Winston Churchill

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http://www.city-journal.org/2008/bc0725dm.html

 

[Spitfire]

Interesting read.
I strongly believe that Winston Churchill - along with his faults - was the right man at that moment.

 

[dhermann1]

Lukacs knows what he's talking about. Read "5 Days in London". The Churchill bashers just plain don't know what the bleep they're talking about. I was starting to like Pat Buchanen (after all these years) but after his latest anti Churchill book I'd like to wop him up side the gourd with a shovel.
Churchill stood alone against HEAVILY ARMED pure evil. That tiny little island performed a feat of courage and skill that we in the US, and even the Russkies, can hardly grasp. Up until literally half an hour before the Germans invaded Russia, the Russians were selling the Germans as many raw materials as they could. So Britain was fighting the Russian supported Nazis for a year and a half all on thier own. When you look closely you marvel how they did it.
All this anti Churchill propaganda is an absolute load of crap.

 

[Spitfire]

Thanks dhermann1 - you read my mind.

I will strongly recommend this book to anybody interested in that period, where England stood alone.

A great read and although the authors are not 100% pro Churchill - they have many tales and statements on his faults, his behaviour etc. - it gives a fantastic picture of that time. Also on all the hidden agendas in US - not wanting to get involved because of elections etc. But still negociating with Canada and asking them to see to, that The Royal Navy should sail to US when - not if - when England was beaten by the nazis.
With a solid help from Joseph Kennedy, who never for once thought England could win - and told that to everybody who cared to listen.
It also tells about how Churchill begged US and Pres. Rosevelt again and again or 50 old destoyers, that US had stopped using, to be sent to England after Dunkirk. (Something that only happende in the middle of the Battle of Britain - after UK had handed over the use of some naval bases to US and the american jounalists working in UK had written positively about the Battle of Britain pilots and the british peoples will to fight and win.)

But besides the political part - which is the smallest part of the book - it gives a brilliant picture of that time. That year 1940. By following 15-20 persons from before Dunkirk and onward through 1940, it give a true picture of how it was for the ordinary pilot, sailor, soldier, woman and child to live and survive those fatal months. With their back against the wall.

 

[Smithy]

Entirely agree Spitfire and dhermann.

I am vehemently opposed to the revisionist twaddle that some writers have spouted and said in an attempt to denigrate Churchill. There is no doubt he was the right man for the job and inspired not just Britain but also the Empire and the Dominions as well at a very dark time.

And Spitfire that is a very good book for a glimpse at the danger and knife-edge nature of the times. The series wasn't too shabby either.

 

[Spitfire]

You are ever so right Smithy.
The next couple of modern revisionist authors will propably come up with titles as:

Adolf Hitler - The mastermind of European humanism.
Hermann Goering - The philosopher of Strategy.
Himler - I did it my way!

 

[TessTrueheart]

This may be old news but I just saw this Winston Churchill film: www.hbo.com/films/gatheringstorm/. Quite good!

 

[Smithy]

This may be old news but I just saw this Winston Churchill film: www.hbo.com/films/gatheringstorm/. Quite good!

Fantastic film, Albert Finney gives his best performance in the film. Incredible, you'd almost swear he ws Churchill.

And Søren, that gave me a chuckle

 

[Parallel Guy]

The problem is you have a bunch of bleacher bums who will never play the game so they shout from the sidelines. It's happening big time with FDR as well as Churchill. Obviously, there's no need to dieify anyone and all are open for criticism, but they played in the bigs and no one plays there without a few critical errors. To dwell on those errors is like emphasizing Babe Ruth's strike outs.

 

[dhermann1]

Great Churchill flicks

Just for reference, here are some great Churchill movies:
First, let's start at the beginning, "Young Winston". Aside from being a lot too tall, Simon Ward is perfect. This film is based on his wonderful book "My Early Life".
"The Widlerness Years", a 1981 BBC mini-series with Robert Hardy. Hardy still often does WSC's voice for documentaries.
"The Gathering Storm". There are 2 versions. I've seen the 2002 version with Albert Finney, and Vanessa Redgrave almost channeling Clementine Churchill. There was an earlier version, in 1974, with Richard Burton as Churchill, that I haven't seen, but would love to. Burton did a great Churchill.
Churchill's granddaughter, Celia Sandys, is doing a series on her grandfather, that is currently running on PBS. Also highly recommended.

 

[Lefty]

I really enjoyed Chasing Churchill on PBS yesterday.

 

[dhermann1]

Chasing Churchill

I only wish she had visited 2 other places from Churchill's Early Life, the area of Afghanistan described in "The Malakand Field Force", and the location of the Battle of Omdurman, from "The River War". For obvious reasons that would have been difficult. (To see as good a representation of the actual events as you're likely to see, check out the 1939 version of "The Four Feathers", filmed on location in Africa.)
But it's amazing that so many places he was involved in are still hot spots today. This not really a coincidence, but by the same token (this being the whole topic of this thread), his association with these places has led to his being blamed for all the troubles that he found there. Another such one is Iraq. The recent book "Churchill's Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq", uses a sensational title to make it look like WSC went out of his way to create a mess there, when in fact, if you read the book, what he did do was come up with a remarkably viable solution to an overwhelmingly difficult problem.
I could go on, but I'd better restrain myself.

 

[byronic]

im sick of the churchill bashers too, when i was young and ignorant i thought churchill was overrated, im ashamed to admit this but we all make mistakes! required reading for buchanan and like-minded ignoramuses should be the aforementioned 'finest hour', 'a man called intrepid' by william stephenson and the recently published 'churchill' by richard holmes, also the movie 'the gathering storm' manages to convey the opposition and apathy that winston had to fight. all of us in the free world today owe this man a great deal.
p.s: should that be 'ignoramii'??

 

[warbird]

The problem is you have a bunch of bleacher bums who will never play the game so they shout from the sidelines. It's happening big time with FDR as well as Churchill. Obviously, there's no need to dieify anyone and all are open for criticism, but they played in the bigs and no one plays there without a few critical errors. To dwell on those errors is like emphasizing Babe Ruth's strike outs.

I can say I strive to follow the below quote by TR everyday.

The biggest critics are usually the ones who are too afraid to step on the field. I admire those who will and care little of those who don't or won't and yet criticize every decision of those who do. Take a stand, live your life, don't read about great things and great adventures do them. Don't whine about nothing being done and go do it. That is what Churchill did. HE could have sat on his laurels all his life and lived comfortably. He could have read about what others were doing and acted like he was one of them. He could have sat around dreaming of what he could have done, but he didn't. Like some others of the age, he sought to experience it all. He is a great example. Don't be a cultural coward, stand up for what you believe and live a life of adventure and experience. Do not be forced to cower do to the pressures of the bully critics. Put it all on the line for what you believe. I admired the hell out of Churchill and TR growing up, for their moxey and their spirit of principle, I set out to do the same and I have lived it though not in the larger public eye as they did. Churchill was a great man. He had no more faults than anyone of us.


"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

TR

 

[Naphtali]

Does anyone remember Roy Dotrice's very good one-man stage production of Churchill? In the early 1980s I saw it at the Loretto-Hilton Theater in St. Louis. As the audience was filing out, I swiped "Churchill's" cigar.