Tag: Neville Chamberlain

Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons furnishes a lifelike Neville Chamberlain. (Netflix)
“Munich, The Edge of War,” with Jeremy Irons: Fine Acting, Edgy History

“Munich, The Edge of War,” with Jeremy Irons: Fine Acting, Edgy History

Regardless of whether you like the movie—and Jeremy Irons gives it an authentic, watchable flavor—we know much more about Munich in the light of scholarship since. We know that Soviet Russia was prepared to stand with Czechoslovakia in 1938, and had become a German ally in 1939. We know how—with the help of Czech armaments—Poland was eradicated in three weeks, the Low Countries in eighteen days, France in six weeks. If resisting Hitler was so ludicrous an idea in 1938, what was there about fighting him in 1939-40 that made it preferable? Given what we know, we are obliged to consider Churchill’s opinion—which was, characteristically, far from baseless.

Read More Read More

Mein Kampf
A wedding ceremony in Germany in 1936. “Chancellor Hitler has decided that a copy of his book Mein Kampf will be given to every couple on their wedding day.” (Bibliothèque nationale de France, public domain)
When Did Churchill Read “Mein Kampf”?

When Did Churchill Read “Mein Kampf”?

Q: Mein Kampf

When did Churchill  first read Mein Kampf, and did he have any ear­ly reac­tion to it?” Of Mein Kampf in his war mem­oirs, he wroe:

…there was no book which deserved more care­ful study from the rulers, polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary, of the Allied Pow­ers. All was there—the pro­gramme of Ger­man res­ur­rec­tion, the tech­nique of par­ty pro­pa­gan­da; the plan for com­bat­ing Marx­ism; the con­cept of a Nation­al-Social­ist State; the right­ful posi­tion of Ger­many at the sum­mit of the world. Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, ver­bose, shape­less, but preg­nant with its message.[1]…

Read More Read More

consistency
Churchill and Chamberlain on 14 March 1935. (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill’s Consistency: Politics Before Country (Part 2)

Churchill’s Consistency: Politics Before Country (Part 2)

Consistency in Politics…

…was a theme of Churchill’s, and he often wrote about it. He made many mis­takes, but through­out his career he was sel­dom guilty of lack­ing con­sis­ten­cy. Con­tin­ued from Part 1…

“Much better if he had never lived”

Churchill main­tained friend­ly rela­tions with Bald­win until Bald­win died in 1947. Nevertheless—which was rare for him—he nev­er for­gave and nev­er for­got. In June 1947 he made an aston­ish­ing state­ment: “I wish Stan­ley Bald­win no ill, but it would have been much bet­ter if he had nev­er lived.” Offi­cial biog­ra­ph­er Mar­tin Gilbert wrote that this was not Churchill’s usu­al con­sis­ten­cy, but exact­ly the opposite:

In my long search for Churchill few let­ters have struck a clear­er note than this one.…

Read More Read More

consistency
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill, in happier times, late 1920s. (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill’s Consistency: “Politics Before Country” (Part 1)

Churchill’s Consistency: “Politics Before Country” (Part 1)

“Churchill’s Con­sis­ten­cy,” first pub­lished in 2011, is updat­ed with mate­r­i­al from my book, Churchill and the Avoid­able War. It exon­er­ates, par­tial­ly, the state­ments and actions of Mr. Bald­win in the debate of rear­ma­ment in the 1930s.

“Politics before country”

A U.S. Con­gress­man, observ­ing America’s spend­ing prob­lem, pro­posed an elab­o­rate plan to fix it. In the process he didn’t wilt under the assault direct­ed toward any­one who defies the sta­tus quo by propos­ing prac­ti­cal change. Intend­ing to defend his ideas in a speech, his pri­vate office asked me to ver­i­fy what Churchill said on con­sis­ten­cy among politi­cians.…

Read More Read More

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.…

Read More Read More

alliance
View from St. Paul’s Cathedral toward the Old Bailey after the Blitz, 3 January 1941. (H. Mason, Daily Mail, public domain)
Grand Alliance: A Way Out of the Second World War?

Grand Alliance: A Way Out of the Second World War?

Question:

“Pro­fes­sor John Charm­ley says in a pod­cast that Neville Cham­ber­lain believed a pre­war grand alliance against Hitler was not fea­si­ble. He was refer­ring to alliance between the UK and France and the Unit­ed States and USSR. Do you agree?”

Answer:

As Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) tells the Dis­trict Attor­ney (Lane Smith) in “My Cousin Vin­ny” (1992), “that’s a B.S. question.”

(To voir dire Miss Vito on “gen­er­al auto­mo­tive knowl­edge” the D.A. had demand­ed the igni­tion tim­ing of “a 1955 Chevro­let 327 V-8.” (Read­ers less mechan­i­cal­ly inclined than Miss Vito may enjoy her dev­as­tat­ing two-minute rebut­tal to this “trick question.”)…

Read More Read More

Munich
Munich, 1938: Mussolini and Ciano (last two at right) with Chamberlain, Daladier (who always looked like he was about to have a root canal) and HItler. (Wikimedia Commons)
Munich Reflections: Peace for “a” Time & the Case for Resistance

Munich Reflections: Peace for “a” Time & the Case for Resistance

Jour­nal­ist Leo McKinstry’s Churchill and Attlee is a deft analy­sis of a polit­i­cal odd cou­ple who led Britain’s Sec­ond World War coali­tion gov­ern­ment. Now, eighty years since the death of Neville Cham­ber­lain, he has pub­lished an excel­lent appraisal in The Spec­ta­tor. Churchill’s pre­de­ces­sor as Prime Min­is­ter, Cham­ber­lain nego­ti­at­ed the 1938 Munich agree­ment. “Peace for our time,” he famous­ly referred to it.  In the end, he bought the world peace for a time.

Mr. McK­instry is right to regret that Cham­ber­lain has been rough­ly han­dled by his­to­ry. “The real­i­ty is that in the late 1930s Chamberlain’s approach was a ratio­nal one,” he writes.…

Read More Read More

May
WSC in the Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street, 1940. Photo by Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) for the Ministry of Information. (Crown copyright expired, Wikimedia Commons)
80 Years On: Winston Churchill Prime Minister, 10 May 1940

80 Years On: Winston Churchill Prime Minister, 10 May 1940

The 10th of May…

In the splin­ter­ing crash of this vast bat­tle the qui­et con­ver­sa­tions we had had in Down­ing Street fad­ed or fell back in one’s mind. How­ev­er, I remem­ber being told that Mr. Cham­ber­lain had gone, or was going, to see the King, and this was nat­u­ral­ly to be expect­ed. Present­ly a mes­sage arrived sum­mon­ing me to the Palace at six o’clock. It only takes two min­utes to dri­ve there from the Admi­ral­ty along the Mall. Although I sup­pose the evening news­pa­pers must have been full of the ter­rif­ic news from the Con­ti­nent, noth­ing had been men­tioned about the Cab­i­net cri­sis.…

Read More Read More

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

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

war shame
Churchill to Moyne (circled): “We shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a little later.” Coalition ministers, May 1940. Standing L-R: Sir Archibald Sinclair, A.V. Alexander, Lord Cranborne. Herbert Morrison, Lord Moyne. Captain Margesson, Brendan Bracken. Seated L-R: Ernest Bevin, Lord Beaverbrook, Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill, Sir John Anderson, Arthur Greenwood, Sir Kingsley Wood. (Imperial War Museum / public domain)
Churchill’s words: Choosing between War and Shame—and getting both.

Churchill’s words: Choosing between War and Shame—and getting both.

It is fre­quent­ly asked: What did Churchill say about those who trade hon­or for peace hav­ing in nei­ther in the end?

“War and Shame”

There are two quo­ta­tions. The first was Churchill in a let­ter to Lloyd George on 13 August 1938, just before the Munich Con­fer­ence, which led to World War II a year later.

I think we shall have to choose in the next few weeks between war and shame, and I have very lit­tle doubt what the deci­sion will be.

Ref­er­ence is Churchill by Him­self, page 256, quot­ing Mar­tin Gilbert, ed., The Churchill Doc­u­ments, vol.…

Read More Read More

RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


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

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
Links on this page may earn commissions.