Tag: The World Crisis

Peninsula
The landing of 4th Battalion, Australian troops at ANZAC Cove, Gallipoli, 25 April 1915. (Ernest Brooks, Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Gallipoli Peninsula 1915: Failure is an Orphan

Gallipoli Peninsula 1915: Failure is an Orphan

From May to November 1915, Churchill held a meaningless sinecure, his only task the appointment of rural judges. “Like a sea-beast fished up from the depths, or a diver too suddenly hoisted,” he wrote, “my veins threatened to burst from the fall in pressure. I had great anxiety and no means of relieving it; I had vehement convictions and small power to give effect to them.… I was forced to remain a spectator of the tragedy, placed cruelly in a front seat.”

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Straits
“Mount Ida and Plains of Troy” by William Wyllie, with HMS Queen Elizabeth bombarding of Turkish forts, March 1915, covered inshore by HMS Canopus. Wyllie’s title relates the nearby site of Homeric Troy, excavated a few years earlier. (Royal Museums, Greenwich, public domain)
Dardanelles Straits 1915: Success Has a Thousand Fathers

Dardanelles Straits 1915: Success Has a Thousand Fathers

It is widely believed that Churchill proposed the expedition to the Dardanelles Straits to bypass the static slaughter in Europe’s trenches. While this is true in the abstract, the plan was not his original vision, nor was it hatched overnight. Churchill and others first contemplated assaulting Germany and Austria-Hungary from the south. Churchill also proposed attacking Germany from the north, even as the Dardanelles operation was being approved by the War Cabinet.

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World Crisis
Churchill around the time of writing “The World Crisis.” (Painting by James Guthrie, Scottish National Gallery, public domain)
Hillsdale Dialogues Explore Churchill’s “The World Crisis”

Hillsdale Dialogues Explore Churchill’s “The World Crisis”

"It was the custom in the palmy days of Queen Victoria for statesmen to expatiate upon the glories of the British Empire, and to rejoice in that protecting Providence which had preserved us through so many dangers and brought us at length into a secure and prosperous age. Little did they know that the worst perils had still to be encountered and that the greatest triumphs were yet to be won…."

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Armistice Day
“The Glorious Dead”: The Cenotaph, London. (Paul the Archivist, Creative commons)
Churchill on Armistice Day: War, Peace and Foreboding

Churchill on Armistice Day: War, Peace and Foreboding

"Is this the end? Is it to be merely a chapter in a cruel and senseless story? Will a new generation in their turn be immolated to square the black accounts of Teuton and Gaul? Will our children bleed and gasp again in devastated lands? Or will there spring from the very fires of conflict that reconciliation of the three giant combatants, which would unite their genius and secure to each in safety and freedom a share in rebuilding the glory of Europe?" —WSC

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criticism
Plenty of criticism went around among these…. Churchill with his Chiefs of Staff, Anfa Villa, Casablanca, 14 January 1943. L-R: Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, WSC, General Sir Alan Brooke and Lord Louis Mountbatten. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Winston Churchill’s Rule of Criticism after the Fact

Winston Churchill’s Rule of Criticism after the Fact

Churchill claimed he never criticized a policy later that he had not publicly criticized when it was first raised. True, he was often on both sides of issues, and could pick his criticisms accordingly. But he in time he usually arrived at the right conclusions.

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Great War
“With the grenadiers”: Churchill (seated, center) and fellow officers of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, Ploegsteert, Belgium, 1916. At WSC’s right is his longtime colleague in war and peace, Archibald Sinclair. (Creative Commons, Samleighton87)
Wikipedia: Churchill’s World War Accounts, History or Memoirs?

Wikipedia: Churchill’s World War Accounts, History or Memoirs?

It is important to get this right, because Churchill's accounts of the two world wars are often incorrectly described as histories. He was adamant that this was a job for later historians.

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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)

“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?

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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Cohen
A corner of Ron’s massive collection: a treasure trove for Churchill scholars of the future.
Hillsdale Acquires Cohen Collection of Churchill’s Writings

Hillsdale Acquires Cohen Collection of Churchill’s Writings

The Cohen Trove

Hills­dale Col­lege has announced acqui­si­tion of an impor­tant part of the Ronald Cohen col­lec­tion of the writ­ings of Sir Win­ston Churchill. It num­bers almost 2000 indi­vid­ual items. They com­prise six cat­e­gories: fore­words, pref­aces, and intro­duc­tions by Churchill; peri­od­i­cal arti­cles; works and peri­od­i­cals con­tain­ing Churchill speech­es; let­ters, mem­o­ran­da, state­ments and let­ters to the edi­tor. Some 15% of these writ­ings have not seen print since their orig­i­nal, lim­it­ed edi­tions, and there­fore com­prise a “sub­merged canon,” because they open a fresh field of Churchill scholarship.

Hills­dale Col­lege also has a tem­po­rary, exclu­sive pur­chase option for the bal­ance of the col­lec­tion, books writ­ten by Win­ston Churchill.…

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Clementine
WSC and CSC campaigning at Chigwell, Essex, 27 May 1945. A week later, rejecting her advice, he broadcast that Labour if elected “would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.”
Clementine Churchill as Literary Critic

Clementine Churchill as Literary Critic

Q: Clementine as Editor

Your book Churchill By Him­self is a trea­sure to which I fre­quent­ly refer. I am a retired pro­fes­sor who recent­ly lost his wife. I am prepar­ing a memo­r­i­al to her and found Churchill’s words as quot­ed in Andrew Roberts’ recent biog­ra­phy to be per­fect. The sense of his words is that his wife Clemen­tine was was a fre­quent, strong and fair crit­ic of his writ­ings, always help­ful. I know that is not much to go on but I would appre­ci­ate cor­rob­o­rat­ing infor­ma­tion.  —M.S., via email

A: “Here firm, though all be drifting”

I will have to pon­der your ques­tion, because his remarks about Lady Churchill are main­ly trib­utes to her as wife, friend and advi­sor, not lit­er­ary critic–although of course she was that too.…

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RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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