Winston Churchill Quotes
Empires just don’t bargain.
FDR had agreed to send destroyers to help Churchill but to placate Congress he wanted a formal agreement for Britain to lease bases to the United States. Roosevelt wanted the Prime Minister to work out a Lend Lease agreement with the Attorney General. Jackson’s reply was “But Republics do!”
Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, British Prime Minister (Conservative), Phone Call to U. S. Attorney General Robert Jackson, 1940
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Often called Blackshirts
Roosevelt had withdrawn his Ambassador to Berlin, publicly reprimanded Joseph P. Kennedy, his Ambassador to England who was pro Fascist and who had said complementary things about Hitler and Mussolini. FDR made anti-German statements to a degree unknown for a country not at war. Hitler publically stated that the Germans would not be pressured. Dictators who U. S. leaders have tried to isolate and pressure, have made similar statements ever since. The American intervention was certainly effective against Hitler.
The final decision regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor and war with America had to be made. The Emperor Hirohito, Prime Minister Tojo, the full cabinet and leading elder statesmen were invited. Hara attended as one of the latter class. America had instituted an embargo of critical raw material whose end was contingent of Japan withdrawing from the territory that they had invaded and stop their territorial aggression in Asia, an aggression which some Japanese leaders—notably the military—was absolutely necessary to provide for the growing Japanese population and its increasing standard of living. At the time, an embargo was a powerfully effective weapon, which left Japan only two choices: Withdrawal or War. In modern times nations have chosen to endure and evade embargoes rather than be forced into undesirable positions.
1st Baron & 1st Marquis Curzon of Kedleston
The French had arrived there first an “claimed” the area with a tiny military contingent under Lieutenant Marchand. However, the British arrived afterward with a much larger military force. London and Paris decided that the French should withdraw in favor of the British. Delcasse had been right. Another case of “might makes right.”
The great European powers were attending an International Congress—Summit Meeting of the heads of government and their diplomats to deal with the crisis of Tsarist Russian military expansionism. None of the other European powers of the time wanted or could afford war so Russia could only be thwarted by Great Britain. There were many in England who thought that the British should not even attend and should send troops immediately. The Queen and the Royal Family were among those. At the Congress Disraeli, who had much personal affection for Queen Victoria, wanted to reassure her. 1st Earl of Beaconsfield. If the Congress did not succeed the mainland of Europe would have been at war. Disraeli obtained everything England wanted. See Russian Ambassador Prince Gortchakoff’s observation.
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.
