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Jeremy Irons as Neville Chamberlain

“Munich: The Edge of War” (Netflix, 2022), directed by Christian Schwochow, from a screenplay by Ben Power, based the 2017 novel Munich by Robert Harris. Starring Jeremy Irons (Neville Chamberlain), George MacKay (the fictional Hugh Legat), Jannis Niewöhner (fictional Paul von Hartmann) and Ulrich Matthews (Adolf Hitler).

Winston Churchill makes no appearance in this screenplay based on Robert Harris’s novel about the Munich crisis. It’s just as well, because Munich was Neville Chamberlain’s hour. The veteran actor Jeremy Irons captures a man Churchill said had “the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart…[who] strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle.”

Irons shows us that very persona, and Chamberlain deserved Churchill’s accolade. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t stop there. Chamberlain was badly wrong about Adolf Hitler, and the filmmakers should have left it at that. 

Creative license 

There is no need here to detail the readily available plot. Munich runs 131 minutes, cast against the conspiracy to remove Hitler. To convey this, the writers provide two fictional characters: Chamberlain’s private secretary Hugh Legat, and his old Oxford chum, Paul von Hartmann, by then a German foreign office translator. They have more of a role than the Prime Minister’s actual advisor Horace Wilson, and his ambassador to Berlin, Nevile Henderson—who are scarcely identified. 

Legat and Hartmann insist that the Czech Sudetenland, which Hitler is demanding, is not his “last territorial claim in Europe.” What Hitler wants is a Nazified continent. Chamberlain, they implore him, must refuse his demands. A firm stance now will bring down Hitler, producing true peace for our time.  

A conspiracy to remove the Führer, led by Generalmajor Hans Oster, did exist, as Michael McMenamin has cogently written. It contemplated Hitler’s arrest, though he might have been killed in the process. But it involved high ranking officers and ministers, young aides like Hartmann, who somehow manages to meet the Führer with a gun in his hand—and then fails to use it. This is pure theatre. None below his closest associates were ever allowed to see Hitler without being frisked for weapons. 

Jeremy Irons portrays Chamberlain’s stubborn insistence that he alone holds the keys to peace. He spurns Legat’s and Hartmann’s warnings and meets Hitler’s demands, leaving him politically unassailable. Later, Legat returns to London with a secret document exposing Hitler’s true designs, and Chamberlain uses the year bought with Czech liberty to arm for the inevitable war. “There’s something noble” in Chamberlain’s actions, declared Robert Harris…. “Not squalid, which is the way it’s normally written.” 

A mile wide and a foot deep  

Richard Harris, supported by Jeremy Irons, labels Chamberlain “a tragic hero…. He believed the country would have a spiritual crisis if the people didn’t see their leaders doing everything possible to avoid another war.” The film assures us that Chamberlain at Munich did just that, buying time. By 1939, Harris argues,

We had the world’s most powerful navy. We had an integrated air force, all of which was bequeathed by the loathed Chamberlain…. [Churchill’s] memoirs really are a great counterfactual. “If only that, if only this—then Hitler could have been stopped.” None of it seems to really address the things Chamberlain had to deal with. And if we’d followed Churchill’s advice, the army would have bought a lot of biplanes. 

This understanding of history is a mile wide and a foot deep. Was Chamberlain or Churchill the better antidote to Britain’s spiritual crisis? Did Churchill loathe Chamberlain? His memorial tribute was one of his finest. His memoirs admitted that the RAF began rebuilding under Chamberlain—before Munich. In 1940, Churchill enlisted Lord Beaverbrook to spike production even higher. (The planes went to the RAF, not the army.) 

The remark about biplanes is the very same argument of Sir Thomas Inskip, Baldwin’s inept “Minister for the Coordination of Defence.” Inskip said that had Britain increased aircraft production when Churchill wanted, they’d have been “out of date” by 1936. Churchill mocked this “truly Machiavellian stroke of policy [by which] we were holding back in order to steal a march.” When you build warplanes, you build the state of the art. The Germans managed. 

The truth about Munich  

Mr. Harris’ argument has been made before. Chamberlain’s biographers used it—and Churchill’s critics. I heard it myself at a conference in 2013. In fact Munich bought only deeper trouble: a stronger Germany, with Soviet collaboration; a demoralized France; a politically secure Hitler. 

True, it gave Britain more time to arm. It also gave Germany more time to arm—and to secure a pact with Russia. Also, Hitler reaped a military bonanza in Czechoslovakia.  

Obviously Britain and France could not have defended the landlocked Czechs. Churchill in his memoirs wrote: “It surely did not take much thought [to realise] that the British Navy and the French Army could not be deployed on the Bohemian mountain front.”

Churchill had only the scholarship of 1948—testimony at Nuremberg, recovered Nazi documents, private contacts. Yet he argued that the time to take on Hitler had been 1938. How has his argument stood the test of time and modern scholarship? The answer is: pretty well.

The historian Williamson Murray responded to the pro-Munich assertions in 2014. Dr. Murray began by comparing the balance of military forces and political circumstances between 1938 and 1939. Some of his assertions were new and startling; some were common sense.  

Changing public attitudes 

An important consideration is public readiness for a major war—on both sides. It is well known that Britons were mostly pacific until Munich. But as Professor Murray wrote, the Germans too had had a bellyful of war and its disastrous aftermath. Rapturous crowds, believing he brought peace, greeted Chamberlain on his visit to Hitler in Bad Godesberg on September 22nd.

Berliners watching as Hitler reviewed a motorized column five days later were sparse and sullen, in the words of an eye-witness, William Shirer: “the most striking demonstration against war I’ve ever seen.” Hitler turned away in disgust, remarking to Goebbels, “I can’t lead a war with such people.”

 The British popular will registered with Chamberlain, and his predecessor. It was Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin who in 1936 had restrained the French after Hitler had occupied the Rhineland. When French Foreign Minister Pierre Flandin appealed for Britain to mobilize, Baldwin replied that he knew the British people, and they wanted peace. Flandin declared that France would not act without Britain, and Britain did nothing.

Churchill snorted at Baldwin’s interpretation of his duty. The responsibility of a leader is to lead, he said: The leader’s primary concern is the safety of the nation—whatever the consequences:

I would endure with patience the roar of exultation that would go up when I was proved wrong, because it would lift a load off my heart and off the hearts of many Members. What does it matter who gets exposed or discomfited? If the country is safe, who cares for individual politicians, in or out of office?

Churchill’s case for leadership 

Churchill made that ringing declaration in 1936. Now it was 1938. Hitler had absorbed the Rhineland and Austria, and was after Czechoslovakia. Self-evidently, the British were now less pacifist. Many expressed outrage. Lord Halifax, so often portrayed as an abject appeaser, led a cabinet revolt, saying Hitler could never be trusted. He telegraphed Chamberlain: “Great mass of public opinion seems to be hardening in sense of feeling that we have gone to the limit of concession.”

Churchill’s reply to the notion that Britons would not resist came in an interview three months after Munich: 

I am convinced that with adequate leadership, democracy can be a more efficient form of government than Fascism. In this country at any rate the people can readily be convinced that it is necessary to make sacrifices, and they will willingly undertake them if the situation is put clearly and fairly before them.

No one can doubt that it was within the power of the National Government at any time within the last seven years to rearm the country at any pace required without resistance from the mass of the people. The difficulty was that the leaders failed to appreciate the need and to warn the people, or were afraid to do their duty, not that the democratic system formed an impediment.

“War is horrible…slavery is worse” 

We cannot know the outcome of a military confrontation in 1938. We cannot know the result of the coup attempt, or the public’s attitude if Chamberlain had resisted. In 1939, Britons largely supported declaring war over Poland—which was much less defensible than Czechoslovakia. Properly alerted to the realities, would the people have backed resistance in 1938? Churchill believed so:

The pace is set by the potential aggressor, and, failing collective action by the rest of the world to resist him, the alternatives are an arms race or surrender. War is very terrible, but stirs a proud people. There have been periods in our history when we have given way for a long time, but a new and formidable mood arises.

Churchill’s interviewer interrupted: “A bellicose mood?” No, said Churchill: A mood of  thus far, and no farther. “It is only by the spirit of resistance that man has learnt to stand upright, and instead of walking on all fours to assume an erect posture. War is horrible, but slavery is worse, and you may be sure that the British people would rather go down fighting than live in servitude.”

By derivation Churchill would also say, as indeed his whole life proved, that if a leader can’t carry the people, then he goes: “…who cares for individual politicians, in or out of office?” 

What we know

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. There were choices before Neville Chamberlain. He did strive, to the utmost of his capacity, to save the world from an awful struggle.

Churchill, unlike Chamberlain, never met the German Führer face to face. We will never know the outcome if Chamberlain had stiffened over what he called a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing…. .”

But we do know what happened in 1939-40. We know Soviet Russia supported Czechoslovakia in 1938, and was a German ally by September 1939. We know how—with the help of Czech armaments—Poland fell 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 must consider Churchill. And his opinion was far from baseless.

Further reading

Michael McMenamin, “Regime Change, 1938: Did Chamberlain ‘Miss the Bus’?” in Finest Hour 162, Spring 2014,  22-27. 

Williamson Murray, “Munich and Its Alternative: The Case for Resistance,” in Finest Hour 162, Spring 2014, 16-21.

Andrew Roberts, “Munich: The Edge of Nonsense,” Washington Free Beacon, 20 February 2022.

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]

“But he writes nothing about it before this.

A: 1935, if not sooner

The answer is undetermined, but we can narrow down the time frame. I looked for this in my Hitler chapter of Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality. I searched his correspondence for mentions of Mein Kampf from 1925, when it was first published. Churchill did not read German and there is no indication that he saw the German editions at that time.

There is no evidence that Churchill read Mein Kampf until at least 1933[2]. Most likely, Martin Gilbert reports, he read it in 1935 (see below). But he was aware of Hitler earlier. His friend Sir Ian Hamilton furnished the first reference to Hitler in Churchill’s official biography. In October 1930. In the September federal elections, Hitler’s National Socialists soared from 12 to 107 seats, second highest in the Reichstag. The ruling Social Democrats fell slightly to 143, the German Communist Party tripled its seats with 77.

Hamilton and Cuno

Churchill was anxious to know what this election foretold. Hamilton passed him the views of the German shipping magnate and onetime chancellor, Wilhelm Cuno. What Hamilton described as Hitler’s “scoop” was, according to Cuno, natural and hopeful:

He said that out of the 32 million people in Germany there were 29 million who were finding life just about intolerable and they were absolutely fed up with it. In their minds they had resolved to sweep away the whole of the existing system of compromise, makeshift and trying to win their way back by slow degrees on the old lines.

They were jolly well going to have a try at something entirely new and the whole question, for people like himself who had something to say with the steering of the ship of State, was whether the change would be to the right or to the left. If to the right it would be an accentuation of nationalism: if to the left it would be internationalism. They had got their swing to the right and he hoped that the responsibility of power would make this new Government more moderate in action than it had been in words.[3]

Cuno was however likely to put a favorable spin on the Nazi surge. Two years later he would join Wilhelm Keppler as a financial advisor to Hitler. His death in 1933 spared him whatever ignominy that might have attached to him through further association. The worst that can be said of Churchill over this early intelligence from Germany was that he too hoped for moderation. Like many others, he misgauged the depth of Hitler’s prejudice and hate. But it didn’t take him as long as most others to realize the truth.

Mein Kampf in 1935

The first known Churchill encounter with Mein Kampf was five years later—two years after Hitler took power and the first English edition was published. By then, as Martin Gilbert tells us, he was fully up to speed:

Churchill was also well informed about the internal situation in Germany. Three months earlier, on 10 December 1935, at Churchill’s own request, L.G. Montefiore had sent him a full translation not only of the Nuremberg Laws, under which the Jews of Germany had been deprived of their basic rights as citizens, but also of the detailed administrative regulations, whereby those Laws were to be put into force. On March 10 the Duchess of Atholl sent him two copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, the original German edition and the English translation.[4]

Katharine Stewart-Murray, 8th Duchess Atholl was determined that Churchill should know the truth. The English translation of Mein Kampf sent to the London publisher was watered down to soothe British nerves. Atholl sent Churchill

copies of those passages which had been expurgated in the translation. “Sometimes,” she wrote, “the warlike character of the original is concealed by mistranslating.” In one of the expurgated passages Hitler advocated a German alliance with Italy and Britain, in order to isolate France. In another he described France as “our bitterest enemy.” And in a third he declared: “the life of a people will be secured not by national grace, but by the strength of a victorious sword.” The Duchess of Atholl also sent Churchill extracts from Hitler’s speeches with copies of those more extreme paragraphs which had not been circulated to the foreign press.[5]

The Duchess of Atholl…

…is one of the forgotten heroines in Churchill’s battle against appeasement. Lynne Olson’s Troublesome Young Men finely describes this feisty Scotswoman, the first Conservative woman Member of Parliament to hold ministerial office:

For Kitty Atholl, Mein Kampf served as a call to battle. No longer the docile backbencher who wanted to “smooth matters over,” she became an outspoken foe of appeasement. She again joined forces with Churchill, this time in his campaign to awaken Britain to the dangers posed by Hitler and the need for rearmament. Like Churchill, she received confidential information from knowledgeable sources about the rapid pace and size of German rearmament, which she passed on to him and to officials in the Foreign Office…. Many Tories in her constituency, which contained more than its share of aristocrats, landed gentry, and retired military officers, were outraged.[6]

By the time of the Munich accord, the Duchess was thoroughly repulsed by Chamberlain’s actions. She made speeches denouncing the agreement, and published a pamphlet about it. For this the Conservative whip was withdrawn and Chamberlain sent surrogates to oppose her in a by-election. She lost her seat in November 1938, and a few months later Chamberlain himself came to defend his policies in Scotland.

Churchill was furious. On a visit to the Highlands, another friend told him Chamberlain was coming and asked where she should set up the podium. “It doesn’t matter where you put it,” Churchill replied, “as long as he has the sun in his eyes and the wind in his teeth.” His famous lisp often surfaced strongly at times of great emotion. So this came out: “shun in hish eyesh and the wind in hish teeth.”[7]

Endnotes

 1. Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm (London: Cassell, 1948), 42.

2. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 2 vols., (Berlin: Eher Verlaf, 1925-26). An abridged English edition was first published by Hurst & Blackett, London, on 13 October 1933, though excerpts appeared in The Times during July.

3. Ian Hamilton to Churchill, 24 October 1930 (Churchill Papers: 8/269), in Martin Gilbert, ed., The Churchill Documents, vol. 12, The Wilderness Years 1929-1935 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2009), 208-09.

4. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 5, Prophet of Truth 1922-1939 (Hillsdale College Press, 2009), 704.

5. Ibid.

6. Lynne Olson, Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007), 167.

7. Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill (London: HarperCollins, 1994), 23.

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. Churchill was almost always magnanimous: his tribute to Neville Chamberlain in 1940 was among the high points of his parliamentary genius. But he saw Baldwin as responsible for the “locust years” when Britain, if differently led, could have easily rearmed, and kept well ahead of the German military and air expansion, which Hitler had begun in 1933 from a base of virtual disarmament. Churchill saw Baldwin’s policies, especially with regard to Royal Air Force expansion, as having given Hitler the impression, first, that Britain would not stand up to aggression beyond its borders, and second, that if war came Britain would not be in a position to act effectively even to defend its own cities.[9]

As we contemplate current world events, let us hope that today’s leaders do not put politics before country. At the moment, I very much fear that many of them are.

Praising Chamberlain

In 1937, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin retired in favor of Neville Chamberlain. Churchill had served with him in an earlier government, and respected Chamberlain despite their differences. But Churchill’s consistency remained intact. He was soon disenchanted with Chamberlain’s foreign policy. This remained as dedicated to Appeasement as Baldwin’s had been.

Chamberlain did begin to rearm the country, which stood Britain well in the war to come. In 1939, Hitler absorbed Czechoslovakia, contrary to his promises in the Munich Agreement. Chamberlain sent a British guarantee to the likely next target, Poland. “Here,” wrote Churchill in his memoirs, “was decision at last, taken at the worst possible moment and on the last satisfactory ground, which must surely lead to the slaughter of tens of millions of people.”[10]

After Churchill replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister in May 1940, the latter remained loyal. He supported Churchill against those who argued that Britain should reach an accommodation with Hitler and end the war. Chamberlain died in November 1940. Churchill eulogized him in Parliament in generous words. But he never forgot what he saw as Baldwin’s admission of putting politics before country. Praising Chamberlain, he said, “was not an insuperable task, since I admired many of Neville’s great qualities. But I pray to God in his infinite mercy that I shall not have to deliver a similar oration on Baldwin. That indeed would be difficult to do.”[11]

What can be learned

America and the great democracies  face  problems long simmering, now perhaps no longer just simmering. They may indeed result in a wreckage similar to what might have befallen the world, had Churchill’s Britain and its Commonwealth not stood alone against Hitler. Until, he remarked ruefully, “those who hitherto had been half blind were half ready.”[12]

The clearest declaration of Churchill’s character and principle I have ever read came in July 1936, at the height of the rearmament debate, Churchill told Parliament:

I would endure with patience the roar of exultation that would go up when I was proved wrong, because it would lift a load off my heart and off the hearts of many Members. What does it matter who gets exposed or discomfited? If the country is safe, who cares for individual politicians, in or out of office?[13]

That ringing declaration demonstrates Churchill’s devotion to principle and to his nation, regardless of poll ratings or unpopularity—characteristics some leaders also demonstrate, from time to time.

Consistency vs. inaction

Striking also are certain earlier Churchill remarks in 1928. They serve as a warning against inaction in the face of the obvious, by leaders today. They were written by Churchill to Lord Beaverbrook, after he had read Beaverbrook’s Politicians and the War. Meant in no invidious sense, they express only sorrow:

Think of all these people—decent, educated, the story of the past laid out before them—What to avoid—what to do etc.—patriotic, loyal, clean—trying their utmost—What a ghastly muddle they made of it! Unteachable from infancy to tomb—There is the first and main characteristic of mankind.[14]

Worth heeding too are Churchill’s words from 1933, which are evergreen: “We ought to rejoice at the responsibilities with which destiny has honoured us, and be proud that we are guardians of our country in an age when her life is at stake.”

Endnotes

[9] Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill: A Historian’s Journey (London: HarperCollins, 1994, 106. WSC to Leslie Rowan, 19 July 1947, courtesy Churchill Archives Centre.

[10] Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm (London: Cassell, 1948), 271-72.

[11] Harold Nicolson, diary for 22 November 1940, in Nigel Nicolson, ed., Harold Nicolson Diaries and Letters, 3 vols. (London: Collins, 1966-68), II, 129.

[12] Winston S. Churchill, theme of Their Finest Hour (1949), in Richard M. Langworth, ed., Churchill in His Own Words (London: Ebury Press, 2012), 271.

[13] WSC, House of Commons, 20 July 1936, in Churchill in His Own Words, 493.

[14] WSC to Beaverbrook, 21 May 1928, in Churchill in His Own Words, 28.

[15] Churchill to the Royal Society of St. George, 24 April 1933, in Churchill in His Own Words, 78.

“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. I learned something in the process…

In 1936, Britain’s Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, put politics before country by failing adequately to rearm. This, the Congressman said, reminded him of certain political behavior today. In Parliament, Baldwin bluntly admitted that fear of losing an election motivated his failure to rearm in the face of Nazi Germany.

“All powerful to be impotent”

Churchill on rearmament was nothing if not consistent. On 12 November 1936, as he recalled later,

…I severely reproached Mr. Baldwin for having failed to keep his pledge “[to] see to it that in air strength and air power this country shall no longer be in a position inferior to any country within striking distance of its shores.” I said: “The Government simply cannot make up their minds, or they cannot get the Prime Minister to make up his mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent. So we go on preparing more months and years—precious, perhaps vital, to the greatness of Britain—for the locusts to eat.”[1]

Baldwin replied with an astonishing admission:

You will remember at that time there was probably a stronger pacifist feeling running through this country than at any time since the war…. Supposing I had gone to the country and said that Germany was rearming, and that we must rearm, does anybody think that this pacific democracy would have rallied to that cry at that moment? I cannot think of anything that would have made the loss of the election from my point of view more certain.[2]

1936: “A squalid confession”

For Churchill, consistency on such issues was paramount. He saw Baldwin’s admission as reprehensible. He replied to Baldwin that same day, 12 November 1936:

I never would have believed that we should have been allowed to go on getting into this plight, month by month and year by year, and that even the Government’s own confessions of error would have produced no concentration of Parliamentary opinion and force capable of lifting our efforts to the level of emergency. I say that unless the House resolves to find out the truth for itself it will have committed an act of abdication of duty without parallel in its long history.[3]

The following day, in a private letter to a friend, Churchill leaped upon Baldwin’s statement: “I have never heard such a squalid confession from a public man as Baldwin offered us yesterday.”[4]

1948: “Naked truth into indecency”

Consistency, consistency… Churchill returned to Baldwin’s 1936 confession in his war memoirs. Baldwin’s 1936 statement, he wrote, was one of “appalling frankness…

It carried naked truth about his motives into indecency. That a Prime Minister should avow that he had not done his duty in regard to national safety because he was afraid of losing the election was an incident without parallel in our Parliamentary history. Mr. Baldwin was of course not moved by any ignoble wish to remain in office. He was in fact in 1936 earnestly desirous of retiring. His policy was dictated by the fear that if the Socialists came into power even less would be done than his Government intended. All their declarations and votes against defense measures are upon record. But this was no complete defense, and less than justice to the spirit of the British people.[5]

It is obvious that Baldwin abandoned the political good of consistency. This is not unique. Politicians—then and now—frequently put politics or party before country. But rarely does one admit it—particularly the leader of a government.

Where Churchill was wrong

There is however a technical criticism of Churchill’s statements. In both The Gathering Storm and his 1938 speech volume, Arms and the Covenant, he quoted Baldwin selectively. Among key omissions was Baldwin’s statement that the 1935 election gave him “a mandate for [rearming] that no one, twelve months before, would have believed possible.” Had he taken more rearmament measures, he said, “it would have defeated entirely the end I had in view.”[6]

Note the “twelve months before.” Churchill had unfairly implied that Baldwin was referring to the actual election in November 1935. In fact, Baldwin was speaking of a hypothetical election in 1933-34. Indeed, on 12 November 1936, Churchill in Parliament stated that in 1935, Baldwin had campaigned in support of rearmament.

Baldwin was not entirely guiltless. To appreciate this, one must read the entire passage from Churchill’s 12 November 1935 speech. Baldwin had “fought and largely won” the 1935 election on rearmament, Churchill said. But

…he also made the statement: “I give you my word there will be no great armaments…. There has not been, there is not, and there will not be any question of huge armaments or materially increased forces.” Frankly, I do not understand what that could have meant, because an Air Force equal to the gigantic force being constructed in Germany would certainly involve a huge expenditure…. [7]

The difference in statecraft

Baldwin admitted that, had there been a 1933-34 election, he would not have pushed for rearmament, fearing he would lose. He gave mixed messages about how much he would rearm in the actual election (1935). Churchill’s ringing declaration the previous June stands in contrast to Baldwin’s:

I would endure with patience the roar of exultation that would go up when I was proved wrong, because it would lift a load off my heart and off the hearts of many Members. What does it matter who gets exposed or discomfited? If the country is safe, who cares for individual politicians, in or out of office?[8]

The difference in statecraft is very clear. 1) Baldwin wished to rearm—to what degree was unclear. He did campaign for it in the 1935 election; he won, and began to rearm. 2) Baldwin was more reluctant about risking votes than Churchill, and was less urgent and ambitious about the Nazi threat. 3) Baldwin’s and Chamberlain’s rearmament efforts did leave Britain better defended by 1940. But it would have helped to have had more, as Churchill consistently asserted.

Endnotes

[1] Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm (London: Cassell, 1948, 169-70. In other editions this falls in the middle of Chapter XII.

[2] Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. V, The Prophet of Truth 1922-1939 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2009), 798.

[3] Richard M. Langworth, ed., Churchill in His Own Words (London: Ebury Press, 2012), 250.

[4] WSC to Sir Archibald Boyd-Carpenter, 13 November 1936, in Gilbert, Prophet of Truth, 799.

[5] Churchill, The Gathering Storm, 169-70.

[6] Richard M. Langworth, Churchill and the Avoidable War (Moultonborough, N.H.: Dragonwyck, 2015), 88, quoting Baldwin in Hansard, 317: 1145-46.

[7] Langworth, Avoidable War, 88, quoting Churchill in Hansard, 317: 1105-06.

[8] WSC, House of Commons, 20 July 1936, in Langworth, Churchill in His Own Words, 493.

Consistency in Politics concludes in Part 2.

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. I thought Burke deserved a mention, but it’s your book, so it’s your call (and may I add, it has been one of the best treasures that has ever landed on my lap!)  —V.T., England

Thanks for the kind words. Unfortunately the index is the worst feature of the book, and completely missed Burke. The 2016 Rosetta ebook, Churchill in His Own Words, is of course searchable. Both it and the 2012 international edition also contain a useful phrase index. Click these links or see the revolving books to the right >>>>.

Despite the index’s silence, there are five Churchill quotes on Burke, and a sixth by an observer….

1897: “What shadows we are…”

Looking at these shapeless forms, confined in a regulation blanket, the pride of race, the pomp of empire, the glory of war appeared but the faint and unsubstantial fabric of a dream; and I could not help realising with Burke: “What shadows we are and what shadows we pursue.”

Churchill was writing here of British dead in the campaign in the Northwest Frontier of India. (See The Story of the Malakand Field Force.) He nonetheless admired valiant enemies, like the Dervishes in The River War: “…their claim beyond the grave in respect of a valiant death was not less good than that which any of our countrymen could make.”

1939: “Importunate chink” of grasshoppers

[Burke said:] “Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle repose beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field, that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.”

Churchill was quoting Burke to Colin Thornton-Kemsley, chairman of the Chigwell Conservative Association, who wanted to dismiss WSC for his anti-Chamberlain rhetoric. When Churchill became prime minister, Thornton-Kemsley sent him his apologies. “I want to say only this,” he wrote. “You warned us repeatedly about the German danger and you were right: a grasshopper under a fern is not proud now that he made the field ring with his importunate chink.”

Churchill replied: “I certainly think that Englishmen ought to start fair with one another from the outset in so grievous a struggle and so far as I am concerned the past is dead.”

1941: Anglo-American unity

The great Burke has truly said, “People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors,” and I feel it most agreeable to recall to you that the Jeromes [Churchill’s maternal forebears] were rooted for many generations in American soil, and fought in Washington’s armies for the independence of the American Colonies and the foundation of the United States. I expect I was on both sides then. And I must say I feel on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean now.

The BBC had actively worked to keep Churchill off the air in the Appeasement years, but by 1941 they couldn’t get enough of him. Here he is broadcasting on 16 June 1941, six days before Hitler attacked Russia. His theme, as ever, was Collective Security, and he yearned for America to enter the war.

1951: “Reform without injustice”

A generation would no doubt come to whom their miseries were unknown but it would be sure of having more to eat and bless Stalin’s name. I did not repeat Burke’s dictum, “If I cannot have reform without injustice, I will not have reform.” With the World War going on all round us it seemed vain to moralise aloud.

Churchill is here writing in his fourth volume of Second World War memoirs, The Hinge of Fate. WSC was never given to moralizing—or, as we hear so disgustingly often today, “virtue signaling.” Morality was prominent in his make-up, but in war for him the first priority was “Victory at all costs—Victory in spite of all terror.”

3. Collin Brooks: “Where gusto is the prime quality”

One more reference to Burke in is on page 18. It is a lovely quotation by Collin Brooks about Churchill the conversationalist in Churchill by His Contemporaries (1953). Brooks captures the quality that endeared Churchill, even to political opponents:

“Never was a talker so variously gifted, so ardently listened-to, so little of a prig; never was a man so wedded to precision and verbal nicety so little of a pedant…. Sir Winston would have been equally welcomed by Falstaff in Eastcheap, Ben Jonson at The Mermaid, or Burke and Johnson at The Mitre, that is, in any coterie where the talk is masculine, the wit and humour spontaneous, the erudition unparaded, and where gusto is the prime quality.”

“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.”)

Thirty years ago Professor Charmley and I engaged in a grand harangue over his highly readable critique, Churchill: The End of Glory. The argument was over whether Churchill was right to prosecute the Hitler war after mid-1940. Neither side gave an inch, but John engaged with gentlemanly verve and collegiality that I admired, and tried to reciprocate. Afterward he invited me to lunch at his club, where I promised to order the most expensive champagne. Alas we were never able to make it work.

I am sure Dr. Charmley correctly represents Chamberlain’s belief that alliance with Russia or the Americans was not feasible. But never mind 1940. Why is the question, “would alliance have prevented WW2” like the question about a 1955 Chevy 327? Because as Mona Lisa Vito says, “nobody could answer that question.” It is unanswerable.

The subject of alliance between the Anglo-French and Russians, and then the Americans, is considered in my 2015 monograph, Churchill and the Avoidable War. (For a review by Professor Manfred Weidhorn, click here.) Relevant to your question are two chapters….

Alliance with Ivan

Chapter 6, “Favourable Reference to the Devil,” considers the notion, strongly pushed by Churchill, of a Soviet alliance. These excerpts may be pertinent. (Endnotes are in the book):

From the time Hitler marched on the Rhineland, Churchill had pondered Anglo-Russian  cooperation. The historian Donald Cameron Watt wrote: “He fell into the clutches of Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador in London…writing to Viscount Cecil of the need to “organise a European mass and, perhaps, a world mass which will confront…the heavily armed unmoral dictatorships.”

Maisky was clever and worldly, practised in English ways…. But saying Churchill fell into his clutches is very wide of the mark. Churchill loathed and feared the Soviet Union, and it was a huge decision to court Maisky. Yet Churchill could add and subtract, and he needed the help. He acted for big reasons, and he explained them. In the event, his forebodings about the USSR would be proven entirely correct.

Churchill, a private Member of Parliament without office, was able to play only a background role as Britain considered a Russian arrangement. But it is incorrect to believe he did not call for one until 1938. He had many conversations with principals, including Nazis, which he duly forwarded to the Foreign Office.

Up until Munich, Churchill’s stand on Russia was closer to that of his party than has been generally recognized. After Munich, he correctly concluded that the only way left to prevent war was to revive the Triple Entente that had faced Germany in World War I. In view of Stalin’s obvious ambitions in eastern Europe, the question is whether that would have prevented a world conflagration: an issue we shall now consider.

Alliance and America

Chapter 7, “Lost Best Hope,” considers the chance of alliance with America. In this case Chamberlain was even more disdainful:

Churchill made his views about America known as early as 1935: “We must keep in the closest touch with the United States of America….” In 1937, Churchill was heartened to hear of President Roosevelt’s “Quarantine Speech” in Chicago. “A reign of terror and international lawlessness,” FDR said, threatened “the very foundations of civilization.” He proposed economic pressure on the aggressor nations. Churchill responded that these were “exactly the same ideas that are in our minds, and I have no doubt that it will be cordially welcomed by Mr. Chamberlain.”

They were not: On 11 January 1938, Roosevelt telegraphed Chamberlain proposing to invite representatives of Germany, Britain, France and Italy to Washington in the hopes of mediating an easement of affairs, or at least taking part in discussions. Before doing so, he wrote, he wished to consult with the Chamberlain government. Not the French or German government—the British government. This was not alliance, but it certainly was a suggestion that Britain and America might work together.

It was a golden opportunity, but Chamberlain was in a belligerent mood. In December, after Japan attacked British and American gunboats on the Yangtze, he had proposed a concerted Anglo-American response including a joint naval task force, Roosevelt had settled for a Japanese apology. The Americans, Chamberlain complained, “are incredibly slow and have missed innumerable busses….I do wish the Japs would beat up an American or two!” Japan fulfilled his wish four years later at Pearl Harbor.

Back to the Unanswerable Question

Chamberlain’s rebuff of Roosevelt ended the last frail chance to save the world from catastrophe. Churchill was on holiday in the South of France during this episode, and could not have known of it at the time. But his memoirs were censorious:

That Mr. Chamberlain, with his limited outlook and inexperience of the European scene, should have possessed the self-sufficiency to wave away the proffered hand stretched out across the Atlantic leaves one, even at this date, breathless with amazement. The lack of all sense of proportion, and even of self-preservation, which this episode reveals in an upright, competent, well-meaning man, charged with the destinies of our country and all who depended upon it, is appalling. One cannot today even reconstruct the state of mind which would render such gestures possible.

So the answer to your question, was alliance with Russia or America feasible, is impossible to supply. Neither option appealed to Mr. Chamberlain. And contrary to many opinions, he was a very astute man, trying “according to his lights,” as Churchill said, to avoid war.

Under the right leadership, perhaps one alliance or the other might have worked. But that required extraordinary vision—the persuasiveness, mindset and savoir faire Churchill might have brought to the task.

Was it possible? Yes, but with great difficulty. I welcome reader opinions.

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. It was “dictated by military strength and the mood of the nation. It is impossible to imagine him making such an expensive hash of the [Covid] testing regime as the present government has done.”

Covid testing is a bit outside my area of expertise. But Mr. McKinstry is right to insist on fair play for Chamberlain. It seems, however, that Churchill’s Munich prescriptions have been somewhat overlooked in the process. Accordingly I republish a 2014 piece that may shed light on that subject.

Berlin, September 1938

A motorized division rolled through the city’s street just at dusk… The hour was undoubtedly chosen to catch the hundreds of thousands of Berliners pouring out of their offices at the end of the day’s work. But they ducked into the subways, refused to look on, and the handful that did stood at the curb in utter silence…. The Führer was on his balcony reviewing the troops…and there weren’t 200 people. Hitler looked grim, then angry, and soon went inside…. What I’ve seen tonight almost rekindles a little faith in the German people. They are dead set against war.” —William L. Shirer

Chamberlain met Hitler two days later in Munich. Churchill was certain that now was the time to resist. Yet we are regularly told that the Munich agreement was necessary and wise. Obviously, it gave Britain more time to arm. But it also gave Germany more time to arm—and to neutralize a potential enemy in the Soviet Union. Hitler also reaped a military bonanza in Czechoslovakia. In the 1940 invasion of France, three of the ten Panzer divisions were of Czech manufacture.

Obviously, goes the refrain, Britain and France could not have defended landlocked Czechoslovakia. There was more to its defense than that, Churchill wrote: “It surely did not take much thought…that the British Navy and the French Army could not be deployed on the Bohemian mountain front.” [1]

If resisting Hitler in 1938 was a faulty concept, why was it preferable to fight him in 1939-40? That sawa the eradication of Poland in three weeks, the Low Countries in sixteen days, France in six weeks.

If not then, when?

Churchill, in his memoirs had only the scholarship of 1948: Nuremberg testimony, recovered Nazi documents, private contacts, some from inside Germany. From Munich onward, he argued that the time to take on Hitler had been 1938. Was he wrong? How has his theory stood the test of time and modern scholarship? The answer is: no so badly. Reading the literature, it is arguable, that Chamberlain indeed “missed the bus” at Munich.

This is no attempt to pillory Neville Chamberlain, an easy target for generations of second-guessers. Without his rearmament programs and support of his successor, Churchill could not have successfully fought the Battle of Britain. Chamberlain was wrong about Hitler, but he had as Churchill said the “benevolent instincts of the human heart…even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour,” striving “to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle.” [2]

Williamson Murray analyzed the strategic issues affecting the Czech crisis in The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938-1939. (See especially chapters 6, 7, and 8.) He closely compares the balance of military forces and political circumstances between 1938 and 1939. Some of his revelations were new and startling; some were common sense. Michael McMenamin (“Regime Change 1938“) has written cogently on the plot against Hitler. This was real and credible, he says, but it stopped cold after Hitler’s Munich triumph. Murray’s and McMenamin’s arguments are summarized in Finest Hour 162, Spring 2014.

Point and counterpoint

Remember, though, that history is a constant process of revision. Contrary arguments exist, and qualified counter-arguments must be considered. Take for example, the case for inertia, which drove Chamberlain. This was nicely defined by the late Churchill scholar Paul Courtenay:

Whatever the relative strengths between UK/France and Nazi Germany in 1938, World War I was so recent in the national memories that public opinion (and Parliament) would never have been in favour of any pre-emptive ultimatum or strike at Hitler. It took two more Nazi outrages—the absorption of Czechoslovakia and the attack on Poland—to persuade everyone that enough was enough.

​This insightful observation has been made before. But again, we rarely hear the parallel: that the Germans too had had a bellyful of war and its disastrous aftermath. Rapturous crowds, believing he brought peace, greeted Chamberlain in Germany. Berliners, watching as Hitler reviewed a motorized column in September, were sparse and sullen. William Shirer said it was “the most striking demonstration against war I’ve ever seen.” Hitler turned away in disgust, remarking to Goebbels, “I can’t lead a war with such people.” [3]

British wishes as he saw them registered with Chamberlain at Munich, as they had with his predecessor. In 1936, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin restrained the French after Hitler occupied the Rhineland. When French Foreign Minister Pierre Flandin appealed for Britain to mobilize, Baldwin replied that he knew the British people, and they wanted peace. Flandin knew that France would not act without Britain. Now he was told that Britain would do nothing. [4]

The path of duty

Churchill snorted at Baldwin’s interpretation of his duty. The responsibility of a leader is to lead, he insisted. The leader’s primary concern is the safety of the nation—whatever the consequences:

I would endure with patience the roar of exultation that would go up when I was proved wrong, because it would lift a load off my heart and off the hearts of many Members. What does it matter who gets exposed or discomfited? If the country is safe, who cares for individual politicians, in or out of office? [5]

Churchill made that ringing declaration in 1936. Two years later Hitler absorbed Austria, an almost catastrophic display of German  military bungling. Heedless of that, he was now after Czechoslovakia. Self-evidently, the British were by then less pacifist. Many were outraged. Lord Halifax, so often portrayed as an abject appeaser, led a “cabinet revolt,” saying Hitler could never be trusted. He telegraphed Chamberlain: “Great mass of public opinion seems to be hardening in sense of feeling that we have gone to the limit of concession.” [6]

Churchill’s reply to the notion that Britons would not fight was given in an interview three months after Munich:

In this country at any rate the people can readily be convinced that it is necessary to make sacrifices, and they will willingly undertake them if the situation is put clearly and fairly before them. No one can doubt that it was within the power of the National Government at any time within the last seven years to rearm the country at any pace required without resistance from the mass of the people. The difficulty was that the leaders failed to appreciate the need and to warn the people, or were afraid to do their duty, not that the democratic system formed an impediment. [7]

“Thus far and no farther”

There are of course incalculables. We cannot know the military outcome or the result of the coup attempt. How would the British public have reacted if the Anglo-French had resisted? In 1939, Britons largely supported declaring war over Poland, which was much less defensible than Czechoslovakia. Properly alerted to the realities, would the people have backed resistance in 1938? Churchill believed so:

The pace is set by the potential aggressor, and, failing collective action by the rest of the world to resist him, the alternatives are an arms race or surrender. War is very terrible, but stirs a proud people. There have been periods in our history when we have given way for a long time, but a new and formidable mood arises. [8]

Churchill’s interviewer interrupted: “A bellicose mood?” No, said Churchill:

A mood of “Thus far, and no farther.” It is only by the spirit of resistance that man has learnt to stand upright, and instead of walking on all fours to assume an erect posture. War is horrible, but slavery is worse, and you may be sure that the British people would rather go down fighting than live in servitude. [9]

By derivation Churchill would also say, as indeed his whole life proved, that if a leader can’t carry the people, then he goes: “…who cares for individual politicians, in or out of office?”

Munich in retrospect

Thanks to Messrs. Murray and McMenamin, we know much about Munich that was previously obscure. There were choices. Of course we were not there in 1938. We don’t know the mood of the people, or the politicians. Churchill never met the formidable Führer face to face. We will never know the outcome as Chamberlain described it, of “a quarrel in a far-away country between a people of whom we know nothing.” [10]

But we do know what happened in September 1939, and in May-June 1940. And we are obliged to consider Churchill’s position—which was, characteristically, far from baseless:

Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling one’s pulse and taking one’s temperature. I see that a speaker at the week-end said that this was a time when leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture. [11]

Endnotes

[1] Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm (London: Cassell, 1948), 214.

[2] Churchill, House of Commons, 12 November 1940, quoted in Richard M. Langworth, Churchill in His Own Words, hereinafter CIHOW (London: Ebury Press, 2012), 331.

[3] William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934-1941 (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2002, reprint), 142-43. Hjalmar Schacht, Account Settled (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1949), 124.

[4]  Churchill, The Gathering Storm, 154

[5] Churchill, House of Commons, 20 July 1936, CIHOW, 493.

[6] Andrew Roberts, The Holy Fox (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991) 112-22; John Charmley, Churchill: The End of Glory (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), 347. Roberts did add that by “great mass of public opinion,” Halifax “really meant his own opinion, together with that of whichever friends he had spoken to and newspapers he had read.”

[7] Winston S. Churchill, interview by Kingsley Martin, editor, The New Statesman, 7 January 1939, republished 7 January 2014.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Neville Chamberlain, broadcast of 27 September 1938, in Anthony Eden, Facing the Dictators (London: Cassell, 1962), 8.

[11] Churchill, House of Commons, 30 September 1941, CIHOW, 492.

Further reading

Richard M. Langworth, “Last Chance at Munich,” Chapter 5 in Winston Churchill and the Avoidable War: Could World War II have been Prevented?, 2015.

Justin D. Lyons, Review of Winston Churchill and the Avoidable War, Hillsdale College Churchill Project, December 2015.

Richard M. Langworth, “Robert Harris on Air Power, Munich, and Chamberlain’s ‘Finest Hour,'” Hillsdale College Churchill Project, October 2017.

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. The public had not had time to take in what was happening either abroad or at home, and there was no crowd about the Palace gates.

I was taken immediately to the King. His Majesty received me most graciously and bade me sit down. He looked at me searchingly and quizzically for some moments, and then said, “I suppose you don’t know why I have sent for you?” Adopting his mood, I replied, “Sir, I simply couldn’t imagine why.” He laughed and said, “I want to ask you to form a Government.” I said I would certainly do so. —Winston S. Churchill, “The Gathering Storm,” 1948

Churchill explained that his commission did not extend to creating a national government. But in the crash of events, and Germany’s invasion in the West, he believed a coalition was essential. He had always favored coalitions in grave times. Now he would call upon members of all parties to “stand by the country in the hour of peril.”

The Grand Coalition

The Labour Party leader Clement Attlee shortly arrived, with Arthur Greenwood. Would they join a coalition under his leadership? They would. Both entered the Cabinet, Attlee as Lord Privy Seal. Churchill received a similar commitment from Sir Archibald Sinclair, leader of the Liberal Party, who became Air Minister. Magnanimity prevailed. Defying criticism from Chamberlain friends-turned-enemies—he made Chamberlain Lord President of the Council.

It was a remarkable collection of talent and former critics. Chamberlain’s stalwart ally Lord Halifax remained Foreign Secretary. Anthony Eden went to the War Office, A.V. Alexander to the Admiralty. It was probably the easiest task Churchill would have for many months. He reflected that in the recent past, he had come “far more often into collision with the Conservative and National Governments than with the Labour and Liberal Oppositions.” Churchill himself remembered his chief past failure, over the Dardanelles. Then he had attempted to direct “a cardinal operation of war” without plenary authority. Not this time: “I assumed the office of Minister of Defence, without however attempting to define its scope and powers.” Churchill continued:

Thus, then, on the night of the 10th of May, at the outset of this mighty battle, I acquired the chief power in the State, which henceforth I wielded in ever-growing measure for five years and three months of world war, at the end of which time, all our enemies having surrendered unconditionally or being about to do so, I was immediately dismissed by the British electorate from all further conduct of their affairs.

Honor to them all, heroic figures from “all parties and all points of view,” who came together and, eventually, prevailed. On this night of the 10th of May, raise a glass to Old Excellence.

Comments

Any thoughts from readers will be posted here. An old friend, escaped from the Nazis to Belgium, got out in time to America, had a distinguished academic career, and  is still going strong…

I still vividly remember waking up on this day 80 years ago in Antwerp and hearing thunder but seeing no clouds. My mother told me that war had begun, and I felt joy about not having to go to school. Only later did I learn that this day was important for Mr. Churchill as well. A truly unforgettable day, almost a century ago. All through the years I always felt relief that things had gotten better than that day. For the first time now, I lack that confidence. -M.W.

My grandfather was a housemaster at Winchester College in 1940. Then as today, Winchester has no central dining. Boys eat in their boarding houses. One day in the summer term of 1940 Phil, a small boy in my grandfather’s house was walking back to his house, late for lunch. Phil loved my grandfather dearly, and told me this story at least twice. As he walked, he was behind two elderly housemasters. Both had fought in World War I and one had been a POW. Neither knew he was behind them. One said, “I really don’t see any choice. We are going to have to surrender. There’s no possibility of our surviving otherwise.” The second agreed. After lunch the worried Phil asked my grandfather: “Is it really true Sir? Are we going to have to surrender?” My grandfather didn’t pause: “Of course we are going to win!” Phil replied, “But Sir, how do you know?” My grandfather said: “Churchill says so, and that’s good enough for me!”  From that moment Phil never doubted that we would win the war. -R.B.

Whether invented by the President or his scriptwriters, some of Trump’s nicknames were very effective. “Low-energy Jeb” torpedoed Governor Bush‘s 2016 presidential campaign better than any debate gaffe. “Mini-Mike” didn’t help Mayor Bloomberg‘s in 2020. But except in extreme cases like Hitler, Churchill’s name-calling was more effective and less wounding. Especially when he rather admired certain qualities in opponents. (He called Lloyd George a “cad” in his youth, but ever after praised the “Welsh Wizard.”)

* Asterisks indicate nicknames not used in a public setting. Churchill, after all, had some discretion. But I leave them in for fun. 

Nicknames: Admiral Row-Back to Can’t Tellopolus

Admiral Row-Back: Admiral Sir John Roebuck (1862-1928), Royal Navy officer. Commanded the initial Anglo-French attempt to force the Dardanelles in 1915. Having nearly succeeded, he turned back after losses to mines, incurring Churchill’s permanent loathing and censure and an appropriate nickname.

*Block: Herbert H. Asquith (1852-1928), Liberal Prime Minister, 1908-16. He let Churchill dangle in the Dardanelles/Gallipoli debacle, which sent WSC packing as First Lord of the Admiralty. This was a private nickname between Churchill and his wife. It may refer to Asquith’s frequent role as a block to Churchill’s proposals.

Bloodthirsty Guttersnipe: Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), German Chancellor and Führer, 1933-45. First publicly declared in a broadcast after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. It wasn’t the first Churchillian jab, nor by any means the last.. There is no shortage of insulting nicknames in Hitler’s case; but this is as good an example as any. (See also “Corporal Schicklgrüber,” in comments below.)

Boneless Wonder: James Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937), Labour Prime Minister, 1924, 1929-35. A devastating comparison to a circus attraction, applied in 1931. Churchill was ridiculing Ramsay Mac’s lack of principle and wavering domestic policies. In private he considered MacDonald a servant of Crown and Parliament. But only in private.

Canting Bus Driver: Frank Pick (1878-1941), headed London Passenger Transport Board 1933-40. “Never let me see that-that-that canting bus driver again.” Churchill wrote this in red ink on a memorandum from Minister of Information Alfred Duff Cooper when Pick resigned.

*Can’t Tellopolus: Panagiotis Kannelopoulos (1902-1986), Minister of Defense, Greek exile government in Cairo, 1942-45. Churchill was impatient with his indecision about Greek resistance to the occupying Germans. Alexander Cadogan, Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, heard these “mutterings from Churchill’s bathroom, between the splashings and gurgles.”

Chattering Cad – Green-Eyed Radical

*Chattering Little Cad: David Lloyd George (1863-1945), Liberal Prime Minister 1916-22. Said in 1901, when Churchill was still a Conservative. After he switched to the Liberals in 1904, his attitude changed. He rarely spoke ill of Lloyd George afterward, despite many provocations. WSC’s wife regarded LG as treacherous. He duly refused to join the Churchill coalition in 1940.

*Coroner: Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940). Conservative Prime Minister, 1937-40. Originally coined by Brendan Bracken (also “Ironmonger” for Baldwin), this remained in the family lexicon. In 1961, Lady Diana Cooper introduced young Martin Gilbert to Randolph Churchill by saying “he hates the Coroner.” (A bit strong—he surely didn’t hate Chamberlain).

*Dull, Duller, Dulles: John Foster Dulles (1888-1959), President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, 1952-60. After Stalin’s death, Churchill argued for a “settlement” of the Cold War, but Dulles (and Eisenhower) were obdurate. “Ten years ago I could have dealt with him. Even as it is I have not been defeated by this bastard. I have been humiliated by my own decay.” —Churchill at the Bermuda Conference, December 1953.

Green-eyed Antipodean Radical: David Low (1891-1963), New Zealand cartoonist. Churchill had a certain affinity for the left-wing cartoonist whose attacks he admired. He called Low the greatest of modern cartoonists. There was mutual respect despite political differences, and Low drew a beautiful cartoon tribute on WSC’s 80th birthday.

Half-Naked Fakir – Llama

Half-Naked Fakir: Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948, Indian independence leader. The worst sobriquet attached to the Great Mahatma, when Churchill thought Gandhi an upperclass Brahman posing as a champion of the downtrodden. Yet they both nursed a private respect for each other and, in the end, were more forgiving. See “Welcome, Mr. Gandhi” herein.

Holy Fox: Edward Wood, 3rd Viscount Halifax (1881-1959, Foreign Minister, 1938-40, Ambassador to Washington, 1940-46. Verified by Halifax biographer Andrew Roberts, who writes: “It was a Churchill family nickname, of course a reference to his High Church beliefs as well as his love of hunting. And a certain amount of political foxiness….”

*Home Sweet Home: Alec Douglas-Home, Lord Home of the Hirsel (1903-1995), British Prime Minister 1963-64. Neville Chamberlain’s “eyes and ears” in Parliament, he always maintained that the Munich deal had saved Britain by giving it an extra year to prepare for war, ignoring the fact that it also gave Hitler an extra year, and he prepared far more rapidly. (His name was pronounced “Hume,” but that didn’t stop Churchill.)

*Llama: Charles de Gaulle ( 1890-1970 ), French General and President. Lord Moran wrote: “Was it true, [Lady Limerick] asked, that he had likened de Gaulle to a female llama who had been surprised in her bath? Winston pouted, smiled and shook his head. But his way of disavowing the remark convinced me that he was in fact responsible for this indiscretion…”

Limpet to Prince Palsy

Lion-hearted Limpet Leader: Clement Attlee (1883-1967), Labour Prime Minister 1945-51. Many disparaging cracks about Attlee (arriving in an “empty taxi”) are apocryphal. But this was an April 1951 jibe at Attlee and Labour MPs clinging to power. Churchill and the Conservatives turned them out in a general election the following October.

Minister of Disease: Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960), Labour Minister of Health 1945-51, founder of the National Health Service. One of the rougher nicknames, applied in the Commons, 1948. “…is not morbid hatred a form of mental disease, and indeed a highly infectious form?” Churchill asked. He also called Bevan a “squalid nuisance.”

Old Grey Tabby: Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930), Conservative Prime Ministers, 1902-05. After he succeeded Churchill at the Admiralty in 1915, WSC feared the “Old Grey Tabby” would dissolve the Royal Naval Division. (Balfour did resemble a tabby cat in old age, but Churchill continued to admire him, and memorialized him in Great Contemporaries.)

Pink Pansies: Harold Nicolson (1886-1968) and his friends. Member of Parliament, 1935-45. I am aware this violates P.C. decorum and will no doubt be added to Churchill’s “sins.” True, Nicolson was bisexual, but a) Churchill was emphatically not homophobic, and b), the reference (Parliament, late 1945) was to non-combative young Tory MPs.

Prince Palsy: Paul of Yugoslavia (1893-1976), Prince Regent of Yugoslavia, 1934-41. His palsied hand signed a treaty with Hitler. This  assured German occupation, the end of his Regency, and Churchill’s disdain. Exiled in Kenya, he appealed for refuge in Britain, but Churchill considered him a traitor and war criminal.

Scheming Prelate to Turnip

Scheming Prelate: Damaskinos Papandreou (1891-1949), Archbishop of Athens, 1945-49. Churchill, mediating the Greek civil war in late 1944, allegedly asked if he was “a man of God or a scheming Mediterranean prelate?” Assured that he was the latter, Churchill supposedly said, “Good, he’s just our man.” (Not verified)

Snub-nosed Radical: Liberal heckler, 1887. Aged only twelve, young Winston was attending a pantomime where he heard a man hissing a portrait of his father. He burst into tears, then turned on the perpetrator: “Stop that row, you snub-nosed radical!” This may be Churchill’s first political zinger.

Spurlos Versenkt (Sunk without a Trace): Sir Benjamin Smith (1879-1964), Labour Minister of Food, 1944-46. After he resigned from Parliament, Churchill searched “for the burly ‘and engaging form of the Rt. Hon. Gentleman. He has departed ‘spurlos versenkt,’ as the German expression says—sunk without leaving a trace behind.”

Turnip: Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), Conservative Prime Minister, 1925-29, 1935-37. Baldwin made Churchill Chancellor in 1925, but later kept him out of the Cabinet. After his final resignation, “S.B.” appeared in the House of Commons smoking room. Churchill quipped, “Well, the light is at last out of that old turnip.”

Useless Percy to Wuthering Height

*Useless Percy: Eustace Percy, First Baron of Newcastle (1887-1958). Board of Education President, 1924-29. At the Exchequer 1924-29, Churchill tried to lower the defense budget. Percy and Minister of Health Chamberlain  were opposed. “Neville is costing £2 millions more and Lord Useless Percy the same,” WSC wrote his wife on 30 September 1927.  “…these civil departments browse onwards like a horde of injurious locusts.”

Whipped Jackal: Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Italian Prime Minister, 1922-43, Duce of Fascism, 1943-45. Churchill praised him briefly before the war, but after joining Hitler he became a “whipped jackal… frisking up at the side of the German tiger with yelpings not only of appetite—that can be understood—but even of triumph!”

Wincing Marquess: Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne (1845-1927), House of Lords, 1886-1927. Churchill, 1909: “he claimed no right…to mince the Budget, [only] the right to wince when swallowing it. Well, that is a much more modest claim…. If his Party are satisfied with the Wincing Marquess, we have no reason to protest.”

*Wuthering Height: John Charles Walsham, 1st Baron Reith (1889-1971),  BBC Director General, 1923-38. The towering Reith was briefly in the wartime Coalition Cabinet. But he’d kept Churchill off the air in the 1930s, and no love was lost between them. WSC rejoiced to have seen “the last of that Wuthering Height” around 1940.

“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. 13, The Coming of War 1936-1939 (Hillsdale College Press, 2009), page 1117.

“We shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in”

A month later, Churchill wrote to his friend Lord Moyne, explaining why a proposed visit to Moyne in Antigua might be problematic. From Churchill by Himself, page 257, Gilbert page 1155:

We seem to be very near the bleak choice between War and Shame. My feeling is that we shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a little later on even more adverse terms than at present.

Coincidentally, the date on WSC’s letter to Lord Moyne was was September 11th.

Misquotes

It is often believed that Churchill addressed a similar remark to Neville Chamberlain directly after Munich. The venue usually cited is the House of Commons. But Churchill never so addressed anyone, in or out of Parliament.  William Manchester’s The Last Lion, vol. 2, which quotes the Moyne remark on page 334, goes on to state (364):

In almost any gathering [after Munich] it would have been indiscreet to remark… “Churchill says the government had to choose between war and shame. They chose shame. They will get war too.”

To end with a red herring, Churchill is sometimes credited in this context with: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” This is tracked to Benjamin Franklin. According to Bartlett’s, it was a common statement before the American Revolution, made as early as 1755. If Churchill ever used it (I cannot track that he did), he was quoting Franklin.

My friend Steve Hayward had the wit to paraphrase, in reaction to the arrival of Boris Johnson at 10 Downing Street, some comments about another incoming PM, eighty years ago next May. “Cambridge Cute,” says another friend of Steve’s good piece.

Speaking of Cambridge Cuties, I immediately thought of what Andrew Roberts described as “The Respectable Tendency,” the British establishment, in his great book, Eminent Churchilllians.  So I dug into the sources to find more of what they said back then about the new Prime Minister. (Lightly paraphrased.)

“Coup of the rabble…”

“Even whilst the new PM was still at Buckingham Palace kissing hands, the junior private secretary and Chamberlain’s PPS, Lord Dunglass [Alec Douglas-Home] joined Rab Butler and ‘Chips’ Channon at the Foreign Office. And there they drank in champagne the health of the ‘King over the Water’ (not King Leopold, but Mr. Chamberlain).”

“Rab said he thought that the good clean tradition of English politics, that of Pitt as opposed to Fox, had been sold to the greatest adventurer of modern political history…. The sudden coup of the rabble was a serious disaster and an unnecessary one. The ‘pass had been sold’ with a weak surrender to a half-breed American whose main support was that of inefficient but talkative people of a similar type.”

“Since the new PM came in, the House of Commons had stunk in the nostrils of the decent people. The kind of people surrounding him are the scum and the peak [bottom? -RML] came when Brendan [Bracken] was made a Privy Counsellor! For what services rendered heaven knows. The PM’s adventurism is suspect, and his promotion of those  in whom he detected the buccaneering spirit, doubly alarming.”

“A bright blue suit, cheap and sensational looking…”

“He has not put his own henchmen in the highest offices. That does not prevent his detractors from convincing themselves otherwise. Butler is one of a number who contend with the fact that they are serving in an administration led by the man they have spent the best part of a decade briefing against and cat-calling.”

“His appointment sent a cold chill down the spines of the staff at 10 Downing Street…. Our feelings were widely shared in the Cabinet Offices, the Treasury and throughout Whitehall. Seldom can a Prime Minister have taken office with the Establishment…so dubious of the choice and so prepared to find its doubts justified.”

“He sees no way of putting his ideas into practice at present and is not ashamed of admitting the fact. Lloyd George was afterwards offered the Ministry of Agriculture (for which the cheap press has always tipped him). He refused it because he thinks the country is in a hopeless position and he is generally despondent.”

Jock Colville: “I spent the day in a bright blue new suit from the Fifty-Shilling Tailors, cheap and sensational looking, which I felt was appropriate to the new Government. But of course Winston’s administration, with all its faults, has drive, and should be able to get things done….”

Retrospective

Thus spake the Respectable Tendency of new Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1940. Flash forward seventy-nine years. Nobody, of course, knows what Mr. Johnson will make of his honorable and ancient office. Friends of Britain must wish him well. What happens now is up to him. But opinion can change rapidly.

Back in 1940 Jock Colville soon shed his cheap blue suit. June 1940 found him in conservative pinstripes, an ardent admirer of his new Prime Minister. Correctly he surmised that the PM’s administration would “get things done.”

On getting things done today, refer to a thoughtful piece by John O’Sullivan on the now-nearly-complete Johnson Cabinet.

We report, you decide. And for historical perspective on the British establishment in days gone by, read Andrew Roberts’ book.

Churchill and Canada, 144 Years On

I thank Ron Cohen. And return his compliments. I thank him for his scholarship—especially his great Bibliography of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill, which is one of the eight or ten standard works on Winston Churchill. And for his prowess as bag man, helping me empty the bookshops of Hay-on-Wye, which he has just described to you.

In 1954, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent arrived in London, exhausted from a world tour. A frequent traveler, Sir Winston offered him advice: “Never stand when you can sit. Never sit when you can lie down. Never miss an opportunity to visit a washroom.” It falls on me to stand. But since I promised Ron not to take more than 3 1/2 hours, I’m sure I can make it.

Sir Winston lies at Bladon in English earth, “which in his finest hour he held inviolate.” He would enjoy the controversy he stirs today, on media he never dreamed of. He would revel in the assaults of his detractors, the ripostes of his defenders. The vision “of middle-aged gentlemen who are my political opponents being in a state of uproar and fury is really quite exhilarating to me,” he said. Yes, and the not so middle-aged, too.

I have five quick points to make. One of them is Churchill’s overriding message—I differ in this from some of my colleagues. Another is, Churchill’s encounters with Canada. They are many, and they are important. I’ll then describe what Canada meant to him. And I’ll say what the world thinks of him right now. Finally we’ll look at where he stands in the perspective of history: what is it about him that is most worth bringing to the attention of thoughtful people.

What is Churchill’s overriding message?

At this hour on New Year’s Eve 1941, the day after he spoke here, describing Britain as a chicken with an unwringable neck, Churchill was on a train hurtling past Niagara Falls. He was heading back to Washington, to finish telling the Americans what the war was like. You probably know what he said when a colleague urged him to approach the U.S. with caution and deference. “Oh! That is the way we talked to her while we were wooing her. Now that she is in the harem, we talk to her quite differently!”

The war had gone global, and Mr. Churchill was on top of his game. As the sweep second hand of “The Turnip,” his gold Breguet pocket watch, counted down the final moments of 1941, he called staff and reporters to the dining car. There, raising his glass, he made this toast: “Here’s to 1942. Here’s to a year of toil—a year of struggle and peril, and a long step forward toward victory. May we all come through safe and with honour.” That was a tough year. But came through we did.

I think this was his overriding message then. I think it is still his message today. No, there is no Third Reich, no Imperial Japan. But there are stateless enemies who seek our ruin. There is economic uncertainty. There are strains between old friends. What a time for Churchill’s strength and optimism. And there he is to encourage us: never despair, we will all come through safe and with honor.

* * *

How often he knew exactly what to say! It’s true he insisted that the people had the “lion heart,” that he had merely provided the roar; that he had always earned his living by his pen and his tongue. What did they expect? They came through that time in part because they were led by a professional writer. And today, 144 years since his birth, his words, statesmanship, optimism and courage still beckon to us. We are right to worry over current events. And to remember Churchill’s unswerving faith that all will come right.

I like what a Churchill speaker, the publisher William Rusher, said to us at a conference in Banff: “I know we have a tendency to be discouraged about how things are going,” Bill said, “although in our time, you know, they haven’t gone all that badly. The Marxist idea lies in ruins. Free market economics, which I wouldn’t have given you a plugged nickel for at the end of World War II, is now so popular that even China calls its policy ‘Market Socialism,’ whatever that is. These are big victories. There is still much that is worrisome. But Churchill, if he were here, would encourage us: Never despair. Never give in.” Good advice. And just look–despite all the kerfuffle, we even have new North American trade deal!

Encounters with Canada

Our theme is the perspective of history, and since we are where we are, let’s start with the perspective of Canada—for much has emerged about Churchill and what he called “the linchpin of the English-speaking world.”

David Dilks’s 2005 book The Great Dominion is a signal legacy. Churchill loved Canada, David wrote. “He never returned to India after 1899, or to South Africa after the Boer War. He never visited Australia, New Zealand, British Southeast Asia, the British Pacific. Half-American though he was, he never considered the Great Dominion an appendix to the United States, nor regarded Canadians as decaffeinated Americans.”

In early 1901 he was lecturing in Manitoba, which astonished him. “At the back of the town,” he wrote his mother, “there is a wheat field 980 miles long and 230 broad…a visit here is most exhilarating.” It was there that he heard Queen Victoria had died. He was struck by the shared sense of loss: “The news reached us at Winnipeg,” he wrote, “and this city far away among the snows, 1400 miles from any town of importance, began to hang its head and hoist half-masted flags.”

* * *

On his next visit in 1929 he contemplated moving here. “Darling, I am greatly attracted to this country,” he wrote his wife. “Immense developments are going forward….I have made up my mind that if Neville Chamberlain is made leader of the Conservative Party or anyone else of that kind, I clear out of politics and see if I cannot make you and the kittens a little more comfortable before I die. Only one goal still attracts me, and if that were barred I should quit the dreary field for pastures new….But the time for decision is not yet.”

Who knows what would have happened? Would he have become a Vancouver timber mogul, an Edmonton oil baron, or got into Parliament? Probably the latter. After all, as he once told the U.S. Congress, if things had been different he might have got there on his own. It’s probably just as well, I think we all agree, that he didn’t emigrate—Neville or no Neville.

What did Canada mean to Churchill?

He visited Canada again on his 1932 lecture tour, four times during the war, twice in the Fifties—nine times in all. Fifty-four years after his first visit he arrived for his last. “I love coming,” he told reporters. “Canada is the master link in Anglo-American unity, apart from all her other glories.” And he added, in French—“I think of Canada as being almost my own country.”

He respected Canada’s contributions to liberty. “We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies,” he told Canadians in 1941, “because we are made of sugar candy.” They didn’t have to be told. Today we see in Canada tolerance, equality, the golden rule. Eighty years ago there was a somewhat limited tolerance for certain persons, and it led to playing a huge part in the wars that made us what we are today.

When World War I ended 100 years ago last month, Canada had suffered 263,000 casualties, eight times the number per capita of the USA. When World War II began, Canada had 10,000 soldiers and ten Bren guns. By the end of the war there were a million men in uniform, and 25,000 enlisted women. 107,000 were killed or wounded, again more per capita than the United States.

* * *

At dinner here at Laurier House after his 1941 speech to Parliament, Prime Minister Mackenzie King said, “Canada plans to make an immediate gift to you of one billion dollars.” Churchill, accustomed to speaking in English terms of “a thousand million,” wasn’t sure he’d heard right. He asked King to repeat himself. “A billion dollars,” Mr. King said. Then he added two billion in cash and interest-free loans. That is $57 billion in today’s money—twice the size of your current defense budget. Churchill was floored.

From the start of the war, Canadian food supplies and convoys kept Britain from starving. Toward the end, Canadian miners supplied ingredients for “Tube Alloys,” the atomic bomb. Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee scarcely knew about it. “Mackenzie King knew everything about it, through Minister of Munitions C.D. Howe, who held a seat on the project’s board.

Nor was World War II the end of Canada’s contributions. Canadians fought and died in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan. A Canadian general directed the NATO effort in Libya. No peacekeeping force in the past fifty years was without Canadians.

David Dilks brought all this out masterfully in his book. “That is what Canada has done,” he said—“in NATO, the UN, the Commonwealth and in peace-keeping operations. My audience contains many distinguished Canadians. I hope they will allow me to say what is felt by countless people in Britain and America, but too seldom expressed: Thank you a thousand times.”

Continued in Part 2…

“No Cutlet Uncooked”

He lies at Bladon in English earth, “which in his finest hour he held inviolate.” He would enjoy the controversy he still stirs today, in media he never dreamed of. And he would revel in the assaults of his detractors, the ripostes of his defenders. The vision “of middle-aged gentlemen who are my political opponents being in a state of uproar and fury is really quite exhilarating to me,” he said in 1952. (Yes, and the not so middle-aged, too.) Most of all, Winston Churchill would love this noble book. It peers into every aspect of a career six decades long, and not, as he once quipped, “entirely without incident.”

In 1960 General Lord Ismay, the devoted “Pug,” said an objective biography could not be written for fifty years. Andrew Roberts weighs in at year fifty-eight. The delay paid off. Roberts was able to access sources only recently available. Not least of these are The Churchill Documents—invaluable papers in print through World War II. Roberts researched the Royal Archives at Windsor, the private papers of Churchill’s family. He quotes diarists like Ivan Maisky, Stalin’s ambassador to Britain. With his gift for separating wheat from chaff, this accomplished historian boils the saga down to digestible size.

* * *

Full disclosure: This writer labored for over a year as one of Roberts’ readers, sifting every word of his manuscript. Our emails, as he kindly notes, reached four figures. Together with the tenacious Paul Courtenay, we tackled every question. We ran down facts and factoids, arguing out every conclusion. With Hillsdale’s help, we checked unpublished parts of Sir Martin Gilbert’s “wodges.”  These are documents, clippings and letters, compiled by Sir Martin, for almost every day of Churchill’s life.

Mr. Roberts, to quote his subject, “left no cutlet uncooked.” This is the first biography I’ve proofed since Manchester’s The Last Lion, so I am perhaps qualified to compare. No one will ever reach the lyrical heights of Horatius at the Gate, like Manchester did. Roberts is far more illuminating, accurate and up to date. Walking with Destiny is a masterpiece—the finest single Churchill volume you can hope to read. To paraphrase Simon Schama on Gilbert’s volumes, it is a “Churchilliad,” and Andrew Roberts is its Bard.

Seeing the Whole Man

Roberts captures the essence of his subject, beginning with courage. How many 40-year-olds, sacked from their job, go off to fight in a world war? “You must not let this fret you in the least,” Churchill nonchalantly assured his wife. Fret she did: “…you seem to me as far away as the stars, lost among a million khaki figures.” He left the trenches in 1916, Roberts notes. “He had written over 100 letters to her, which allows us to peer into his psychology better than at any other period of his life.”

Clementine Churchill never begrudged his predilections, from battle to politics, where somehow he managed to remain friends with opponents. He even socialized with them, in a club he invented for the purpose: “With Churchill there was very often a political angle to friendship. An extraordinarily large contingent of Other Club members came together to help make Churchill prime minister in several different ways, and then to serve in his wartime Government…. Churchill had built something that by 1940 was to make a very real contribution…”

The great man’s courage vied with his emotion, Roberts writes: “Lady Diana Cooper left a charming account of [a wartime] weekend at Ditchley…. ‘We had two lovely films after dinner…. Winston managed to cry through all of them, including the comedy.’ She told him that night that the greatest thing he had done was to give the British people courage. ‘I never gave them courage,’ he replied. ‘I was able to focus theirs.’” Exactly.

Canards fall like matchsticks…

 … as Roberts methodically writes them off. It was not true, as Lord Mountbatten said, that young Winston left Cuba in 1895 with a liking for siestas and cigars. He already smoked cigars, did not start his afternoon nap until 1914. Regarding his overblown spells of the blues: “Churchill was not a depressive at all, let alone a manic one.” More likely he was a hypochondriac, “a man who took his own temperature daily and believed he had a sensitive cuticle.” His references to his “Black Dog” were part of “the sheer exaggeration to which he was prone. (Amateur diagnoses of him being bipolar can be even more easily dismissed.)”

At Omdurman in 1898, “within shot of an advancing army,” Churchill exclaimed, “Where will you beat this!” Such outbursts gained him “the undeserved reputation for being a lover of war, even though he was at constant pains to point out that the warfare he was describing was a world away from the industrialized horrors of the First World War.” His exuberance as WW1 began is frequently excoriated. “But it was the exuberance of someone who had not wanted the war to break out, had offered Germany the most generous and comprehensive plan to prevent it, had nonetheless planned meticulously what his department would do if it did, and who commanded the weapon that he believed could end it.”

* * *

Another myth is that Churchill always overemphasized the interests of whichever department he headed. Yet in the 1920s, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he opposed deeper naval cuts than he’d budgeted: “Any other realistic alternative chancellor—Neville or Austen Chamberlain and certainly any Labour or Liberal one—would have been much tougher on the Admiralty…Overall, the naval budget increased during Churchill’s chancellorship.” (Italics mine.)

In World War II, Roberts explodes the myth that Churchill opposed a Second Front: “The very phrase Second Front was itself a term of Soviet propaganda, because Britain had already been fighting Germany on at least five fronts before the Soviets were forced by invasion to drop their pro-German neutrality; in Northern France, the air, the Atlantic, North Africa and the Mediterranean.”

“I want to see a great shining India…”

On India Churchill was partly influenced by diehards, like Beverley Nichols, author of Verdict on India. “It certainly shows the Hindu in his true character and the sorry plight to which we have reduced ourselves by losing confidence in our mission,” Churchill reported to Clementine.

But then his prescience surfaced: “Reading about India has depressed me for I see such ugly storms looming up…. still more about what will happen if [Britain’s connection] is suddenly broken. Meanwhile we are holding on to this vast Empire, from which we get nothing, amid the increasing abuse and criticism of the world, and our own people, and increasing hatred of the Indian population, who receive constant and deadly propaganda to which we can make no reply.” (And this long before the Internet!) Uniquely, Churchill saw and predicted India’s division: “…only a Muslim-majority state in the northern part of the Indian sub-continent would protect Muslim minority rights if and when the British left.”

* * *

He was right about that—and consistent. In July 1944 he told Sir Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar, India’s representative on the War Cabinet: “It was only thanks to the beneficence and wisdom of British rule in India, free from any hint of war for a longer period than almost any other country in the world, [that India produced] this vast and improvident efflorescence of humanity…. Your people must practise birth control.” Then he added (and we will never see this quoted by his Indian haters) that the old idea that the Indian was in any way inferior to the white man must go. Specifically he said: “We must all be pals together. I want to see a great shining India, of which we can be as proud as we are of a great Canada or a great Australia.” ** There is the true Winston Churchill.

** Duff Hart-Davis, ed., King’s Counsellor: Abdication and War: the Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006), 173.

Roberts Insights

Churchill famously “ratted” on the Conservatives over Free Trade—but was that his only objection? No, says Roberts: “Years later Churchill admitted that such was his reaction against the party at the time, over the harsh treatment of the defeated Boers, Army reform and the way the 1900 election victory was being exploited, that ‘when the Protection issue was raised I was already disposed to view all their actions in the most critical light.’ Churchill was spoiling for a fight with his own party.” This is fresh, excellent analysis. I have never heard his change of parties so comprehensively explained.

Had the 9th Duke of Marlborough died without an heir in 1934, Churchill would have become Duke, losing his Commons seat and any chance at the premiership, Roberts notes wryly: “He could survive a school stabbing, a 30-foot-fall, pneumonia, [nearly drowning in] a Swiss lake, Cuban bullets, Pathan tribesmen, Dervish spears, Boer artillery and sentries, tsetse flies, a Bristol suffragette, plane crashes, German high explosive shells and snipers, and latterly a New York motorist, but such was the British constitution that he also required the fecundity of a duke and duchess to allow him to be in the right place to save Britain in 1940.”

* * *

Saved by fecundity, he went on to warn the country in the 1930s. “It was a fascinating dichotomy,” Roberts writes, “that the leading appeasers had not seen action in the Great War…. Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, John Simon, Samuel Hoare, Kingsley Wood, Rab Butler and Lord Halifax did not serve in the front line or see death up close.” But the anti-appeasers, “Churchill, Anthony Eden MC, Harold Macmillan MC, Alfred Duff Cooper DSO, Roger Keyes KCB, DSO, Edward Spears MC and George Lloyd DSO all had.”

Another deft comparison: In India and the Sudan, young Winston had encountered Islamic fundamentalism, “a form of religious fanaticism that in many key features was not unlike the Nazism that he was to encounter forty years later. None of the three prime ministers of the 1930s—Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain—had seen true fanaticism in their personal lives, and they were slow to discern it in Nazi Germany. [Churchill] had fought against it in his youth and recognized its salient features earlier than anyone else.”

“Never Surrender”

Churchill’s attitude towards Russia is often warped by his critics. Roberts sorts it out. “He started with profound enmity of the Bolsheviks, then by the late 1930s advocated an alliance with them. Then in 1939-40 he supported Finland in its war against them, then in 1941 he allied Britain with them overnight. In 1946 he denounced them, only in the 1950s to seek détente with them.” His view of Russia changed five times. “Yet the explanation was not in any inherent lack of consistency, as is often alleged, but what was in the ‘historic life-interests’ of Britain.”

Deftly Roberts explains the peace chatter of late May 1940. With Britain’s back to the wall, Lord Halifax clamored for an armistice brokered by Mussolini. Halifax was “the only one who understood,” nodded French Premier Reynaud’s Anglophobic aide Lt-Col. Paul de Villelume. Churchill was “prisoner of the swashbuckling attitude he always takes in front of his ministers.”

Halifax first thought Churchill welcomed a deal which preserved Britain’s independence. Then he protested that the PM believed in nothing save a fight to the finish. “This was in fact always Churchill’s line,” Roberts explains. It’s quite clear “if all five days’ discussions are read in context.”

* * *

Six weeks before D-Day Churchill was cautious. “We can now say, not only with hope but with reason, that we shall reach the end of our journey in good order. [The] tragedy will not come to pass. When the signal is given, the whole circle of avenging nations will hurl themselves upon the foe.”

Roberts juxtaposes two reactions. “This was the speech of an old man,” said the King’s private secretary. “Someone who clearly did not think so was Anne Frank, the Jewish Dutch teenager, who wrote in her diary from her secret attic in Amsterdam, ‘A speech by our beloved Winston Churchill is quite perfect.’”

General Sir Alan Brooke’s late night fuming about Churchill is often held to show the PM’s feet of clay—and Lord knows he had them. But Roberts shows us a different Brooke. Take when the boss arrives in France after D-Day. “I knew that he longed to get into the most exposed position possible. I honestly believe that he would really have liked to be killed on the front at this moment of success. He [had said] the way to die is to pass out fighting when your blood is up and you feel nothing.” Part of Churchill’s admiration for Admiral Nelson, Roberts suggests, “was for his glorious death at the moment of victory.”

Readers: Buy This Book

Space is running out and I haven’t told you the half of it. There are 78 illustrations, most of them unique even to jaded Churchillians. Roberts did his best to avoid “old chestnuts.” There are sixteen pages of clear maps. The 1950s Reader’s Union map of Churchill’s wartime journeys is worked nicely into the endpapers. The book weighs 3 1/2 pounds—don’t drop it on your foot. The page stock is thin, but well chosen to minimize bleed-through. The bibliography, attesting to its thoroughness, runs to 23 pages, the author’s notes to 37, the index to 60. Amazon offers an attractive 40% discount and a Kindle version. This is little to pay for the education you’ll receive.

Andrew Roberts has been book-touring Britain (as he soon will be in North America). His has encouraging news for all who “labor in the vineyard,” as dear Martin Gilbert always described it. “There’s an explosion of love of Churchill among ordinary people away from the London metropolitan bubble,” Roberts writes. “It’s like 1940 in terms of his popularity, whenever you get away from the smug elites. We sell out constantly. Very heartening. Sometimes one can feel down over the Internet attacks and the statue smearings. But out in rural England he’s as much loved as ever. Our life’s work has borne fruit.”

Years ago the Columbia historian reviewed, for The New Republic, Martin Gilbert‘s official biography Volume VI, Finest Hour 1939-1941. It was, incidentally a fine tribute to Sir Martin, whose epic biography Professor Schama christened “The Churchilliad.”

What we should consider right now, though, are Schama’s evergreen words about Churchill. Martin Gilbert’s volume VI reaches its apogee in May 1940—the very time commemorated by the movie Darkest Hour. The success of Darkest Hour is, ironically, the occasion of today’s outburst of lies and calumny.

Schama on Churchill’s Leadership

Schama identifies three components of Churchill’s leadership. The first is “staggeringly and indefatigably hard work. Churchill was sixty-five when he became prime minister, but his hours and his devotion to detail left his bright young assistants dropping in their tracks.”

The second component is Churchill’s impressive grasp of military strategy. Schama wrote: “More than any of the other war leaders, and certainly more than either Stalin or the warlords in Berlin and Rome, Churchill was in his own right a great commander. This is not to say that he did not commit blunders. …. But he had an unerring nose for fine commanders, and he stuck by them even when they were drawing flack from their staff.”

The third component, Schama continued, is the most remembered:  “the passion and the dignity of his rhetoric.” Churchill’s speeches, he wrote, “broke the crust of the British class system and brought together those divided by accent, manners, education and fortune….

He played on his oratory like some mighty brass instrument, muting and swelling as occasion demanded. When he addressed the French, “Francais, c’est moi, Churchill qui vous parle,” he conscripted the ghost of Napoleon exhorting his troops against the Prussians, but was tactful enough not to mention that the occasion was Waterloo. At least one of his listeners thought, “every word was like a transfusion of drops of blood.”

Moral clarity

Professor Schama notes that those speeches were not just the product of “technical facility.” Churchill made his listeners brave because “his own moral clarity led him to attribute the best possible motives to his compatriots. Thus he associated them with his own resoluteness.” And thus Churchill’s words to his outer cabinet on 28 May 1940: “If this island story of ours is to end, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.”

Churchill’s rhetorical quality was the one, Schama wrote, upon which all the rest depended:

He was not wartless—but his warts were just that, imperfections on the face of virtue. Winston Churchill emerges as a generous man, even to a fault. He despised vindictiveness and stood loyally by some who did not always deserve his kindness. He showed exceptional tenderness to Neville Chamberlain, and through the long period of his cancer never neglected to brief Chamberlain on every piece of business. When Chamberlain died in November 1940, Churchill cried at his bier, and reserved one of his most moving speeches for the memorial service. All this was transparently sincere and deeply felt.

Schama then reflects on the “historical miracle” that brought the western democracies two leaders—Roosevelt the other—”who inspired not only respect but love….

None of this adds up to a definitive answer as to why Britain survived. There are more impersonal reasons to be found in this book, and in others. … There are inimitable stiff upper lips all over the place, the stiffest of all belonging to the butler of the Reform Club who answered the phone the night that Pall Mall was put to the torch and responded to a request for information with a Jeevesian “The Club is burning, sir.”

“Like a great granite cliff…”

Nothing, however, stood out more clearly than Churchill’s own part and role. Yes, he did wonder—at times—if it all would be too late. Would Britain survive at all against the “monstrous tyranny”? But in the end Churchill personified, and taught his countrymen to personify, courage. In a note intended for his war memoirs, unpublished until Martin Gilbert’s Volume VI, Churchill wrote: “Everyone realised how near death and ruin we stood. Not only individual death which is the universal experience, but incomparably more commanding the life of Britain, her message and her glory.”

Professor Schama concluded:

The terror of imminent extinction flickers intermittently through Martin Gilbert’s crowded narrative. But whenever it begins to rise with the tempo of accumulating disasters, Churchill’s presence, too, rises above the panic, like a great granite cliff. I suppose that is what our parents felt and what sustained them in the nightmare of 1940. This is a rare thing then. The subject of a vast biography is enhanced rather than diminished with every page and every document. The only somber reflection on putting it down is the certainty that we shall not look upon his like again.

* * *

I’m asked occasionally why I spend so much time defending Churchill’s good name. Why bother with  perfervid seat-of-the-pants falsehoods from people who simply haven’t done their homework? There are many legitimate historian-critics—Robert Rhodes James, Paul Addison, John Charmley, W.H. Thompson, David Reynolds—who accompanied their texts with solid research. Their arguments are worth the attention of thoughtful people. But there is a difference between honest critics and dishonest bushwhackers. That’s why.

Politics of 1940

Their will was resolute and remorseless, and as it proved unconquerable. It fell to me to express it, and if I found the right words you must remember that I have always earned my living by my pen and by my tongue. It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.

What if?

Oldman’s portrayal

Tears came into his eyes as he answered gravely: “God alone knows how great it is. I hope that it is not too late. I am very much afraid that it is. We can only do our best.” As he turned away he muttered something—to himself. Then he set his jaw and with a look of determination, mastering all emotion, he began to climb the stairs of the Admiralty. It was the greatest privilege of my life to have shared those few moments with him.

Setting a mark

The Hillsdale College Churchill Project has published two articles on Brendan Bracken, Churchill’s loyal ally and friend for four decades. The first begins with a memoir by the late Ron Robbins, a Canadian journalist who early on covered the House of Commons, where he met Bracken. The postscript is by me, followed by reviews of the two Bracken books by George Gale and A.J.P. Taylor.  A second feature—Bracken’s defense of Churchill’s frequent visits to war fronts—is also published.

Excerpts follow. For the full articles click on “Great Contemporaries:  Brendan Bracken” and “Necessary Risk: Churchill at the Front.”

Bracken Observed

There was no more enigmatic figure in Churchill’s life than Brendan Bracken, who cloaked his birth and upbringing with mystery while hinting broadly that he was the great man’s illegitimate son. Close friendship, not errant fatherhood, encompassed their relationship. But Churchill, with characteristic impishness, apparently never gave the direct lie to Bracken’s implied claim. This annoyed Churchill’s wife and peeved his son, Randolph, who spoke satirically of  “my brother, the bastard.” To quell the noisome rumor Churchill quipped: “I have looked the matter up, but the dates don’t coincide.”

By the time I encountered him, he was a formidable figure in corridors of power and London financial circles. The Labour Party came to power in July 1945. Bracken’s arch opponent was the Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan, a fiery Welshman. Bevan was steering the National Health Bill, the first large-scale national heath service, through morning committee meetings. I wrote “running reports.” A copy boy would come in every five minutes or so, collect what I had written, and phone it to the agency.

* * *

Bracken would thrust at Bevan, jolting him in a tough fight over every clause in the Bill. Bracken always attacked in time to catch new editions of the evening papers. This ensured him headlines, especially in the Evening Standard, owned by Lord Beaverbrook, an intimate friend of his and Churchill’s.

One morning as I hurried to the committee, Bracken caught up with me and complimented me on my coverage. No journalist worth his salt likes to feel exploited, particularly by a politician. So I said: “You have a great knack of talking in headlines just in time to catch every edition.” He roared with laughter and produced a pocket diary. He flaunted a page on which he had written the edition times of all the London papers. Smiling ruefully, I said: “I didn’t imagine that you were relying solely on chance.” “No,” he replied, “it’s a trick I learned early on from Churchill.”

Bracken died of cancer in 1958 at the age of 57. Churchill reacted sorrowfully to the news of his death. Churchill mourned for him with a father’s grief. —Ron Cynewulf Robbins

Bracken postscript

We have a memorable glimpse of Brendan Bracken on 11 May 1940, Churchill’s first full day in office. One of the first axes fell on Chamberlain’s toady Sir Horace Wilson, a civil servant promoted far above his station. He was an arch appeaser, both indirectly (as an adviser) and directly (as an emissary to Hitler).

With his usual courtesy, Churchill told Wilson he would obliged if Sir Horace left Ten Downing Street by 1pm. Wilson characteristically took this as a “negotiable demand” and toddled off to lunch. Returning, he found Bracken and Randolph Churchill seated on his office sofa, smoking huge cigars and glaring at him. They exchanged no words. Wilson turned and fled. Later he sent for his effects. He never appeared at Number Ten again.

During the war, Bracken enabled Evelyn Waugh to obtain leave so that he could write Brideshead Revisited. Waugh unkindly wrote Bracken into the story as Rex Motram, a boorish, money-grubbing exploiter of the colonies. That was typical of Waugh, but undeserved. As Lord Beaverbrook said: “To know Bracken was to like him; those who didn’t know him did not like him.”

Bracken in biography

The Bracken biographies may be viewed in similar light. (Click here and scroll to “Further reading.”) Boyle’s Poor Dear Brendan is the more showy and brash, Lysaght’s Brendan Bracken the deeper and more revealing. “Above all,” wrote Charles Lysaght,

Bracken was great fun. He found appropriate names for everyone. Baldwin was “the ironmonger,” Neville Chamberlain“the coroner.” Eden was “Robert Taylor,” or “the film star at the Foreign Office.” He described Harrow, Churchill’s old school, as “that bloody old Borstal of yours.” Only Churchill himself was exempt from Bracken’s darts. His description of Aneurin Bevan, enjoying Beaverbrook’s champagne, is of classic quality: “You Bollinger Bolshevik, you ritzy Robespierre, you lounge-lizard Lenin! Look at you swilling Max’s champagne and calling yourself a socialist.” Bevan listened to this tirade with delight.

After the war Bracken seemed to burn out like a fallen meteor, contemplating a future with, alas, all too accurate a vision. He said of Keynes: “He will be best remembered as the man who made inflation respectable.” He said of himself: “I shall die young and be forgotten.” History will not forget him. —RML

Necessary risk: Bracken’s defense

During World War II, Churchill’s frequent excursions to various fronts caused critics to complain that he was taking unnecessary risk. Criticism mounted when Churchill hied to France only six days after D-Day.  He revisited the front several times through March 1945.

Captain Alec Stratford Cunningham-Reid DFC (1895-1977) was a distinguished flying ace in World War I. In 1922-45 he served periodically as a Conservative Member of Parliament. Peppery and contentious, he engaged in numerous arguments, which in 1943 resulted in fisticuffs with another MP. Both apologized the next day, but in America the Los Angeles Times headlined, “England Grins as Members of Commons Trade Punches.”

Churchill went to France in mid-June 1944. Cunningham-Reid complained: “The Prime Minister should not risk his life unnecessarily…. Was there ever such a good target as the one presented by our not inconspicuous Prime Minister perched up high on a Jeep? Nobody could have mistaken or missed that massive figure, complete with cigar to identify him…. Subsequently, the Prime Minister, General Montgomery, Field-Marshal Smuts, General Sir Alan Brooke, and, in all probability, the Supreme Commander [Eisenhower] and other key men got into a huddle…. The Minister of Information will, no doubt, correct me if that is not so.”

* * *

The Minister of Information was Brendan Bracken, who did indeed respond. In a brilliant few minutes, Bracken delivered a superb defense of Churchill’s visits to the front. Because it has not been published, even in The Churchill Documents, we thought it worth bringing to the attention of readers. Here is an extract:

I think it is a good thing for prime ministers that they should go into the front line and see the troops, and the soldiers, who matter most, like to see them. I daresay some hon. Members of this House remember that, in the last war, some suggestions were made by timid French Ministers to M. Clemenceau that, owing to the Germans having a big gun that shelled Paris, they should leave that city for a safer place. They discovered for the first time that the old Tiger was amenable. He said, “Yes, let the Government leave Paris. Let it go to the front.” It was a very sound piece of advice. If men like Clemenceau lived in this generation, France would not be in its present predicament.

Click here for Bracken’s complete speech.

“Churchill’s Secret“: good film portrayal of how Bracken and two other Press Barons dekated the news about Churchill’s 1953 stroke.

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

These volumes comprise “every important document of any kind that concerns Churchill.” The present volume sets the size record. Fateful Questions is 2,752 pages long, representing an average of more than eleven pages per day. Yet at $60, it is a tremendous bargain. 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.

Questions: Science

A criticism frequently leveled at Churchill is that he was so fixed on defeating Hitler that he never looked ahead—to the problems of the peace as well as the likelihood of a powerful, proselytizing Soviet Union. Proof that Churchill recognized the Soviet danger is well documented in this book; he also looked toward the years of peace, and the potential of science for good or ill. (Professor A.V. Hill, who married a sister of John Maynard Keynes, was Independent MP for Cambridge University, 1940-45.)

30 October 1943. Winston S. Churchill to Professor A. V. Hill. (Churchill papers, 20/94).

Dear Professor Hill, I am very glad to have the opportunity to send through you my greetings and good wishes to Indian men of science and especially to the six Indian Fellows of the Royal Society, of which I am honoured to be myself a Fellow.

It is the great tragedy of our time that the fruits of science should by a monstrous perversion have been turned on so vast a scale to evil ends. But that is no fault of science. Science has given to this generation the means of unlimited disaster or of unlimited progress. When this war is won we shall have averted disaster. There will remain the greater task of directing knowledge lastingly towards the purposes of peace and human good. In this task the scientists of the world, united by the bond of a single purpose which overrides all bounds of race and language, can play a leading and inspiring part.

Questions: Recrimination vs. Magnanimity

Churchill famously deplored blaming British and French leaders for mistakes in the years leading up to the Second World War: “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present,” he declared after France fell in June 1940,“we shall find that we have lost the future.” He made good that magnanimous philosophy on many occasions—as these excerpts suggest, concerning Prime Minister Chamberlain and French General Georges. (Brendan Bracken was Minister of Information.)

4 October 1945. Winston S. Churchill to Brendan Bracken: Prime Minister’s Personal Minute M.638/3  (Churchill papers, 20/104)

In the film “The Nazis Strike” I must ask that the section showing Mr. Chamberlain’s arrival at Heston Airfield after Munich, and also the shot of his going fishing with a reference to the “tired old man of Munich” should be cut out, otherwise I could not be associated with the series. The story would run quite well from the signature at Munich to the meeting in Birmingham where Mr. Chamberlain made his declaration that we would support Poland, &c.

*****

19 October 1943. Winston S. Churchill to Alfred Duff Cooper: excerpt.  (Churchill papers, 20/94)

Personal and Secret: With regard to General Georges. In my opinion he is a very fine, honourable Frenchman. For him I feel a sentiment of friendship which started to grow when we made our tour of the Rhine front together a month before the War. I do not think he was to blame for the catastrophe, except that he ought to have been very much stronger in demanding the retirement of Gamelin at the outbreak of war. Much of his strength and energy was expended in opposing Gamelin, but the inherent rottenness of the French fighting machine and Government would have denied victory to any General.

Moreover, Georges is crippled from wounds received both in the late War and the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia. I do not forget, though this is a point which should not be mentioned to the French, that when Petain and Weygand at Briand in May 1940 were clamouring for our last reserves and resources, including the last Fighter Squadrons, well knowing that the battle was lost and that they meant to give in, it was Georges who informed our Military Liaison Officer that the French Government would ask for an armistice and that we should take our steps accordingly.

Questions: The Second Front

The greatest Anglo-American-Soviet strategy questions were over how much to throttle back the campaign in Italy (which had begun in September 1943) in support of “Operation Overlord,” the invasion of France, which all three allies agreed was the most direct route to Berlin and must go forward in 1944. Though this subject dominates our volume, these documents frame the debate. Among other things, they  illustrate that Churchill was not the only British leader who fumed over lost opportunities in Italy.

25 October 1943. General Sir Alan Brooke: diary. (“War Diaries, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke,” page 56)

It is becoming more and more evident that our operations in Italy are coming to a standstill and that owing to lack of resources we shall not only come to a standstill, but also find ourselves in a very dangerous position unless the Russians go on from one success to another. Our build up in Italy is much slower than the German, and far slower than I had expected. We shall have an almighty row with the Americans who have put us in this position with their insistence to abandon the Mediterranean operations for the very problematical cross Channel operations. We are now beginning to see the full beauty of the Marshall strategy! It is quite heartbreaking when we see what we might have done this year if our strategy had not been distorted by the Americans.

*****

26 October 1943. Lord Moran: diary. (“Winston Churchill, the Struggle for Survival,” pages 130–31)

The PM is already beginning to have his own doubts and hesitations….His face was glum, his jaw set, misgivings filled his mind. “Stalin seems obsessed by this bloody Second Front,” he muttered angrily. “I can be obstinate too.” He jumped out of bed and began pacing up and down. “Damn the fellow,” he said under his breath. And then he rang for a secretary. When he began dictating a telegram to the Foreign Secretary I got up to leave the room. “No, Charles, don’t go. This,” grumbled the PM, “is what comes of a lawyer’s agreement to attack on a fixed date without regard to the ever-changing fortunes of war.”

Alex’s [Field Marshal Alexander] fears had upset the PM. His mind was now made up. He turned to the secretary, who held her pencil ready. “I will not allow the great and fruitful campaign in Italy to be cast away and end in a frightful disaster, for the sake of crossing the Channel in May. The battle must be nourished and fought out until it is won. Molotov must be warned,” the PM continued striding to the door and back, “that the assurances I gave to Stalin about ‘Overlord’ in May are subject to the exigencies of the battle in Italy. Eisenhower and Alex must have what they need to win the battle, no matter what effect is produced on subsequent operations. Stalin ought to be told bluntly that ‘Overlord’ might have to be postponed.”

*****

29 October 1943. Winston S. Churchill to Anthony Eden. Prime Minister’s Personal Telegram T.1764/3 (Churchill papers, 20/122)

Most Immediate. Most Secret and Personal. There is of course no question of abandoning “Overlord” which will remain our principal operation for 1944. The retention of landing-craft in the Mediterranean in order not to lose the battle of Rome may cause a slight delay, perhaps till July, as the smaller class of landing-craft cannot cross the Bay of Biscay in the winter months and would have to make the passage in the Spring. The delay would however mean that the blow when struck would be with somewhat heavier forces, and also that the full bombing effort on Germany would not be damped down so soon. We are also ready at any time to push across and profit by a German collapse. These arguments may be of use to you in discussion.

 *****

30 November 1943. Winston S. Churchill and Josef Stalin: notes of a conversation, Soviet Embassy, Teheran (Cabinet papers, 120/113)

Most Secret. The Prime Minister said that he was half American and he had a great affection for the American people. What he was going to say was not to be understood as anything disparaging of the Americans and he would be perfectly loyal towards them, but there were things which it was better to say between two persons.

We had a preponderance of troops over the Americans in the Mediterranean. There were three to four times more British troops than American there. That is why he was anxious that the troops in the Mediterranean should not be hamstrung if it could be avoided, and he wanted to use them all the time. In Italy there were some 13 to 14 divisions of which 9 or 10 were British. There were two armies, the 5th Anglo-American Army, and the 8th Army, which was entirely British. The choice had been represented as keeping to the date of “Overlord” or pressing on with the operations in the Mediterranean. But that was not the whole story.

*

The Americans wanted him to attack, to undertake an amphibious operation in the Bay of Bengal against the Japanese in March. He was not keen about it. If we had in the Mediterranean the landing craft needed for the Bay of Bengal, we would have enough to do all we wanted in the Mediterranean and still be able to keep to an early date for “Overlord.”

It was not a choice between the Mediterranean and the date of “Overlord,” but between the Bay of Bengal and the date of “Overlord.” He thought we would have all we wanted in the way of landing craft. However, the Americans had pinned us down to a date for “Overlord” and operations in the Mediterranean had suffered in the last two months. Our army was somewhat disheartened by the removal of the 7 divisions. We had sent home our 3 divisions and the Americans were sending theirs, all in preparation for “Overlord.” That was the reason for not taking full advantage with the Italian collapse. But it also proved the earnestness of our preparations for “Overlord.”

 

Questions: Bombing Civilians

Churchill’s questioning of Allied “carpet bombing” is well established in this volume. Churchill was concerned over bombing civilians in the forthcoming invasion of France. Here he voices his worries to the Supreme Commander; in the event, Eisenhower convinced him that certain French casualties would have to be expected.

3 April 1944. Winston S. Churchill to General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Churchill papers, 20/137)

Top Secret. Personal and Private. My dear General, The Cabinet today took rather a grave and on the whole an adverse view of the proposal to bomb so many French railway centres, in view of the fact that scores of thousands of French civilians, men, women, and children, would lose their lives or be injured. Considering that they are all our friends, this might be held to be an act of very great severity, bringing much hatred on the Allied Air Forces. It was decided that the Defence Committee should consider the matter during this week, and that thereafter the Foreign Office should address the State Department and I should myself send a personal telegram to the President.

The argument for concentration on these particular targets is very nicely balanced on military grounds. I myself have not heard the arguments which have led to the present proposal. The advantage to enemy propaganda seem to me to be very great, especially as this would not be in the heat of battle but a long time before. Would it not also be necessary to consult General de Gaulle and the French National Committee of Liberation? There were many other arguments that were mentioned, and I thought I ought to let you know at this stage how the proposal was viewed.

Questions in the House

Despite his burdens, Churchill routinely faced Questions in the House of Commons. He did so with relish and skill. From many questions and answers, this exchange on “Basic English” provides an example.

Willie Gallacher, a frequent critic, was Communist MP for West Fife, Scotland. Henry Wedderburn, Conservative MP for Renfrew, was jibing Churchill over one of his invented words, “triphibian,” referring to British prowess on land, on sea and in the air. The Prime Minister responded with one of his favorite archaic words, “purblind”….

4 November 1943. House of Commons: Questions

Sir Leonard Lyle asked the Prime Minister when the Committee of Ministers set up to study and report upon Basic English are expected to reach their conclusion?

The Prime Minister: I hope to receive the recommendations of this Committee before very long.

Sir Lonard Lyle: When we do get this Report will the BBC be asked to adopt it, or will they still continue to use Basic BBC?

The Prime Minister: Basic English is not intended for use among English-speaking people but to enable a much larger body of people who do not have the good fortune to know the English language to participate more easily in our society.

Mr. Gallacher: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider introducing Basic Scottish?

Mr. Wedderburn: Does Basic English include the word “triphibious”?

The Prime Minister: I have tried to explain that people are quite purblind who discuss this matter as if Basic English were a substitute for the English language.

 

Questions: Will he die when it’s over?

Little escaped the wide net of Sir Martin Gilbert, who assembled a virtual day-by-day record of Churchill’s life. From here the Hillsdale team has assembled them in readable form, attaching a host of footnotes and cross references. Occasionally we include published recollections. Here is one by Lady Diana Cooper: a startling and grim prediction she heard from Clementine Churchill. Fortuitously, in this case, Clementine was wrong.

 12 January 1944. Mary Soames: recollection. (‘Clementine Churchill’, page 350)

Diana Cooper recounted a “curious calm and sad conversation” with Clementine, after a dinner in Marrakesh:

“I was talking about postwar days and proposed that instead of a grateful country building Winston another Blenheim, they should give him an endowed manor house with acres for a farm and gardens to build and paint in. Clemmie very calmly said: “I never think of after the war. You see, I think Winston will die when it’s over.”

She said this so objectively that I could not bring myself to say the usual “What nonsense!” but tried something about it was no use relying on death; people lived to ninety or might easily, in our lives, die that day…. But she seemed quite certain and quite resigned to his not surviving long into peace. “You see, he’s seventy and I’m sixty and we’re putting all we have into this war, and it will take all we have.”  It was touching and noble.

The article appeared in southwest Australia’s Sun Coast Daily on April 26th. Not exactly The Times, and if you don’t subscribe to Google Alerts you missed it. For the fun of shooting fish in a barrel, however, it’s worth a few minutes of your time.

Critique 1: Self-Interest

“Churchill had a long and varied career in politics, managing to swap parties as his career needs required.”

Churchill swapped parties in 1904 over principle (Free Trade), risking rather than enhancing his career. (He lucked out when his new party won the next election.) He switched again in the 1920s after that party fell out from under him, which didn’t help his career much either (he was out of Parliament for over two years). Fortunately for him, a Conservative prime minister offered him a job. It seemed like the right thing to do. Wouldn’t you?

Critique 2: Military Catastrophes

“He managed while in government to produce two military catastrophes: first the awful Dardanelles campaign of the First World War cost him his job, then in the Second World War he master-minded the awful Norwegian campaign which cost Chamberlain his job and catapulted Churchill into the PM’s office.”

Churchill did not conceive of either operation and to say he “produced” them is a “terminological inexactitude.” While it is true that he loyally tried to advance them, the failures were the work of many. On the Dardanelles, he later admitted “trying to carry out a major and cardinal operation of war from a subordinate position. Men are ill-advised to try such ventures. This lesson had sunk into my nature.” For an eminently balanced account of the follies of the Dardanelles, I recommend Christopher M. Bell’s Churchill and the Dardanelles.

Critique 3: Cheesy on Defense

“While it’s true he did speak out for rearmament late in the 1930s, readers may not realise that while treasurer in conservative governments between the wars he presided over an austerity program including a huge decline in military spending, leaving the navy, for example, running a string of mostly clapped-out First World War era battleships.”

The state of the Royal Navy in 1939 can hardly be blamed on someone who’d been out of office for the previous ten years. But in the 1920s, you couldn’t find a member of any Tory or Labour government in favor of spending money on armaments. Yet Churchill, when times had changed, was among the leading supporters of the government’s decision to renew capital warship production in 1936.

Critique 4: Singapore

“Churchill, the military genius and austerity merchant, left Singapore incompletely and poorly defended. He sent two battleships, completely lacking air cover, to deal with the Japanese threat. Both were sunk by Japanese planes while steaming away from the Japanese landings in Malaya.” 

In 1924-25, Churchill questioned the decision to defend Singapore by shore based guns, and recommended submarines and air power. Granted, he was mainly trying to avoid heavy defense expenditures at a time when no one foresaw the need for them. (The guns fired, ineffectually, at land-based attackers in 1941.)

In October 1941, before Japan attacked, Churchill sent the two warships to Singapore, hoping they would serve as a deterrent. When the deterrent failed, his first impulse was to send them to join the remnants of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. He should have. But it was Vice Admiral Tom Phillips, not Churchill, who opted to sortie from Singapore without air cover, hoping to disrupt Japanese landings, and he was sailing toward them, not away from them. Yet throughout the war, very few capital ships were sunk by air power alone, except when caught in harbor.

The historians Robin Brodhurst and Christopher Bell explain these little-known corrections to popular belief shortly on the Hillsdale College Churchill Project website, which I will link when published.

Critique 5: Unions

“Churchill notoriously urged the government to machine-gun striking unionists in the 1926 General Strike.”

While hostile to socialism, Churchill warmly accepted trade unions. For him, wrote the historian Chris Wrigley, “they were elements of Victorian individualism.” In dealing with unions, including over the General Strike, his impulse was first to win the argument, then to address their grievances. There is no evidence whatsoever that he urged the gunning-down of strikers.

Critique 6: India

“Churchill was also deeply racist, regarding the idea of Indian independence and Gandhi with deep horror.”

What Churchill regarded with “deep horror” in India was more Brahmin domination than Indians governing themselves, which they were largely doing long before the Raj ended. When the India Bill passed in 1935 he encougraged Gandhi, who replied: “’I have got a good recollection of Mr. Churchill when he was in the Colonial Office and somehow or other since then I have held the opinion that I can always rely on his sympathy and goodwill.”

Some racist. See “Churchill and Racism: Think a Little Deeper” and “Welcome Mr. Gandhi—Winston Churchill.”

Critique 7: He “ran the show”

“During the war he presided over a national all-party government which meant in effect that he ran the show. Once an election was held in 1945 the British people dumped him and the Conservative Party unceremoniously.”

It is the tendency in both national and party governments for the prime minister to “run the show.” Given what he learned from the Dardanelles (see #2 above), what else would we expect of him in 1940?

I must admit this is the first time I’ve heard Churchill criticized for presiding over a coalition government. It was a coalition because all three parties and Mr. Chamberlain agreed in May 1940 that a coalition was the only way to fight Hitler. Churchill was the only candidate both available and willing, whom all three parties would agree to support.

Winston Churchill was on the political scene over half a century, and his mistakes like his virtues were on a grand scale. But the latter considerably outweighed the former. Would-be critics need to do better research before proclaiming his feet of clay.

“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” —Winston Churchill, 1939

“If Putin likes Trump, guess what, folks, that’s called an asset, not a liability. Now I don’t know that I’m going to get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do. But there’s a good chance I won’t.”     —Donald Trump, 2017

Russia National Interests

Trump-Churchill comparisons are invidious and silly. After all, we’re not working with the same raw material. But their two statements are oddly congruent. Churchill’s Russian experience has something to offer the President as he embarks on his own attempt—fraught as it may be—at a modus operandi with Mr. Putin.

In the 1930s Churchill had to decide which was the greater threat: Stalin’s Soviet Union, whose tyranny was still confined to its borders; or the Greater German Reich, which had by 1939 swallowed the Saarland, the Rhineland, Austria and Czechoslovakia, and was threatening Poland.

Churchill’s study of history held the answer: Britain had always backed the second strongest powers on the European continent: France, of course…and Russia.

“Historic life interests”

Ever the deft rhetorician, Churchill was unafraid to criticize “Soviet” economics, but foresaw the need to appeal to “Russian” national interests in the coming confrontation with Hitler. To paraphrase Churchill, “It cannot be in accordance with the interest or the safety of Russia,” Churchill said in 1939, “that Germany should plant itself upon the shores of the Black Sea, or that it should overrun the Balkan States and subjugate the Slavonic peoples of South-Eastern Europe. That would be contrary to the historic life-interests of Russia.”

Accordingly, earlier in 1939, after Prime Minister Chamberlain had issued a belated guarantee to defend Poland, Churchill cornered Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador. Adopting what today seems almost Trumpist language, he asked the ambassador for his support:

Look here Mr. Ambassador, if we are to make a success of this new policy we require the help of Russia. Now I don’t care for your system and I never have, but the Poles and the Romanians like it even less. Although they might be prepared at a pinch to let you in, they would certainly want some assurances that you would eventually get out.

Maisky liked this blunt approach and conveyed Churchill’s views to Moscow. Alas Churchill was out of power, and Chamberlain—not without reason—regarded Stalin as a thug. He sent low-level negotiators to Moscow, to hint at some vague future agreement. Hitler sent his foreign minister. The resultant Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact left Germany free to attack Poland, and World War II was on.

“Favourable reference to the Devil”

When the two tyrants fell out and Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941, Churchill, now prime minister, reverted to type, promising Moscow all-out support. An aide reminded him of the dreadful things he’d said about communists. Churchill growled: “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” Again he pursued the main objective: victory.

Churchill’s Russian experience was stony. In the war, he failed to save the Balkans and central Europe from the onrushing Red Army. He did save Greece, and foster a semi-independent Yugoslavia. Given the military situation, it was the best he could do with the prevailing situation.

Of the Russians, he said in 1946: “There is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than weakness, especially military weakness. But he qualified that in 1951: “I do not hold that we should rearm in order to fight. I hold that we should rearm in order to parley.”

It’s Still National Interest

Churchill never abandoned his idea of appealing to national interests. After Stalin’s death in 1953, he urged “a meeting at the summit,” but Eisenhower resisted. Russia might have a new dress, the President declared, but “there was the same whore underneath it.” Even Ike spoke like Donald Trump on occasion.

Well, it cannot be in accordance with the interest or the safety of Russia that ISIS should plant itself upon the shores of the Mediterranean, or that it should overrun Syria and subjugate the Iraqi peoples. That would be contrary to the historic life-interests of Russia. There lies a Churchillian opportunity.

Mr. Trump believes he can work with the Muscovites. So too did Churchill, when his country’s fate hung in the balance. Churchill met with little enough success. But when he did, it was when he dangled “national interest” in front of the Russians.

Excerpted from a review for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project.

PBS and ITV have succeeded where many failed. They offer a Churchill documentary with a minimum of dramatic license, reasonably faithful to history (as much as we know of it). Churchill’s Secret limns the pathos, humor, hope and trauma of a little-known episode: Churchill’s stroke on 23 June 1953, and his miraculous recovery. For weeks afterward, his faithful lieutenants in secret ran the government. To paraphrase Dr. Johnson, the film is worth seeing, and worth going to see.

Sadness attends our mortality, death comes to us all. Sir Winston teetered in 1953; only his inner circle knew how close he had come. The “secret” has been public now for fifty years, since publication of his doctor’s diaries in 1966. But at the time it was a secret. Not a word leaked, thanks to family, staff, and three press barons—Beaverbrook, Bracken and Camrose. Private secretary John Colville wrote: “They achieved the all but incredible, and in peace-time possibly unique, success of gagging Fleet Street, something they would have done for nobody but Churchill.”

Secret Pathos

Exactly how ill the Prime Minister really was I leave to experts. At the time, many close to him thought he would die. Colville wrote: “he went downhill badly, losing the use of his left arm and left leg.” In the film Churchill’s doctor, Lord Moran (Bill Paterson), summoned to Downing Street, finds the PM singing incoherently: “I’m forever blowing bubbles.” Great heavens, I thought, they are going to link this to Marigold….

“Bubbles” was the favorite song of a 2 1/2-year-old daughter who died in 1921. Rarely mentioned, Marigold was buried in a corner of their hearts. With poignant flashbacks, the film unfolds their memories of the loss they still deeply felt. In a moving scene, Clementine tearfully recounts Marigold’s story to her husband’s nurse. As a device for portraying her and Winston’s humanity, this is a touch of genius.

The nurse, Millie Appleyard (Romola Garai) is the film’s only fictional character. She is meant to represent “the help”—too numerous to catalogue in the space of a short film. Millie has a Yorkshire accent but her father, she tells Churchill, was Welsh: “and no fan of yours.” (WSC once allowed deployment of troops during the Welsh miners strike in 1910.) Devoted to his recovery, but always her own woman, Millie sees the job through. Confronting all challengers, she’s a perfect foil for Churchill, his wife, and their sometimes obstreperous family.

Expert Casting

Critics who say PBS dotes on British drama forget that UK theatre offers unequalled depths of talent. There are so many exceptional actors that casting lookalikes for a historical film is a relative breeze. In Churchill’s Secret, the casting is superb.

Michael Gambon is an excellent Churchill: more drawn, less cherubic, but perfect in his mannerisms and bearing. Lindsay Duncan as Clementine is almost up to the standard set by Vanessa Redgrave, brilliant alongside Albert Finney’s Churchill in “The Gathering Storm” (2002)—and far superior to Sian Phillips, the great Robert Hardy’s opposite number in “The Wilderness Years” (1981).

Supporting actors are outstanding. Colville (Patrick Kennedy) and Christopher Soames (Christian McKay)—who bore the burden of state in those anxious days—could not be more lifelike. R.A. “Rab” Butler (Chris Larkin)—a Chamberlainite who had never liked and hoped to replace Churchill, whom he had hoped would retire since 1945—is the same weak reed he was in life. “I hope you don’t think of me as an enemy,” says Rab to a rapidly recovering Churchill in August. The Prime Minister replies: “I don’t think of you at all, Rab.” 

The portrayal of the Churchill children, boozing and bickering (correctly excepting Mary), is over-emphasized. These scenes are admittedly fiction. No one alive knows what really happened at Chartwell in those secret weeks. The family and staff I talked to never mentioned rows during those weeks. The film strives however to represent how the three elder children must have felt, and certainly acted, at one time or another. They had grown up under a great shadow in trying times. As Moran (perhaps wise before the fact) is made to remark: “There’s a price to pay for greatness, but the great seldom pay it themselves.” 

What Good’s a Constitution?

More time could have been spent on how Colville and Soames held the fort while the boss recovered.  Churchill once wrote a famous article, “What Good’s a Constitution?” In 1953, they must have asked themselves that question.

Today it would be impossible to keep a lid on such a secret. What they did might indeed be thought unconstitutional. Yet the nation owed a debt to those responsible lieutenants, who acted only when they knew the PM would approve. As Colville remembered:

…the administration continued to function as if he were in full control. We realised that however well we knew his policy and the way his thoughts were likely to move. We had to be careful not to allow our own judgment to be given Prime Ministerial effect. To have done so, as we could without too great difficulty, would have been a constitutional outrage. It was an extraordinary, indeed perhaps an unprecedented, situation….Before the end of July the Prime Minister was sufficiently restored to take an intelligent interest in affairs of state and express his own decisive views. Christopher and I then returned to the fringes of power, having for a time been drawn perilously close to the centre.

K.B.O.

While the testimony of insiders certainly suggests a close call, many were confident that Churchill would recover. The morning after the stroke, wrote Mary Soames, he “amazingly presided at a Cabinet meeting, where none of his colleagues thought anything was amiss.” She quoted Harold Macmillan: “I certainly noticed nothing beyond the fact that he was very white. He spoke little, but quite distinctly.” By the time he arrived at Chartwell on the 25th, he was at rock bottom. Yet a month later he was well enough to be driven the three-hour journey to Chequers, the PM’s official country house, and was resuming his literary and political work.

Churchill’s Secret is replete with Sir Winston’s famous admonition in the face of misfortune, K.B.O. (Keep Buggering On.) Amid growing calls for his retirement, he was determined to stay—long enough at least for one more try at his final goal: a permanent peace. The film is not clear about how much time elapsed between the stroke and the “test” Churchill set for himself. That was the Conservative Party Conference at Margate. There on October 10th he would have to make a major, fifty-minute speech. It was do or die: We are rushed through the weeks to Margate, actually almost four months after he was stricken.

Of course he brought the house down. Jock Colville noted: “He had been nervous of the ordeal: his first public appearance since his stroke and a fifty-minute speech at that; but personally I had no fears as he always rises to occasions. In the event one could see but little difference, as far as his oratory went, since before his illness.”

“See them off, Winston”

Some observers have faulted the portrayal of Clementine in Churchill’s Secret—not for Lindsay Duncan’s skillful acting, but for the words the script has her say. To some she seems a whiny, self-centered neurotic, the very picture given in recent biography.

I honestly didn’t have that impression. At Margate Clementine tells him firmly: “See them off, Winston.” Their daughter told me Clementine had thought in June that his life was ending. The film suggests that Lady Churchill had many regrets; and she did. She genuinely believed—and had for a long time—that he had stayed too long. “Clementine bore the brunt of all this,” Mary wrote, “and her anxiety concerning his political intentions was great.”

The film establishes a reasonably accurate picture of Lady Churchill. “None of us would be here without him,” one of his children says, “And he wouldn’t be here without you.” Winston himself tells her: “I shall face anything with you, the Tories, the Russians—even death itself.”

Unlike certain frothy popular accounts, Churchill’s Secret makes it clear that come what may, Clementine was the rock on which he depended. As he said of her on many occasions: “Here firm, though all be drifting.”