Sir Henry Wilson Archives - Richard M. Langworth

Armenians — Detail from a campaign poster by the American Committee for Relief in the Near East–Armenia-Greece-Syria-Persia . (W.B. King, Library of Congress, public domain)

Winston Churchill and the Armenian Genocide, 1914-23

14 October 2020 Comments 0 Comments

Excerpted from an article for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, September 2020. For the complete text, an appendix of Churchill’s words on Armenia, more illustrations and endnotes, please click here.

The age-long misfortunes of the Armenian race have arisen mainly from the physical structure of their home. Upon the lofty tableland of Armenia, stretching across the base of the Asia Minor Peninsula, are imposed a series of mountain ranges having a general direction east and west. The valleys between these mountains have from time immemorial been the pathways of every invasion or counter-attack between Asia Minor in the west and Persia and Central Asia in the east….…

Churchill and the White Russians: The Russian Civil War, 1919

8 December 2019 Comments 0 Comments

Extracted from “Churchill: A Million Allied Soldiers to Fight for the White Russians?” for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, November 2019. For the original text click here.

A reader refers us to The Polar Bear Expedition: The Heroes of America’s Forgotten Invasion of Russia 1918-1919 (2019). It repeats a misunderstanding about Churchill’s role in aiding the White Russians against the Bolsheviks. By the spring of 1919 in Russia, we read:

…the cat was out of the bag: whether its allies—English, French, White Russians—liked it nor not, the U.S. was pulling out. On March 4, the British War Cabinet decided to follow suit, ignoring the arguments of the virulently anti-Bolshevik Winston Churchill, who as secretary of war had proposed increasing the Allied commitment in Russia to one million men.…