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HONORARY MEMBERSThe Rt Hon David Cameron, MPThe Rt Hon Sir Martin Gilbert CBERobert Hardy CBEThe Lord Heseltine CH PCThe Duke of MarlboroughGen. Colin L. Powell KCBAmb. Paul H. Robinson, Jr.

BOARD OF TRUSTEESSenator Spencer AbrahamRandy Barber Gregg BermanPaul BrubakerDonald W. CarlsonRandolph S. ChurchillDavid CofferManus CooneyLester Crown Senator Richard J. DurbinKenneth FisherTina Santi FlahertyRear-Admiral Michael T. Franken, USNLaurence S. Geller CBEThe Rt Hon Sir Martin Gilbert CBE

Richard C. Godfrey Philip GordonThe Hon D. Craig HornGretchen KimballDiane Lees • Peter LowyThe Rt Hon Sir John Major KG CH The Lord MarlandJ.W. Marriott Jr.Christopher MatthewsHarry E. McKillopJon MeachamMorice Mendoza (UK)Michael W. MichelsonNigel Newton (UK)Robert O’BrienJohn David OlsenAllen PackwoodConsul General Robert PeirceJoseph J. PlumeriLee Pollock • Philip H. Reed OBEMitchell ReissKenneth W. RendellElihu RoseStephen Rubin OBE (UK)The Hon Celia Sandys The Hon Edwina SandysSir John Scarlett KCMG OBEMick Scully • Cita Stelzer

ACADEMIC ADVISERSProf. James W. Muller, Chairman University of Alaska, AnchorageProf. Paul K. Alkon University of Southern CaliforniaRt Hon Sir Martin Gilbert CBE Merton College, Oxford

Col. David Jablonsky U.S. Army War College

Prof. Warren F. KimballRutgers University

Prof. John Maurer U.S. Naval War College

Prof. David Reynolds FBA Christ’s College, Cambridge

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The Churchill Centre was founded in 1968 to inspire leadership, statesmanship, vision and courage through the thoughts, words, works and deeds ofWinston Spencer Churchill. Global membership numbers over 3000, including affiliated societies in many nations. (For a complete listing see inside back

cover.) The Churchill Centre is devoted to scholarship and welcomes both critics and admirers of Winston Churchill. The Centre’s academic advisers and editorial board include leading writers on Churchill’s life and times. The Centre publishes a quarterly journal, Finest Hour, which offers proceedings from annual conferences, and a monthly e-newsletter, the Chartwell Bulletin. The Churchill Centre sponsors international and national

conferences and promotes republication of Churchill’s long out-of-print books. Editors and staff of the Centre’s website answer email research queriesfrom students and scholars worldwide, guiding them to sources they need in quests for knowledge of Winston Churchill’s life and times.

MEMBER: NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR HISTORY EDUCATION • RELATED GROUP: AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION SUCCESSOR TO THE WINSTON S. CHURCHILL STUDY UNIT (1968) AND THE INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILL SOCIETY (1971)

®®

2 The Churchill Centre • 4 Despatch Box • 6 Datelines • 6 Quotation of the Season

7 Around & About • 11 Riddles, Mysteries, Enigmas • 19 Wit and Wisdom

41 History Detectives • 42 Current Contentions • 43 Inside the Journals

44 Action This Day • 62 Quiz • 63 Affiliate Organizations • 64 Churchilliana

Beckvold, 36

FINEST HOUR 159 / 3

Langworth, 12

Hall, 64

FINEST HOUR® THE JOURNAL OF WINSTON CHURCHILL SUMMER 2013 • NO. 159

Cover

Churchill in the full dressuniform of the Queen’s

Own Oxfordshire Hussars,wearing captain’s rank

badges, which fixes the dateas 1902-05. Published by

courtesy of the OxfordshireYeomanry Association.

Story on page 20.

20 WSC: Eternal Hussar • Paul H. Courtenay

21 On the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars, 1906-1944 • Winston S. Churchill

22 Churchill, Woodstock and the Oxfordshire Yeomanry Museum • Ursula Corcoran

24 Cuba, 1895: First Full Signs of the Man He Was to Become • Hal Klepak

30 The Adventurer Returned: Churchill in Michigan, 1901 • Ronald I. Cohen

32 Success in Journalism • Winston S. Churchill in 1901

33 WSC: A Midnight Interview, 1902 • Gustavus Ohlinger in 1966

36 From Isolation to Engagement: How Churchill Influenced Foreign Policy in the Years before the Great War • Christopher H. Beckvold

29th International Churchill Conference, Toronto, Ontario, October 2012:

56 Canada and the Battle of the Atlantic • David Boler

60 King, Canada and the Iron Curtain Speech • Philip White

ChurChill proCeeDings

Books, arts & Curiosities

Departments

wINSTON CHURCHILL: THE yOUTHFUL ADvENTURER

★★★12 Remembrances: Margaret Thatcher, Anthony Montague Browne • Richard M. Langworth

17 Absent Friends: St. Paul’s Cathedral, 17 April 2013 • Allen Packwood

18 Second Churchill Tour, Savoy Hotel, 25 September 1985 • The Lady Soames LG DBE

42 Current Contentions: Inveighing We Will Go • The Editor

64 The Military Churchill • Douglas Hall

46 The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm, by Reid/Manchester • Warren F. Kimball49 Churchill and Company, by David Dilks • Richard M. Langworth50 The Hopkins Touch, by David I. Roll51 Young Titan by Michael Shelden • Christopher H. Sterling

52 Yalta 1945, by Fraser J. Harbutt • Erica L. Chenoweth53 Winston Churchill and Mackenzie King, by Terry Reardon • John G. Plumpton54 Unfinished Empire: The Gobal Expansion of Britain, by John Darwin • Andrew Roberts

Churchill, 32

CONSIDER THE SOURCE

I write to let off steam after readingthe reviews by Geoffrey Wheatcroft, inthe New York Review of Books, of PaulReid’s Defender of the Realm and MarySoames’s A Daughter’s Tale. My disquietis not so much from the accustomed listsof Churchill’s human frailties (althoughWheatcroft also disparages MartinGilbert’s work in the process), but bythe political context by which they areintroduced (removal of the White HouseChurchill bust, Churchill’s supposed rolein the treatment of Obama’s grandfather,etc.) The snarky conclusion attacksChurchill’s own writings and his “pater-nalistic imperialism.” Wheatcroft speaksof the “American cult of Churchill” andconcludes that “one indirect but benefi-cial consequence of Obama’s reelection[may be] the end of Churchillism. Mightit not be time to put away the bust orbusts, and with them the rhetoric of‘special relationship,’ ‘English-speakingpeoples’ and the idea of greatness?”Surely this cries out for a response!

CHARLES CRIST, CULPEPER, VA.

Editor’s response: Nothing gets thejuices flowing for a celebrity intellectuallike a positive biography of a great fellowcountryman. They love the old crack,“America is the only country to havegone from barbarism to decadencewithout an intervening period of civiliza-tion.” But Mr. Wheatcroft writes forThe New Republic and The Atlantic,both of which have odd takes on SirWinston (see “Churchill Envy,” FH 58:16 and “The Atlantic Takes a Dive” (FH114: 14). It’s not our task to defend anybooks except Churchill’s. “Any review isa good review.” And your response is asgood as any we could write.

CHURCHILL THE WRITER

I did stop my membership in 2010.I am particularly interested in Churchillthe writer—I always found his award ofthe Nobel Prize for Literature one of themore amazing aspects of his life.Although I always liked Finest Hour,

Summer 2013 • Number 159

ISSN 0882-3715

www.winstonchurchill.org____________________________

Barbara F. Langworth, Publisher

[email protected]

Richard M. Langworth, Editor

[email protected]

Post Office Box 740

Moultonborough, NH 03254 USA

Tel. (603) 253-8900

December-March Tel. (242) 335-0615

__________________________

Editorial Board

Paul H. Courtenay, David Dilks,

David Freeman, Sir Martin Gilbert,

Edward Hutchinson, Warren F. Kimball,

Richard M. Langworth, Michael McMenamin,

James W. Muller, Allen Packwood,

Terry Reardon, Suzanne Sigman,

Manfred Weidhorn

Senior Editors

Paul H. Courtenay, Warren F. Kimball,

James W. Muller, John G. Plumpton

Design Director

Charlotte Thibault

News Editor

Michael Richards

Contributors

Alfred James, Australia

Terry Reardon, Dana Cook,

Gordon Walker, Canada

Mike Groves, New Zealand

Antoine Capet, James Lancaster, France

Paul Addison, David Dilks, Martin Gilbert,

Allen Packwood, United Kingdom

David Freeman, Fred Glueckstein,

Sarah C. Howells, Ted Hutchinson,

Justin Lyons, Michael McMenamin,

Robert Pilpel, Christopher Sterling,

Suzanne Sigman, Manfred Weidhorn, USA

______________________________• Address changes: Please update us when you

move. Membership offices: USA, inside front

cover; worldwide affiliates, back cover.

________________________________

Finest Hour is made possible in part through the

generous support of members of The Churchill

Centre and an endowment provided by the

Churchill Centre Associates (page 2).________________________________

Published quarterly by The Churchill Centre

with subscriptions from offices on inside front

and back covers. Permission to mail at nonprofit

rates in USA granted by the United States Postal

Service, Concord, NH, permit no. 1524.

Copyright 2013. All rights reserved.

COLOMBIAN PRAISE

I’m a 23-year-old accountant, and Ilove history. My dad, a passionate man,always talked to me about great leadersand gave me books and documentaries. Ilearned about Churchill in high schoolbut my interest soared after seeing “TheGathering Storm” in 2002. My dad gaveme Churchill biographies by aColombian author and Geoffrey Best. Churchill is my hero for his braveryand patriotism in World War II. Hisspeeches, filled with a love of England,made people cry; his passion indefending his beliefs was a model ofcourage. I also enjoy his sarcastic wit.Some people say he was rude, but peoplealways hear what they want to hear. His hobby of painting is a lesson indeveloping an outside interest to escapefrom our daily cares, not locking our-selves into just one area. I identify withthat because I also paint, and it helps mecope, as it helped him. Across the gulf ofyears I identify with his approach to lifeand to his way of thinking.

—GLORIA DE LA CRUZ, APARTADO, COLOMBIA

TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS

I am writing footnotes for a newedition of Churchill’s My Early Life.Readers may be amused by one of these.In Chapter VII the first paragraph, finalsentence reads: “Before our horsesdeparted [in 1896, pre-India] we had afinal parade on Hounslow Heath atwhich Colonel Brabazon, whosecommand was expiring, took leave of theregiment....” Footnote: Hounslow Heathwould later become Heathrow Airport.—PAUL H. COURTENAY, ANDOVER, HAMPSHIRE

CHURCHILL COMPANION

Thanks for the two ChurchillCompanions and the kind note. Nomatter how much you know aboutChurchill, there is always something newand fun to learn. The Companions are adelight to read and suggestive of a lot ofother good reading. —TED R. BROMUND, MARGARET THATCHER

CENTER, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON

FINEST HOUR®

DESPATCH BOx

FINEST HOUR 159 / 4

I felt its focus shifted more and moreinto obscure and relatively unimportantaspects of his life (a map of where helived, quizzes, etc.). I also noticed theamount of bibliographic informationseemed to wane over time.

A FORMER MEMBER

Editor’s Response: We are alwaysglad to have feedback. The decrease inbibliographic coverage is partly owing topublication of Ronald Cohen’s three-volume Bibliography of the Writings ofSir Winston Churchill, a comprehensivework with unprecedented details onWSC’s books and articles, and how theycame to be. Mr. Cohen remains a fre-quent contributor, and in a recent issue(157) he wrote about DorothyThompson’s Foreword to the secondissue of A Roving Commission, whichwe republished for the first time since1939. The same issue includedChurchill’s writings about the Frenchand his review of the play “St. Helena,”last published in 1936, and an article onthe best Churchill biographies. Scarcely any issue is without anarticle, speech or essay by Churchill—usually material not easily found. FH156 was almost entirely devoted toGreat Contemporaries, with commen-taries you can find nowhere else. FH155 was a “Summer Book Number”with fifteen book reviews. FH 154 con-tained the first true text of the 1941Ottawa speech, based on recordings. FH153 republished Churchill’s 1934 WarDebts article. FH 152 ran an obscureChurchill playscript. FH 150-51 ana-lyzed Churchill’s writings onClemenceau. FH 149 explored themany editions of My African Journey.FH 148 published a bibliography ofChurchill’s miniature books and pon-dered his essay “Shall We All CommitSuicide?” FH 147 discussed the poetJulian Grenfell from WSC’s book IntoBattle. “Books, Arts & Curiosities” is amajor part of every issue, though Iadmit it occasionally turns to toby jugsand cigarette cards. So I am a little per-plexed as to what more we should bedoing on Churchill’s writings. We try to please all readers, from

newcomers to advanced Churchillianswho are bored by “routine” articles onwell-trod subjects. I don’t recall runninga map of where he lived (though we arealways asked for more maps). Yourimpressions are important. Tell us whatyou would like to see that we’re notdoing. Readers are our best guides.

Former Member Rejoins: I cancelledtoo soon! Maybe it just seemed like adry spell for a time. I will rejoin. I havea copy of and have read Mr. Cohen’samazing bibliography—certainly thebest I have ever seen. Your book ofChurchill quotations is the only bookwhich I purchased both as a hard copyand a Kindle edition.

RALPH WIGRAM

Hugh Axton, who has a greatinterest in Ralph Wigram, locatedWigram’s grave and spent some timerestoring it to close to its original condi-tion. You can imagine his surprise overthe small photo of Ralph Wigram (FH157: 24) that he had never seen before.There was no note on its origins and Iwas hoping you could let us knowwhere the photo came from.

MARK RANDALL, ENGLAND

Editor’s response: The only full-facephoto we could find is from Time mag-azine, which we found using GoogleImages. It was so small that we omitteda credit line. Hugh Axton (who writeson another subject below) reports on theWigram grave, and we provide anenhanced Wigram photo, on page 8.

WSC AS COMMUNICATOR

Sarah C. Howells (FH 158) haswinkled out some fascinating anecdotes.I would add a small point: an importantreason why Britons supported Churchillin 1940 was that he was the leadingfigure who had denounced Hitler andopposed appeasement. This gave himgreat moral authority. Churchill was not directly involvedin the Ministry of Information, but theMinister was his trusted friend BrendanBracken, one of the few MPs who hadsupported him earlier, a newspaper man.

There was no more suitable person toensure Churchill was appropriatelydepicted during the war. I was delighted to note that thecaption for the photograph of Churchillin the blitzed Commons chamber iden-tifies Bracken as the person with him.That photo is often wrongly captioned. We may well wonder how Churchillfound the courage to keep going duringthe Blitz and the Battle of the Atlantic.For instance, on the night theCommons was destroyed, 10-11 May1941, a broken water-main would havemade for a firestorm if another raid hadfollowed. But Churchill had beenadvised by the Bletchley Park decrypt-tion experts that a follow-up would notoccur. Bletchley was key: that samemonth HMS Bulldog forced U-110 tothe surface, and a boarding party led byS/Lt. Balme had captured vast quantitiesof Enigma codes and an Enigmamachine. Of course, the decryptioncentre at Bletchley required the newEnigma settings monthly to ensure up-to-date decryption. Often we ensuredthe supply by sinking a weather shipand capturing the settings for the nextfew months (incredibly, the Germansused the same crypto for their weatherreports as they did for operationalsignals). They did not seem to work outwhy we kept sinking their weather ships! Doenitz kept asking his experts if wehad broken the code, but they alwaysreassured him that we had not. Beforedestroying everything at Bletchley itwould have been amusing to give him atour of the rooms full of “Bombe”machines and the “Colossus” computerwhirling away, working out the startingposition for each message. Churchill wasthe only person to receive the Ultradecrypts. Since he read them all, he hada confidence that no one else wouldhave had.

—HUGH AXTON, WALMER, KENT

I really enjoyed reading this excellentarticle by Sarah C. Howells. It broughtback many WW2 memories includingmy own “siren suit”! I wish Sarah allthe very best in her future endeavours.

PAMELA REYNOLDS, OTTAWA, ONT. ,

FINEST HOUR 159 / 5

Q U OTAT I O N O F T H E S E A S O N

FINEST HOUR 159 / 6

datel ines

THE OLD RADICAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST ExPLOITATION,

MONOPOLIES, UNFAIR RAKE-OFFS AND THE LIKE, IN wHICH I

TOOK PART IN My yOUNG DAyS, wAS A HEALTHy AND

NECESSARy CORRECTIvE TO THE SySTEM OF FREE ENTERPRISE.

BUT THIS GROTESQUE IDEA OF MANAGING vAST ENTERPRISES

By CENTRALISED DIRECTION FROM LONDON CAN ONLy LEAD

TO BANKRUPTCy AND RUIN....”

—WSC, PERTH, SCOTLAND, 28 MAY 1948

A New Fiver: “The Winston”CHARTWELL, KENT, APRIL 26TH— FinestHour joins the praise for the new five-pound note depicting Sir WinstonChurchill, based on his most famousphoto, snapped by Yousuf Karsh afterhis speech to the Canadian Parliamentin Ottawa on 30 December 1941 (FH154). The new banknote will enter cir-culation in 2016. Bank of England governor SirMervyn King said: “Churchill was atruly great British leader, orator andwriter...a hero of the entire free world.His energy, courage, eloquence, wit andpublic service are an inspiration to usall…as it was to my parents’ generationwho fought for the survival of ourcountry and freedom under Churchill’sleadership….We do not face the chal-lenges faced by Churchill’s generation.But we have our own.” We were seated in the dining roomat Chartwell, and while normally the eyewould be drawn to the wonderful viewacross the gardens to the Weald of Kent,on this occasion they were all fixed onthe newly unveiled design of theChurchill five-pound note. The onlyawkward question from the press was,why has it taken so long? Sir Mervynpointed out this was actually an example

About the NoteThe governor has the

final say about whoappears on a banknote,although the public canmake suggestions. A widerange of historical charac-ters appears on the reverseof Bank of England notes,with social reformerElizabeth Fry the only

current woman; WSC is the firststatesman to join this select company. The Bank of England issues nearly abillion banknotes each year, and with-draws almost as many from circulation.Notes are redesigned frequently to main-tain security and prevent forgeries. Othersecurity features include threads woveninto the paper and microlettering. Themost recent new design is the £50 note,which entered circulation in November.This features Matthew Boulton andJames Watt, celebrated for bringing thesteam engine into the textile manufac-turing process. While Bank of England notes aregenerally accepted throughout the UK,three banks in Scotland and four inNorthern Ireland are authorised to issuebanknotes. Pharmacologist Sir AlexanderFleming, poet Robert Burns, and tyreinventor John Boyd Dunlop appear on

of the Bank moving very fast. Churchillis only the sixteenth person to feature ona British bank note, and only the secondfrom the twentieth century (the otherbeing the composer Sir Edward Elgar). The Karsh image is accompanied bydepictions of the Houses of Parliamentand the Nobel Prize for Literature, andChurchill’s 1940 promise of “blood, toil,tears and sweat.” In the view ofWestminster, the Great Clock is at 3PM,the approximate time of his speech. Wags said this might be read as amission statement for the Britisheconomy. But yesterday the clouds lifted,the sun shone at Chartwell, and theChurchill family celebrated the arrival ofthe note that may become known as“The Winston.” Lady Soames received acopy of the design and said it was a greatday for her, her family, and her country.

—ALLEN PACKWOOD

these. One commemorative £5 note, fea-turing football great George Best, provedso popular that the limited edition ofone million sold out in ten days. The image of Sir Winston Churchillhas featured on currency before. In1965, he became the first commoner toappear on a British coin, the famousChurchill crown (five shillings). He hasalso appeared on commemorativecoinage of the Channel Islands, the Isleof Man, Gibraltar, Solomon Islands,Nauru, the Republic of Georgia, and theBenelux Countries. (See Devoy White,

THE OLD RADICAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST ExPLOITATION,

MONOPOLIES, UNFAIR RAKE-OFFS AND THE LIKE, IN wHICH I

TOOK PART IN My yOUNG DAyS, wAS A HEALTHy AND

NECESSARy CORRECTIvE TO THE SySTEM OF FREE ENTERPRISE.

BUT THIS GROTESQUE IDEA OF MANAGING vAST ENTERPRISES

By CENTRALISED DIRECTION FROM LONDON CAN ONLy LEAD

TO BANKRUPTCy AND RUIN....”

—WSC, PERTH, SCOTLAND, 28 MAY 1948

“Churchill Coins,” Finest Hour 131,Summer 2006.) Nicholas Soames, Churchill’sgrandson and MP for Mid-Sussex, said:“I think it is a wonderful tribute to himand an appropriate time. I can’t think ofany more marvellous thing that wouldhave pleased him more.”

—KEVIN PEACHEY, BBC NEWS

Editor’s note: Churchill was modestin public when he was subject to suchhonors, and our nomination for what hemight say about the £5 note follows:

WSC’s Words of ThanksSTOCKHOLM, 10 DECEMBER 1953— “I amproud, but also awestruck at your deci-sion to include me. I do hope you areright. I feel we are both running a con-siderable risk and that I do not deserveit. But I shall have no misgivings if youhave none.” This was Sir Winston’s response tothe Nobel Committee for his LiteraturePrize, read by Lady Churchill (he wasmeeting in Bermuda with Eisenhowerand Laniel). Datelines continue overleaf...

Gretchen Rubin ([email protected]), au-thor of Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill (FH

121), quotes Harold Nicolson, an official censor at theMinistry of Information, on the sinking of the Germanbattleship Bismarck on 27 May 1941. From Nicolson’sJune 10th diary: “We complain that there are no photo-graphs of the sinking of the Bismarck. Tripp [an officerrepresenting the Admiralty] says that the official photog-rapher was in the Suffolk and that the Suffolk was too faraway. We say, ‘But why didn’t one of our reconnais-sance machines fly over the ship and take photo-graphs?’ He replies, ‘Well you see, you must see, wellupon my word, well after all, an Englishman would notlike to take snapshots of a fine vessel sinking.’ Is heright? I felt abashed when he said it. I think he is right.”

Ms. Rubin adds: “I love this story so much (couldyou tell I got a little choked up, when reading it?). It re-minds me that in my own life, I should always try to liveup to the highest ideals of my country.”

Cynics would say the sinking, a necessary act ofwar, would today attract the media like magpies, hover-ing around to record the human misery (particularly if itwere one of our own ships). Our thanks to SuzanneSigman for bringing this to our attention.

*****Michael Shelden’s Churchill biography,Young Titan (re-viewed, page 51) is better than its accompanying promoarticles. No sooner was London media buzzing withfaintly supported speculation that young Violet Asquithattempted suicide after Churchill decided to marryClementine (FH 158: 6) than another article appeared:“He caroused with West End call girls and proposed toTHREE society beauties—who turned him down.”

The society beauties were Pamela Plowden,

Muriel Wilson and the actress EthelBarrymore. But the most rakish thingWSC seems to have done was to showerBarrymore with “armfuls of flowers” and show up at Clar-idge’s “each night” after her West End play ended,where he would “insist she have dinner with him.”

The carousing with call girls is based on an 83-year-old story of Churchill as a Sandhurst cadet, standing upfor the showgirls of the Empire Theatre when “prudes onthe prowl” attempted to erect barriers sheltering their lairfrom more upright society. Churchill himself reported thisin My Early Life in 1930. As the barriers fell, he madewhat was apparently his first public speech: “Ladies ofthe Empire! I stand for Liberty!”

As for the orgy, Churchill and Lord Rosebery oncedated a pair of “Gaiety Girls,” and each took one home.Alas, Winston’s date later told Rosebery he’d “donenothing but talk into the small hours on the subject ofhimself”—which jibes with numerous other reports ofhim, but falls a little short of cavorting.

Mr. Shelden also argues that WSC was a dandy:“Everywhere he went he wore a glossy top hat, starchedwing collar and frock coat. His accessories included awalking stick and watchchain—even silk underwear!”This merely describes the standard dress of the typicalEdwardian Member of Parliament—except for the silkunderwear, which WSC explained to ClementineChurchill: “I have a very sensitive cuticle.”

If young WSC were a dandy, it escaped the noticeof the Tailor and Cutter, which in 1908 described hiswedding outfit as “neither fish, flesh, nor fowl…one ofthe greatest failures as a wedding garment we haveever seen, giving the wearer a sort of glorified coach-man appearance.” ,

AROUND & ABOUT

FINEST HOUR 159 / 7

bout fifteen years ago I was staying near Cuckfield, Sussex, when I remem-bered a reference in Martin Gilbert’s official biography, Winston S. Churchill,

that Ralph Wigram’s funeral took place there on 4 January 1937. Wigram wasthe foreign office informant who, at great personal risk, had kept Churchillinformed in detail on German rearmament during the 1930s (FH 157: 24). Itracked the venue to Cuckfield’s Holy Trinity Church, which had probablybeen chosen by Ralph’s widow Ava: her father’s grave, with an almost iden-tical marker, is only twenty yards away.

Arriving on a damp September day, I wondered how I could findWigram’s grave in this inordinately vast village churchyard. But as Iwalked round the perimeter path, I came to a corner with a headstone inthe form of a cross, and could just spot the words: Ralph Wigram CMG.The inscription was a little difficult to read, but this was clearly what Iwas looking for. I was surprised that the grave of such an importantfigure was not in better repair.

A few years later I saw the television production, “TheGathering Storm” staring Albert Finney as Churchill (FH 115,Summer 2002), in which Ralph Wigram was a central character. In2009 I visited Cuckfield again. In the lovely church, I found a flyeroffering a new church history, which I obtained from the author,Joyce Donoghue. There was no mention of Ralph Wigram’s

funeral—a surprise, since it had been attended by such luminariesas Churchill, Lord Vansittart, Anthony Eden, and various peers and

knights. Among them was Churchill’s longtime friend Brendan Bracken, RalphWigram’s near neighbour in Lord North Street, who had, in fact, arranged for Wigram

to rent his house there. In the film, Clementine Churchill (Vanessa Redgrave) was depicted asattending. In fact she was away on holiday, and Churchill had written her eloquently about Wigram’s

untimely death, voicing his grief and mentioning arrangements to allow Ava Wigram to get over herimmense despair. Although a mine of information about Cuckfield and the church, Joyce Donoghue did not know of Wigram andhis significance in the Churchill story; nor was it likely that anyone else in Cuckfield was still alive who knew him orAva. Sadly I realised that this brave soul was more or less forgotten, yet Cuckfield has a fascinating museum and avery active historical society. Mrs. Donoghue was keen to learn more about him and I sent what information I had.She subsequently wrote about Wigram’s key role: “After the funeral, Churchill took a distraught Ava and her young Down’s Syndrome son back with him toChartwell. In 1941 she married Sir John Anderson, Home Secretary in 1939-40, whose name was applied to the‘Anderson shelters’ in which city dwellers passed their nights during the Blitz.

DAT E L I N E S they found the embassy alsosurrounded by an angrymob. Anders took the groupback to his flat, where he triedto contact a rescuer.In the morning the BritishEmbassy rang, bravelyinforming the five Americansthat it could give them refugein its residential compound,known as Gulhak, and wassending a car for them. But

When the AmericanEmbassy was overrun on 4November 1979, fivemembers of the staffescaped by a side exit. Theremaining fifty-five wouldbe held captive for 444days. The leader of theescapees, Robert Anders,decided the best place tofind refuge was the BritishEmbassy. Arriving there,

Britain Helped TooHOLLYWOOD, FEBRUARY 24TH— Britainwas outraged over Argo, “Best Picture”in Oscar-land, for inaccurate portrayal ofBritish actions in the Iran hostage crisis. “When I first heard about this film Iwas really quite annoyed,” said Sir JohnGraham, 86, a diplomat in Teheran atthe time of the crisis, using the politelanguage of his profession.

FINEST HOUR 159 / 8

Remembering Ralph Wigram“He was Swifter Than the Eagle. He was Braver than a Lion.”

HUGH AXTON

BARRY ROSEN, 34,TEHERAN, 1979

Tim

e,

1946

, en

han

ced

by

Ch

arlo

tte

Th

ibau

lt

FINEST HOUR 159 / 9

“Without the information Churchill received from Ralph Wigram, and others in those years of appeasement, hewould not have been as effective in his quest for rearmament. For Wigram, his colleagues and successors, facedwith where their duty lay, it was a matter of conscience: their political masters or their country. Theirs was thegreater loyalty.” Wigram was descended from William the Conqueror. His mother, a Fitzroy, was descended from the only oneof Henry VIII’s illegitimate children whom the King recognised and treated as a son: Henry Fitzroy, Duke ofRichmond, born June 1519 to Elizabeth Blount. Fitzroy was the ward of Cardinal Wolsey. I have now visited Cuckfield many times and met Richard Constable, the local historian. Ava and the Wigrams’son Charles are buried in the same plot. The headstone in the adjoining grave belongs to Charles’s nanny: clearlyshe was a much-loved friend of the family. One may wonder if Churchill had a hand in Wigram’s inscription: theeagle and lion lines are redolent of his style. The gravemarker is now restored, as befits the roles of those it memo-rializes, and the inscriptions may all be clearly read:

Winston Churchill paid poignant tribute to Wigram in The Gathering Storm: “He saw as clearly as I did, but withmore certain information, the awful peril which was closing upon us. This drew us together. Often we met at hislittle house in North Street, and he and Mrs. Wigram came to stay with us at Chartwell.” Churchill added, “My friend took it too much to heart. After all one can always go on doing what one believesto be his duty, and running ever greater risks till knocked out. Wigram’s profound comprehension reacted on a sen-sitive nature unduly. His untimely death in December 1936 was an irreparable loss to the Foreign Office, andplayed its part in the miserable decline in our fortunes.” ,_____________________Mr. Axton ([email protected]) of Walmer, Kent, is a longtime member of The Churchill Centre, UK. He is responsible, together withlocal historian Richard Constable, for restoring the gravemarker to its present pristine condition.

IN MEMORY OFAVA, VISCOUNTESS WAVERLEY

FORMERLY AVA WIGRAMDIED DECEMBER 22ND 1974

* * * * *SWEET IS THE CALM

OF PARADISE THE BLESSEDCHARLES EDWARD

THOMAS BODLEY WIGRAMBORN PARIS 1929 DIED ISFIELD 1951

* * * * *BLESSED

ARE THE PURE IN HEARTRALPH WIGRAM, C.M.G.

COUNSELLOR IN HM DIPLOMATIC SERVICEPASSED AWAY DECEMBER 31ST 1936,

AGED 46 YEARS.HE WAS SWIFTER THAN THE EAGLE

HE WAS BRAVER THAN A LIONNOW HE IS NUMBERED AMONG THE CHILDREN OF GOD

AND HIS LOT IS AMONG THE SAINTS.

British diplomats Martin Williams andGordon Pirrie got lost negotiating thethronging streets. They were driving, ofall cars, an orange 1976 Austin Maxione of them had driven to Teheran fromEngland. Desperate,the Americans again rang the BritishEmbassy, only to be told that Iranianswere “coming over the walls.” After hours driving Teheran back-streets, Williams and Pirrie foundAnders and his group and drove them

nervously to the as-yet-untouchedBritish residential compound. Theyarrived undetected and were warmlywelcomed. CIA officer AntonioMendez, who helped to mount theeventual rescue, recalls in his book,Argo: “The British were kind hosts, andoffered them a house of their own, fedthem a warm meal, even prepared cock-tails.” The film mentions none of this. The Daily Mail pounced: “You canimagine the outraged comments over

industrial buckets of popcorn in theatresfrom Alabama to Alaska: ‘GoddamnLimeys! So that’s what we get for bailingthem out during World War II.’” To invoke another diplomatic phrase,that’s a bit over the top. The film’s errorappears to be one of omission. Britainand the “special relationship” generallyhave a good and favorable press inAmerica. Americans have been beencomplaining about historical lapses byHollywood for years. >>

DAT E L I N E S

FINEST HOUR 159 / 10

The Mail was right to object toanother film, U-571, which cast theYanks as capturing a vital GermanEnigma machine when it was really thePoles and British; and Braveheart, theMel Gibson epic which depicted theEnglish as “the rapacious, murderousoppressors of the noble and romanticScots.” But the newspaper was wrong topillory Saving Private Ryan for por-traying “D-Day as an exclusivelyAmerican effort.” That film was simplyabout American soldiers at OmahaBeach—which was the deadliest of thelanding beaches. Although I recognized Canada’sheroic Ambassaador Ken Taylor and hiswife (excellent likenesses), I was not leftwith the feeling that Canada’s effortshad also been underplayed, though therewere definitely some inaccuracies andomissions about the sterling performanceof the Canadian Embassy. RML

Lease Hoe FarmGODALMING, SURREY, MAY 25TH— HoeFarm in Hascombe, Godalming, Surrey,where Churchill took up painting on a

summer holiday after being dismissedfrom the Admiralty in 1915, is offeredfor let by Smiths Gore. A mere £10,500per month will allow you to walk thegrounds as he did, “stooped in anxiousthought,” while examining the “paintinghut” where Churchill completed fourknown oil paintings. Details on the webat http://bit.ly/13chYiP. Dating from the 16th century, HoeFarm is set in Gertrude Jekyll-landscapedgardens; the house itself was modified bySir Edward Lutyens, and includes pad-docks with a stable block. Twice in the1980s/90s, Churchill Tours were hostedthere by the late Arthur Simon, whothen held the lease. On the first of these,Lady Soames had her first look at theplace that had played a key role in herfather’s development as an artist.

Errata, FH 157 Pages 6-7, “The Lion Is Back,” firstentry, was an opinion piece and shouldbe bylined RML or “The Editor.” Page 15, column 1: delete“Hohenlinden,” which technically wasMoreau’s victory (see page 4.) ,

CHURCHILL’SENGLAND TOUR,1987. ABovE:

ARTHUR SIMON

AND BARBARA

LANGWORTH AT

CHURCHILL’SPAINTING HUT.RIGHT: FORMER

BODYGUARD RON

GOLDING EXAM-INES SHIP’S BEAM

CONSTRUCTION.BELoW: HOE

FARM OVERVIEW.INSET: THE VIEW

FROM WSC’SPAINTING HUT.

mentionsretroactiveapplication.Full text atbit.ly/131KSS:“Except asprovided inparagraph(2), the im-migrationand na-tionality

laws of the United States shall be ap-plied (to persons born before, on, orafter the date of the enactment of thisAct) as though the amendment madeby subsection (a), and subsection (b),had been in effect as of the date oftheir birth, except that the retroactiveapplication of the amendment andthat subsection shall not affect the va-lidity of citizenship of anyone who hasobtained citizenship under section1993 of the Revised Statutes (as in ef-fect before the enactment of the Act ofMay 24, 1934 (48 Stat. 797).”Mr. Bishop adds: “As to what might

have happened had the law alreadybeen changed in 1874, even ifChurchill had been a U.S. citizen, hewas probably too great an admirer ofhis father to have considered trying hisluck in America.” But Churchill did reflect on the pos-

sibility in his first speech to Congresson 26 December 1941:“‘By the way, I cannot help reflecting

that if my father had been Americanand my mother British, instead of theother way round, I might have gothere on my own. In that case, thiswould not have been the first time youwould have heard my voice. In thatcase I should not have needed any in-vitation, but if I had, it is hardly likelyit would have been unanimous. Soperhaps things are better as they are.’”

Riddles MysteriesEnigmas


QA reader of Paul Reid’s De-fender of the Realm asksabout its “frequent reference

to the amount, brands, mixture, andtiming of Churchill’s alcohol intakeand a few references to his beingdrunk. I could not reconcile this withwhat I have read for years in FinestHour. I am aware of the effort youhave made to debunk myths, includinghis alleged alcoholism. So I am leftwondering whether FH has tended tominimize his drinking, given the veryconvincing descriptions in Defender ofthe Realm.”

AWe hope we haven’t led any-one down false paths! William-Manchester tended to overdo

the drinking in his two volumes ofThe Last Lion, but I didn’t criticizePaul Reid’s take as I read Defender. Ifyou find anything glaringly differentfrom what we reported, please advise.Someone said Churchill could not

have been an alcoholic because “no al-coholic could drink that much.” Thereis something to this. My view has al-ways been that whatever the amount,he was rarely if ever the worse for it.“Breakfast wine” was not a daily habit.He nursed “scotch-flavored mouth-wash,” a habit he gained by purifyingdrinking water in Empire backwaters. He drank a lot at meals but diluted

it with food during long dining hours.Alanbrooke sometimes thought WSCwas drunk, but he wrote those waspishdiaries late at night when he was tiredand frustrated; only later when he waspressed for cash did Alanbrooke allowthem to be published—accompanyingWSC’s copy with an apology! After years of searching, we finally

found someone who rememberedChurchill clearly inebriated—a body-guard at Teheran who helped him andEden wobble back to the embassy aftera long night of toasts with the Rus-sians. He was the only witness, includ-ing friends and family, to WinstonChurchill the worse for drink. ,

QSince Winston Churchill’smother was American, whywas he not an American citi-

zen from birth? If he had been, couldhe have lawfully entered British poli-tics without renouncing his Americancitizenship? This is a fascinating prem-ise for a piece of alternative history! In-cidentally, I am a great supporter of“birthright citizenship,” and cannotunderstand why so many of my fellowconservatives deplore it. —JEFF JACOBY, COLUMNIST, BOSTON GLOBE

AWe referred the first part ofthis question to colleagues and-received the following defini-

tive report from Kevin Bishop, specialassistant to President Larry Arnn atHillsdale College in Michigan:“Churchill’s mother was not re-

quired to renounce her U.S. citizen-ship, as far as we can tell. However,prior to the Citizenship Act of 1934,persons born abroad of one citizenparent and one alien parent were givencitizenship only if the father was thecitizen. Mothers giving birth abroadcould not pass on citizenship unlessthey were born after 1934. Thus LadyRandolph’s citizenship was irrelevantin determining her son’s citizenship.”It is interesting to note that the Im-

migration and Nationality TechnicalCorrection Act of 1994 retroactivelyallowed persons born abroad before1934 to receive citizenship from theirmothers—thus Churchill would be afull-scale American citizen, not just anhonorary. The 1994 law specifically

Remembrances:Margaret Thatcher

Anthony Montague Browne

RICHARD M. LANGWORTH



“Colin,” she was saying in her most powerful tones,“you must do it—you know you must. There is no gettingaround it.” I am told she was probably asking America tohelp stop the strife in Bosnia that had erupted the previousyear. Like Churchill, she was always concerned for the livesof small peoples. General Powell replied: “Yes ma’am.” She gave an eloquent little speech thanking America forsupporting Britain in the 1982 Falklands War. The next

evening at our con-ference, I was seatednext to formerAmbassador to theUnited Nations JeaneKirkpatrick, whowanted to know whatLady Thatcher hadsaid. Unknowing, Irepeated her words:“Many voices inAmerica wereopposed to helpingBritain, but CapWeinberger was notone of those voices.”Mrs. Kirkpatrick saidquietly: “I was one ofthose voices.” Realizing I had

not done my home-work, but opting for

Napoleon’s “l’audace, toujours l’audace,” I screwed up mycourage and replied: “But you were wrong, weren’t you?” A long pause ensued. I thought of Churchill's remark:“It certainly seemed longer than the two minutes which oneobserves in the commemorations of Armistice Day.” Finally, Mrs. Kirkpatrick kindly said: “Yes, on reflection,I probably was.” I think this showed the power of person-ality that Margaret Thatcher exerted, even on those whodisagreed with her. At the Embassy I had presented her with our last num-bered copy of Churchill’s plaintive, rather sad but revealingshort story, The Dream, where he tells the ghost of LordRandolph Churchill everything that has happened since hisfather died in 1895. She stayed up late that night reading itthrough. Her note of thanks arrived the next day: “I want you to know how very honoured I feel to receiveThe Dream….It completes my collection of his work and isbound more beautifully than any of the others. I read it inthe early hours of this morning and am totally fascinated bythe imagination of the story and how much it reveals ofWinston the man and the son.” >>

Everyone has read of Margaret Thatcher’s career.Everyone depending on their politics will have theirown vision of Britain’s first woman head of govern-

ment. It is left to say here what she meant to us, and to thememory of Churchill, whom she revered, I believe, morethan any prime minister who held office between them. Margaret Thatcher was named an honorary member ofthe International Churchill Society shortly after she resignedas prime minister inNovember 1990, notwithout somedebate. She hadalways been contro-versial. Some of ourdirectors thoughtpoliticians are besttaken aboard inpairs, one from eachside, like Noah’sArk. We invited herexclusively—becauseit seemed to us thatshe, more than anyprime minister, hadreal appreciation forChurchill, had readhis books, and hadremembered him fre-quently, even hostinga dinner for hisfamily and surviving members of his wartime coalition. Wenever regretted our decision. In November 1993 she was in Washington to coincidewith a Churchill Conference hosting 500 people, including140 students, a dozen luminaries, and ambassadors from allour member countries. There were moving experiences: areenactment at the Navy Chapel of Divine Services held byRoosevelt and Churchill on HMS Prince of Wales in 1941;Alan Keyes singing all six stanzas of The Battle Hymn ofthe Republic on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, to markthe 130th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address; andMartin Gilbert’s lecture at the Holocaust Museum, alongwith Cyril Mazansky’s account of the fate of his own family. During our meetings Ambassador Sir Robin Renwick(now Lord Renwick of Clifton) kindly hosted a receptionfor her and us at the British Embassy, inviting our honorarymembers Colin Powell and Caspar Weinberger. Here I firstcaught sight of the famous leader, though my wife, a muchbetter talker, spent far more time chatting with her. I did overhear a conversation between Lady Thatcherand General Powell, which at the time I thought singular.

ThE RT honThE BARonEssThATchER LG oM Pc FRs, 1925-2013

WITH BARBARA LANGWORTH. BRITISH EMBASSY, WASHINGTON, 5 NOVEMBER 1993

It was years before the gratitude owed to her was tottedup. I was a regular visitor to Britain in her time and couldnot fail to notice the palpable improvement in the wellbeingof the country. No one who saw her in action could missher devastating effectiveness in debate. No one who admiresprinciple and courage could help but admire her devotionto them, win or lose. The poll tax which some say was herdownfall in 1992 manifested her principle that the cost oflocal government should be paid by all, including those whopreviously paid nothing, while voting for everything. Even the Labour Party can thank her, for forcing it backfrom the fringe to reality. Reflecting on that change in1994, Lady Thatcher praised Tony Blair as “probably themost formidable Labour leader since Hugh Gaitskell. I see alot of socialism behind their front bench, but not in Mr.Blair. I think he genuinely has moved.” Say what you will of Tony Blair, but Margaret Thatcher

was certainly the most formi-dable Conservative leader sinceWinston Churchill. Inter-nationally, she was always outin front. Her reaction totyrants, from Leopoldo Galtierito Saddam Hussein, was consis-tent. She was the first to say“we can do business” withGorbachev. Her support of theAnglo-American alliance wasmore than talk: it was an articleof faith. Her relationship withPresident Reagan was a modelwe may never see again. Yetwhen she disagreed, as overGrenada or Strategic Defense,there was no doubt where shestood.

“The moving fingerwrites, and having writ moveson. Nor all thy Piety nor Witshall cancel half a line.” She

fought the good fight and made a huge difference, for atime. Alas her time is gone, lost in a collectivist dream. Theindividualism and enterprise which built great nations andgreat democracies, which provided the greatest good for thegreatest number, has too often been replaced by a kind ofvague internationalism and a desire to do good, absent therealization that liberty takes work to maintain, and is nur-tured only through constant care. It is strictly my opinion, but this American has no hesi-tation in paraphrasing Sir Winston’s encomium for FranklinRoosevelt: She was the greatest British friend we haveknown since Churchill, and one of the greatest championsof freedom who ever brought help and comfort from theold world to the new. ,

Margaret Thatcher... There is a line in The Dream where Churchill tells hisfather that there are women now in the House ofCommons. “Not many,” Winston assures the flabbergastedLord Randolph. “They have found their level.” How LadyThatcher must have roared at that! We met again at Fulton in 1996, when the ChurchillMemorial, now the National Churchill Museum, markedthe “Iron Curtain” speech’s 50th anniversary by invitingLady Thatcher to give the keynote address. Together withthe Museum, we jointly sponsored a symposium on thesubject, recorded in James Muller’s book, WinstonChurchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech Fifty Years Later. Later Lady Thatcher was surrounded by Fulton people,and by security. Celia Sandys asked, “Have you beenushered into The Presence?” “No,” I said. “Follow me,” shereplied, approaching a guard at the inner sanctum: “I am SirWinston Churchill’s grand-daughter—and he’s with me.” Payback: at dinner thatnight, our kind hosts inductedtwo Fellows of the ChurchillMemorial. One was LadyThatcher. The other was me. To my relief, they pre-sented my gong first, givingme a chance to say thanks andget out of the way: “It is agreat honor, but to receive it atthe same time with the greatestprime minister since Churchillis a unique experience." I said that looking directlyat the great lady...who gave mea smile, and a wink. Right, Ithought. Now that’s out of theway, thank God. Around that time she choseto place her Premier Papersalongside Winston Churchill’sat the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge. Betweenthem they had occupied Downing Street for one-fifth of the20th century. The Archives Centre, as David Freemanwrote, was now the equivalent of two U.S. presidentiallibraries. Then Lady Thatcher helped Churchill College toraise the money to build a new wing to house them. In 2009 in London, The Churchill Centre presentedBaroness Thatcher with its Churchill Award forStatesmanship—only the second time it has been presented.The main address was by David Cameron, then Leader ofthe Opposition, now Prime Minister. “She was in goodform,” said the historian Andrew Roberts, who was seatednext to her, “and commented to me afterwards about whata fine speaker David Cameron is.”


WITH PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON, PRESENTING THE

CHURCHILL CENTRE’S AWARD FOR LEADERSHIP, LONDON, 2009.

F_inest Hour 50,-Winter 1985, wasour largest issue to

date, celebrating themost notable year upuntil then in our younghistory. On September17th in London, theSecond Churchill Tourhosted Martin Gilbertfor a fine speech on“Churchill’s London.”On November 2nd inBoston, the SecondChurchill Conferencewelcomed U.S.Secretary of DefenseCaspar Weinberger. Both these memorable speeches werereproduced as booklets, while FH 50 covered September25th, “The Party at the Savoy,” with Lord and Lady Soamesand Anthony Montague Browne, Sir Winston’s private sec-retary for the last thirteen years of his life. Glancing at ourother two guests, Anthony compared himself to “a priest ina small Italian village, getting up to make a sermon andfinding not one but two popes sitting there.” Anthony and Shelagh Montague Browne then lived nearNewbury in the charming hamlet of Bucklebury, where Idrove one day for a visit. Their pretty white house wasvisible from a good distance, surrounded by nothing but thegreen hills of Berkshire. I complimented him on the choiceof location: “You can see brigands coming for half a mile.”Anthony agreed: “Yes, I feel almost invulnerable.” (Uponreturning from Sir Winston’s funeral in 1965, he had foundhis London flat burgled.) To a Churchillian who was also an automotive writermy treat was double-barreled. Shelagh’s first husband wasracing driver Lance Macklin, who for years was blamed forcausing the terrible crash at the 1955 Le Mans Twenty-fourHours that had killed Pierre Levegh and eighty spectators.Shelagh disputed the prevailing opinion: Macklin, driving arelatively slow Austin-Healey, had swerved to avoid MikeHawthorn’s Jaguar, a defensive move which ended in thegreatest loss of life in racing history. Later at the TouristTrophy, Macklin crashed his car to avoid another pile-up,and Shelagh had prevailed on him to retire from racing. Shegave me a fascinating insider’s account. After Anthony showed me his enviable collection ofChurchill first editions, most of them inscribed to him bythe author, we sat down to a marvelous dinner, interruptedby an urgent Churchillian phone call involving a kerfuffle

in the press. The cir-cumstances areirrelevant, but it wasinteresting thatAnthony was the firstperson the caller cameto for advice—just asSir Winston had manytimes, twenty andthirty years before.

To Churchill,whom he met whenhe was only 29,Anthony fitted thedescription, “a friend issomeone who knowsall about you, but likes

you.” I am not going to recite his life story. You can read allabout it on the Internet. I will offer only a small act of grat-itude. As to what he meant to WSC, you have only to readthe 1985 remarks by Lady Soames, overleaf. “AMB,” as he was known, was a steadfast, enthusiasticfriend to the Society and Centre, addressing meetings onthree occasions and never failing to lend his advice or reac-tion to words in our pages that touched his experience.Reviewing a “brightly coloured, if somewhat elliptical” bookby one of Sir Winston’s staff, he was polite but firm:

We tend to see history from a different point of view and I ambound to say that where I was present at some of the eventsdescribed, they struck me rather differently….It was all tooeasy to succumb to irritation with [the author] at times but hisdevotion to WSC was genuine and “the Boss” I think had areal affection for him. It was Churchill's inevitable reaction tostand up for any member of his entourage who was underattack. As Lady Churchill once said, looking at me ratherpointedly: “Winston is always ready to be accompanied bythose with considerable imperfections.”

His self-deprecating quality stood Anthony well. Theson of a distinguished Army colonel, he had steadfastlyrefused to join the Officer Training Corps until the out-break of war in 1939, which he had been sure would nevercome. In 1941, as soon as he was old enough, he joined theRAF. He flew Beaufighters and Mosquitoes, and won hisDistinguished Flying Cross for his skill in attackingJapanese lines of communications. After the war he joinedthe Foreign Office, and was seconded to Churchill in 1952. Like former Churchill secretary Grace Hamblin, AMBwas quick to let us know of any inaccuracy in Finest Hour.When a 2005 cover offered a stylized artist’s rendering ofBattle of Britain aircraft, he was quick to react: >>

LEFT: AMB WITH ONASSIS AND THE BOSS ABOARD THE YACHT CHRISTINA, 1961.RIGHT: DRIVING HOME A POINT TO A DEVOTED AUDIENCE AT THE BELL AT HURLEY

DURING THE 1994 CHURCHILL TOUR, HIS LAST APPEARANCE AT A CC EVENT.

siR AnThony MonTAGuE BRownE KcMG cBE DFc


Churchill sent for two 16th century Japanese bronzes that hismother had brought back from the Far East. They were abouteight inches high, and represented a mare in season and astallion, a separate piece, gazing at her. He commented to theCrown Prince that these epitomized to him “sex in bronze.”The Crown Prince took the bronze mare, turned her overand gazed at her intently. The Prime Minister muttered, “Hewon’t find it there....”

There are passages in books by gifted writers that tendto stamp themselves on the memory. In Long Sunset, one ofthese comes at the end of the Churchill funeral. It began

with characteristic whimsy:

As we filed past the grave for thelast time before it was closed, I wasastonished to see a small and notparticularly distinguished row ofmedals lying on the coffin. I couldonly suppose that it had fallen fromthe chest of one of the militarycoffin-bearers, and I wondered if itwould remain there to perplexarchaeologists of many centurieshence.

Coming to his final reflec-tions, Anthony quoted the Boss’sown words, on the death ofRichard Coeur de Lion,“...worthy, by the consent of allmen, to sit with King Arthur andRoland, and other heroes ofmartial romance at some eternalRound Table.” He finished hisbook with the thought thatappeared in one form or anotherin every talk I heard him give:

I tried to say some silent prayers forthat brave and generous soul, butthey were choked and confused,and came to nothing. I could notmourn for him: he had so clearlyand for so long wanted to leave theWorld. But I was submerged in awave of aching grief for Britain’sprecipitous decline, against whichhe had stood in vain.

For Anthony MontagueBrowne I have no hesitation inrepeating the valedictory fanfareRandolph Churchill wrote on thedeath of Brendan Bracken: “You were always on the good

side: you loved truth and honour: you hated cruelty andinjustice: fare thee well, my gifted, true and many-sidedfriend.” ,


Anthony Montague Browne...The cover is a monstrosity. The aircraft at extreme right ispresumably a Hurricane—86% of our aircraft were initiallyHurricanes—but it is given the Spitfire's elliptical wings! Theother two aircraft have a portly profile, four guns instead ofeight, and appear to be powered by six-cylinder enginesinstead of twelves. The cockpit of one plane has four panelson the exposed side and resembles neither a Spitfire nor aHurricane, having no visible radiator. Ugh! There are literallythousands of photos of those aircraft. Might not the artisthave seen one of them? Admittedly most of those who flewthem are dead. But not all!

Not dead yet! I reminded himof Mark Twain’s crack, “Reportsof my death are greatly exagger-ated.” But I didn’t inquire tooclosely into how he was doing.Friends get to a certain age andwhen you don’t see them forawhile, you avoid details. He diedApril 1st of complications fol-lowing one of those “body partreplacements” he once told me henever expected to need, for he wasalways fit. Yet he reached 89—agood number, only one short ofthe boss he revered. His great book Long Sunset—a memoir of his life, dwellingheavily on his years withChurchill—was published in1995. In it he captured many ofthe inside stories with which he’denthralled audiences ten and moreyears before. Anthony never missed a detail.A luncheon Churchill hosted forthe Crown Prince of Japan, hewrote, went

perhaps too swimmingly, for whenthe time for toasts arrived, thePrime Minister rose and proposedthe health of the Emperor of Japanbefore that of the Queen. I chokedon my glass of port and saw RobScott, a senior Foreign Office offi-cial who had been captured andgrossly maltreated by the Japanese,turn pale with mortification. It wasof course an aberration which hadthe virtue of greatly pleasing theJapanese.

The stories he could tell! Atthe Savoy in 1985 he reached back into his memory andtold us more about that august Anglo-Japanese occasion:

MAY 1959: THE VISIT WITH PRESIDENT EISENHOWER.BELOW: AMB’S DAUGHTER JANE GREETS WSC ON HIS

RETURN AT LONDON AIRPORT. BETWEEN THEM IS SIR

WINSTON’S BODYGUARD, DET. SGT. EDDIE MURRAY.

DanielFinkelstein in

The Times wrotethat today’s eventscould be seen asmore than a funeralfor an individual,but as a watershedin the passing of thegeneration whose

views and character were forged as young adults in theSecond World War. Margaret Thatcher was born in1925, her successor in 1943, and the current prime min-ister in 1966. The Evening Standard described a “Statefuneral in all but name,” carrying a picture of Churchill’sstatue in Parliament Square: “Not since the nationmourned Sir Winston Churchill in 1965 has the Queenattended the funeral of a British Prime Minister.” These comments got me thinking, as someonecharged with helping to look after the archives of bothSir Winston Churchill and Baroness Thatcher, abouttheir two funerals, separated by nearly half a century. The first similarity is that they both took place incolour. This may sound bizarre, but the Churchill archivehas so many black and white images of WSC’s funeralthat it becomes very easy to think of it as a black andwhite event. Today allowed me to reimagine it in colour,looking afresh at the ceremonial uniforms and the deco-rations within the church. I suspect that this morningwas considerably warmer than January 1965, though thearrival and departure of the coffin was still preceded by acold blast of wind as the huge main doors were opened. Much of the basic ceremony was common to bothfunerals. The perfectly timed and militarily precise pro-cession to St Paul’s, the coffin draped in the Union Flagriding on a gun carriage escorted by a uniformed bearerparty and honour guard; the traditional British funeralservice with its hymns, readings and prayers; the presenceof the Queen, the prime minister, former prime minis-ters, the leader of the opposition; representatives offoreign powers and the British political elite, all neatly

arrayed in ranks dictated by diplomatic protocol andindicated by the colour of your ticket (my blue ticketensured that I could not advance beyond the back of thenave). There were differences in format. Churchill lay instate before his funeral, the Queen waited on the steps ofSt Paul’s for the coffin to leave, and Churchill’s servicewas followed by a progress up the Thames complete withaccompanying fly past; but today’s event still had thelook and feel of a public and State occasion. Another similarity was the crowds, but probe a littlemore deeply and here also was a difference. The crowdsthat lined the route today carried digital devices,ensuring that every second was captured from multipleangles. Within the cathedral, waiting guests conversed onsmartphones or iPads, following the coffin across Londontowards them on large television screens. There was afeeling of a media event; the mood outside the churchwas not solemn or sombre. Instead of greeting the coffin in silence, as I am surewas the case in 1965, the crowds outside applauded andcheered. Some carried banners expressing their admira-tion or opposition to “Maggie,” or indeed their criticismof guests like Tony Blair, while others called out tocelebrities as they arrived and departed. Such changes in technology, social attitude andbehaviour reflect a generational shift, one that probablybegan to take hold during Margaret Thatcher’s time inoffice. True, both funerals were very British affairs, buttoday’s was probably more self-consciously so, plannedwith the cameras and rolling news media in mind. At the back, I was probably in the one place on theplanet where you could not see much at all, though itstill felt rather special to be there, almost like being an“extra” in the final act of some grand historical movie. But at its heart there was a funeral service, andAmanda Thatcher’s brave reading in front of the worldreminded me that this was not just about ceremony, orthe end of an era, or a public spectacle, it was also aboutthe passing of a great personage.

—Allen Packwood ,


Absent Friends:Echoes and Memories

sT. PAuL’s cAThEDRAL 17 APRiL 2013

For a copy of the many references to Lady Thatcher in Finest Hour from 1983 to 2007, kindly email the editor.


E C H O E S A N D M E M O R I E S

Ido appreciate somuch beingasked to your

lovely parties, andbeing kept in touchwith everythinggoing on in theInternationalChurchill Society.All of us in thefamily find this

profoundly moving: that there is such a Society, whichexists to keep my father’s memory green, and may I alsosay, accurate. But now for my main task, which is to introduceyour speaker this evening. I am longing to hear what heis going to say myself. Because I don’t think, dearAnthony, I have ever heard you speak in public—thoughalways and often, I’m happy to say, in private! I met Anthony for the first time in 1952 when hejoined my father’s private office. He’d already had agallant and distinguished career. He’d been a pilot offighter bombers, and had been decorated with the DFC.All these things naturally commended him to my father,who admired and liked clever, brave young men. I don’t think that when Anthony joined the privateoffice he realised—nor indeed did any of us—that thiswas the beginning of a very long relationship. That lovelyprayer of Sir Walter Raleigh’s, that speaks of true glorybeing not the starting out of something but the finishingof it, is appropriate. Anthony served with my father inhis private office and became a great friend of the family. I don’t know how long it took for Anthony to loveand to like us. It took me only five minutes to like him,but for the first five minutes I was puzzled by the reallydreadful Edwardian puns he told. I used to think: “He’syoung, he’ll get over this.” But no. As the years went by,whenever we met, out again would come the puns. Ihope he has some good ones for tonight. But now, having been joking and frivolous, I come towhat I really want to say. And it is a wonderful, God-given opportunity for me to express in public, with all ofyou who cherish my father’s memory, the enormous debtmy father, my mother, and all of us who loved myparents owed, and still owe, to Anthony. When my father resigned in 1955 he was sad andreluctant to go, let’s make no bones about it. He went

into private life, but in a funny way, you see, it wasn’tprivate. He was a public institution. The Foreign Office—and we must give them some credit for this—allowedAnthony to remain with Papa. It was very, very noble ofAnthony to allow this interruption in what would haveundoubtedly been a brilliant diplomatic career. And from1955 until my father drew his last breath, Anthony waspractically never absent from his side. What was private life like for my father when heretired? The whole world trod to 28 Hyde Park Gate.When we went abroad it was to call upon kings andpresidents and prime ministers, to address great assem-blies. The mail poured in. My father’s business affairs,and his private life, Anthony really masterminded andmanaged. He advised and helped. His knowledge, hisprofessional know-how, his devotion, were the majorfactors in the last ten years of my father’s life. I am gladto be able to go on record and say this, because I wonderhow many people know exactly how much Anthonymeant to my father, my mother, and to all of us. And one more thing. At first, all right, perhaps youcould say it was a plum of a job. People might havethought they would have liked to be in Anthony’s shoes.But the day came when my father, although muchbeloved and venerable, was past his wonderful prime, wasdeclining in energy and ability. He still wanted to takehis part in affairs, but he needed help. He needed a wisefriend, and a knowledgeable one, who would guard hisreputation—who would guard every step he took. Andlong after it was really fun to serve my father, Anthonyremained to bear the burden of the day, to be his friendand support throughout his sadder, declining years. They were not necessarily unhappy years. Everybodywho lives a long time declines, and a beautiful evening isa wonderful thing. But of course it was sad, the last twoyears, and it cannot have been fun, or particularly inter-esting actually, for a bright, bubbly young man with afuture. I am glad to have the opportunity to say this; to sayfrom the family, and for all who revere my father’smemory, that we all owe a great debt to AnthonyMontague Browne. My parents both knew it, and I reallythink, Anthony dear, that we in the family knew it. Iwant everybody else to know it. And now I know we’re going to have a lovely speechand perhaps some really bad puns from Anthony.

—Mary Soames ,

For a copy of Anthony Montague Browne’s remarks, and the response by Lord Soames, please see Finest Hour 50 or email the editor.

sEconD chuRchiLLTouR, sAvoy hoTEL, 25 sEPTEMBER 1985


wITAND

wISDOM

and Tangents. Apparently they were veryimportant, especially when multiplied byeach other, or by themselves! They hadalso this merit—you could learn many oftheir evolutions off by heart. There was aquestion in my third and last Examinationabout these Cosines and Tangents in ahighly square-rooted condition whichmust have been decisive upon the whole

of my after life. It was a problem. Butluckily I had seen its ugly face only

a few days before and recog-nised it at first sight.

“I have never metany of these creaturessince....they passedaway like the phantas-magoria of a fevereddream. I am assured that

they are mosthelpful in engi-neering, astronomyand things like that.It is very importantto build bridges andcanals and to compre-hend all the stresses andpotentialities of matter,to say nothing ofcounting all the stars and

even universes....I am very glad there arequite a number of people born with a giftand a liking for all of this; like great chess-players who play sixteen games at onceblindfold and die quite soon of epilepsy.Serve them right! I hope theMathematicians, however, are wellrewarded. I promise never to blacklegtheir profession nor take the bread out oftheir mouths.” ,

were first introduced. So Churchillperhaps understood more mathematicsthan he let on! I read the quote in his autobiographydecades ago, but it was only when readingAn Imaginary Tale, by Paul Nahin(http://xrl.us/bo9d9c), which discussedthe controversy surrounding the introduc-tion of negative numbers, that Imade the connection. Leave it to Sir WinstonChurchill to remember apoint of controversy aboutthe foundations of mathe-matics.

Churchill continues:“When I look back uponthose care-laden

months, their prominent fea-tures rise from the abyss ofmemory....We were arrived inan ‘Alice-in-Wonderland'world, at the portals of whichstood ‘A Quadratic Equation.’This with a strange grimacepointed the way to the Theory ofIndices, which again handed on theintruder to the full rigours of theBinomial Theorem. Further dim chamberslighted by sullen, sulphurous fires werereputed to contain a dragon called the‘Differential Calculus.’ But this monsterwas beyond the bounds appointed by theCivil Service Commissioners who regu-lated this stage of Pilgrim’s heavy journey.We turned aside, not indeed to theuplands of the Delectable Mountains, butinto a strange corridor of things like ana-grams and acrostics called Sines, Cosines

CHURCHILL ON

TERGIvERSATION

James Markovitch explains

the Byss and the Abyss

“I__had a feeling once aboutMathematics, that I saw it all—Depth beyond depth was

revealed to me—the Byss and the Abyss.I saw, as one might see the transit ofVenus—or even the Lord Mayor's Show,a quantity passing through infinity andchanging its sign from plus to minus. Isaw exactly how it happened and whythe tergiversation was inevitable: andhow the one step involved all the others.It was like politics. But it was afterdinner and I let it go! The practicalpoint is that if this aged, weary-souledCivil Service Commissioner had notasked this particular question aboutthese Cosines or Tangents in theirsquared or even cubed condition, whichI happened to have learned scarcely aweek before, not one of the subsequentchapters of this book would ever havebeen written. I might have gone into theChurch and preached orthodox sermonsin a spirit of audacious contradiction tothe age. I might have gone into the Cityand made a fortune.” —WSC, My Early Life, 1930

The “tergiversation” that Churchillrefers to in his mathematicsquote may very well derive from

the expression 1/x. If x approaches zerofrom one, 1/x approaches a limit of posi-tive infinity. But if x approaches zerofrom negative one, it approaches a limitof negative infinity. One might thereforeinfer that as x goes from positive one tonegative one, the expression 1/x goesfrom positive infinity to negative infinityas zero is crossed—a “tergiversation” thatwas controversial when negative numbers

______________________________________Mr. Markovitch may be reached by email [email protected]

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A conscientious squadronleader, he nearly alwaysattended annual camp.

Churchill’s tenure atHenley lasted at least until

1913. Once while First Lord of the Admiralty, hetook his squadron to visit the fleet at Portsmouth; wecan be sure that his men were given a much bettertour than would have been usual! In late 1915 MajorChurchill resigned from the government, donned hisQOOH uniform, and reported for duty in Flanders,where he gained military experience on a fourth con-tinent. His first forty days were spent underinstruction with the 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards,when he continued to wear his QOOH uniform. Butin 1916, on promotion to the rank of lieutenantcolonel in command of 6th Battalion, the Royal ScotsFusiliers, he changed into the latter’s Lowlanduniform with Glengarry cap. He was appointedColonel, 4th Hussars in 1941, and also becameHonorary Colonel, QOOH in 1953.

The unusual pho-tograph on thecover shows

Churchill in the fulldress uniform of theQueen’s OwnOxfordshire Hussars,wearing a captain'srank badges, so musthave been taken in1902-05. It is pub-lished by kindcourtesy of the

Oxfordshire Yeomanry Association (www.sofo.org.uk)and its honorary secretary, Major (retd.) R.J. Sheldon. It is interesting to note that he is wearing fourmedals which he had earned while in the regulararmy: the India Medal with the clasp Punjab Frontier1897-98; the Queen's Sudan Medal; the Queen'sSouth Africa Medal with six clasps: Cape Colony,Tugela Heights, Orange Free State, Relief ofLadysmith, Johannesberg, Diamond Hill; and theKhedive’s Sudan Medal (Egypt).

In 1899, after four years’regular service in the4th Queen’s Own

Hussars, Churchill resignedhis commission to stand ina by-election for a seat in the House of Commons.He had seen active service on three continents, noneof it with his own regiment. While the 4th Hussarswere still in England in 1895, he was attached to theSpanish Army in Cuba before moving with his ownregiment to southern India in 1896; from there hewas detached for duty on the Afghan border in 1897.A year later he was attached to the 21st Lancers inEgypt and Sudan. These adventures were made possible not bynormal Army postings, which would have kept himon regimental duty for several years, but by his owninitiative and persistence. They resulted in his firsttwo books, The Story of the Malakand Field Force(1898) and The River War (two volumes, 1899). After Churchill failed to secure a seat inParliament in 1899, the Boer War conveniently beganand he became a war correspondent, was capturedand escaped, took a local commission in the SouthAfrican Light Horse (a precaution in the event ofrecapture), returned home and won his seat in the1900 general election. He had a wealth of militaryexperience which none of his contemporaries couldmatch. It seemed a waste not to make use of what hehad greatly enjoyed, so in 1902 he became officially apart-time soldier and joined the Queen’s OwnOxfordshire Hussars (QOOH). The QOOH was a Yeomanry cavalry regimentwhose members undertook military training onevenings, weekends and an annual camp, and wereavailable for national emergencies, as evidenced bytheir operational service during both World Wars. In1908 the QOOH became part of the newly desig-nated Territorial Force (TF), renamed the TerritorialArmy (TA) in 1920. The regiment had a number ofsub-units around Oxfordshire, and Churchill beganhis service as second-in-command of the squadron atWoodstock. He was promoted to the rank of major in1905 and took command of the squadron at Henley-on-Thames, which had better train service to London.


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Churchill had also earned two Spanish medals inCuba. The first was the Cross of the Order of MilitaryMerit, First Class (lowest of four classes). British regulationsdid not permit him to wear this decoration, though heoften did so. The second was the Cuban Campaign Medal,

which was not instituted until 1899, more than three yearsafter Churchill had left Cuba. This was presented to himpersonally by King Alfonso XIII in Madrid in early 1914. The next medal he was to receive was the CoronationMedal of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911. ,


Churchill on the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars, 1906-1944

5 December 1906, WSC to the Adjutant, Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars:

Sir, I should be very glad if you would inform me what is the nature of the course of instruction which I should attendin order to become qualified for Field Rank; and I would certainly make every exertion in my power to comply with theregulations. But my official work is at the present time very heavy and has been so the whole of this year, and it wouldbe quite impossible for me to be absent from London while Parliament is sitting and very difficult for me to attend satis-factorily to any course of instruction which required daily attendance.

10 September 1908, Lieut-Colonel Sir Robert Hermon-Hodge to WSC:

My dear Churchill, I am sending you tomorrow a silver salver precisely the same as [your brother] Jack’s from theofficers of the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars with the warmest good wishes for your happiness. Please allow methis opportunity of telling you how much I appreciate your work in the Regiment and the way in which you stick to it inspite of the important claims upon your time. Do not trouble to answer this. Believe me, Yours sincerely, Robert Hodge (Colonel, Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars)

14 September 1915, WSC to insurance agent W.H. Bernau:

I may require to go to France in the near future on the same sort of conditions of liberty as were arranged for myvisit to the Dardanelles. I should like to pay an extra premium to cover say 15 days actually in the zone of the armiesthough not serving as a soldier; these days to count as they occur. In the event of my later on in the same year wishingto pay the regular £5.5.0 of full war risk, I should like this partial fragment to be counted towards the total.

18 November 1915, WSC to Clementine Churchill from GHQ, British Expeditionary Force:

My darling, Things have fallen out very much as I expected. I was met by a request to come to GeneralHeadquarters, which after seeing my regiment, I did. [General] French as ever an affectionate friend. He wished me totake a Brigade as soon as it could be arranged. I said as I told you that beforehand I must feel myself effectively masterof the conditions of trench warfare from the point of view of the regimental officer; and I suggested the Guards as thebest school. This is therefore to be arranged and I expect to go into the line on Saturday for a week or two. You mustnot let this fret you in the least. No action is in prospect and only a very general and ordinary risk need be contem-plated. But I shall always be very proud to have served with the famous corps. It is indeed much safer than going intothe line with the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars.

13 July 1944, WSC to Secretary of State for War (Sir Percy J. Grigg):

I have had most disturbing news from my old regiment, the Oxfordshire Hussars, of which I am now HonoraryColonel. Apparently its role is to find drafts for the Twenty-first Army Group and to be a holding unit for wounded,trainees, etc. This means that it can never serve as a fighting unit, and will in fact disappear in all but name. It seemsvery wrong that a regiment with such a fine history and record should be treated in this shabby fashion. Surely theydeserve their chance in the field? Pray go into this and let me know what can be done.

29 July 1944, WSC to Secretary of State for War and C.I.G.S. (Field Marshal Alanbrooke):

General Montgomery spoke to me last week about the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars and other ancientYeomanry regiments which are being used merely as holding units. I have pointed out to you the great importance ofnot destroying these permanent elements in our defensive system. 2. General Montgomery proposed to me that when a“Hostilities Only” or war-time-raised unit at the front was so depleted that it had to be broken up, that unit should be senthome to form part of the pool of reinforcements, and one of these now perfectly trained, permanent Yeomanry unitsshould be sent out in its place. They are of course actually at the present time trained as artillery or anti-tank. This pro-posal seems quite satisfactory to me. 3. I have your minute of July 18 informing me that you have given instructions thatmen are not to be taken from the Oxfordshire Hussars for the time being. ,

churchill, woodstock and the

oxfordshire yeomanry Museum

YO U T H F U L A DV E N T U R E R ( 2 )

Ms. Corcoran represents the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum (www.sofo.org.uk).

Two photographs, taken the same day, mark the visit of King Manuel II of Portugal to the summer encampment of Churchill’s regiment. Thedate is mid-August to early September 1908, between Jack Churchill’s wedding (8 August) and Winston’s (12 September). Circled: Top row,

standing, WSC’s brother Jack. Second row, standing, Jack’s wife, Lady Gwendeline Bertie, known as “Goonie”; Portuguese Ambassador the


Oxfordshire Yeomanry, a partner in the Soldiers ofOxfordshire Museum, now demonstrate that his connec-tion with the county and its people is far deeper andmore intimate than previously acknowledged.

On an unofficial basis,Churchill joined hisMarlborough relatives in theOxfordshire Yeomanry (QueensOwn Oxfordshire Hussars) in

November 1901. He then joined officially in February1902. He soon transferred from the Woodstock to theHenley Squadron for easier commuting from his Londonhome. He took command of the Henley Squadron in1905 and retained it until not long before the outbreakof war in 1914. Squadron records show his personal dedi-cation to his command during this vital period in thedevelopment of his political career including, of course,

The unusually long and active service of WinstonChurchill as a Territorial soldier is to be one ofthe permanent themes of a new museum, cur-

rently under construction at Woodstock, Oxfordshire,and due to open within thenext twelve months. Until now, Churchill’smain connection withOxfordshire has been seen asbeing born a “Marlborough” at Blenheim Palace, andhaving used Ditchley Park as a World War II alternativeto Chequers, when the prime minister’s country resi-dence was deemed too visible to bombers during nightsof the full moon. And, of course, he chose Bladon, nearWoodstock, as his last resting place. Records of the

URSULA CORCORAN


Admiralty to have the QOOH sent among the first of allthe British Yeomanry to Belgium, in September that year.In 1922, Churchill joined again, trained with them andproudly earned his Territorial Decoration. By then theQOOH had been converted from cavalry to artillery,though WSC remained long enough to earn theTerritorial Decoration, which he received in 1924. Churchill maintained his Regiment association forrest of his life, both as Honorary Colonel and later, usinghis authority as prime minister, to ensure “his” regimentwent where the action was hottest. His wishes for hisfuneral, followed in “Operation Hope-Not,” provided fora QOOH contingent to march in his cortege, immedi-ately in front of the Household Cavalry. A record of such devotion to a “part-time” regiment isunusual, even in the most committed Territorial officers.In an ambitious and successful politician and statesman it

his holding, successively, three great offices of State: theBoard of Trade, the Home Office and the Admiralty. Under Churchill’s very personal leadership, informedby regular army active service, the Henley Squadron ofthe QOOH became acknowledged, in competition, asone of the most effective in the British Army. After givingup command in 1914, he used his position at the

is truly remarkable. A number of his regimental comradesin the QOOH were men of considerable distinction. The museum currently under construction in thegrounds of the existing Oxfordshire Museum inWoodstock is the creation of Soldiers of Oxfordshire(SOFO). It is due to open late in 2013. SOFO was origi-nally formed by the Trusts relating to Oxfordshire’s

Regiments, including the Oxfordshire andBuckinghamshire Light Infantry as well as the Yeomanry,to make their collections and histories accessible to thecounty. Its purpose has now been widened to study,record and make accessible the impact of conflict onOxfordshire and its people, including all armed services,regular and part-time, British and Allied, as well as thecivil population. The SOFO Volunteer Archiving and Research team isalready well established and studying a wide range of sub-jects arising over recorded history. Many temporaryexhibitions have achieved success; one showing atWoodstock focuses on Churchill’s service in theOxfordshire Yeomanry. There is considerable communi-cation activity and a principal aim of SOFO is to serveeducational needs in Oxfordshire. For more informationplease visit the museum website: www.sofo.org.uk. ,

Marquis de Soveral; Viscount Churchill (a Spencer, second cousin of the 7th Duke). Third row, seated, Fourth Duke of Wellington; Duchess ofWellington; King Manuel II; Clementine. On ground, Duke of Marlborough; WSC. Above: QOOH officers minus Jack Churchill and the guestsfrom Blenheim. Circled: Winston and his cousin “Sunny,” Ninth Duke of Marlborough. Photos courtesy Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum.

In young Winston Churchill’s three weeks in Cuba,during the 1895 Spanish counter-insurgency campaign,he was already showing characteristics of the figure he

would become: writer, soldier, political and military analyst,war correspondent, adventurer, thinker, and even artist. Lourdes Méndez Vargas, the village historian of ArroyoBlanco, in central Cuba’s Sancti Spiritus Province, is anamateur only in the sense of not holding a full-timeteaching position at a Cuban university. Her devotion to thehistory of Arroyo Blanco is such that she has already carvedout a place among historians of her province as it preparesto celebrate its 500th anniversary in 2014. She comes froma family of influential Arroyo Blanqueros, who trace theirroots deep into the region’s colonial past. Lourdes Méndez began studying the role of her villageas a pivotal spot in the Spanish defensive system, which hadrestricted the rebellion to relatively poor eastern Cubaduring the previous rebellion (1868-78). The more pros-perous west had remained in royalist hands for the whole ofthat conflict. When we met at a conference last year, sheproposed an unusual project. She had noticed the relatively scant research done onChurchill in Arroyo Blancoduring his 1895 sojourn withthe Spanish—despite his beingconsidered the village’s mostimportant visitor ever. (A nearby cigar factory makes thefamous “Churchills.”) Disappointed that there was so littleknown of Churchill’s sojourn, in English or Spanish, sheconsulted the Cuban military archives. Here she discoveredmuch that was new.

It seemed possible that, given access to Spanish andCuban diplomatic and military archives, we could connectthe dots, piecing together Churchill’s movements in moredetail than before. We could discover exactly whom he hadfaced in the actions he described, and much more on theseries of events which marked his life, and Cuban history, inimportant ways nearly 120 years ago. Being something of a Churchillian, the possibility of

fleshing out this project in theAnglophone world seemed to mea wonderful opportunity.Knowing how much British

archives could add to the story, I proposed expanding theproject, both of us working on Cuban and Spanish sourceswhile I explored the British record, since I speak English andcan more often be in the UK. The result so far is an excep-tional series of “firsts” in the life of Winston Churchill.



“We can never know for certain how a person wouldhave developed if one or another aspect of his life had

been different. But what is clear with regard toChurchill—as his letters at the time and his writings inlater years attest—is that a life which before 1895seemed destined to yield a narrow range of skimpyachievements became from 1895 onwards a life of glorious epitomes and stunning vindications.”

—Robert Pilpel, “What Churchill Owed the Great Republic,” Finest Hour 125, Winter 2004-05

cuba, 1895: First Full signs

of the Man he was to Become

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Dr. Klepak, who resides in Ottawa, is a military and diplomatic historian specializing in Latin America. We thank Allen Packwood for bringing his work to our attention.

Churchill’s Cuban despatches in The Daily Graphic may be read in the first document volume of Winston S. Churchill, published by Hillsdale College Press.

HAL KLEPAK

An exciting new research project, pursued jointly by a Canadian and a Cuban historian, will shed new light on Churchill’s first foreign adventure—which was far more significant in his development than has thus far been generally believed.

Working virtually full-time, Lourdes Méndez concen-trated on Churchill in Arroyo Blanco while I began to studythe larger theme of Churchill in Cuba. Of course he hadreturned to the island for a brief visit in 1946, but ourcurrent interest is the experience he had there in 1895. Notfully understood at the time, his Cuban trip was the firstinternational adventure of one of the greatest adventurers ofour time. He had been to France and Switzerland as a boy,but he had never before been outside western Europe, norin any part of the overseas British Empire. In the eventful year of 1895, Churchill lost his father,his grandmother Clara and his beloved nurse Mrs. ElizabethEverest, while graduating from Sandhurst and joining acavalry regiment, the 4th Hussars. Bored with peacetimeroutine and with a long stint in peaceful India in prospect,Churchill yearned for adventure. Cuba, he decided, offeredthe action he craved. After the death of their father in January 1895, LadyRandolph became more attentive to her sons, and Winston

in particular knew how to take advantage of this. Informingher of his plans only after his mind was made up, heunabashedly asked her to intercede with everyone from theBritish ambassador in Madrid, Sir Henry DrummondWolff, to the commander-in-chief of the Army, LordWolseley. As an army officer he needed Wolseley’s permis-sion to travel to Cuba in order to report on the rebellion asa war correspondent. He was also able to get a small officialassignment: to report on a new Spanish rifle round ofinterest to the War Office. Cuba proved the first example of that love of adventurewhich marked Churchill all his life. While other correspon-dents might sit comfortably in Havana hotels, listening onlyto rumours from the front, young Winston arrangedthrough contacts actually to join the Spanish on cam-paign—to see for himself what was happening. To imaginethe nerve (one press report called it “cheek”) of such ayoung officer, a mere second-lieutenant straight out ofSandhurst, requesting leave to undertake such a job, one >>


Tunas de Zaza

Arroyo B

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La Refo

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Sancti Spiritus

Júcaro

Ciego de Ávila

Iguara

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Churchill’s route on his Cuban expedition. Arriving by ship at the tiny port of Tunas de Zaza, Churchll and Barnes entrained for Sancti Spiritus,arriving 23 November 1895. There they joined a Spanish column which on the 27th arrived at the defended village of Arroyo Blanco. On his

birthday, 30 November, Churchill for the first time saw the enemy, and the day after was first “fired upon without result.” With their Spanishhosts, the two Britons proceeded to Ciego de Ávila, then to Júcaro, from which they returned to Havana. The dotted line represents the

“Trocha” defensive line of isolated guard stations, Spain’s attempt to confine the rebellion to the poorer eastern part of Cuba.

Bahamas

Cuba, 1895...must understand that we are dealing with a singular char-acter. This was the Churchill style: daring, oblivious ofbureaucracy or authority, unashamed to pull strings, person-ally courageous. All this was emerging just as he was turningtwenty-one, showing us how soon those traits developed. Churchill had arranged to write for the Daily Graphic,for which his father had written He was not well paid, butwith money his mother put up, he was able to book his tripin comfort. His companion was young Reginald Barnes,later to command a division in France and like Churchill afuture colonel of the 4th Hussars—a highly distinguishedposition as a kind of father figure and defender of a regi-ment’s ethos. They traveled first to New York, whereWinston had an impressionable visit with Bourke Cockran(See “Churchill’s American Mentor,” FH 115, Summer2002; and “What Churchill Owed the Great Republic,” FH125, Winter 2004-05.)

Barnes and Churchill entrained for Tampa, where theysailed to Havana, arriving on 20 November. Havingbeen received by the second-in-command of the

island, they took a train to the central city of Santa Clara,headquarters of the Spanish Army. Neither spoke Spanish,neither was with his regiment. They had joined the army ofa country not even a British ally, whose suppression of theCuban rebellion was rejected by most Britons, and espe-cially by the press. This would later prove problematic. As arranged by the Spanish Foreign Ministry, Churchilland Barnes were received in Santa Clara by no less a figurethan General Arsenio Martínez Campos, captain-general ofCuba. They were advised to go to Sancti Spiritus to join amobile column, but could get there safely only by a cir-cuitous route. Thus they continued by train to the southcoast, by ship farther east to the tiny port of Tunas de Zaza,and again by rail to Sancti Spiritus, arriving on the 23rd.Here they met the commander of the column, GeneralÁlvaro Suárez Valdéz. The next day the column headed outtowards the defended village of Arroyo Blanco, where itarrived on the 27th without incident. Preparing to move forward, the column divided intotwo. One part headed northeast to victual Spanish postssupporting the “Trocha,” a 200-yard-wide fortified barrierfrom Morón in the north to Júcaro in the south, created tocontain the rebellion. The other group, including Churchilland Barnes, headed off to engage any rebels they could find.Soon this column learned of the arrival of the forces underthe two greatest rebel generals: Máximo Gómez, aDominican who for his qualities and experience was gener-alissimo in the 1868 insurrection; and Antonio Maceo, amulatto of enormous courage and military skill. The twowere in effect on their way west, the invasion route whichhad failed so badly in the previous war, without which nohope of victory could be had.


CHURCHILL’S SKETCHES (ENHANCED BY THE DAILY GRAPHIC)Above: Clockwise from top left: Spanish infantry officer; rebel flag (now

Cuban national flag); rebel badge (only mark of a rebel soldier); GuardiaCivil trooper (Spanish militarized police); Sergeant of Lancers (Spain’s

very limited cavalry); volunteer reservist; and a Spanish general.

All sketches are reproduced by kind courtesy of the Churchill ArchivesCentre, Churchill College, Cambridge.

The Spanish were not sure of the size of the mambí(Cuban rebel) column, but knew it would beheavy in cavalry, highly mobile and dangerous. In

fact its strength was in the range of 4000, of which 3000were cavalry and 1000 infantry. Suárez Valdéz had 1800men, but only 200 were the vital cavalry that offeredmobility, speed and the chance of surprise in the Cubanlandscape. Since the rebels had many times that manyhorsemen, it can only be assumed that Suárez Valdéz’sorders from Martinez Campos were to engage, evaluate,but not attempt a major battle. Churchill’s judgments on the actions that followed sug-gested that he did not have full knowledge of the Spanish viewof where they stood. Still, he was taken one night to a nearbyhigh point, where a heliograph was used to keep contact withthe Trocha, and nearly came to grief. Late in the day, withouta proper escort, he and his Spanish hosts were soon in thedark in rebel-held territory. With the luck that was soon to befamous, Churchill and the Spanish made it back to safety.With the help of local peasants, rebels were crossing the rela-tively lightly defended Trocha at will, and those Churchillwould encounter were already west of that line. On November 29th, the eve of his 21st birthday,Winston wrote his second “letter” to the Daily Graphic, thistime from Arroyo Blanco. He was still aching for action,but had not long to wait. The next day, his coming of age,he first sighted the enemy; he had his baptism of fire thefollowing day when rebels fired twice on the column. Thatnight as well, the camp was fired upon, part of the rebeltactic of exhausting the Spanish by harassment; casualtieswere taken, one right outside Churchill’s tent. His sense ofhumour was in evidence when he wrote his mother of thisadventure, later recalled in his autobiography:

I fortified myself by dwelling on the fact that the Spanishofficer whose hammock was slung between me and theenemy’s fire was a man of substantial physique; indeed onemight almost have called him fat. I have never been preju-diced against fat men. At any rate I did not grudge this onehis meals. Gradually I dropped asleep.

Such pieces of subtle humour sparkled through his cor-respondent’s reports at the time, another sign of things tocome in his remarkable life. In his second despatch of 23November, Churchill wrote:

It was explained to me that when challenged by any sentry oroutpost it was necessary to answer very sharply. If, by aprocess of deduction which Sherlock Holmes himself mightenvy, you arrive at the conclusion that the outpost is Spanish,you answer “Spain”; if, on the other hand, you think it arebel post, you reply “Free Cuba”; but if you make a mistakeit is likely to be very awkward.

The next day the column proceeded eastward and againcame under fire. Churchill and some other officers chose >>


Above: The “Trocha” defensive line of isolated guard stations, Spain’sattempt to confine the rebellion to the poorer eastern part of Cuba.Down the center was a single-track railway for armor-clad cars.

Below: A remarkable example of WSC’s calmness under fire is a sketch hedrew while seated on his horse on 2 December 1895. His column wasbeing fired upon by up to 200 rebels—his first taste of organized combat.This sketch photographed by Glen Hartle at the Churchill War Rooms.

Cuba, 1895...to bathe in an attractive river and soon were the object ofsniping and then serious fire. In what must have been ahumorous scene, they tried as best they could to dress, untilthe Spanish main force drove the rebels back. For a secondtime Winston had a “near run thing.” It was just what hewas looking for—a precursor of escapades in India, Sudan,South Africa, and even Europe. That day saw the “battle” of La Reforma. This was asmall action because the rebels did not want a majorengagement, being anxious to get on west, while theSpanish were probably not numerous enough to do morethan harass them. Churchill was in the thick of it, not fromchoice but because the Spanish general, a man of greatcourage, wanted his young guests to see the action fully, andkept them right next to him under the fire of 100-200 rebel

soldiers, who barred the way and forced the column todeploy. This produced the rather wonderful sketch byChurchill (probably touched up professionally for publica-tion) showing the Spanish artillery deploying to fire—ascene only a few metres from where he himself sat on horse-back, under significant fire in a real military action. The general and Churchill continued to the town ofCiego de Ávila to the east, lynch pin of the whole 68-kilo-metre Trocha defensive line. From there Winston returnedto the coast, still travelling with Suárez Valdéz, and then toHavana. On December 10th he and Barnes sailed back to Tampa,where Churchill was met with his first hostile press. As inBritain, public opinion in the United States was distinctlypro-rebel. The rumour, in fact true, that the Spanish wereplanning to decorate Churchill and Barnes for bravery


CHURCHILL SKETCHES: Hussar (light cavalry)officers took sketching as part of their training.Their principal role was reconnaissance, and inthe absence of portable photography equipment,sketching filled a need. Though undoubtedlyenhanced, the drawings show considerable talent.

Above: Spanish infantry fording a river. Thechallenges of the sultry Cuban terrain must havegiven the native rebels a considerable advantage.

Above right: Suárez Valdéz’s advance guardentering Sancti Spiritus, where Churchill andBarnes joined the Spanish expedition.

Right: The column arriving at the village ofArroyo Blanco, 27 November 1895. The marchfrom Sancti Spiritus had been without incident,and Winston was still pining for action. He wouldnot have to wait long.

under fire, had led to speculation that the two officers hadfought alongside the Spanish, instead of merely observing. Given the importance Havana and Madrid attached tothe slightest suggestion of British support, they were in nohurry to dispel such notions. Churchill tried hard to con-vince the Florida press and public otherwise, saying he wasauthorized to use his pistol only in self-defence. Press hos-tility, the first he faced but far from the last, would berepeated in Britain as word spread of his activities. As Robert Pilpel wrote, the watershed year of 1895 sawWinston Churchill emerge from a life of “skimpy achieve-ments” to a life of “glorious epitomes and stunningvindications.” His Cuban adventure had seen some extraor-dinary firsts for the young man who was to become “Personof the Century” and to be voted the “Greatest Briton.”Cuba marked his baptism of fire, his coming of age, his first

work for the War Office, his recognition as a skilful andinsightful journalist. Leaving Britain on a highly riskyadventure, he had received his first taste of war. His writings analysed significant political and militaryevents with care and acumen. He had shown great personalcourage and had his first brush with a hostile press. Cuba,in short, had paid off. For all these reasons, the ongoing project to extend ourknowledge of his Cuban adventures is exciting. As readersknow, often the great problem for Churchill historianstoday is finding something new to say. The Cuban sojournoffers room for new thought and an appreciation for all heaccomplished at such a young age. Clearly he was showingmarked signs of who he would become: the remarkable per-sonality and skills he would later provide to King, countryand civilization. ,


Above: “Eve of Battle.” GeneralValdez and his staff. Perhaps oneof these is a self-portrait by WSC?

Above right: Spanish volunteers(reservists) arriving from the frontin Cuba’s capital, Havana.

Right: Five years before the BoerWar, Churchill had his first adven-ture on an armoured train. Heavilyshielded and bristling with guns,one like this took him to the fronton 21 November 1895.

Mr. Cohen, of Ottawa, Ontario, is the foremost bibliographer of Sir Winston Churchill and has contributed to Finest Hour since the mid-1980s.

“Home is the sailor, home from sea,And the hunter home from the hill.”



Just a fewminutes laterPond returned,saying Churchillwould seeOhlinger, andhe took thestudent toChurchill’s room.

Sixty-five years later, afterSir Winston’s death, GustavusOhlinger finally wrote of thatmeeting in the Michigan

Quarterly Review—explaining why it had taken him solong to publish. Back in 1901, he wrote, “I met the handsomest young man I had ever seen,the scion of the house of Marlborough, the descendant ofthe great John Churchill, the victor of Blenheim,Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet. Mr. Churchillgreeted me cordially, and then stepped to a bell rope,which he pulled vigorously. As if automatically, a waiterappeared with a tray on which were two bottles, glasses,and ice. As he filled the glasses, Mr. Churchill remarked:‘My manager tells me that you would like an interviewfor publication in your college paper—I shall talk very

On 1 December 1900, the young officer and warcorrespondent who had distinguished himself infour wars over five years boarded the Lucania to

sail for New York. There he would begin a lengthylecture tour of North America. He had recently beenelected a Member of Parliament, and would take his seaton 14 February 1901. His first address, at the Waldorf inNew York City on 12 December, was chaired by noneother than Mark Twain (see “When the Twain Met,” FH149:40). The Christmas periodwas largely spent in Ottawa,Toronto and Montreal. On 9 January 1901, after afinal three-day visit to Ottawa, Churchill spoke on “Peaceand Prosperity” to a large, anti-imperialistic crowd of stu-dents at the Auditorium of the University of Michigan inAnn Arbor. After his remarks, a young reporter for theuniversity literary magazine, Gustavus Ohlinger, did hisbest to wangle an interview. His persistence paid off. When Churchill finished, Ohlinger followed him tohis hotel and approached his manager, Major J.B. Pond,with his request. Pond was not impressed, arguing thatChurchill had just turned down an offer of $2000 from anational magazine. Somehow Ohlinger convinced him topresent his impecunious request directly to his quarry.

RONALD I. COHEN

—Requiem, by Robert Louis Stevenson, ca. 1894. Quoted by Churchillin his final review of World War II and his first speech as Leader of the

Opposition, House of Commons, 16 August 1945

The Adventurer Returned:

churchill in Michigan, 1901


Editor’s Note: Reread in 2013, the following articles offer interestingcontrasts—in both what has changed and what has not.Infinitives are split just as egregiously today as they werethen. But sensationalism has now permeated the Britishpress (“media” in modern parlance) as well as theAmerican. No one would suggest now that “in Englandless notice is taken of private affairs.” Today in America the New York Times is oftenregarded as a “national” newspaper. Moreover, though,people everywhere have multiple “national dailies” via theWorld Wide Web. The vast distances Churchill observedin the United States and Canada have, in terms of com-munication, vanished. “Even elderly parliamentarians likemyself,” he quipped at Harvard in September 1943, “areforced to acquire a high degree of mobility.” And, of course, we still speak the same language—which, as Bismarck said at the end of the 19th centurywas (in Churchill’s words) “the most potent factor inhuman society.” As for the interview, it is difficult to judge whatChurchill might have thought potentially deleterious tohis political career. His words to Ohlinger were judiciousand diplomatic. We may smile today at the timeliness ofhis China prescription: “I think we shall have to take theChinese in hand and regulate them.” Westerners havebeen trying to do that for centuries. Modern critics would of course bemoan the referenceto triumph by “the Aryan stock”; but that was the wayEnglishmen thought in 1901. It was left to Hitler to giveAryans a bad name. Churchill did not think much of the power of theAmerican press. I suspect he would consider today’s 24/7digital media a lot more powerful. But it remains the casethat the English media give far more attention to interna-tional affairs than their American counterparts. In both his article and his interview, Churchill regretsthat no one “looks after” the English language, which, hesays, tends “to diverge into dialect.” That certainly couldbe reiterated today. We can almost hear him saying, withProfessor Higgins in My Fair Lady: “Why can’t theEnglish learn to set a good example to people whoseEnglish is painful to your ears?...In America they haven’tused it for years.” RML ,

freely to you, but I want your wordthat you will not publish anything Isay that might reflect in any wayupon my parliamentary position.’” The interview carried on wellinto the night—a foretaste of thelate-night palaver for whichChurchill would be renowned allhis life. Ohlinger kept his word,and published only those parts ofthe interview that bore on jour-nalism and the “purity of theEnglish language.” He left outChurchill’s remarks about Cuba,the Malakand campaign, Egyptand the Sudan, the Chinese,South Africa, and sensationalism inAmerican newspapers.

Recalling his experience in1966, Ohlinger continued: “It wasnow four o’clock in the morning—one bottle was empty—and I was

reminded that I had an eight o’clockclass. I bade farewell to my host, never dreaming

that the handsome young man who had been so generousof his time and information was destined to carry uponhis shoulders the fate of nations and the happiness ofmillions yet unborn.” What follows are, first, the text of Churchill’s 1901article derived from the Ohlinger interview, as publishedin The Inlander (Cohen C218/1), which has not, to thebest of my knowledge, been republished anywhere sincethen; and, second, the interview with Ohlinger, as hereconstructed it for the first time following Churchill’sdeath (in the Michigan Quarterly Review in 1966). Theinterview includes more than twice the words in theInlander article, which do not in any event appear therein the order originally spoken. For the sake of continuity,despite the small amount of repetition, I have determinedto leave them in. The original spellings (e.g., “to-day”)have been retained.

A RT WO R K ( W I T H A P R E S C I E N T C A P T I O N )

D U R I N G C H U R C H I L L’ S L E C T U R E TO U R ,

F RO M T H E C H I C AG O T R I B U N E , 1 9 0 1 .

Success in JournalismFirst published in The Inlander, Michigan University, vol. XI, no. 3, February 1901

(Cohen 218/1). Verified against an original copy of The Inlander, by Ronald I. Cohen.Republished by kind permission of the Churchill Literary Estate and Curtis Brown, Ltd.

WINSTON S. CHURCHILL IN 1901


of the language. We go on now just as anybody likes,adopting new expressions and rejecting old constructions.In the great days of Athens and Rome the best educatedpeople—the lawyers, the statesmen, the orators and actorslooked after the language and prescribed the style. Now-

a-days the language does not get this inspirationfrom the highest sources. It follows the line ofleast resistance. As a result it follows thosewho are least qualified to direct it. It has atendency to diverge into dialect. But thegreat newspapers are, and will continueto be, a great power for fusing thesedialects into one.There are many tendencies in the

press which are dangerous, particularlyamong certain classes of the press

which exist in this country. Agreat deal of sensationalnews is published; thedoings of privatepersons, in which thepublic cannot pos-sibly have anyconcern, arereported in thepublic sheets. InEngland less notice is

taken of private affairs. Noattention is paid a person so

long as he remains in a privatecapacity. It is not until he becomes a

public personage, such as a writer, an actor, anorator or statesman that notice is taken of him. Largelybecause it has avoided these dangerous tendencies the indi-vidual English newspaper wields a great influence. A circumstance which arrests the attention of a for-eigner is that Americans have no national newspaper. Thereare Chicago papers, New York papers, Philadelphia papers;these give the local news of these sections of the country.But there is no national, federal paper—no paper that

The press offers an opportunity afforded by no otherprofession to anybody and everybody who willwork. Good work is never lost. Its value never

diminishes to the man who does it. It may not be paid forfor a long time, but ultimately it will receive itsreward. The public demands good work,and in time it will recognize the valueof good work conscientiously doneand will reward the man who hasdone it. Verify your quotations andavoid split infinitives—this is myadvice, since you ask it, to theyoung newspaper cor-respondent.

Of course this latter is a little thing initself, but it is one of innumerable grammatical imperfec-tions which appeared in our prints today, and I mention itsimply to illustrate the importance of paying greater heed tothe technicalities of the language. It should be every jour-nalist’s ambition to write pure, correct English. It is a curious fact that to-day we have no person, orbody of persons, who make it their duty to act as custodians

“Now-a-days thelanguage does not getthis inspiration from thehighest sources. It follows the line of least resistance. As a

result it follows those who are least qualified todirect it. It has a tendency to diverge

into dialect.”

London Times fulfills my ideal for such a newspaper. It is apaper that gives a great deal of space to national news andto news from foreign countries. It goes all over the UnitedKingdom and is read by the people who take an interest inpublic affairs and who direct the politics of the nation. Apart from other considerations, it is an enormous com-mercial advantage for Americans and Englishmen that theyspeak the same language. It not only facilitates trade, but itenables a writer to reach twice as many people—an actorcan appeal to two publics. It is a great bond of unionbetween these two branches of the Anglo-Saxon race. Whatfools we should be, then, were we to allow our language todrift apart! I hope someday to see a society, similar to theAcadémie française, established by these two English-speaking nations—a society whose object it would be tokeep the language together, each year to incorporate suchchanges as are necessary to a healthy principle of growth inthe language and to procure uniformity. Otherwise there isdanger of our drifting apart and losing our commontongue, by making it too common. ,

assigns to local affairs their relative importance and makes itits business to give reports of national events, of nationalpolitics and to give expression to national life and nationalaspirations. A man takes his local paper and reads what hashappened in Sleepy Hollow—but he should also takeanother paper which will show him what a little place thetown he lives in is, compared with the vast organism ofwhich it is a part. Of course the immense area of the country is an obstaclein the way of a great national paper. From London we cansend our papers almost all over England in the day. To over-come the great distances in this country recourse must behad to the telegraph and telephone. There should be centresof publication and distribution for different sections of thecountry. Your millionaires could invest their money to farbetter purpose by starting some good national paper thatwould give correct world-news in place of trivial localmatter, that would form national sentiment, and giveexpression to national aspirations, than by founding hospi-tals, endowing universities and building libraries. The


Mr. Churchill: I was lucky enough to start with aname very well known in England, and as youknow, a name counts a great deal with us. In

your country it is somewhat of a handicap to have a greatfather—few of your great men have had great sons. My early education was at Harrow. I chose the army formy career, and received my training at Sandhurst. On itscompletion I was gazetted to the 4th Hussars, then sta-tioned in India. In 1895, I went to Cuba. I did not fight, but wroteabout the insurrection. I did not see much of the rebelarmy—little more than a puff of smoke now and thenfrom some jungle. I think the material of the Spanishinfantry is quite good. Governor [of New York Theodore]Roosevelt was telling me the other day that the Spaniardswere very good fighters.

In 1896, I served with the 4th Hussars at Bangalore,India. The revolt of the Pathan tribes occurred about thattime, and my friend, Sir Bindon Blood, was called toorganize a force for its suppression. I was lucky enough toobtain a leave from my regiment and to serve under him inwhat was known as the “Malakand Field Force,” aboutwhich I wrote a book. My next campaign was in Egypt. I was attached to the 21stLancers. They were short of officers, and I was lent to them. Going back in history, in 1883 the Egyptian governmenthad broken down—their bonds were selling at 40—todaythey sell for 117. The people were starving, eating theirfingers off. Under the leadership of Mad Mullah [in fact, theMahdi] the Dervishes had revolted. The British governmentappointed Evelyn Baring, afterwards created Earl of Cromer,as British agent, consul-general, minister >> plenipotentiary,

WSC: A Midnight Interview, 1902Mr. Ohlinger (1877-1972) was a distinguished attorney, author and lecturer. Born in Chinaof American missionaries, he came to Toledo, Ohio in 1902, after graduating from the

University of Michigan College of Law. In a legal practice spanning six decades he wrote anumber of books, including an eight-volume legal treatise on civil practice. He also wrote

for the Atlantic Monthly and the Michigan Law Review, which he helped found as a studentin 1901. This article was first published in the Michigan Quarterly Review, February 1966.

GUSTAVUS A. OHLINGER IN 1966

and financial adviser; General Charles Gordon, who hadreorganized the Chinese imperial forces and had suppressedthe Taiping Rebellion was summoned to Egypt. He was sta-tioned at Khartoum. The Dervishes closed in upon him, buthe stayed until everyone had left; a steamer was waiting forhim, and he had orders to leave, but on January 22 [actually26], 1885, the Dervishes swarmed into the city, killing men,women, and children; Gordon was struck down and killedon the steps of the palace. Then the Dervishes tried to invade Egypt, and theBritish came in; a long warfare ensued; you must have yourriver or your railroad to move troops: Kitchener took histime; he built railways, started cities; gunboats, steamersand barges were either carried over the cataracts in parts orbuilt above the rapids. Finally, on September 1, 1898, we got to Omdurman,and landed, our backs to the river. On the next day the Dervishes, fifty-thousand strong,debouched from the city in wonderful order and chargedupon our 20,000 men and our forty-five guns; when theywere within forty yards we began. The poor devils wereslaughtered; we killed 10,800; the killed, in white robes, laylike snowdrifts over the desert sand. Our loss was slight—only 600 killed and wounded. I don’t agree with those who advocated the destructionof the temple—I would have let it stand, placing a man onthe outside of it to collect admission money. However, itwas decided to pull it down—and that broke theDervishes—they thought that Almighty God had turnedagainst them. The East is interesting, and to no one can it be morevaluable and interesting than to anyone who comes fromthe West. I think we shall have to take the Chinese in hand andregulate them. I believe that as civilized nations becomemore powerful they will get more ruthless, and the time willcome when the world will impatiently bear the existence ofgreat barbaric nations who may at any time arm themselvesand menace civilized nations. I believe in the ultimate parti-tion of China—I mean ultimate. I hope we shall not haveto do it in our day. The Aryan stock is bound to triumph. Personally, I am not greatly concerned about Russiandevelopment in China. I would rather have them develop inthat way down south into India. Russia has a justifiable ambi-tion to possess a warm water port. It is really embarrassing tothink that 100,000,000 people are without one. I think the press affords the ladder which is available toeveryone in a way afforded by no other profession; put outgood stuff and in time people will say, “We must have this.” There are many tendencies in your press which are dan-gerous, particularly among certain members of your press.In England, the newspaper has great power; you cannot say

that here. No strong paper, if it starts out to do a thing, failsof accomplishing it in England. You have no national paper.You have Chicago papers, New York papers, Philadelphiapapers. These deal with the local news of these sections ofthe country. But you have no national, federal paper—nopaper that leaves out local affairs and makes it its businessto give reports of the nation, of national polities, of nationalaspirations and national life. A man takes a local paper andfinds out what has happened at Sleepy Hollow—but at thesame time he should also take another paper which showshim what a little place the town he lives in is comparedwith the vast organism. Of course, the great size of your country is an obstaclein the way of a successful national paper. From London, wecan send our papers all over England in a day. To overcomethe difficulty you must call in the aid of the telegraph.There should be centers in different sections of the countrywhere the national paper could be published for the section.Your millionaires could do a great deal better than foundinghospitals, endowing universities, and building libraries bystarting some good national paper that would give correctnews that would aid in forming national sentiment, and ingiving expression to national aspirations. The London Times satisfies my ideal of a newspaper—apaper that gives a great deal of space to news from foreigncountries. In England, nobody pays any attention to aperson so long as he is a private person. If you become apublic personage, such as a writer, an actor, an orator, or astatesman—anything of that kind—then notice is taken ofyou. English newspapers take no notice of private affairs. Some years ago, they set up a London edition of theNew York Herald. The paper published sensational news,social gossip. But it did not pay. The Daily Mail has thebiggest circulation of any paper in England. It is what wecall a sensational paper, but it is not anything like yours.The people, however, who run the country, who take aninterest in polities, read the London Times. It goes all overthe United Kingdom. The other papers have a circulationwhich extends as far as they can reach by a nine hours runfrom London. You ask my advice to the young correspondent? It is:verify your quotations and avoid split infinitives—phraseslike “to utterly destroy the enemy.” In his reply to Kruger’sultimatum Mr. [Joseph] Chamberlain used a split infinitive,using the phrase “to further prolong negotiations” and itcaused furious comment. I think it is very curious that nobody takes any care oflanguage today. It goes along now just as anybody likes. Inolden days, in Greece and Rome, the best educated people,the lawyers, the statesmen, the orators, and actors lookedafter the language. Nowadays, the language does not get thisinspiration from the highest sources. It follows the line ofleast resistance; it follows those who are least qualified to


WSC: A Midnight Interview...

direct it. The tendency of languagenowadays is to diverge into dialect.But I think the newspapers willhave the effect of fusing all thesedialects into one.

It is anenormous commercialadvantage for theUnited States and

Great Britain to speakthe same language. It is a

tremendous advantage in theway of trade. The same books can be read by twice as manypeople —a writer or an actor has two reading publics toappeal to. What fools we should be were we to allow ourlanguages to drift apart! I should hope before I die to see anInternational Society between these two English speakingcountries whose object it would be to keep the languagetogether, each year to take certain expressions into the lan-guage—like the Académie française—to incorporate certainchanges as are necessary to a healthy principle of growth inthe language and to procure uniformity. Otherwise, we willlose our unity of language—there is danger of our driftingapart and losing our common tongue, by making it toocommon. The more you combine, the better you will be able toproduce. There, of course, comes a limit when a trust is solarge that it makes an illegitimate profit. But its profit in nocase makes the manufactured article dearer than it would

have been if made by a number of smallmen. They can always produce cheaper.Although I know that the more youcombine, the richer the world willbecome, yet that is not the end ofhuman existence. You must think ofthe breed of men you raise. It is wellthat a number of men should beexposed to the ups and downs oflife, that they should be com-pelled to cudgel their brainsand fight for their existenceas independent producers.That is the factory wherethe national fibre ismade. It is therefore aquestion from this pointof view how far combina-tion is advantageous.Combination will alwaysmake the world more com-

fortable, but comfort is not theend of human existence. It is the

moral character of men. But instamping out the individual producer, it

seems to me that although the material wealth ofthe world may increase, the moral wealth of nations

would be decreased. The war in South Africa is a war between the CapeDutch and the Cape English, each looking to their ownnation as a national center. The Cape Dutch look toPretoria and wish to see South Africa united under Dutchrule. The Cape British desire to see South Africa made apart of the British Empire. It is merely a contest betweenthese two races, each having its natural national center andeach wishing to see South Africa united under it. The CapeDutch outnumber the Cape British. They outnumber themin the Cape Parliament, and they have had their own min-istries. In this war these two elements have simply called intheir big brothers;—the Dutch, their brothers in theOrange Free State and in the Transvaal; and the British,their countrymen beyond the sea. If England had sunk inthe ocean and dropped out of sight, there would inevitablyhave been a war between these two races. There would havebeen a hell of a row between the Dutch and the British evenif England had never come in. If they had not been aidedby their countrymen, the Cape British would have gotlicked. The Dutch population is closer to the farms—theBritish population is one of traders and manufacturers. Themen who live in the country always last longer in a racialwar. But before the war is over I am sure that more of SouthAfrica will fight voluntarily on the side of the British thanwere ever commandeered by the Dutch. ,


“I believe that ascivilized nations becomemore powerful they will get

more ruthless, and the time will comewhen the world will impatiently bear the

existence of great barbaric nationswho may at any time armthemselves and menacecivilized nations.”

GUSTAVUS A. OHLINGER

Churchill’s critics often cite his youthful failures, realor imagined. In fact he enjoyed many accomplish-ments in his early offices, notably altering British

foreign policy without ever holding the post of foreign min-ister. The full scope of what he accomplished is remarkablefor a politician so young. Long before he came to head the Admiralty, Churchillwas aware of Germany’s potential threat to Britain andEurope, but as at other times inhis life, he was well ahead ofmost political thinkers. Duringthe last third of the 19thcentury, the most constant threat to the British Empire wasRussia, against whom Britain had defended Turkey in theCrimean War, and the Indian empire during the Anglo-

Afghan Wars. By the 1880s, under both Conservative PrimeMinister Benjamin Disraeli and his Liberal counterpart,William Gladstone, concern shifted not to Germany but toIreland and the Empire.1

British eyes probably first turned toward Germany whenfriction developed with the South African Boer Republics(the Transvaal and Orange Free State), and the Gladstonegovernment was faced with German attempts to create

colonies to the east and west ofthe Boer republics.2 Germanynaturally sympathized with theDutch settlers in South Africa;

still Germany was not regarded as a major threat. WilliamGladstone’s foreign secretary thought Berlin was not evenserious about acquiring colonies.3



From isolation to Engagement: how churchill influenced Foreign Policy

in the years before the Great war

“THE FLEET WAS READY”: The formidable array of the Grand Fleet at Portsmouth, July 1914. After the naval review Churchill ordered theships not to disperse. Later, on his own initiative, he sent them at top speed in darkness to their war stations. (Wikimedia Commons)

CHRISTOPHER H. BECKVOLD

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________This paper arrived too late for The Churchill Centre research competition for high school students last year. Our educational coordinator, Suzanne Sigman, thought so highlyof it that we offer it to our readers herewith—along with our congratulations to Mr. Beckvold, now at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. The article was subject toFH’s usual editoral process; the original, with a bibliography, is available from the editor by email. Our grateful thanks to the author’s mentor, Dr. Sarah Wiggins.

Gladstone himself disregarded Germany’s stirringsbecause he thought “Bismarck’s change of face was only anelectoral gimmick.”4 The Germans even tried to woo Britaininto an alliance during Gladstone’s fourth government inthe 1890s. But Gladstone also objected to European entan-glements, believing they interfered with the British Empire,5

and preferred to focus on the domestic front. The policiesof the Conservative governments which alternated in officeduring the last two decades of the 19th century were littledifferent from Gladstone’s.6

Nevertheless, developments in Europe began slowly tomove Britain away from her previous isolation. The UKmaintained friendly relations with the Triple Alliance(Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary) in order to keep Russia,Turkey and Egypt in check on the periphery of theEmpire—one of the reasons for Britain’s 1897 action on theNorthwest Frontier of India, in which Churchill partici-pated.7 Liberal Prime Minister Lord Rosebery (1894-95)consulted Germany and Italy over the Franco-Siamese war,though no collaboration ensued.8 But relations with theTriple Alliance ended after Britain, concerned aboutGerman threats to Imperial commerce, entered the TripleEntente with France and Russia in 1907.9 By then theBritish had realized that Germany’s waxing power wassomething to reckon with. Churchill became a Member of Parliament in 1901. Thefollowing year Prime Minister Lord Salisbury retired andwas succeeded by his nephew, Arthur Balfour. LikeSalisbury, Balfour avoided an alliance with Germany butattempted to maintain friendly relations.10 The press triedto fan flames, claiming “Britain was becoming a satellite ofGermany.”11 But after the 1900 German Naval Law becamepublic, Balfour realized Germany intended to rival theRoyal Navy and that no close relationship could exist. Following the Liberal landslide victory in the January1906 general election, a Francophile, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, became prime minister. His new foreignsecretary, Lord Lansdowne, called Germany “our worstenemy.”12 In 1906 HMS Dreadnought launched a new gen-eration of fast, well-armed British battleships, but theBritish soon discovered that Germany planned to out-buildthem, which led to fears of vulnerability.13 H.H. Asquith,who had succeeded Campbell-Bannerman as Liberalpremier, was faced with the demand, “We want eight [new

battleships] and we won’t wait,” and Parliament duly votedto create them in 1910, instead of the original four.14

Winston Churchill left the Conservatives for theLiberals, over his support of Free Trade, in 1904—a piece ofvery good timing. After the Liberal sweep, Campbell-Bannerman appointed him under-secretary for the colonies,and Churchill subsequently helped bring peace to SouthAfrica and to write its constitution. Churchill moved to theBoard of Trade in 1908 and the Home Office in 1910,cabinet posts largely domestic in nature. For a time he sup-ported Lloyd George and Asquith in demanding cuts in thenaval budget. One historian wrote that WSC was “amongthe last to discern that the Kaiser was more than a bum-bling amateur and was in fact a menace.”15 But Churchill’sview changed dramatically when Germany’s aggressiveintentions became clear.

At the Admiralty The event that brought Churchill to the Admiralty washis robust stance in the 1911 Agadir Crisis, when a Germangunboat, SMS Panther, appeared off that port in FrenchMorocco, sending waves of concern throughout Europe.Churchill’s vigorous responses—even to the extent ofsending guards to watch over the Hyde Park magazine forthe defence of London—gained Asquith’s attention, whilein cabinet Churchill argued for a still closer relationshipwith France.16

A month after Agadir, in August 1911, Churchill pro-posed to Lloyd George that Great Britain should develop afriendly relationship with Belgium in order to flank theGermans with a Belgian army.17 A month later Churchillwrote to Asquith: “Are you sure that the ships we have atCromarty are strong enough to defeat the whole GermanHigh Sea fleet? If not they sh[oul]d be reinforced withoutdelay. Are 2 divisions of the Home Fleet enough? Thisappears to be a vital matter.” Asquith was impressed.Churchill, with his “imaginative power and vitality,” mustbe at the head of a fighting department.18

On 25 October 1911, Winston Churchill was appointedFirst Lord of the Admiralty, determined to “inject newblood into the hidebound Royal Navy,” equally “willing totake unpopular actions and positions, one who would notbe intimidated by the navy brass and who would bringabout needed reform.”19 His arrival would have importanteffects on British foreign policy. As his naval adviser Churchill secured the retiredAdmiral “Jacky” Fisher, a seasoned professional known forfree and radical thinking.20 Their task was not for the timid.The Royal Navy desperately needed an effective war staff“to prepare for an attack by Germany as if it might comethe next day”; and there was still a need for more andcapital warships.21

Churchill replaced the aging, ineffective First Sea Lord,Sir Arthur Wilson, with Prince Louis of Battenberg, who >>


Historians often examine the climactic years of a great career,leaving the adjoining years relatively unconsidered. Churchillis a good example: while many accounts exist of his role inthe two World Wars, his early career is the subject of far fewerbooks. (For latest, see the review of Young Titan on page 51.)

knew staff organization after forty years in high naval com-mands.22 Battenberg would leave in October 1914 overprejudice against his Germanic name, and Churchill wouldappoint Fisher in his place. By the time he was done,Churchill had transformed a hodge-podge of quarrelingadmirals into a set of leaders fully prepared for war. Recognizing the need to stay ahead of Germany,Churchill began planning a new class of super-dread-noughts, their steam turbines fired by oil instead of coal,powerful ships that were better gunned, faster and moremaneuverable. Speed was essential, Fisher told him, notonly for running battles but for quick deployment, so as tocommand events. A rapid deployment to its Scottish sta-tions in the event of war, as Churchill explained to LloydGeorge, would make the navy

at once the most effective & least provocative support toFrance, & a real security for this country. It is not forMorocco, nor indeed for Belgium, that I w[oul]d take part inthis terrible business. One cause alone c[oul]d justify our par-ticipation [in a war with Germany]—to prevent France frombeing trampled down & looted by the Prussian junkers—adisaster ruinous to the world, & swiftly fatal to our country.23

Churchill’s actions inevitably moved Britain from herearlier stance of effective isolation to a far more activeforeign policy. He wanted a firm relationship with Franceand a leadership role in Europe, which he deemed vital inkeeping Germany in check. This was a far more ambitiousforeign policy than ever before. In a crisis, shifting the fleetto Scottish waters would strengthen the bond with France,leaving the French navy to protect the Mediterranean.Deploying to Scapa Flow was, of course, exactly whatChurchill ordered on the eve of war in August 1914. Another area that drew Churchill’s penetrating gaze wasBritain’s spy system. Specifically, he wrote the charter for anintelligence organization whose sole purpose was to observeand track Germany’s technological advances—the NavalIntelligence Division.24 This enabled the First Lord to keeptrack of the German fleet’s movements. Churchilldemanded daily updates, which were duly marked on ahuge map behind his desk.25 Churchill was meanwhile keptinformed of German spies in Britain, the N.I.D. not hesi-tating to open the mail of suspects.26

An omnipresent administrator, the First Lord stagedunscheduled inspections, reviewed war plans, economizedwhere possible, and generally girded the Royal Navy forwar. The complaint most often voiced by underlings at theAdmiralty was his attention to detail—“micro-managing,”today’s critics would call it. He frequently made surpriseappearances on ships, infuriating officers by criticizingeverything from operations to the buttons on a sailor’suniform. A 13 November 1911 letter to the Fourth Sea

Lord, Charles Madden, gave specific instructions on howto deal with deficiencies in torpedoes, guns, mines, smallarms ammunition and automatic pistols.27 Madden wasoutraged, but benefited from the advice.

The Unrelenting Buildup In announcing his naval program for 1912, Churchillwas blunt: “Our naval preparations are necessarily basedupon the naval preparation of other Powers. It would beaffectation—and quite a futile kind of affectation—topretend that the sudden and rapid growth of the Germannavy is not the main factor in our determination whether inregard to expenditure or new construction.”28 In otherwords, the Royal Navy’s growth was necessary, whateverthe expense or the number of ships needed. In March 1912, Churchill drafted a memorandum forthe Cabinet and King, anticipating German intentions. The1900 German Naval Law, he argued, had “practically


Above: Ships of the German High Seas Fleet, whose numbers, activitiesand dispositions made the Admiralty nervous from 1911. Below L-R:

Impressed by WSC’s verve, Prime Minister Asquith offered Churchill theAdmiralty; WSC named Prince Louis of Battenberg his First Sea Lord.

Isolation to Engagement...

amounted to putting about four-fifths of the German Navypermanently on a war footing.”29 His arguments carried theCabinet and Parliament. The foreign policy implicit inChurchill’s argument was defensive in its design to protectBritain, but offensive in calling for a much larger navy. A major advance in 1912 was in aviation. Seeing aircraftas the technology of the future, the First Lord became apowerful advocate for military aviation, creating the RoyalNaval Air Service and advocating a Royal Flying Corps. Hecontinued to press for increased naval aviation over the nexttwo years.30

March 1913 found the navy still short of men, funds,and aircraft, while ship construction was lagging.31 NowChurchill began to plan as far ahead as 1920, starting plan-ning for twenty new capital ships and further expanding theRoyal Naval Air Service. He lobbied hard with the govern-ment, telling Asquith, “...we cannot afford to allow moretime to slip away.” By 1914, his persistence had paid off

with the evolution of an air policy, which later includedprovisions for the first aircraft carrier.32 The cost was over£50 million, the largest increase in naval estimates to date.33

Remarking on these strenuous efforts some, includingrecently Pat Buehanan (FH 149: 13) have accused Churchillof being dead-set on war. Anything but: in April 1913, evenbefore the new naval building program had begun,Churchill proposed to his opposite number, Admiral Alfredvon Tirpitz, a “Naval Holiday”—a one-year moratorium onAnglo-German naval construction as a means to ease thearms buildup. It was a major venture into foreign policy. Tirpitz refused, perhaps because Churhcill had called hisfleet a “luxury,” perhaps because he thought a moratoriumwould benefit Britain more than Germany. Churchillresponded by arming merchant ships, constructing new oildepots, expanding naval facilities in the Mediterranean, anddeveloping wireless communications.34 Late in 1913, hespoke of his determination to maintain Britain’s advantage:

His Majesty’s Government will embrace and will work forevery opportunity of abating the competition in naval andmilitary armaments which is the bane and the reproach ofmodern Europe. (Cheers.) But what is necessary has got to bedone, and we shall not hesitate for a moment, once we aresatisfied of the need, to go to Parliament boldly for those sup-plies of men and money which the House of Commons,whatever its party complexion, has never refused to vote inliving memory for the vital services of the State.35

For the first half of 1914, Churchill demanded furtherincreases in the Admiralty’s budget. Although he did notrealize it at the time, this would be his last opportunity toprepare for war. He succeeded: by early 1914, the combinedHome Fleet had swollen to twenty-two dreadnoughts andfourteen modern battlecruisers, with twenty-three older bat-tleships and 160 cruisers and destroyers in reserve.36

Still Churchill felt the number of ships was not enough,calling for an increase of £4 million, raising the 1915 esti-mates to £53 million, telling the House that by 1920,“Germany will have 108,000 men in the Navy….I do notwish to prejudge the future but, while this continues, it isobvious that a large increase will be required from us.”37

Subsequently, Churchill rejected the “Two-PowerStandard,” the old rule-of-thumb that the Royal Navy mustbe able to defeat the next two naval powers combined. Itwas obsolete, he said, since it was impossible to decide whatother nation’s small navy would combine with Germany’s,the second largest in the world. It made more sense to con-sider Germany the only concern, with a plan of building at“the rate of two keels to one….”38

One of Churchill’s final preparations before the war wasto revise the Royal Navy’s training in tactics: “In May 1914,to redress the lack of schooling received by naval officers,Churchill issued a detailed memorandum on military edu-cation and training of future staff officers. The practice >>


Above L-R: Ships of the Second Battle Squadron, circa 1914, King

George v, Thunderer, Monarch, Conqueror. Below: Fiery old Admiral JackyFisher became WSC’s confidante and alter ego, eventually his FirstSea Lord, and later his downfall. (All photos: Wikimedia Commons)

of sitting on one’s laurels was over.” He also encouragedexpansion of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich where,since 1873, officers had been trained and educated.39

At the Precipice Fifty-nine battleships were completing a naval review atPortsmouth when news broke of Austria’s ultimatum toSerbia, the first fatal step toward war. Battenberg at onceissued orders for the fleet not to disperse, which Churchillconfirmed the next day, though it was not until 29 July thatthe Cabinet authorized the navy’s preparations.40

Churchill did not want war, but he was prepared for it.As uncertainty continued, he told Lloyd George that GreatBritain should stay neutral unless Germany violated Belgianneutrality.41 By the time that happened, the Royal Navy wason its way to its war station at Scapa Flow. Largely because of Churchill’s tenure at the Admiralty,British foreign policy had changed dramatically. During thelate 19th century, from Gladstone to Campbell-Bannerman,Britain had generally practiced isolationism. Through

friendly gestures toward Germany under Salisbury andBalfour, the UK seemed to acknowledge Germany’sincreased presence. But once the German High Seas Fleetappeared to threaten the dominance of the Royal Navy, atti-tudes changed. It could be argued that Churchill’s actionswere only in response to political developments; neverthe-less, none of his predecessors had possessed the “imaginativepower and vitality” that Asquith had noticed. In expanding the reach and power of the navy, Churchillinevitably prepared Britain for war with Germany. In doingso, he helped change the Cabinet’s disposition towardGermany, which in turn saw Britain take a far more activerole in Europe. Churchill made it clear that Germany wouldnot threaten or bully Britain, and largely through hisefforts, British foreign policy became outward looking andinternationally motivated. It was the greatest shift in Britishforeign policy since the Crimean War. Churchill was not the only contributor to these develop-ments, and the transition from isolationism to closeinvolvement did not occur overnight. But the change inpolicy was critical because it influenced how the war wouldplay out, and prefigured the role Britain would play in the20th century. ,


Isonaliton to Engagement...

1. Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples,vol. 4, The Great Democracies (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1958), 282. 2. Paul Knaplund, Gladstone's Foreign Policy (London: Frank Cass,1970), 88. 3. Bernard Porter, The Lion's Share: A Short History of BritishImperialism, 1850-2004 (London: Pearson Longman, 2004), 106. 4. Porter, The Lion's Share, 106. 5. C.J. Lowe, The Reluctant Imperialists: British Foreign Policy1878-1902 (London: Macmillan, 1967), 166. 6. Ibid. 7. Porter, The Lion's Share, 110. 8. Lowe, The Reluctant Imperialists, 174-76. 9. Ibid., 167. 10. J.A.S. Grenville, Lord Salisbury and Foreign Policy: The Close ofthe Nineteenth Century (London: Athlone Press, 1970), 131. 11. Ibid., 132-34. 12. Ibid., 136. 13. Arthur Herman, To Rule the Waves: How the British NavyShaped the Modern World (New York: Harper Perennial, 2005), 484. 14. Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (New York: Holt, 1991), 201. 15. Carlo D'Este, Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War,1874-1945 (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 176. 16. Churchill actually submitted plans to the Committee of ImperialDefence for the possible invasion of Germany; see D'Este, Warlord, 178-79.For the defence of the London magazine see Martin Gilbert, Churchill’sLondon (New Hampshire: International Churchill Society, 1987). 17. Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 2 YoungStatesman 1901-1914 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967), 512-13. 18. Ted Morgan, Churchill: Young Man in a Hurry 1874-1915(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), 313. 19. D'Este, Warlord, 183. 20. Herman, To Rule the Waves, 486.

21. Gilbert, Churchill: A Life, 241. 22. Morgan, Young Man in a Hurry, 319. 23. WSC to Lloyd George, 31 August 1911, in Randolph S.Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, Companion Volume II, Part 2(London: Heinemann, 1969), 1119. 24. Herman, To Rule the Waves, 487. It would later serve as a modelfor other British intelligence services. 25. D'Este, Warlord, 186. 26. Morgan, Young Man in a Hurry, 323. 27. Randolph S. Churchill, Companion. Vol. 2: Part 2, 1333-34. 28. Winston S. Churchill, “Naval Defence,” in Robert RhodesJames, ed., Winston S. Churchill, His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, 8vols. (New York: Bowker, 1974), II 1892. The text uses the word “affec-tion,” but we believe Churchill said “affectation.” 29. Morgan, Young Man in a Hurry, 547. 30. Morgan, Young Man in a Hurry, 341. 31. Winston S. Churchill, “Navy Estimates,” speech of 31 March1913, House of Commons, in Rhodes James, Complete Speeches II2094-2109. 32. Herman, To Rule the Waves, 487. 33. Ibid., 489. 34. Gilbert, Churchill: A Life, 253. 35. Winston S. Churchill, “Naval Developments,” Lord Mayor’sBanquet, Guildhall, in Rhodes James, Complete Speeches, II 2182-84. 36. Herman, To Rule the Waves, 487. 37. Winston S. Churchill, “Navy Estimates,” House of Commons,17 March 1914 in Rhodes James, Complete Speeches, III 2233-62. 38. Ibid., 2246-47, 2254. 39. D'Este, Warlord, 204. 40. Joll and Martel, Origins of the First World War (Harlow, UK:Pearson Longman, 2007), 127-28. 41. Morgan, Young Man in a Hurry, 393.

Endnotes

In “FDR’s and WSC’s BahamianRamblings” (FH 145: 18), we specu-lated on whether Churchill ever vis-

ited Eleuthera, the long, crescent-shapedisland fifty miles east of Nassau thatserves as FH’s winter office.

The answer—much to the disap-pointment of us island residents—is no.

Readers will recall that we were in-formed of a photograph of Sir Winstonand Lord Beaverbrook, allegedlysnapped at Gun Point, the beautiful ex-Beaverbrook house on the northern tipof Eleuthera; but we were unable toarrange a visit to see the photo itself.

Max Beaverbrook built Gun Pointin 1943-44 (not after World War II asearlier reported), supposedly on landpresented to him by the Crown inthanks for his role as Minister of AircraftProduction early in the war. Churchill’sopportunities to visit there were limited.The most likely time was 1953, when hewas Beaverbrook’s guest in Jamaica andasked about visiting “Barbados.” Hecould have meant “Bahamas,” a 400-mile flight for Beaverbrook’s privateplane—but the Churchill Archives Cen-

tre found nothing to indicate that hestrayed from Jamaica.

Last February, by kind courtesy ofthe caretaker, we did get to tour GunPoint, which was extensively rebuilt afterHurricane Andrew in 1992. It is a re-markable house, built of sturdy Abacopine and crammed with historic photosfrom early days in The Bahamas.

The subject photo is affixed to awall and cannot be removed, but wewere able to take a passable photograph.It bears the legend, “Lord Beaverbrookand Sir Winston Churchill at Gun PointEleuthera sometime after World War II.”

Immediately I knew I had seen thisphoto before. Back in New Hampshire,my library produced it within A.J.P. Tay-lor’s biography of Beaverbrook; it isprobably also in some Churchill books.

Taylor’s caption reads: “WithChurchill at Cap d’Ail, 1958.” Cap d’Ailis of course the location of La Cap-poncina, Beaverbrook’s villa in the southof France, which Churchill visited sev-eral times in the Fifties.

So which location is the right one? Jane Ford, chief executive at the

Beaverbrook Foundation in London,came to our rescue, proving that thevenue is definitely Cap d’Ail:

“In my database,” she wrote, “I havefound two other photographs ofChurchill and Beaverbrook taken at thesame time as the picture in question,both labelled ‘1958 LB and Churchill atLa Capponcina.’

“Another photograph on file showsthe same archway that is in the back-ground of the picture you found, at adifferent angle, and clearly shows that itis La Capponcina, even down to thesimilar foliage!”

Eleutherans, alas, will have to besatisfied with knowing that Rooseveltcame closer to our island than Churchill.On 13 December 1940, FDR’s navalvessel moored off Miller’s Anchorage tomeet the Duke of Windsor, governor ofThe Bahamas, though the President didnot go ashore. But the closest Churchillcame was fifty miles away in Nassau,during his recuperation from his NewYork traffic accident in 1932. RML ,


H I S TO RY D E T E C T I V E S

no, he never Made it

to Eleuthera

invEiGhinG

wE wiLL GoRICHARD M. LANGWORTH

C U R R E N T C O N T E N T I O N S

Many readers say they like to read ourrebuttals to ignorance, bias, nonsense and

exaggeration in the media. This is anamusing part of our work, and a lot goes on

that you never see, for we don’t want tobore you with it. However, with some hesi-

tation, we offer the following for youramusement or forgiveness.

“Redeeming Racism: ForgivingWinston Churchill, ThomasJefferson” by Dr. Suyneel Dhand,International Business Times, 11 December 2012http://bit.ly/SUVLTT

Dear Editor: Dr. Dhand should be less smug andgratuitous in forgiving Churchill’s“racism,” since his understanding issuperficial and his accusations smack ofwhat William Manchester called “gener-ational chauvinism.” Churchill for his time was not aracist, although he could say startlingthings about Asians and Africans onoccasion. His oft-quoted remark, “I hateIndians,” in response to disputatiousbureaucracy in Delhi in the midst of abattle for survival, was ably described byone of our speakers: “I have no doubtthat the famous gleam came to his eyeswhen he said this, with mischievousglee—an offense, in modern conven-tion, of genocidal magnitude.” Churchill hated Indians? His earlybooks are filled with accounts of thebravery and steadfastness of Indiantroops, particularly Sikhs, whom heardently admired. As Geoffrey Bestwrote, Churchill did share the convic-tion of his era that white Westernerswere the most advanced peoples. Butthat belief was tempered by a funda-mental fairness that led him to defendnon-white subjects as early as 1899,when he took issue with the violentracism of his Boer captors at Pretoria; or

1906, when from the Colonial Office hedefended the rights of the Indianminority in South Africa. Churchill did have a tic about theearly Indian independence movement,with its Brahmin roots. Yet after theIndia Act had passed, in 1935, hedeclared that Gandhi had “gone veryhigh in my esteem since he stood up forthe Untouchables,” and sent Gandhiencouragement through G.D. Birla, amutual Indian friend, who lunched atChartwell. Gandhi replied: “I have got agood recollection of Mr. Churchill whenhe was in the Colonial Office andsomehow or other since then I have heldthe opinion that I can always rely on hissympathy and goodwill.” There was also his famous regard forNehru, whom Churchill called “theLight of Asia,” after he learned that heand Nehru were both Harrow Old Boys. Churchill’s generally positive viewstoward India are still relevant to certainIndians who have written in our pages.As one of them, Inder Dan Ratnu, putit, the Axis Powers had quite differentideas in mind for India than the oldBritish Raj. Winston Churchill is simply noteasy to pigeonhole. He thought moredeeply on these issues than most politi-cians, indeed most contemporaries. Sodid Thomas Jefferson, whom Dr.Dhand also forgives. As Paul Addisonwrote, “It is rare to discover in thearchives the reflections of a politician onthe nature of man.”

“Winston Churchill’s Portrayal of theIndian Army in the Second WorldWar” by Catherine Wilson, Mars & Clio, Autumn 2012British Commission for MilitaryHistory, www.bcmh.org.uk/index.phpwww.bcmh.org.uk/members/newsletter/M&C35.pdf

To: Dr. Matthew Ford, Editor Without professing any expertise inthe Indian Army, I do have some ordi-nary layman’s questions aboutCatherine Wilson’s “Casting a LongShadow: Winston Churchill’s Portrayalof the Indian Army in the SecondWorld War” (M&C 35, Autumn 2012,http://bit.ly/Xqz37G): “Churchill...narrated how, duringthe First World War, ‘the steadfastIndian Corps in the cruel winter of1914, held the line by Armentieres.’ “In reality, Indian troops had servedwith distinction not only in the trenchesof Northern France but also inMesopotamia and each of the majortheatres of the First World War. Theseed of Churchill’s low opinion ofIndian troops had been sown....” Are we to infer that because hewrote of Indian troops’ steadfastness atArmentieres, but not elsewhere, he hada low opinion of them? “...in 1939, Churchill...recom-mended that the ‘only way in which ourforces in France can be rapidly expandedis by bringing the professional troopsfrom India, and using them as the core


upon which the Territorials andConscripts will form.’ “What Churchill alluded to was thatit was the British officers of the IndianArmy, and not the Indian officers, whowere the professional soldiers. In onesentence he had cast aspersions aboutthe nature, ability and professionalismof the small number of Indian Officersthat existed, let alone the lower Indianranks.” One fails to see the aspersions, buthow does Ms. Wilson know to whomhe was alluding? “Judging Churchill’s racism bytwenty-first century standards is mis-matched, especially as it was thenbolstered by spurious eugenic theory,but it was also a view that was shared,albeit to varying degrees, by themajority of his contemporaries.” Churchill’s brief (pre-Great War)fling with eugenics hardly applies toWorld War II, but Ms. Wilson is cer-tainly right about judging past figures intoday’s light. Yet her article goes on atgreat length over Churchill’s “racism,”which rather spoils the point.

***** There followed a summary ofChurchill’s statements to Birla, Gandhi,Nehru, and his “shock” outburst abouthating Indians, as per our letter to theInternational Business Times. Mars & Clio is a curious journal,seemingly reserved only for members ofthe British Commission for MilitaryHistory; they seemed a bit miffed thatoutsiders had accessed their article site(we were tipped off ). So the URLaddresses cited above may not workwhen you search on the web. The author replied at length—sogreat a length that we were unable to getthrough it. A copy of her reply is avail-able from the editor by email. However, for a “fair and balanced,”well-crafted appraisal of Churchill andthe Indian Army, which is anything butuncritical of WSC, see Raymond A.Callahan, “The Leader as Imperialist:Churchill and the King’s Other Army,”Finest Hour 158: 25-27. ,


A RT I C L E A B S T R AC T S

“‘A Long, Slow and Painful Road’: The Anglo-American Alliance and theIssue of Cooperation with the USSR from Teheran to D-Day,” by MartinH. Folly, Diplomacy & Statecraft 23:3, 2012, 471-92.

The Anglo–American allianceduring World War II became

less cohesive on the politicalside than the military. By 1944there were widening divergencesbetween Britain and the U.S.over how to cooperate with theSoviets. Though they sharedassumptions about the motiva-tions of Soviet goals, British andAmerican policymakers not onlyformulated different approaches,they consistently viewed theirs

as more successful than those of their ally. There was an opportunity tocoordinate policies during the visit to London of American Undersecretaryof State Edward Stettinius in April 1944; but the issue was barely dis-cussed, which is symptomatic of the situation. The British Foreign Office,with the backing of Winston Churchill, wished to forge ahead with prag-matic arrangements with the Russians. Self-satisfaction with their ownefforts on both sides meant that the British and American bureaucraciesmade no serious and sustained attempts to unify their outlook on theSoviets, in contrast to the closeness of cooperation in other areas.

*****“‘Winston Has Gone Mad’: Churchill, the British Admiralty and the Riseof Japanese Naval Power,” by John H. Maurer, Journal of Strategic

Studies 35:6, 2012, 775-97.

As Chancellor of the Exchequer during the late 1920s, Churchill was atthe center of British strategic decision-making about how to respond

to the naval challenge posed by Japan's rise as a rival sea power.Churchill downplayed the likelihood of war with Japan. The leadership ofthe Royal Navy disagreed: they saw Japan as a dangerous threat to thesecurity of the British Empire. Examining this dispute between Churchilland the Admiralty highlights the awkward political, economic, and strategictradeoffs confronting British leaders between the world wars. ,___________________________________________________________Dr. Capet is Professor of British Studies at the University of Rouen, France, and editor

of several collections on Britain’s 20th century diplomatic and military policy.

inside the Journals:

The soviets and JapanANTOINE CAPET

MOSCOW, 1942

125 yEARS AGOSummer 1888 • Age 13“Phenomenal Slovenliness”

Winston’s early enthusiasm forHarrow was not reciprocated by

the school. While he was allowed toreturn home for a visit in mid-July, hishousemaster, Henry Davidson, wrote tohis mother that “[H]e has not deservedit. I do not think, nor does Mr.Somerville, that he is in any way will-fully troublesome; but his forgetfulness,carelessness, unpunctuality, and irregu-larity in every way have really been soserious, that I write to ask you, when heis at home to speak very gravely to himon the subject.”

Davidsongave examples:the boy was“constantlylate for school”and frequently“losing hisbooks andpapers.” WhatfrustratedDavidsonabout young

Churchill was that “as far as ability goeshe ought to be at the top of his form,whereas he is at the bottom. Yet I do notthink he is idle; only his energy is fitful,and when he gets to his work it is gener-ally too late for him to do it well.…I dothink it very serious that he should haveacquired such phenomenal slovenli-ness.…He is a remarkable boy in manyways, and it would be a thousand pitiesif such good abilities were made uselessby habitual negligence.”

100 yEARS AGOSummer 1913 • Age 38“Not a bad performance”

Writing to his wife from theAdmiralty yacht Enchantress on

23 July, Churchill sent his love to “youmy sweet one and to both those littlekittens & especially that radiantRandolph.” Immediately thereafter, hewrote that “Diana is a darling too; & Irepent to have expressed a preference.”He closed the letter by telling his wife“you are vy precious to me and I rejoiceindeed to have won and kept your lovingheart. May it never cool towards me ismy prayer, and that I may deserve yourlove my resolve.” During August, Churchill becameinvolved in a protracted dispute with theKing over the names of new battleships.While the King approved Churchill’sproposed names of Hero, Agincourt andRaleigh, he vetoed Pitt and Ark Royal.His reasons for doing so were peculiar. His Private Secretary, FrederickPonsonby, explained on 3 August thatPitt was not “dignified” and that theship’s crew might give it “nicknames ofill-conditioned words rhyming with it.”As for Ark Royal, the King opposed itbecause it would eventually be known asthe Noah’s Ark.” Churchill was not persuaded andreplied the next day by sending the pasthistory of vessels named Pitt and ArkRoyal to Ponsonby, who replied just aspromptly that the King was “well aware”of the history but still disliked thenames. Two more longer letters fromChurchill followed, including one sug-gesting that “the custom” of seeking


MICHAEL McMENAMIN’S

Royal approval of the names of battle-ships “did not exist during the reign ofQueen Victoria, the King’s grand-mother.” The King remained obdurate. Churchill also took up more weightyissues, writing a lengthy memorandumon what would be required to determinethe War Fleet of 1920 (see ChristopherBeckvold’s article, page 36). This wassoon followed by another long memo-randum to Prime Minister Asquith on the“general question of British trade protec-tion in time of war.” Maintaining thatthe best naval strategy was a blockade ofGermany, WSC wished to eliminate thelong naval tradition of capturing anenemy vessel and distributing the valueof its cargo as “prize money” to sailors onthe British victor: “I see no reason whysailors at sea should do what it has longbeen considered dishonourable for sol-diers on land to do, viz. enrichthemselves by pillage.” Churchill pro-posed instead that in wartime all sailorsshould be given “a substantial quarterlybounty as compensation for the prizemoney they would have received.” Home Rule for Ireland was still causefor hot debate. In August, the House ofCommons was set to pass a Home RuleBill for the third time, which the Houseof Lords could no longer reject. Ulsterleader Edward Carson, supported byBonar Law and most Tories, was againthreatening civil war. Law urged the Kingto dissolve Parliament and order newelections, but Asquith believed the Kinghad no right to dismiss an electedmajority government. Since Churchill was about to visit theKing at Balmoral for a hunting holiday,Asquith deputized WSC orally to reit-erate Asquith’s recent memorandum tothe King on the “functions of aConstitutional Sovereign in regard to leg-islation,” emphasizing at the same timethat “an ungovernable Ireland is a muchmore serious prospect” than rioting infour Ulster counties. Churchill did sowith the King, and with Bonar Law, whowas also a guest at Balmoral. He also shotfour stags, “Not a bad performance,” hewrote to his wife, “for I have not fired ashot since last year.…I cd have shotmore—but refrained, not wishing tobecome a butcher.”

“I am sure that the crossing of thefrontier of Czecho-Slovakia by Germanarmies or aviation in force will bringabout a renewal of the world war. I amas certain as I was at the end of July1914 that England will march withFrance….Do not, I pray you, be misledupon this point. Such a war, oncestarted, would be fought out like the lastto the bitter end, and one must considernot what might happen in the first fewmonths but where we should all be atthe end of the third or fourth year.” Churchill sent a copy of the letterand notes of his meeting to Halifax, whoreplied: “I think, if I may say so, bothyour language in conversation and yourletter are most valuable.” Alas no Britishofficial ever made such a comparablepublic statement at any time. OnSeptember 15th, Neville Chamberlainannounced he was flying to meet Hitlerat Berchtesgaden.

50 yEARS AGOSummer 1963 • Age 88“A Great Pity”

Churchill took his last cruise on theOnassis yacht Christina in late

June, accompanied by his son Randolphand his grandson Winston, AnthonyMontague Browne, Jock Colville andtheir wives. He suffered another mildstroke on 12 August, which left himbedridden for the rest of the month. ToBeaverbrook on the 23rd, MontagueBrowne wrote that Churchill was doingmuch better mentally and that it was “agreat pity that his physical conditiondoes not march with it.” By earlySeptember, however, Churchill was upevery day and watching films afterdinner. On September 12th theChurchills marked their fifty-fifthwedding anniversary with Clementinewriting a note (“My darling Winston…Today we have been married 55 years”)which was waiting for him when heawoke that morning. ,


75 yEARS AGOSummer 1938 • Age 63“Between War and Shame”

Churchill’s mood leading up toMunich was summarized by his 13

August letter to Lloyd George:“Everything is overshadowed by theimpending trial of will-power which isdeveloping in Europe. I think we shallhave to choose in the next few weeksbetween war and shame, and I have verylittle doubt what the decision will be.” Though out of power, Churchill wasexerting every effort, publicly and pri-vately, to secure a positive outcome. Thegovernment was not. Hitler was watchingwith interest. He told General Keitel on18 June that he would take action againstCzechoslovakia only if he was “firmlyconvinced…that France will not march,and that therefore England will not inter-vene.” He was soon convinced. Churchill intuitively understoodHitler in a way that Chamberlain didnot. On 23 June in the Daily Telegraph,he wrote that a German attack on theCzechs would draw in help from France,Russia and Britain. He followed thatwith a 6 July article on “The Rape ofAustria,” documenting Germany’soppression of 300,000 Austrian Jews:“The tale of their tribulation spreadswidely throughout the world, and it isastonishing that the German rulers arenot more concerned at the tides ofabhorrence and anger which are risingceaselessly against them throughout theheavily-arming United States.” On 18 August he wrote optimisticallyof “a practical working compromise” togive “the Sudeten-German a free andequal chance with other races inside amore broadly based CzechoslovakRepublic.” But he also warned that “thetrampling down of Czechoslovakia by anoverwhelming force would change thewhole current of human ideas and wouldeventually draw upon the aggressor awrath which would in the end involve allthe greatest nations of the world.” Churchill conveyed his message tothe Nazis privately through the channelsavailable to him. One occasion was on 14

July, when he met with the NaziGauleiter of Danzig, Albert Foerster, andhis interpreter, Professor Ludwig Noe.Foerster assured Churchill that nobody inGermany was thinking of war and thatthe Nazis had “immense social and cul-tural plans which would take them yearsto work out.” Unconvinced, when Noewrote Churchill to thank him for theFoerster meeting, WSC reiterated themessage he had personally deliveredearlier to the Sudeten leader ConradHenlein: “I am quite certain that anycrossing of the Czechoslovakian frontierby German troops would lead to ageneral war. The French would certainlymarch and, in my opinion, Englandwould be drawn in. Such a war would bea most terrible catastrophe, as it wouldlast until all the great nations were utterlyruined and exhausted.” Unknown to Churchill at the time,Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of theAbwehr (German military intelligence)had conceived a plan to send a secretmessage to the British that the only wayto prevent war was to persuade Hitlerthat Britain would fight if Germanyinvaded Czechoslovakia. The envoychosen was an anti-Nazi lawyer, Ewaldvon Kleist-Schmenzin (hanged by Hitlerin 1945 in the wake of the Stauffenbergassassination plot), who was briefed per-sonally by General Beck, chief of theGerman General Staff. Beck told Kleist-Schmenzin that if he was assured Britainwould fight for Czechoslovakia, “I willbring about an end to this regime.” Kleist-Schmenzin travelled toEngland on a false passport provided byCanaris. Alerted by Nevile Henderson,British ambassador to Berlin, ForeignMinister Lord Halifax ordered that “nogovernment official should take the ini-tiative to see him.” But Robert Vansittartdid meet with Kleist-Schmenzin on 18August, as did Churchill the followingday at Chartwell. The secret envoy toldthem an attack on Czechoslovakia wasimminent, but that only Hitler wantedwar. The Army opposed it, but neededassurances that Britain and France wouldfight. With Halifax’s acquiescence,Churchill wrote a letter entitled “DearSir,” to protect the German’s identity:

Literature’s long-standing, obsessiveself-absorption by authors hascrept into the book review game.

Few reviewers seem able to write areview of this book without resorting tothe first person singular: I knew theauthor personally, watched him sufferfrom writer’s block; tried to help, etc.,etc., ad nauseam. An egregious examplewas Deborah Baker’s review in the WallStreet Journal, barely ten percent ofwhich was about the book. The rest wasa memoir of her personal relationshipwith “Bill” Manchester. Why should Manchester matter? Hewrote two volumes on Churchill; then,over a longue durée, he compiled fright-fully disorganized notes in preparationfor the third and final volume, thensadly died. Why depend on his outdatednotes and inadequate research, or followhis arrogant injunctions against so-calledacademic histories? What Paul Reid haswritten is his book, whatever therampant rumors of restrictions by theManchester estate. Reid’s narrative skills are obvious.At his best he is succinct and enlight-ening; other times, he rambles on aboutdetails that matter little to the bigpicture. Does naming British regiments(the King’s this or the Queen’s that or,even sillier, the 2nd Sherwood Foresters

The slings and arrows of inaccuratehistory are best left to the sharp andspot-on ripostes found in the ChurchillCentre web page, “Leading ChurchillMyths.” Reid, ostensibly aloof fromsuch debates, does a nice job ofaddressing them, without, curiously,mentioning the arguments. (How everdid he know about them withoutreading recent studies?) Some examples: Reid argues persua-sively that Churchill, wisely, convincedRoosevelt that an invasion of westernEurope could not work in 1942 or even,perhaps, 1943. To determine Churchill’scommitment to OVERLORD requiresgathering bits and pieces throughout thebook. But overall, Reid concludes thatChurchill believed in OVERLORD onlyif Germany was “on the ropes” becauseof the Red Army, the RAF, and thesuccess of the Italian campaign. In January 1943, during theCasablanca talks, Churchill went for awalk on the beach with his bodyguard.Taking a shortcut, they ended upoutside the perimeter wire. WhenChurchill tried to step over, rifle cham-bers clicked, voices called HALT, and thebodyguard yelled, “It’s Churchill.” Toquote Reid, “the soldiers lowered theirweapons, cursing at having almost shotat the prime minister, and cursing the


The Last of The Last Lion

W A R R E N F . K I M B A L L

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________Prof. Kimball edited the Churchill-Roosevelt correspondence and is the author of several books about those figures and World War II. We wish to note that this review differs from more general reviews in the popular press by requiring the broader knowledge of Churchill which most FH readers possess.

A nicE cRuisE Down A LEnGThy RivERyou’vE sAiLED BEFoRE

The Last Lion, vol. 3, Defender of theRealm 1940-1965, by Paul Reid andWilliam Manchester. Little Brown,hardbound, illus., 1232 pages, $40,

member price $32.

or various Hussars) really matter? Nazireactions are exaggerated. Josef Goebbels’diary seems quoted almost as often asChurchill’s war memoirs. Battle detailsare laid out like case studies at Sandhurst. For the most part, this is a narrativeabout the Second World War—withWinston Churchill playing the leadrole—a war that always threatens tooverwhelm the narrative. Martin Gilberthas already given us a meticulous, good-to-the-last-detail chronology ofChurchill during WW2 (cited less fre-quently than I expected). We have manybroad surveys of the war viewed fromthe top. What does this book add?

prime minister for almost forcing theirhand” (623-24). That irrepressible and irresponsibleconfidence was in many ways theessence of Churchill—and is how PaulReid depicts his protagonist. WSC’soverriding obsession, his unwaveringfocus, was on the defeat of Hitler’sGermany. Yet victory was not the onlyhigh stake, albeit the necessary first step. Reid generally fails to note the long-term effects of Churchill’s blinkeredfocus, but the point comes home withundeveloped throw-away lines: “Thetopic, for the first time [March 1943]during his premiership, was the postwarworld” (652). The first time? Whateverthe lack of leverage available to anyBritish leader then or later, not to thinkseriously and persistently about thepurpose of victory is self-defeating. Asindeed it proved for Churchill. Of course the inconvenient postwaruncertainties would not go away. Reid’sdescriptions of the all-importantwartime summit meetings, which sodetermined the makeup of the postwarworld, are deft if sketchy. They createthe mood and some of the details.Excerpted and printed together theywould provide a readable and valuableprimer on summitry. Reid summarizes the Second Frontdiscussions at Teheran in pithy fashion:“Roosevelt had given Stalin an opening,and the marshal had marched rightthrough” (757)—a clever but misleadingphrase. Of course Stalin wanted theAnglo-Americans to fulfill their promiseof a cross-Channel invasion. Reid specu-lates that the dismissal of a Balkan“thrust,” Churchill’s unworkable notionof an invasion though the so-calledLjubljana gap, which FDR threw out asa sacrificial lamb, indicated that Stalinhad a political strategy regarding EasternEurope. Wow! Some surprise. True, FDR left it up to Stalin tochoose which “second” front, and“Uncle Joe” did just what Rooseveltexpected—insisted on the cross-Channelattack. Why did FDR do that? Becausehe believed the only hope, short or mid-term, for Eastern Europe was a SovietUnion that felt secure. Reid describes

the late night, private offer to Stalin tomove the Polish-German boundarywestward, quoting Churchill: “If Polandtrod on some German toes, that couldnot be helped....Boundaries were drawnby the strong.” This may be accurate.but leaves Churchill as willing to recog-nize Soviet territorial expansion (760).

“sought no financial gain; Roosevelt did.Churchill sought no territorial gain;Stalin did” (812). That’s a cleverdefense, which doesn’t add thatChurchill’s efforts to preserve theEmpire were beyond his grasp. Is polit-ical gain somehow more admirable andless selfish? Coverage of the remarkably revealingTOLSTOY talks in Moscow (Autumn1944) between Churchill and Stalin(878-81) is oddly inadequate. Nomention is made of the ugly banterbetween Stalin and Churchill about thePoles; no mention of Stalin’s support fora harsh peace imposed on Germany(later denied by Moscow); no mentionof the extraordinary discussions betweenMolotov and Eden, who tried to spellout the details of the percentages deal.Are details of battles more important? With Averell Harriman absent fromthe first of the TOLSTOY talks, Reidconsiders that Roosevelt did not under-stand the “spheres of influence” dealthat Churchill was making with Stalin.This ignores the clarity of Harriman’sreports to FDR. Harriman knew whathis two allies were doing, and providedaccurate though not detailed informa-tion to the White House. (Perhaps alook at the volumes of Foreign Relationsof the United States, not cited any-where, would have filled in that blank.) Reid wonderfully suggests whatStalin was thinking (here and in othersituations), without indicating anyknowledge of recent or current Russianscholarship from the Soviet-era archives.Mention of Churchill’s support for con-cessions to Russia in the Far East (aprecursor to the much-criticized FarEastern Protocol agreed to by Stalin andFDR at Yalta) is missing. Reid does drive home a key point—by the time the talks had ended,Churchill could no longer support theexiled Polish government in London,which was unwilling to make any com-promises on territorial disputes.Sounding like FDR, the Prime Ministertold the House of Commons that “thefuture depends upon the union of ourthree countries [UK, Russia, USA]. Ifthat fails, all fails” (881). >>


,

“Paul Reid has not

written a biography, but

rather an old-style ‘life

and times’ narrative

with guns and bullets,

political conniving, oft-

repeated (but worth

repeating) anecdotes,

lovely touches of the

personal, and the most

important asset—a

hero…who, flawed

though he was,

remains a hero.”

Does Reid present Teheran as whatit was, the most formative of thewartime conferences? No, but he doescatch the essence of Churchill’sinstincts: “With a growing awarenessof his diminishing role within thealliance, Churchill departed Teheranfully intending to find the right wayhome. As always, the path led throughthe Mediterranean” (771). SoAmerican suspicions were on themark. In Reid’s words, Churchill

Summing up the Teheran confer-ence, Reid creates one poignant andamusing image (such “creations” pop upfrequently). After noting that FDRintended to bring American forces backto prepare for a massive invasion ofJapan, Reid has Eden and Churchillgazing “across the Channel,” realizing“that Roosevelt’s decision would leave inEurope an undermanned and ill-equipped French army of barely eightdivisions, an exhausted British army,and the Red Army.” Reid’s imagining may be accurate,but it cries out for context. The RedArmy was huge, but also war-weary.Soviet-era documents show that Stalinhad no plans for military expansion intowestern Europe. In fact, in autumn1944, Stalin was still hoping for a coop-erative relationship with the West, albeitone that left Russia in control of whatbecame the Soviet empire. Historianswho rely on old Cold War histories canbe overpowered by old Cold War fears. Yalta, quite properly, gets less cov-erage than Teheran. The analyses ofChurchill’s apparently inconsistentviews about Stalin and the Soviet Unionare incisive and insightful—worthy of afull review in themselves. I do not havespace here to describe the way in whichthe minor roles played by Charles deGaulle and France get far more atten-tion than they deserve. Sometimes a throw-away line needselaboration. One is Reid’s astonishinganalysis of Heinrich Himmler’s proposalto a Swedish diplomat at war’s end thatthe Germans surrender to the Anglo-

Americans in the west while continuingto battle the Russians until the Alliesand Eisenhower could take up thestruggle against the Bolsheviks—“anastoundingly naive yet not unsoundconcept” (915). Not unsound? Go tobed with the Nazis to achieve what? In the same vein, Reid makes muchof Ike’s reassurances to the Russians thatthe Allied armies would withdraw some140 miles to the zones agreed upon atYalta, ominously writing that in April1945, Churchill was “as yet unaware ofEisenhower’s pledge.” Wasn’t Churchillat Yalta? If the time had come to con-front the Soviet Union, what was thereto prevent the Soviets from swingingaround north of Berlin and “liberating”Denmark and northwestern Germany? Once Churchill leaves office late inJuly 1945, the narrative takes off like arace-horse heading for the finish.During his five years back in the wilder-ness, he “sent into battle” (Reid’sphrase) more than 200 speechesattacking Attlee, the Labour Party andsocialism, defending the Empire andsupporting his version of Europeanunity (“We are with them, but not ofthem”). If this was a “battle” worthy ofthe Last Lion, it is not debated. ButChurchill’s out-of-office style promptsReid to raise a verbal eyebrow: “Whetherhe was in gentlemanly form was not ofany concern to him.” That hints at ananswer to oft-asked questions aboutseeming inconsistencies in Churchill’scontroversial positions throughout hiscareer: high office can, and should,bring out the best in a statesman. The entire book suffers from “his-torical isolationism”: the failure or

refusal to consult the vast body of his-torical works, something even moreapparent for the postwar years.Eisenhower’s diaries would havedivulged the reasons for Ike’s angry, dis-missive reaction to Churchill’s 1953-55proposals for a summit; Klaus Larres’Churchill’s Cold War would haveoffered a far deeper exploration ofChurchill’s thinking on atomic andthermonuclear weapons. Reid missed awonderful opportunity to make correc-tions to Churchill’s war memoirs,ignoring David Reynolds’ definitiveaccount of writing those memoirs, InCommand of History, published eightyears before Defender of the Realm.Whatever the reasons, the truncated,high-speed treatment of Churchill’s finalministry is a disappointment. Reid isright to claim that Churchill’s search fordetente during his second premiershipfound him at his most heroic; but thatheroism is not apparent from the speed-dialed postwar narrative. So what is this book all about? Reidadmires Churchill but recognizes him asa “flawed giant.” There are explanationsfor mistakes, but few acceptable to Reid.An honest report that the British Navyfailed to rescue German sailors from thesunken Bismarck, while the Luftwaffekilled defenseless British sailors trying toswim to safety during the battle ofCrete, prompts a sad but prescientobservation: “both sides, it appeared,had jettisoned any pretense to gentle-manly rules of engagement” (364). Recounting the loss of HMS Repulseand Prince of Wales in December 1941,Reid scoffs at Churchill’s excuse:“chance played so fatal a part.” Chance,adds Reid, “was aided and abetted byChurchill adhering too long to hisnotions of battlewagons and theirmythic prowess” (437). He deftlydescribes Churchill’s failure to under-stand the vastness of the Pacific (less of aself-inflicted wound than Hitler’s igno-rance of the vastness of Russia). Churchillians will wriggle withdelight at Reid’s literate and emphaticdiscourse on Churchill as both defenderof the Empire and of democracy; andsquirm in discomfort reading Reid’s col-


The Last of The Last Lion...

“That irrepressible and irresponsible

confidence was, in many ways, the essence of

Churchill—and is how Paul Reid depicts his

protagonist. Churchill’s overriding obsession,

his unwavering focus, was on the defeat of

Hitler’s Germany. Yet victory was not the only

high stake, albeit the necessary first step. “

lection of ethnic and racial slurs. A dis-cussion of racial tensions among blackand white Americans stationed inEngland leads to a brief but pungentdescription of British and Churchill’sracial attitudes. Whatever the examplesof a general, if benign, British atti-tude—Frogs, Wops, Japs…foul, nasty,filthy and wretched—the most revealingcomment is that of Churchill in the1950s when he proposed that England’snational motto be “Keep EnglandWhite.” In the spirit of the non-judg-mental chronicler, Reid simply reportsthe statement and passes on (573). But let us not be generationallychauvinist (Manchester’s term): thissame Churchill condemned as repug-nant the U.S. Army’s insistence that theBritish accept segregation of blackAmerican military personnel in Britain. Paul Reid has not written a biog-raphy, but rather an old-style “life andtimes” narrative with guns and bullets,political conniving, oft-repeated (butworth repeating) anecdotes, lovelytouches of the personal, and the mostimportant asset—a hero. It is a nice

cruise down a rather lengthy river thatyou’ve sailed before. There is nothingnew or exciting; it is reassuring ratherthan challenging. Still, it is a lovely andliterate view of familiar territory thatmassages old stories, nurtures legends,and points gently to miscalculations andmistakes of the hero—who, flawedthough he was, remains a hero. Reid chose, or was forced, topretend ignorance of the dogged effortsof a multitude of academics who, in the

last four decades, pushed forward thefrontiers of scholarship and intellectualinquiry into the history of the SecondWorld War. Not only is his historicalisolationism rude; it is a shame, particu-larly since he is a superb writer. Hemakes a familiar history come alive,though you’ll have to manage a hugecargo of extraneous material in a bookthis long (with strikingly narrowmargins), that takes Churchill only from1940 until his death. ,


“Once Churchill leaves office late in July

1945, the narrative takes off like a

race-horse heading for the finish….

Reid is right to claim that Churchill’s

search for detente during his second

premiership found him at his most heroic;

but that heroism is not apparent from

the speed-dialed postwar narrative.”

Rethinking your AssumptionsR I C H A R D M . L A N G W O R T H

ASwiss student, Cindy Kläy, recently asked: “According to what I have read, Chamberlain seemed-to hope World War II could be avoided, while Churchill thought war was unavoidable. Who

was right? With access to all the history, it is easy to say that war could not have been avoided. Butwas that so obvious in the 1930s?” That is a very incisive question. To answer it I referred Miss Kläy to the final chapter ofChurchill and Company: “‘Historians are Dangerous’: Churchill, Chamberlain and Some Others.”What may we judge from this? Perhaps that until 1937, Chamberlain and Churchill both hoped orthought war might be avoided—but pursued their hopes differently. Chamberlain, prudent and pragmatic, thought first that Germany’s grievances could be metshort of war. Churchill, equally pragmatic, thought addressing those grievances must be preceded bycollective security and major rearmament. Both were frustrated in their hopes, for different reasons.Chamberlain was blamed for Appeasement, which Britons supported through 1938. Yet Britain wasrearming under Chamberlain, and even Baldwin. If she were not, there would have not been enoughaircraft to win the Battle of Britain in 1940. The question about rearmament was one of degree. Chamberlain acted reasonably, according to his lights, to avoid another war. Unfortunately, hewas up against a less reasonable opponent who had wanted war from the start. When war came,Hitler was elated, while Chamberlain felt that everything he had worked for had failed. Churchill believed British rearmament should have been more robust, particularly in the air, anddoubted the abilities of those Chamberlain placed in charge of it. He had good reason, being >>

Churchill andCompany, by DavidDilks. I.B. Tauris,

hardbound, illus., $35,member price $28.

quietly advised (with Chamberlain’sknowledge) by inside sources aboutHitler’s hectic rearmament. But contraryto his prewar image as a warmonger,Churchill believed for some time thatpeace might yet prevail. In his 1937article, “Will There Be War?” (lastissue), he was still searching for peacethrough a “coalition of the willing.” For support Churchill looked first toFrance, then to America, then to Russia.But France had no real will to fight,America remained aloof, and Stalinopted for a pact with Germany—perhaps because Chamberlain sentlow-level negotiators to Moscow, whileHitler sent his foreign minister. After the war, in his famous 1946speech at Fulton, Missouri, whenChurchill was warning of the new Sovietthreat, he called WW2 “the unnecessarywar.” But as Miss Kläy astutely suggests,that was his opinion after the fact. Atthe time, from 1937 on, Churchill likeChamberlain found war much harder toavoid because the things he strove fornever came to be. “I doubt whether Chamberlainbelieved in any consistent way, at anyrate from 1937, that Germany’s griev-ances could be contained without war,”Professor Dilks wrote to me. “He hopedthat such grievances could be met in away which would not involve a seconddisaster in twenty years, and whichwould not invite Italy and Japan to joinin the fray; but he knew perfectly wellthat disaster might occur. Which is whythe British government by the later1930s was spending enormous amountsof money on warlike preparations—farmore than had been thought necessaryby Churchill’s Liberal colleagues before1914.” (For Churchill’s views on pre-WW1 preparedness, see ChristopherBeckvold’s article, page 36.) Thoughtful readers of Churchill andCompany may conclude that bothChamberlain and Churchill have one-dimensional images: Chamberlain as anappeaser to the point of nationalsuicide; Churchill as an unredeemedwarmonger. While respecting

Churchill’s views, Dilks provides per-spective on Chamberlain’s andBaldwin’s policies that is not widelyunderstood, yet must be considered. The same balance obtains in thisbook’s eight other essays: Churchill’spolitics, his view of Britain and theCommonwealth, his affinity for France,Anglo-French postwar rivalries, Edenand Stalin, Britain and Poland, and the“Unthinkable Operation”—rearmingthe Germans for a possible showdownwith Russia in mid-1945. These essays, Dilks writes, are“intended to illuminate Churchill’sactivities among friends and enemies”—two hard-to-separate categories. Forinstance: “Churchill thought of Stalin asa friend or at least a comrade-in-arms,and only with extreme reluctance did hecome to look upon the new Czar of allthe Russias as an enemy. He regardedRoosevelt with admiration and grati-tude, whereas the balance of theevidence suggest that the President feltless warmly towards him, especiallyfrom 1943.” Our free-thinking author challengespreconceived notions. The much-fearedonrush of the Red Army in 1944-45, forexample, was owed to more than Anglo-American supineness at Teheran: “…if

the attempt on Hitler’s life in July[1944] had succeeded, or if the Allieshad been able to break out more swiftlyand decisively from their bridgehead inNormandy, [the war’s end would havefound] the Red Army far to the east ofthe line which it eventually reached”(202). As for WSC’s Russian approach:“In public and in private, [Churchill]was far more favourably disposedtowards Stalin and Russia than everChamberlain had been to Hitler” (261). Cynics might wonder if absentHitler, those wonderful Prussian gen-erals would have come straight to thepeace table. They might also point outthat the zones of occupation had beenpretty much agreed at Teheran in 1943.But other cynics might reply that themilitary situation on the ground trumpseverything. It’s part of the fascination ofhistory—or alternate history. David Dilks can teach you moreabout how to appreciate WinstonChurchill than most, because he makesyou think. Circumstances do matter.Things then were not so straightforwardas we imagine in hindsight. Judging thepast by what we know now, we areobliged to consider how the players ofthose times had to look at things, basedonly on what they knew then. ,


Churchill and Company...

old Tales RetoldC H R I S T O P H E R H . S T E R L I N G

The Hopkins Touch: Harry Hopkins and the Forgingof the Alliance to Defeat Hitler, by David L. Roll.Oxford University Press, hardbound, illus., 510 pp.,$34.95, member price $27.95.

Harry Hopkins has faded from the public memoryover the years, but during World War II he was

never far from Roosevelt’s side in Washington or abroad,unless he was on a long and arduous trip, carrying mes-sages on the president’s behalf, often to WinstonChurchill, who dubbed him “Lord Root of the Matter”for his direct style of discussion. Hopkins was always inthe news and attracted plenty of negative political and

press comment from those seeking to attack the president or his policy positions. Self-effacing to a fault, Hopkins (1890-1946) was probably FDR’s closest confi-

dant from 1940 to early 1945. Beforethat he’d served briefly as Secretary ofCommerce, and more importantly ashead of the massive Works ProgressAdministration (WPA), the signaturerecovery agency of Roosevelt’s NewDeal. But this book’s focus is on the warwhich occupied the final years of bothmen’s lives: they died within months ofone another. Washington attorney David Roll’sbook is the first serious study of therelationship between the president andhis key adviser since Robert Sherwood’sRoosevelt and Hopkins, which won aPulitzer Prize in 1948. Roll relies heavilyon the earlier book, but adds many newdetails from dozens of sources whichhave become available since. Unable to travel freely because of hishandicap, Roosevelt relied on others tobe his eyes and ears in places he couldnot go. Hopkins was central to thisprocess, developing the initial commu-nication link with Churchill, and laterStalin. He made numerous long flyingtrips (when they were unusual, and farmore dangerous than now) to build tiesamong the Big Three and lesser playerssuch as Charles de Gaulle. One of thefirst of Hopkins’ trips was in early 1941when Roosevelt sent him to size up theChurchill government’s chance of sur-vival against Germany. He stayed forseveral weeks, meeting all the key peoplein the British government, and spendinghours with the Prime Minister, whomRoosevelt had not met save for a briefencounter in London in 1919. Hopkinsand Churchill developed an excellentworking relationship. Hopkins continued to travel onbehalf of the president or to attend theallied summit conferences. Sometimeshe did both simultaneously, as when heflew to London in mid-1941 for moretalks with Churchill, then on toMoscow to meet Stalin before travelingby sea to join Churchill and Rooseveltin Newfoundland for the AtlanticCharter meeting. Those long trips were exhausting for

a man in weak health, who pushedhimself to the exclusion of medical con-cerns. Time and again in thiswell-written account, Hopkins ends uprecovering for days in bed or in hospital.And from May 1940 until late 1943, heliterally lived in the White House,readily available at any hour of the dayor night. Only after his third marriagedid he find a home in Georgetown, ashift that, with his deteriorating health,began to change the once-easy workingrelationship with Roosevelt. Hopkinsagain joined the president before andduring the Yalta conference. MissingPotsdam, he made a final trip toMoscow in mid-1945 on behalf ofPresident Truman. Drawing on the books and archivesof many who were there (though withperhaps a bit too much reliance on LordMoran’s disputed “diaries,” whichsuggest the doctor was more centrallyinvolved with people and events than

was the case), Roll provides a fine senseof the people, places, and issues, forth-rightly criticizing Hopkins’ actions (hispersonal life was sometimes a shambles).While the president relied heavily onhim during the crucial war years, FDRdidn’t get too close to anyone. YetHopkins’ role was often central—partic-ularly because, at Roosevelt’s insistence,the State Department was rarely repre-sented at the many meetings with allies. This is a well-written and balancedaccount of a central player during a fas-cinating time. Hopkins became close toChurchill, yet understood his faults andoften had to reason with him at FDR’sbehest (as on firming up the dates forthe invasion of France). Churchill inturn admired Hopkins’ style, his role asthe president’s righthand man, and hiscourage in the face of his weak constitu-tion. Roll has given us a stellar modernportrait of the right man in the rightplace at the right time. ,


Young Titan: TheMaking of WinstonChurchill, byMichael Shelden.Simon & Schuster,hardbound, illus.,384 pp., $30,member price $24.

The first fifteenyears of the

20th century are thefocus in this newstudy of well-trodden ground. Startingwith Churchill’s initial election toParliament, and ending with the bitteraftermath of Gallipoli, the author exam-ines the public politician and privateman during his formative political years. Seasoned readers know of numerousstudies of Churchill’s pre-1916 career,notably four “partial lives.” Peter deMendelssohn’s The Age of Churchill:Heritage and Adventure, 1874-1911(1961) took the story to Churchill’sarrival at the Admiralty, the only volumeof an intended trilogy. Violet BonhamCarter’s Winston Churchill: An IntimatePortrait (1966) covers 1906-16, as seen

by a prime minister’s daughter,who knew her subject well (andis a major figure in Shelden’saccount). Ted Morgan’sChurchill: Young Man in aHurry, 1874-1915 (1982) offersa well-written and -documentedwork. The Earl of Birkenhead’sChurchill 1874-1922 (1989) isbased on the memories ofChurchill’s godson.

Shelden was able to build onthese and previous authors. An

English professor at Indiana StateUniversity, he melds these and otherpublished materials with some archivalsources, dwelling heavily on the class-driven British society of the period. Butgiven what already exists, is there any-thing new? Here and there, yes. And it’sengagingly and even breezily written. Shelden suggests that Violet Asquithwas much closer to Churchill in 1907-08 than other sources (including bothprincipals) have suggested—and that indespair a week after Churchill marriedClementine Hozier, Violet may havetried to take her own life (Datelines, FH158). She took a walk along a high >>

_________________________________________Dr. Sterling is associate dean at Columbian Collegeof Arts & Sciences, George Washington University.

rocky cliff overlooking crashing waves—a path she and WSC had walked justweeks earlier—and went missing, laterclaiming to have fallen and hit her headon a rock. But when found on softground, she showed no signs of injury. Just two endnotes provide referencesfor this event and both cite unpublishedsources: Margot Asquith’s personal diaryand letters between Violet and her closefriend Venetia Stanley, all now held inthe Bodleian Library. Without taking atrip to Oxford to examine these docu-ments, it’s impossible to say for surewhat Shelden is reading: solid evidenceor surmises between the lines. He neverovertly says she tried to kill herself, andthe suggestion appears in no other pub-lished source. (See sidebar at right.) Shelden also concludes thatChurchill initially led (or pushed) LloydGeorge (not the other way round as isoften presumed, given their age differ-ence) to radical social legislationconcerning employment and workingconditions. Churchill always claimed hewas Lloyd George’s “faithful lieutenant,”but Shelden argues that Lloyd Georgebecame radical in response toChurchill’s rising political star. By thetime of the famous budget battle of1909-10, Lloyd George was leading thefight against the House of Lords. At the famous Sidney Street shoot-out in 1911, when Churchill was widelycriticized—even ridiculed—for showingup in his top hat amid the confronta-tion, he turned out to be one of the fewleaders present experienced with therapid-fire Mauser guns the corneredanarchists were using. Here as elsewhere,Shelden’s endnotes comment that otherhistorians have glossed over such details. The book ends as Churchill movesto the Admiralty in late 1911 and warbreaks out in 1914. The Dardanellesdisaster and Churchill’s ouster is dis-patched in fewer than ten pages. Almostno one stood by Churchill, evenAsquith and Lloyd George, whose polit-ical fortunes he had saved earlier.Seemingly, Churchill’s career was over;of course this wasn’t the case. ,

Yalta 1945: Europe and America at the Crossroads, byFraser J. Harbutt, Cambridge University Press, hard-bound, illus., 468 pp., $42.

The Yalta Conference of February 1945, laden withsecret dealings viewed as “the foundational sin of the

postwar era” (9), is given a make-over by diplomatic histo-rian Fraser Harbutt, who believes that “Yalta has beenhopelessly misunderstood,” a symbol “chameleonic inevery sense except its fixation on Roosevelt’s performance”


Young Titan...

Young Titan: Two Observations

Richard Marsh (“Churchill and Flandin,” FH 158: 22) sent Dr. Shelden and us aletter in his collection from Churchill to H.H. Asquith dated 14 August 1908, whichis relevant to the alleged romance between Violet Asquith and Churchill. WSC begins by thanking Asquith for his congratulations on his engagement: “Iwas sure that as an old friend of my father’s & a kind one to me you would rejoicein my great happiness & good fortune, which has broken upon me with suchsudden wonder.” The letter then clearly reveals that Clementine as well as Winstonhad been invited to Slains Castle by the Asquiths: “Clementine has to buy all sortsof important things, so that she cannot accept your pleasant invitation. But I willkeep my tryst & propose to travel North by the night train of Tuesday.” Mr. Marsh writes: “It is interesting that Churchill used the word ‘tryst’ indescribing his upcoming visit, although I am sure that he was not describing ameeting of lovers. Churchill ends interestingly: “Please thank Mrs. Asquith & MissViolet for including themselves as I am sure they did in your congratulations.”

***** Who said, “The first time you meet Winston you see all his faults, and the restof your life you spend discovering his virtues”? Shelden and others attribute this toEdith, First Countess of Lytton (1841-1936). In fact it was said by her daughter-in-law Pamela, Second Countess of Lytton (1874-1971), Churchill’s early love, to EddieMarsh, who had asked her whether he should be WSC’s private secretary. Marsh’s biographer, Christopher Hassall, caused the confusion by identifyingEdith as the speaker (Edward Marsh, 1959, 120). But Marsh himself (A Number of

People, 1939, 49), identified the speaker as Pamela: “I betook myself to LadyLytton, who was a great friend of his as well as of mine….Her answer was one ofthe nicest things that can ever have been said about anybody.” Both Marsh and Hassall agree that it was Pamela who urged Churchill to hireMarsh, at a party given by Lady Granby on 14 December 1905. Marsh’s text refersonly to “Lady Lytton”; but he goes on to identify this Lady Lytton as the selfsamePamela who had urged Churchill to hire him—and his index entry names Pamela,not Edith, as the “great friend” in question. There were numerous letters and meetings between Eddie Marsh and Pamela,who were contemporaries, but not Eddie and Edith, who died three years beforeMarsh published his memoir, in which Marsh does not refer to "the late" LadyLytton. The evidence is unequivocal. —Editor, FH 131: 32

chameleons and crossroadsE R I C A L . C H E N O W E T H

_____________________________________________________________________________________Ms. Chenoweth, a fishery biologist for the state of Alaska, is co-editor of a new edition of Churchill’s GreatContemporaries (ISI Books, 2012) and wrote “Churchill and the Theater” in FH 152.

(13). Harbutt’s unique work paystribute to a “more enduring aspect ofdiplomacy where one looks to find logicand patterns rather than emotion andimprovisation,” while also looking toserve as corrective to the“Americocentrism” pervading the histor-ical record (xii). Harbutt reframes Allied relationsduring WW2 from “East-West,” withStalin as the outside man, to “Europe-America,” with Roosevelt and hisadministration decidedly on the fringes.“The war,” he writes, “was steadily inte-grating the United States and Europe,”but politically “they remained two dis-tinct arenas” (74). Harbutt alternateseasily between a narrative style informedby meticulous research and a style morestrictly selective and analytical. Heencourages the examination of eventsand circumstances in relation to eachother but also to a deeper, underlyinghistorical process. His body of work isinformed by the “notion of recurrencewithin very slowly changing historicalpatterns” (xiv). A range of sources, including print,radio broadcasts and opinion polls,describes relations between Europe andAmerica during the war. Harbuttreviews the work of historical colleaguespresent and past, details Anglo-Sovietdiplomatic relations in 1939-44, con-siders the British Foreign Office and theexiled governments “cloistered” inLondon (114), and highlights the “per-sistence of European political andintellectual vitality” (122) by givingbrief tribute to the pockets of resistancein Western Europe. He understands that“the Anglo-Soviet Relationship was notall sweetness and light, and it was neverintimate” (192). But he contrasts thestrength of Anglo-Soviet diplomaticrelations and their few shared interestswith Roosevelt’s remoteness and tacticsof “evasion or procrastination” when itcame to any discussion of postwar settle-ments (257), despite private assurances. Harbutt is evenhanded with thecentral characters, but in the end hepresents a narrow view of Churchill’smost obvious diplomatic flaws and fears.Stalin’s intentions remain obscure, due

to the lack of evidence and the tight-fistedness of Soviet archives. Harbuttargues that the persistent geopoliticalbargaining between the British andSoviet governments, combined withFDR’s abstinence, solidified boundariesmore than most wish to believe, ulti-mately defining early on what land wasto fall behind the Iron Curtain. Yaltawas therefore positioned at a critical“crossroads” in relations betweenEurope and America. He believes thereis evidence for an “Anglo-Soviet ‘roadnot taken’ that, among other things,might have prolonged Britain’s status asa Great Power” and avoided or dimin-ished the Cold War (xxii). We are vividly reminded of theremoteness of Yalta and the Russians’discomfiting habit of being “relentlesslyhospitable” (281). Harbutt adroitly ana-lyzes the political dynamics at workbetween the players, seeking to revealthe “deeper impulses” (284) that workedto undermine conference goals andallowed the spiral into a crisis less thantwo weeks after its conclusion. Rooseveltis trapped in the dilemma of his ownmaking, being forced to “make somekind of choice” between his declarationsto the American public and his compro-mising private assurances at pastconferences to Stalin (285). Roosevelt,Harbutt writes, “chose finesse anddeception, with consequences thatwould contribute to the breakdown ofthe Grand Alliance” (285). The days of the conference are care-fully traced. Roosevelt, the book argues,sacrificed almost all to guarantee the

survival of the fledgling United Nationsand his own domestic success, refusingto engage in any practical geopoliticaldisputes with Stalin, sweeping the rugout from under the British and sacri-ficing any practical involvement withpostwar governments in lands occupiedby the Soviets. Harbutt does not refute the claimthat President Roosevelt caused a diplo-matic debacle. He does conclude, againby looking at “less obvious levels” ofoperation, that FDR’s actions weremore intentional than many have sup-posed. The president, he writes,invented and engaged in a new kind ofradical public diplomacy. The final chapters follow the rapiddisintegration of relations between theBig Three, as Russia reacted poorly topublic pressure and Churchill strove tounite with America in the new ColdWar. The Allies, Harbutt contends, soonfaced a very different postwar orderfrom the one they had anticipated,mainly through confusion, misunder-standing and miscalculation. The book is well-written, with onlya handful of typos, and is worth readingeven if the thrust of Harbutt’s thesis—that the Cold War might have beenavoided if Europe had been left to itsformerly arranged practical geopolitics,rather than being severely disrupted byRoosevelt’s well-intentioned univer-salism—is not entirely convincing. It isa well-researched and eyebrow-raisingcontribution to the continuing conver-sation on tripartite relations in the lateForties. ,


Mr. King and the Prime MinisterJ O H N G . P L U M P T O N

Winston Churchill and Mackenzie King: So Similar, SoDifferent, by Terry Reardon. A.J. Patrick Boyer, hard-bound, illus., 432 pp., $35.

Canadians are justifiably proud of their role in the greatwars of the 20th century. Their contributions went

beyond the “call of duty.” But what was their duty? In 1914 it was clear that Britain’s declaration of war >>

included Canada. Constitutionalchanges in the interwar years alteredthat, but most Canadian historiansargue that Canada still went to warbecause Britain was at war. Terry Reardon concludes that in1939, Canada declared war by the deci-sion by one man, Prime MinisterMackenzie King. Although King is theCommonwealth’s longest-serving primeminister, he is unknown outside—andeven sometimes inside—Canada. Canada almost split apart over con-scription (“the draft”) in 1917, and hadit not been for King’s political ruthless-ness and astuteness it might have againhappened in 1944. Domestic politics isthe focus of most biographies of King;but Reardon has written a much-neededbook about King’s foreign policy,focusing almost exclusively on his rela-tions with Churchill and Roosevelt. The King-Churchill relationship,which began in the early years of thecentury, was a rocky affair for almostforty years. A strong Chamberlain sup-porter, King had considered Churchillone of the most dangerous men inBritain. Churchill almost never thoughtof King at all. In Churchill’s TheSecond World War, there are more refer-ences to Admiral Ernest King, chief ofU.S. Naval Operations, than to theCanadian Premier. Yet in 1940 King joined the rest ofthe free world in viewing Churchill asthe rock upon which its libertiesdepended. This we know from thedetailed daily diary King kept duringthe war. He was a bachelor, and it isalmost as if the diary was the spouse towhom he imparted his innermostthoughts about events and people. Reardon places the King-Churchillrelationship in the context of their polit-ical lives and there is little new aboutthe Churchill story, except as it pertainsto King. There is, however, a goodoverview of Canadian political history,at least as seen by King. This, of course,has the inherent weakness of any workdependent on a single source. Forexample, King takes credit for moti-

vating the concluding words of WSC’s“fight on the beaches” speech, but wehave no other supporting sources. The meat of the book is the little-known story of how King supportedand worked with Churchill to prod andassist the United States into war—notwithstanding King’s and Churchill’sconcerns that prior to Pearl Harbor theU.S. “was trying to get the BritishEmpire without Britain” (Churchill’swords). This book should be read inconjunction with Lynne Olson’s ThoseAngry Days to understand the resistanceof Roosevelt that frustrated them. It is hard for today’s advocates of theAnglo-American special relationship tobelieve that there was a time when theU.S. and Britain could not talk directlyto each other about substantive issueswithout an intermediary. That linchpin(again a Churchillian term) was notCanada; it was Mackenzie King. King described his role at theQuebec Conferences, where Churchilland Roosevelt met in 1943 and 1944, asakin to that of “the general manager ofthe Chateau Frontenac.” In thisreviewer’s opinion, that was exactly hisrole vis-à-vis the two giants throughout

the entire war. This is not to disparageKing; he was an essential counterpointto the dance of egos of the British primeminister and the American president. Reardon subtitles his book aboutChurchill and King, So Similar, SoDifferent. After reading it in both draftand published versions, it appears to methat the differences greatly dwarf thesimilarities. Those differences are illus-trated in the two men’s commentsabout their roles as national leaders.King thought successful leadership wasoften in what one avoided. Churchillonce said: “I do not need to be prodded.If anything, I am a prod.” But in theircase, opposites definitely attracted. Thanks to Terry Reardon and DavidDilks, we now have fine studies ofChurchill and King; thanks to JonMeacham and Warren Kimball, we haveequally good works on Churchill andRoosevelt. But the North Atlanticalliance was a three-way partnership, sonow we need a study of Roosevelt andKing: “Mackenzie and Mr. President.”That suggested title pretty well describestheir relationship. ,


Churchill and King...

The Private Enterprise EmpireA N D R E W R O B E R T S

Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain, byJohn Darwin. Bloomsbury, hardbound, illus., $35,member price $28.

Such has been the tenacity of the Marxist interpretation ofhistory that twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall,books are still being published to explain phenomena likethe British Empire in terms of dialectal materialism, bour-geois exploitation of the proletariat, and so on. Howrefreshing it is, therefore, when as distinguished an historianas John Darwin of Nuffield College, Oxford, writes some-thing as thoughtful, well-researched and persuasive as

Unfinished Empire, which explains the half-millennium-long explosion of Britainacross the globe in terms that genuinely make sense. Of course Darwin doesn’t for a moment deny the vital importance of the capi-

_________________________________________________________________________________Mr. Roberts is author of numerous books on British history, among which our favorite is his pithy and potent early work, Eminent Churchillians. This review was first published in the Daily Telegraph.

Mr. Plumpton tweets @churchilltoday.________________________________

talist ethic in the process, readilyacknowledging how the British Empire“was a largely private enterprise empire;the creation of merchants, investors,migrants and missionaries and manyothers.” Yet there’s no tone of sneeringnegativity. Indeed in examining theapogee of the Empire, which he putsfrom the 1830s to 1940, he argues thatthe British succeeded “because theyexploited the opportunities ofglobal connectedness more fullythan their rivals.” The exploita-tion was of globalconnectedness, not subjectpeoples. Maps of the world empha-sizing the extent of Atlanticcommerce in the 18th century,the submarine cable system con-necting the Empire in 1929, thehuge levels of foreign investmentup to the outbreak of WorldWar I, and so on, all under-line Darwin’s point thatalthough it was haphazard,the Empire came about asthe result of the deploymentof unimaginable amountsof energy, risk-taking, far-sightedness andself-confidence. “The hall-mark of British imperialism,”he concludes, “was its extraor-dinary versatility in method,outlook and object.” With one major exception—the gov-ernment replacing the East IndiaCompany when it got into troublearound 1860—the State generally stayedout of the way, except to guarantee thefreedom of the seas for trade. With gov-ernment regulation kept to a minimum,private enterprise built the greatestempire the world had ever seen (anddoubtless now will ever see, in this post-imperialist age). Darwin looks carefully at the variousaccidents of history and geography thatalso led to British success overseas in thefive centuries—almost to the day—thatseparated John Cabot’s landing inNewfoundland in June 1497 from ChrisPatten leaving Hong Kong in June1997. Britain’s offshore position—close

to but not attached to Europe, not farfrom the Mediterranean and Africa,athwart Scandinavia’s sea-lanes and anocean-width from the Americas—meantthat she was extremely well-placedstrategically and commercially. So longas she maintained a strong navy, shecould escape the expense of a largestanding army, which most of her conti-nental rivals were forced to maintain. Coming relatively late to imperi-

alism, the British found a usefultrail that had already been

blazed by theSpanish,Portugueseand Dutch,who hadexploredthe traderoutesand sup-pliedmuchof theappa-ratusofempire

that Britainwent on toperfect (andvery oftenpurloin alto-gether through

naval superiority). Everyinvention in the particularly inventiveVictorian age was put to use, and inparticular, as Darwin shows, “Railwaysturned the British, hitherto mainly a seapower, into a land and sea power, a hugeincrease in capacity.” The author’s deepfamiliarity with all the key sources ofthis vast subject allows him to pluckexamples for his arguments from acrossthe centuries and continents, being asmuch at home with Lord Salisbury’sSouth African goals and policies, say, aswith Winston Churchill’s unfortunateprediction of December 1924: “Whyshould there be a war with Japan? I donot believe there is the slightest chanceof it in my lifetime.” Britain’s pluralistic society—whichalways included a deeply anti-imperialist

minority—her relative religious toler-ance, her flexible political system, heropen markets, free trade policies andever more sophisticated financial instru-ments, as well as the City and docklandsof London itself, meant that she wasperfectly adapted to run an empire thatDarwin sees as “less a recognizable blocwith borders and limits than a vastarchipelago, strewn across the world.”Some possessions were jewels, whileothers were “a sprinkling of minnowsacquired for no discernible reason buthard to abandon.” It was also vital thatno fewer than 19 million Britons werewilling to emigrate between 1815 and1930—twice as many as from any otherpart of Europe. (The Italians came nextwith 9 million, but most of themwound up in America.) On top of the directly-ruled jewelsand minnows, Britain also enjoyed hege-mony over a widespread informalempire which, in places like Argentina,Uruguay, and Egypt, were important toher. This “invisible” empire formed thetemplate for the kind of influence thatthe United States has enjoyed in manyplaces around the world since 1945. Nor did the Empire fundamentallyalter Britain: Darwin takes issue withthose historians who argue that Britainwas “constituted by empire,” which hecalls “a modish but vacuous expression.”Because Britain had been a strong, well-funded fiscal-military state long beforeacquiring an empire beyond Europe, shewas able to enter her post-imperialphase without suffering any collectivenational mental breakdown. For Britain,the Empire was “only a phase, an excep-tional moment.” Darwin is unsparing about the vio-lence and the failures; it’s encouragingto see the Attlee ministry and its viceroyLord Mountbatten rightfully blamed for“at least one million” deaths in thePartition of India, rather than the frac-tion of that figure often attributed byhistorians to that terrible period. Best ofall, though, is the thought that Darwin’sbook might at long last herald thevictory of the post-Marxist phase ofimperial historiography. And not amoment too soon. ,


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Canada and the Battle of the Atlantic

29Th inTERnATionAL chuRchiLL conFEREncE, ToRonTo, onTARio, ocToBER 2012

Mr. Boler ([email protected]) is a former chairman of The Churchill Centre UK, and has chaired or co-chaired several international conferencessince the early 1990s. He is writing a book on the Battle of the Atlantic and his father’s experiences sailing aboard Canadian corvettes.

The Battle of the Atlanticwas the only campaign ofWorld War II that gave

Winston Churchill sleepless nights.As he said at the great moment ofcrisis in June 1940: “Withoutvictory there is no survival.” The Battle began on 3September 1939 and lasted 2074days until 8 May 1945, whenGermany surrendered. The heroeson both sides were the men, theheroines were the ships,and the enemy was the sea:the cruel sea. Canada’s contributionto the Atlantic battle wasinextricably linked to that of Britain’s Royal Navy.Victory in the Atlantic would not win the war for theAllies—but losing it most certainly would have lostthe war in Europe. Both Germany and Britain made strategic mis-takes in the 1930s which affected the Atlantic battle.Germany gave priority to building battleships, butwould eventually have to turn to the U-boat as itsmain weapon to starve Britain into surrender. For theAllies, the tide did not turn until they recognized theimportance of aircraft in fighting U-boats. Early on,they had placed too much confidence in ASDIC(Allied Submarine Detector InvestigationCommittee) or, as the Americans knew it SONAR(Sound Navigation and Ranging).

As vital as ASDIC was in theU-boat war, the Germans mostlyattacked convoys on the surface atnight, rendering its services useless.Escorts guarding Atlantic convoysneeded radar to detect U-boats onthe surface.

Churchill would later writethat he was mistaken in placing somuch faith in the system: “I over-rated, as the Royal Navy did, themagnitude of their achievement in

inventing ASDIC, andforgot, for a moment, howbroad are the seas.” Headded a Churchillian

flourish: “However, while ASDIC did not conquer theU-boat, without ASDIC the U-boat would not havebeen conquered.” In the British and Canadian Royal Navies, profes-sional careers were made in “big ships.” On smallerships, newly trained reservist officers only took uptheir appointments when the ships were ready.Regular Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) officers werekept on shore during the early convoy battles,waiting for the larger cruisers and fleet destroyers tobe built and delivered to the “professional” navy. Captains of British and Canadian convoy escortvessels were mostly officers from merchant ships whowere members of their respective naval reserves, orhad come from reserve naval units such as thetraining establishment HMCS York in Toronto. Very

DAVID BOLER

AT ThE GoinG Down oF ThE sun,AnD in ThE MoRninG,

wE wiLL REMEMBER ThEM.


few regular RN or RCN officers were in command ofescort vessels. British and Canadian escort ships started the warwithout radar, and only a handful had a primitivesystem for locating U-boats. For hunting submergedU-boats they relied on ASDIC, using depth charges todestroy them when found. Much has been made about the British breakingthe German naval codes at Bletchley Park inEngland, but virtually throughout the war, Germancryptanalysts were also breaking British merchantnavy codes. The Germans also broke Royal Navycodes on and off into 1943, with disastrous conse-quences for the Allies. Despite Canada’s two very long coastlines, it issurprising that in 1939 the RCN had only 1800regular naval officers and sailors, and the samenumber of volunteer reservists, with a mere sixdestroyers and a handful of coastal craft. By 1945,110,000 men and women had served Canada inwhat became the world’s third largest navy. It ishardly surprising that such a phenomenal expansionbrought severe growing pains which subordinatedquality to quantity on too many occasions. The expansion of the Royal Canadian Navy pro-ceeded at such a pace that any experience gained waspromptly diluted by the arrival of new ships, andnew, green and untrained crews. Indeed HMCSChambly, a Canadian corvette which would normallycarry a crew of fifty, had 259 men serve aboardduring a two-year period: as men gained experiencein Atlantic convoys, they were transferred to the newships being added to the Navy, or posted ashore totrain the thousands of new recruits.

Let us now consider the corvette, a major factorin the Atlantic battle. At the outbreak of thewar there was a desperate shortage of escort

vessels. To fill it, the British Admiralty turned to the925-ton corvette, based on a design for a whalecatcher, originally intended for coastal defence assign-ments. So desperate was the shortage of destroyersthat the corvette was pressed into North Atlanticservice, where it soon became the main workhorsefor convoy defense. These small ships were originally designed with arange of 4000 miles and a top speed of 16 knots—critically, not fast enough to outrun a U-boat on thesurface. Their armament was a four-inch gun, alongwith a handful of depth charges. Corvettes were inexpensive and simple to build,so Canadian shipyards began grinding them out forthe Canadian and British navies. The Admiralty

named them after flowers, the Canadian navy aftercities. Winston Churchill had another name forthem: “Cheap and Nasties.” They were cheap tobuild, and nasty to the enemy. The first ten Canadian-built corvettes were sailedacross the Atlantic to Britain. Such was the shortageof weapons that they sailed without their four-inchdeck guns. Some actually had a dummy wooden gun,placed where the real gun would go, no doubt in thehope that it would frighten any U-boat that surfacedin their vicinity. Corvettes pitched and rolled like corks on thewaves. Those who sailed in them said they would rollon wet grass—but they were seaworthy. Their crewswere young: both officers and sailors were often justout of high school. From 1941 to the end of 1943,the bulk of the RCN’s war against U-boats wascarried out by some seventy of these vessels. After delivery of the first meaningful number ofcorvettes in 1941, the RCN’s contribution to theAtlantic battle gained traction. This was abetted bythe Newfoundland Escort Force, established underCanadian command.

In his memoirs of the First World War, Churchillwrote that in terms of equipment and arma-ments, in the first year of the war the armed

services would get nothing; in the second year, atrickle; in the third year, nearly all they wanted; andin the fourth year, more than they needed. So it waswith the British and Canadian navies in World WarII: nothing in 1940; a trickle in 1941; not enough in1942; all that was needed in 1943, when the back-bone of the U-boat fleet was at last broken. The Allies realised early that anti-submarine air-craft patrols by RAF and RCAF coastal command,their planes equipped with radar and depth charges,were an effective part of convoy defence; but onlyvery slowly were these patrols expanded. There wereno very long range (VLR) aircraft available to closewhat was known as the “Atlantic Gap”—that part ofthe ocean beyond the range of shore-based aircraft,where U-boats at first operated with impunity. In May 1941 a German Enigma coding machine,with all its rotors and code books, was captured by aBritish destroyer from U-110. As a result, U-boatmessages were decoded in real time, and for the restof 1941 the Admiralty was able to re-route convoysaway from known U-boat concentrations, signifi-cantly reducing losses. In July 1941, end-to-end escort of convoys acrossthe Atlantic became possible. American warshipsescorted them a third of the way, Canadians the >>

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middle part of the journey, and British and Canadianvessels covered the remainder of the route to UKports. Warships were refuelled (dangerously) fromtankers in mid-ocean. U-boats were grouped together in “wolf packs” toattack convoys in larger numbers. Corvettes, andtheir new lengthened sisters, called frigates, wereformed into escort groups to counter the Germanpack tactics. One benefit of the Churchill-Roosevelt “AtlanticMeeting” in August 1941 was that the Americansagreed to extend eastward the line behind which theyassumed responsibility for the defence of shipping.This gave Canadian and British escort vessels amuch-needed respite. Ultimately, the line wouldextend south from Iceland, turning America into the“neutral belligerent” Churchill hoped would eventu-ally lead the U.S. to enter the war. Ironically, thismeant that Canadian warships fighting Germanycame under command of the officially neutral U.S.Navy: a risk for which Roosevelt deserved credit. Even more important was the need for more airsupport of the convoys. The VLR B-24 Liberatorbomber was crucial to the battle, but only a handfulwere at first used in the anti-submarine role; themajority were used by RAF Bomber Command toattack Germany. The absence of these aircraft was keenly felt, espe-cially after February 1942, when the Germans addedanother rotor wheel to the Enigma coding machine,making it impossible to decipher U-boat wirelessmessages. Intelligence dried up overnight and againthe Allies were blind. During that year, as U-boat strength increased, anumber of Canadian-escorted convoys suffered

massive losses. The Royal Navy reported to theCanadian Admiralty: “A grave danger exists of break-down in health, morale and discipline.” Simply put,there were not enough trained men to provide relief;the Canadians were exhausted and their ships hadbeen stretched to the breaking point. The training base at Halifax left much to bedesired. As the Germans moved many U-boatsfurther into the South Atlantic, the British pursuedthem, and the Canadians were left with yet moreresponsibility in the North Atlantic. The latter partof 1942 became a slogging match: sometimes the U-boats, and sometimes the escorts, got the upperhand. Losses spiraled, and one Allied convoy lostmore than three-quarters of its ships. As the British Admiralty began looking for waysto improve the quality of escort forces, it consideredthe RCN the weakest link in its defences. TheCanadians were providing 48% of the escorts, but in1942 Canadian-escorted convoys were suffering 80%of the shipping losses. In fairness, Canadian escortswere mostly allocated to the slower convoys, exposingthem to greater risk. And the Canadians also hadtheir successes: half the U-boats sunk in mid-Atlanticin 1942 were sent to the bottom by Canadian war-ships. Canada, too, was new to large-scale shipbuilding,and to the manufacture of vital equipment such asradar. Canadians were always at the back of thequeue for the latest technical advances. They weregiven no VLR B-24 Liberators or radar sets, most oftheir destroyers were old, and their corvettes had notbeen much improved from the original design, whichwas highly uncomfortable to the crews. Very slowly, Canadian escorts were refitted withc

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Canada and the Battle of the Atlantic...

HMCS CHAMBLy, LEFT, SAW 259 SERVE ABOARD; SHE HAD THE SHORTER HULL SIDES OF EARLY CORVETTES, WHICH MADE FOR

VERY WET CONDITIONS. LATER CORVETTES, RIGHT, WERE MORE COMFORTABLE FOR THE CREW, WITH HIGHER SIDES AMIDSHIPS.


modern equipment needed to fight the U-boats suc-cessfully. They were also temporarily reinforced byBritish destroyers, and increasingly were given fastconvoys to protect, reducing their exposure to risk.By March 1943, the four Canadian groups based inLondonderry, Northern Ireland, were receiving indi-vidual and group training between convoy duty atsea. They returned to the Atlantic battle in time forits climax that May.

Aturning point was reached in December1942. After a year of being unable to read U--boat wireless messages, British cryptanalysts

broke the new German code (called “Shark” by theBritish and “Triton” by the Germans). Again theAllies were able to read U-boat messages in “realtime.” The crux of the U-boat war was at hand.Which side would prevail? The issue was in doubt: In the winter of 1942-43, a quarter of the ships in four full-ladeneastbound convoys were torpedoed and lost in ahowling gale. Early 1943 saw the heaviest losses inthe war: 22% of all merchant ships sailing inJanuary-May failed to arrive at their destination.These were critical losses. Canada’s contribution to the Allied naval effort—unglamorous, hard and costly—was rewarded by thecreation of the country’s first independent opera-tional command, “Canadian North West Atlantic,”under a Canadian Admiral. A continuing problem in 1943 was the shortageof Liberators to close the mid-Atlantic air gap,placing thousands of merchant ships in grave danger.But at Casablanca in January, Roosevelt andChurchill decided to divert aircraft from other the-aters, and by May 1943 their move had provendecisive. Forty-three U-boats, with an average crew offorty, were sunk by aircraft and warships. The German U-boat arm was now doomed. Theair gap was closed; ships and aircraft now had sophis-ticated radar and radio direction finders and betterarmaments; there were sufficient escort ships withwell-trained Canadian, American and British crews;and Enigma messages were being read to good effect. In June, the Germans ordered all submarines backto their French bases. When they did venture outagain, their losses were unsustainable. Air power, ships and technology had rendered theU-boat fleet obsolete. Admiral Doenitz, by then headof the Germany Navy, would have been dismayed tohave learned that in October 1943, Allied ship-building (now overwhelmingly American) had finallyexceeded the tonnage lost to U-boats. The Americans

were building Liberty ships from start to finish in tendays, launching three a day. In the last two years of the war, Canadian frigatesand corvettes were conceded to be the best afloat,and the Maple Leaf funnel emblem indicated newpride in their nationality. By 1944, wrote then-Commander, later Admiral Peter Gretton, “the RCNwas carrying the main burden of the mid-Atlanticwar, and well she did it.” By then the Royal Canadian Navy had fulfilledmany long-cherished dreams, with modern cruisers,fleet-class destroyers, and light aircraft carriers. Butthe Canadian Admiralty had maintained thatattacking U-boats and guarding convoys was suitablework only for reservists and wartime volunteers—andthat work was indeed left to them.

Between 1940 and 1945, Canadian warshipsescorted more than 25,000 merchant shipscarrying almost 200 million tons of food and

war materials from North America to Britain. In theprocess, the Allies lost 2600 merchant ships, of whichnearly 13.5 million tons was to submarines. Canadian merchant seamen suffered heavily,losing one in ten among the 12,000 who had served.Combined, the Allied navies had lost about 20,000officers and men in convoy escorts. The RCN sus-tained 1965 casualties, with the loss of twenty-fourwarships in the North Atlantic and Gulf of St.Lawrence. On the German side, of 1162 U-boats involvedin the Battle of the Atlantic, 784 were destroyed—astaggering 70%. Of the 40,000 Germans who sailedon wartime voyages, more than 30,000 became casu-alties, a loss approaching eight out of ten. Onecalculation holds that the RCN and RCAF jointlysank forty-seven U-boats in the North Atlantic. Canada clearly made an enormous effort in thisgrave and portentous battle for supremacy. It is leftfor us today to pay tribute to all the brave Canadianswho fought, particularly the 2000 who died. Weshould remember that they were volunteers—as werethe Canadian fighter pilots who fought in the skiesabove Southeast England in the Battle of Britain; thethousand Canadian boys who died on the dreadfulshingle beach at Dieppe in 1942; who fought up thespine of Italy and fell storming Ortona in 1943; whodied on sandy Juno Beach on D-Day, and the subse-quent, very bloody Normandy campaign; whoperished on the cusp of victory in March and April1945 while liberating Holland and Belgium. All volunteers. Honour to their bravery, theircourage, their sacrifice. ,

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King, though he was used toChurchillian monologues, was readyto give his own opinion:

I said to him that I did not think theBritish Commonwealth of Nationscould compete with the Russian situ-ation itself, nor did I think the U.S.could. That I believed that it wouldrequire the two and they must bekept together. He said to me, ‘That isthe thing you must work for aboveeverything else if you can pull off acontinued alliance between the U.S.and Britain…if you can get them topreserve the Joint [Combined]

Chiefs of Staff arrange-ment…you will be doingthe greatest service that canbe done the world.’2

This conversation showsChurchill’s great appreciation for King, and for thesacrifices that Canada had made in the war. Hewould air these views, he told King, during his tripto the United States early in the New Year.3

The themes Churchill explored with King thatday formed the bedrock for WSC’s conversationswith U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes and finan-cier Bernard Baruch while Churchill was holidayingat the home of Canadian Colonel Frank Clarke inMiami during January and February 1946. Churchillhad already planned a trip across the Atlantic, but hisinvitation to speak at Westminster College in Fulton,endorsed by Truman, who offered to introduce him,was a golden opportunity to voice his concerns.4

We are all aware of the “Iron Curtain” metaphorsChurchill voiced at Westminster College in 1946.5 Itwas certainly an apt description of the ideologicaldivide. He also warned against complacency, sayingthe times marked “a solemn moment for theAmerican democracy” and its allies.6

Aside from Russia’s near-hegemony in EasternEurope, there were other grave challenges. TheCanadian authorities had recently broken up a spyring, which hinted at the infiltration of theManhattan Project by Stalin’s agents.7 While thesecret of the atomic bomb rested with America, the


When Hitler fatefully turned onRussia in the summer of 1941,Churchill embraced the necessity ofaccepting Stalin as an ally. In theend, this uneasy bargain helpedturn the tide against the Axispowers. But the world was not renderedfree from tyranny. Stalin was alreadybetraying the undertakings he hadmade at Teheran and Yalta when he,Churchill and Truman met atPotsdam in July 1945. Churchill believed that if hecould spend more timewith Stalin he could rightthose wrongs, but he lostthe 1945 election. After aperiod of gloom, Churchillrealized that he still had two potent weapons, his penand his voice, to warn of a new “Gathering Storm.” Enter Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King,who visited Churchill in London on a rainy October26th, 1945. King had offered unwavering support toChurchill in World War II despite a conscriptiondebacle that had split his nation. They dined oncaviar and a snipe, conferring on the lamentableinfluence of far-left politics, Churchill telling Kingthat Labour would redistribute wealth by “destroyingthe rich to equalize the incomes of all.” Though he relished coming battles with theAttlee government, Churchill was preoccupied withthe state of the world. As King recorded:

He said that Russia was grabbing one country afteranother…all these different countries, naming a lotof the Balkans, including Berlin, would be undertheir control. He thought they should have beenstood up to more than they were. He spoke about theRussian regime as being very difficult but said therewas nothing to be gained by not letting them knowwe were not afraid of them. He said that they wouldbe as pleasant with you as they could be, althoughprepared to destroy you. That sentiment meantnothing to them—morals meant nothing…you mustremember that with the Communists, Communismis a religion….He felt that the Communist move-ment was spreading everywhere.1

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_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Mr. White ([email protected]) is a guest lecturer at Mid-America Nazarene University in Kansas City, and author of Our Supreme Task: HowWinston Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech Defined the Cold War Alliance. This paper was edited for space; for the full text please email the editor.

King, Canada and the Iron Curtain Speech

PHILIP WHITE


Canadian spy bust had brought a fear of prolitera-tion. Churchill hoped, but wasn’t sure, that the U.S.would retain its atomic secrets.8

The old imperialist was concerned too over thecrumbling of the British Empire, whose engine, theBritish economy, had seen almost a quarter of itswealth drained by the war. Britain now could scarcelystand on her own battle-weary feet, let alone fulfillher obligations to far-flung colonies. When Churchillat Fulton talked in rousing terms of the BritishCommonwealth, he was trying to preserve theconcept of unity. Churchill was the first statesman to show that thedivide between the democracies and the communistbloc were not just those of geography or government,but one of belief systems. His words at Fulton com-plemented George Kennan’s February 1946 “LongTelegram” from Moscow, and the views of AverellHarriman. They did spur Secretary of State Byrnes tointensify demands for Russia to leave Iran—whichshe eventually did. They also enabled Truman tosend up a “trial balloon” for the containment philos-ophy later represented by the Truman Doctrine, theMarshall Plan, and NATO.9

Churchill’s call for active diplomacy at Fultoncannot be underestimated, for it affected the thoughtof future leaders for a generation: Nixon andKennedy, and later Reagan, Thatcher, and evenGorbachev.10

In proposing closer bonds between the U.S. andBritain, Churchill gave the example of the JointDefense Board forged by the U.S. and Canada. Thisshowed how a coordinated military arrangementcould be effective without compromising sovereignty,a principle dear to Churchill and, he knew, to hisNorth American allies. The “special relationship” and the democratictenets it was based on meant far more than arms. Itinvolved Churchill’s lifelong themes of the sharedheritage, language and traditions of the English-speaking peoples. As the Conservative Party thinkerDaniel Hannan has pointed out, Churchill rhetori-cally created what we now call “the Anglosphere.”11

Thus, long ago, in that Westminster Collegegymnasium, Churchill reminded his listeners of dem-ocratic values: the values that he thought imperiledby Stalin and the Kremlin. His exhortations of whathe called “the title deeds of freedom”—unfetteredelections, an independent judiciary, freedom ofspeech and thought—are timeless. And they certainlyoutlasted the divisions of the Cold War.12

If leaders today are conscious of anything, theyshould know what we stand for and why—what we

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must celebrate in our own “anxious and bafflingtimes”: the traditions, values and heritage of theAnglosphere.13 It is a different age. We face threatsnow from rogue states, international terrorism andother enemies that even Churchill did not anticipate.Tyrannies have erected digital Iron Curtains,attempting to keep their abuses, and their peoplesfrom the world. Despite these dangers we can and will endure—ifthe Great Democracies uphold the principlesChurchill spoke of at Fulton, principles he gaveeverything to defend. Then perhaps, as he said inFulton, “the high roads of the future will be clear,not only for us, but for all, not only for our time,but for a century to come.”14 ,

Endnotes1. Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, 26 Oc-

tober 1945, Library and Archives of Canada, Ottawa, ac-cessed January 2011. Martin Gilbert, Winston S.Churchill, vol. 8, Never Despair 1945-1965 (London:Heinemann, 1988), 161-62.

2. Mackenzie King Diaries, 26 October 1945.3. Ibid. 4. Franc McCluer to WSC, 3 October 1946, Mc-

Cluer Family Papers, provided by Richmond McCluer, Jr.5. The speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Mis-

souri, 5 March 1946, is in Winston S. Churchill, TheSinews of Peace (London: Cassell, 1948), 93-105.

6. Ibid., 94.7. Mackenzie King Diaries, 28 February 1946. 8. Speech at Zurich University, 19 September 1946,

in Churchill, The Sinews of Peace, 201.9. Fraser J Harbutt, The Iron Curtain: Churchill,

America, and the Origins of the Cold War�(Oxford: Ox-ford University Press, 1986),180-81; Larry P. Arnn, “TruePolitics and Strategy,” in James W. Muller, ed., WinstonChurchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech Fifty Years Later (Co-lumbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999), 129-38.

10. Shelley Sommer, John F. Kennedy: His Life andLegacy (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 17; ThurstonClarke, Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedyand the Speech that Changed America (New York:Macmillan, 2005), 81, 226; Richard M. Nixon, The Mem-oirs of Richard Nixon, (New York: Grosset & Dunlap,1978), 45, 158, 610; Margaret Thatcher, “New Threats forOld,” speech at Westminster College 9 March 1996, inMuller, ed. Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech,161-68. Stephen F. Hayward, Greatness: Reagan,Churchill, and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders (NewYork: Three Rivers Press, 2006), 139-40.

11. Daniel Hannan, “Winston Churchill: Father ofthe Anglosphere,” in the Daily Telegraph, 8 June 2012.

12. Speech at Fulton, in The Sinews of Peace, 97.13. Ibid., 93.14. Ibid., 105.

Eaach quiz offers questions in six categories:Churchill contemporaries (C), literary

matters (L), miscellaneous (M), personal details(P), statesmanship (S) and war (W), the easierquestions first. Can you reach Level 1?

LEVEL 4 1. In which of his books didChurchill write: “War, which used to becruel and magnificent, has now becomecruel and squalid”? (L) 2. When did he say: “Our com-radeship and brotherhood in war wereunexampled. We stood together, andbecause of that fact the free world nowstands”? (P) 3. “The Almighty in His infinitewisdom did not see fit to create ———in the image of Englishmen.” (10December 1942). Fill in the blank. (M) 4. Who cabled Roosevelt in January1941: “I cannot emphasize too stronglythat he [WSC] is the one and onlyperson over here with whom you needto have a full meeting of minds”? (C) 5. One of the “Morals of the Work”in The Second World War was “InVictory: ———.” Fill in the blank. (S) 6. How many elections didChurchill win? (M)

LEVEL 3 7. “Eddie stripped himself nakedand retired to the Bush, from which hecould only be lured three times a day bypromises of food.” (WSC in Uganda,December 1907). Who was Eddie? (C) 8. Churchill was named Winstonafter whom? (P) 9. When and where did Churchillsay: “Now that we are together, nowthat we are linked in a righteous com-radeship of arms, now that our twoconsiderable nations, each in perfectunity, have joined all their life energiesin a common resolve, a new sceneopens, upon which a steady light willglow and brighten”? (W) 10. “He is going to get from theBritish people the greatest reception everaccorded to any human being sinceLord Nelson.” Churchill was about tospeak in 1944 about whom? (S) 11. In which of his books didChurchill write: ‘The fading light ofevening disclosed in the far distance the


silhouettes of two battleships steamingslowly out of the Firth of Forth. Theyseemed invested with a new significanceto me”? (S) 12. In what book does Churchillopen a chapter with lines from RudyardKipling’s The Merchantmen (1893)?“Coastwise—cross-seas—round theworld and back again/Whither flaw shallfail us or the Trades drive down.” (L)

LEVEL 2 13. Churchill visited Bermuda onwhich two dates (month and year)? (M) 14. On 20 June 1942 inWashington, Churchill received “One ofthe heaviest blows I can recall duringthe war.” What was the bad news? (W) 15.What is the distant Churchillconnection with the Jockey Club inNew York? (P) 16. Eleanor Roosevelt met Churchillduring her visit to Britain during WW2.What was the year and month? (C) 17. To whom did Churchill cable on6 November 1940: “Things are afootwhich will be remembered as long as theEnglish language is spoken in anyquarter of the globe, and in expressingthe comfort I feel that the people of theUnited States have once again cast thesegreat burdens upon you, I must avowmy sure faith that the lights by whichwe steer will bring us all safely toanchor”? (C) 18. To whom did Churchill say:“Cultured people are merely the glit-tering scum which floats upon the deepriver of production!”? (M)

LEVEL 1 19. Churchill’s uncle, MoretonFrewen, travelled the world starting wild

schemes for making money, most ofthem unsuccessful. What were his twofamily nicknames? (P) 20.Which of WSC’s contempo-raries wrote: “In the whole of The FirstWorld War there was only one brilliantstrategical idea—and that wasWinston’s: the Dardanelles”? (W) 21. In what year did Churchill firstuse “Gathering Storm” as the title for apublication? (L) 22.When did Churchill first use thephrase “Iron Curtain”? (S) 23. About whom did Churchillwrite in March 1939: “There playsaround him for ever the glint of anenchanted sword”? (W) 24.When did Winston Churchillfirst publish an article in an Americanperiodical? (L) ,

CHURCHILL

QUIZJ A M E S L A N C A S T E R

(1) My Early Life: A Roving Commission.(2)Read by his son at the 9 April 1963 ceremonywhen Churchill was declared an Honorary Citi-zen of the United States. (3) Frenchmen. (4)Harry Hopkins. (5) Magnanimity. (6) Sixteen.

(7) Edward Marsh, his Private Secretary whenhe was Undersecretary for the Colonies. (8)After his grandfather the 7th Duke of Marlbor-ough. (9) To the U.S. Congress, 26 December1941. (10) Roosevelt, who had wanted to visitEngland in summer 1944, but couldn’t make it.(11) The World Crisis. His thoughts in 1911when offered the Admiralty. (12) The WorldCrisis,vol. I, chapter XIII, “On the Oceans.”

(13) January 1942 and December 1953. (14)The fall of Tobruk. (15) Winston’s maternalgrandfather, Leonard Jerome, was among thefounders of the Jockey Club on 9 February1894. (16) October 1942. (17) Franklin Roo-sevelt, who had just won a third term as Presi-dent. (18) To his son Randolph who, duringtheir North American tour in August 1929, hadcriticised the oil magnates of Calgary for “pig-ging up a beautiful valley.”

(19) “Mortal Ruin” and “Silver Tongue.” (20)Clement Attlee. (21) His article in the EveningStandard, 30 October 1936, reprinted in Stepby Step.(22) 12 May 1945, in a cable to Presi-dent Truman: “An iron curtain is drawn downupon [the Soviet] front. We do not know whatis going on behind.” (23) Napoleon. (24) “TheFashoda Incident” (Cohen C71), published inThe North American Reviewin December1898, when WSC was twenty-three.

answers

THE CHURCHILL CENTRE AUSTRALIAAlfred James, Representative

Tel. (2) 9489-1158Email [email protected]

INTL. CHURCHILL SOCIETY, CANADARandy Barber, Chairman


Independent Societies:

AB-CALGARY:Sir Winston Churchill Society of CalgaryRobert W. Thompson QC • Tel. (403) 298-3384Email [email protected]

AB-EDMONTON: Rt Hon Sir Winston SpencerChurchill Society of EdmontonDr. Roger Hodkinson • Tel. (780) 433-1191 Email [email protected]

BC-VANCOUVER: Rt Hon Sir Winston SpencerChurchill Society of British Columbia www.winstonchurchillbc.orgApril Accola • Tel. (778) 321-3550Email [email protected]

BC-VICTORIA: Sir Winston Churchill Society ofVancouver Island • www.churchillvictoria.comPaul Summerville Email [email protected]

ON-OTTAWA: Sir Winston Churchill Society ofOttawa • www.ottawachurchillsociety.com Ronald I. Cohen • Tel. (613) 692-6234Email [email protected]

ON-TORONTO: Churchill Society for theAdvancement of Parliamentary Democracywww.churchillsociety.orgRobert A. O’Brien • Tel. (416) 977-0956Email ro’[email protected]

CHURCHILL CLUB OF ICELANDArni Sigurdsson, President


CHURCHILL SOCIETY OF ISRAELRussell Rothstein, President


INTL. CHURCHILL SOCIETY PORTUGALJoão Carlos Espada, President

Tel. (0351) 217214129Email [email protected]

FL-SOUTH: Churchill Society of South FloridaRodolfo Milani • Tel. (305) 668-4419Email [email protected]

GA: Winston Churchill Society of Georgiawww.georgiachurchill.orgJoseph Wilson • Tel. (404) 966-1408Email [email protected]

IL: Churchill Centre ChicagolandPhil & Susan Larson • Tel. (708) 352-6825Email [email protected]

LA: Churchill Society of New OrleansJ. Gregg Collins • Tel. (504) 799-3484Email [email protected]

MI: Winston Churchill Society of MichiganRichard Marsh • Tel. (734) 913-0848Email [email protected]

NE: Churchill Round Table of NebraskaJohn Meeks • Tel. (402) 968-2773Email [email protected]

NEW ENGLAND: New England ChurchilliansJoseph L. Hern • Tel. (617) 773-1907Email [email protected]

NJ: New Jersey ChurchilliansDaniel McKillop • Tel. (973) 978-3268 Email [email protected]

NY: New York ChurchilliansGregg Berman • Tel. (212) 318-3388 Email [email protected]

NC: North Carolina Churchillianswww.churchillsocietyofnorthcarolina.orgCraig Horn • Tel. (704) 844-9960 Email [email protected]

OH: Churchill Centre Northern OhioMichael McMenamin • Tel. (216) 781-1212Email [email protected]

OR: Churchill Society of PortlandWilliam D. Schaub • Tel. (503) 548-2509Email [email protected]

PA: Churchill Society of PhiladelphiaEarl M. Baker • Tel. (610) 647-6973Email [email protected]

SC: Bernard Baruch ChapterKenneth Childs • Tel. (803) 254-4035Email [email protected]

TX-DALLAS: Emery Reves ChurchilliansJeff Weesner • Tel. (940) 321-0757Email [email protected]

TX-HOUSTON: Churchill Centre HoustonChris Schaeper • Tel. (713) 660-6898 Email [email protected]

TX-SAN ANTONIO: Churchill Centre SouthTexas • www.thechurchillcentresouthtexas.comDon Jakeway • Tel. (210) 333-2085 Email [email protected]

WA: Churchill Centre Seattlewww.churchillseattle.blogspot.comSimon Mould • Tel. (425) 286-7364 Email [email protected]

Please send updates to this list to [email protected]

CHURCHILL CENTRE AFFILIATE ORGANIzATIONS

THE CHURCHILL CENTRE NEW ZEALAND

Mike Groves, RepresentativeTel. (9) 537-6591

Email [email protected]

THE CHURCHILL CENTRE UNITED KINGDOM

Allen Packwood, Executive DirectorTel. (01223) 336175


ESSEX: TCC-UK Woodford / Epping BranchTony Woodhead • Tel. (0208) 508-4562Email [email protected]

KENT: TCC-UK Chartwell BranchNigel Guest • Tel. (01883) 717656Email [email protected]

N. YORKSHIRE: TCC-UK Northern BranchDerek Greenwell • Tel. (01423) 863225Email [email protected]

N. WALES: The Churchill Club of ConwyBarbara Higgins • Tel. (01492) 535311Email [email protected]

THE CHURCHILL CENTREUNITED STATES

Lee Pollock, Executive DirectorTel. (888) WSC-1874


AK: Rt Hon Sir Winston Spencer Churchill Society of AlaskaJudith & James Muller • Tel. (907) 786-4740 Email [email protected]

CA-BAY AREA: Churchillians-by-the-BayJason Mueller • Tel. (831) 722-1440Email [email protected]

CA-LOS ANGELES Churchillians of So. Calif.Leon Waszak • Tel. (818) 240-1000 x5844Email [email protected]

CO: Rocky Mountain ChurchilliansLew House • Tel. (303) 661-9856 Email [email protected]

CT: Churchill Society of Connecticut Roger Deakin • Tel. (860) 767-2817Email [email protected]

DC: Washington Society for ChurchillRobert Rosenblatt • Tel. (703) 698-9647 Email [email protected]

FL-NORTH: Churchill Centre North FloridaRichard Streiff • Tel. (352) 378-8985Email [email protected]

Right: Dating from the 1940s is a high-relief bust in gold-

painted cast iron mounted on an oval plaque measuring 6 1/2

x 4 1/2 inches. It was manufactured by John Needham &

Sons, Ironfounders and Engineers, Stockport, Cheshire.

Left: Undoubtedly the best portrayal of Churchill as a soldier is this

splendid china figure by Michael Sutty, a prominent military

modeller, produced in 1988. Eighteen inches tall, it depicts the twenty-one-year-old Churchill in

1896 in the full dress uniform of a Second Lieutenant of the 4th Hussars. Hand-painted and

entirely accurate, it was priced at £500 and limited to 250 (the

edition was not completed). Prices have since increased some-

what. Lady Thatcher acquired one of the earliest examples, and

went on to collect twelve Sutty military models. Unfortunately the

artist’s Burlington Arcade shop was forced into liquidation in 1993

and he returned to Stoke-on-Trent, working as a freelance

modeller. There was an eager queue of Churchillians hoping that

one day he might be able to complete the edition of “2nd Lieut.

Winston S. Churchill 4th Hussars.”

Right: Oddly bearing the legend “Winston Churchill, Jnr.” is this

1995 polished pewter figurine by Royal Hampshire Art, portraying

Churchill as a Lieutenant attached to the 21st Lancers in the Battle

of Omdurman. It was mated with another pewter figurine of WSC

in wartime naval uniform, wearing his Royal Yacht Squadron cap.

Each well-detailed figure sold for £30.

C H U R C H I L L I A N A

The Military churchillD O U G L A S H A L L

The late Douglas Hall was a FH contributor and author of the comprehensive documentary volume, Churchilliana.

Right: A collection ofgood, bad and ugly

character jugs, mainly1940s. The only military

or quasi-military capsChurchill actually wore

were those of the RoyalYacht Squadron; Trinity

House; 4th Queen's

Own Hussars; 5th(Cinque Ports)

Battalion, The Royal

Sussex Regiment;

Queen's OwnOxfordshire Hussars

and RAF. None in this

photo resemble any of

the above, though theartists were probably

trying to suggest TrinityHouse or the Royal

Yacht Squadron. Most

likely, the artists had no

expert guidance. ,

chartwell bulletin...successor to the winston s. churchill study unit (1968) and the international...

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