond esti­mates. A friend and col­league came away with Churchill’s bow tie. It was giv­en to RH by Grace Ham­blin dur­ing the film­ing of Churchill: The Wilder­ness Years, in 1981.…

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Did Churchill Ever Admire Hitler? 3/3

Did Churchill Ever Admire Hitler? 3/3

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Part 3: Pleas­ing No One …con­tin­ued from Part 2

Churchill was cor­rect when he said his writ­ings about Hitler sat­is­fied nei­ther Hitler’s defend­ers nor Hitler’s crit­ics. One of the for­mer was Lord Lon­don­der­ry, a pro-Hitler peer who com­plained that Churchill’s Evening Stan­dard piece would pre­vent a decent under­stand­ing with Ger­many. On 23 Octo­ber 1937, Churchill replied to Lord Lon­don­der­ry (Gilbert, Churchill: A Life, 581):

You can­not expect Eng­lish peo­ple to be attract­ed by the bru­tal intol­er­ances of Nazidom, though these may fade with time. On the oth­er hand, we all wish to live on friend­ly terms with Ger­many.…

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Did Churchill Ever Admire Hitler? 2/3

Did Churchill Ever Admire Hitler? 2/3

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Part 2: “Friend­ship with Ger­many” ,,,con­tin­ued from Part 1

Churchill’s crit­ics some­times quote sen­tences which they think came from his orig­i­nal Hitler arti­cle or Great Con­tem­po­raries, among which this is the most common:

One may dis­like Hitler’s sys­tem and yet admire his patri­ot­ic achieve­ment. If our coun­try were defeat­ed, I hope we should find a cham­pi­on as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.

In fact this pas­sage is from Churchill’s arti­cle in the Evening Stan­dard, 17 Sep­tem­ber 1937: “Friend­ship with Ger­many” (Cohen C548), sub­se­quent­ly reprint­ed in Churchill’s book of for­eign affairs essays, Step by Step (Lon­don: Thorn­ton But­ter­worth, 1939, Cohen A111).…

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Did Churchill Ever Admire Hitler? 1/3

Did Churchill Ever Admire Hitler? 1/3

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Part 1: “Gov­ern­ment by Dictators”

The Hitler chap­ter in Churchill’s book Great Con­tem­po­raries, like the rest of the vol­ume, was derived from a pre­vi­ous arti­cle. In this case the orig­i­nal was “The Truth about Hitler,” in The Strand Mag­a­zine of Novem­ber 1935 (Cohen C481). Ronald Cohen notes in his Bib­li­og­ra­phy that Strand edi­tor Reeves Shaw, who paid WSC £250 for the arti­cle, want­ed Churchill to make it “as out­spo­ken as you pos­si­bly can…absolutely frank in your judg­ment of [Hitler’s] meth­ods.” It was.

Two years lat­er, when Churchill was prepar­ing his Hitler essay for Great Con­tem­po­raries, he char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly sub­mit­ted it to the For­eign Office, which asked that he tone it down.…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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