Tag: Winston S. Churchill

Washington
Drawing laughs, WSC demonstrates his zip suit to reporters during his Washington visit, January 1942. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Winston Churchill’s Washington Humor

Winston Churchill’s Washington Humor

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Washington, December 1941 press conference: A Texas reporter asked (getting his title wrong): “Mr. Minister, can you tell us when you think we may lick these boys?” There was a pause while someone explained to WSC the meaning of the American slang, “lick.” Then Churchill said: “If we manage it well, it will take only half as long as if we manage it badly.”

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Rhetoric
Congress, 26 December 1941: Churchill strikes a speaker’s pose inherited from his father. At left rear: William P. Cole (D.-Md.) temporary Speaker of the House. Right rear: Vice President and Senate President Henry Wallace (who occasionally cracked a smile). Left front: Alben Barkley (D.-Ky.), Senate Majority Leader, later Truman’s Vice President (thanks for the ID Prof. Warren Kimball). Can any reader identify the man at right front? Looks like Carl Albert (D.-Ok.), but he was not in Congress until 1947. (National Archives, Hillsdale College Press)
Scaffolding Rhetoric: Churchill in Congress, 1941

Scaffolding Rhetoric: Churchill in Congress, 1941

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"When we look at the resources of the United States and the British Empire compared to those of Japan; when we remember those of China, which have so long valiantly withstood invasion and tyranny—and when also we observe the Russian menace which hangs over Japan—it becomes still more difficult to reconcile Japanese action with prudence or even with sanity. What kind of a people do they think we are?" With these words the Senators and Representatives stood roaring approval. He had them in his hands now.

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salute
American schoolchildren performing the Bellamy Salute, 1915. A 17-star flag was certainly odd in 1915. (Wikimedia Commons)
Princess Elizabeth’s Nazi Salute: Must We Know Everything?

Princess Elizabeth’s Nazi Salute: Must We Know Everything?

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"Most people will see these pictures in their proper context and time. This is a family playing and momentarily referencing a gesture many would have seen from contemporary news reels. No one at that time had any sense how the salute would evolve."

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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

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"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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Anthony
Gettysburg, May 1959: WSC, Anthony Montague Browne, President Eisenhower. From the jacket of AMB’s book.
Winston Churchill on War, Part 3: Anthony Montague Browne

Winston Churchill on War, Part 3: Anthony Montague Browne

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"I tried to rally him. I spoke of the extraordinary life he had enjoyed...all he had said and done, of how he was almost universally popular and admired. In Germany in 1956, as he drove through the streets he was cheered. It astonished him. After all, it was not very long after the end of the war....How, I concluded, could he be so downcast? I noted his reply verbatim: 'Yes, I worked very hard all my life, and I have achieved a great deal—in the end to achieve nothing.'"

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Atomic
“Beware the Bogeyman”: A week after WSC’s Iron Curtain Speech at Fulton, Stalin began warning Russians of the lurking warmonger. Leslie Illingworth in the “Daily Mail,” 13 March 1946. (Public domain)
Winston Churchill on War, Part 2: Atomic Age

Winston Churchill on War, Part 2: Atomic Age

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"Then it may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.…The [atomic] deterrent does not cover the case of lunatics or dictators in the mood of Hitler when he found himself in his final dug-out. That is a blank…."

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War
Battle of the Somme, July 1916: Indian cyclists at a crossroads on the Fricourt-Mametz road. (Photo by John Warwick Brooke, public domain)
Winston Churchill on War, Part 1: 1900-1932

Winston Churchill on War, Part 1: 1900-1932

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Churchill's reputation as a warrior tends to obscure his efforts for peace. Of peace he sometimes despaired, especially toward the end of his life. Herewith are some of Churchill’s words on war and peace from "Churchill by Himself." Part 3 will consider why he regretted, in his final years, that despite all his efforts, peace still did not prevail in the world.

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shocking
Winston Churchill with MacKenzie King, Quebec, August 1943. (Wikimedia Commons)
Shocking Facts: “Nuclear Armageddon” Then and Now

Shocking Facts: “Nuclear Armageddon” Then and Now

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"Churchill's style of tossing ideas around with his companion, often to test their effect, mistakenly inclined Moran to give these half-formed thoughts and suggestions a status of hard fact." And not just Moran. Bridges and King were certainly taken aback sufficiently to record Churchill's contemplation of nuclear war.

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drunk
Where’s your glass, Prime Minister? Stalin toasts Churchill’s 69th birthday, Teheran, 30 November 1943. (Faces to camera: Air Marshal Portal, Anthony Eden, unknown, WSC, Marshal Voroshilov, Marshal Stalin, Averell Harriman, interpreter Pavlov.) WSC wrote: “The Marshal and his colleagues invariably drank their toasts from tiny glasses, taking only a sip on each occasion. I had been well brought up.” (Photo by Lt. D.C. Oulds RN, Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Churchill the Drunk. Or: Fasten Seatbelts on Bar Stools

Churchill the Drunk. Or: Fasten Seatbelts on Bar Stools

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Churchill did have an astonishing capacity, and most historians grant him a decided preference for lubrication. But Lockhart is no more reliable than others. from Alan Brooke to Bessie Braddock, who attributed to alcohol a Churchill who worked and harangued 18 hours a day and was often exhausted…. Yet apparently not drunk enough to debate Empire Free Trade—or to spark Lockhart’s imagination.

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Sybarite
Churchill’s Laurania: “It was the first rain after the summer heats, and it marked the beginning of that delightful autumn climate which has made the Lauranian capital the home of the artist, the invalid, and the sybarite.” (Woodcut by André Collot from the 1950 Monaco edition)
Churchill Quotations: “The Artist, the Invalid, and the Sybarite”

Churchill Quotations: “The Artist, the Invalid, and the Sybarite”

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Churchill only used "artist - invalid - sybarite" twice, and very early on. Evidently it didn't "stick" as well as others he repeated decades apart. If it had, he might have applied it to Morocco or the South of France, where he was all three of those things from time to time. He found both to be perfect for convalescing, painting, or enjoying the luxuries of life. (Of course, he knew where to stay!)

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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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