On Churchill’s becoming Prime Minister
Churchill became Prime Minister during an extraordinarily difficult crisis early in World War II. This was his mindset:
I was conscious of a profound sense of relief.
Relief? Most people would be terrified and/or despairing. Hitler was engaged in swiftly taking over most of Europe. The British forces were cornered at Dunkirk.
But Churchill was not most people:
At last I had authority to give directions over the whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.
He welcomed being in control, because he trusted himself. But that trust wasn’t just narcissism; he had reason to trust himself, and he thought the British people had reason to trust him, too:
Ten years in the political wilderness had freed me from ordinary party antagonisms. My warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed, and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me. I could not be reproached either for making the war or with want of preparation for it. I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail.
He had been ostracized and ridiculed for his dire prognosications and warnings, and had stood virtually alone. And then it turned out he’d been correct all along. This, added to Churchill’s natural confidence, must have increased that confidence immeasurably:
Therefore, although impatient for the morning, I slept soundly and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams.
[NOTE: You can find the quote here, but it’s also in innumerable biographies of Churchill.]
Not wanting to detract from Churchill’s greatness, and his being the right man in the right place at the right time, but had the people been fully aware of his somewhat eccentric proclivities, maybe they would have insisted that he be denied the post of Prime Minister, because he just wasn’t pure enough.
http://www.throughouthistory.com/?p=1874
— Churchill was a prolific drinker and smoker, consuming up to two bottles of champagne a day.
— Churchill’s nakedness wasn’t just limited to the bathroom where it might be expected. While he dictated speeches, or was busy sounding out new ones, he would sometimes get so distracted by his work that it wasn’t unknown for him to wander around Chartwell completely naked and forget that he wasn’t wearing any clothes! This fact was gleamed from the director’s commentary of ‘The Gathering Storm’, if anyone wants to know.
— Churchill suffered from Depression.
Probably not surprising, considering what he went through in life!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/03/the-dark-side-of-winston-churchills-legacy-no-one-should-forget/?utm_term=.3bac308fad91
But there’s another side to Churchill’s politics and career that should not be forgotten amid the endless parade of eulogies. To many outside the West, he remains a grotesque racist and a stubborn imperialist, forever on the wrong side of history.
* * *
However, he was never, SFAIK, accused of sexual immorality — this may be the closest he ever came:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11155416/Sir-Winston-Churchill-the-famous-lines-that-he-never-said.html
At a reception in Canada when Churchill was sitting next to a Methodist bishop, the two men were offered sherry by a waitress. Churchill took a glass, but the bishop said: “Young lady, I would rather commit adultery than take an intoxicating beverage.”
Churchill said to the waitress: “Come back lassie, I didn’t know we had a choice!”
(Churchill’s response may seem less likely than the bishop’s. YMMV)
The article also debunks this famous story: When Nancy Astor, Britain’s first female MP, told Sir Winston Churchill that: “If I were your wife I would put poison in your coffee,” Churchill famously replied: “Nancy, if I were your husband I would drink it.”
(believable though it is, the jest has been attributed to many other people through the years — most of the really good quotes are “fake news” that way)
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/27/drink-it/
Reminds me of a line from U. S. Grant’s memoirs. His campaign to take Vicksburg was long and hard-fought. Finally he resorted to a desperate tactic: he ran his steam boats past the Confederate batteries at night. He marched his troops down the the west side of the Mississippi and below Vicksburg. Then the boats ferried them across the river.
This put Grant in what many of his officers considered a very bad military situation. His river boats could not have survived going back up the river. Moving slowly against the current, they would have been shot to pieces by the guns at Vicksburg. So he had only the most tenuous lines of communication and supply.
Grant was perfectly aware of the risks he was taking. But, as he later wrote “None of that mattered because I was on dry ground on the same side of the river as the enemy.”
Aesop Fan’s warning,”But there’s another side to Churchill’s politics and career that should not be forgotten amid the endless parade of eulogies. To many outside the West, he remains a grotesque racist and a stubborn imperialist, forever on the wrong side of history” is both ignorant and biased.
Churchill was 100% correct in his (negative) observations about Islam and the Mid-East, for example. If that’s raaacist, so be it. Further, the British Empire was the greatest single civilizing force on the planet until England ran out of gas post-WWII.
“The wrong [or right)] side of history” is as stupid a statement as ever emerged from Obama’s mouth. It is however entirely consistent with the Progressives’ self-righteous pursuit of social perfection, 100 million dead notwithstanding.
Not my warning: it’s a quote.”To many outside the West” being the keywords.
The object was to point out that every leader has someone who objects to some of their positions or qualities of character; whether the complaint is justified or not is up for dispute.
I personally think Churchill was a very astute observer.
The people most affected by his actions had a different view. If theirs had prevailed, he might not have been named Prime Minister when he was needed.
Check out this recent post on PowerLine for another example of unheeded warnings.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/11/the-prophet-of-affirmative-action.php
Aesop:
Missed that you were quoting, the WaPo in that instance. Why anyone would read that and the other rags at this point in time eludes me. It is akin to licking rat poison, just to check what it tastes like, and whether the flavor has changed.
I had just forwarded the Powerline piece to my kids!
I was surprised to learn some years ago, that a young Churchill was an/the (?) architect of the WWI disaster at Gallipoli. I don’t know much about the battle beyond the Hollywood version, so perhaps a smarter theater commander would have yielded better results. At the time, some said it was a career ender for Churchill.
The other surprise, for me, was that early in WWII, Churchill had to blow up two or three major French warships, in port in Africa, in spite of the fact that French Navy leadership was very friendly to the Brits.
The lore surrounding that battle was that if the British Navy had sent a more senior officer to the French demanding surrender, they might have done so. More disturbing was that FDR was looking for a do-or-die level of determination from the Brits before supporting them, and told them so. So a bunch of French sailors had to die, to convince FDR, or so some have claimed.
I believe he gave the order to blow them up so that they wouldn’t fall into the hands of the Nazis who either had just conquered or were about to conquer France.
In sports, winners like having the ball in their hands. They don’t mind that it’s all up to them: they want it that way.
John F. MacMichael:
If you don’t know, you should read how Gen. Grant told Washington about the plan to take Vicksburg.
He started out into the wilderness (south) and sent word. He knew it would take days for messengers to get to a telegraph station to send word to Washington. Gen Halleck [?] would certainly tell him to stop doing what he was doing, but the order to stop would take days to reach him, and by then it would be too late.
As the key battle was taking place East of Vicksburg, a messenger did, indeed, ride up with orders not to attack Vicksburg. Grant just laughed.
Kevin @11/12 4:53 PM, I do recall reading about that incident. I think it was in Bruce Catton’s biography of Grant.
The Civil War did see the beginnings of our modern military curse of micromanagement thanks to the then new technology of the telegraph. Another example had Grant on the other side when he (by then in command of all U.S. forces) grew impatient with Gen. George H. Thomas’ failure to attack Nashville. After repeatedly prodding Thomas by telegram, Grant sent General Logan to replace him in command. Before Logan got there, Gen. Thomas did attack and destroyed Hood’s army at the Battle of Nashville. Logan kept the order in his pocket and quietly went back to Washington.
TommyJay:
From history.com:
“The [Gallipoli] invasion had been scuttled by incompetence and hesitancy by military commanders, but, fairly or unfairly, Churchill was the scapegoat. The Gallipoli disaster threw the government into crisis, and the Liberal prime minister was forced to bring the opposition Conservatives into a coalition government. As part of their agreement to share power, the Conservatives wanted Churchill, a renegade politician who had bolted their party a decade earlier, out from the Admiralty. In May 1915, Churchill was demoted to an obscure cabinet post.
“I am the victim of a political intrigue,” he lamented to a friend.
a young Churchill was an/the (?) architect of the WWI disaster at Gallipoli.
Gallipoli was a sound strategic plan to try to flank the horrible trench warfare on the western front. I visited Ypres in 2015. there is a memorial arch to the 57,000 British soldiers whose remains were never found.
The British Navy botched the Dardanelles campaign out of more concern with their warships than the war. They would not run the gauntlet and the invasion was also botched.
Halifax very nearly became PM because the Tories were not enthusiastic about Churchill and the King did not like him. Had Halifax gotten the job, the war would likely have been lost.
Read Lukacs, “Five Days in London, May 1940.”
This blog is better than The History Channel.
Needs more pictures, though. 😉
TommyJay…”early in WWII, Churchill had to blow up two or three major French warships, in port in Africa”
I posted about this tragic affair here:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/53322.html
To many outside the West, he remains a grotesque racist and a stubborn imperialist, forever on the wrong side of history.
Time is tending to blur these things, but Churchill was hated by many inside the West too.
The number of Australians he sent to their deaths in Gallipoli, Greece, Crete and Singapore has not been forgotten. (He knew the operations were dangerous, so he made sure that as many colonials were used as could be found, so that English troops were not so endangered. Prick.)
Don’t ask people of Cossack background of his agreement to hand them over to Stalin. Nor have many Poles much time for him.
He was a conceited bigot. Perfect for the time, of course, but there’s no need to think he was a good man.
If the British Army leadership had shown a bit of hustle, Gallipoli would have been a resounding success.
And yeah, Churchill wasn’t always right, and sometimes had to make decisions that were ugly. He became PM because Lord Halifax didn’t really want the job. And when France collapsed, Halifax wanted to negotiate a settlement with Hitler. Churchill didn’t. By putting his friend Lord Beaverbrook in charge of aircraft production, Churchill won the Battle of Britain, finishing that fight with more aircraft then when it started.
Chester:
Roosevelt sent many, many Americans to their European deaths and gave Eastern Europe to Stalin. He was hated by many in the West also.
War was declared on Hitler’s Germany only after it, as a Japanese ally, declared war on the USA. Hitler’s single greatest mistake. A case can be made that US could have limited its part in WWII to fighting only Japan, leaving the European theater to the two warring socialist/communist parties. Which the Russians, with their limitless supply of cannon fodder, might well have won, though German technical superiority might also have carried the day.
Chester when you hate there’s no need to think.
Perfect for the time, of course, but there’s no need to think he was a good man.
I think he was a better man than Hitler, which is what counted. He was also a better man than Halifax.
Interesting to see the opinions by those who lives are far more comfortable because he lived.
When I was applying to medical school, I was interviewed and was asked who I thought was the greatest man of the 20th century. I answered quickly and honestly with “Churchill.” Afterword, I thought I had blown it by not naming some medical figure like Salk. I got in anyway.
“You must look at the facts because they look at you.” Winston Churchill
What we learn from history is that no one learns from history. – Bismark
if you want to understand what was happening in europe and such just before that which informed churchill, then you have to read a few things THEY DONT (refuse) to talk about
the key is
“The Magyar Struggle”
In the period of Churchil the Magyar means hungarian, it also means a person. [in fact you wont hear hungarian used till later… ]
but this was 1848, and engels was making his prediction of what had to be done… and even fantasized about who would do it.
back then, such a thing would be read and well known,a and IF you read it and known it, you would know that “My Struggle” was the man taking up Engels charge in the Magyar struggle…
you would ALSO know of a man named:
Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva
[the magyar]
in fact, they go so far as to never translate the title!!
if you look up My Strugg, you will find, Mein Kampf – there have even been other books that tend to misdirect you if you look for it in english. Like Karl Ove Knausgaard.. My Struggle
the wiki for the one in question goes:
Mein Kampf (German: [maɪ̯n kampf], My Struggle)
but it does not do the same for the magyar
Starting with an article called “The Magyar Struggle”, written on 8 January 1849, Engels, himself, began a series of reports on the Revolution and War for Independence of the newly founded Hungarian Republic
These articles are almost never read and often have apologists to them!!! why? cause they lay out the holocaust, and the main states and the exterminations of jews and other “hide bound” nationalities like the slavs (Who trotsky called racist later for not wanting to give up being slavs and turned into international soviets)
The LATVIANS know this because we were forced to study it, and even today, our documentaries now out cover it… (but westerners, why would they care about the people who were there guarding the austrian, and later conscripted by both and later the guards at neuremberg???)
History Lessons: The Revolutionary Holocaust and Soviet Story
https://obrlnews.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/opposing-red-propaganda-the-revolutionary-holocaust-and-soviet-story-3/
Here’s a few alarming but lesser-known quotations from the “founding fathers” of communism, which go to the core of the problem:
Der Magyarische Kampf preceded and informed herr leaders full ideas in Mein Kampf, which is why he chose THAT title…
he wanted his struggle to be that of the hungarian engels envied and predicted would make this happen (nearly 80 years before WWII and before WWI)
“The classes and the races too weak to master the new conditions of life must give way… They must perish in the revolutionary holocaust”
– Karl Marx ( Marx People’s Paper, April 16, 1856, Journal of the History of Idea, 1981 )
The bust of Kossuth that was added to the United States Capitol in 1990 is presently displayed in that building’s “Freedom Foyer” alongside busts of Vé¡clav Havel and Winston Churchill.
For the first time after a long period we meet with a truly revolutionary figure, a man who in the name of his people dares to accept the challenge of a desperate struggle, who for his nation is Danton and Carnot in one person – Lajos Kossuth. – The Magyar Struggle in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (13 January 1849).
and you probably dont know him..
hiding him became important.
why were hitlers speeches so important, cause thats what the magyar was known for. over and over you will find he copies this person to be what he was
As the most influential contemporary American journalist Horace Greeley said of Kossuth: “Among the orators, patriots, statesmen, exiles, he has, living or dead, no superior.”
He was widely honored during his lifetime, including in Great Britain and the United States, as a freedom fighter and bellwether of democracy in Europe. Kossuth’s bronze bust can be found in the United States Capitol with the inscription: Father of Hungarian Democracy, Hungarian Statesman, Freedom Fighter, 1848—1849.
so churchill knew the man and his stuff, his speech ability and the stuff by engels the westerners dont read. you can look and you wont fine any history book that neo may have read that has them both together and puts it out right..
The Magyar Struggle in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (13 January 1849).
you wont find it unless you search for extirpation, as we did not use extermination till later when our english skills were lessened.. we use the wrong term today, but hide engels
annihilate: to reduce to nothing
extirpate: to pluck out by the root
exterminate: to banish, exile
So hitler did not want to exterminate the jews, he wanted to extirpate..
tons and tons of stuff you can see work to hide things from you
and of course, no one who knows can teach you, you would have heard about it
and since you havent, it must be nutters…
Marx NEVER planned a peaceful revolution and Engels had no compuction against genoicide [but many words had not been made up, so if you dont use the old words you wont find the old texts or refernces!!!]
Istvé¡n Széchenyi criticized Kossuth for “pitting one nationality against another” [and what did his protege do later? ] By combining this nationalism with an insistence on the superiority of the Hungarian culture to the culture of Slavonic inhabitants of Hungary, he sowed the seeds of both the collapse of Hungary in 1849 and his own political demise.
so there is your model.. in that history we did not learn, and have little idea of
Kossuth turned the people against the Slavics that were living there (just as trotsky hated them too for likeing being slavic)… this spliting of the society is what hitler used and what the left is now using targetting white males…
engels had no problem with NATIONALISM / his HERO of his revolutionary dreams was a nationalist, not a communist – which he and engels saw as coming later..
He continued to agitate on behalf of both political and commercial independence for Hungary. He adopted the economic principles of Friedrich List, and was the founder of a “Védegylet” society whose members consumed only Hungarian produce
and List? he is forgotten as the inventor of the european union a long time before it
i listen to you guys gab and not one of you brings up munzenberg, chase, list, Kossuth, and so on… and if you dont, then you dont know the history, yo only know the bs history they spoon fed you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
List had a more complicated view of things than who came later in the lesser education systems
cont…
They were building a socialist nationalist state.. the European union…
the league of nations (united nations) and the eropean union…
way before the other elites picked it up, like the very manipulative brother of Aldous huxley who tried to warn everyone about a “Brave new world”
Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals
By Aldous Huxley
the Long Campaign of non violent resistance and non co operation conducted by the Hungarians under Deak was crowned with the complete success in 1867. …it is significant that the name of Kossuth, the leader of the violent hungarian revoluition of 1848 was and still is far better known thatn deak. Kossuth was a ambitious, power loving militarist, who completely faled to liberate his country….
ALL these people who are the movers of this know this.
all the peopel who are victims and wondering and discussing here
have no idea of this stuff, nor do they apprecaite being told
List inspired all the nationalists, stuart chase, FDR, churchill new cause the hungarian revoltion was like WWII is today…
Yes, it was witte who set things up for lening and the Latvian rifle men.. (the 10,000 that would do things and were mentioned but seldom by name)
These demands, which basically was the political programme of the Liberation Movement, was an attempt to isolate the political Left by pacifying the liberals (a group that lenin later wrote a piece called: Liberalism an infantil disorder)
But here is whats key and here is what you dont get happened to the US state…
one of the main differences of law between the united states back then and now was MORAL LEADERSHIP… the US did not look to its leaders as moral examples… (so we got some really less than stellar appearing men who ended up being great in the long run… same with Winston).
however, what really made things roll and is NEVER DISCUSSED is the fact that european law and leadership was also like islam. moral leaders
the term is Rechtsstaat
our government attitudes have been change since the 1960s to be a Rechtsstaat system not the system it was..
this is the part westerners dont get about looking up to a stalin, or a hitler or dear leader. the Rechtsstaat has to preceed the thing..
A Rechtsstaat is a “constitutional state” in which the exercise of governmental power is constrained by the law, and is often tied to the Anglo-American concept of the rule of law, but differs from it in that it also emphasizes what is just (i.e., a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity).
this is why germany saw it easy to use islam. and change christianity and that hitler was a moral leader… who would not only just fix economy and such but would make the place moral..
this is what the left is doing… but we dont ge it, as we barely undersand that period having been taught by leftists, communists, apologists for marxism. etc.
Thus it is the opposite of Obrigkeitsstaat or Nichtrechtstaat (a state based on the arbitrary use of power), and of Unrechtsstaat (a non-Rechstaat with the capacity to become one after a period of historical development).
In a Rechtsstaat, the power of the state is limited in order to protect citizens from the arbitrary exercise of authority. The citizens share legally based civil liberties and can use the courts. A country cannot be a liberal democracy without being a Rechtsstaat.
waht? did you think there weren diferences like this?
did you imagine they woud tell you?
when would you find out?
This is the point of fair laws… the move to the german idea of law that hitler followed.. law that also included a moral component And it was this moral component that gives dictators power over the people despite such a thing is supposed to secure them from such power As with islam, someone has to be the moral arbiter… in socialism of Germany, Austria, Poland and hungary (as in Magyar) it was the furer. Who not only had to be a political leader but a MORAL LEADER
THis is what moves law and the state to where feminists delcard the personal is political and when entereing the politics of the west, wanted to add feminist morality to the law… and they did
its MORAL for the law to allow abortions, and that is the argument, which is why it needs penumbras as our law isnt Rechtsstaat
t has the shadow of western constitiutions, but explains why Russia constitution of 1935 and forwards is a shadow.
James Bucchanen got a nobel prize for his work in this area (bet you didnt know he knows and bet you didnt know he has a nobel… )
Witte decided to see what the Rothschilds could do (now you know why the tin hatters live there)
David Foster: Just read your post about Mers-el-Kebir. Thanks for your write up at Chicago Boyz. An excellent recap of an event that was unavoidable once the die was cast.