Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill Read online

  One evening in August . . . in 1066. A.J.P. Taylor, The Warlords (New York: Atheneum, 1978), 86–87.

  Few had shared his belief . . . Moscow. John Colville, Winston Churchill and His Inner Circle (New York: Wyndham Books, 1981), 213.

  Prime Minister to First Lord . . . morning. Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, Their Finest Hour (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1949), 465.

  in 1944, when Churchill . . . Gibraltar. Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1953), 703. Memorandum to Colonial Secretary, September 1, 1944.

  “These are my story . . . let him.” Lord Tedder, With Prejudice: The War Memoirs (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1966), i.

  He admitted that . . . mistakes, Brian Gardner, Churchill in Power: As Seen by His Contemporaries (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1970), 218, quoting Captain H. C. Butcher, naval aide to Eisenhower, diary of May 31, 1943.

  Future generations may deem . . . issues. Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, Their Finest Hour (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1949), 177.

  “We sallied forth . . . hold it.” Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 4, The Hinge of Fate (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950), 516.

  One of his much-studied . . . Awaits.” Colville, Inner Circle, 187.

  Churchill wrote with . . . of it.” Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, 596.

  “I leave the judgment . . . history.” Gardner, Churchill in Power, 72.

  Meeting with Stalin . . . keep it.” Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1953), 227–28.

  he insisted that . . . race.” Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, 100. In fact, Churchill did permit the British commander to surrender to the Japanese.

  “Everything I was sure . . . happened.” Winston Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), 67.

  33: Churchill and Hitler

  “a horror of whistling” John Colville, The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company 1985), 158. Diary entry of June 15, 1940.

  I am willing to sign . . . demands it? John Strawson, Churchill and Hitler: In Victory and Defeat (New York: Fromm International, 1997), 203.

  “few, if any . . . 1933.” Ian Kershaw, The “Hitler Myth”: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 1.

  “Are we beasts? . . . too far?” Piers Brendon, Winston Churchill: A Biography (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), 190.

  “I hate nobody . . . professional.” John Colville, Winston Churchill and His Inner Circle (New York: Wyndham Books, 1981), 11.

  I am free to confess . . . appals me. Mary Soames, ed., Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), 512. Winston Churchill, letter to Clementine Churchill, February 1, 1945.

  “Close your hearts . . . right.” Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000), 209.

  “Losses can never . . . greatness.” John Strawson, Churchill and Hitler: In Victory and Defeat (New York: Fromm International, 1997), 207.

  wrote General Ismay to . . . brigades.” Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1953), 732.

  The whole fury . . . finest hour.” David Cannadine, ed., Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat: The Speeches of Winston Churchill (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989), 177–78.

  “I never gave them . . . theirs.” Diana Cooper, Trumpets from the Steep (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960), 69.

  “We can no longer afford . . . population.” Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Touchstone, 1970), 439.

  “A talk by the Fuhrer . . . the same.” Joseph Goebbels, Final Entries 1945: The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, ed. Hugh Trevor-Roper, trans. Richard Barry (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1978), 237. Diary entry of March 26, 1945.

  “Hitler’s gifts as an orator . . . illusions.” Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (New York: HarperPerennial, 1962), 423–24.

  “If the war is . . . nation.” H. R. Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler (New York: Macmillan Company, 1947), 82.

  “But had this war . . . Churchill?” Brian Gardner, Churchill in Power: As Seen by His Contemporaries (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910), 150. Hitler broadcast of January 30, 1942.

  It almost causes . . . destroy. John Strawson, Churchill and Hitler: In Victory and Defeat (New York: Fromm International, 1997), 277.

  34: Churchill Exposed

  “glad to record” . . . people.” Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1953), 150.

  whether “blacks . . . production.’” Lord Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966), 692. Diary entry of April 8, 1955.

  “Winston regarded males . . . male sex?” Anita Leslie, Clare Sheridan (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, 1977), 42.

  “contrary to natural law . . . states” Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, companion vol. 1, part 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1967), 765.

  “adequately represented by their husbands.” Ibid.

  Later, he supported . . . consistent. William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874–1932 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1983), 245, 375.

  as late as the 1930s . . . elements.” David Cannadine, Aspects of Aristocracy (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), 158.

  “we had a real . . . set in.” Winston Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), 359.

  “The unnatural and increasingly . . . exaggerate.” Clive Ponting, Churchill (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), 101–2; private letter to Prime Minister Asquith.

  Years later, a young . . . at a time.” William Manchester, The Last Lion: William Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932–1940 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988), 109.

  He ordered studies . . . towns. Roy Jenkins, Churchill (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 747.

  35: Churchill True or False

  When Churchill was captured . . . prisoner. False. Richard Hough, Winston and Clementine (New York: Bantam Books, 1991), 109, explains that Field Cornet Oosthuizen, not Botha, made the capture.

  Churchill didn’t see Hamlet . . . seventies. Clive Ponting, Churchill (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), 43.

  Churchill altered his . . . Eisenhower. John Colville, The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1985), 658. Diary entry of January 1, 1953.

  Churchill was a Freemason. From 1901 to 1912. Ponting, Churchill, 43.

  Out of superstition . . . table. Walter Graebner, My Dear Mr. Churchill (Boston: Riverside Press, 1965), 51.

  Churchill’s great-granddaughter . . . attendants. Churchill, whose full name was Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, and Princess Diana, the former Lady Diana Frances Spencer, were distant cousins related through the Spencer line, descendants of the first Duchess of Marlborough. Churchill’s five-year-old great-granddaughter had been Diana’s kindergarten pupil.

  Clementine once threw . . . head. Mary Soames, Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979), 305.

  Clementine once sold . . . expenses. David Cannadine, Aspects of Aristocracy (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), 145.

  When Churchill returned . . . back.” False. Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994), 232. Biographer Martin Gilbert, who wrote the exhaustive and authoritative life of Churchill, could find no record to show that this famous message had ever actually been sent.

  When reports indicated . . . sending aid. False. Ibid., 684.

  Churchill sent £2 . . . servant. James Morris, Fare
well the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1978), 546.

  As First Lord in 1940 . . . capture. William Manchester, The Last Lion: William Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932–1940 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988), 553.

  Churchill once traveled . . . luggage. Andrew Barrow, Gossip: A History of High Society from 1920 to 1970 (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1978), 175.

  “I have a keen . . . dervishes.” Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, companion vol. 1, part 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1967), 963. Winston Churchill, letter to his mother, August 10, 1898.

  “I do not care so much . . . give me.” Ibid., 933. Winston Churchill, letter to his mother, May 16, 1898.

  “No one can travel . . . degradation.” Winston Churchill, My African Journey (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1908), 37–38.

  “I only wish . . . soul.” Mary Soames, ed., Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), 81. Winston Churchill, letter to Clementine Churchill, November 3, 1913.

  “We have got . . . to us.” Winston Churchill to Cabinet, January 10, 1914.

  Of the Navy . . . lash!” False. See Gilbert, In Search, 232.

  “I know this war . . . I live.” Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, Winston Churchill: An Intimate Portrait (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), 295; in 1915.

  “As to freedom . . . government?” Piers Brendon, Winston Churchill: A Biography (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), 105.

  “A universal suffrage . . . great.” Essay by Robert Rhodes James, in Churchill: A Major New Assessment of His Life in Peace and War, eds. Robert Blake and William Roger Louis (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993), 114.

  “India is no more . . . Equator.” Winston Churchill, speech at the Constitution Club, March 11, 1931.

  “Thus the world lives . . . age.” Winston Churchill, Great Contemporaries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937), “Hitler and His Choice,” 268.

  “The greatest cross . . . Lorraine.” False. Gilbert, In Search, 233.

  “Kindly remember I am . . . train.” Ponting, Churchill, 730. Churchill remark upon learning that a train was not scheduled to stop in Annecy, from which he wished to leave.

  “We have now reached . . . fifteen.” Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, vol. 2, The New World (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1956), 3. This curious observation is the first line of the volume.

  36: The Tragedy of Winston Churchill, Englishman

  “A man larger than . . . our time.” Isaiah Berlin, Mr. Churchill in 1940 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1949), 39.

  “His spirit is indomitable . . . privateers.” John Colville, The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1985), 136. Diary entry of May 19, 1940.

  “The life he lived . . . the end.” Winston Churchill, Savrola (New York: Random House, 1956), 32.

  Instead, under Churchill . . . war’s end. Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes, vol. 3, Fighting for Freedom, 1937–1946 (New York: Viking, 2000), 125, 142.

  “I have always faithfully . . . life.” Winston Churchill, Maxims and Reflections, ed. Colin Coote (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947), 33.

  “We answered all the tests . . . useless.” Lord Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966), 744. Diary entry of June 19, 1956.

  “I have achieved much . . . the end.” Sarah Churchill, A Thread in the Tapestry (London: André Deutsch, 1967), 17.

  “In the end . . . gone.” Anita Leslie, Clare Sheridan (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, 1977), 304–5.

  “life is at bottom . . . powerful,” Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, 1956), 50.

  37: Churchill in Portrait

  “gross & cruel monster.” Mary Soames, Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979), 666.

  “The portrait is . . . candour.” Ibid., 588.

  Clementine secretly destroyed it . . . again. Ibid., 664.

  “I feel like an aeroplane . . . landing.” Norman Rose, Churchill: The Unruly Giant (New York: Free Press, 1994), 414.

  38: Churchill’s Last Days

  “He died in harness . . . his!” Winston Churchill, War Speeches, vol. 5, Victory (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946), 137. Eulogy in the House of Commons, April 17, 1945.

  “I never think of . . . have.” Diana Cooper, Trumpets from the Steep (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960), 189.

  He spent hours listening . . . player. Roy Howells, Churchill’s Last Years (New York: David McKay Company, 1965), 169.

  “Blessings become curses,” he said . . . and now . . .” Lord Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966), 311.

  “I’ve got to kill . . . ended.” Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1991), 956.

  “Today is the twenty-fourth . . . too.” John Colville, Winston Churchill and His Inner Circle (New York: Wyndham Books, 1981), 30.

  “I’m so bored with it all.” Mary Soames, Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979), 646.

  “Nineteen-forty . . . every time.” Moran, Diaries, 348. Diary entry of December 7, 1947.

  He had planned to be . . . father. Ibid., 814. Diary entry of December 16, 1959.

  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill rests on the work of more comprehensive biographers. It was a pleasure to draw upon the huge, fascinating literature about Winston Churchill and his time, and I hope my brief account of Churchill’s life will inspire readers to read further. Listed here are principal works consulted as well as sources related to the study of biography.

  The most authoritative account of Churchill’s life is the eight-volume biography with companion volumes of relevant documents, begun by Randolph Churchill and completed by Martin Gilbert (1966–1988).

  Alanbrooke, Lord. War Diaries: 1939–1945. Edited by Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

  Alldritt, Keith. Churchill the Writer: His Life as a Man of Letters. London: Hutchinson, 1992.

  Allingham, Margery. The Oaken Heart. London: Michael Joseph Ltd., 1941.

  Ashley, Maurice. Churchill as Historian. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968.

  Backscheider, Paula R. Reflections on Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

  Barnes, Julian. Flaubert’s Parrot. New York: Vintage International, 1984.

  Barrow, Andrew. Gossip: A History of High Society from 1920 to 1970. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1978.

  Beaton, Cecil. The Years Between: Diaries, 1939–1944. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965.

  Berlin, Sir Isaiah. The Hedgehog and the Fox. Chicago: Elephant Paperback, 1953.

  ———. Mr. Churchill in 1940. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1949.

  Best, Geoffrey. Churchill: A Study in Greatness. London: Hambledon and London, 2001.

  Birkenhead, Earl of. Halifax: The Life of Lord Halifax. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965.

  Blake, Robert, and William Roger Louis, eds. Churchill: A Major New Assessment of His Life in Peace and War. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993.

  Bonham-Carter, Lady Violet. Winston Churchill: An Intimate Portrait. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965.

  Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson. London: Penguin Classics, 1986.

  Botton, Alain de. Kiss and Tell. New York: Picador, 1995.

  Brendon, Piers. Winston Churchill: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.

  Brittain, Vera. Testament of Experience. New York: Macmillan and Company, 1957.

  Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. New York: HarperPerennial, 1962.

  Byatt, A. S. The Biograph
er’s Tale. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.

  Callahan, Raymond. Churchill: Retreat from Empire. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1984.

  Cannadine, David. Aspects of Aristocracy. New York: Penguin Books, 1994.

  ———. History in Our Time. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.

  ———. Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

  ———, ed. Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat: The Speeches of Winston Churchill. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989.

  Charmley, John. Churchill’s Grand Alliance: The Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1940–57. New York: Harvest Books, 1995.

  ———. Churchill: The End of Glory. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1993.

  Churchill, Randolph. Winston S. Churchill, vols. 1–2. With companion volumes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966–1967.

  Churchill, Sarah. A Thread in the Tapestry. London: André Deutsch, 1967.

  Churchill, Winston. Amid These Storms. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932.

  ———. Great Contemporaries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937.

  ———. A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. 4 vols. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1956–1958.

  ———. Lord Randolph Churchill. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan and Company, 1906.

  ———. Marlborough: His Life and Times. 6 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933–1938.

  ———. Maxims and Reflections. Edited by Colin Coote. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947.

  ———. My African Journey. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1908.

  ———. My Early Life: A Roving Commission. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

  ———. Painting as a Pastime. New York: Cornerstone, 1950.

  ———. The River War. London: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1899.

  ———. Savrola. New York: Random House, 1956.

  ———. The Second World War. 6 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1948–1953.

  ———. The World Crisis. 5 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923–1931.