Tag: H.H. Asquith

“Churchill’s Britain”: Good Try, But More is Needed

“Churchill’s Britain”: Good Try, But More is Needed

Peter Clark, Churchill’s Britain: From the Antrim Coast to the Isle of Wight. Lon­don: Haus Pub­lish­ing, 2020, 240 pp., no illus­tra­tions, $29.95, Ama­zon $27.48, Kin­dle $22.49. Excerpt­ed from a review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To read the orig­i­nal, click here.

N.B. March 2021: The orig­i­nal post con­tains author Clark’s response, which is about the most cor­dial reply to a grumpy review I’ve ever read. He kind­ly takes heed of my crit­i­cisms and says he will attend to them in the paper­back in due course. RML

Churchill’s Britain abridged

I did want to like this book.…

Read More Read More

Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Spo­rad­i­cal­ly, pun­dits com­pare Don­ald Trump with Win­ston Churchill. There’s even a book com­ing out on the sub­ject. I dep­re­cate all this by instinct and will avoid that book like the Coro­n­avirus. Sur­face sim­i­lar­i­ties may exist: both said or say main­ly what they thought or think, unfil­tered by polls (and some­times good advice). But Churchill’s lan­guage and thought were on a high­er plane. Still, when a friend said that Churchill nev­er stooped to deri­sive nick­names like Trump, I had to disagree.

Whether invent­ed by the Pres­i­dent or his scriptwrit­ers, some of Trump’s nick­names were very effec­tive.…

Read More Read More

Lady Diana Cooper on Winston and Clementine Churchill

Lady Diana Cooper on Winston and Clementine Churchill

Excerpt*

Famed for her beau­ty and the “durable fire” of her mar­riage to Alfred Duff Coop­er, First Vis­count Nor­wich, The Lady Diana Coop­er was ear­ly admit­ted to  friend­ship with Win­ston and Clemen­tine Churchill. A stun­ning beau­ty and an accom­plished actress, she was a glit­ter­ing writer. Her tril­o­gy of mem­oirs is redo­lent of that van­ished Eng­land the Coop­ers and Churchills loved. Her books are worth seek­ing out: The Light of Com­mon Day, Trum­pets from the Steep and The Rain­bow Comes and Goes (1958-60).

In anoth­er age, when even Churchill’s mar­riage is ques­tioned by the igno­rant, Lady Diana offers words worth remem­ber­ing.…

Read More Read More

Nashville (3). Churchill and Women’s Rights

Nashville (3). Churchill and Women’s Rights

Votes for Women, Yeas and Nays

Among the more per­ni­cious dis­tor­tions of Churchill’s record is that he was a life­time oppo­nent of rights for women, includ­ing their right to vote. Remarks to the Churchill Soci­ety of Ten­nessee, Nashville, 14 Octo­ber 2017. Con­tin­ued from part 2….

In 1999 Time mag­a­zine explained that Churchill could not be “Per­son of the Cen­tu­ry” because he “bull­dogged­ly opposed women’s rights.” In 2012 London’s Dai­ly Tele­graph wrote: “Churchill believed that women shouldn’t vote, telling the House of Com­mons that they are ‘well rep­re­sent­ed by their fathers, broth­ers and husbands.’”

As I show in my book, Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty, Churchill nev­er said those words, in or out of Par­lia­ment.…

Read More Read More

Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

“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,…

Read More Read More

Churchill, Troops and Strikers (2): Llanelli, 1911

Churchill, Troops and Strikers (2): Llanelli, 1911

 Llanelli in Context

Llanel­li and the Rail­way Strike: con­clud­ed from Part 1

Through­out the August 1911 rail­way strike, troops stood by. Their orders were to inter­fere only against threats to pub­lic secu­ri­ty. But there was anoth­er rea­son why anx­i­ety ran high at that time. A few weeks ear­li­er, the Ger­mans had sent a gun­boat to Agadir, French Moroc­co. Rumors of war with Ger­many were ram­pant. David Lloyd George said the Agadir Cri­sis was a threat to peace. The Ger­mans, he warned, “would not hes­i­tate to use the [strike] paralysis,,,to attack Britain.” Paul Addi­son, in Churchill on the Home Front, described the pub­lic mood.…

Read More Read More

Dardanelles-Gallipoli Centenary

Dardanelles-Gallipoli Centenary

Anzac Day, April 25th, marks the Cen­te­nary of the land­ings on the Gal­lipoli Penin­su­la, in the end a trag­ic fail­ure, with heavy loss­es of British, Aus­tralian and New Zealand life. Churchill usu­al­ly comes in for (and deserves) some of the blame, but rarely does every­body “get it right.” Such is a piece in Forbes: “Win­ston Churchill’s Ter­ri­ble Lead­er­ship Fail­ure.”

This piece gets sev­er­al facts wrong and over­sim­pli­fies to the point of con­fu­sion. Churchill’s fail­ure was over the Dar­d­anelles naval attack of 18 March 1915; the land­ings on Gal­lipoli came in late April, after the naval attack had failed, and were not direct­ed by him.…

Read More Read More

Churchill’s Common Touch (1)

Churchill’s Common Touch (1)

Part 1: Mr & Mrs Don­key Jack

A recent book by a dis­tin­guished his­to­ri­an sug­gests that Win­ston Churchill dis­dained com­mon peo­ple. It cites anoth­er Prime Min­is­ter, H.H. Asquith, dur­ing World War I, pro­vid­ing a tow to a bro­ken-down motorist and giv­ing two chil­dren a lift in his car. The writer adds: “It is hard to imag­ine Win­ston Churchill behav­ing in such a fashion.”

It is not hard at all. In fact, Churchill did fre­quent kind things for ordi­nary peo­ple he encoun­tered, pri­vate­ly and with­out fan­fare. We know about them only through his pri­vate cor­re­spon­dence, thanks to the offi­cial biog­ra­phy, Mar­tin Gilbert, or the tes­ti­mo­ny of observers.…

Read More Read More

RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks

Links on this page may earn commissions.