Roosevelt Archives - Richard M. Langworth

Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

22 January 2016 Comments 0 Comments

“Saving the Nations from Hell”: The “Kingly Conference,” 1914 (Excerpt)

Churchill’s faith in personal diplomacy—solving intractable problems by meetings at the highest level—was famously expressed during World War II.

Less widely known is Churchill’s 1914 proposal for a conference of heads of state (including, it seems, French President Raymond Poincaré) in an effort to head-off World War I. The scheme failed, but not for Churchill’s lack of trying.

There is little on Churchill’s “kingly conference” in the literature. There is no reference in Churchill’s The World Crisis, Asquith’s memoirs, or biographies by Manchester, Jenkins, Rose, Charmley and Birkenhead, though Sir Martin Gilbert includes in the official biography an excerpt from a cabinet member which records Churchill’s words in the cabinet of July 27th:

Churchill said we were now in a better than average condition, & the fleet was at war strength….Churchill,…

Churchill as Motorist

2 October 2009 Comments 0 Comments

Could you tell me if Winston Churchill drove an automobile? I’m interested in establishing whether the major World War II leaders, on both sides, could drive a car. So far, I know only that Franklin Roosevelt drove his own Ford at Hyde Park (hand controls but he was his own driver when he needed to be). This may seem an odd line of investigation, but I think it might be illuminating. —P.C., New Hampshire

I have a long-simmering article about Churchill and automobiles; he owned quite an assortment, from Morrises and Land Rovers to a big Daimler given him by his friends in 1932.…