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THE JOURNAL OF
WINSTON
CHURCHILL
SUMMER 2009
NUMBER 143
THE CHURCHILL CENTRE & CHURCHILL MUSEUM
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CONTENTS
The Journal of
Winston Churchill
✌
Number 143
SUMMER 2009
Cover: Our Gang? “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” from the German humor weekly
Lustige Blätter #34, August 1940. A determined WSC seated with royalty, a kilted Scot, a
judge, the military, a former prime minister, and a rabbi to represent the Nazi demon
incarnate, is, in an odd sort of way, a back-handed compliment to them all. See page 14.
Bytwerk, 14
Devine, 20
Lyons, 37
ARTICLES
14/ Churchill in Nazi Cartoon Propaganda
A Graphic Reminder of What He was Up Against • Randall Bytwerk
20/ Top Cop in a Top Hat
Churchill as Home Secretary, 1910-1911 • Richard A. Devine
26/ Jack French Kemp 1935-2009
“Correrai Ancor piu Veloce per le Vie del Cielo” • Richard M. Langworth
27/ Remembering Jack
His Intervention Made Great Things Happen • Allen Packwood
27/ “Never Splash in Shallow Waters”
Tenth International Churchill Conference, 1993 • The Hon. Jack Kemp
28/ Services aboard HMS Prince of Wales with the President and Prime Minister
Lesson and Prayer • David Robinson USN; Raymond Goodman, RN
30/ Guarding Greatness, Part I
“Did You Fly?....Hmmph.” • Ronald E. Golding
34/ From Pen to Parliament
How a Young Man’s Writings Shaped a Hero • Allison Hay
37/ Finest Hour Online: Winston Churchill’s Constitutionalism
A Critique of Socialism in America • Justin D. Lyons
BOOKS, ARTS & CURIOSITIES
44/ Two Works of Genius: “Into the Storm” and Thoughts and Adventures
Masters and Commanders • Churchill’s Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia
Bleinheim and the Churchill Family • 274 Things You Should Know About Churchill
Literary Character: The Man from St. Petersburg • Imperial Kelly
• Reviewed by Richard M. Langworth, Christopher H. Stirling,
David Freeman, Paul H. Courtenay and Michael T. McMenamin
CHURCHILL PROCEEDINGS
50/ Churchill and the Anglo-Irish War 1919-1922 • Alan J. Ward
55/ Why Ireland Won: The War from the Irish Side • Timothy D. Hoyt
Hoyt, 55
DEPARTMENTS
2/ Churchill Centre Who’s Who • 4/ Despatch Box
5/ Editor’s Essay • 6/ Datelines • 9/ Around & About
10/ Official Biography • 11/ Riddles, Mysteries, Enigmas
12/ Action This Day • 25/ Wit & Wisdom • 33/ Leading Churchill Myths
61/ Churchill Quiz • 62/ Ampersand • 63/ Regional Directory
FINEST HOUR 143 / 3
DESPATCH BOX
UNINTENDED RESULTS
3Number 143 • Summer 2009
ISSN 0882-3715
www.winstonchurchill.org
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News Editor:
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Contributors
Alfred James, Australia
Terry Reardon, Canada
Antoine Capet, France
Inder Dan Ratnu, India
Paul Addison, Winston S. Churchill,
James Lancaster,
Sir Martin Gilbert CBE,
Allen Packwood, United Kingdom
David Freeman, Ted Hutchinson,
Warren F. Kimball, Justin D. Lyons
Michael McMenamin,
Robert Pilpel, Christopher Sterling,
Manfred Weidhorn, United States
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Finest Hour is made possible in part through the
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and an endowment created by the Churchill
Centre Associates (page 2).
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Published quarterly by The Churchill Centre,
offering subscriptions from the appropriate
offices on page 2. Permission to mail at nonprofit rates in USA granted by the United
States Postal Service, Concord, NH, permit
no. 1524. Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
David Jablonsky’s “The Churchill
Experience and the Bush Doctrine” (FH
141) was a thoughful reminder of
Churchill’s warning that war is full of unexpected turns and unpleasant surprises.
—JAMES MACK, FAIRFIELD, OHIO
DON CORLEONE VS.
STAN AND OLLIE
Colonel Jablonsky’s piece on the
use of force in Churchill’s context as
opposed to the “Bush Doctrine” is like
comparing “The Godfather” with “Laurel
and Hardy.” Churchill was a student of
the use of the military to attain political
advantage. He never utilized a preemptive attack such as Bush did on the
government of Iraq.
Jablonsky makes a stretch to argue
that Churchill utilized a preemptive
attack on the Vichy fleet at Oran. At this
particular time of World War II, Great
Britain was fighting for its very survival.
Vichy France was a mere puppet state of
Nazi Germany. Jablonsky states that the
Vichy was “nominally independent.” His
argument is weak and superfluous.
Jablonsky is correct in stating that
Churchill expounded the virtues of military preparedness to make sure that the
agreements of Versailles and Locarno
were followed. How these prescient activities by Churchill during his wilderness
years compare to anything President
Bush advocated is beyond me.
As stated in the author’s conclusion, Churchill would have taken greater
care in relations with Iraq. It was
Churchill’s folly which created this dysfunctional entity. He knew that when
going to war, one must examine all the
consequences. Churchill was a soldierstatesman. In retrospect Bush was a man
seeking statesmanship through war
without the knowledge of a soldier.
—RICHARD C. GESCHKE, BRISTOL, CONN.
Editor’s response: Ordinarily I
would ask the author to respond, but
since Col. Jablonsky is ill, I will reply for
him. To label something a “Bush
Doctrine” doesn’t necessarily mean one
approves of it. It seems to me that
Jablonsky’s piece, while sympathetic
toward the former President’s dilemmas,
was more critical than supportive: “the
Iraq war...has raised doubts not only in
U.S. claims to legitimacy in its use of
Produced by Dragonwyck Publishing Inc.
FINEST HOUR 142 / 4
force, but the efficacy of such efforts.” To
say Vichy France was only “nominally
independent” compared to Iraq is to
struggle asymptotically towards truth. In
Vichy France they had disagreement. By
comparison Hussein’s Iraq was only
“nominally independent,” and I’m not
too sure it had a government, in the sense
we understand it. None of which
endorses or dismisses the Bush Doctrine.
“Churchill’s folly” in Iraq (the title
of a recent book, which was not persuasive) is a judgment based on what we
know now. David Freeman (“Churchill
and the Making of Modern Iraq,” FH
132) explains that the factors governing
WSC’s actions there ceased to apply
almost as soon as they were taken. Yet his
folly kept Iraq stable for nearly forty
years, even as his folly in Ireland kept the
peace for nearly fifty. Iraq today is less
scary than it was, but it asks too much
that Churchill (or Bush) should be held
responsible decades later, after the factors
have changed and others have had all
that time to repair or extend whatever
follies they committed.
As Churchill said in 1952: “It is
always wise to look ahead, but difficult to
look farther than you can see.”
★★★
Your book, Churchill by Himself,
praised by Mary Soames and Martin
Gilbert (FH 142: 53) sits tall and eclipses
lesser compendiums. It reminds me of
Churchill’s alleged reply to a taunt about
Ireland being only a small, weak country:
“Yes, but it is a mother country.”
I was twigged also by your contributions to the pages of Finest Hour.
Having just rifled through some back
issues, I was struck by your meticulousness and willingness, like Churchill, to
recognize negatives while accentuating
positives. Example: balanced treatment of
the delicate issue of Churchill, Islam and
race (FH 114:45)—a subject that might
resurface over Kenya.
My enthusiasm derives in part
from having served as chairman of the
organization with the longest name, the
Churchill Society for the Advancement
of Parliamentary Democracy, and the
privilege of talking with some of those
who were closest to the great man.
ERNEST J. LITTLE, HAMILTON, ONT.
Editor’s response: Mr. Little, meet
Mr. Geschke. Continued success to your
fine organization.
✌
EDITOR’S ESSAY
Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt
I
s there a market for a symposium on Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt that would welcome both the
Churchillians and the “TR advocates” I know are among our readers? If you like the idea, email the editor.
We have long been chary of joint conferences, which “gang aft agley.”At one such event recently Churchillians
politely turned out for all the non-Churchill panels; but the “other fellows” left as soon as their programs finished,
or didn’t bother to attend at all. Perhaps we would have done the same had “they” hosted. The ideal approach would
probably be a symposium in some neutral corner, with a distinguished moderator and, to ice the cake, C-Span coverage.
There’s more to the TR/Churchill relationship than seems apparent from its inauspicious beginnings. On his
second visit to America in December 1900, Churchill met the Vice President-elect, who, as Robert Pilpel observed, “had
charged up San Juan Hill two months before Churchill had charged at Omdurman. In their vitality, their energy, their
lust for adventure, the two men had other things in common as well. It was a case of likes repelling.” Roosevelt wrote: “I
saw the Englishman, Winston Churchill here....he is not an attractive fellow.”
Six years later the President read Lord Randolph Churchill: “I dislike the father and I dislike the son, so I suppose
I may be prejudiced....both possess or possessed such levity, lack of sobriety, lack of permanent principle, and an inordinate thirst for that cheap form of admiration which is given to notoriety, as to make them poor public servants.”
The ice melted slightly in 1908, when, planning a safari to Africa, Roosevelt read Churchill’s My African Journey.
“I do not like Winston Churchill but I supposed I ought to write him,” TR wrote U.S. Ambassador to Britain Whitelaw
Reid. “Will you send him the enclosed letter if it is all right?” The letter thanked Churchill “for the beautiful copy of
your book,” expressing the wish that “I shall have as good luck as you had.”
Both Roosevelt and Churchill enjoyed a relationship with Winston Churchill the New Hampshire novelist. (See
“That Other Winston Churchill,” FH 106.) TR often visited Churchill and others gathered around Augustus SaintGaudens’ literary colony in Plainfield, New Hampshire, not far from Churchill’s home in Cornish. Alistair Cooke,
speaking at our 1988 Bretton Woods conference, began by saying he was pleased that so many had “come to the state
where Winston Churchill spent the last forty years of his life.”
“Why don’t you go into politics?” English Winston wrote the American, after they’d met on the same journey in
which Churchill visited Roosevelt. “I mean to be Prime Minister of England: it would be a great lark if you were
President of the United States at the same time.” American Winston was elected to the New Hampshire legislature (1903,
1905), but rose no higher—in part because of TR. In 1912 Roosevelt broke with William Howard Taft and formed the
Progressive or “Bull Moose” party, unsuccessfully opposing Taft for President. In the same election American Winston,
also running as a “Bull Moose,” lost a bid for Congress. I suspect, but have not been able to prove, that the relationship
between the two Winstons withered because of TR’s influence: they could hardly been so close and not have discussed
American Winston’s opposite across the Atlantic.
Roosevelt began to admire English Winston after World War I broke out in 1914, when he wrote a friend: “I
have never liked Winston Churchill, but in view of what you tell me as to his admirable conduct and nerve in mobilizing
the fleet, I do wish that if it comes your way you will extend to him my congratulations on his action.”
English Winston for his part seemed to harbor no hostility for TR—quite the contrary. Despite the Bolshevik
Revolution in 1917, Churchill typically remained committed to job #1: “beating the Hun.” As Martin Gilbert has stunningly revealed, Churchill actually proposed that Britain send what he called a “commissar” to Lenin, to negotiate Russia’s
re-entry into the war—in exchange for which Britain would guarantee the Bolshevik revolution! When he realized that in
no event would that commissar be he, Churchill recommended Theodore Roosevelt.
Sir Martin tells me he sprang this remarkable factoid in Moscow, in a lecture before a large number of highranking Soviet officers. “You could have heard a pin drop,” he said.
Teddy Roosevelt had died when Winston Churchill next visited America in 1929, but he did find himself
seated at a dinner party with the President’s daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth. “Despite her lineage,” Robert Pilpel
wrote, “Mrs. Longworth seems not only to have taken to him but even to have engaged in a little flirtation as well.
When he asked her to state her opinions about Prohibition, for example, she leaned over and murmured, ‘I would
rather whisper them to you.’ (Of course, this may simply have been because bad language from a lady was still
unacceptable in polite society.)”
Pilpel’s judgment of “likes repelling” was confirmed by the late Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., after I published a
piece on their relationship in Finest Hour 100. “I once asked Alice Roosevelt Longworth why her father disliked Winston
Churchill so much,” Schlesinger wrote. “She replied, ‘Because they were so much alike.’”
✌
FINEST HOUR 143 / 5
“The Kennel
Club (for historic
parallels think of
the Gestapo or
George Orwell’s Thought Police) is
demanding changes to what is known as
the written standard for dogs—not just
bulldogs, but other breeds too. They will
eventually get their way, but it will take
decades of selective breeding to produce
a series (rather than an occasional
example) of bulldogs to a ‘new’ standard.
“I would be delighted to see bulldogs with somewhat longer legs, but still
with the traditional look (including ‘flat’
face and Churchillesque attitude), and a
wide-legged stance—like each of the
seven generations of bulldog which my
family has owned, and owns to this day.
However, I would be appalled to see
longer noses, shrunken faces and lean
bodies, since this means we will be going
back to the “Boxer” identity, destroying
the most endearing characteristics of the
true bulldog.
“Anyone who doubts that my son’s
five-year-old bulldog cannot play, run, and
enjoy himself in every way is welcome to
try to wear him out before I do.”
DATELINES
WITH A FRIEND: 1951 General Election.
BULLDOG NOT
LONDON, JANUARY 12TH (REUTERS)—
The classic English bulldog,
symbol of defiance and pugnacity
(though in fact a friendly and
affectionate animal) may now disappear. A shake-up of breeding
standards by the Kennel Club has
signalled the end of the dog’s
Churchillian jowl. Instead, the dog will
have a shrunken face, a sunken nose,
longer legs and a leaner body. The
British Bulldog Breed Council is threatening legal action against the Kennel
Club. Chairman Robin Searle said:
“What you’ll get is a completely different
dog, not a British bulldog.”
Finest Hour referred this one to
longtime colleague, prominent motoring
writer and bulldog partisan Graham
Robson, who writes:
“As a long-time bulldog owner
(your editor has met various of my
much-loved mutts) I am at once
delighted and appalled by what is being
proposed. Loud-mouthed critics of ‘traditional’ bulldogs talk about breathing
difficulties (usually untrue), too-fat
bodies (only some breeders encourage
this—mine never), heads too large and
legs too short (arguable—none of mine
were ever grotesque), and difficulties in
delivering puppies without a vet’s help
(unfortunately true).
HMS Bulldog (H91), 1929-1946
Since 1782, seven Royal Navy
ships have borne the name Bulldog. The
last was a B-Class fleet destroyer laid
down on 10 August 1929. Early in
WW2 she was deployed as an attendant
to HMS Glorious and HMS Ark Royal.
As part of the Home Fleet in a 1940
action against E-boats, Bulldog towed
Lord Mountbatten’s badly damaged
HMS Kelly to the Tyne for repairs. After
distinguished convoy duty through the
war, Bulldog was broken up at Rosyth in
1946. She achieved the distinction of
being in operational service for most of
the war apart from periods of refit or
repair. —www.navalhistory.net
LAS PALMAS REMEMBERS
LAS PALMAS, CANARY ISLANDS, MARCH
26TH— Winston Churchill visited the
Canary Islands three times* but the
plaque being unveiled at the Port in Las
Palmas in honour of one of Great
FINEST HOUR 143 / 6
Quotation of the Season
ppeasement from weakness
and fear is alike futile and
fatal. Appeasement from strength is
magnanimous and noble and might
be the surest and perhaps the only
path to world peace. When nations or
individuals get strong they are often
truculent and bullying, but when they
are weak they become better mannered. But this is the reverse of what
is healthy and wise.”
“A
—WSC, HOUSE OF COMMONS,
14 DECEMBER 1950
Britain’s most internationally influential
figures was to commemorate his visit
fifty years ago. As a guest aboard the
Onassis yacht Christina, he came to the
island for a holiday, and as a tourist,
chose to visit Caldro de Bandama and
Montaña de Arucas. In memory of his
visit a plaque was unveiled by the
Mayor of Las Palmas, Jerónimo
Saavedra Acevedo.
It has been written that General
Franco’s reluctance to risk losing the
Canary Islands was the reason Spain
never officially entered into the war, as
Churchill had warned that an invasion
was logistically possibile.
A painting of Churchill hangs in
the British Club, where the fondly
remembered Churchill Restaurant was
located. Matthew Vickers, chairman of
the Club and his wife were present “to
represent the British community….It’s
interesting that here they respect him
enough to unveil a plaque….He was
someone who could see all of the
enjoyment there was to see here….He
was never one to shrink from challenges and there are lots of challenges
for everyone. He had that ‘never say
die’ spirit. Ultimately he was all about
how you can build stronger links
between people.”
The consensus among the guests
attending was that Churchill was a
unique character who deserved being
remembered in the Canary Islands.
Francisco Marin Loris, from the Real
Sociedad Economica de Amigos del
Pais de Gran Canaria, said it gives a
sense of pride to the Canarians that a
man of Churchill’s stature chose to
holiday on Gran Canaria, and increases
the interest of British visitors to learn
more about the history of the island.
—DEBORAH WOODMANSEY
(WWW.ROUNDTOWNNEWS.CO.UK)
1959: Onassis, WSC, and Sgt. Murray on
Gran Canaria. (Editorial Prensa Canaria)
*Editor’s note: The 1959 visit was
on 26 February; see Gilbert, Winston S.
Churchill VIII: 1284. I have verified the
1961 visit, again via Christina, but not
the third. Can readers assist? RML
BRITAIN FORGETS
LONDON, 25 MARCH 2009— Children will
no longer study World War II and
Queen Victoria, but instead learn how to
assert themselves on the Internet under
radical plans to overhaul primary school
teaching. According to reports today, the
new draft curriculum commissioned by
the government claims that pupils can do
without learning about the battle against
Nazism and the rise and fall of the
British Empire.
In a move which will horrify many
parents, it would see children focus on
internet tools such as Wikipedia and
podcasting, as well as innovations such as
blogging and Twitter, which allows users
to post instant minute-by-minute
updates about their lives. How this
smacks of the “Me Generation.”
Schools Minister Lord Adonis says
children will still have to learn about the
Second World War as part of secondary
school curriculum, including Churchill’s
role in defeating the Nazis. Cutting
Churchill from history lessons, he told
Sky News’ Sunday Live programme, is
“completely wrong….It is a statutory and
mandatory requirement of the new curriculum for all students in secondary
schools in England to study the Second
World War. I cannot conceive how you
can teach the history of the Second
World without having Churchill, Hitler
and Stalin as part of the story.”
—DAILY MAIL
GILBERT WINS BRADLEY
One of four
2009 Bradley Prizes, each carrying a
stipend of $250,000, was presented to
CC Honorary Member and Trustee Sir
Martin Gilbert at the John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts.
“The Bradley Foundation selected
Sir Martin Gilbert for his compelling
work in historical research and his commitment to freedom,” said Foundation
President and CEO Michael W. Grebe.
“Sir Martin’s seminal work in history has
been widely acclaimed, and his work is
considered the standard in its field.”
Sir Martin was knighted by Queen
Elizabeth II in 1995 for “services to
British history and international relations,” and earlier named a Commander
of the Most Excellent Order of the
British Empire (CBE). He is an
Honorary Fellow at Merton College,
Oxford, a Distinguished Fellow at
Hillsdale College, and the author of
seventy books, specializing in the two
World Wars, the Holocaust and scholarly
atlases in addition to Churchill.
The selection was based on nominations solicited from more than 100
prominent individuals and chosen by a
committee including Terry Considine,
Pierre S. du Pont, Martin Feldstein,
Michael Grebe, Charles Krauthammer,
Heather MacDonald, San W. Orr Jr.,
Dianne J. Sehler and Shelby Steele.
Founded in 1985, The Lynde and
Harry Bradley Foundation is devoted to
strengthening American democratic capitalism and the institutions, principles and
values that sustain and nurture it. Its programs support limited government,
dynamic economic and cultural activity,
and a defense of U.S. ideals and institutions. Recognizing that self-government
depends on enlightened citizens, the
Foundation supports scholarly studies
and academic achievement.
WASHINGTON, JUNE 3RD—
BRITAIN REMEMBERS
LONDON, MAY
10TH— With
his “Into the
Storm” telefilm appearing
in America
and Britain,
Irish actor
Brendan
Gleeson’s portrayal of
FINEST HOUR 143 / 7
Winston Churchill drew raves. The
notice that stands out most for him came
the other night at a screening in London,
from Churchill’s daughter, 86-year-old
Lady Soames.
“I think she was genuinely
pleased,” Gleeson reports. “She said I
didn’t fall into the usual traps or something of that nature. Of course for her it
was looking into the past. She said, ‘This
is very emotional for me.’”
The joint HBO-BBC production
(reviewed on page 44) picks up where the
2002 “The Gathering Storm” (Finest
Hour 115) left off, with the war years
seen via flashbacks as Winston and
Clementine (Janet McTeer) await
postwar election results. “The Gathering
Storm” won shelves of awards, including
Emmys for Outstanding Made for TV
Movie and Outstanding Lead Actor for
Albert Finney—a fact of which Gleeson
was quite aware when he took on the job.
Finney’s performance, he says, “had such
force and humanity in it that you say,
‘Where do you take it from there?’”
Portraying the iconic figure “was a
huge acting challenge” which included
portraying someone twenty years older
than himself. Gleeson admits, “I was a
little wary of it being a bridge too far, of
miscasting myself, but the people
involved were very encouraging.”
— MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH,
NATIONAL LEDGER
GAMESMANSHIP
It was 1957
when Gary Player first pointed his car
down Magnolia Lane to the Augusta
National clubhouse—a place, he so often
has implied, where golfers “begin to
choke as you drive in the gates.”
The Hall of Fame golfer did it
again today, commencing his fifty-second
week at the Masters Tournament. Put
another way, he will have spent an entire
year of his life chasing golf balls around
Augusta National by the match’s end.
And that’s where Player has decided it
should conclude. The 73-year-old South
African announced Monday that this
Masters will be his last as a competitor,
signing off on a tenure that began before
eighty-nine of this week’s other ninetyfive entrants were born. “I’ve had such a
wonderful career,” Player said. “My
goodness, when I think of the career I’ve
had—you can’t have it all, and I did have
it all. You can’t be greedy. Winston >>
AUGUSTA, GA., APRIL 7TH—
DATELINES
appearance in Churchill’s time. (We hope
they’re right about this.)
The first black swans were a gift
from Sir Phillip Sassoon in 1927. The
population was topped up by the govern—JEFF SHAIN, MIAMI HERALD ment of Western Australia, where the
black swan is a state symbol. C. atratus is
native also to Tasmania and has been
FOR THE
BIRDS:
introduced to New Zealand. It is the
Giles Palmer
world’s only black swan, though its flight
says the
feathers, invisible at rest, are white. Giles
swans are
Palmer hopes the pair will soon breed
settling in
and begin a new generation.
nicely.
Churchill was devoted to his swans
and regularly conversed with them in
“swan talk,” in which he claimed profiBLACK SWANS RETURN
“All the black swans are mating, not only ciency. But a former bodyguard, Ronald
Golding, wrote (see page 31) that this
the father and mother, but both brothers
was one of WSC’s little myths, because
and both sisters have paired off. The
Ptolemys always did this and Cleopatra was the swans would cry out to anyone who
the result. At any rate I have not thought it approached within a certain distance:
“It was some time after this dismy duty to interfere.”
covery that I was walking down to the
—WSC TO HIS WIFE, CHARTWELL, 21JAN35
lake with Mr. Churchill. I was a little in
front, and watched carefully for the critWESTERHAM, KENT, MAY 26TH— Seventyfive years ago Lady Diana Cooper surveyed ical spot. I then called out in ‘swan-talk’
and the birds dutifully replied. Mr.
Chartwell’s birds: “five foolish geese, five
furious black swans, two ruddy sheldrakes, Churchill stopped dead. I turned round
and he looked me full in the eye for a
two white swans—Mr. Juno and Mrs.
Jupiter, so called because they got the sexes moment or two. Then the faintest suspicion of a smile appeared and he walked
wrong to begin with, two Canadian geese
on in silence. No comment was ever
(‘Lord and Lady Beaverbrook’) and some
made that this secret was shared.”
miscellaneous ducks.”
Chartwell’s black swans have been
looked after as zealously as the apes on
FH TRAVEL GUIDE
Gibraltar (Finest Hour 125:6), but over
LONDON, APRIL 1ST— On England’s
the years marauding foxes and mink
“Churchill Trail,” Carol Ferguson of the
reduced the population, which reached
Herald-Banner, Greenville, Texas, stopped
zero last year. Happily last winter,
to chat
Chartwell head gardener Giles Palmer
with two
installed a new floating “swan island” to
gents on a
provide natural protection, and two new
bench on
black swans (Cygnus atratus) are now
New Bond
cruising the ponds designed by Sir
Street. “I’m
Winston himself.
prompted
Mr. Palmer told Kent News
to thank
(www.kentnews.co.uk): “I have seen the
Finest Hour for its regular travel tips,”
swans on their island once or twice but
Carol writes, “especially the addresses of
am confident that they will see just what Churchill’s London homes and directions
they are missing out on as soon as the
to Chartwell. My daughter and I scouted
foliage on the island grows up. For now,
them out together.”
I’m simply thrilled that the swans are settling on so well and getting to know the GETTING TO CHARTWELL
gardens. They’re getting so brave now
PERIODIC ADVISORY— Chartwell is open
that they ventured all the way to the
Wednesdays through Sundays from
kitchen garden recently.” The floating
March through 1 November from 11am
island has allowed gardeners to remove
to 4pm, and on Tuesdays in July and
ugly mesh screening set up against preda- August. Local telephone: (01732)
tors, returning the lakes to their
863087. We like to remind readers of
FINEST HOUR 143 / 8
how to get there from London.
By car: the drive nowadays is not
something for the faint-hearted or trafficchallenged, or North Americans not
familiar with righthand-drive. Chartwell
is two miles south of Westerham on the
A25, accessed by M25 junctions 5 or 6.
Drive to the town centre, take the B2026
a few miles to the car park (on left).
By bus: Sevenoaks station 6 1/2
miles; Oxted station 5 1/2 miles;
Metrobus 246 from Bromley station to
Edenbridge passes the gates. The
National Trust’s Chartwell Explorer
coach takes visitors from Sevenoaks to
Chartwell for £3, which provides unlimited bus travel to any local Trust property
and a pot of tea at Chartwell. You can
also get a combined ticket from London,
which includes train and coach, for £13,
or £8.50 for Trust members. Details at
(08457) 696996.
By rail: Some recommend Charing
Cross Station to Sevenoaks (four fast
trains per hour). Others suggest Victoria
Station (fewer trains, but some marked
“to East Grinstead and calling at
Oxted”). Though only a mile closer than
Sevenoaks, Oxted is less congested,
making for a lower taxi fare. Arrange to
have the cabbie pick you up for your
return from Chartwell, so you don’t get
stranded—although there are worse
places to be stranded than Westerham.
There’s a lovely footpath from Chartwell
to the town, with its famous King’s Arms
pub. (Factoid: the Nemon statue of
Churchill on the village green was a gift
from the people of Yugoslavia.)
CHERIE REVEALS ALL
LONDON, MAY 5TH— The
wife of former
British Prime
Minister Tony
Blair compares her
spouse to WSC.
Cherie Blair told
Vanity Fair that
her husband “was
fantastic. I’m sure
history will judge
him very well. I
think he’ll be up
there with Churchill.” But, she was less
complimentary about her own image:
“Just looking at the press cuttings, you
could not say that it was a triumph,
could you!” Cherie has admitted that her
husband was taken aback a little by some
DRAWING BY KARL MEERSMAN
GARY PLAYER...
Churchill, one of my all-time great
heroes, always said it’s never a bad thing
to cry. It’s a cry of appreciation and
enjoyment, a cry of gratitude.”
of the saucy contents in her new memoir,
Speaking for Myself: “I think he’s rather
embarrassed by the love affair bits. I
don’t think he particularly read those
closely. Been there, done that!”
Yes, well... At least Cherie didn’t
liken herself to Clementine Churchill.
“THE SEASHORE”
LONDON, MAY 21ST— Churchill’s “The
Seashore” (Coombs 320) was placed on
auction at Christie’s today, estimated at
£200,000-300,000. The sale benefitted
the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Trust.
The provenance is William
Greenshields, Churchill’s butler between
1948 and 1953. “The Seashore” was
given to him by Churchill, as well as a
further work called “Antibes,” which sold
at Sotheby’s in 1966.
According to David Coombs, the
preeminent expert and co-author with
Minnie Churchill of Sir Winston
Churchill: His Life through His Paintings,
the scene is one of a series that Churchill
painted during the 1930s, in which he
demonstrates his fascination with the sea
breaking on the shore. The exact location
is not known, but these coastal scenes
appear to be painted from the French
Riviera.
Since 1977, The Queen’s Silver
Jubilee Trust has supported charities that
work with young people in the UK,
Channel Islands, Isle of Man and the
Commonwealth. Through its grantmaking activity, the Trust has helped
hundreds of thousands of young people
to find employment, volunteer in their
local communities or experience new
opportunities that they would not otherwise have enjoyed.
PUBLIC INTELLIGENCE
WASHINGTON, APRIL 30TH— R. Emmett
Tyrell, Jr., editor of The American
Spectator, comments on the recent debate
AROUND & ABOUT
he Things They Say Department: the Wall Street
Journal, April 24th, reports: “In London, [President
Obama] said that decisions about the world financial
system were no longer made by ‘just Roosevelt and Churchill
sitting in a room with a brandy’—as if that were a bad thing.” Maybe not, but
it’s a simplification of wartime decision-making. Also, FDR drank vermouthlaced martinis, which Churchill reportedly dumped in the nearest flower pot.
Thanks to Elliot Berke for this snippet.
❋❋❋❋❋
How the Mighty Have Fallen Bureau: “When Prime Minister Gordon
Brown came a-calling at the White House, there was no trip to Camp
David, no state dinner or joint meeting with the press, and nobody
quoting Churchill that we noticed. An aide explained to the UK’s Sunday
Telegraph: “There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as
the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment.” One editorial suggested the UK threaten to set off one of its
nuclear weapons: “That might get their attention.”
❋❋❋❋❋
Last issue we presented the Finest Hour Re-Rat Award to Senator
Judd Gregg (R.-NH), who accepted nomination as President Obama’s
Secretary of Commerce but then withdrew. (Churchill, who deserted the
Conservatives for the Liberals in 1904 but oozed back to the Tories in
1925, later said, “Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat.”) Re-ratting, a lost art, is experiencing a revival. Just a few
weeks later, Senator Arlen Specter (D.-Pa.) re-ratted by switching from
the Republicans to the Democrats. A registered Democrat, Specter beat
Philadelphia Democrat District Attorney James Crumlish in 1965,
and subsequently changed his registration to Republican.
We must now commission two
copies of the Re-Rat Award, which we think
might take the shape of the “Flying Fickle Finger
of Fate” once dispensed by the Rowan and
Martin TV show “Laugh-In.” Re-ratting, if it
spreads, could produce a historic realignment,
perhaps even new Liberal and Conservative
Parties, which would better define the two opposite approaches to issues of the day. Then we
could get down to the business of arguing out
the debate, instead of obfuscating, dodging and weaving in order to toe
some known or imagined party line. As Churchill, who always put principle before party, remarked early in 1907: “The alternation of Parties in
power, like the rotation of crops, has beneficial results.”
T
over declassifying top secret documents:
“…frankly I am uneasy about this new
climate here in Washington. Historically,
intelligence documents have been kept
from public eye, not just here but
throughout the Western world. The idea
is that we do not want our enemies to be
informed of what we know. David
Reynolds’ In Command of History, on
how Churchill wrote his World War II
FINEST HOUR 143 / 9
memoirs, repeatedly shows Churchill and
his opponents in the Labour government
cooperating to keep secrets from the
public. British intelligence techniques
were not divulged….Intelligence officers
within our service have been intimidated
by our own government. Foreign intelligence officers who have been sharing
intelligence with us abroad are going to
be much less forthcoming.” >>
DATELINES
COLUMBIA, MO., MAY 1ST— The
WINTER, 1987-88—
Winston
Churchill Memorial and Library at
Westminster College in Fulton has a new
moniker to gain more national recognition. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R.-Mo.)
sponsored a House resolution recognizing
the property as “America’s National
Churchill Museum.” Every member of
Missouri’s House delegation co-sponsored the resolution, passed in June.
The memorial was dedicated
at Westminster in
1969 in commemoration of
Winston
Churchill’s historic 1946 speech
on the campus.
The memorial
and library
underwent major renovations in 2005
and reopened the following year.
(Cover story, FH 128.) In a prepared
statement, Westminster College President
George Forsythe said the national designation would raise the museum’s profile
and help attract visitors from all over the
world. —COLUMBIA DAILY TRIBUNE
CHURCHILL ON BURKE
BOSTON, MAY 23RD— Edmund Burke,
the 18th century Irish political theorist,
statesman, essayist, orator and philosopher, was a genius looking at the chaos
and iniquities of his time and acting
against them. He fought for justice,
liberty, and responsible government. He
fought against the Penal Codes enacted
against Catholics, the abuses of the East
India Company, government corruption,
and the chaos of the French Revolution.
He believed that British colonial possessions were a “trust” with one objective, to
prepare their colonies for freedom.
Churchill wrote of Burke in
“Consistency of Politics” [one of the four
essays to be discussed at our San
Francisco conference]: “His soul revolted
against tyranny, whether it appeared in
the aspect of a domineering Monarch
and a corrupt Court and Parliamentary
system, or whether, mouthing the watchwords of a non-existent liberty, it
towered up against him in the dictation
of a brutal mob and wicked sect….”
—The Catholic Citizen
HTTP://THECATHOLICCITIZEN,WORDPRESS.COM
“Functions in Britain
and the USA during last year resulted in
eight speeches of varying length….Since
publishing all these in Finest Hour would
require the bulk of two full issues, we
have decided to publish them as a group,
in a booklet called Churchill Proceedings.”
—Finest Hour 58.
Since 1987, we have published
eight editions of Churchill Proceedings
with some of the best speeches and
papers we have ever heard: Alistair
Cooke, Robert Hardy, Sir Fitzroy
Maclean, Grace Hamblin, William F.
Buckley, Jr., William Manchester, Arthur
M. Schlesinger, Jr. and many more. We
have a large supply of most editions and
they cost $5 each. Please email or phone
the editor, who will be happy to supply
them to you. A synopsis of contents is
available by email.
Some readers ask why we dropped
these separate booklets in favor of publishing Proceedings as part of Finest Hour
(color-bordered pages). It was a Hobson’s
Choice. The booklets made nice collections, but publication was delayed by as
much as three years. Expanding FH to
include Proceedings allows us to publish
Proceedings within a year of the event, to
add illustrations, and to fast-track them
to our website.
The final reality was the editor’s
time. Finest Hour 58 numbered thirtytwo pages. With FH now comprising up
to eighty pages and the Chartwell Bulletin
added, it was just too much to work up a
third separate publication.
We will eventually transfer all the
Proceedings to the new website, but the
job of transferring is huge and webmaster
John Olsen would like to parcel it out.
(Volunteers?) If readers have particular
HAIR CLUB FOR
MEN?: “It worked so
well that I bought the
company.” What
would WSC have
looked like with hair?
(A barber once asked
how he wanted his
hair cut: “A man of my
modest achievements
cannot be choosy.”)
The Daily Telegraph
version looks like U.S.
postwar radio personality Arthur Godfrey.
FINEST HOUR 143 / 10
speeches or papers they would like to see
posted first, email John or the editor, and
we will give them priority.
OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY
Hillsdale College
has reached Volume V
and its hitherto rare
companion volumes in
its noble reprint of Sir
Martin Gilbert’s ultimate authority for every
phase of Churchill’s life
Not only are these
books affordable (biographic volumes $45,
companions $35) but
you buy all eight Biographics for $36
each and all twenty (eventually)
Companion Volumes for $28 each by
subscription.
Better yet, if you subscribe for all
thirty volumes, you get the biographic
volumes for $31.50 and the companions
for $24.50. That includes the three
1500-page companions to Volume V,
first editions of which have been trading
for up to $1000 each.
How can you not afford these
books? Order from the Hillsdale website
whttp://xrl.us/ben4r9 or telephone tollfree (800) 437-2268.
ERRATA
Finest Hour 141: Page 10, column
2 (on Don Carmichael), line 4: for
“develed” read “delved.” Page 20, column
2, third paragraph, last line: close quote.
Finest Hour 142: Pages 3 and 6:
Alderman Ross, as the cover illustration
indicates, was Chairman not President of
the Early Closing Association. Page 5
Essay, six lines from bottom: for “leadership or” read “leadership of.”
✌
DAILY TELEGRAPH, LONDON
NEW NAME FOR FULTON
RIDDLES, MYSTERIES, ENIGMAS
Send your questions to the editor
Uniform vs. Mufti
Q
Why did Churchill so often appear in military uniform during World
War II when he was Prime Minister? PMs since have not to my
knowledge been so inclined. —Joshua Wasylciw
A
The general answer is that he was
proud of his military career and titles,
including honorary titles, and often wore
uniform at meetings with Stalin, Roosevelt
and Truman. Stalin, of course, never
appeared in mufti, while the American
Presidents always did.
Senior Editor Paul Courtenay replies:
Although he did not serve as a commissioned officer in WW2, Churchill had
several military titles, including Honorary
Air Commodore of 615 (County of Surrey)
Fighter Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air
Force; Colonel, 4th Queen’s Own Hussars;
Honorary Colonel of three Royal Artillery
units, of 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, of a battalion of the Essex Regiment (his Epping
and Woodford constituency was in that
county); and—notably—of 5th (Cinque
Ports) Battalion, The Royal Sussex
Regiment. He sometimes chose the RAF
uniform when abroad, e.g., Teheran and in
France from 1944
In 1947, his wife argued that he
should wear civilian dress in Paris to receive
the Médaille Militaire, instead of his RAF
Honorary Air Commodore's uniform. But
an on-the-spot photograph, taken on the
day and published in Finest Hour, indicated
that WSC had for once rejected her advice,
choosing the uniform of The 4th Queen's
Own Hussars, his old regiment.
British Army regiments (and some
battalions) each have a Colonel of the
Regiment or Honorary Colonel. This is an
unpaid position and not in the military
chain of command; that is to say, he does
not give orders to anyone and does not
command his men in the field. The post is
an honour for the individual and the regiment or battalion concerned. He has the
role of a father figure, protecting the regimental ethos, and can often help his
regiment with advice on regimental finance
and personnel matters. He is consulted on
which applicants are accepted for commissions, but plays no part in military training
or operations, and is usually concerned
with the welfare of retired members (i.e.,
“old comrades”).
A typical Colonel of Regiment will
have spent much of his early period of
service in the regiment concerned and
become a Commanding Officer within it.
He may then have been promoted above
the regimental level and perhaps
become a General. He may hold the post
of Colonel of the Regiment whether
he is still on the active list and filling a
senior post somewhere in the army; or he
may have retired from the army and started
to follow a civilian career.
Churchill was not a typical Colonel
of Regiment. He was appointed to
anumber of colonelcies, most especially
two, whose uniforms he frequently wore
during World War II.
The first of these was Colonel, 4th
Queen’s Own Hussars, the regiment in
which he had spent four years as a junior
officer in 1895-1899.It was a great thrill for
him (and for 4th Hussars) when he was
appointed Colonel of the Regiment in
1941. He rarely is shown in this uniform.
The second
was Honorary
Colonel, 5th
(Cinque Ports)
Battalion, The
Royal Sussex
Regiment. This
appointment was
also made in
1941, soon after
he had become
FH 84, Autumn 1994
Lord Warden of
the Cinque Ports in that year. The post of
Lord Warden is a great honour, bestowed
on someone of exceptional distinction.
The Cinque Ports were Hastings,
New Romney, Hythe, Dover, and
Sandwich, later supported by Rye and
Winchelsea. The 5th (Cinque Ports)
Battalion, The Royal Sussex Regiment, was
a Territorial Army unit (part-time reservists
mobilised for war service), many of whose
men came from the Cinque Ports area. He
wore this uniform in Italy, Moscow, Yalta,
the rhine Crossing, Berlin and Potsdam.
Following army tradition, part-time
squadrons in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force
acquired Honorary Air Commodores. In
1939 Churchill was appointed Honorary
Air Commodore, 615 (County of Surrey)
Fighter Squadron, Royal
Auxiliary Air Force. The probable reason is that the unit was
based at Kenley, only about ten
miles from Chartwell; Churchill
could
easily visit
them and often
did so. This was
the RAF uniform
he sometimes
wore.
This letter is
in Martin Gilbert,
Winston S.
FH 110, Summer 2001
Churchill, vol. 8,
“Never Despair” (London: Heinemann,
1988), 328-29:
Winston,
I would like to persuade you to
wear Civilian clothes during your Paris
visit. To me, air-force uniform except
when worn by the Air Crews is rather
bogus. And it is not as an Air
Commodore that you conquered in the
War but in your capacity and power as
a Statesman. All the political vicissitudes during the years of Exile
qualified you for unlimited and
supreme power when you took
command of the Nation.
You do not need to wear your
medals to shew [sic] your prowess. I
feel the blue uniform is for you fancydress and I am proud of my plain
Civilian Pig.
Clemmie.
Sir Martin Gilbert writes: “Churchill
seemed to accept
his wife’s advice,
instructing his
valet: ‘I shall wear
civilian clothes
and take no
uniform at all.’
Before leaving,
Churchill invited
to Chartwell, and
FH 20, Jul-Aug 1971:
greeted there,
Lord Warden court dress
members of the
Guinea Pig Club,
a club consisting of burnt and disfigured air
crews. ‘I believe it was the highlight of their
visit,’ wrote Archibald McIndoe, the plastic
surgeon who had done so much to heal
their wounds. But at the Médaille Militaire
ceremony, he showed up in uniform.”
✌
125-100-75-50 YEARS AGO
125 years ago
Spring, 1884 • Age 9
“He has no ambition”
A
t the end of the summer term,
Winston’s parents removed him
from St. George’s School in part
because his nanny, Mrs. Everest, saw evidence of the canings Winston had
received at the hands of the school’s
sadistic Headmaster, Sneyd-Kynnersley,
whose assessment of the young man on
June 20th was that “He has no ambition.” His final report on July 21
grudgingly
admitted: “He
might always do
well if he chose,”
noting that
Winston’s diligence was “fair
on the whole,”
but that he still
“occasionally
gives a great deal
of trouble.” It is
more than likely
that Winston was
happiest at St.
George’s School
while he was
giving the
Headmaster “a
great deal of trouble.”
Lord Randolph and the Fourth
Party were once more at odds with their
leaders in the Conservative Party who
were seeking to amend the Reform Bill
on voter eligibility to exclude Ireland.
During his formative years, Winston read
and re-read all of his father’s speeches.
The following excerpt from Lord
Randolph’s biting comments on the
subject illustrates that, as a speaker,
Winston’s acorn did not fall far from his
father’s oak:
The Tories had argued that no votes
should be given to Irish peasants
because they lived in “mud cabins.”
Lord Randolph replied: “I have heard a
great deal of the mud-cabin argument.
For that we are indebted to the brilliant, ingenious and fertile mind of the
Rt. Hon. Member for Westminster. I
suppose that in the minds of the lords
of suburban villas, of the owners of
vineries and pineries, the mud cabin
represents the climax of physical and
social degradation. But the franchise in
England has never been determined by
Parliament with respect to the character of the dwellings. The difference
between the cabin of the Irish peasant
and the cottage of the English agricultural labourer is not so great as that
which exists between the abode of the
Rt. Hon. Member for Westminster and
the humble roof which shelters from
the storm the individual who now has
the honour to address the Committee.”
Winston later noted in his biography of his father that “cheers and
laughter” had greeted Lord Randolph’s
comment
WSC’s recent speech in Edinburgh in
July, where Churchill had criticized the
House of Lords for threatening to reject
Lloyd George’s “People’s Budget”—which
included, among other things, a 20
percent tax on increased land values.
Churchill wrote defending himself,
enclosing a speech he had given in
Birmingham in January with which
Asquith had expressed satisfaction.
“Nothing in my speech in Edinburgh
goes beyond this. Indeed it seems to me
to be a mere restatement.” Churchill
wrote, quoting this excerpt from the
Birmingham speech:
by Michael
100 years ago
Summer, 1909 • Age 34
“It was a great coup”
C
hurchill became a father for the
second time on July 11th with
the birth of his daughter Diana,
whom he nicknamed “the cream-gold
kitten.” Three weeks later, Churchill’s
personal intervention in the coal miners’
strike produced a satisfactory resolution,
as he wrote his mother on 4 August:
I had a great triumph….We had 20
hours negotiations in the last two days
and I do not think a satisfactory result
would have been obtained unless I had
personally played my part effectually. I
had a nice telegram from the King, and
letters from Asquith and Grey all very
eulogistic. It was a great coup, most
useful and timely.
Prime Minister Asquith may have
been eulogistic over Churchill’s settling of
the strike, but the same was not true of
I do not, of
course, ignore
the fact that
the House of
McMenamin
Lords has the
power, though
not, I think,
the constitutional right, to
bring the government of the
country to a
standstill….If
they really
believe, as they
so loudly proclaim, that the
country will
hail them as its
saviours, they
can put it to
the proof….And, for my part, I should
be quite content to see the battle
joined as speedily as possible [cheers],
upon the plain simple issue of aristocratic rule against representative
government [cheers], between the
reversion to protection and the maintenance of free trade [cheers], between a
tax on bread and a tax on—well, never
mind. [Cheers and laughter.]
75 years ago
“First requisite of peace”
O
n June 30th Churchill’s first
cousin, “Sunny,” the Ninth
Duke of Marlborough, died.
Churchill wrote of him in a subsequent
letter to The Times as my “oldest and
dearest friend.” By a gruesome coincidence Sunny died on the same day as the
true face of National Socialism was
revealed in Germany during the “Night
of the Long Knives,” when Hitler
ordered the wholesale slaughter of his
1928: Hitler and Goering (lower left, medals
decorating his ample bosom) with the SA at
a Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. (Wikimedia)
nation, seventy millions of the most
industrious, valiant, gifted people in
the world, in the hands of a small
group of fierce men.
When shall we learn that Britain’s hour
of weakness is Europe’s hour of danger?
When shall we comprehend that for so
great and wealthy a power with such
rich possessions to remain in a position
where it can be blackmailed is to
commit an offence against the cause of
peace?
political adversaries, including Ernst
Röhm, head of the SA, and all of his top
lieutenants.
Even political retirement did not
spare those who had incurred Hitler’s
enmity, including the Nazi Party’s former
number two man, Gregor Strasser—or
Hitler’s predecessor as Chancellor,
General Kurt von Schleicher, who, along
with his wife, was murdered by no fewer
then six gunmen from Himmler’s SS.
Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw estimates
the death toll at between 150 and 200.
Sunny’s death deeply affected
Churchill and may explain why, in the
days that followed, Churchill did not
explicitly condemn Hitler’s cold-blooded
killing of his political enemies. But, in a
long article in The Daily Mail on 9 July,
Churchill left no doubt about the implications for the future peace of Europe.
No one else in England or anywhere else
for that matter had by that time so succinctly summarized what Germany had
become under National Socialism:
Surely at the very least we ought to put
ourselves in as good a position as we
were before the Great War. Then, we
were at any rate under the shield of the
Navy. We could enter or stand outside
Continental struggles as we pleased. The
first requisite of peace is that Britain
should be capable of self-defence.
In England’s balmy summer of 1934, few
were listening.
50 years ago
“The greatest Englishman”
I
n July, 1959, Churchill was cruising
near Greece and Turkey aboard
Aristotle Onassis’ yacht Christina,
accompanied by, among others, his
That mighty race who fought and
almost vanquished the whole world is
on the march again. The whole nation
is inspired with the idea of retrieving
and avenging their defeat in the Great
War. They have arisen from the pit of
disaster in a monstrous guise: hatred
internal and external, organized as if it
were a science; debts repudiated to buy
the means of making cannon; treaties
broken to construct a gigantic Air
Force; schools placarded with maps of
territories to be regained; all
Parliamentary safeguards, all internal
criticism trampled down; even
Christianity itself conscripted to a
tribal purpose; the whole German
physician Lord Moran, Anthony
Montague Browne and his wife, and
Onassis’ mistress, the opera singer Maria
Callas. During the tour, Sir Winston met
both the Turkish and Greek Prime
Ministers.
Later that summer, Churchill was
invited by President Eisenhower to meet
him during his state visit to London.
They were together at two dinners on 31
August and 1 September.
Earlier, in the South of France,
Churchill invited the Israeli Prime
Minister, David Ben-Gurion, to lunch
after learning that Ben-Gurion was also
in France. Unfortunately, by the time the
invitation arrived, Ben-Gurion’s ship had
already departed for Israel. Ben-Gurion
wrote to Churchill:
I need hardly assure you that I should
have been delighted to accept the invitation, if only it had found me still in
France. Like many others in all parts of
the globe, I regard you as the greatest
Englishman in your country’s history
and the greatest statesman of our time,
as the man whose courage, wisdom and
foresight saved his country and the free
world from Nazi servitude [as well as]
one of the few men in the free world to
realize the true character of the
✌
Bolshevik regime and its leaders.
29 MAY 1958: Sarah Churchill and Prime
Minister Ben-Gurion unveiling the plaque
in the Churchill Auditorium, Mt. Carmel
campus of the Technion, Israel Institute
of Technology. (Wikimedia Commons)
COVER STORY
Churchill in
Nazi Cartoon
Propaganda
RANDALL BYTWERK
“I ALWAYS LOVED CARTOONS,” CHURCHILL
WROTE IN 1931. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ASKING A LOT FOR HIM TO LOVE THE ONES THE
GERMANS GENERATED A FEW YEARS
LATER: A GRAPHIC REMINDER OF WHAT HE
WAS UP AGAINST.
Above: Die
Brennessel (The Stinging
Nettle) #54, 18 December 1934: The first known
Churchill cover in the Nazi press, following his earliest
warnings on Germany’s rearmament. The caption
reads: “Winston Churchill juggles figures on ‘German aircraft’: ‘Toss me another zero—it won't make much
of a difference.’”
C
hurchill’s attacks on the Nazis are masterpieces of
invective, and the Nazis returned fire. To Joseph
Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, he was
“the biggest and most experienced liar in modern history,”
and that was one of Goebbels’ gentler attacks. In Hitler’s
speeches WSC was “whisky-besotted,” and he was often
portrayed in Nazi cartoons with a drunk’s red nose.
Churchill’s place in Nazi propaganda varied directly
with his threat level. At first he was a minor target, an irrational Englishman pushing for needless war with Germany.
Between May 1940 and the invasion of Russia, he was the
main enemy, the drunken demagogue at the head of British
plutocracy who stood in the way of Germany’s desire for a
just world order. After June 1941, he was the puppet of
Roosevelt and Stalin, and the Jews who controlled them
from behind the scenes: a character of the past who would
ruin England in a vain attempt to defeat Germany. But
Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, came to have a
grudging respect for Churchill’s ability as a propagandist.
Die Brennessel #46, 15
November 1938: Eden and Churchill, the
warmongers after Munich, sitting at the feet of Mars.
Dr. Bytwerk is Professor of Communication at Calvin College in Grand
Rapids, Michigan, and author of Julius Streicher and Bending Spines:
The Propagandas of National Socialism and the German Democratic
Republic. In his Landmark Speeches of National Socialism (2008) he
writes: “The Germans claimed that they did not know what was happening—that was not persuasive. Everything that Nazism intended
was revealed in its rhetoric. He who had ears could have heard.”
Early on, Churchill received attention only when he
made the news. A December 1934 cartoon in Brennessel,
the Nazi Party’s humor weekly, had him juggling false statistics on German aircraft production. Four years later,
Brennessel showed Eden and Churchill sitting at the feet of
Mars, who approves of their opposition to Chamberlain’s
appeasement policy at Munich.1
With the outbreak of war and Churchill’s return to
the Cabinet, he became a central figure. Nazi speakers were
told to say that he was now an “untiring warmonger,” the
chief English opponent of peace with Germany.2
Through May 1940, as First Lord of the Admiralty,
Churchill was presented as the bumbling victim of German
military brilliance. A January 1940 cartoon had him
knocked over by a boxing ball. In April, he was shown
behind bars looking hungrily at a well-stocked table, the
victim of the U-boat blockade (back cover). Goebbels at
that time did not think much of him, commenting in his
diaries that Churchill was energetic, but rash.3
Once Churchill became prime minister, he was the
personification of evil for the year when Britain stood alone
against Germany. In July 1940, Goebbels ordered Nazi propagandists “to attack only Churchill and his clique of
plutocrats but never the British nation as such. Churchill
himself had burnt all bridges behind him so that there can
be no question of any arrangement with Britain so long as
he is at the helm.”4
In caricatures, Churchill was now less a clown than a
criminal, a big-mouthed blowhard with nothing to back up
his words. A 1940 cartoon showed a sweating Churchill
awaiting the gallows, looking at a list of
bombed cities.
>>
The humor weekly Lustige
Blätter (Funny Pages) was a relentless foe.
Above: WSC smashed by the New World Order, 26 January
1940. Below: Awaiting the Deutschland knife (following previously defeated foes Schusschnigg, Beneš, Chamberlain,
Daladier, Reynaud and others), 19 July 1940. Left: Facing the
noose, the condemned prisoner with a list of British cities
bombed in the Blitz, January 1941.
PROPAGANDA CARTOONS...
A few months later, he was being led around the world by a
Jew—part of the message that as evil as Churchill was, he
was only a servant of the Jews, an argument that became
more pronounced after 1941.
As the Blitz mounted, Churchill was the madman
who had brought ruin to England (as the Nazis always
called Britain). A cartoon in November 1940 showed
Churchill the “madman” watching from a window as
London burned. (The Nazis didn’t realize his preferred
perch was the Air Ministry roof.)
Goebbels turned up his wrath as Britain failed to
buckle. His weekly columns in Das Reich, a widely circulated prestige weekly, increasingly attacked Churchill. In
January 1941, he accused WSC of the Big Lie: “The astonishing thing is that Mr. Churchill, a genuine John Bull,
holds to his lies, and in fact repeats them until he himself
believes them.”5 A month later, Churchill was “the first
violin in the hellish concert that the whole demo-plutocratic world is playing against the Axis powers.”6
Goebbels mocked Churchill’s claim that all he could
offer was “blood, toil, tears and sweat.” It was clever propaganda, he asserted. After all, if things got bad, one could
claim to have predicted it, and if things got better, one
could take the credit. A cartoon soon made the point: the
British lion was ill after drinking Churchill’s cocktail of
“blood, sweat and tears.”
Perhaps when the war is over, Goebbels speculated,
Churchill would be forced to read aloud all of his speeches
Above,
Lustige Blätter, 25 October
1940: Hitler had postponed Operation Sea
Lion, but Churchill was now being led around the
world by Ahasver, the legendary "Wandering Jew."
Below, Der Stürmer (The Attacker), February 1940:
“Churchill, the Braggart. The ruler of all the seas weeps
many a bitter tear. The poor man can hardly grasp it, that
this is the end to the dream of ‘the supremacy of the seas.’”
Above, Illustrierter Beobachter (Illustrated
Observer) #25, June 1941: The Nazis picked up on WSC’s habit of
dictating from his bath: "Take this down: In my current situation, I
fear German U-boats even less than before."
in public. “He would then enjoy the most original death a
mortal ever had: he would drown in the world’s laughter.”7
Goebbels later wrote: “We can only be thankful that we
have Churchill. One may not wish he were not there. One
should take good care of him, because he is the trailblazer
for our complete and radical victory.”8
Nazi propaganda suggested that Churchill was falling
under American
control to get the
money he needed to
continue the war. A
1941 cartoon had
him hauling England
into a Jewish pawnshop. Not only
would Churchill
lose the war—he
would sell the
Empire to the
Americans in the
process. >>
Left, Illustrierter
Beobachter,
March 1941,
reprinted from
an Italian
newspaper:
“Churchill's
last speech, from the
front of the façade.” The façade looks a
lot like Buckingham Palace; at any rate, the Royal Arms
are over the door.
Below,
Lustige
Blätter,
14
February
1941.
Churchill
and the
King haul
“England”
(as the
Germans
always
referred to
Britain) to a
Jewish pawnshop. The
canny artist
even picked
up their
smoking
habits.
Left, Simplicissimus,
22 October
1939. “Zircus
Churchill”
approaching
the Maginot
Line, with the
Gallic cock and
Neville
Chamberlain as
the British lion.
WSC: “You jump
through the
hoop first, dear
cock, I shall
follow after.” As
we now
know,
nobody
thought of
jumping
through.
Left, Lustige
Blätter, 15
November
1940. WSC
looks out his
window on
the fires of
London:
“The philosophy of a
madman:
‘Our Empire
is so large
that it hardly
makes a difference if a
small island
burns.’”
Left, Lustige
Blätter, 23 April
1942: the British
lion after a
Churchill cocktail
of blood, sweat and
tears. About the
time this cartoon
was published,
Joseph
Goebbels told his
colleagues how
Churchill's famous
promise would
work: If things got
worse, he could say
that's just what he
had predicted; if
things got better,
he could take the
credit.
Above, Der Stürmer, #6, February 1943: “In the name of
Humanity.” High Priest Roosevelt: “The staff has broken, too
much of her spoken.” Stalin wields the axe. As the tide
turned and the Allies began to push German armies ever
closer to the Reich, the theme became “Jewish Bolshevism.”
Above: Simplicissimus #14,
April 1944: Two months before D-Day,
Roosevelt and Churchill are entwined by Stalin: “How neatly
you have gotten caught in my web. Now all I need to do is
wrap you up!” (www.simplicissimus.com)
Der Stürmer, 13 February 1941: “Why does Britain wage this
war? Churchill dares not make a reply. He remains dumb. We
know quite well why one avoids giving a straight answer to
these questions—we, however, need not make a secret of the
aim for which we strive, we fight for a free German life!”
PROPAGANDA CARTOONS...
Following the invasion of Russia and the turning
aside of the German onslaught on Britain, the full force of
Nazi propaganda focused on Bolshevism and the Jews.
Churchill now became a secondary figure. Just after the
German defeat at Stalingrad, Goebbels launched a major
campaign against Jewish Bolshevism. Churchill and
Roosevelt were “to be presented as accomplices and toadies
of Bolshevism…which is the most radical expression of the
Jewish drive for world domination.”9 This theme dominated Nazi propaganda for the remainder of the war.
Churchill nevertheless remained a villain. In August
1944, a cartoon titled “Churchill’s Debts” showed him
looking at the list of European cities Britain had bombed,
an interesting comparison to the earlier cartoon in which
he was held responsible for bombed English cities. A late
1944 mass pamphlet quoted his famous words from 1941:
“Nothing is more certain than that every trace of Hitler’s
footsteps, every stain of his infected and corroding fingers,
will be sponged and purged and if necessary blasted, from
the surface of the earth.”10 This was cited as evidence that
Churchill, like his master Stalin, intended to wipe out
Germany and its people.
In private, however, Goebbels gradually came to have
respect for Churchill’s abilities. In December 1941, he told
his associates that Churchill’s strategy of promising only
”blood, sweat and tears” had been correct.11 And as the war
situation turned, he increasingly followed Churchill’s
example of admitting difficulties while confidently predicting final victory. Churchill, however, turned out to be
the more accurate prophet.
Left, Der
Stürmer,
September
1943:
“Plutocrats’
Domination:
The Master’s
Chair.
Churchill is
annoyed at
the decoration
on the throne.”
Right,
Simplicissimus,
21 May 1941,
after the British
debacle in
Greece, a potsherd from a
Grecian urn
shows Churchill
the “strategic
genius” running
away two-faced,
crying, “Help” and
“Victory.”
Simplicissimus,
shut down in September 1944, along with many other German magazines
and party organs, owing to the consequences of what had now become total
war. It was revived in 1954-67.
Below: Lustige Blätter, #33, 18 August 1944, one of its last issues:
“Churchill’s Debts.” In an interesting contrast with the 1941 cartoon of Churchill with a list of ruined British cities (page 15), an
arm marked “V1” forces WSC to look at the cities and cultural treasures of Europe destroyed by British bombs.
It is an enlightening fact that Churchill was indeed saddened by the destruction of the war—a
sentiment expressed by no other leader on either side.
Endnotes
1. For a wide range of Nazi propaganda on Churchill,
see the German Propaganda Archive (GPA)
http://bytwerk.com/gpa/winstonchurchill.htm. See also
Fred Urquhart, W.S.C.: A Cartoon Biography (London:
Cassell, 1955), which contains about a dozen Nazi cartoons
on Churchill.
2. A translation is available on the GPA:
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/rim1.htm.
3. Georg Reuth, Joseph Goebbels Tagebücher 19241945 (Munich: Piper, 1999), 1373.
4. Willi A. Boelcke, The Secret Conferences of Dr.
Goebbels (New York: Dutton, 1970), 64-65.
5. Joseph Goebbels, Die Zeit ohne Beispiel (Munich:
Eher Verlag, 1941), 364.
6. Ibid., 381.
7. Ibid., 395.
8. Joseph Goebbels, Das eherne Herz (Munich: Eher
Verlag, 1943), 218.
9. The document is translated on the GPA:
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/bolshevist.htm.
10. Heinrich Goitsch, Niemals! (Munich: Eher Verlag,
1944). A translation is available on the GPA:
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/niemals.htm.
11. Boelcke, 192. ✌
Top Cop in a
Top Hat
CHURCHILL AS HOME SECRETARY
14 FEBRUARY 1910 - 25 OCTOBER 1911
RICHARD A. DEVINE
he traditional image of Winston Churchill is that of
the courageous wartime Prime Minister, or the lonely
voice in the 1930s warning about Nazi Germany, or
perhaps that of the twice-First Lord of the
Admiralty. Few think of Churchill in the role of law
enforcer, but for approximately twenty months in 1910 and
1911 that’s essentially what he was.
Roy Jenkins described the Home Office as “a plank of
wood out of which all other domestic departments have been
carved. Ministries like Agriculture, Environment and
Employment have left big holes in the coverage of the Home
Office. Apart from its central responsibility for police,
prisons and the state of the criminal law it also retains a pile of
semi-archaic responsibilities, often merely for the reason that no
one has thought it worth while to put in a bid for yet another
item....”1
Churchill was appointed Home Secretary when he was 35: the
youngest person other than Robert Peel to hold the position. The
then-wide ranging office made him a police superintendent, the head
of prisons, a key decision-maker on clemency and commutation questions, and the head of probation services, to name a few of his duties.
He was the “Top Cop” and more.
The Home Office then had responsibility for the regulation of
working conditions and administration of workmen’s compensation,
but then, as now, public safety issues made the headlines: By the time his
service as Home Secretary was over, Churchill had been assailed by
striking workers, attacked by women suffragists, challenged by decisions
on capital punishment, and blamed for the fiery and dramatic deaths of
anarchist robbers. As with most of his life, when Winston was around,
things were far from dull.
T
_______________________________________________________________________
Mr. Devine is a member of the Chicago law firm of Meckler Bulger Tilson Marick and
Pearson. He served as State’s Attorney of Cook County, Illinois from 1996 to 2008. This
article is based on his remarks to Churchllians of Chicagoland. In its preparation the
author gratefully acknowledges the advice and assistance of Linnet Myers.
Budget Day,
27 April 1910
Though Churchill had little background in law
enforcement, he was a man of ideas who never hesitated
to express them at length and with vigor. The Permanent
Under-Secretary for the Home Office, Sir Edward Troup,
captured a glimpse of his chief which prefigured the comments of Churchill’s generals in World War II:
Once a week or oftener, Mr. Churchill came into the
office bringing with him some adventurous or impossible
projects; but after half an hour’s discussion something
evolved which was still adventurous, but not impossible.2
Strikes and Strikers
Given Churchill’s irrepressible nature, it is not surprising that he was a major player in significant events.
There was a good deal of labor unrest, and in May 1910,
a dispute erupted at the Newport docks. Feelings ran
high. One of the employers, F.H. Houlder, said approvingly that in Argentina they would send in “artillery and
machine guns” to handle the matter properly.3
To help maintain order local officials requested that
the Home Office agree to the dispatch of both troops and
additional police. Churchill agreed to provide 250 foot
and fifty mounted policemen. Troops were kept in readiness nearby, but Permanent Under-Secretary Troup
notified the War Office that Churchill was “most anxious”
that the military not be used.4
Neither police nor troops were needed. The Mayor
of Newport telegraphed the Home Office on 22 May that
the dispute had been settled by negotiations. Even though
law enforcement was largely in the background, it was
generally agreed that the Home Office had played a
responsible role in resolving the Newport labor dispute.5
In November, 1910, there was a major dispute in
the Rhondda Valley, Wales concerning different pay scales
for miners, about 25,000 of whom went on strike. Even
though the Chief Constable of Glamorgan had about
1400 police officers under his command, he asked for
troops and additional police. Troops were sent to the area
but held in reserve. The responsibility for maintaining law
and order was left with the local constabulary and the 300
Metropolitan police officers ordered to the area by
Churchill.
On 7 November rioting broke out in Tonypandy,
one of the towns in the Rhondda Valley. Sixty-three shops
were damaged, and one person was killed by accident.
According to later reports, the police behaved with
restraint, utilizing only rolled-up mackintoshes in
attempting to control the rioters.
Churchill was both criticized and praised for the
handling of the disorder at Tonypandy. The Times charged
him with weakness in failing to call in the troops, while
the Manchester Guardian argued that his decision probably “saved many lives.”6
Interestingly, in later years Churchill was criticized
for authorizing the use of troops at Tonypandy when, in
fact, he had not done so. (One commentator believes
Tonypandy is erroneously referenced because it is one of
the few Welsh towns the English can pronounce.)7
In June 1911, strikes broke out in the Southampton
docks and spread to other locations. As the situation deteriorated, there were fears of a possible national railway
strike. This led Churchill to suspend the rule that troops
could be provided only at the request of the local civic
authority. He authorized the deployment of forces at the
discretion of military commanders in the area.
The strikes ended with the intervention of Lloyd
George. On 22 August 1911, Churchill spoke in the
House of Commons, defending his actions. He said it had
been vital to keep the railroads running to protect the
food supply, arguing that a national railway strike would
have hurled the whole area into an “abyss of horror which
no man can dare to contemplate.”8 He believed that the
Metropolitan Police were not a strong enough force to
prevent or quell disruptions that might have occurred
anywhere in the country. Churchill acknowledged that
there was some loss of life but argued that, in the long
run, lives were saved.9
Mobilizing the military outside of normal procedures upset a number of people in Churchill’s Liberal
party, despite the Home Office’s measured response to
previous labor problems. In this instance his oratorical
strengths may have contributed to an image more antilabor than his actions suggest.
The Battle of Sidney Street
Churchill’s work in law enforcement was not confined
to labor disputes. In December 1910, a group of foreign
anarchists was discovered digging a tunnel into a jewelry
shop in London. The police arrived on the scene, and during
the ensuing confrontation three police officers were killed
and two were wounded. The criminals escaped but were
traced on January 3rd to a house on London’s Sidney Street.
The police on the scene were armed but needed heavier
weapons, so they requested approval from the Home Office
to use an armed platoon of Scots Guards. Churchill was
summoned from his bath to be briefed on the events at
Sidney Street and to sanction the use of the military.
Although some believed he’d have been wiser to stay in
his tub, Churchill decided to go to the scene himself. He
arrived at Sidney Street—not surprisingly a conspicuous
presence. His level of involvement in directing the police has
been the subject of debate, but Churchill always maintained
that he left the management of the siege to the officer in
charge.
At some point a fire started in the building the suspects
had occupied. Churchill confirmed a police order to the fire
brigade to let the house burn rather than risk the lives of firefighters to protect those of criminals. >>
Arthur Balfour: “I understand
what the photographer was
doing, but what was the Rt.
Hon. Gentleman doing?”
Sidney Street, 3 January 1911,
WSC in top hat.
HOME SECRETARY...
(Churchill denied that he gave the initial order.)
Eventually two bodies were found in the building. One or
two of the criminals were never accounted for, including
the leader, “Peter the Painter,” who escaped and was never
heard from again.10
A newsreel camera captured Churchill at the scene,
and one of the newspapers had a picture of him in top hat
and fur collared coat, along with that of a photographer
who was covering the event. Referring to the photo,
Arthur Balfour stated in the House of Commons:
He was, I understand, in military phrase in what is known
as the zone of fire—he and a photographer were both
risking valuable lives. I understand what the photographer
was doing, but what was the Rt. Hon. gentleman doing? 11
Churchill conceded that Balfour’s comment was not
without some justification.
Suffragettes and Dirty Curs
One of the characteristics Churchill brought to
public life was stating his views with clarity. He was not
one to be all things to all people or to adopt a position
because it was the least offensive. Churchill’s record on the
issue of women’s suffrage could not, however, be said to fit
that description.
The issue was emotional and resolution more
complex then one might first think from the vantage
point of the 21st century. It was not simply a matter of
giving the vote to females on the same basis as males. In
the early 1900s the male vote was limited to householders.
If the same standard had been applied to women, the vote
would have been given to only a small percentage of
unmarried or widowed women.12
With the hope of finding a way through a difficult
issue, a Conciliation Committee was established in the
spring of 1910. The
Committee’s leadership
was seeking to remove
the issue from the
clamor of partisan politics and find a solution
that would be acceptable to a majority in the
Commons. Churchill
was approached and agreed to the use of his name as a
supporter of the undertaking.
The result of the Committee’s work was introduced
in the House of Commons in July 1910. Despite his
support of the Committee, Churchill spoke against the
bill. This resulted in a heated exchange of correspondence
between WSC and H.N. Braidsford, Honorary Secretary
of the Committee, who referred to his conduct as “treacherous.” Churchill replied that his support had been
limited to the creation of the Committee, not any end
product. Further letters followed.
Braidsford and Lord Lytton claimed that Churchill
had made positive comments to them about the specific
proposal in private meetings. Churchill pointed out that
in addition to being private, those were preliminary discussions and that Braidsford and Lytton should have
understood that his final views had to await analysis by
experts in the Home Office.
Reviewing the correspondence gives a sense that
Braidsford and Lytton were most offended by Churchill’s
taking an active role in the debate and using his oratorical
skills against a cause they strongly supported. They might
have understood and accepted a quiet neutrality, but were
upset by WSC’s statements and opposing vote.
For Churchill’s part, he was deeply upset that private
conversations had been used against him in public, especially by Lytton, who had been a personal friend. It also
bothered him that supporters of suffragettes would accuse
him of treachery when he had offered help to a group that
had badgered and bullied him during the course of several
election campaigns.
Churchill wrote a private memorandum on 19 July
1910, outlining his recollections of his meetings and conversations on the suffrage issue. At paragraph 15 he noted
that in a meeting he had told Braidsford he could not vote
for the bill but also “expressed his intention of not voting
against the Bill.”13
This suggested he wasn’t going to vote at all—but
he changed his mind two days before the proposal’s
second reading. He decided to speak and vote against the
measure for two reasons. First, research by his staff and his
own study of the bill revealed serious problems that made
it a bad piece of legislation and “deeply injurious to the
Liberal cause.”14 Second, he understood that both the
Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer
would oppose the proposal in public. Because emotions
ran high, and there had even been threats of violence,
Churchill said he would have considered it cowardly to
have sat on the sidelines.
Whatever Churchill’s rights and wrongs on the
Franchise Bill, he managed to alienate a number of
people, including some supporters. In a political sense, he
owed nothing to the suffragettes. As he noted, they had
long made his life miserable by regularly disrupting his
speeches. Yet he had given his support to the Committee,
so his subsequent conduct, even if justified in the particulars, left him open to the claim that he was saying one
thing and doing quite another.
The Franchise Bill ultimately failed, and it soon
became clear that Parliament would not take up the issue
any time in the near future. This led to a demonstration
in Parliament Square by suffragettes and their backers on
what came to be known as Black Friday (18 November
1910). Not surprisingly, feelings continued to run high,
and eventually there were clashes between the police and
demonstrators. Over 100 arrests were made.15
There was substantial criticism of how the police
handled the situation, including a letter from Churchill
himself, who wrote the head of the Metropolitan Police
expressing his concern that officers had been slow in
making arrests. It was true that the police did not act
quickly to arrest the demonstrators, but that approach was
consistent with past practice. At the last minute Churchill
had suggested a change in that practice but too late,
according to the police commander, to get the message to
the officers on the scene.
Press accounts focused on police excesses in first
trying to control the crowd and then in making arrests.
Even though Churchill promptly ordered the release of
the arrestees, many suffrage leaders blamed him for the
violence and even accused him of ordering the releases to
prevent the truth from being stated in court.
A few days later, as the so-called Battle of Downing
Street took place, Churchill again appeared at a demonstration in support of votes for women, and ordered the
arrest of a participant. A few days later Hugh Franklin, a
suffrage backer, attacked Churchill with a whip, shouting
“Take that, you dirty cur!”16 Franklin was charged with
assault and sentenced to six weeks in prison. Suffrage continued as a problem for the Liberal Party until the
outbreak of World War I in 1914 put the matter on the
back burner.
Prisoners and Sentences
Among the Home Secretary’s duties was reviewing
death sentences considering mercy. Churchill took this
obligation seriously and, by all accounts, gave close attention to each of the forty-three capital cases presented for
review. He reprieved twenty-one, which was a higher rate
than the 40 percent reprieved during 1900-09.17
Even though Churchill was not reluctant to show
mercy in individual cases, he remained a supporter of the
death penalty throughout his life. He did, however, view
the ultimate punishment in a rather unusual light. In a
letter to Sir Edward Grey he stated, “To most men—
including all the best—a life sentence is worse than a
death sentence.”18
If this seems odd, it fit Churchill’s persona. He led
an adventurous life and appeared to have no fear of being
killed. A long term of imprisonment would have been
much worse than death for a man of his temperament.
Whether “most men” felt that way is another question.
To the Home Secretary’s responsibility for England’s
prison system Churchill brought a unique perspective—
he was the only Home Secretary who was ever
incarcerated. In My Early Life he entitled the chapter on
his 1899 captivity by the Boers “In Durance Vile.”
At the time Churchill took office, England was
sending a large number of people to prison. In 1908-09
over 180,000 people were incarcerated, over half for
failure to pay a fine, and a third for drunkenness.19 The
great percentage of convicts were from the poorer classes,
a fact which did not escape Churchill’s notice.
He studied prison issues for several months after
taking office. On 20 July 1910, he told the House of
Commons that one of the main principles for a good
prison system was to “prevent as many people as possible
from getting there.”20 Some 90,000 people had been sent
to prison in 1909 for failure to pay fines. Many would
never have gone to prison at all if they had been given a
reasonable period of time to pay their fines. Churchill
advocated extending the time for payment. Even though
his proposal didn’t become law, the concept of more time
was accepted as national policy, reducing the number of
people sent to prison.
The changed approach had a dramatic effect on
those charged with drunkenness. In 1908-09 over 62,000
were imprisoned for failing to pay fines imposed for that
offense. By 1918-19 the number was only 1600.21
Churchill also worked to extend the Children’s Act
to those who were 16-21 years old, placing a greater
emphasis on rehabilitation and alternative punishments
such as “defaulters drill” for petty offenses. He was reluctant to send any young person to prison unless a serious
offense was involved. To his credit, Churchill’s attitude
was affected by the reality that those who were sent away
were almost always sons of the working class. He pointed
out that many of the same acts, if committed by a >>
HOME SECRETARY...
young man at Oxford, were not punished in any way.22 As
a result of Churchill’s efforts, far fewer young people
entered the country’s prisons.
One of Churchill’s duties was to write regular memos
to the King on House of Commons activities. Though this
falls outside the law and order category, it is worth a discussion because of WSC’s approach to the task.
On 10 February 1911, Churchill wrote the King:
“…as for tramps and wastrels there ought to be proper
labour colonies where they could be sent….it must not,
however, be forgotten that there are idlers and wastrels at
both ends of the social scale.”23 Greatly offended, George
V concluded that WSC’s view was “very socialistic.”24 The
King’s reaction prompted a series of notes between
Churchill and Lord Knollys, the King’s private secretary.
At one point Churchill suggested that the duty of
updating the King should perhaps “be transferred to some
other minister.” He finally calmed down when the King,
through Lord Knollys, assured him that he wanted
Churchill to continue, and that his letters were “always
very interesting.”25
The exchange was enough for Knollys to comment
that Churchill “means to be conciliatory I imagine, but he
is rather like ‘a bull in a china shop.’”26 Knollys might
have overstated things, but there’s no denying that wherever Churchill served, there was action and controversy.
Summing Up
Even though his time as Home Secretary was a brief
and little-known part of his public life, Winston was still
Winston. The issues he faced provoked controversy and
intense feelings. His actions prompted both praise and
stinging criticism. Even when his actions were reasonable
and temperate, his oratorical flourishes could at times
leave the impression he was following an extreme course.
Whatever else might be said about Churchill’s time
at the Home Office, there can be no dispute that his
unique personality and strong views guaranteed interesting times. After approximately twenty months as
Home Secretary, the controversial Churchill went on to
become First Lord of the Admiralty—and times remained
as interesting as ever.
Endnotes
1. Roy Jenkins, Churchill (Macmillan, 2001), 170.
2. Paul Addison, Churchill on the Home Front 1900-1955
(London: Pimlico, 1995), 128.
3. Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, Companion
Volume II, Part 2, 1907-1911 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), 1172.
4. Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, vol. II, Young
Statesman 1901-1914 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967), 358.
5. Ibid., 363.
6. Ibid., 364.
7. “Leading Churchill Myths,” Finest Hour 140, Autumn 2008, 11.
8. Young Statesman, 367.
Hendon Aviation meeting, 12 May 1911: Churchill, second from right, chats
with newspaper magnate Lord Northliffe; Mrs. Churchill shades her eyes at
left. Although still Home Secretary, WSC was now takng a serious interest in
aircraft and flying, which would bear useful fruit in World War I.
9. Ibid., 371-372
10. Ibid., 394.
11. Ibid., 395.
12. Addison, 132.
13. Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, Companion
Volume II, Part 3, 1911-1914 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), 1452.
14. Ibid., 1453.
15. Addison, 136.
16. WSC, Companion Volume II, Part 3, 1911-1914, 1459.
17. Addison, 119.
19. Ibid., 373.
20. Addison, 114.
22. Ibid., 376.
23. Ibid., 418.
24. Ibid., 419.
25. Ibid., 423.
26. Ibid., 423.
Other Sources
Winston S. Churchill, Thoughts and Adventures (Wilmington,
Delaware: ISI Books, 2009).
Ted Morgan, Churchill: Young Man in a Hurry (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1982).
Donald Rumbelow, The Siege of Sidney Street (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1973).
Maxwell P. Schoenfeld, Sir Winston Churchill: His Life and
Times (Malabar, Fla.: Krieger, 1986).
Websites
Churchill Centre: “Action This Day, A Daily Chronicle of
Churchill’s Life; Young Statesman: 1901-1914” (http://www.winstonchurchill.org).
Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge: Chartwell Papers,
✌
CHAR 12: Home Office (http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk).
Wit & Wisdom
“Grasp the Larger Hope”
Once he found a felicitous phrase, it stuck...
I
n writing the footnotes for James
Muller's new edition of Thoughts
and Adventures (reviewed on page
45), I came across this line in Churchill’s
article, “The Irish Treaty”: “Both are
needed to explain the perplexities of the
British Government and the causes
which led them ‘to grasp the larger
hope.’” I traced the likely source (“trust
the larger hope”) to Alfred Tennyson
(1809-92), who became First Baron
Tennyson in 1884. He was appointed
Poet Laureate in 1850.
The poem is IN MEMORIAM
A.H.H - OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII. It was
written by Tennyson in memory of his
close Cambridge friend Arthur Henry
Hallam, who died suddenly in 1833 of a
cerebral haemorrhage, aged 22; he had
been engaged to marry Tennyson's sister.
Tennyson was so affected by the
loss of Arthur Hallam that he spent the
next seventeen years writing this long
work, which consists of no fewer than
131 separate poems presented as one. It
was published in 1850. Section LV (55)
consists of five verses, “the larger hope”
coming from its final lines:
PAUL H. COURTENAY
tepid water with lime-juice or
tepid water with whisky. Faced
with these alternatives I ‘grasped
the larger hope.’ I was sustained
in these affairs by my high morale.
Wishing to fit myself for active-service
conditions I overcame the ordinary weaknesses of the flesh. By the end of these
five days I had completely overcome my
repugnance to the taste of whisky.”
1931
In a speech on the Statute of
Westminster Bill, 20 November 1931
(Complete Speeches, V: 5099) Churchill
spoke of continued Empire unity:
“I feel that we are bound, where
the great self-governing Dominions of
the Crown are concerned, boldly to grasp
the larger hope, and to believe, in spite of
anything that may be written in Acts of
Parliament, that all will come right, nay,
all will go better and better between
Great Britain and her offspring.”
1934
In Arms and the Covenant, the collection of Churchill speeches leading up
to World War II, is his speech of 8
I stretch lame hands of faith and grope,
March 1934, “The Need for Air Parity”
And gather dust and chaff, and call
(see also Complete Speeches V: 5330):
To what I feel is Lord of all,
“We all hope [war] will never take
And faintly trust the larger hope.
place, and I am not at all prepared,
standing here, to assume that it will
The phrase rang a loud bell and I recalled inevitably take place. On the contrary, I
that Churchill had also deployed it in My still grasp the larger hope and believe that
Early Life and The Gathering Storm. With we may wear our way through these diffithe editor's help I found it to have been
culties and leave this grim period behind.”
one of his favourites, having been used in
a variety of contexts as follows:
1937
Step by Step, Churchill’s collection
1930
of articles about foreign affairs, includes
Churchill in My Early Life,
“How to Meet the Bill,” first published
Chapter X, writes amusingly about
22 January 1937:
acquiring his taste for whisky:
“I personally grasp the larger hope;
“I now found myself in heat
but, however this grim issue in world
which, though I stood it personally fairly destiny may be decided, it is evident that
well, was terrific, for five whole days and Great Britain should finance the expanwith absolutely nothing to drink, apart
sion of her defence programmes to the
from tea, except either tepid water or
fullest possible extent….”
1938
Sir Martin Gilbert in Churchill:
The Wilderness Years, (London:
Macmillan, 1981, 240), seems to be
quoting Churchill post-Munich, though
this does not come up in the official
biography:
“In many letters [Churchill]
referred to his deep distress and in one
he explained why he felt he was ‘groping
in the dark.’ Until Munich the ‘peace
loving powers’ had ‘been definitely
stronger than the Dictators,’ but in 1939
‘we must expect a different balance.’ It
was this new situation, he wrote, which
‘staggered’ him and momentarily caused
him to despair. But, in his characteristic
way he immediately struggled to grasp
the ‘larger hope’ and turned to the possibility of greater United States
involvement in Europe.”
1948
In The Gathering Storm, Chapter
20, Churchill writes of what he calls
“The Soviet Enigma”:
“Statesmen are not called upon
only to settle easy questions. These often
settle themselves. It is where the balance
quivers, and the proportions are veiled in
mist, that the opportunity for worldsaving decisions presents itself. Having
got ourselves into this awful plight of
1939, it was vital to grasp the larger
hope.”
1948
Speaking of European Unity at
The Hague on 7 May 1948 (Europe
Unite, 317), Churchill used the phrase
with a plural:
“...if we all pull together and pool
the luck and the comradeship…and
grimly grasp the larger hopes of
humanity, then it may be that we shall
move into a happier sunlit age...” ✌
“CORRERAI ANCOR PIU VELOCE PER LE VIE DEL CIELO.”
Jack French Kemp
1935-2009
RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
O
n Eleuthera, where we live from December to
April, there was vast fascination, as one might
expect, over the recent U.S. Presidential election. One of the virtues of this Bahamas Out
Island is that racism, in the sense we all know it in the
so-called First World, doesn’t really exist. On our easygoing strand, amid the smiles of friendly locals and old
friends, it doesn’t seem to matter whether the face in
front of you is black or white.
So it was natural for the
wife of our local grocer to ask me
in all innocence and without
rancor: “Is it possible for a nonwhite to be elected President?”…
…And for me to reply
instantly: “It was possible twelve
years ago, if the ticket had been
Colin Powell and Jack Kemp.”
I am convinced it was possible—not only because Colin
Powell, Honorary Member of
The Churchill Centre, is a man
vast numbers of people like or
admire; but because Jack Kemp,
Trustee of The Churchill Centre,
though they say he ran a bum
campaign, was equally so: a
politician who, like Churchill,
never wrote off any voter, who
believed that his libertarian philosophy could appeal to
all, that it was the height of patronization to single out a
minority and declare that they must have more government because they cannot get by with less of it.
Jack was a man who lived life at maximum rpm,
whether as champion quarterback for the Buffalo Bills,
as a Congressman who promoted enterprise zones in
inner cities, as a empowerment-advocating Housing
Secretary, or as a candidate for Vice President who
described himself as a “bleeding-heart conservative.” But
you can read all about those achievements by Googling
his name. I’d rather write about what he meant to his
fellow Churchilllians.
The Tenth Churchill Conference in Washington in
1993 was a stellar occasion. Co-sponsored by Senators
Boxer and Feinstein, we welcomed Lady Thatcher,
Winston Churchill, Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, Celia
Sandys and Gen. Colin Powell. At the Navy Yard Chapel
we reprised the services at Argentia in August 1941, with
readings by veterans of USS Augusta and HMS Prince of
Wales. Ambassador Alan Keyes not only sang five national
anthems including God Defend New Zealand, but all six
verses of The Battle Hymn of the Republic—sans music in
freezing cold on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. As
Churchill wrote of Argentia: “Every verse seemed to stir
the heart. It was a great hour to live.”
Jack Kemp was our keynote
speaker at that conference. We
republish here what he said:
words of wisdom and inspiration, delivered with his
accustomed vigor, and not
without humor.
When his introducer made
so bold as to compare him to a
former Congressman named
Lincoln, Jack rose red-faced to
disclaim even the slightest similarity. After her appreciation
following his speech, Jeane
Kirkpatrick and Jack embraced:
old colleagues, veterans of political wars, together again, even
though (as Jeane told me at
dinner), they had differed fervently over the 1982 Falklands
War, with Jack firmly on the
side of Margaret Thatcher and Great Britain.
Jack and his wife Joanne were with us again at the
commissioning of USS Winston S. Churchill in 2001,
and we dined together in the wardroom (Finest Hour
111). His last campaign was six years past, but he was
still passionate about what The New York Times called his
“most important idea….the theory that deep cuts in
taxes would lead to such an economic boom that much
if not all of the revenue lost from lower taxes would be
offset by the additional tax receipts that resulted from
greater earnings.”
“What was it Churchill said about Supply-Side
economics?” Jack asked between bites.
“He didn’t say anything about Supply-Side economics,” I winked. “He was a Liberal.”
“Yes, he did!” Jack retorted. “You know, about
keeping money in people’s pockets.”
Later I looked it up and sent it to him, because he
was right, and Churchill’s words ring as true now as
when Churchill spoke them, on 16 August 1945:
“What noble opportunities have the new
Government inherited! Let them be worthy of their
fortune, which also is the fortune of us all. To release
and liberate the vital springs of British energy and inventiveness, to let the honest earnings of the nation fructify
in the pockets of the people….”
In January Jack Kemp announced that he had been
diagnosed with cancer. Four months later he was gone.
Immediately I thought of the words Churchill offered, as
only he could, quoting from Adam Lindsay Gordon’s
grand poem “The Last Leap,” upon the death of his
dearest friend, Lord Birkenhead: “The summons which
reached him, and for which he was equally prepared, was
of a different order. It came as he would have wished it,
swift and sudden on the wings of speed. He had reached
the last leap in his gallant course through life. All is over!
Fleet career, Dash of greyhound slipping thongs, Flight
of falcon, bound of deer, Mad hoof-thunder in our rear,
Cold air rushing up our lungs, Din of many tongues.”
Oddly too, remembering the rapidfire way Jack
lived and spoke and thought, I thought of another figure
in a galaxy far away, the immortal Tazio Nuvolari, the
greatest racing driver who ever lived. In Mantua, Italy,
where passing drivers in the Mille Miglia would raise a
hand in mute salute as they raced through “Nivola’s”
home town, his tombstone bears this epitaph: Correrai
ancor piu veloce per le vie del cielo. You will travel faster
still upon the highways of heaven.
Godspeed, my friend. ✌
REMEMBERING JACK
I have three abiding memories of Jack Kemp. The first was his visit to the Churchill Archives Centre, when he
stood in the middle of our reading rooms, a bust of Sir Winston at his back, and insisted not just on reading but on declaiming one of the great wartime speeches from Churchill's original speaking notes, at full volume, with full emphasis, as if delivering it to an election rally: one master orator paying tribute to another.
My second memory is walking with him to the reception after the commissioning of USS Winston S. Churchill,
watching him engage in lively banter with the crowd, with a natural ease and without airs or security.
But my most important memory is of the meeting I had with him in his office in Washington, D.C. I thought it was
a courtesy call and I briefed him on the reason for my trip, and the fact that I was having meetings with key staff at the
Library of Congress to discuss a possible Churchill exhibition. I had underestimated his interest and his networks, for on
the back of my brief visit he picked up the phone to his friend, Dr. James Billington, Librarian of Congress. Suddenly doors
began to open. The exhibition that followed in 2004 might never have happened without this crucial political intervention.
—Allen Packwood, Director, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge
C
“Never Splash in
Shallow Waters”
The Hon. Jack Kemp
Tenth International Churchill Conference
Mayflower Hotel, Washington,
7 November 1993
hurchillians are a diverse group with a common
purpose. By your reenactment of the 1941
Atlantic Charter services today at the Navy
Chapel, you bring to mind again Churchill’s memories
of that scene: “It was a great hour to live. Nearly half
those who sang were soon to die.”
Through experiences like these we can better
understand our world today, and the unique set of challenges we face. No one has made that more clear to me
than Sir Martin Gilbert. As exemplified by his address
this weekend, “Churchill and the Holocaust,” he has set
an unequaled standard of scholarship. Martin has also
written of Churchill’s “uncanny understanding and
vision of the future unfolding of events.” This is why
Churchill speaks to us so clearly across the years.
Over the past eighty years the Western democracies
have overcome unprecedented challenges. Two >>
JACK KEMP...
Charles de Gaulle said that a great leader “must
world wars destroyed nations, empires, millions of lives.
aim high, show that he has a vision, act on the grand
A cold war haunted us with nuclear nightmares, and
scale, and so establish his authority over the generality of
men who splash in the shallow water.” Churchill always
turned suddenly hot in places like Berlin, Korea,
swam in deep waters. The essence of his vision was
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, Cambodia and
liberty. His greatest contribution was to preserve it from
Afghanistan. Whole nations became prisons where words
extinction by rallying people behind a noble cause. But
of freedom were spoken only in private, and in fear.
today his legacy is under attack by authors who “splash
Many in the intellectual community, from Oswald
in shallow water.” Some argue that
Spengler to Jean-François Revel, predicted
Chamberlain, Baldwin and the
democracy’s demise.
appeasers were just “pragmatic
The man who experienced
realists,” Churchill an ideoall the trials of our century
logue willing to sacrifice
also foresaw their end.
Britain’s Empire for the
Speaking at M.I.T. in
futile cause of
1949, Churchill foredefeating Hitler.
shadowed the
The Fuehrer, after
triumph of
all, only wanted
freedom: “The
Lebens-raum; he
machinery of
had no
propaganda
designs westmay pack
ward.
their minds
Churchill
with falseadvocated
hood and
Services aboard HMS Prince of Wales with the President and Prime Minister, Argentia, 10 August 1941.
“peace
deny them
Reprised by The Churchill Centre, Washington Navy Yard Chapel, 7 November 1993
through
truth for
Lesson read by David Robinson, USN (ret.), USS Augusta
strength.”
many genBe strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land
He spent
erations of
which I sware unto their fathers to give them. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth;
ten years
time, but
but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is
warning
of
the soul of
written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou disNazi rearman thus
mayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest. —Joshua 1: 6, 8-9
mament and
frozen in a
the dangers of
long night can
Prayer read by Raymond Goodman, RN (ret.) HMS Prince of Wales
isolationism.
be awakened by
Save us and deliver us from the hands of our enemies; abate their pride, assuage their malice,
He challenged
a spark coming
and confound their devices; that we, being armed with Thy defence, may be preserved ever
the government’s
from God knows
more from all perils, to glorify Thee, who art the only giver of all victory. Stablish our
hearts, O God, in the day of battle, and strengthen our resolve, that we fight not
policies of appeasewhere, and in a
in enmity against men but against the powers of darkness enslaving the souls
ment and bluntly
moment the whole
of men, till all the enmity and oppression be done away and the
asked whether Britain
structure of lies and
peoples of the world be set free from fear, to serve one another
was doing all it could to
oppression is on trial for
as children of our Father, who is above all and through
defend democracy. Two
its life.”
all and in all, our God for ever and ever.
Amen.
years before the Munich pact
We have weathered this
dismembered Czechoslovakia he
century’s violent storms. At the end
spoke of “simple uncounted truths today
of each, there have been both opportunities
for which better men than we are have died on the
and tests. Consider the tragic mistakes and the terrible
scaffold or the battlefield.” Yet without him, the new
consequences which could have been averted. At
revisionists would have us believe Britain would have
Versailles, we tried to create a new world. We created
thrived under Hitler’s boot. That’s more than bad
instead the seeds of another war. At Yalta, we tried to
history; it is a dangerous blindness.
construct a stable peace. We raised an iron curtain.
Today we are engaged in a fresh debate over
We have won “the long twilight struggle” against
America’s role in the world. On the political right, some
Communism. The history of the response is now to be
want to turn inward, believing there are no great threats
written. What new challenge may lie ahead?
to our security. They say, “Come Home, America!”
In shaping this response, we can learn from the
Behind this lies a timid nationalism based on fear that
man who both made and wrote history: from internaAmerica can’t compete. I disagree. I believe America has
tional relations to trade, economic policy to social policy.
a vital national and world interest in expanding liberty.
Wherever they exist, democracies give rise to peace
and progress. But there is also a passion to foreign policy
that goes beyond a narrow Realpolitik. There is a moral
commitment, enshrined, as Churchill declared, in the
Declaration of Independence and Magna Carta: “Ought
we not to produce in defence of right, champions as bold,
missionaries as eager, and if need be, swords as sharp as
are at the disposal of the leaders of totalitarian states?”
The defining principle of Western foreign policy
must be freedom. Achieving it will not be through hollow
words or shallow idealism. Churchill said, “Virtuous
motives are no match for armed and resolute readiness.”
The first obligation is the defense of the nation.
The breaking up of empires is always a moment of
heightened danger. It is certainly true in the fragments of
the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Parts of the world are again in the grip of nationalist,
religious, and ethnic violence. Missiles and nuclear technology spread easily from hand to hand, to places like
North Korea and Iran. The CIA estimates that fifteen or
twenty “developing” nations will have ballistic missiles
by the end of the century. We still face a world of risk.
Who knows where it will rise from next?
I am concerned, in particular, about the determination to gut the Strategic Defense Initiative. When
weapons of mass destruction proliferate, regional conflict
can quickly become global. Churchill understood the
need to protect free peoples against the terrible weapons
of the modern age. That is why he always championed
new technology against objections from politicians and
the military. In World War I, he was the chief advocate
for the tank and military aircraft. During his political
wilderness, he challenged the British government to
maintain its technological edge. As Prime Minister, he
saw the vital importance of radar.
But freedom, Churchill knew, must also be protected by collective security: maximum power in the
hands of democratic nations. Recent events have proven
the point. American troops in Somalia were left without
clear objectives. Their goals were muddied by multilateralism, not aid by allies. Churchill hated military action
without strategy. But that is exactly what we’ve seen too
often lately, from leaders who view collective security as
an excuse for inaction and indecision. This is not collective security. It is collective ineptitude.
F
or Churchill, freedom was also his lodestar in
domestic politics, finding its most consistent
expression in his commitment to capitalism. He
sought no “third way” between capitalism and socialism.
He believed capitalism was inextricably linked to human
freedom. More than a utilitarian economic structure, it
was a prerequisite for a free society. Socialism, he
thought, would bring the slow death of democracy. “We
are for the ladder,” he said. “Let all try their best to
climb. They [socialists] are for the queue. Let each wait
his place until his turn comes.”
For Churchill, a thriving democratic-capitalist
system was based on three fundamental principles: the
rule of law, low taxes, and Free Trade. Months before he
crossed the floor of the House of Commons on the issue
of Free Trade, he gave an impassioned speech ridiculing
the growing protectionist sentiment in the Tory party:
“It is the theory of the protectionist that imports are
evil....we free-traders say it is not true. To think that you
can make a man richer by putting on a tax is like a man
thinking that he can stand in a bucket and lift himself
up by the handle.”
The debate of 1904 divides nations and my party
today, and the stakes are as high. The outcome of the
North American Free Trade Agreement will determine
more than my country’s economic future; it will determine its future character. It will determine whether we
turn inward or look outward, whether we try futilely to
preserve the past or boldly seek a greater future; whether
we view the global economy with fear or confidence.
Churchill also believed in a tax system where rates
were low and incentives high: “The idea that a nation
can tax itself into prosperity is one of the crudest delusions which has ever fuddled the human mind.” Low
taxes, he said, were the key to upward mobility for the
disadvantaged in society. One of the first changes he
announced as Chancellor of the Exchequer was a ten
percent reduction in income taxes for the lowest income
groups, to “liberate the production of new wealth [and]
stimulate enterprise and accelerate industrial revival.”
Churchill’s was not a Darwinian vision where the
strong thrive and the weak suffer. He fought to establish
a system that doesn’t surrender control to bureaucracy,
but shows compassion for the least fortunate in society.
We call it a safety net, but Winston Churchill described
it like this:
“We want to draw a line below which we will not
allow persons to live and labour, yet above which they may
compete with all the strength of their manhood. We want
to have free competition upwards; we decline to allow free
competition to run downwards. We do not want to pull
down the structures of science and civilization, but to
spread a net over the abyss.” These are the direct and vital
contributions of Churchill to the debates of today.
We have lived to see a world revolution of liberty,
but freedom’s march is not complete and its success is
never assured. America and the West must do more than
just stand against something. All defenders of freedom
stand on Churchill’s shoulders. Thank God we have this
organization to perpetuate his legacy and relevance: to
✌
remind us never to “splash in shallow waters.”
GLIMPSES
MADE A
SLIGHT
BOW AND
SAID, ‘HOW DO YOU
DO, SIR.’ HE WAS
ABOUT TO LEAVE
THE HOUSE AND
HAD HIS COAT ON.
THE BUTLER WAS
HANDING HIM HIS
BLACK HOMBURG
AND SILVERMOUNTED WALKING
STICK. HE LOOKED
ME RIGHT IN THE
EYE—A STARE
FAMILIAR TO
EVERYONE WHO
WORKED FOR HIM.
FINALLY HE ASKED:
“‘DID YOU FLY?’
“‘YES, SIR.’
“‘HMMPH.’
“...AND AWAY WE
WENT TO
CHARTWELL...THE
FIRST OF MANY
SUCH JOURNEYS.”
“I
ABERDEEN, 27 APRIL 1946: WSC traveled to Scotland to receive the Freedom of
Aberdeen and an honorary LLD. To WSC’s left: Sir Thomas Mitchell, Lord Provost of
Aberdeen, and Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Aberdeen University Sir William
Hamilton Fyfe. (The Chancellor, Field Marshal the Viscount Wavell, was absent in India
where he was Viceroy.) Behind them, with RAF moustache and raincoat, is the author.
GUARDING
GREATNESS
RONALD E. GOLDING • PART I
or several years before The Second World War I
served in the Special Political Branch of New
Scotland Yard. In 1946, after five years in the
RAF, I returned to the Yard to take up my civilian
duties again. It was still a pretty grim period in
England, particularly in London, for there was severe
rationing and a bitterly cold winter. I had a trying time
getting accustomed to normal life once more.
At the Yard too there was an air of general disillusionment. The Special Branch had sent many men to the war,
mainly as combatants, some on intelligence duties. Twentythree had been killed. Those who returned represented all
three services and ranked from Brigadier to Flight
Lieutenant. For many, returning to police duties meant a
tremendous cut in salary. In order to complete our rehabilitation, the police sent us on a special course lasting six weeks
or so to become reacquainted with our normal police work.
I had been back in the Branch only two or three weeks
when I was summoned by the Superintendent.
F
“Golding, how are you settling down now?”
“Not badly I suppose, sir.”
“Hmmph. I want you to go on protection duty.” I
raised my eyebrows.
“We’re putting another man on Winston Churchill.
He’s a terribly difficult man as you know, but it’ll be a good
experience for you.”
I should just think it would! I had been seriously
thinking of resigning from the Police Force and emigrating
to Canada. This, however, was something different.
A few days later I went to 28 Hyde Park Gate,
Churchill’s London home. I was introduced. At the time I
still affected a rather outsize Air Force moustache. The
senior officer said, “Mr. Churchill, this is Detective
Sergeant Golding. We are seconding him to your staff and
he’ll be responsible for looking after you. Golding has
recently returned from the RAF.” I made a slight bow and
said, “How do you do, sir.”
Churchill was about to leave the house and had his
coat on. The butler was handing him his black Homburg
and silver-mounted walking stick. WSC looked me right in
the eye, a stare familiar to everyone who worked for him.
Finally he asked: “Did you fly?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hmmph.”
I followed him out to the car. The chauffeur, whose
name was Bullock (WSC referred to the limousine as “The
Bullock Cart”) opened the door, Churchill got in the back,
1 got in the front, and away we went. In the police car following immediately behind were my colleague Sgt.
Williams, the butler and the cook—the renowned Mrs.
Landemare. And so we travelled thirty miles down to
Chartwell, Churchill’s country estate in Kent.
This was the first of many such journeys. Churchill
loved Chartwell and spent as much time there as he could—
every weekend at least. He was forced to spend a lot of time
in London because of the many functions he needed to
attend, particularly his duties as Leader of the Opposition.
There was no doubt that his defeat in the 1945 general election had come as a shattering and unexpected blow.
My first few days at Chartwell were a bit of a nightmare because there were sixty to eighty German prisoners
of war working in the grounds and on the farm. Sullen and
subdued looking, they were armed with pick-axes and
shovels, with only one English foreman to look after them.
Churchill was completely unconcerned. He would
say “good day” to them when he went by. They would stop
and look up from their digging; I’m quite sure they were
absolutely amazed over where they were.
I was fairly athletic in those days and, mainly to
impress the prisoners, used to run round the grounds, particularly in the early mornings, wearing a white sweater and
shorts. I tried to look as fierce as possible, hoping that I
would give the impression that I was a superman! I was
indeed worried. If any of those prisoners had wanted to hit
the old man with a shovel or pick-axe, it would have been
very difficult to stop them.
The manor had started as a hunting lodge for Henry
VIII. It had been much enlarged over the years, and by 1946
was quite a beautiful mansion. It is a two-storeyed building,
and I was given a small flat on the ground floor which
opened onto lawns. The property was lovely, neatly divided
farmland stretching over both sides of a small valley.
Fascinated by water, Mr. Churchill had spent years
engineering his system of ponds and rivulets. His source
was a small spring, the Chart Well (hence the estate’s
name), that rises near the house. He ran it through the
grounds by pipes and spillways to artfully constructed small
waterfalls, emptying into pools of various sizes. The water
was then piped to the large lake at the bottom of the valley.
A powerful pump forced the water back up from the lake
so that it could run down again, reinforcing the natural
supply and providing a fine display over the waterfalls.
To have a constant show of moving water, he needed a
sufficient supply. In summer, the level of the Chart Well and
the lake would fall. So Churchill built a reservoir on the far
side of the valley, piping its water into the lake. Nearby was a
large, heated swimming pool, fed from the lake and filtered.
The system had required many years to complete, and was
always a source of great interest and endeavour.
The lake at the valley’s bottom was a quarter-mile long,
picturesque and stocked with fish, which were occasionally
poached by herons. On the lake were a pair of black swans, a
gift from Western Australia after the war (see “Black Swans
Return,” page 8). When Mr. Churchill came within a certain
distance of the shoreline he would give a loud and rather
weird “swan-noise” and the birds would invariably answer.
Whilst he continued down to the lake, a veritable conversation would ensue between him and the swans!
This was a regular performance whenever he was
showing guests around, and it never failed to impress. Mr.
Churchill was given credit for another wonderful gift: the
ability to commune with wildlife.
I was very taken by this until one day I went down to
the lake on my own, and the swans started to cry and call
at me. By experiment I found they would call whenever a
human came within a certain distance. Now, if one was
clever enough, one could cry out just before getting to this
critical distance; the swans would appear to reply if one
continued to walk, and the “conversation” came naturally.
Some time after this discovery I was walking down to
the lake with Mr. Churchill. I was a little in front, and
watched carefully for the critical spot. I then called out in
“swan-talk” and the birds dutifully replied. Mr. Churchill
stopped dead. I turned round and he looked me full in >>
THE AUTHOR: Mr. Golding’s memoirs ran in Finest Hour 3435, 1981-82: so long ago that we respond to several requests
to republish and archive them on our website.
GLIMPSES
CHARTWELL ROCKERIES: From a fickle and insipid stream,
whose source was the Chart Well, Churchill developed an
extensive and elaborate system of waterfalls and rocky
brooks, which bubbled down the hillside into his ponds,
where powerful pumps sent the water back up to the top.
After the war, Gavin Jones Nurseries Ltd. overhauled the
display, in which they obviously took great pride.
GUARDING GREATNESS...
the eye for a moment or two. Then the faintest suspicion of
a smile appeared and he walked on in silence. No comment
was ever made that this secret was shared.
During the war, Churchill had shut Chartwell for the
duration. Golden Orfe from the small ponds were tipped
into the lake where they would get enough food, and left to
take their chance against herons and other marauders. In
1946 I had the interesting task of fishing in the lake (with
very light tackle of course), pulling out the goldfish, now six
years older and enormous. They were put in pails and taken
back to their original homes in the smaller ponds. It was Mr.
Churchill’s great pleasure to feed them regularly. They came
to his hand after a while and this pleased him. He was very
fond of demonstrating his “oneness” with nature.
He laid down a very lovely butterfly and moth “farm”
at Chartwell in 1946 (See “Butterflies to Chartwell,” Finest
Hour 89, Winter 1995-96). When he got the idea he sent for
an expert, who bred very beautiful specimens. Churchill, of
course, always had world-famous people to advise him on his
hobbies and other interests. The pattern of conversation was
typical when the butterfly man came.
He took the breeder for a walk round the grounds and
gave a general idea of his plans; the expert then gave advice
and went into technical details. Mr. Churchill said very little.
Rather like a penny dropping in the butterfly man’s
mind, you could almost hear him thinking: “Ah, I’ve got the
old boy. He’s not nearly as clever as I thought. This is one
sphere in which I know a lot more than he does.”
The butterfly man became just the slightest bit patronizing and boom! Mr. Churchill came back at him with very
lucid comments showing that he was fully acquainted with
everything being said. Visibly shaken, the expert never tried
to “talk down” again. It was a pattern of conversation I’d
noticed with other experts. I can’t help feeling that WSC pretended ignorance to a certain extent, then came down like a
ton of bricks if there was any attempt to patronize him.
A very successful scheme was put in hand and some of
the rarest butterflies and moths of the greatest beauty were
hatched out. By careful provision of the right flowers and
bushes, the butterflies were kept well fed.
Churchill was usually always successful in
his hobbies. His pigs and sows were famous
throughout the land; a Guernsey cow, given him by
the people of that island, won all the awards available. Whilst I was with him he bought his first race
horse. I think it won just about every time it came
out and was always very heavily backed by the
public. I thought this was unfortunate because I
used to back it too, and because of its favoritism,
the odds were never very high.
On another occasion that I remember
during wheat harvesting, Mr. Churchill’s farm
manager and others were rabbit shooting. They had
gone the whole morning without bagging a rabbit.
About noon, I drove WSC up in a Land Rover, which he frequently used to get round the farm. We stopped at a field
which was almost harvested, with just a small square of
wheat in the middle.
Mr. Churchill clambered slowly out of the Jeep—he
was about seventy-three years old at the time. Just as he got
his feet on the ground there was a shout from the others and
a rabbit darted from the center of the field. In a flash Mr.
Churchill raised his gun and fired one barrel. The rabbit
keeled over dead. It was a wonderful shot, the usual
Churchill luck. The others had been waiting for hours for
the opportunity.
Concluded next issue ✌
LAND ROVER ENTHUSIAST: Churchill also got round
Chartwell in an old Morris, but as former secretary Grace
Hambin related, it often became stuck in the valley’s wet
grounds. A four-wheel-drive vehicle was the clear solution.
This photograph is from 1954, so whether UKE 80 was the
same Land Rover from which WSC alighted to shoot the
rabbit during Ronald Golding’s tenure is unclear.
LEADING CHURCHILL MYTHS (18)
Myth: “We Don’t Torture”
Fact: We Did.
“Churchill nonetheless knew”
appears suddenly and with no evidence
to back it up. Sullivan makes no other
reference to Churchill, or to how he
n a 29 April press conference, in
response to a question on releasing top divined Churchill’s views.
It seems that Sullivan picked up
secret memos about “enhanced interthis impression in a 2006 article about
rogation methods,” President Obama
cited an article he’d read, that “during Camp 020’s chief interrogator, Col.
Robin “Tin Eye” Stephens. In “The
World War II, when London was being
Truth that Tin Eye Saw,” by Ben
bombed to smithereens, [the British] had
Macintyre (London Times Online,
200 or so detainees. And Churchill said,
http://xrl.us/beqyfc), Stephens was iden‘We don't torture,’ when the entire
tified as an MI5 officer who extracted
British—all of the British people—were
confessions out of Nazis: “a bristling,
being subjected to unimaginable risk and
threat.... Churchill understood—you start xenophobic martinet; in appearance, with
his glinting monocle and cigarette holder,
taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes
he looked exactly like the caricature
what's best in a people. It corrodes the
Gestapo interrogator….he deployed
character of a country.”
threats, drugs, drink and deceit. But he
Whether his thesis is right or
never once resorted to violence....His
wrong, the quotation is incorrect and
gives a false implication. While Churchill motives were strictly practical. ‘Never
strike a man. It is unintelligent, for the
did express such sentiments with regard
to prison inmates, and the lack of torture spy will give an answer to please, an
answer to escape punishment. And
in World War I, he said no such thing
having given a false answer, all else
about prisoners of war, enemy combatdepends upon the false premise.’”
ants or terrorists, who were tortured by
Nowhere did Macintyre mention
British interrogators during WW2.
or quote Churchill. Incidentally, after the
“Torture” appears 156 times in
war, Stephens was cleared of a charge of
digital transcripts of Churchill’s 15
million published words (books, articles, “disgraceful conduct of a cruel kind” and
told he was free to apply to rejoin his
speeches, papers) and 35 million words
former employers at MI5.
about him. Not one appears in the
The CIA argues that “enhanced
context the President stated. Similarly,
interrogation” works, others that it does
key phrases like “character of a country”
not. Whoever is right, the “Tin Eye”
or “erodes the character” do not track.
Mr. Obama was misled by Andrew Stephens story is just another red
herring—because according to recent
Sullivan’s Atlantic article, “Churchill vs.
research the British did use such
Cheney” (http://xrl.us/beqyfx), which
methods: in the “London Cage,” a POW
calmly urged that former Vice President
camp in London, “where SS and Gestapo
Cheney be prosecuted.1
captives were subject to beatings, sleep
Most enemy spies, Sullivan wrote,
deprivation and starvation.”2
“went through Camp 020, a Victorian
Churchill spoke frequently about
pile crammed with interrogators. As
torture, mostly enemy treatment of civilBritain's very survival hung in the
ians or conquered nations. Cdr. Larry
balance, as women and children were
being killed on a daily basis and London Kryske reminded us of this example,
turned into rubble, Churchill nonetheless from WSC’s World War I memoirs:
“When all was over, Torture and
knew that embracing torture was the
Cannibalism were the only two expediequivalent of surrender to the barbarism
ents that the civilized, scientific,
he was fighting….”
I
_________________________________________________________________________
For twenty-five years Finest Hour has skewered world-famous fictions, fairy tales and tall
stories. For lists see FH 140:20, or www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/myths/myths. Grateful
thanks to Alex Spillius, “Obama Likes Winston Churchill After All,” Daily Telegraph, 30 April
2009 (http://xrl.us/beqyft), to Telegraph readers responding, and to Cdr. Larry Kryske.
Christian States had been
able to deny themselves:
and these were of
doubtful utility.”3 The
general sentiment is clear enough, though
combined with “Cannibalism” it seems
likely to refer to the practices of conquering armies.
The situation was more acute in
World War II, when Britain was being
bombed and threatened with invasion
and Churchill had plenary authority.
Certainly it is hard to imagine him being
unaware of activities at places like the
“London Cage,” or not condoning what
went on there. Lady Soames once said,
“He would have done anything to win
the war, and I daresay he had to do some
pretty rough things—but they didn't
unman him.”
If Churchill is on record about
“enhanced interrogation,” his words have
yet to surface. The nearest I could come
to his sentiments on the point refers not
to terrorist fanatics but to prison inmates.
In 1938, responding to a constituent
who urged him to help end the use of
the “cat o’nine tails” in prisons, WSC
wrote: “the use of instruments of torture
can never be regarded by any decent
person as synonymous with justice.”4
If that line appeals to Mr. Obama,
he can certainly deploy it with confidence. —EDITOR
Endnotes
1. Longtime members may recall that
Sullivan appeared at our 1987 Dallas conference, made friendly conversation, then wrote
a long polemic in The New Republic about
our “weird mix” of Churchill worshippers, as
“the damp seam of détente seeps into the
Reagan Administration.” We reprinted it,
noting twenty-four “terminological inexactitudes,” in Finest Hour 58, Winter 1987-88.
2. Ian Corbain, “The Secrets of the
London Cage,” The Guardian, 12 Nov05
(http://xrl.us/beqyue). The Cage was kept
secret, Corbain wrote, though a censored
account appeared in the memoirs of its commandant, Lt. Col. Alexander Scotland.
Corbain does not mention Churchill, but to
believe Churchill wasn’t aware of this activity
would be asking a lot.
3. Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 1,
1911-1914 (London: Butterworth, 1923), 11.
4. Martin Gilbert, ed., Winston S.
Churchill, Companion Volume V, Part 3. The
Coming of War 1936-1939 (London,
Heinemann: 1982), 1292. n. 2. ✌
STUDENT ESSAY
HOW A YOUNG MAN’S WRITINGS
SHAPED A HERO
FROM
PEN TO
PARLIAMENT
L
ess attention is paid to Churchill’s literary works than to
his statesmanship, but his literary influence is notable,
and its bearing on the intellect undeniable. What would
our heritage be without the timelessly inspirational “This Was
Their Finest Hour”? Would World War II have ended differently had he not “mobilized the English language,” as Murrow
and Kennedy said, “and sent it into battle”?
By their titles alone his great wartime speeches show
the quality and authority of Churchill’s work. Seventy years
since the height of his career he remains a hero, but his political achievement rests on the foundation of his writings.
Beyond his speeches, his books and articles left few historical
stones unturned. For his literary genius, Winston Churchill
is a premier example of the greatness of British Literature.
Long before he became a statesman, Churchill was an
author. Many new to him are surprised to learn that he had
no university education. His father, who saw no promise in
his son at Harrow, found no reason to send him to Oxford
or Cambridge. Instead he became a soldier.
It was left to young Winston to educate himself, which
he did through the epic histories of Macaulay and Gibbon.
Stationed in India in 1896, he “embarked on that process of
self-education which was to prove so serviceable a substitute
for the opportunities which he had neglected or rejected in
his formal education...within a few months of his arrival in
Bangalore he was making insatiable demands upon his
mother for more books.”1
Studying the history of ancient wars and governments,
parliamentary debates and his father’s speeches would serve
Churchill well in future writings. Self-education made him a
master of prose, and by the time he began writing seriously,
his stylistic patterns were formed.
Churchill wished to establish himself as a respected
and intelligent author among the statesmen whose role he
_________________________________________________________
Ms. Hay is a graduate with distinction from the University of Oklahoma,
where she was a Letters major under Professor Ronald Schleifer. She begins
law school this autumn at OU.
ALLISON HAY
craved for himself. But the war dispatches he wrote from
Cuba, India, the Sudan and South Africa from 1895 to 1900
did not satisfy his ambitious desire to be noticed.
His first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force,
was hastily written in five weeks and shipped to his mother
with a note on the last day of 1897: “I don’t want anything
modified or toned down in any way. I will stand or fall by
what I have written. I only want bad sentences polished &
any repetitions of phrase or fact weeded out.”2
Although the story was embarrassingly full of errors,
Churchill achieved a taste of success and established his
approach to writing history: a combination of personal experiences and a realistic description of what he believed had
happened. This method made his stories come alive for
readers far beyond those interested in the war tales.3 The
Malakand Field Force sold well, bringing Churchill to the
attention of publishers and the general public.
There followed The River War, whose two volumes
made Churchill known as a legitimate and trusted military
reporter. Reviews were not all positive, but most agreed that
he was “an astonishing young man,” his book “an astonishing triumph. It is well-written, it is impartial, it is
conclusive, and we do not think that any other living man
could have produced it. Of course, it has its faults. It is far
too long, for instance.”4 Length never seemed to bother
Churchill; his best books usually ran in multiple volumes;
nor were his speeches ever described as models of brevity.
With two books complete, Churchill began to write
with more confidence and quickly produced three more
books, including his only novel, Savrola. To call it entirely
fictitious would be misleading, since the main character
resembles Churchill in an ideal manner. Savrola is a man
who champions politics, specifically a republic, as a saving
force of justice. He becomes disillusioned with politics and
prefers philosophic contemplation and a love for the beautiful things in life.5
Winston himself was often disillusioned with political
developments, though not politics itself. He was blunt in
such moments, as evidenced by remarks about politicians as,
“He is asked to stand [for office], he wants to sit and he is
expected to lie.”6
The year 1900 marked Churchill’s shift from the military to the political sphere. After publication of two accounts
of the Boer War, he entered Parliament and began to criticize
his own party to such an extent that he soon changed sides
over the issue of Free Trade. He published several volumes of
notable speeches and an African travelogue, fast shaping his
leadership style. Although the issues then were not as serious
as what was to come, they gave him the experience of persuading others to understand his opinions.
Churchill wrote his speeches, and would often spend
eight to ten hours perfecting one. He wrote out the full text
to guard against any lapses, speaking in a professional and
persuasive manner.7 He was developing an ability to conceive
large ideas and to express them inspirationally, so listeners
could clearly understand his position. A leader without such
ability would certainly be unable to unite a country in war.
World War I was next on Churchill’s learning curve as
a writer. The Admiralty, Munitions Ministry and War Office
gave him an insider’s perspective on the actions and realities
of war, deftly conveyed in his multi-volume (five volumes in
six) memoir, The World Crisis. Nowhere is Churchill’s political awareness better expressed than in his fourth volume,
Part II, at the end of the war in 1918:
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? 8
During the publication of the first two World Crisis
volumes Churchill was out of office, and had begun his skein
of hundreds of articles for newspapers and magazines by
which he earned a living in the 1920s and 1930s. All too
soon they began to warn of German rearmament. Reading
them today, one is conscious of his prophecy. His aim was
clear: warn the country. Although in the 1930s he had no
office and few backers, he tried to make his voice heard—to
be noticed, just as when he was a young soldier in India.
Churchill’s looks into the future were complemented
by his writings of his past, notably the life of his ancestor
John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough, in four massive
volumes between 1933 and 1938. This great work “took him
back not to the politics of his youth but to the global conflict of another century and his required mastery of the spirit
of a remote age.”9 Churchill invested nearly a million words
in Marlborough; it was significant not just as a biography but
as a description, then only hopeful, of what he saw as his
destiny. Reading its account of an English patriot confronting a continental tyrant who seeks England’s ruin, it is
easy to find the genesis of the immortal speeches of 1940.
Churchill’s affinity for Marlborough’s wars compares vividly
to his abhorrence of 20th century war in The World Crisis.
Then came the Hitler war and the year Churchill said
“nothing surpasses.” On 13 May 1940, as Britain faced a
seemingly all-powerful enemy, came his first speech as Prime
Minister: one of the most resolute, honest and inspiring ever
delivered by a politician.
The speech itself is posted on our website (http:
//xrl.us/beuner). Let us consider only its best-known sentence: “I would say to the House, as I said to those who have
joined this Government: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood,
toil, tears, and sweat.” 10 I disagree with his sentiment—
Churchill did have more to offer: inspiration, eloquence,
leadership—but how modest and honest these words are.
The famous phrase had a long and somewhat complicated gestation, and Churchill, like all good writers,
developed it over time. He first used “blood and sweat”
speaking with a friend in 1900; mentioned “their sweat, their
tears, their blood” in regard to the Russians in 1931, and
“blood, sweat and tears” later in the Daily Telegraph.11
Now the words came together as he rallied his country,
despite his concern that it might be too late: “If this long
island story of ours is to end at last,” he told Cabinet privately, “let it end only when each one of us lies choking in
his own blood upon the ground.”12 They responded with
cheers and roars, but how many would have had the same
thoughts had Churchill not crystallized the words?
Churchill is the reason Britain continued to fight. His
words and spirit gave strength to the people. Because he was
courageous, they were. Words rallied a nation desperately
short of weapons. Ronald Golding, a Royal Air Force
squadron leader later WSC’s bodyguard (see previous
article) said of the famous voice crackling over the radio:
“After those speeches, we wanted the Germans to come.”13
Churchill, the orator without speechwriters, was Britain’s
source of courage.
More powerful and rousing speeches followed, like “Be
Ye Men of Valor” a few days later on Trinity Sunday: “Side
by side, unaided except by their kith and kin in the great
Dominions and by the wide Empires which rest beneath
their shield—side by side, the British and French peoples
have advanced to rescue not only Europe but mankind from
the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever
darkened and stained the pages of history.”14
Brtain’s task was not for herself but for the world: “Arm
yourselves and be ye men of valour,” Churchill quoted from
the Book of Macabees, words familiar to his nation.
As France fell and doubts rose again, Churchill
responded directly: “…we shall not flag or fail. We shall go
on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the
seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and
growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be….we shall never surrender.”15
Churchill had learned reading Gibbon and Macaulay
years before that the Romans and Greeks won wars by staying
the course. In what was arguably his most desperate >>
STUDENT ESSAY
speech, on 18 June 1940 with France defeated (“another
bloody country gone west,” he remarked), he took on the tangible and real threat to Britain herself. With utter frankness
he declared, “The whole fury and might of the enemy must
very soon be turned on us.” But then he added: “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that
if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”16
Brace they did.
A point often missed in the soaring rhetoric of this
speech was its appeal to patriotic duty, a reference to such
Britons as the wardens who ushered people into bomb shelters, the blackout curtains, the fire brigades and the Home
Guard. Churchill was making a call to duty for all citizens to
perform the patriotic duty requested of them, which gave
them a sense of power over the enemy. The enemy might
come—but their visit would not go unanswered.
Churchill admitted that things would get worse before
they got better, and chaffed over the continued aloofness of
America. His 9 February 1941 world broadcast shows how
passionately he was campaigning for American aid, even if he
had to shame Americans into it: “Give us your faith and your
blessing, and, under Providence all will be well. We shall not
fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire….Give us the tools,
and we will finish the job.”17
When he put it that way, it did not seem as if he was
asking for much. Of course, he was asking for a great deal:
Roosevelt was limited by the fact that only Congress could
declare war. Churchill chose simple language so there would
be no misunderstanding; coal miner and statesman alike
could understand.
We all know how the story ended. The Allies won the
war and Churchill was voted out of office. The whys and
hows of that episode have already been discussed in these
pages (“Why Churchill Lost,” Finest Hour 140:74). But consider the consequences, which were not all bad.
In defeat Churchill had time to do more of what he
did best: writing. Between 1948 and 1958 he published six
volumes of war memoirs, five volumes of speeches, four
volumes of his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, even a
book on his hobby of painting. At Fulton in 1946 he warned
of the dangers of a new war, and suggested how to prevent
it. Throughout those years he stressed the common heritage
of Britain and America, and how their bonds should be as he
said, “cemented.”18 His writings described the mistakes of
the past, and warned against repeating them. In 1953 he
received Nobel Prize for Literature “for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant
oratory in defending exalted human values.”19
It has been said of his writing style that he was not
afraid of repetition: “Once a felicitous phrase had occurred
to him, Churchill never hesitated to reuse it, resulting in a
remarkable consistency over half a century.”20 His photographic memory stood him well throughout. He often used
old-fashioned phrases, like something your grandfather said
as you bounced on his knee. I believe Churchill saw in old
expressions an association with a better or at least more
settled time; surely his use of them was not accidental.
Churchill did minimize his affinity for language by
using a simplified syntax, hoping to drive people not to dictionaries but to courage and heroism. As a professional
writer he knew how to connect. His words humanized him,
connecting him with people of all classes. This tactic is the
capstone of the Churchill style, whether to tug our heartstrings, to gain sympathy, or to inspire action or devotion.
He was always, triumphantly, in touch.
Churchill himself was humble about his war speeches.
“The people’s will was resolute and remorseless,” he recalled
in 1954. “It fell to me to express it, and if I found the right
words you must remember that I have always earned my
living by my pen and by my tongue.”21
It was a remarkable triumph for a young man,
unschooled and self-educated, who went on to become the
foremost statesman of the 20th century. Churchill the writer
should be known at least as well as the statesman and the war
leader—for “the incandescent quality of his words,” as
President Kennedy said, which “illuminated the courage of
his countrymen.”22
Endnotes
1. Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, vol.1: Youth
1874-1900 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), 307, hereafter Youth.
2. Youth, 353.
3. Maurice Ashley, Churchill as Historian (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons), 41.
4. Youth, 442.
5. James W. Muller, ed., Churchill as Peacemaker (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), 79.
6. Richard M. Langworth, ed., Churchill by Himself: The
Definitive Collection of Quotations (New York: Public Affairs, 2008),
392.
7. Rufus J. Fears, “Churchill” (Teaching Company, 2001).
8. John Lukacs, Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Dire Warning
(New York: Basic Books, 2008), 13.
9. Manfred Weidhorn, Sword and Pen: A Survey of the Writings
of Sir Winston Churchill (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 1974), 110.
10. David Damrosch and Kevin J. H. Dettmar, The Longman
Anthology of British Literature, 3rd ed., (New York: Pearson, 2006),
2799.
11. Langworth, 4.
12. Gretchen Rubin, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill
(New York: Ballantine, 2003), 53.
13. Langworth, 2.
14. Ibid., 4.
15. Ibid., 5.
16. Ibid., 5.
17. Ibid., 7.
18. Ashley, 210.
19. The Nobel Prize in Literature 1953, “Winston Churchill,”
Nobel Prize.org, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1953/index.html/.
20. Langworth, ix.
21. Ibid., viii.
22. John F. Kennedy conveying Honorary American
Citizenship on Sir Winston Churchill, the White House,
✌
Washington, 9 April 1963.
http://xrl.us/beuiy6
For years, Churchill Centre editors and webmasters have wished to post material on our website that is either too
long for Finest Hour or of such immediate interest as to deserve a faster track than Finest Hour can provide.
Webmaster John Olsen has now done it with FINEST HOUR ONLINE (FHO): fresh articles which bring an added
dimension to Churchill Studies. The following article by Justin Lyons is an abridgement of his full paper, which you
can read on FHO—together other pieces of high merit. Please tell us how you like this new service.
Winston Churchill’s
Constitutionalism: A Critique
of Socialism in America
JUSTIN D. LYONS
hile Churchill’s heroism in World War II was
the high point of his career, he was Prime
Minister twice, held every major Cabinet post
except the Foreign Ministry, and was prominent for over sixty years. This extensive political
experience produced in him a deep and often underappreciated reflection on political matters.
Churchill’s wartime leadership was not unreasoned or
incoherent—and would have been unsuccessful if it were. It
depended, he stressed, upon consistent, coherent thought:
W
Those possessed of a definite body of doctrine and of
deeply rooted convictions will be in a much better position to deal with the shifts and surprises of daily affairs
than those who take short views, indulging their natural
impulses as they are evoked by what they read from day
to day.1
Churchill’s convictions flowed from the Anglo–
American constitutionalism of which he was so proud and
devoted an heir. His attachment to the principles of political freedom guided his decisions and was the heart of his
Justin Lyons is Associate Professor of History and Political Science
and Adjunct Fellow in the John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs
at Ashland University, and a valued part of Churchill Centre educational activities. This is an excerpt from his article first posted by the
Heritage Foundation (http: //xrl.us/bev4gv) which is now found also
on Finest Hour Online (http: //xrl.us/beuiy6).
profound ability to inspire, but it was not merely instinctive or inherited. Rather, it was the product of reason and
experience.
Churchill reflected broadly and deeply on both the
domestic and international issues of his day. Indeed, it is
indicative of his comprehensive understanding that he
never lost sight of the connections between those spheres.
In the Twenties and Thirties in particular, he surveyed with
unease the collectivist trends already sapping the internal
strength of his own country and threatening to create instability abroad. He opposed such programs, whether
originating on the Left or on the Right of the British political spectrum, as destructive of freedom. It is well worth the
effort to examine his thoughts on these matters, both for
his diagnosis of political ills and for his prescriptions for
political health.
Because scholars have paid so much attention to the
working relationship between Churchill and Franklin
Roosevelt in matters of foreign policy, we tend to assume
that they were entirely agreed on domestic policy. But by
viewing Churchill’s thoughts on America as shown through
the great issue of the day—the New Deal—we see that
Churchill was an opponent of FDR’s centralized administrative philosophy of government and that his opposition was
grounded in a recurrence to our founding principles. >>
1. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 1, The
Gathering Storm (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), 210.
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SOCIALISM IN AMERICA...
A Unity of Spirit
At a time when America was undergoing significant
political change following the Great Depression and New
Deal, Churchill had much to say about political change in
the United States. While the governing forms of the United
States and Britain differed, Churchill saw the governing
principles as built upon identical principles of freedom.
Speaking to a joint session of Congress as the United States
entered World War II in December 1941, he noted that
both Congress and Parliament were animated by essentially
the same principles, and strove for the same ends:
Therefore I have been in full harmony all my life with the
tides which have flowed on both sides of the Atlantic
against privilege and monopoly, and I have steered confidently towards the Gettysburg ideal of “government of
the people by the people for the people.” In my country,
as in yours, public men are proud to be the servants of the
State and would be ashamed to be its masters.2
Despite certain “historical incidents,” the War of
Independence primary among them, Churchill viewed the
American Declaration of Independence from Britain as in
perfect harmony with British political principles.3 Indeed,
he argued that the Declaration belonged not to America
alone but to all of the children of the English common law:
“The Declaration is not only an American document. It
follows on Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights as the third
great title deed on which the liberties of the Englishspeaking peoples are founded.”4
In the war years to come, Churchill never tired of
stressing the harmonious political and legal doctrines of the
two nations and the common traditions and goals of the
two peoples.5 He continued to do so even after the war.
Speaking to the American Bar Association in 1957, for
example, Churchill maintained that, though their laws were
somewhat different in form, they were united in principle:
In the main, Law and Equity stand in the forefront of the
moral forces which our two countries have in common.
…National governments may indeed obtain sweeping
emergency powers for the sake of protecting the community in times of war or other perils. These will temporarily
curtail or suspend the freedom of ordinary men and
women, but special powers must be granted by the
elected representatives of those same people by Congress
or by Parliament, as the case may be.
They do not belong to the State or Government as a
right. Their exercise needs vigilant scrutiny, and their
grant may be swiftly withdrawn. This terrible twentieth
century has exposed both our communities to grim experiences, and both have emerged restored and guarded.
They have come back to us safe and sure. I speak, of
course, as a layman on legal topics, but I believe that our
differences are more apparent than real, and are the result
of geographical and other physical conditions rather than
any true division of principle.6
“I GREW UP IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE to believe in democracy.
‘Trust the people’—that was his message. I used to see him cheered
at meetings and in the streets by crowds of working men way back
in those aristocratic Victorian days when, as Disraeli said, the world
was for the few, and for the very few.” —WSC before Congress, 26
December 1941.
Churchill was not engaging in sentimental reflection
when he gave such speeches. The unity of principle he
pointed to was, and always had been in his view, the basis
for unity of action.
“What Good’s a Constitution?”
In The Age of Roosevelt, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
quotes Churchill’s 1936 article “What Good’s a
Constitution?,”7 introducing the former Prime Minister as
“an eminent English observer.” But Schlesinger gives a false
impression of his message, quoting only the last few paragraphs, suggesting that Churchill fully supported
Roosevelt’s views of the Constitution and the need to overcome the Supreme Court’s opposition to New Deal
policies: “This is an age in which the citizen requires more,
and not less, legal protection in the exercise of his rights
and liberties.”
The reader quite naturally takes away the impression
that Churchill, like FDR, believes the conditions of
modern industrial society—especially the concentration of
economic power in large corporations—require a much
greater degree of governmental intervention and control to
secure the liberties of the common man.
But this is not Churchill’s meaning. Reading the
entire article, it is clear that he means quite the opposite—
that liberty is best protected by the established boundaries
of the constitutional order. “The rigidity of the
Constitution of the United States is the shield of the
common man,” writes Churchill. Here, too, Schlesinger
misleads the reader by rendering it as follows: “The
Constitution, he said, was ‘the shield of the common
man.’”8
The surreptitious substitution of “was” for “is” serves
the New Deal understanding that the Constitution is no
longer an adequate framework for meeting the challenges of
American life and economic crisis. Churchill’s article is in
fact much less favorable to the New Deal understanding
than Schlesinger admits.
Churchill begins his discussion of constitutionalism
by suggesting that a person must first consider “the fundamental issue….Does he value the State above the citizen, or
the citizen above the State? Does a government exist for the
individual, or do individuals exist for the government?”
The world is divided on this question, Churchill writes, but
Russia, Germany, and Italy have definitely chosen “to subordinate the citizen or subject to the life of the State.” All
three have adopted, in peacetime, a level of subordination
of the individual proper only to a time of war, and seek to
direct their national life permanently on that basis.
What these three nations have in common, Churchill
notes, is the doctrine of socialism, which argues that economic crises are “only another form of war,” which justifies
governmental controls. But Churchill rejects the comparison of economic war: “One of the greatest reasons for
avoiding war is that it is destructive to liberty. But we must
not be led into adopting for ourselves the evils of war in
time of peace upon any pretext whatever.”
Churchill was to combat this tendency personally
during the 1945 British election. The government had
assumed many extra controls during the war. Churchill
warned that if the Labour or Socialist party won, government’s grip on the individual citizen, far from being
loosened, would grow ever tighter:
...even today they hunger for controls of every kind, as if
these were delectable foods instead of war-time inflictions
and monstrosities. There is to be one State to which all
are to be obedient in every act of their lives. This State is
to be the arch-employer, the arch-planner, the archadministrator and ruler, and the arch-caucus-boss.9
Of course, this economic-crisis-as-war language was frequently employed by the New Dealers, including Franklin
Roosevelt himself.10
Socialism, Churchill noted, grafts itself onto nation-
2. “A Long and Hard War,” 26 December 1941, in Robert
Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches
1897–1963 (London: Chelsea House, 1974), III:6536. Cited hereafter
as Complete Speeches.
3. “The Declaration was in the main a restatement of the principles which had animated the Whig struggle against the later Stuarts
and the English Revolution of 1688, and it now became the symbol
and rallying centre of the Patriot cause.” Winston S. Churchill, A
History of the English Speaking Peoples, vol. 3, The Age of
Revolution (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1993), 189.
4. “The Third Great Title-Deed of Anglo–American Liberties,” 4
July 1918, Complete Speeches, III:2614.
5. See for example “A New Magna Carta” (Lend-Lease), 12
March 1941, Complete Speeches, VI: 6360, and “The Task Ahead,”
27 June 1942, ibid., 6644: “The day will come when the British and
American armies will march into countries, not as invaders, but as liberators, helping the people who have been held under the cruel
alism and the features of nations it infects. Weimar
Germany was destroyed and Hitler propelled to power
through patriotism, tradition, and pride, combined with
discontent over inequalities of wealth. Russian
Communism was buttressed by national sentiment and
imperialist aspirations. The next country Churchill mentions, in a shift that must be shocking, is the United States,
which he says has experienced developments similar to
those inspired by socialism in the dictatorships:
In the United States, also, economic crisis has led to an
extension of the activities of the executive and to the pillorying, by irresponsible agitators, of certain groups and
sections of the population as enemies of the rest. There
have been efforts to exalt the power of the central government and to limit the rights of individuals.
The combinations at work in the United States, however,
are different. Passions and economic jealousies have been
unleashed—not with imperial ambition or twisted racism,
but with a sense of public duty and the desire for national
prosperity. But the result, Churchill warns, can be just as
dangerous: “It is when passions and cupidities are thus
unleashed and, at the same time, the sense of public duty
rides high in the hearts of all men and women of good will
that the handcuffs can be slipped upon the citizens and
they can be brought into entire subjugation to the executive government.”
After describing trends in Germany, Russia, Italy, and
U.S., Churchill takes “the opposite view.” He had always
rejected any policy or propaganda that would use crisis to
extend the power of the state as subverting individual
liberty and perverting the purpose of government:
I hold that governments are meant to be, and must
remain, the servants of the citizens; that states and federations only come into existence and can only be justified
by preserving the “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the homes and families of individuals. The right
and power rest in the individual. He gives of his right and
power to the State, expecting and requiring thereby in
return to receive certain advantages and guarantees. >>
barbarian yoke….Also, it will open the world to larger freedom and to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as the grand words of your
Declaration of Independence put it.”
6. “Liberty and the Law,” 31 July 1957, Complete Speeches,
VIII:8682–83.
7. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Roosevelt, vol. 3, The
Politics of Upheaval (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960), 495, quoting
from Winston S. Churchill, “What Good’s a Constitution?” Collier’s, 22
August 1936.
8. Ibid.
9 “Party Politics Again,” 4 June 1945, Complete Speeches,
VII:7171–72.
10. To give one example: “I shall ask the Congress for the one
remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to
wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would
be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.” Franklin D.
Roosevelt, “First Inaugural Address,” Washington, 4 March 1933.
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SOCIALISM IN AMERICA..
Churchill then gives the tests by which he judges the
civilization of any community:
What is the degree of freedom possessed by the citizen or
subject? Can he think, speak and act freely under wellestablished, well-known laws? Can he criticize the
executive government? Can he sue the State if it has
infringed his rights? Are there also great processes for
changing the law to meet new conditions?
A vital support for freedom also lies in the independence of the courts, Churchill continues:
In both our countries the character of the judiciary is a
vital factor in the maintenance of the rights and liberties
of the individual citizen. Our judges extend impartially to
all men protection, not only against wrongs committed
by private persons, but also against the arbitrary acts of
public authority. The independence of the courts is, to all
of us, the guarantee of freedom and the equal rule of law.
In other words, the safeguard is to be found in a
structural feature of American and British constitutional
arrangements. These remarks hardly appear sympathetic to
FDR’s frustration with the Supreme Court’s repeated
striking down of New Deal programs as unconstitutional,
and his search for ways to limit the powers of the Court.
Churchill did not hesitate to state his opinion on
whether a fixed constitution is a “bulwark or a fetter.” He
wrote: “I incline to the side of those who would regard it as
a bulwark….” Yet it is very difficult, he writes, for those in
England to comprehend the kind of governmental deadlock
that has been reached in the United States.
That major bills affecting the whole life of the people
could be passed by Parliament only to be struck down and
nullified by a court of law would be beyond imagination.
The unwritten British Constitution thus has great flexibility: “There is no limit to the powers of Crown and
Parliament. Even the gravest changes in our Constitution
can in theory be carried out by simple majority votes in
both Houses and the consequential assent of the Crown.”
But limits on government and the separation of
powers were central to America’s founding. The judiciary
was to be independent, but whether the Supreme Court
would have a veto over legislation passed by Congress was a
matter of debate among the Framers. While the actual language of the Constitution gives no specific grant of such a
power, the idea was advanced and became entrenched as an
implied power very early.11
Churchill found the opportunity for a conflict
between American branches of government remarkable:
“…anyone may bring a test case challenging not merely the
interpretation of a law, but the law itself, and if the Court
decides for the appellant, be he only an owner of a few
chickens,12 the whole action of the Legislature and the
Executive becomes to that extent null and void.”
Churchill recognizes and understands the American
hesitancy to approve such arrangements as the “British
democracy expressing itself with plenary powers through a
Government and a Parliament controlled only by the fluctuating currents of public opinion…Yet all classes and all
parties have a deep, underlying conviction that these vast,
flexible powers will not be abused,” citing British respect
for law and constitutional usage, the stability of a permanent civil service, and the attachment of popular opinion to
the unwritten constitution.
The Better System?
Lest readers assume that Churchill believes the British
system superior, he notes that the U.S. situation is quite
different: The size and complexity of the United States
makes the flexible British arrangement impractical and
unwise: “the participants of so vast a federation have the
right to effectual guarantees upon the fundamental laws,
and that these should not be easily changed to suit a particular emergency or fraction of the country.”
Thus Churchill concludes that the United States
requires both federalism, in order to function properly, and
the Supreme Court, to enforce the principle, especially in
time of crisis.
Roosevelt, however, was impatient with those like
Churchill, who opposed an evolving interpretation of the
Constitution that would permit the federal government to
take an increasingly active role in the life of the states. In
1937, for example, FDR called for an “enlightened view” of
the Constitution: “Difficulties have grown out of its interpretation but rightly considered, it can be used as an
instrument of progress, and not as a device for the prevention of action.”13
The language of constitutional flexibility was
common New Deal parlance to which Churchill in his
essay takes great exception: “‘Taking the rigidity out of the
American Constitution’ means, and is intended to mean,
new gigantic accessions of power to the dominating centre
of government and giving it the means to make new fundamental laws enforceable upon all American citizens.”
Change, Freedom and Tyranny
Churchill’s 1937 article, “This Age of Government by
Great Dictators,” is a meditation on political change, an
essay of sweeping historical breadth, starting with the
ancient European kings, who were granted powers sufficient to remedy the defects of an earlier, chaotic age and
were elevated to an almost godlike status. While this was an
improvement on anarchy, the accidents of individual birth
and character were unstable foundations on which to risk
the fortunes of nations: “At one period Pericles or
Augustus, at another Draco or Caligula!”
Once society was set on a firm footing, Churchill
explains, constitutions were invented to restrain the excesses
of kings—particularly in England, which gave rise to the
hat is
the
degree of
freedom possessed by the
citizen or
subject? Can he
think, speak and
act freely under
well-established, well-known
laws? Can he criticize the executive government? Can he sue the
State if it has infringed his
rights? Are there also great
processes for changing the law
to meet new conditions?”
“W
famous English Parliamentary system and constitutional
monarchy….The English conception, wrought by the island
nobility from Magna Carta to the age of Anne, spread over
wide portions of the globe. The forms were often varied, but
the idea was the same. Sometimes, as in the United States,
through historical incidents, an elected functionary replaced
the hereditary king, but the idea of the separation of powers
between the executive, the assemblies and the courts of law
widely spread throughout the world in what we must regard as
the great days of the nineteenth century.14
But the point of this essay is to convey a modern
warning. In the 20th century, he continues, just when the
progressive faith was at its zenith—when the illusion of
mastery over man’s fortunes had taken on its most vibrant
hues—all those hopes failed: “Then came terrible wars
shattering great empires, laying nations low, sweeping away
old institutions and ideas with a scourge of molten steel.”
The world now learned (or re-learned) that political
change does not necessarily follow consistent directions.
19th century thinkers had hoped for the spread of democratic institutions, but as Churchill points out, democratic
regimes are as subject to degradation because they, like
other regimes, carry their own dangers with them:
11. Marbury vs. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).
12. A reference to A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corporation vs.
United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935), in which the National Industrial
Recovery Act was overturned by the Supreme Court.
13. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Annual Message to the Congress,”
Democracy has been defined as “the association of us all
in the leadership of the best.” In practice it does not
always work this way. Vast masses of people were invested
with the decisive right to vote, while at the same time
they had very little leisure to study the questions upon
which they must pronounce; and an enormous apparatus
for feeding them with propaganda, catchwords and
slogans came simultaneously into existence.
When responsibilities are shirked, Churchill continued, the control of the people will become an illusion
and eventually vanish. Flatterers will sway the people.
Demagogues will convince them to surrender their power
for safety or comfort. Propagandists will play on their fears.
Tyrants will be born:
Alike in fear of anarchy and in vague hopes of future
comforts a very large proportion of Europe have yielded
themselves to dictatorship. Nations [have] made haste to
rally in the parades and processions of a set of violent,
wrathful, resourceful, domineering figures cast up by the
bloody surge of war and its cruel lacerating recoil. We
have entered the age of the dictators.15
Thus, the early 20th century witnessed political
regression. Nations were subject to lords many times more
powerful than the ancient kings. The reader recognizes the
spirit of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, but Churchill’s
warning is for those who have not yet fallen under the yoke
of such men—for those countries which imagine themselves immune from such a transformation, including the
Western democracies. Whatever political victories may have
been won, the danger of tyranny is never removed.
“Roosevelt from Afar”
The common political heritage of America and
Britain was the basis for Churchill’s appeal for aid from the
United States in the Second World War. His initial success
had much to do with his personal relationship with
Roosevelt, which has rightly received a vast scholarly attention. Their disagreements over war policy and the Soviets
are well documented.
Almost completely ignored, by contrast, are
Churchill’s comments on the political, economic, and social
policies Roosevelt pursued—reflecting Churchill’s concern
that even regimes built on the principles of freedom can
become corrupted and lose their way.
Churchill believed that the United States was not
immune to the political degradation then affecting much of
the world. In a 1934 essay on the New Deal, first entitled
“While the World Watches” and later changed to >>
6 January 1937.
14. Winston S. Churchill, “This Age of Government by Great
Dictators,” in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, vol. 4,
Churchill at Large (London: Library of Imperial History, 1976), 394.
15. Ibid., 394–95.
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Exchequer during the 1926 General Strike, knew whereof
he wrote. Trade unionism, he wrote,
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“Roosevelt from Afar,”16 he warned that a moment of social
and economic crisis is also a moment of political danger.
Churchill admired Roosevelt’s desire to deliver his
people from the problems of the Depression, but his essay
had another purpose, as he wrote to the editor of Collier’s:
to warn against the possible ill-effects of the New Deal: “I
have tried to strike a note of warning while at the same
time expressing my sincere sympathy with the great effort
the President is making,”17
For a statesman to remark on the domestic policies
and personalities of a friendly country without exciting
resentment requires diplomatic skill, and Churchill was
very careful. He went so far as to leave final judgment to
his American editor: “…if there are any phrases which you
think would cause offence…you are quite at liberty to
soften or excise them without reference to me.”18 Yet
despite his caution, “Roosevelt from Afar” conveys serious
warnings about America’s Depression-era economic and
social policies.
Churchill admits that the new President faced a stiff
challenge: “Everybody had lost faith in everything.”
Roosevelt chose to seize direction of the whole scene, and
“[s]ince then there has been no lack of orders.” (Roosevelt
issued an extraordinary number of executive orders—more
than all of his successors through Bill Clinton combined.)
Using a word that must have shocked Roosevelt supporters, Churchill continued: “Although the Dictatorship is
veiled by constitutional forms, it is none the less effective.
Great things have been done, and greater attempted.”19
Churchill is careful to attribute possible excesses to misguided followers rather than to Roosevelt himself:
But the President has need to be on his guard. To a foreign
eye it seems that forces are gathering under his shield
which at a certain stage may thrust him into the background and take the lead themselves. If that misfortune
were to occur, we should see the not-unfamiliar spectacle
of a leader running after his followers to pull them back.20
While Churchill describes these forces as dangers to
Roosevelt’s “valiant and heroic experiments,” it is clear from
the essay, as from New Deal history, that these are in fact
dangers arising from those very experiments.
Trade Unionism
Churchill identifies two in particular: trade unionism
and redistribution of wealth. While praising Roosevelt for
his attempt to reduce unemployment by shortening
working hours and thus to spread employment more evenly
through the working class, he has “considerable misgivings…when a campaign to attack the monetary problem
becomes intermingled with, and hampered by, the elaborate
processes of social reform and the struggles of class
warfare.”21
Churchill, who had been Chancellor of the
has introduced a narrowing element into our public life.
It has been a keenly-felt impediment to our productive
and competitive power. It has become the main foundation of the socialist party, which has ruled the State
greatly to its disadvantage, and will assuredly do so again.
It reached a climax in a general strike, which if it had
been successful would have subverted the Parliamentary
constitution of our island.22
Churchill accepted that British trade unions had
become a stable force, and were, in any case, much better for
society than “communist-agitated and totally unorganized
labour discontent.”23 But British trade unionism had developed over fifty years, allowing time for economic adjustments
and abatement of passions. “But when one sees an attempt
made within the space of a few months to lift American
trade unionism by great heaves and bounds to the position
so slowly built up—and even then with much pain and
loss—in Great Britain, we cannot help feeling grave
doubts.”24 The conflicts involved in such a transformation,
he warns, could “result in a general crippling of that enterprise and flexibility upon which not only the wealth, but the
happiness of modern communities depend.”
Such sweeping decrees are exactly what characterized
the Roosevelt Administration—as illustrated by the compulsory unionism of the National Industrial Recovery Act
(1933) and the National Labor Relations Act (1935).
Redistribution of Wealth
The second great danger Churchill identifies in
Roosevelt’s experiments is “the disposition to hunt down
rich men as if they were noxious beasts.” This may be “a
very attractive sport,” but redistribution through penalties
on the wealthy does not benefit a society in the long run—
instead it drains the wellsprings of economic development:
The millionaire or multi-millionaire is a highly economic
animal. He sucks up with sponge-like efficiency from all
quarters. In this process, far from depriving ordinary
people of their earnings, he launches enterprise and
carries it through, raises values, and he expands that
credit without which on a vast scale no fuller economic
life can be opened to the millions. To hunt wealth is not
to capture commonwealth….meanwhile great constructions have crumbled to the ground. Confidence is shaken
and enterprise chilled, and the unemployed queue up at
the soup-kitchens or march out to the public works with
ever growing expense to the taxpayer and nothing more
appetizing to take home to their families than the leg or
the wing of what was once a millionaire….It is indispensable to the wealth of nations and to the wage and life
standards of labour, that capital and credit should be honoured and cherished partners in the economic system.
Yes, Churchill admits, there is some justification for
the anger of the American people against their leaders of
the two systems—yet Churchill believed that the American
people would never willingly accept the “dull brutish servitude of Russia,” though he also believed that a nation can
slide into doctrines it would not accept with open eyes.
Churchill concluded:
“WE MUST NEVER CEASE to proclaim in fearless tones the
great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint
inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna
Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the
English common law find their most famous expression in the
American Declaration of Independence.”
-WSC, 1946. Painting by John Trumbull. (Wikimedia Commons)
finance. But “[t]he important question is whether American
democracy can clear up scandals and punish improprieties
without losing its head, and without injuring the vital
impulses of economic enterprise and organization.”25
The U.S. is not the first country to deal with the
question of whether “it is better to have equality at the
price of poverty, or well-being at the price of inequality.”
Churchill lamented the drift toward Socialism in Britain in
the 1920s (and again in the 1940s), pointing out that these
schemes produced little but economic disaster.26
Churchill strongly favored government action to ease
the plight of the poor in modern industrial society; his
whole career was marked by a concern for social justice,
echoed in his cautious admiration of FDR. Ultimately,
however, Churchill held that free markets should be
allowed to operate without centralized, bureaucratic controls, which destroy the principle of competition that is the
mainspring of economic health.27 The capitalist system can
create concentrations of wealth, since free competition
results in inequalities of property, but the removal of
reward for investment and risk will stultify economic development and ultimately harm society as a whole.
Throughout his discussion of the economic choices
America faces, Churchill refers to “the Russian alternative”—nationalization of production, distribution, credit,
and exchange to cure the abuses and inequities of the capitalist system. One cannot take a middle ground between
16. Winston S. Churchill, “While the World Watches,” Collier’s, 29
December 1934. Republished in 1937 as “Roosevelt from Afar” in
Great Contemporaries, deleted from 1940-45 editions. Cited hereafter
as Great Contemporaries (University of Chicago Press, 1973).
17. WSC to William Chenery, editor, Collier’s, 13 September
1934 (Chartwell Papers 8/493) in Martin Gilbert, Winston S.
Churchill, Companion Volume V, Part 2, The Wilderness Years 19291935 (London: Heinemann, 1981), 870.
18. Ibid.
19 Great Contemporaries, 373–74.
20 Great Contemporaries, 381.
21 Great Contemporaries, 374-75.
22 Great Contemporaries, 374-75.
23. Great Contemporaries, 375.
There it seems to foreign observers, lies the big choice of
the United States at the present time. If the capitalist
system is to continue, with its rights of private property,
with its pillars of rent, interest and profit, and the sanctity of contracts recognized and enforced by the State,
then it must be given a fair chance.
Given the regulatory activities of the National
Recovery Administration, increases in taxes on successful
businesses, frequent anti-trust lawsuits, and FDR’s antibusiness rhetoric, Churchill’s words can only be read as a
rebuke to the New Deal approach to reining in “the vital
impulses of economic enterprise and organization.”28
Conclusion
Churchill’s critique of the New Deal does not nullify
his admiration for Roosevelt, especially as it developed into
the “special relationship” in the Second World War and
afterward. While they had their disagreements, Churchill’s
gratitude to Roosevelt was immense. Speaking in the House
of Commons a few days after Roosevelt’s death, he
expressed that gratitude in some of his finest words: “For
us, it remains only to say that in Franklin Roosevelt there
died the greatest American friend we have ever known, and
the greatest champion of freedom who has ever brought
help and comfort from the new world to the old.”29
Churchill’s critique does, however, have importance.
Written in the context of worldwide economic upheaval,
and collectivist trends destructive of freedom, it reveals his
opposition to the philosophy of the New Deal as equally
dangerous to political and economic liberty.
Churchill thought seriously, not only about the unity
of spirit between Great Britain and the United States, but
the ways in which both countries were subject to the
dangers of abandoning the supports of law and liberty in
times of crisis. The two countries were bound together in
the defense of freedom; Churchill knew that freedom must
be guarded internally as well as externally.
✌
24. WSC would echo this concern in “Roosevelt and the
Future of the New Deal,” The Daily Mail, 24 April 1935; Collected
Essays II:372.
25. Great Contemporaries, 376–79.
26. “Socialism,” 12 February 1929, Complete Speeches,
V:4551–52: “Show me the parts of the country which at the present
time are in the deepest depression, show me the industries which are
most laggard, and at the same time you will be showing me the parts
where these withering doctrines have won their greatest measure of
acceptance.”
27. See for example Liberalism and the Social Problem (New
York: Haskell House, 1973; reprint of 1909 ed.), 82–83.
28. Great Contemporaries, 379–80.
29. 17 April 1945, Complete Speeches, VII:7141.
Books, A rts
& C uriosities
True Persona: Two Works of Genius
RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
1
“Into the Storm,” with Brendan
Gleeson as Churchill and Janet
McTeer as Clementine. A television
drama broadcast by the BBC and
HBO, produced by Ridley Scott,
directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan,
Screenplay by Hugh Whitemore.
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods...”
—“Horatius,” stanza XXVII in Lays of
Ancient Rome, by Thomas Babbington
Macaulay. Recited at the beginning and at
the end of “Into the Storm.”
H
ere is a TV docudrama packing
exceptional honesty. An old man,
at an age when most retire (or in his
time die), is handed command of his
nation, when no one else wants it, in
the greatest crisis of her history. They
fight alone, save for their kith and kin,
“the old lion and her lion cubs,” as he
put it, “against hunters who are armed
with deadly weapons.” And they win—
only to see the old man dismissed in
the moment of victory.
The opening scene is Hendaye,
France, July 1945, where Churchill, his
wife and daughter Mary spend a week’s
break between polling-day in the
British General Election and the start
of the Potsdam Conference (see FH
128:45). Anxious for election returns
(delayed for a fortnight to count the
service vote) Churchill relives the past
five years in a series of flashbacks.
This is the film’s one jarring
element: the back-and-forth occurs
without obvious transition, and you
have to remind yourself whether you
are in the past or present. But overall,
the story is massive, the action real, the
history honest, the dialogue convincing,
the scenes artful, the acting superb.
Brendan Gleeson is the best
Churchill since Robert Hardy. He falls
into none of the usual traps. Most
impersonators overdo the accent or the
famous lisp, the V-sign or siren suits,
the caricatures painted by Lord Moran
or Alanbrooke. Gleeson was praised by
Lady Soames, the sternest of critics.
Hugh Whitemore, who also
wrote the script for the preceding film
“The Gathering Storm” (FH 115:32),
helps by not loading the dialogue with
soaring rhetoric. “Papa spoke in
private,” his daughter says, “much as he
did in public.” And here is the private
Churchill, with doubts about winning,
fears of the future, and faults of his
own—for he was as human as anyone,
freely admitted it, and often apologized
for it, especially to his wife.
Several quotes are taken out of
time or context, but Whitemore blends
them flawlessly into the story, and the
student of Churchill’s words doesn’t
mind. Several scenes—like the “naked
encounter” with Roosevelt—didn’t
happen that way, but are so seamlessly
integrated and well acted as to make
them acceptable. Churchill’s habits, like
the siesta which enabled him to work
into the wee hours, are deftly conveyed.
History is not bent for the sake of
drama. Only extreme pedants can
object to the film’s artistic license.
Janet McTeer is no Vanessa
Redgrave, the archetypal Clementine in
“The Gathering Storm,” falling short
of the character described by her
daughter and biographer. Though she
gives Winston good advice, she seems
more a neurotic scold than a pillar of
strength. It doesn’t matter because
Gleeson, “throws himself into the character and completely owns him,” as
Daniel Carlson writes, “from the
nonstop cigars to the famous cadence
of his speeches. Gleeson is believably
tough but doesn’t make Churchill a
warmonger or bully; if anything, he’s
burdened by the thought of the boys
he has sent to die.”
Carlson has his finger on the
film’s greatest quality: its sensitivity to
WSC’s true persona. Resisting opportunities for ignorant political posturing
—the leveling of German cities, for
example—Scott and Whitemore always
have Churchill saying what he truly
believed—culled in this case from My
Early Life: “War, which used to be cruel
and magnificent, has now become cruel
and squalid.”
“Into the Storm” packs less depth
than “The Gathering Storm”—like the
persecution of Ralph Wigram for
sending WSC secret reports on
German rearmament. But too much is
happening for sidebars. This is World
War II, remember: the French debacle,
Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the
Blitz, Pearl Harbor, Singapore, the
fraught meetings with Roosevelt (Len
Cariou) and Stalin (Alexy Patrenko),
the all-or-nothing assault on Fortress
Europe. Leadership is the plot, sub-plot
and sidebar.
Some Churchillians have asked
why Ridley Scott couldn’t have
stopped at Pearl Harbor and done a
world slipping away.”
Churchill thinks back: “I met
him in South Africa, riding across the
veldt. He was Col. Seely then. I saw
him at the head of a column of British
cavalry, riding twenty yards in front, on
a black horse. I thought of him as the
epitome of Imperial power.”
Watching this film, I had the sensation
that it was well Britain chose
Yalta: Gleeson, Cariou, Patrenko
World War II for what John Charmley
called “The End of Glory.” A great
third film later; why there couldn’t be
country, focused one last time by a
multiple parts; why it wasn’t a
leader steeped in history and language,
Churchill version of “Lord of the
held the fort “till those who hitherto
Rings.” The best editor I ever worked
had been half blind were half ready.”
for said: “A bore is someone who tells
Better to go out in a flash of light than
everything.” And we are not filmface the long decline that seems now to
makers. We have no idea what
constraints Scott labored under. We do attend another superpower. “The
know that he had ninety minutes. And proud American will go down into his
slavery without a fight,” Pravda (astonwhat he does in that time to portray
the true Churchill is a work of genius. ishingly) declared recently, “beating his
chest and proclaiming to the world
The enduring impression of
“Into the Storm” is of an old man, real- how free he really is.” That will take
years. For Britain the End of Glory
izing after the most heroic chapter in
came in months.
his country’s history that history itself
“Yes, I’ve worked very hard and
has passed him by, “the palmy days of
achieved a great deal,” Churchill
Queen Victoria and a settled world
reflected at the end of his long life,
order,” as he put it in 1947, gone
“only to achieve nothing in the end.” A
forever. The war is won, the country
life that rose to the heights of fame, the
lost in a Socialist dream. Hardly, alas,
honors of the world showered upon
unfamiliar: a signal message in 2009.
him—for what? “I feel,” he said, “like
A lot of us who grew up in
Churchill’s time feel the way Churchill an aeroplane at the end of its flight, in
does at the end of this film, as he reads the dusk, with the petrol running out,
in search of a safe landing.”
a sympathetic post-election note from
Not only he. ✌
his old friend Jack Seely: “I feel our
2
Thoughts and Adventures, by
Winston S. Churchill, edited with
an introduction by James W. Muller.
ISI Books, 380 pages, illus., softbound, $22. Member price $17.60.
I
f Churchill’s 1932 volume of essays
on politics, cartoons, elections,
hobbies and adventures is really an
“undiscovered classic” (as stated on the
back cover of this new edition) it will
be news to generations of readers.
Thoughts and Adventures (first published in the U.S. as Amid These
Storms) has seen twelve or more editions in English, and translations into
Danish, French, German, Korean,
Spanish and Swedish. Four of its essays
are the subject of
the 2009 Churchill
Conference.
What makes
the new volume so
valuable, aside
from its easygoing
paperback price, is
an outstanding
new introduction
by Churchill Centre Chairman of
Academic Advisers James W. Muller,
Professor of Political Science at the
University of Alaska Anchorage. In a
28-page essay, Muller plumbs the
depths of Churchill’s intellect, the
raison d’être of a book which is far
more than a haphazard collection of
Churchill Centre Book Club
Managed for the Centre by Chartwell
Booksellers (www.churchillbooks.com),
which offers member discounts up to
25%. To order please contact
Chartwell Booksellers, 55 East 52nd
Street, New York, NY 10055.
Email [email protected]
Telephone (212) 308-0643
Facsimile (212) 838-7423
Thoughts and Adventures...
“potboilers” (as WSC himself sometimes referred to his articles): “The
essays...are meant to convey his practical wisdom about politics. In every
essay, even the most unassuming ones
or those a sophisticate would find most
unpromising, Churchill explores the
topography of life in a modern liberal
democracy. He treats simple subjects
that appeal to a practical man, but his
essays take up questions that would
puzzle a philosopher.”
Armed with Muller’s introduction, the reader comprehends how
deeply Churchill, despite no formal
education, thought about transcendental matters, and why Churchill
Studies remain evergreen. Here are his
“big four” futurist essays—“Shall We
All Commit Suicide?,” “Fifty Years
Hence,” “Consistency in Politics” and
“Mass Effects in Modern Life.” Here
are “My Spy Story” and “The Battle of
Sidney Street,” which use everyday
experiences to treat issues of civil
liberty and civilian control of the military and police.
We witness Churchill’s collegial
politics in his tolerant appreciation of
opponents in “Election Memories” and
“Cartoons and Cartoonists,” and meet
those who influenced him in “Personal
Contacts.” We see war as Churchill saw
it in “With the Grenadiers,” “The UBoat War,” “‘Plugstreet’” and “The
Dover Barrage.” We watch history
made over his burly shoulder in “The
Irish Treaty.” We find two of his heroes
from the opposite ends of history in
“Clemenceau” and “Moses.” We even
learn how to relax, with “Hobbies” and
“Painting as a Pastime.” All the while
our wise editor is there with a modern
interpretation of what Churchill tells
us, and why it still matters. Nor is >>
BOOK REVIEWS
Thoughts and Adventures...
the fastidious Professor Muller content
with a foreword. He offers a host of
new footnotes, largely written by Finest
Hour senior editor Paul Courtenay,
which aid the modern reader by
describing events, people and places no
longer familiar. Finally, in the back of
the book, he appends a thick set of
notes, investigating—with Ronald
Cohen’s epic Bibliography of the
Writings of Sir Winston Churchill at
hand—the origin of each essay, its
titular and textual variations, and in
many cases how it came to be written.
We learn for example that
Churchill’s own foreword was not
written by WSC (who was “in a
nursing home recuperating from a
relapse of paratyphoid in early October
1932”). It was penned for him by his
longtime friend and secretary Eddie
Marsh, who emulated the boss’s style so
perfectly that Churchill wrote on his
copy, “Rather good pastiche.”
Muller’s notes record alterations in each essay, as Churchill, an
indefatigable reviser, tweaked and
molded his work to suit his audience.
In “My Spy Story,” for example, Muller
produces five lengthy paragraphs from
the original appearance in Cosmopolitan
which Churchill omitted from the
book, describing a “much trusted”
German spy in Britain, whose reports
were studied in Berlin and
Wilhelmshaven. (And, just to be sure
you know, Muller adds that
Wilhelmshaven, “named after Kaiser
Wilhelm I in 1869,” was the “headquarters of Germany’s High Seas Fleet
in World War I.”)
Truly this is as eminent an edition
of an ingenious book as we could hope
for—a tribute to the editor as to the
author. In keeping with ISI’s practice, it
will be in print a long time, to educate
and inform future generations of
Churchill’s political instinct, judgment,
foresight and magnanimity. ✌
The Stuff of History
CHRISTOPHER H. STERLING
Masters and Commanders: How
Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and
Alanbrooke Won the War in the West,
by Andrew Roberts. Harper, 720
pages, illus., $35. Member price $28.
T
his immensely readable book tells
a long tale of frustration and cooperation–often more the former than the
latter—in the strategic planning of
World War II. Here are four quite different personalities; Roberts considers
how they interacted and struggled to
establish the priorities that would eventually win the European war.
This is ground treated by many
others—including multiple biographies
of each man discussed here—but
nowhere else is the material as clearly
focused on how their relationship
evolved, and they only met face-to-face
____________________________________
Dean Sterling teaches Communications at
George Washington University.
in mid-1942.
Much of their
communication
before and after
was by means
of tenuous
telecommunication links, or
through aides
sent on perilous
flights across
the Atlantic. What they wrought was
the stuff of history.
Drawing on a host of diaries,
many heretofore unpublished, Roberts
provides an almost over-the-shoulder
view of his subjects in action. (Indeed,
his very effective use of these diaries
makes me wonder how future historians will ever write of present-day
events when so few keep diaries
anymore.) Thanks to the pictures he
paints in words, we are silent observers
of exchanges by which the masters
(Churchill and Roosevelt) and their
commanders (Alanbrooke and
Masters and Commanders...
Marshall, respectively) developed a
winning strategy. The depth, high
quality, and working habits of each of
these leaders comes through clearly—as
do their disagreements.
So do their huge frustrations,
especially early on, as the British and
U.S. leadership teams struggled to
carry out the policy of “Germany
First.” The give-and-take on how to
create a “second front” to siphon off
pressure against the Soviets is a farrago
of code-name references to potential
military actions: “Bolero,” “Roundup,”
“Sledgehammer,” “Gymnast,” and—
eventually—“Torch,” the invasion of
North Africa in November 1942. At
times the four men did not even use
the terms to refer to the same things,
muddied the waters with “Super
Bolero” and other variant code names.
At the heart of the decisionmaking was tension between the newly
arrived Americans, who wanted to
attack via France as soon as possible,
and the battle-tested British, who felt
the need to wear Germany down at the
margins (North Africa, Italy, maybe
Norway) before a make-or-break crossChannel invasion. The British desire to
strike at North Africa won out.
As important was the very different working relationship between
each “master” and his commander.
Marshall sometimes went six weeks
without seeing FDR directly, while
Alanbrooke complained he rarely got
six hours without some (often difficult)
interaction with Churchill. As we know
from many accounts, FDR didn’t like
writing things down, preferring oral
communications. Churchill on the
other hand, while sometimes pushing
odd tangential actions, committed his
final orders to writing. Neither master
directly overruled his senior commanders, especially when they
presented a unified front. Out of such
seemingly minor matters of communication and consistency arose some of
the wartime controversies so well
related and accessed here.
Roberts capably reviews the emotional ups and downs for Brooke and
Marshall concerning the coveted
command of the Overlord invasion.
Churchill promised Brooke the role on
at least three occasions, though it was
clear even by mid-1943 that it was not
his to confer. Roosevelt, in his oblique
fashion, considered Marshall but then
he couldn’t be spared from his existing
post. Eisenhower got the nod based on
his experience with the North African,
Sicilian, and Italian campaigns. Brooke
never got over the slight, made worse
in his mind because Churchill seemed
not to notice.
Roberts makes clear the constant
and never-ending strategic debate
between the British and Americans,
which no one else has so clearly
described. Every decision was battled
out, the Americans steady winning the
arguments by late 1943, since they had
more men, aircraft, and supplies to
bring to bear. Churchill is seen as petulant and argumentative as his
secondary role to Roosevelt and
Marshall. Fights over proposed southeast Pacific ventures to free occupied
British colonies were refought, as were
the August 1944 landing in southern
France (Anvil, later Dragoon), because
they pulled American troops from the
difficult Italian theater. Reading about
these conflicts today, the reader can’t
conceive of just how tired all the principals were as the war wore on.
Churchill’s famous long nights (he, of
course, took naps others couldn’t)
didn’t help the outlook of Brooke and
his colleagues, all of whom made that
clear in their ever-present (though
illegal) diaries.
This is a long book, but one
filled with insight. Roberts’ extensive
use of sources is evident but does not
dominate the narrative. He clarifies
many of the war’s strategic turning
points with an even hand. He is eminently fair in his judgments about who
said what to whom, and who was right.
Sometimes the British come out on
top; at least as often the Americans
win, especially late in the war, when
the American strategic view, so often
dismissed by Brooke in the privacy of
his diary, came to dominate events.
This is a book to own. No matter
what you think you know about
Churchill or the war, you will learn fascinating new things here. ✌
Russia 1918: Folly or Opportunity?
DAVID FREEMAN
Churchill’s Crusade: The British
Invasion of Russia 1918-1920, by
Clifford Kinvig. Continuum, 374 pp.,
softbound, illus., $34.95. Member
price $27.95.
M
ajor General Kinvig, a former
senior lecturer at Sandhurst and
Director of Army Education, has done
prodigious research to piece together
the full story of Churchill’s famous
effort “to strangle Bolshevism in its
cradle.” Previously, the best record of
this story was in the official biography
by Martin Gilbert, and Kinvig
acknowledges his debt to Sir Martin.
But whereas Gilbert related events
largely from the political perspective of
Churchill, Kinvig integrates the political background with a full military
history, providing a broader understanding of why Churchill’s crusade
was doomed to failure.
British forces entered northern
Russia late in the First World War out
of fear that the Germans might capture
Murmansk and use the port, which is
ice-free year round, to break the Allied
blockade already strangling the Central
Powers. The operation was also a
belated attempt to reestablish the semblance of an Eastern Front, drawing off
German troops from France. But the
German threat in the Arctic was never
serious, nor did Allied forces (British,
French, Canadian, Australian and
American) in Murmansk and later
Archangel have any success in luring
more German troops to the east.
Justification for the Allied presence in Russia ended with the war, but
Churchill, now Secretary of State for
War, envisioned using Allied troops to
support the various anti-Bolshevik factions (known collectively as Whites) in
the ongoing Russian Civil War.
Kinvig shows that Churchill
attempted to do too much with too
little. The Allied presence in Russia,
____________________________________
Professor Freeman teaches history at
California State University, Fullerton.
including political/military
missions in the
south and far
east, were never
more than a
skeletal force,
and unreinforceable; the
best Churchill
could do was
cobble together
volunteer-units by promising continued employment and good pay.
Churchill did have the political
support of the Conservative MPs who
made up a free-standing majority
within Britain’s governing coalition,
but his policy was opposed by Prime
Minister Lloyd George, who read the
will of the nation better than the Tories
or Churchill, the leading Liberal in the
Cabinet after himself.
Still, Lloyd George was politically
constrained. He had to allow Churchill
something of a free hand to appease his
Conservative backers, while attempting
to talk them out of what he saw as a
futile campaign. In vain Lloyd George
cited the example of British interference in the French Revolution as an
action that only intensified the atrocities committed by the revolutionaries.
Churchill responded by citing stories of
atrocities committed by the Bolsheviks.
We know now that Churchill was
correct in foreseeing that a Communist
Russia would inflict unprecedented
horror on its people, but in 1919 the
Russians could see only the disaster
bequeathed to them by the incompetent, corrupt and callous regime of the
late Czar. War-weary peasants could
not be expected to support antiBolshevik forces led by unrepentant
Czarists, who displayed toward their
soldiers nothing but contempt.
In Russia, British forces of all
ranks, even those opposed to
Bolshevism, grew to despise the Whites
whom they were sent to assist. Czaristera officers, far from professional and
hopelessly corrupt, drank and quarreled
with one another while preferring >>
BOOK REVIEWS
Churchill’s Crusade...
billets far from the front. Churchill
labeled such reports as defeatist, but in
truth he had no understanding of the
real situation. Not once did he visit
Russia during this time.
The White forces of Admiral
Kolchak and General Denikin committed atrocities every bit as horrific as
those of the Reds. In the South the
Whites and their Cossack allies
unleashed terrible new pogroms against
Russian Jews. In vain did Churchill
plead for Denikin to halt such actions,
which obviously undermined support
for the anti-Bolshevik cause. The
Whites also hampered their own efforts
by unrealistically insisting upon maintaining the integrity of “Greater
Russia,” forsaking any crucial assistance
they might have received from Poland
and Romania or the emergent nations
of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Under Trotsky, Bolshevik armies had
difficulties of their own, but the Red
war effort, Kinvig says, “was a model of
ruthless efficiency compared with the
performance of its opponents” (319).
Yet the Allied troops managed to
do surprisingly well, despite limited
supplies and the extreme climate. A
young Brig. Gen. Edmund Ironside
commanded at Archangel, and two
Victoria Crosses were awarded—both
to Australians. In the first half of 1919
the ring of anti-Bolshevik forces even
came tantalizingly close to victory.
Once the Versailles Treaty was concluded, however, Allied support for the
campaign evaporated. Withdrawals
began at the end of the summer.
Following the Dardanelles
debacle, Churchill famously remarked
that he had attempted to do too much
from a subordinate position. Incredibly
he made the same mistake in Russia.
He was labeled a military adventurer
and blunderer, a reputation that made
it easy for many people to disregard his
later warnings about the Nazis. Kinvig
describes Churchill’s own account of
his Russian adventure published in The
Aftermath (1929) as “among the more
fanciful of his historical writings”
(xviii). Unfortunately for the Russian
people, Churchill’s fears were not fanciful at all. ✌
PAUL H. COURTENAY
is now identified as a World
Heritage Site.”
Beyond the iconic images
familiar to many, there are
hitherto unseen family photographs of
recent times,
which give a
glimpse of
everyday life in
such historic
surroundings;
these are
accompanied
by the author’s
personal recollections.
It is almost
impossible to list any points with
which to quibble: I found just one of
modest substance, a misidentified photograph: Queen Mary is mistakenly
stated to be Princess Alice (actually Her
Majesty’s sister-in-law and second
cousin once removed, who is not portrayed). This is a trifle in a book of
great interest to those who have visited
Blenheim, and to those who still have
this treat coming. ✌
A Sight for Lore Eyes
Blenheim and the Churchill Family: A
Personal Portrait, by Henrietta SpencerChurchill. Cico, 218 pages, hardbound,
illus., $50. Member price $40.
L
ady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill is
the elder daughter of the Eleventh
and current Duke of Marlborough;
having grown up at Blenheim Palace,
she has an intimate knowledge of and
feel for its history and contents. Her
book is filled with a large number of
fine photographs, accompanied by a
lively commentary.
Here you will find a wonderful
display of all parts of the Palace
including the famous tapestries and
many historic paintings. As the Duke
says in his foreword, the book “brings
out vividly how eleven generations of
my family have, in their various ways,
contributed to a house designed not
only as a family home, but also as a
monument of such significance that it
Too Many Errors You Shouldn’t Know
274 Things You Should Know About
Churchill, by Patrick Delaforce.
O’Mara Books, 188 pages, hardbound, $25. Member price $20.
T
his slim volume is strictly for those
who are new to the Churchill
story; there is little in it which would
be unknown even to semi-informed
readers. Having said that, the story
unfolds in a readable way. The author
has chosen 274 topics which, packaged
as 274 short, headed paragraphs, follow
a reasonably chronological route from
Lord Randolph Churchill to his son’s
State funeral.
The author is of an age to have
served in 11th Armoured Division in
Normandy, where he was wounded,
and certainly knows the general outline
of Churchill’s life. But he reveals it in a
way which casts doubt on his detailed
____________________________________
Mr. Courtenay is a FH senior editor.
awareness of much
which occurred. It is,
after all, easy to pick
plums from a biography and to publish
these in the way they
are presented here,
which is not to
suggest plagiarism.
As I read, my reactions oscillated
between approval and disapproval. The
first sentence aroused my suspicions:
“With grateful thanks to Dominique
Enright…” Enright wrote The Wicked
Wit of Winston Churchill, published by
the same O’Mara Books. In my review
in FH 115 (http://xrl.us/bejq4v) I
quoted her statement that “some of the
stories are definitely authentic, but
there are no doubt many that have
been embellished….they have been
selected for their Churchillian flavour.”
So I was primed to look for
flaws—which came thick and fast.
274 Things You Should Know...
Leaving aside a number of typographical errors, which should have
been eliminated by the publisher, I
counted over forty errors of fact,
ranging from incorrect dates through
wrongly identified names to strange
improbabilities. A few examples: 4th
Queen’s Own Hussars was part of the
Army in India (not the Indian Army);
Churchill sailed from Lourenço
Marques to Durban (he did not use a
train); in 1914 Kitchener was Secretaryof State for War (not Commander-in
Chief of the Army); in early 1915 the
C-in-C of the British Expeditionary
Force was French (not Haig); in 1916
Balfour was a former not future prime
minister; in 1945 Churchill is said to
have flown from Berlin to Potsdam
(perhaps the aircraft taxied all the way);
the 1945 nuclear test did not take place
“in Mexico”; Lady Soames will be surprised to learn that she spent Christmas
1943 with her father in Carthage (it
was her sister Sarah).
These examples give a flavour of
the careless research and editing, which
are balanced by only one amusing and
original comment. Relating how
Churchill ordered that code-names
should not be overconfident, gloomy
or frivolous, but that constellations and
racehorse names were among the
acceptable, Delaforce writes: “Race
horses yes—but race meetings?….This
author fought in Epsom, almost in
Goodwood and was wounded in
Ascot!” For this remark, I can forgive
him almost anything: call it a draw. ✌
Churchill as a Literary Character
WSC IN FICTION (2) • MICHAEL T. McMENAMIN
Novels are rated one to three stars on two questions: accuracy of portrayal and
reading value. Churchill was always a controversial figure and many simply didn’t like
him. If a novel attempts to see Churchill though the eyes of someone who doesn’t like him,
the portrait may be disagreeable to his admirers; but that doesn’t make the portrait inaccurate, unless the author ascribes to him words or actions that are inaccurate.
Two novels reviewed in the first column in this series (FH 141:48) portrayed
Churchill in a relatively positive and accurate light, through characters who viewed him
benignly. The two novels reviewed here do not.
The Man from St. Petersburg, by Ken
Follett (Signet, 1983).
Portrayal ★★★ Worth Reading ★★★
N
o library of any Finest Hour subscriber should be without Ken
Follett’s historical thrillers (Eye of the
Needle, etc.), the best of which are set
in World War II. Follett is an excellent
writer and all of his books, including
this one, are still in print in paperback
and available.
The Man from St. Petersburg is
unusual for a thriller in that it takes
place in the days before World War I
and features Churchill as a major
player in a conspiracy to conclude a
secret naval alliance between Britain
and Russia in the spring and summer
of 1914. Churchill is seen through the
eyes of the Earl of Walden, a
Conservative Party stalwart and general
good guy who has
been a “semi-official diplomat” for
Lord Salisbury and
Arthur Balfour. He
can’t stand
Churchill. In those
days, few Tories
could.
Churchill is an
archetypal character, the one who sets
the plot in motion and keeps it
moving, with several appearances from
time to time. While the hero Walden
obviously dislikes WSC, he doesn’t let
it show. Bad form y’know. And he relishes the role Winston has given him to
lead, at the Czar’s request, British negotiations with the young Russian
Admiral Orlov, head of the Russian
team and, not coincidentally, nephew
to both the Czar and to Walden’s
The Man from St. Petersburg...
attractive Russian-born wife Lydia.
That way, the young admiral’s visit can
be passed off as a holiday in England
with family.
Alack! Felix, the assassin sent by
Russian anarchists to kill Orlov (“the
man from St. Petersburg”) was once
Walden’s wife’s lover, and he is not
fooled. As with most Follett villains,
Felix has sympathetic human traits
which help explain why he and Lydia
were lovers when they were young.
Let’s just say things get complicated after that for Walden, Lydia, her
idealistic teenage daughter Charlotte
and Felix who, between attempts to kill
Orlov, seeks out Charlotte, whom he
believes to be his daughter. Vintage
Follett, the pace rarely lets up. If Orlov
is killed, the Czar won’t sign the treaty.
That’s the reason for the three stars
under “Worth Reading.”
Three stars also go for the portrayal of Churchill, because anything
negative about him comes from the
viewpoint of the biased Walden. But
it’s all historically accurate: Tories of his
age and class did think Churchill was
an impulsive demagogue. Yet Follett, in
portraying Churchill, has him do or say
nothing that rings false. WSC is, in
turn, shown by Follett to be charming,
manipulative and ruthless. There’s one
scene where he is impulsive, but
Walden’s restraint prevails. In a final
twist, where all seems lost and the bad
guys have won, Churchill comes up
with the (somewhat cold-blooded)
solution that saves the day. Read it; you
won’t be disappointed. ✌
Imperial Kelly by Peter Bowen
(Crown, 1992). Portrayal ★★ Worth
Reading ★★
aveat. The
ratings for this
book—no longer
in print but easily
found online for
less than $10—are
based on the
assumption that
you’ve read and
enjoyed any of the
Sir Harry Flashman novels by the late
continued on page 62...
C
Churchill and the
Anglo-Irish War 1919-1922
COGADH NA SAOIRSE, THE IRISH
WAR OF INDEPENDENCE, WAS THE
UNFORTUNATE CULMINATION OF
BRITAIN’S 700-YEAR ATTEMPT TO
FIND A CONSTITUTIONAL
RELATIONSHIP WITH IRELAND
THAT MADE SENSE TO BOTH SIDES
ALAN J. WARD
ntil 1800, Great Britain and Ireland shared a
crown but had separate parliaments. With the
Union of 1801, the two parliaments were
merged and this should have led to the substantial political integration of the two countries;
but by an extraordinary oversight, the new relationship
between Britain and Ireland was not defined precisely.
Some elements of the old order persisted along with
Ireland’s new representation at Westminster: the Irish
Executive, which had represented the Crown in Ireland
before the Union, continued. A Lord Lieutenant resided in
Dublin in vice-regal pomp, with responsibility for law and
order. The senior minister for Ireland, the Chief Secretary,
sat in the Cabinet in London, but his under- and assistantsecretaries presided over a rambling Irish administration in
Dublin Castle which included thirty-six independent Irish
government departments.1 Wales and Scotland were certainly not governed in this way after their unions.
Order in Ireland was the responsibility of two police
forces, the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin
Metropolitan Police. There was also a 100,000-strong military contingent in 1919, primarily a reserve force of
recruits in training for operations elsewhere. Only about
ten percent were available for operations in Ireland when
the Anglo-Irish War began in 1919.2 Thereafter, the army
never had sufficient men or equipment to crush the enemy
and its military intelligence was woefully inadequate.
U
______________________________________________________
Dr. Ward is Class of 1935 Professor of Government Emeritus at the
College of William and Mary. His four works on Irish History include
The Easter Rising, 1916: Revolution and Irish Nationalism (1980,
2nd ed. 2003) and The Irish Constitutional Tradition: Responsible
Government and Modern Ireland, 1782-1992 (1994). Our thanks to
Professor Warren F. Kimball for editing this paper
The police were similarly unprepared for the kind of
conflict that emerged in 1919. The responsible British
Cabinet and Irish Executive were never properly integrated
with the police and military into a single command. Lines
of authority were always blurred, and multiple intelligence
services were extremely inefficient.
At the end of World War I, Churchill had no significant voice in Irish affairs, but in January 1919 he entered
the Cabinet as Minister for War, and was responsible for
the British garrison in Ireland and the Irish police. Moving
to head the Colonial Office in 1921, he remained in the
Cabinet, and was part of the team that negotiated and
signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty which ended the war in
December 1921.
The Cabinet was woefully ignorant about Irish
affairs. No one, including Churchill, intuitively understood
the Irish or really appreciated what had been happening
there since the Easter Rising of 1916. Within two years the
Catholic or Nationalist parts of the country had steadily
fallen under the control of a republican political organization Sinn Fein (“Ourselves Alone”), which won
seventy-three of Ireland’s 104 seats in the House of
Commons in the December 1918 UK general election. The
remaining seats were won by Protestant Unionists.
Sinn Fein boycotted Parliament after the election
and, on 21 January 1919 established a renegade Irish
Parliament in Dublin, called Dáil Éireann, which
appointed an Executive. As its first act, Dáil Éireann
affirmed that an Irish Republic had been declared in
Dublin on 24 April 1916, the first day of the Easter Rising.
The Dáil was suppressed by the UK government but it
managed to create an Irish executive and a parallel system
of government departments and courts, and in the 1920-21
GIVING NO QUARTER: British auxilliaries, left, known as the Black and Tans. Michael Collins, Commander-in-Chief of the National Army, right, at
President Arthur Griffith's funeral in August 1922, ten days before his own death. (Wikimedia Commons)
local elections, Sinn Fein won control of every town,
county and rural council in the Catholic-majority regions.3
Parallel to Sinn Fein’s growing influence, from
January 1919, was an Anglo-Irish War, which started with
sporadic acts of republican violence against the Irish police.
An Irish Republican Army was created out of several militias, secretly commanded by Michael Collins, then only 29.
Churchill would come to know Collins extremely well in
1921-22, but thought of him as Minister for Finance in the
Dáil Éireann Executive, and later as Chairman of the Free
State Provisional Government formed to implement the
Anglo-Irish Treaty. Churchill never appreciated Collins’
secret role as commander of the IRA, which operated independently of Dáil Éireann until a faction of the IRA
became the Irish Free State army in 1922.4
There were no major battles in the Anglo-Irish War,
but the IRA’s hit and run attacks and selective assassinations of police and informers were difficult to contain. The
war accelerated in 1920 when outlying police barracks were
abandoned as indefensible, and the court system in Ireland
was paralyzed by jury tampering and jury bias.5 Built on a
long tradition of rebellion and agrarian outrage in Ireland,
the IRA’s guerrilla tactics had considerable popular support.
It could not defeat the British militarily, but the British
could not defeat the IRA without a substantial commitment of military and police power.
The Cabinet long could not quite agree on what it
faced in Ireland. Was the problem the Sinn Fein “murder
gang” that could be routed by a determined police force? Or
was Ireland in the grip of a war with broad support which
could only be won by a major military operation?
The Cabinet could use the police to crush the
“murder gang,” and then discuss political reforms. This was
Churchill’s preference; he was considered one of the “hard”
ministers, certainly among the Liberals, in Lloyd George’s
coalition government. Or the Cabinet could suppress the
rebels with police while simultaneously engaging the Sinn
Fein moderates. The Cabinet adopted the latter strategy,
but with no great confidence. It was not until the summer
of 1921 that the Cabinet began to accept that Ireland was
engaged in war against an organized army, and that the
response had to be primarily military.
It was not clear that the Lloyd George Cabinet had
the unity or even the time to decide what Britain faced in
Ireland. The Prime Minister was engaged with the Paris
peace settlement for most of 1919. As Minister for War,
Churchill was supervising Britain’s postwar demobilization
and the replacement of its armed forces, and also planning
to mobilize the army against widespread labor unrest in
Britain.6 He also forcefully urged Britain’s intervention in
the Russian civil war, which continued until October
1919.7 Then, as Colonial Secretary from February 1921, >>
1. Alan J. Ward, The Irish Constitutional Tradition, 1782 to
1992 (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1994),
30-37.
2. Charles Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland, 19191921 (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), 12.
3. Ibid., 67-8.
4. Ibid., 17.
5. Charles Townshend, Britain’s Civil Wars: Counterinsurgency
in the Twentieth Century (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1986), 56.
6. In 1921, after Churchill had left the War Office, four battalions of troops were withdrawn from Ireland because of industrial
unrest in Britain at a time when the army could not mount major operations outside Dublin. See Townshend, The British Campaign in
Ireland, 175.
7. Clifford Kinvig, Churchill’s Crusade: The British Invasion of
Russia, 1918-1920 (New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2006).
CHURCHILL AND THE ANGLO-IRISH WAR...
Churchill found himself constructing a new Middle East in
the League of Nations mandated territories that Britain and
France had acquired from the Ottoman Empire.8
Ireland was an awful distraction. Churchill’s frustration was heard in Parliament, when he spoke about the
incessant boundary arguments for the Irish Free State: “...as
the deluge [of World War I] subsides and the waters fall
short we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone
emerging once again. The integrity of their quarrel is one
of the few institutions that has been unaltered in the cataclysm which has swept the world.”9
The Lloyd George Cabinet was an uneasy coalition.
The Prime Minister and Churchill were Liberals, whose
party had proposed Home Rule with a Dublin Parliament
under the Crown since 1886. In 1911 as Home Secretary,
Churchill had supported “home rule all round,” a scheme
to grant home rule to Ireland, Scotland and Wales.10 He
introduced the second reading of the Third (purely Irish)
Home Rule Bill in 1912. If the British and Empire interests
were protected, Churchill had no objection to domestic
self-government for Ireland.11
But the Coalition also included Tory Unionists who
had opposed Home Rule thrice over the past three decades.
(See Shannon and McMenamin on the origins of Home
Rule in our previous issue. —Ed.) While many had come
to accept some sort of Irish self-government, they were
skeptical of Irish republicans. Some were political associates
of “die-hard” Unionists, many from Protestant Ulster, who
opposed Irish self-government in any form. Lloyd George
had to balance these interests if his government was to
survive. Churchill became his most important ally.
No fair review of the Coalition from its formation in
December 1916 shows that it ever understood Irish complexities. It did not appreciate the extent to which Ireland
turned towards Sinn Fein after 1916; this led to catastrophic Irish policies in 1918. Following the final German
offensive of the war in March 1918, when, in Lloyd
George’s words, the British Fifth Army in France “practically disappeared,” the Cabinet decided to conscript the
only substantial body of men not yet drafted: 150,000
Irishmen. Churchill, then Minister for Munitions, supported the decision, but it went against almost all Irish
advice, Nationalist and Unionist. Irish republicans, constitutional nationalists, labor unions and the Catholic Church
united in massive opposition.
To try to ameliorate the unrest, the Cabinet decided
to couple conscription with a limited Irish Home Rule
measure, but this was rejected by both Sinn Fein and the
Ulster Unionists, the two parties whose support was
absolutely essential. To try to turn public opinion away
from Sinn Fein, the government arrested seventy-three of
its leaders for their alleged participation in a “German
plot,” on insubstantial and very dated evidence. When the
first Dáil Éireann met in January 1919, over half its sixtynine members were still in prison.
As the situation steadily worsened, the Cabinet
appointed Lord French to be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in
May 1918. Here was a general with absolutely no understanding of Irish nationalism, who wrote in October 1918:
Place [Irish conscripts] in suitable surrounding and they
are just as easily roused into imperial enthusiasm as, in
the contrary case, they are filled with hatred and anger
by a few crafty sedition-mongers, or young priestly
fanatics, amongst whom alone they live. Free them from
the terrorism of the few self-seeking hotheads and the
majority of them would make excellent soldiers.12
It was no surprise that in the December 1918 general
election, Sinn Fein wiped out the Irish Parliamentary Party.
But the Cabinet was unprepared, and nothing between
then and the middle of 1921 suggests that it improved its
understanding. It stumbled along, distracted by other
matters, confused by contradictory advice and assessments
from “advisers” in Ireland, and under intense pressure from
the United States and Dominions to solve the Irish
problem. But it was incapable of acting decisively.
C
hurchill shared in the malaise. As Secretary for War
he had a role in Irish policy but his biographer
writes that he wished to defer to the Lord
Lieutenant and Irish Chief Secretary on most military
matters, seeing the War Office’s job as to provide troops
and equipment. However, he was not passive and his interventions, or mostly non-interventions, had serious effects.13
Churchill and most of the Cabinet shared the “murder
gang” theory of the Irish war. If enemy thugs were engaged
in selective terror, rather than a para-military organization
fighting an insurgent war, there were several implications.
First, there was no reason for Churchill to require the army
to develop counter-insurgency tactics—and he did not. Late
in 1920, Irish military leaders said, “There was no objective
for operation, there was no defined theatre of war, there was
no front line.”14 This describes what we now call insurgency
warfare, which required a new strategic doctrine. Churchill
did not recognize the need.
Second, if the conflict in Ireland was not a war but a
criminal conspiracy, the lead agency should be the police,
not the army. As Minister for War, Churchill opposed
attempts to militarize the war and agreed with Lloyd
George that Ireland was “a policeman’s job supported by
the military and not vice versa.”15
The reality, however, is that the war was not simply a
criminal conspiracy. It was a well organized guerrilla campaign, difficult to win without the military. The “murder
gang” theory tied the Cabinet’s hands. It could not win a
war so long as it denied it was fighting one. It was not until
December 1920 that the Cabinet agreed to the Irish
Command’s request for martial law—and then only in four,
and later eight, counties. Incomplete martial law lasted
only six months. Civil trials and the usual trappings of
martial law—mass internment of suspects, internal passports or identification cards, press censorship—were
impractical unless the whole country was covered.
Unfortunately, Churchill had a poor relationship with the
military commander in Ireland, General Sir Nevil
Macready, who was appointed in 1920. Macready accused
him of impetuosity and waywardness,16 and in his autobiography writes, “Mr. Churchill once told me he enjoyed
taking risks. He ought assuredly to have enjoyed himself
during the time he was responsible for Irish affairs at the
Colonial Office.”17
Churchill would have preferred Field Marshal Sir
William Robertson, but was talked into Macready’s
appointment by Lord French.18 Macready had commanded
the London Metropolitan Police and it was anticipated that
he would support the integration of the military and the
police under his command. But Macready refused the
police assignment, believing that the reorganization of the
police would take too much of his time.19
Churchill did not make integration a condition of
Macready’s appointment, and without it the police and the
military operated at cross purposes. The army saw its job as
concentrating its forces to attack the enemy, largely in
search and destroy missions; but the police dispersed its
forces to protect outlying barracks.20 Having refused to
command the police, Macready did not then work well
with Churchill’s choice of Commander for both the Royal
Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police,
General Tudor, who was appointed in May 1920. Churchill
himself worked well with Tudor.
n insurgency warfare the forces of the state must have a
huge advantage in numbers over the insurgents. The
latter are free to roam, hit and run anywhere at any
time, but state forces have to defend every possible target.
The army and the police never had the capability to defend
and respond. The Royal Irish Constabulary, operating
outside Dublin, numbered just over 10,000 in January
1919 and 14,200, in June 1921,21 but it was never well
trained for paramilitary operations. In June 1920 the army’s
effective strength outside Dublin for anti-insurgency purposes was only about 8000 men.
Something had to be done to get more manpower
into the field, and it was decided that it would be the
police.22 Reinforcing the police rather than the army was
driven by the “murder gang” theory. The Cabinet wanted
to avoid militarizing the conflict; the IRA had to be
defeated, but putting the whole country on a war footing
would, it was thought, destroy any chance of a political settlement. The solution—to attach a number of auxiliary
forces to the RIC—would have terribly damaging consequences to British prestige in Ireland and abroad.
Churchill has been credited with conceiving the auxiliary program, and he certainly approved it, but its
parentage is confused.23 A Cabinet colleague, Walter Long,
had suggested something of the kind in May 1919,24 but
the RIC commander, General Byrne, doubted that auxiliaries could be controlled by the police code of discipline.25
He was absolutely correct, but doubts were later pushed
aside. Churchill tells us that the government “decided—or,
rather, drifted into a decision—to meet force with force, or,
to be more exact, to meet terror with terror.”26
The first auxiliaries in the south comprised about
1200 former army officers whose assignment was counterinsurgency. The second were 8000 former soldiers from the
ranks who came to be known as Black and Tans because of
the uniforms they wore.27 When these two auxiliaries went
into action in 1920, it quickly became clear that they
lacked police or military discipline. They became notorious
for unauthorized reprisals against the Irish civilian population, including shootings and the destruction of
buildings.28 The Black and Tans aroused particular public
enmity for their brutality: as Townshend writes, “The
Cabinet’s belief that the Black and Tans, being nominally
police, would be less offensive to public opinio than outright military administration, was a monumental act of
self-deception….”29
In September 1920 Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the
Imperial General Staff, discussed the Black and Tan
reprisals in his diary: “Winston saw very little harm in this
but it horrifies me.”30 The truth is probably less that
Churchill saw little harm than that he had some sympathy
with the Black and Tans, who were acting, he believed,
under extreme provocation.31
In October 1920 the Cabinet ordered unofficial
reprisals to end, but in November, at the request of the military, Churchill proposed a policy of official reprisals, which
the Cabinet accepted in December. Houses, cooperative
creameries and other buildings could now be destroyed >>
8. See David Freeman, “Midwife to an Ungrateful Volcano,”
Finest Hour 132, Spring 2006, 26-33.
9. Parliament, House of Commons, Hansard, 16 February
1922. Speech on the second reading of the Irish Free State Bill.
10. Winston Churchill, “Devolution,” 1 March, 1911, CAB
37/1045/ no.16, Public Records Office, London.
11. Robert Rhodes James, Churchill: A Study in Failure, 54.
12. Alan J. Ward, “Lloyd George and the 1918 Irish Conscription
Crisis,” The Historical Journal 17:1 (March 1974), 125.
13. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill (London: Heinemann,
1975) IV:447.
14. Quoted by Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland, 157.
15. Townshend, Britain’s Civil Wars, 61.
16. General Sir Nevil Macready, Annals of an Active Life (New
York: George H. Doran, 1925), II: 662, 665.
17. Ibid., 654.
18. Macready, Annals, 425-26; Townshend, The British
Campaign in Ireland, 73-74.
19. Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland, 60.
20. Ibid., 28-30.
21. Ibid., 28, 211-14.
22. Ibid., 87.
23. Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: The Man Who Made
Ireland (London: Hutchinson, 1990), 127.
25. Ibid., 30.
26. Rhodes James, Study in Failure, 163.
28. Rhodes James, Study in Failure, 162-63.
30. Ibid., 116.
31. Gilbert, 455.
I
CHURCHILL AND THE ANGLO-IRISH WAR...
under military supervision, after populations had been
removed. The program lasted for five months. Churchill
later wrote, “Where no witnesses would give evidence or
could give it only at the peril of their lives, where no juries
would convict, the ordinary processes of law were non-existent.” But official reprisals were no more welcomed than
unofficial ones, and there were public relations disasters in
Ireland, Britain and the United States.34
A third auxiliary force that Churchill approved was
attached to the RIC in Ulster from October 1920. There
were actually three Ulster forces, known as A, B and C
“Specials,” approved by Churchill and the Cabinet at the
insistence of Ulster Unionist leader Sir James Craig. “A
Specials” were full-time police auxiliaries, “B Specials” were
part-time and locally based, and “C Specials” for emergencies and intelligence gathering. Macready and the civilian
leadership in Dublin Castle vehemently opposed the establishment of these forces because they would be exclusively
Protestant—and so they proved to be.35 Over the next fifty
years the “B Specials” in particular became associated with
the worst kinds of anti-Catholic discrimination in
Northern Ireland. Their disbandment became a central
objective of the Northern Irish Civil Rights movement in
the 1960s.36 Neither the Black and Tans nor the “B”
Specials brought any credit to Churchill.
I
n late 1920, attempts were made by the Catholic
Archbishop of Perth, Joseph Clune, to secure a truce
with the IRA, but the time was inopportune. Michael
Collins opposed a deal, arguing that what would get
Ireland a limited political settlement would also get it a
republic. Sinn Fein rejected Britain’s condition that the IRA
should surrender its arms before talks could begin, and
insisted on immunity for Irish leaders—something the
Cabinet would not offer.37 Churchill was not a diehard
opponent of a negotiated settlement, but he could see no
responsible Irish negotiating partner. In any case, the military leaders in Ireland urged a continuation of the war.38
But the war worsened significantly, the political geography
of Ireland had changed in a way that favored a settlement.
The result was the Government of Ireland Act.
On 23 December 1920, the Government of Ireland
Act received the royal assent.39 Lloyd George argued for it
by asking: “…do we want peace or not? Are we to stamp
out the very embers of rebellion or is the policy a double
one to crush murder and make peace with moderates?”40
He endorsed the double policy and offered moderates
home rule in the Government of Ireland Act.
This created two Home Rule parliaments in Ireland,
one in Belfast for six counties of Northern Ireland, and one
in Dublin for the twenty-six southern counties. Both parliaments were subordinate to Westminster Parliament,
whose ultimate supremacy was explicitly stated.
The proposal had emerged from two 1919-20
Cabinet committees chaired by the Unionist Walter Long
and dominated by hawks, one of whom was Churchill. It
was an evolution of Churchill’s prewar proposal for “home
rule all round,” what he mistakenly called federalism.41
Instead of Home Rule for each part of Britain, it proposed
Home Rule for each part of Ireland, leaving regional parliaments elsewhere for later discussion. Dividing Ireland was
meant to solve the problem without provoking civil war in
Ulster. It was hoped that this would appease public opinion
in the USA and the Dominions, which strongly supported
Irish self-determination.
Northern Ireland Unionists were prepared to cooperate because they realized that a parliament that they
would dominate was the surest way to ensure they would
never have to join a Dublin parliament.42 Sinn Fein was
prepared to cooperate, at least to the degree of holding elections to the southern parliament, because that would
demonstrate their domination of Nationalist Ireland. In the
elections, Unionists won forty of fifty-two seats in the
north, Sinn Fein 124 of 128 seats in the south. The
remaining four were elected by graduates of Trinity College,
Dublin, a traditionally Protestant institution.
There was an element of fantasy in all this because, as
the Government of Ireland Act was being signed into law,
the IRA was rejecting a truce, and martial law was being
introduced in four southern counties. Nor was there any
chance that Sinn Fein would accept a subordinate Dublin
parliament. There were few moderates left, if by moderate
we mean people who would accept Home Rule as a final
settlement. Even Dominion status, the virtual independence enjoyed by Australia, Canada, New Zealand and
South Africa, was at the time unacceptable to Sinn Fein.
Offering Dominion status to the whole of Ireland
would have provoked an explosion in Ulster, but partition
changed the situation. Hitherto, Ireland was always treated
as a whole and Unionists were asked to accept a Dublin
parliament. Now the Unionists were secure in their own
province. Yet, as late as the spring of 1921, plans were
made to govern the south of Ireland from Britain as a
Crown colony and to impose martial law should Sinn Fein
refuse to accept a southern parliament.43 (This changed
once the province of Northern Ireland was in being.)
B
y the summer of 1921, fighting had worsened and
the two sides were in stalemate. The Cabinet finally
recognized that the war could not be won without
substantial military intervention, and in June it agreed to
send an additional sixteen battalions to Ireland. Lloyd
George still argued that the war was the job of the police,
supported by the army—not the other way round.
Churchill still believed the police were doing a better job in
Ireland than the army.44 Both recognized the need to
expand the war if victory was to be achieved, but Churchill
thought that, as a moral gesture, the Cabinet should first
offer “the widest measure of self-government to Ireland.”45
On 22 June 1921 King George V opened the
Northern Ireland Parliament with a speech calling for reconciliation, and the Cabinet made the effort. The moment
was right. The IRA knew it could not win a conventional
war, and had no desire to fight an augmented British military. The British Cabinet had no desire for a costly total
war, given so many other problems at home and abroad.
Lloyd George had already brought Sinn Fein’s Eamon de
Valera and the Unionist Sir James Craig together for secret
meetings in May; on 24 June he publicly invited de Valera
and Craig to talks.
After further negotiations the British Cabinet and the
Dáil Éireann executive agreed on a truce to begin on 11
July 1921. There now began the tough negotiation that led
to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the Irish Free State in 1921.
Churchill was to be an extremely important player.
32. Churchill, p.303; Townshend, The British Campaign in
Ireland, 118-22, 149; Coogan, Michael Collins, 149-50.
33. Winston S. Churchill, The Aftermath (New York: Scribners,
1929), 301.
34. It is interesting that after the truce in June 1921, Churchill
sent many of the southern auxiliaries to Palestine. Townshend,
Britain’s Civil Wars, 91.
35. Macready, 488.
36. Coogan, Michael Collins, 335-37.
37. Coogan, Michael Collins, 192-95.
38. Gilbert, 470-71.
39. Alan J. Ward, The Irish Constitutional Tradition:
Responsible Government and Modern Ireland 1782 to 1992,
(Washington: The Catholic University Press, 1994), 107-10.
40. Townsend, The British Campaign in Ireland, 140.
41. Ward, The Irish Constitutional Tradition, 107. This was not
federalism in the technical sense. A federation is a system of coordinate local and federal legislatures, neither of which can be amended
or abolished by the other. Federalism as used by Long is now called
devolution, which describes the creation of local legislatures to which
the central parliament assigns certain powers. The legislatures themselves, and the powers, can both be withdrawn or amended by the
central parliament.
42. In 1934 Craig said to the Northern Ireland House of
Commons, “They still boast of Southern Ireland being a Catholic
State. All I boast of is that we are a Protestant Parliament and a
Protestant State.” Quoted by Jonathan Bardon, A History of Ulster
(Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1992), 538-39.
43, Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland, 184.
44. Ibid.
45. Churchill, 306; Townshend, The British Campaign in
Ireland, 184.
Why Ireland Won:
The War from the Irish Side
HOW A HANDFUL OF RADICALS, THROUGH VIOLENT ACTION, CO-OPTED IRISH
CONSTITUTIONAL NATIONALISM, AND SET THE PATTERN FOR ALL
SUCCESSFUL WARS OF NATIONAL LIBERATION IN THE 20TH CENTURY
TIMOTHY D. HOYT
t’s important to think about the Anglo-Irish War for a
number of reasons, some of which are very contemporary. Here I would like to consider the Irish side. First
and most important, this was the prototypical nationalist revolution: the model for the wars of national
liberation that began after the Second World War in particular, as the European empires weakened. For the first time
since the American Revolution Britain was up against a
determined nationalist movement with transnational links
and support. The methods and techniques used by the Irish
Republican Army set the pattern for future organizations
attempting to overthrow superior occupying powers.
I
______________________________________________________
Dr. Hoyt is Profesor of Strategy and Policy, U.S. Naval War College,
and has worked or consulted for U.S. government agencies on security issues. He is currently working on a history of the Irish
Republican Army, as well as projects on U.S. military strategy in the
21st century and American relations with India and Pakistan.
There are things we need to know about the origins
of the Irish insurgency. The first is the myth that Ireland
had been rebelling against England for 800 years. That’s
partly true, but Ireland was never rebelling in a concerted,
nationalist fashion. This was the first major national
uprising with any chance of success, and it did work. It was
based on a number of different factors and categories.
The Cultural-Ethnic Divide
Ethnic differences between the Irish and the English
were an important element of the new nationalist themes
discussed in Finest Hour 142: Home Rule and the revival of
Gaelic civilization, art, and language. There’s also a difference of religion, which is important. In Ireland, politics are
linked with religion. Ireland never fully succumbed to the
Reformation, and in fact remained primarily a Catholic
country. In an effort to squash Catholicism in Ireland, >>
WHY IRELAND WON...
there were a series of Penal Laws in the 18th century, which
some commentators have said made it illegal to be an Irish
Catholic under British law. Resistance has always been
linked in some way with religion. Although there are
Protestant nationalists, for the most part national sympathy
comes from the Catholic part of the population.
There were profound social differences, and the Irish
understood them, even if the English did not. Some 2500
years ago a Chinese war strategist named Sun Tzu said,
“Know your enemy, know yourself, and you will win a
hundred battles.” One of the reasons the Irish won is
because they knew themselves well, and they had a better
understanding of the English than the English had of them.
Ireland has a long tradition of secret societies and
rebellions. The early risings were local, primarily in the
south and west, which in the 19th century maintained the
last remnants of Gaelic civilization and Gaelic speakers.
That area was devastated by the Irish famine, which formed
the Irish population in Boston in the mid-19th century.
They had deep resentments of British rule, of British imperialism, and of Britain’s failure to respond to a catastrophe
which reduced the population of Ireland from eight to
about four million in a decade through a combination of
death and emigration.
Last but not least, the British had a sort of contemptuous view of the Irish: they were not serious, and always
making trouble. Any time there was trouble in Ireland, they
looked at it as a minor problem. In the case of the Irish
rebellion in the nineteen-teens, that was a serious mistake.
Then and Now
There’s a difference between the Irish rebellion and
the all-out revolts we’ve seen more recently. The former was
by no means all-pervasive. In fact, Belfast and County
Cork had thirty-six acts of violence per ten thousand
people over a six-year period, suggesting that this was not a
very violent rebellion at all. Consider 1919-21, the height
of the rebellion: in 1919, fewer than two dozen people
were killed through acts of political violence. In 1920, that
number rose to several hundred, and in the first six months
of 1921 it rose to over 700. It was escalating quickly—yet
the initial low figures suggest why the British government
had difficulty comprehending the problem. It seemed very
low-key until 1920.
The Rand Corporation did a study which concluded
that insurgencies generally average about nine years before
they succeed or fail. It’s useful thinking about this, because
the Irish insurgency really started in 1912 or 1914, with
the failure of the Home Rule Bill. That was the point at
which Irish politics shift from being constitutional to being
at least quasi-militarized.
The violent, coercive reaction and the threat of civil
war that came about in British political society as a result of
the passage of the Home Rule Bill of 1912 led to an
unprecedented militarization of Irish politics. The Loyalist
population, primarily Protestants in what is now Northern
“KNOW YOUR ENEMY,
KNOW YOURSELF,
AND YOU WILL WIN
A HUNDRED BATTLES.”
—Sun Tzu
Ireland, mobilized over 100,000 men in a militia who
vowed to fight the British if they attempted to impose
Home Rule. In response, a Catholic militia was formed in
1913 that eventually numbered 180,000. It lacked arms,
but the fight for Irish nationalism was morphing, possibly
into a battle for Ireland itself, which was only prevented by
the beginning of the First World War.
Britain, the “occupying power,” was concerned
because Ireland had been used in past wars to threaten the
homeland. The Spanish had invaded and were only
defeated at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601. The French had
invaded, and in 1798 actually landed a substantial force in
Ireland, which was eventually defeated by the British.
Britain’s enemies have provided support for Irish rebellion
consistently throughout history. But Britain did not understand the impact of Irish militarization that came about
through the failure of Home Rule.
The Easter Rising, 1916
With the outbreak of war in 1914, both large militias
patriotically disbanded, and many of their members
enlisted in the British army. Men of the Ulster Volunteer
Force joined the 36th Ulster Division. Some Catholic
nationalists, the Irish Nationalist Volunteers, enlisted and
were put into other army units. They did not really get a
Catholic division of their own. But the 12,000 Irish
Nationalist Volunteers were gradually infiltrated by a group
called the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Formed in the
United States in the 1850s, the Brotherhood was committed to violent overthrow of British rule.
On Easter 1916, 1500 Volunteers seized the center of
downtown Dublin and held it for about a week. In some
ways it was one of the most pathetic military operations
ever designed, in part because the leaders believed that it
was only through their deaths that they would mobilize
Irish opinion. They didn’t necessarily tell that to the troops;
it might have been demoralizing!
Yet they held out for about a week. About 2500
people were killed, and downtown Dublin was devastated
as the British Army took the city back, block by block. As
the Irish prisoners were marched away, Dubliners spat on
them and pelted them with rotten vegetables. They had no
sympathy whatsoever.
Then the British imposed martial law and began executing the leaders one at a time. This turned the picture
around, rallying sympathy for the rebels. In Parliament, the
leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party said they would have
REVOLUTIONARIES TURNED
STATESMEN: Sean Lemass,
left, was Irish Prime Minister in
1959-66. Refusing to discuss
what he did on “Bloody
Sunday,” 21 November 1920, he
would always reply, “Firing
squads should not have
reunions.” Eamon de Valera,
right, a commander in the
Easter Rising, escaped arrest
over confusion as to whether he
was an Amercan citizen. The
dominant force in Irish politics
for over half a century, he was
both head of government and
head of state, serving as Prime
Minister three times between
1937 and 1959. Enraging
Churchill, he maintained a
determined Irish neutrality in
World War II.
done better to shoot them right away, and had it over with.
But the executions dragged on, including some of the
worst kind. One rebel was so badly wounded he couldn’t
stand, so they tied him to a chair and shot him there.
Suddenly these reckless revolutionary idiots of the Easter
Rising became martyrs for a legitimate political vision—
which had little support until the British began executions.
Meanwhile, the prisoners not executed were shipped
to Britain. Fron Goch, Wales, was a major facility for them.
And here the future leadership of the Irish Republican
Army was able to sit around and talk, decide what they’d
done wrong, and plan how to do it better the next time.
To this day the IRA refers to prison as “the revolutionary university,” the place where they learn from their
mistakes. This is a problem for every country which has
ever fought a sustained insurgency or counter-terrorist campaign. On the one hand, you have to put these people away
somewhere; on the other hand, it’s easier to put them all in
the same place. But in the same place, they have a chance
to talk to one another, to reassess and think about how to
do it better the next time. (The problem has its modern
counterpart in the U.S. detainees at Guantanamo, though
the “revolutionary university” is not among the reasons
voiced for closing that facility. —Ed.)
Sinn Fein
Eamon de Valera, one of the commanders in the
Easter Rising, survived because there was some question
about whether he was an American citizen. He was imprisoned, then released, and soon became a figurehead. From
1908 to 1915, Sinn Fein (“Ourselves Alone”) had about as
much support as Ralph Nader in American elections:
roughly two percent of the vote in parliamentary elections,
marginal, if highly idealistic. But after the Easter Rising
Sinn Fein became the umbrella for everyone opposed to the
status quo. Some would say it was hijacked, although it’s
not clear that it really was. Its leader, Arthur Griffith,
remained a major figure in the movement.
On 25 October 1917 Sinn Fein, though a political
party, declared that it would use “any and every means
available” to achieve total Irish independence. The first
objective was by-elections, held to replace Members of
Parliament who die or leave office. Sinn Fein candidates
vowed never to attend the Parliament at Westminster.
Instead they proposed to create an Irish Parliament to make
Irish law, the basis for an independent Ireland.
Thirty percent of Sinn Fein’s leadership was Irish
National Volunteers, who had their own constitution and
goals. Richard Mulcahy, Chief of Staff of the IRA
throughout the war, said that civil-military relations
between nationalist forces were close. I would argue this
was a rosy-colored view. What really happened was that
people who supported violence dragged people who would
otherwise have supported a constitutional movement along
with them towards radical politics.
We see here the emergence of the hard men, like Dan
Breen, who was responsible for the murder of the first two
policemen killed in the conflict, in January 1919. Breen
later became a fascist. He’s not an attractive fellow. He and
others in County Tipperary helped push Sinn Fein in the
radical direction. Breen and others like him had no intention of allowing this to be a peaceful movement. They did
not believe in peace. Michael Collins, then the IRA’s
Director of Intelligence, said: “The sooner fighting is
forced, and a general state of disorder created throughout
the country, the better it will be for the country.” >>
THE FIRST DÁIL ÉIREANN, Mansion House, Dublin, 21 January 1919. First row, left to right: Laurence Ginnell, Michael Collins, Cathal
Brugha, Arthur Griffith, Eamon de Valera, Count Plunkett, Eoin MacNeill, W.T. Cosgrave, Kevin O’Higgins. (Wikimedia Commons)
WHY IRELAND WON...
The Dáil Éireann
The 1918 British general election was the first after
the war and the first where women were allowed to vote. I
have yet to find a good article on how they affected Irish
elections, but suspect they did in some way. In any case,
Sinn Fein received seventy-three of the 104 Irish seats in
Parliament: 75 percent of Ireland’s representatives, who
refused to attend Westminster and rejected the right of
Britain to rule Ireland.
One would think this would have been viewed with
alarm in Britain, and it’s very interesting that it was not. In
fact, when the Irish Parliament, the Dáil Éireann, met in
Dublin in January 1919, over half of the delegates were not
there. As the names of absent delegates were called, the
Irish words were heard: “imprisoned by the foreign enemy.”
What the Dáil did was to declare war: it created military organizations, a Ministry of Finance with Collins as its
head, and other cabinet positions including Foreign Affairs
and Information Ministries. These were very powerful
tools, successfully spreading propaganda and information.
But here, again, the Irish Minister of Defence reiterated the
underlying program: “Kill them if you have to.” This was
not a non-violent movement.
The Easter Rising was run on a wish and a prayer,
but now things were different. The revolution really began
in 1919—precisely the time Winston Churchill was saying
that there was no place in the world where there was less
danger than Ireland. Britain’s response to the Sinn Fein
vote, to the Dáil’s Declaration of Independence, was to say,
“Well, that’s Ireland—it’ll be okay.” Alas it was not okay.
The Offensive Against the Police
Michael Collins now asked: “What is the center of
gravity? What is the thing that England has that hurts us
the most and helps them the most?” It was, he declared,
British intelligence. And after spending some time and
looking at it carefully, he realized that this was the place to
hit the enemy. So Collins organized a sophisticated attack
against the police and intelligence services in Dublin. It was
largely non-violent, because the aim was to ostracize them
from Irish society.
The police force, the Royal Irish Constabulary, had
fewer than 10,000 members, mostly Catholic: long-term
beat cops who mainly patrolled the places where they lived,
went to church, married and raised their families.
Sinn Fein’s approach was simple and seductive. “You
can’t talk to the Constabulary anymore,” it told the people:
“They’re the enemy.” The villagers began to reject their
own neighbors who enforced the law—incredibly powerful
coercive pressure that moved Ireland in a very different
direction. It’s not hard to ostracize someone, but when you
do it, you have become radicalized.
Meanwhile, with the aid of a detective named Eamon
Broy, Collins infiltrated the Dublin Metropolitan Police.
Every night the detectives would hand their notebooks to
Broy, an excellent typist, to transcribe. Broy would make a
carbon copy which he would give to Collins, who read
everything the Royal Irish Constabulary had about political
opposition in Ireland, daily for almost three years.
The Base of Insurgency
ASSASSINS, SPIES AND COMMANDERS: Daniel Breen
(poster above) touched off the war of 1919-21 by
murdering the first two constables. The price on his
head put Churchill’s Boer wanted poster in the pale. He
later became a fascist. Eamon Broy, below left, a typist at
Dublin police headquarters, shipped surreptitious carbon
copies of every police note to Michael Collins. IRA Chief of
Staff Sean McBride, below center, was the only man to win
both the Nobel and Lenin Peace Prizes. Young Tom Berry,
below right, a prominent guerrilla fighter, was against any
negotiation with the British, believing that Ireland could win
her independence militarily.
By 1920, the base of this insurgency was secured.
There was a political party which acted as the voice of the
Irish people; an independent parliament; a crippled intelligence, an ostracized Constabulary. Sinn Fein was now even
setting up courts, especially in the south and west where
rebellion was strongest; soon they had judicial mechanisms
in two-thirds of the counties.
These courts were careful to be fair and impartial—
even the Protestants respected them. When I lived in
Belfast in the 1980s, I met an old fellow who had been
summoned before one. He had carried out the Irish equivalent of the Boston Tea Party. On the west coast, he had
stolen a truck filled with English Bass Ale and dumped it
into the Atlantic Ocean. A local bar owner complained and
he wound up in court.
When this fellow saw the judge he cheered up: it was
his brigade commander in the IRA! But the judge said, “I
admire your political sentiment, lad, but it’s a waste of
good beer,” fined him and made him pay damages to the
bartender. That’s an example of how Sinn Fein legitimacy,
not just as a political party but as a source of law and order,
but an incredibly powerful element delegitimizing British
rule and setting up alternative authority. With the other
side relying on the “Black and Tans,” it was an easier sell
than ever.
The IRA itself pursued the strategy: “If we can’t beat
them militarily, we’ll make their lives really difficult.” >>
Victory
WHY IRELAND WON...
It was in Churchill’s words “victory at all costs—
Flying columns—platoon-sized organizations of fifteen to
victory in spite of [or perhaps with the help of ] all terror.”
thirty-five men—were formed in each county. Aside from
The truce and treaty will be discussed next. I would point
ambushing British troops or the police, they spent a lot of
out, however, that Collins knew when he signed the truce
time wandering through villages, a clear message that the
that they could not then re-engage in military operations—
British weren’t in charge. “We are going to harass and
the British would reestablish their intelligence, and IRA
demoralize the enemy without giving them an opportunity
members who came out of hiding would be marked. This
to strike back,” the IRA declared. “It’s more profitable to
is one of the reasons he negotiated as he did in London.
kill for Ireland than to die for her”—the exact opposite of
Tom Berry, one of the IRA’s prominent guerrilla
the leaders of the 1916 rebellion.
leaders, was upset about the treaty negotiations—this was
By now Churchill had changed his view of the Irish
one of the reasons that there was a civil war afterwards. The
situation, referring to the treacherous, assassinating, concommanders in the provinces, in Cork and Tipperary and
spiring traits of the Irish people. (I take that personally.)
Kerry, rejected negotiations; they thought the war was
But it was clear that by 1920, the situation was much
going rather well. Collins, in Dublin, had a different pergraver. On Bloody Sunday, 21 November 1920—eleven
spective. As a result, there was civil war, and, after a pause
days after Lloyd George had declared, “we have murder by
of forty years, an IRA that exists even today in various
the throat”—the IRA assassinated sixteen British military
forms, still committed to the violent overthrow of British
intelligence officers in downtown Dublin. Among the assasrule in the north.
sins was Sean Lemass, who later became Prime Minister of
Not surprising, and pleasant to remember, is that
Ireland. Asked later why he never talked about his experiChurchill had the solution—largely embodied in the 1921
ences in the war he said, “Firing squads should not have
Irish Treaty. It was not a bad solution. But the time to
reunions.”
impose it was in 1916, after the Easter Rising. There were
By December 1920, the British government recogmany reasons it couldn’t be done then, but 1916 was the
nized that Ireland was out of control. They imposed martial
only point, I would argue, at which a negotiated solution
law on substantial parts of the south and west: originally to
was truly possible.
four counties, growing to sixteen. By spring, a “surge” of
Britain had many, many other things to think about
British troops had achieved some success.
between 1916 and 1920, and was never able to focus on
But the election of May 1921 proved an absolute disthe Irish problem. And the result was that a small group of
aster. Sinn Fein won 124 of 128 seats in the south; 112 of
radicals, through violent action, co-opted Irish constituthose elected had either served time or were in jail; fifteen
tional nationalism and made major achievements. ✌
were under sentence of death. It was the most direct repudiation of British rule imaginable, after
the armed forces said they would
succeed. This is how to fail at counCurt Zoller’s Annotated
terinsurgency.
Bibliography of Works About Sir
Now the IRA changed tactics.
Winston S. Churchill, at 410
Chief of Staff Sean McBride (an urban
pages, is the most comprehensive
guerrilla since sixteen, the only person
bibliography of works about
to win both the Nobel and Lenin Peace
Churchill. It includes frank, forthPrizes) increased the attacks, so that
right reviews on 700 books
despite the British efforts, it seemed as
specifically about WSC. Also listed
though they were failing. There was a
are works substantially about
major raid on the Dublin Customs
Churchill, articles, lectures,
House in 1921, when the IRA Dublin
reviews, dissertations and theses.
brigade burned thousands of historical
The book was a Farrow Award
documents. The IRA also became
winner in 2004. Selling for up to
active in Britain itself—nothing like
$189 on the web, it’s indispensable
the provisional IRA campaigns of the
for the serious Churchill library.
1970s and 1980s, but they did attack
SPECIAL! We will include Curt’s
the homeland to keep pressure on.
unabridged Addendum (specify
You could compare this phase of
whether you want this by email or
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Vietnam fifty years later: It came by
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well in the media.
THE CHURCHILL QUIZ
JAMES R. LANCASTER
Answers
(1) Hitler. (2) The Story of the
Malakand Field Force 1897, in 1898.
(3) From the Central Park side of Fifth
Avenue, he looked left and walked
halfway across. Then he forgot to look
right at the cars coming up the Avenue.
(4) October 1929. (5) Churchill. Half
a crown is about $8 today. (6)
Washington, DC.
Level 2:
13. May 1906, “Who is this Effie
Smith?” asked an old lady, “she can’t be
Level 4:
1. Whom did WSC refer to as “a a modest girl to be talked about so
haunted, morbid being” whose people much.” Who indeed? (M)
14. Who accused Gladstone in
“have worshipped as a god”? (C)
June 1886 of postponing important
2. Name Churchill’s first pubreforms “For this reason and no other:
lished book. (L)
To gratify the ambition of an old man
3. What mistake did Churchill
in a hurry”? (P)
make which resulted in his being
15. What good news was the
knocked down by an automobile in
Prime Minister able to announce on 27
New York on 13 December 1931? (P)
4. When did Churchill first tour May 1941? (W)
16. Which of Churchill’s books,
the battlefields of the American Civil
published in 1909, was applauded as
War? (W)
“The clearest, the most eloquent, and
5. “It is a horrible thought that
while we have been frittering away our the most convincing exposition” of the
time, —— has been piling up words at New Liberalism? (L)
17. In which speech, followed by
half a crown each.” Whom was Lord
a broadcast, did WSC say “Hitler
Riddell referring to in 1920? (L)
6. Where was WSC when he told knows that he will have to break us in
this island or lose the war”? (S)
his doctor Lord Moran in June 1954,
18. Who was the first American
“There is something in the magnetism
President to write a letter to WSC? (L)
of this great portion of the earth’s
surface which always makes me feel
Level 1:
buoyant”? (P)
19. In July 1941, whom did
Churchill instruct to “Tell the children
Level 3:
that Wolfe won Quebec”? (S)
7. After seeing the play “St.
20. When he was in the Eastern
Helena,” WSC wrote a letter to The
Cape in 1940-41, who used to “huddle
Times on 15 February 1936: “Here is
around an old radio and listen to Winston
the end of the most astonishing
Churchill’s stirring speeches”? (S)
journey ever made by mortal man.”
21. Whom did WSC describe,
Who was this “mortal man”? (M)
after making friends with him on the
8. Why was Sunday, 11 July
steamer home after Omdurman in
1909, a special day for Winston and
1898, as “The most brilliant man in
Clementine? (P)
journalism I have ever met”? (C)
9. “I am an officer, and I place
22. What spiky animal did
myself unreservedly at the disposal of
the Military authorities, observing that Randolph Churchill take to bed with
him during the summer months of
my regiment is in France.” To whom
1963? (M)
did Churchill write these words? (W)
23. Name the friend and col10. “He has the farthest vision;
league of WSC who was sent down
he is the greatest man I have ever
from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1884
known.” Whom was Churchill referfor “incorrigible idleness,” and who, in
ring to? (S)
1928, was elected Chancellor of
11. After meeting him at
Oxford University “to universal
Buckingham Palace on 26 July 1945,
King George VI said, “He looked very applause.” (C)
24. Who said of WSC in South
surprised indeed.” Who looked very
Africa in 1900 “He really is a fine
surprised? (M)
fellow...I wish he was leading regular
troops instead of writing for a rotten
paper?” (W) ✌
(7) Napoleon. (8) It was the day their
first child, Diana, was born. (9) To
Prime Minister H.H. Asquith on 11
November 1915. (10) Franklin D.
Roosevelt. (11) Clement Attlee. After
Churchill left the Palace in his chaffeur-driven Humber, Attlee arrived in a
Standard Ten driven by his wife. (12)
Lord Halifax.
12. Of whom did WSC once say,
“He is one of those Christians who
ought to be thrown to the lions”? (C)
(13) Winston’s friend F.E. Smith, Lord
Birkenhead. (14) Lord Randolph
Churchill. (15) The sinking of the
Bismarck. (16) Liberalism and the Social
Problem. (17) The “Finest Hour”
speech on 18 June 1940. (18)
Theodore Roosevelt. On 6 January
1909 he wrote to Churchill thanking
him for a copy of My African Journey.
ach quiz includes four questions in
six categories: contemporaries (C),
literary (L), miscellaneous (M), personal
(P), statesmanship (S) and war (W), easy
questions first. Can you reach Level 1?
(19) R.A. Butler, newly appointed
President of the Board of Education.
(20) Nelson Mandela. (21) G.W.
Steevens, correspondent for the Daily
Mail. In an article for his paper about
Churchill he wrote: “At the rate he goes
there will hardly be room for him in
Parliament at thirty or in England at
forty.” He was to die of typhoid fever
in Ladysmith in February 1900.
(22) A hedgehog which he called
“Quintin Hogg,” after a Tory politician
he did not care for. (23) Edward Grey
(Viscount Grey of Fallodon), Foreign
Secretary 1905-16. (24) Sir Redvers
Buller VC, commander of British
Forces in South Africa in 1899. He
won his Victoria Cross during the Zulu
War in 1879.
E
AMPERSAND
&
CHURCHILL AS A LITERARY CHARACTER
continued from
page 49...
George MacDonald
Fraser. If you’ve read
the Flashman novels
and didn’t like them, you’re not going to
like this book. If you’ve heard of
Flashman but never read of him, and
consider yourself a history buff, you
might want to put off reading Imperial
Kelly until after you’ve tried one or two
of Fraser’s novels about Victorian
England’s greatest fictional rake.
In Fraser’s books Anglo-American
history was never easier to digest. From
the Charge of the Light Brigade to
Custer’s Last Stand, the handsome and
cowardly Harry Flashman was there,
always looking to save his skin and bed as
many women as possible. Scholarly footnotes and appendices in these often
hilarious novels attest to the accuracy of
the historical background and characters.
In the Flashman tradition is
Imperial Kelly, one of four historical
novels about the real-life American frontier fighter and Indian scout Luther
“Yellowstone” Kelly, who wrote his own
memoirs. The novels recount Kelly’s fictional adventures. It’s “Flashman Lite,”
without Fraser’s scholarly footnotes,
appendices or ingenious plots woven
from real history. I enjoyed it because it’s
clearly of the Flashman genre, including
the sex, remindful of Flashman’s cynicism
and reluctance to fight. Unlike Sir Harry,
Kelly is no coward. But, like Fraser’s
Flashman novels, the historical background is fairly accurate.
“Yellowstone Kelly” is recruited on
the eve of the Spanish-American War and
against his better judgment—by thenAssistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore
Roosevelt (“Teethadore” to Kelly). He is
sent west to recruit Rough Riders, then
reluctantly accompanies TR to Cuba.
After becoming president, TR sends a
still reluctant Kelly to South Africa to
observe the Boer War, where he meets
young Winston and his mother Jennie,
whom he has known previously, biblically and otherwise.
The plot resembles Fraser’s
Flashman novels in that it’s about Kelly
trying to make it home, but it’s not as
compelling because Flashman has a
home, a loving wife and an undeserved
hero’s reputation to return to. And
Flashman’s escapes are far more perilous
than Kelly’s. Imperial Kelly had good
reviews and pales only in comparison to
Fraser. Hence two stars for “worth
reading.”
I fault the portrayal, through
Kelly’s narrative, of Roosevelt and
Churchill. Much of it is accurate, entertaining and funny, but there are
moments where Bowen’s animosity
towards TR and WSC takes us into the
realm of caricature, destroying the
verisimilitude he has built. The accurate
moments outweigh the inaccurate ones,
but it doesn’t take much to suspend the
belief any novel requires. And Bowen
doesn’t give you those glorious Fraser
footnotes, which cite scholarly sources to
persuade you to accept the tale.
Bowen’s portrayal of Jennie
Churchill is however quite good. You can
see that he likes and admires her, as does
his protagonist Kelly, who is in his early
fifties. It’s true that Jennie slept with a
number of men (even if biographers like
William Manchester and Ralph Martin
have grossly exaggerated the number).
But I doubt they would have included
someone like Kelly. Sir Harry Flashman,
maybe—he shared some characteristics
with the real-life Count Charles Kinsky.
But there are things about which Sir
Harry, like Jennie, didn’t kiss and tell. ✌
CHURCHILL AS MANLY MAN
Our Churchill Chatlist (see our website)
dispenses wisdom, silliness and amusement,
a veritable Hyde Park Corner of opinion.
Readers might enjoy a sample:
• I founded a men-only book club.
We read books about manly men doing
manly things in a manly way. I want to
feature a book about Churchill and will
appreciate recommendations. —J.S.
• Dear Manly Man: I don’t think
Churchill is your man! He went weakkneed at the sight of a beautiful or
intelligent woman. He cried copiously
and was sentimental. He married a
strong (not to say “manly”) woman and
“lived happily ever after.” He was masculine without being hateful, and overall is
a poor role-model for your group. So
carry on, soldier! Are women allowed in
your Churchill Centre chapter? —C.M.
• Editor’s note: The website
(www.hemanwomanhaters-clubnet, not a
CC chapter) seems to be a lighthearted
group perfect for the books of Churchill,
Henty, Stevenson and Edgar Rice
Burroughs. The chatter continues...
• Churchill was an excellent athlete
(fencing, polo), physically brave (almost
to the point of foolhardiness), a lover of
fine cigars and whisky. Choose the
Churchill you want. —J.H.
• Try Churchill’s My Early Life. He
served with distinction in the Sudan,
Afghanistan, and South Africa where he
staged a prison-break, and in the WW1
trenches. He was cool under fire, bold in
action. If that wasn’t manly, then we’d all
better start wearing lipstick. —L.K.
• I’d add Cuba, where he spent his
twenty-first birthday under fire. It’s
manly to leap into battle when you’re
supposed to be a reporter. He rode to the
sound of the guns all his life.
Being tender, loving animals,
loving one’s wife and children does not
preclude manliness. Escaping a POW
camp in your enemy’s capital, spending
days on the run with a Dead-or-Alive
bounty on your head is manly. Hiding in
a coal mine with rats crawling over you is
manly. Reaching for your Mauser when a
mounted Boer has trained his rifle on
you is manly—not to mention consoling
yourself about surrendering by quoting
Napoleon: “When one is unarmed and
alone, a surrender may be pardoned.”
Riding to work daily through
Hyde Park during the Irish Troubles of
the 1920s was manly. One day in the
back of his car, Churchill spotted two
men set to ambush him. Did he run? No.
He said, “If they want trouble, they’ll get
it.” Only his bodyguard prevented a firefight, knocking WSC to the floor of the
car and shouting to the driver, “Drive
like the devil!” (Churchill was angry at
having missed the action.) Not manly?
Remember too that he wanted to
be on a ship to watch the D-Day landings, and only the personal intervention
of the King convinced him to stay home
and not risk his life.
I think perhaps these people are
having a joke on us, and that it’s simply
that the word “manly” is out of fashion.
But Churchill knew what it meant, and
those who aren’t afraid of passing fancies
know what it means, too. —M.M. ✌
Churchill Centre Regional and Local Organizations
Chapters: Please send all news reports to the Chartwell Bulletin: [email protected]
LOCAL COORDINATORS
Marcus Frost, Chairman
([email protected])
PO Box 272, Mexia TX 76667
tel. (254) 587-2000
Judy Kambestad ([email protected])
1172 Cambera Lane, Santa Ana CA 92705-2345
tel. (714) 838-4741 (West)
Sue & Phil Larson ([email protected])
22 Scotdale Road, LaGrange Park IL 60526
tel. (708) 352-6825 (Midwest)
D. Craig Horn ([email protected])
5909 Bluebird Hill Lane, Weddington NC
28104; tel. (704) 844-9960 (East)
LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS
(AFFILIATES ARE IN BOLD FACE)
For formal affiliation with the Churchill Centre,
contact any local coordinator above.
Rt. Hon. Sir Winston Spencer Churchill
Society of Alaska
Judith & Jim Muller ([email protected])
2410 Galewood St., Anchorage AK 99508
tel. (907) 786-4740; fax (907) 786-4647
Society of Calgary, Alberta
Mr. Justice J.D. Bruce McDonald, Pres.
([email protected])
2401 N - 601 - 5th Street, S.W.,
Calgary AB T2P 5P7; tel. (403) 297-3164
Society of Edmonton, Alberta
Dr. Edward Hutson, Pres. ([email protected])
98 Rehwinkel Rd., Edmonton AB T6R 1Z8
tel. (780) 430-7178
Churchill Centre Arizona
Larry Pike ([email protected])
4927 E. Crestview Dr., Paradise Valley AZ 85253
bus. tel. (602) 445-7719; cell (602) 622-0566
Rt. Hon. Sir Winton Spencer Churchill
Society of British Columbia
Christopher Hebb, Pres.
([email protected])
30-2231 Folkestone Way, W. Vancouver, BC
V6S 2Y6; tel. (604) 209-6400
California: Churchillians-by-the-Bay
Jason Mueller ([email protected])
17115 Wilson Way, Watsonville CA 95076
tel. (831) 768-8663
California: Churchillians of the Desert
David Ramsay ([email protected])
74857 S. Cove Drive, Indian Wells CA 92210
tel. (760) 837-1095
Churchillians of Southern California
Leon J. Waszak ([email protected])
235 South Ave. #66, Los Angeles CA 90042
tel. (818) 240-1000 x5844
New York Churchillians
Gregg Berman ([email protected])
c/o Fulbright & Jaworski, 666 Fifth Ave.
New York NY 10103; tel. (212) 318-3388
Churchill Friends of Greater Chicago
Phil & Susan Larson ([email protected])
22 Scottdale Road, LaGrange IL 60526
tel. (708) 352-6825
North Carolina Churchillians
www.churchillsocietyofnorthcarolina.org
Craig Horn ([email protected])
5909 Bluebird Hill Lane
Weddington NC 28104; tel. (704) 844-9960
Colorado: Rocky Mountain Churchillians
Lew House, President
([email protected])
2034 Eisenhower Dr., Louisville CO 80027
tel. (303) 661-9856; fax (303) 661-0589
England: TCC-UK Woodford/Epping Branch
Tony Woodhead, Old Orchard,
32 Albion Hill, Loughton,
Essex IG10 4RD; tel. (0208) 508-4562
England: TCC-UK Northern Branch
Derek Greenwell, Farriers Cottage,
Station Road, Goldsborough
Knaresborough, North Yorks. HG5 8NT
tel. (01432) 863225
Churchill Society of South Florida
Rodolfo Milani ([email protected])
7741 Ponce de Leon Road, Miami FL 33143
Churchill Centre North Florida
Richard Streiff ([email protected])
81 N.W. 44th Street, Gainesville FL 32607
tel. (352) 378-8985
Winston Churchill Society of Georgia
www.georgiachurchill.org
William L. Fisher ([email protected])
5299 Brooke Farm Rd., Dunwoody GA 30338
tel. (770) 399-9774
Winston Churchill Society of Michigan
Richard Marsh ([email protected])
4085 Littledown, Ann Arbor, MI 48103
tel. (734) 913-0848
Churchill Round Table of Nebraska
John Meeks ([email protected])
7720 Howard Street #3, Omaha NE 68114
tel. (402) 968-2773
New England Churchillians
Joseph L. Hern ([email protected])
340 Beale Street, Quincy MA 02170
tel. (617) 773-1907; bus. tel. (617) 248-1919
Churchill Society of New Orleans
J. Gregg Collins ([email protected])
2880 Lakeway Three
3838 N. Causeway Blvd., Metairie LA 70002
tel. (504) 799-3484
Churchill Centre Northern Ohio
Michael McMenamin ([email protected])
1301 E. 9th St. #3500, Cleveland OH 44114
tel. (216) 781-1212
Churchill Society of Philadelphia
Bernard Wojciechowski
([email protected])
1966 Lafayette Rd., Lansdale PA 19446
tel. (610) 584-6657
South Carolina: Bernard Baruch Chapter
Kenneth Childs ([email protected])
P.O. Box 11367, Columbia SC 29111-1367
tel. (803) 254-4035
Tennessee: Vanderbilt University
Young Churchill Club; Prof. John English
([email protected])
Box 1616, Station B, Vanderbilt University,
Nashville TN 37235
Texas: Emery Reves Churchillians
Jeff Weesner ([email protected])
2101 Knoll Ridge Court, Corinth TX 76210
tel. (940) 321-0757; cell (940) 300-6237
Churchill Centre Houston
Marty Wyoscki ([email protected])
10111 Cedar Edge Drive, Houston TX 77064
tel. (713) 870-3346
Churchill Centre South Texas
Don Jakeway ([email protected])
170 Grassmarket, San Antonio, TX 78259
tel. (210) 333-2085
Sir Winston Churchill Society of
Vancouver Island
Sidney Allinson, Pres. ([email protected])
3370 Passage Way, Victoria BC V9C 4J6
tel. (250) 478-0457
Washington (DC) Society for Churchill
John H. Mather, Pres. ([email protected])
PO Box 73, Vienna VA 22182-0073
tel. (240) 353-6782
Churchill Centre Seattle
www.churchillseattle.blogspot.com
Simon Mould ([email protected])
1920 243rd Pl., SW, Bothell, WA 98021
tel. (425) 286-7364
The Hated Enemy in Lustige Blätter
Of all the German periodicals, the weekly Lustige Blätter (Funny Pages) was by far the most skillful at lampooning Churchill
and the effects of his leadership. Though it predated the Nazi takeover, it adjusted readily to the Goebbels propaganda line.
April 1940: "England and its raw materials." WSC
jailed and his food supply blocked by Nazi U-boats.
April 1942: The Soviet monster. “You must trust him,
Britannia, he wants only to protect you.”
June 1942: In desperation, Churchill tries to stop
Britain’s break-up with lies and promises.
February 1943: “The Cuckoo’s Egg.” WSC returns to the
Empire nest, only to find Roosevelt has taken it over.

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