Tag: H.H. Asquith

Churchill's Britain
Churchill Barrier #2, linking Lamb Holm and Glimps Holm, Scapa Flow. On 14 October 1939, in a daring feat of seamanship, Günther Prien navigated U-47 into Scapa to torpedo the battleship Royal Oak. Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, ordered Scapa’s passages blocked by 250,000 tons of broken rock. In 1994 our Churchill Tour visited HMS Royal Oak, lying 100 feet below and viewable on sonar. Every year in a ceremony, Royal Navy divers remove the old White Ensign and attach a new one to her stern. (BillC, Wikimedia Creative Commons)
“Churchill’s Britain”: Good Try, But More is Needed

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

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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.…

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nicknames
“Make Britain Great Again”? Attacking the opposition on behalf of the Tory candidate Anthony Fell (seated), Hammersmith, London, 23 February 1949. Labour won the safe seat, but by under five points, ominous in a usually reliable constituency. Sir Anthony eventually sat for Yarmouth, 1958-83. (Crown copyright expired, public domain)
Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

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

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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.…

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Clementine
“Whenever I saw him and his wife together in country houses, pompous or bohemian, they appeared a shining epitome of successful marriage.” On WSC’s 71st birthday, 30 November 1945. (Mary Soames)
Lady Diana Cooper on Winston and Clementine Churchill

Lady Diana Cooper on Winston and Clementine Churchill

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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.…

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women
A suffragette protestor alongside, Churchill rides through Dundee after winning his “seat for life,” 1909. (Illustrated London News)
Nashville (3). Churchill and Women’s Rights

Nashville (3). Churchill and Women’s Rights

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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.…

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Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

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“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,…

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Llanelli
Llanelli railway station, where the strike originated, pictured in 1971. (Wikimedia)
Churchill, Troops and Strikers (2): Llanelli, 1911

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

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 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.…

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Dardanelles-Gallipoli Centenary

Dardanelles-Gallipoli Centenary

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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.…

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Churchill’s Common Touch (1)

Churchill’s Common Touch (1)

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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.…

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Churchill as Thucydides

Churchill as Thucydides

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As a post-doc at Tübin­gen Uni­ver­si­ty (Ger­many) I am cur­rent­ly work­ing on a paper about Sir Win­ston Churchill’s appre­ci­a­tion of Thucy­dides: did he pos­sess a per­son­al copy of the ancient historian’s His­to­ry of the Pelo­pon­nesian War? I would be very grate­ful for any help. —O.S., Germany

I don’t know if Churchill had a copy of Thucy­dides’ His­to­ry of the Pelop­pon­nesian War at Chartwell (you might check with the house man­ag­er there). But if you are ask­ing if Churchill read and appre­ci­at­ed the works of the great Greek his­to­ri­an, he cer­tain­ly did. What’s more, the writ­ings of Churchill were often com­pared to those of Thucydides.…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

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