Tag: The River War

Burke
“A Literary Party at Sir Joshua Reynolds'” by D. George Thompson (1822-1892). L-R: James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, Pasqual Paoli, Charles Burney, Thomas Warton and Oliver Goldsmith. Collin Brooks said Churchill would have been welcomed in the company of Burke and Johnson, although the dining society they had founded (“The Club”) blackballed him in 1911. Churchill and fellow reject F.E. Smith then formed “The Other Club,” which still meets at the Savoy. “The Club” also continues, meeting at Brooks’s. (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill and Burke: “Spontaneous Humour, Unparaded Erudition”

Churchill and Burke: “Spontaneous Humour, Unparaded Erudition”

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1. Roberts on Burke

Reprised below are my small con­tri­bu­tions on Churchill and the great Irish states­man and thinker Edmund Burke (1729-1797). It was eclipsed in 2019 in a bril­liant speech by Andrew Roberts which the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project offers here. Dr. Roberts spoke after receiv­ing The New Cri­te­ri­on 7th Edmund Burke Award for Ser­vice to Cul­ture and Soci­ety. He also dis­cuss­es Churchill on Burke in a video inter­view with James Panero.

2. Churchill on Burke

A read­er writes:

I’d like to con­grat­u­late you on Churchill by Him­self, but I could not find any Churchill com­ments on Edmund Burke in the index.…

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war books
“I asked him what he had thought when the 21st Lancers had gone headlong into a gully filled with quite unexpected and extremely bad-tempered Dervishes. He said, ‘It was very stimulating, but I did think: Suppose there is a spoil-sport in the hole with a machine gun?'” —Anthony Montague Browne. The Battle of Omdurman, 2 September 1898. Oil on canvas by William Barnes Wollen, 1857-1936. (Walker Art Gallery, Wikimedia Commons)
Winston S. Churchill’s Three Best War Books (Excerpt)

Winston S. Churchill’s Three Best War Books (Excerpt)

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“Three Out­stand­ing War Books” is Excerpt­ed from an essay for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. Why set­tle for the excerpt when you can read the whole thing full-strength? Click here.

Bet­ter yet, join 60,000 read­ers of Hills­dale essays by the world’s best Churchill his­to­ri­ans by sub­scrib­ing. You will receive reg­u­lar notices (“Week­ly Win­stons”) of new arti­cles as pub­lished. Sim­ply vis­it https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/, scroll to bot­tom, and fill in your email in the box enti­tled “Stay in touch with us.” (Your email remains strict­ly pri­vate and is nev­er sold to pur­vey­ors, sales­per­sons, auc­tion hous­es, or Things that go Bump in the Night.)…

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words
A collection of Churchill’s books in various editions easily fills a wall. (Author photo)
Update: How Many Words did Winston Churchill Produce?

Update: How Many Words did Winston Churchill Produce?

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How many words, how many speeches?

“How many speech­es did Churchill make, and in how many words? Also, how many words did he write in his books and arti­cles? [Updat­ed from 2014.]

Word counts

Through the won­ders of com­put­er sci­ence (Ian Lang­worth and the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project), we know that the present cor­pus of works by and about Win­ston S. Churchill exceeds 80 mil­lion words (380 megabytes). This includes 20 mil­lion (120 megabytes) by Churchill him­self (count­ing his let­ters, mem­os and papers in the 23 vol­umes of Churchill Doc­u­ments. Here are his the top word counts among his books:

The Churchill Doc­u­ments: 10,000,000*

Win­ston S.…

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polo
Winston Churchill and Polo, Part 1, by Barbara Langworth

Winston Churchill and Polo, Part 1, by Barbara Langworth

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“Win­ston Churchill and Polo” was first pub­lished in 1991. It is now updat­ed and amend­ed, thanks to the rich store of mate­r­i­al avail­able in The Churchill Doc­u­ments pub­lished by Hills­dale Col­lege Press. This arti­cle is abridged with­out foot­notes from the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the com­plete text and foot­notes, click here.

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Churchill loved polo, which he called “The Emper­or of Games.” A con­tem­po­rary writer’s descrip­tion of his polo tac­tics is remind­ful of much else in the statesmen’s approach to life and politics:

He rides in the game like heavy cav­al­ry get­ting into posi­tion for the assault.…

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advice
Tipped-on illustration from the cover of “Real Soldiers of Fortune,” first edition, 1906.
Lt. Churchill: “A Subaltern’s Advice to Generals”

Lt. Churchill: “A Subaltern’s Advice to Generals”

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With col­leagues I dis­cussed which of young Winston’s ear­ly war books was deri­sive­ly called, “A Subaltern’s Advice to Gen­er­als.” This was a pop­u­lar wise­crack after his ear­ly works had the temer­i­ty to pro­pose British mil­i­tary strat­e­gy in India, Sudan and South Africa. Churchill was in his mid-twen­ties at the time—but not ret­i­cent to speak his mind. Noth­ing we didn’t know here….

Malakand Field Force?

With­out con­sult­ing ref­er­ences, I thought the “advice” line involved The Sto­ry of the Malakand Field Force (Churchill’s first book, 1898). I was influ­enced by its last chap­ter, “The Rid­dle of the Fron­tier.” Plen­ty of advice there, though it is as much polit­i­cal as it is military.…

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Churchillnomics: The “Stricken Field”

Churchillnomics: The “Stricken Field”

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Young Win­ston Churchill’s sec­ond speech in Par­lia­ment was a bravu­ra per­for­mance tak­ing up his father’s theme for econ­o­my in the budget.

In Churchill in His Own Words (p 45) I date this quo­ta­tion 12 May 1901 and cite Churchill’s Mr. Brodrick’s Army, his 1903 vol­ume of speech­es (fac­sim­i­le edi­tion, Sacra­men­to: Churchilliana Com­pa­ny, 1977), 16:

Wise words, Sir, stand the test of time, and I am very glad the House has allowed me, after an inter­val of fif­teen years, to raise the tat­tered flag I found lying on a strick­en field.

The “tat­tered flag” was Lord Ran­dolph Churchill’s cam­paign for econ­o­my in the late 1880s.…

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Works
Above and below: The 34 volumes of Collected Works, in the one and only bespoke bookcase, used in early promotions. The cased set was presented to Sir Iain Stewart, whose name is on the brass plaque. (Mark Weber photo)
Churchill’s Collected Works

Churchill’s Collected Works

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In the 1990s I found and began binding several hundred remaining sheets in leather as well as vellum, but those too are now out of sight. Also, the general editor of the series, the late Fred Woods, edited many of the texts (making changes discussed in detail in the Connoisseur's Guide), which makes them useless as a source of Churchill's original words. The great advantage of the enterprise was the four-volume Collected Essays, the only collection of Churchill’s periodical articles (other than those reprinted in his books) ever published in volume form, with a fine introduction by the late Michael Wolff.

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