Tag: Malakand Field Force

Burke
“A Literary Party at Sir Joshua Reynolds'” by D. George Thompson (1822-1892). L-R: James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, Pasqual Paoli, Charles Burney, Thomas Warton and Oliver Goldsmith. Collin Brooks said Churchill would have been welcomed in the company of Burke and Johnson, although the dining society they had founded (“The Club”) blackballed him in 1911. Churchill and fellow reject F.E. Smith then formed “The Other Club,” which still meets at the Savoy. “The Club” also continues, meeting at Brooks’s. (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill and Burke: “Spontaneous Humour, Unparaded Erudition”

Churchill and Burke: “Spontaneous Humour, Unparaded Erudition”

1. Roberts on Burke

Reprised below are my small con­tri­bu­tions on Churchill and the great Irish states­man and thinker Edmund Burke (1729-1797). It was eclipsed in 2019 in a bril­liant speech by Andrew Roberts which the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project offers here. Dr. Roberts spoke after receiv­ing The New Cri­te­ri­on 7th Edmund Burke Award for Ser­vice to Cul­ture and Soci­ety. He also dis­cuss­es Churchill on Burke in a video inter­view with James Panero.

2. Churchill on Burke

A read­er writes:

I’d like to con­grat­u­late you on Churchill by Him­self, but I could not find any Churchill com­ments on Edmund Burke in the index.…

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Cohen
A corner of Ron’s massive collection: a treasure trove for Churchill scholars of the future.
Hillsdale Acquires Cohen Collection of Churchill’s Writings

Hillsdale Acquires Cohen Collection of Churchill’s Writings

The Cohen Trove

Hills­dale Col­lege has announced acqui­si­tion of an impor­tant part of the Ronald Cohen col­lec­tion of the writ­ings of Sir Win­ston Churchill. It num­bers almost 2000 indi­vid­ual items. They com­prise six cat­e­gories: fore­words, pref­aces, and intro­duc­tions by Churchill; peri­od­i­cal arti­cles; works and peri­od­i­cals con­tain­ing Churchill speech­es; let­ters, mem­o­ran­da, state­ments and let­ters to the edi­tor. Some 15% of these writ­ings have not seen print since their orig­i­nal, lim­it­ed edi­tions, and there­fore com­prise a “sub­merged canon,” because they open a fresh field of Churchill scholarship.

Hills­dale Col­lege also has a tem­po­rary, exclu­sive pur­chase option for the bal­ance of the col­lec­tion, books writ­ten by Win­ston Churchill.…

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polo
Winston Churchill and Polo, Part 1, by Barbara Langworth

Winston Churchill and Polo, Part 1, by Barbara Langworth

“Win­ston Churchill and Polo” was first pub­lished in 1991. It is now updat­ed and amend­ed, thanks to the rich store of mate­r­i­al avail­able in The Churchill Doc­u­ments pub­lished by Hills­dale Col­lege Press. This arti­cle is abridged with­out foot­notes from the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the com­plete text and foot­notes, click here.

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Churchill loved polo, which he called “The Emper­or of Games.” A con­tem­po­rary writer’s descrip­tion of his polo tac­tics is remind­ful of much else in the statesmen’s approach to life and politics:

He rides in the game like heavy cav­al­ry get­ting into posi­tion for the assault.…

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advice
Tipped-on illustration from the cover of “Real Soldiers of Fortune,” first edition, 1906.
Lt. Churchill: “A Subaltern’s Advice to Generals”

Lt. Churchill: “A Subaltern’s Advice to Generals”

With col­leagues I dis­cussed which of young Winston’s ear­ly war books was deri­sive­ly called, “A Subaltern’s Advice to Gen­er­als.” This was a pop­u­lar wise­crack after his ear­ly works had the temer­i­ty to pro­pose British mil­i­tary strat­e­gy in India, Sudan and South Africa. Churchill was in his mid-twen­ties at the time—but not ret­i­cent to speak his mind. Noth­ing we didn’t know here….

Malakand Field Force?

With­out con­sult­ing ref­er­ences, I thought the “advice” line involved The Sto­ry of the Malakand Field Force (Churchill’s first book, 1898). I was influ­enced by its last chap­ter, “The Rid­dle of the Fron­tier.” Plen­ty of advice there, though it is as much polit­i­cal as it is military.…

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Cockran: A Great Contemporary

Cockran: A Great Contemporary

Q: How impor­tant was Con­gress­man Bourke Cockran’s influ­ence on the young Churchill? 

A: Very. The late Curt Zoller was the first to write in depth about Bourke Cock­ran. This man played a vital but lit­tle under­stood role in form­ing young Churchill’s polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy. In 1895, Zoller wrote, when young Churchill trav­eled to New York on his way to Cuba,

…he was greet­ed by William Bourke Cock­ran, a New York lawyer, U.S. con­gress­man, friend of his mother’s and of his Amer­i­can rel­a­tives. Winston’s Aunt Clara was mar­ried to More­ton Frewen. (The peri­patet­ic “Mor­tal Ruin” would lat­er bad­ly edit Churchill’s first book, Sto­ry of the Malakand Field Force.)…

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Dardanelles Then, Afghanistan Now: Apples and Oranges

Dardanelles Then, Afghanistan Now: Apples and Oranges

Writ­ing in the Los Ange­les Times, Pro­fes­sor Andrew J. Bace­vich con­sid­ered the war in Afghanistan against Churchill’s expe­ri­ence in World War I. Churchill, he says, looked for alter­na­tives to “send­ing our armies to chew barbed wire in Flan­ders.” Just so. And we should be look­ing for alter­na­tives to chew­ing dust in Afghanistan.

Bace­vich describes Churchill’s alter­na­tive as “an amphibi­ous assault against the Dar­d­anelles.” (That is a phys­i­cal impos­si­bil­i­ty.) Churchill cham­pi­oned a naval attack on the Dar­d­anelles, fol­lowed by an amphibi­ous assault on the Gal­lipoli Penin­su­la). Bace­vich adds that Churchill wished to “sup­port the infantry with tanks.”…

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