Tag: Martin Gilbert

Lindemann
Frederick Lindemann Viscount Cherwell (1886-1957), arriving for a Cabinet meeting, 1951. (Fred Ramage, history.net)
Frederick Lindemann: Churchill’s Eminence Grise?

Frederick Lindemann: Churchill’s Eminence Grise?

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Revi­sion­ist His­to­ry, Sea­son 2, Episode 5, “The Prime Min­is­ter and the Prof [ Fred­er­ick Lin­de­mann ],” pod­cast by Mal­colm Gladwell.

A pop­u­lar week­ly half hour pod­cast, Revi­sion­ist His­to­ry takes aim at shib­bo­leths, real and imag­ined. This episode is Churchill’s turn in the barrel.

Scientific Nemesis

The vil­lain, aside from Sir Win­ston, is his sci­en­tif­ic advis­er, Fred­er­ick Lin­de­mann,  lat­er Lord Cher­well, aka “The Prof.” You’ve prob­a­bly nev­er heard of him, says nar­ra­tor Mal­colm Glad­well. You should have. It was Lin­de­mann who made Churchill bomb inno­cent Ger­man civil­ians and starve the Bengalis.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the pro­gram begins with an ad for its spon­sor, Chanel Per­fume.…

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movies
Well-cast leads in “Churchill: The Wilderness Years” (1981). L-R: Edward Woodward (Sir Samuel Hoare), Peter Vaughan (Sir Thomas Inskip), Robert Hardy (Winston Churchill), Eric Porter (Neville Chamberlain), Peter Barkworth (Stanley Baldwin).
Churchill Bio-Pics: The Trouble with the Movies

Churchill Bio-Pics: The Trouble with the Movies

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“The Trou­ble with the Movies” was pub­lished in the Amer­i­can Thinker, 5 August 2017.

David Fran­co, review­ing the film Churchill, star­ring Bri­an Cox, rais­es ques­tions he says every­one should be ask­ing. “Isn’t the abil­i­ty to accept one’s mis­takes part of what makes a man a good leader? …. To what extent should we rely [on] past expe­ri­ences in order to min­i­mize mis­takes in the future? These are the ques­tions that make a bad movie like Churchill worth seeing.”

Well, I won’t be see­ing this bad movie. Described as “per­verse fan­ta­sy” by his­to­ri­an Andrew Roberts, it joins a recent spate of slop­py Churchill bio-pics that favor skewed car­i­ca­tures over his­tor­i­cal fact.…

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Atatürk Erdogan
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Webtekno, Istanbul)
Why the Turks Like Churchill

Why the Turks Like Churchill

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How great was Atatürk? The ques­tion came up exam­in­ing Turk­ish atti­tudes to Churchill, which one might expect would be hos­tile. In 1914, Churchill’s Admi­ral­ty denied Turkey two bat­tle­ships being built in Britain as World War I erupt­ed. In 1915, Churchill pushed hard (though did not con­ceive of) the attacks on the Dar­d­anelles and Gal­lipoli. (See also “com­ments” on this post from thought­ful Turks.)

Atatürk

One his­to­ri­an spec­u­lat­ed that Churchill mir­rored the courage and resource­ful­ness of  Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk). Anoth­er said there “might be a lin­ger­ing impres­sion that Churchill had helped save Turkey from the red men­ace by his resis­tance to Russ­ian demands on the Dar­d­anelles Straits—of course it was Har­ry Tru­man who did the heavy lift­ing there [through the Tru­man Doc­trine]”

The Turks have abun­dant rea­sons to feel pos­i­tive toward Churchill, aside from his per­son­al courage, and his post-1945 resis­tance to Sovi­et designs on the Dar­d­anelles (when he was out of office and pow­er­less).…

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anti-Semite
Before you find “new” evidence of Churchill’s Feet of Clay, be sure the Official Biography didn’t publish it years ago. Six more document volumes have since been added to this row. (Hillsdale College Press)
Churchill as Anti-Semite: Rubbish

Churchill as Anti-Semite: Rubbish

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A life­long sup­port­er of Zion­ism and the Jews, Win­ston Churchill is some­times labeled an anti-Semi­te. The prof­fered evi­dence, an alleged arti­cle of his, has made the oblig­a­tory rounds of the Internet.

A 1937 arti­cle draft in the Churchill Archives sup­pos­ed­ly proves that Churchill’s off-expressed sym­pa­thy for the Jews was hypocrisy. Churchill was, if this arti­cle is to be believed, a clos­et anti-Semite.

Origins of a Slur

The alle­ga­tions began with a 2007 arti­cle in Britain’s The Inde­pen­dent: “Uncov­ered: Churchill’s Warn­ings About the ‘Hebrew Blood­suck­ers.’”

The 1937 draft, “How the Jews Can Com­bat Per­se­cu­tion,” had “appar­ent­ly lain unno­ticed in the Churchill Archives at Cam­bridge since the ear­ly months of the Sec­ond World War,” stat­ed The Inde­pen­dent:

Churchill crit­i­cised the “aloof­ness” of Jew­ish peo­ple from wider soci­ety and urged them to make the effort to inte­grate themselves….Churchill…

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Churchill Qualities: Leadership, Judgment, Humanity

Churchill Qualities: Leadership, Judgment, Humanity

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Qualities

Writ­ten for a col­league who asked var­i­ous con­trib­u­tors for 300 words on the qual­i­ties of Win­ston Churchill they most admire.

Leadership

Few great lead­ers are also great writ­ers; none who were both com­pare with Win­ston Churchill. In 1940 he saved civ­i­liza­tion by keep­ing Britain in the fight until those “who hith­er­to had been half blind were half ready.” His his­tor­i­cal and bio­graph­i­cal elo­quence won a Nobel Prize. Unique­ly for a politi­cian, he thought and wrote deeply about the nature of man. He hat­ed and tried to pre­vent war. He fought to pre­serve con­sti­tu­tion­al liberty.…

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Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (1)

Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (1)

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Fate­ful Ques­tions, Sep­tem­ber 1943-April 1944, nine­teenth of the pro­ject­ed twen­ty-three doc­u­ment vol­umes, is reviewed by his­to­ri­an Andrew Roberts in Com­men­tary.

The vol­umes com­prise “every impor­tant doc­u­ment of any kind that con­cerns Churchill, and the present vol­ume is 2,752 pages long, rep­re­sent­ing an aver­age of more than eleven pages per day.” Order your copy from the Hills­dale Col­lege Book­store.

Here is an excerpt from my account, “Fresh His­to­ry,” which can be read in its entire­ty at the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.

Fateful Questions: Excerpts

Fas­tid­i­ous­ly com­piled by the late Sir Mar­tin Gilbert and edit­ed by Dr.…

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Songs Churchill Would Love: “Willie McBride”

Songs Churchill Would Love: “Willie McBride”

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Sir Mar­tin Gilbert’s mov­ing book, The Somme: Hero­ism and Hor­ror in the First World War, ends with vers­es from “Willie McBride,” by the Scot­tish-Aus­tralian song­writer Eric Bogle, which car­ry an ever­green mes­sage to all gen­er­a­tions, and cap­ture what Churchill thought of mod­ern war—which he tried so hard, before both World Wars, to avoid.

Sir Mar­tin wrote that in research for the book, he and Lady Gilbert found the grave of Pri­vate William McBride, Roy­al Inniskilling Fusiliers, killed April 1916, two months before the Somme. Whether this was the grave of Eric Bogle’s sub­ject is imma­te­r­i­al.…

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Pearl Harbor +75: All in the Same Boat. Still.

Pearl Harbor +75: All in the Same Boat. Still.

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A slight­ly extend­ed ver­sion of my piece on Pearl Har­bor: “How, 75 years ago today, we were saved,” in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor, 7 Decem­ber 2016….

Sev­en­ty-five years ago today, Win­ston Churchill was pon­der­ing sur­vival. Hitler gripped Europe from France to deep inside Rus­sia. Nazi U-boats were stran­gling British ship­ping; Rommel’s Afri­ka Korps was advanc­ing on Suez. Britain’s only ally beside the Empire/Commonwealth, the Red Army, was fight­ing before Moscow. Amer­i­ca remained supportive…and aloof.

Eigh­teen months ear­li­er he had become prime min­is­ter. No one else had want­ed the task. “God alone knows how great it is,” he mut­tered, his eyes fill­ing.…

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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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Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

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Per the pre­vi­ous post, I append for read­er com­ment the con­tents of my next book, Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty: What Churchill Stood For.

I have writ­ten on most of these mat­ters in the past; the book recasts it afresh. I also acknowl­edge and cross-ref­er­ence the work of experts who know far more than I, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the fields of geneal­o­gy and med­i­cine. I would be glad to hear your thoughts; please use the “con­tact” page.

The his­to­ri­an David Stafford wrote: “Myth only devel­ops and takes hold when the time is right, and the cli­mate has long been ripe for the emer­gence of myths about a wartime hero who stood firm against a total­i­tar­i­an foe and smote an evil empire.”…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

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