WINSTON CHURCHILL
(Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill)
This speech to over 100,000 people galvanized the Indian nationalists They had been asking the British to change the constitution to give India more independence. Churchill was opposed to any policy that would diminish the British Empire, but needed the Indians as men of India served in the British Army in every major theater of WWII. So instead of saying "No" Churchill held out the possibility but at a later time. He argued that it was inopportune to alter the Constitution in the midst of a world war.
“Lord Haw Haw” was the name that he used in his propaganda broadcasts from Germany to England. Despite the fact that the broadcasts were anti-British and pro German, many in Britain listened to him regularly. He was very witty and many of his criticisms of British society were views held by many patriots in Britain. As pure entertainment, he was better than most of the BBC broadcasts during WWII. At the end of the war, Joyce was captured, tried and executed for treason.
Coughlin was a great admirer of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and the Fascists. He was one of the American “heroes” in Nazi Germany, receiving assistance from the Nazi government. Between his anti-Semitism and support for Hitler, Fascism and radical socialism, the Vatican ordered him off the air and shut down his political demagoguery.
1st Baron Beaverbrook
2nd Earl of Selborne. Most of the world’s proven oil reserves were unknown at the time. Several years later, the new First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, reversed this policy and started building oil fueled battleships.
and later wife
A large part of German propaganda was directed not only to Germans and the Axis, but one target was Englishmen and Americans. One objective was to try and cause strains in the amazingly strong British-American Alliance. In this cartoon Roosevelt—the large adult figure—is leading the small child, Churchill, by the hand. Many British were sensitive about this possibility.
The graphic for this quote is the original illustration from the article. German WWII propaganda characterized Churchill as a hugly overweight, ugly, drunk. Churchill was a relatively heavy drinker of alcohol.
Churchill had few close friends, many enemies, and depending on the stage of his career, little or great public approval and popularity. Churchill however was not in the least intimidated by the greatest literary wit of the era. He wrote back: “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second .. if there is one.”
If it was a 15 minute speech, Churchill would spend 15 hours practicing. He had no speechwriters and also wrote all his own wartime speeches.
He gave as an example, Churchill’s activities in the 1930s when he became not very unpopular even in his own party for telling people what they did not want to hear but needed to hear.
The British Empire Controlled Most of the Middle East in the 1920s, and they presided over most of the creations of states in the region. Churchill was a major figure in British Colonial policy. The natural borders tended to follow rivers, mountain ranges, lakes other irregular geographical elements. Borders of straight lines were almost always artificial in that men (and a few women) decided upon them as a convenience. Churchill was personally involved in much of the line drawing for borders.
1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. Though members of the same Conservative Party, Churchill was a major opponent of Baldwin’s peace and “appeasement” efforts and publicly castigated Prime Minister Baldwin. Yet Baldwin, if he could not stave off war, wanted his critic to serve as Prime Minister if war was inevitable. Churchill never had much respect for Baldwin. See {626930}.
Few from the establishment then thought England could hold out.
1st Earl of Oxford. Churchill was then First Lord of the Admiralty, and an enthusiastic proponent of entering the First World War.
While England was under attack by the Germans in World War II, Congress was debating Roosevelt's proposal for lend-lease. The president had set the passage of this legislation as his main priority, and a critical meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt was deferred until passage was obtained. Roosevelt dispatched Hopkins to London. Urging a prompt meeting, Hopkins cabled:
Hopkins was a social worker with no military of political experience. But the President trusted him implicitly. Most American military officers and Ambassador to England Joseph P. Kennedy, a Nazi sympathizer & father of JFK, believed that England could not stand up to Hitler. Any military aid we gave England would fall into the hands of the Germans. Everyone was shocked when Roosevelt sent Hopkins to England to make a military recommendation. To impress Hopkins with something he thought Hopkins would be interested in, Churchill led a tour of workers cottages built by the government. Hopkins surprised Churchill and his aids who would never forget this statement & then asked to see the military facilities. Hopkins distressed the American military by recommending that Britain could hold out against invasion if they received military aid. Despite the contrary military advice, FDR accepted Hopkins’ recommendations, and the rest is history. He had been right and much of the military wrong.
Hopkins was a social worker with no military of political experience. But the President trusted him implicitly. Most American military officers and Ambassador to England Joseph P. Kennedy, a Nazi sympathizer & father of JFK, believed that England could not stand up to Hitler. Any military aid we gave England would fall into the hands of the Germans. Everyone was shocked when Roosevelt sent Hopkins to England to make a military recommendation. Hopkins, FDR’s closest advisor made this powerful and moving statement to Churchill and other British leaders. The combination of the first Biblical phrase with the second recognition of the possibility of failure, was inspirational for the British—just the effect Roosevelt sought.
This is a catenation of two separate quotes: (1) “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” —Perth, Scotland, 28 May 1948, in Churchill, Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 & 1948 (London: Cassell, 1950), 347. (2) ("Equal sharing of miseries"): Spoken in the House of Commons on October 22, 1945: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries".
Historically, this is an amazing quotation. It is typical of analyses of Islam in the 21st century when America and most of the non-Muslim world was having great difficulties with Islamic militancy. But this was written at the end of the 19th century, in 1899. Churchill had a grasp of much that it would take other politicians a century to understand. This book was relatively unknown to all but a few historians, military men, and political scholars. (There was a shortened version published in 1902 which did not include this passage and that is the version that Project Gutenberg posted on the Internet. So do not assume that the quotation is wrong if you cannot find it in the version you are reading on the Internet. You need the 1899 longer and more detailed version.
The quotation was given by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld just prior to the war with Iraq, 2003.
- Born: November 30, 1874
- Died: January 24, 1965
- Nationality: English
- Profession: Statesman
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, DL, FRS, RA was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, Churchill was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, as leader from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924. Churchill was also well known for his military career and as a historian, painter and writer, and among his many awards was the Nobel Prize in Literature.
