Having just returned from a week-long symposium on WSC - I found American Historical thought on him to be increasingly laudetory. The blame for Dardenells / Golipoli (sp) is laid at the hesitating, indeed grudging, compliance by the Top Command. His chief failure seemed to be keeping and listening to Jackie Fisher ...

Let's just say there is an awful lot of belief in the Haig / Donkey theory. Every presenter alluded to the "stupidity" of a Western Front Victory theory - though none were WWI specialists.

My analysis is that Americans are/were totally awed by his WWII leadership and forget about his political management at other times. There was also a lecture on why he is the Ultra-darling of the Neo-cons of today.

Myself I thought his appointment of Jellicoe splendid and his support of Beatty problematical ... He sought and never found a "soft underbelly" in either war.

But - what is the feeling here about WSC?

Andy

It has been discussed here before. There was a thread about this around the time of the 40th anniv. of his death.

Funnily enough, I have been looking for information about Victor Grayson - see my Victor Grayson thread. I have 'googled' and found something that says that the ex socialist MP Grayson was Winston Churchill's 'secret' brother:

http://thomasslemen.tripod.com/royals.html

Speaking for myself, and I should imagine the majority of Britons; I firmly believe that Winston Churchill is beyond doubt the greatest Briton that ever lived.

Oh, he had his faults, making him far from perfect, but his good points far outweighed his bad ones - it's a pity the same can't be said for eveyone. His mistakes as a young politician, in my opinion, were brought about by a certain naivety on his part, and he carried the can when doing the honourable thing and resigning as First Sea Lord. But remember, before embarking on a successful campaign to clear his reputation he actually commanded an infantry battalion on the western front for a short period; if nothing else, we have to laud his bottle.

I would ask - Without his earlier mistakes, would he have been able to become a great wartime leader? Without making mistakes from which to learn from, would he have acquired the ability to become our greatest ever leader and empower his people in their most perilous moment?


Cheers - salesie.

I agree - a great man. The Gallipoli campaign was a disaster, but one which might have succeeded, had the War Office and Admiralty had belief in it, and had we had a commander who was more able to 'push' than to allow his subordinates to dictate affairs.

As for his stewardship of the Admiralty, one only has to consider the feeling when he returned to the post on the outbreak of WW2 "Winston's back" to believe that the Navy held him in esteem.

We could do with him in these times......

How do you account for the fact that the nation preferred Attlee after the war, when WSC should have been at his most popular? Phil B

We have another warmonger in charge instead.

I would add that his time in charge in WW2 was tempered expertly by Lord Allanbrooke. That said he was an inspiration to a nation.

He was not voted in because he was a conservative leader and the electorate went for something different that was not connected to the old ways that had led them into war. it was i think something Churchill saw as hard to swollow that he had led them to victory and then thye turned him aside, but such is the political world.

A great man not necesserily my greatest man but up there with them.

regards
Arm

The theories as to why Attlee and the labour party won the 1945 general election are well documented and wide ranging in both scope and depth, and, as far as I recall, all commentators have struggled to find a simplistic explanation - it has flummaxed the experts precisely because Churchill was so popular.

What's your theory, Phil?


Cheers - salesie.

Although I think it unfair to blame Churchil for the failure, the landing was inept to say the least, I've often wondered what the strategic aim was at Gallipoli. If the allies had managed to get off the beaches, what then?. Politically, he was identified with brutal repression in the Welsh coal strike. I can remember him being booed in a cinema in Dundee just after WW2. ( Yes, they took their cinema seriously then, they used to applaud the good bits.)

From your statement, I assume you mean that Churchill was a warmonger and that Blair is now? If so, history will be Blair's judge. As for Churchill being a warmonger; in my opinion, it was the failure to totally defeat the German army and/or negotiate a just treaty in 1919 which sowed the seeds that made WW2 a distinct possibility. But it was the appeasers, those high-minded but silly men who failed to listen to Churchill's warnings, as well as the intelligence presented to them, who made it inevitable.


Cheers - salesie.

My own pet theory is that, unlike these days of presidential-style government, people voted locally on local issues, fed up of the international scene dominating for so long - and Labour had better on offer - free health care, improved unemployment cover and so on.

Churchill - many faults but his brilliance in 1940-1 overrides all other considerations.
How would we regard him if he had died in 1939 - a Cassandra proved right concerning appeasement but grouped with the 'donkeys' (and a political not military one at that) for WWI and as a sub-Baden-Powell for his SA exploits; for little else I guess.

And was probably unaware as to how close he came to being killed in this role!

(In the memoirs of a Sgt (name escapes me for the moment) who was later to win the DCM, who served under him, mention is made of a particular trench raid in which Churchill was planning to take part before being ordered from "on high" not to. He shows his popularity in the Sgt's writing by the mention of the fact that if he was to accompany the raid, then the Sgt and several others were going to make damned sure that he didn't return!)

Dave.

Salesie

We are not really allowed to get into modern politics.

However, it was not "Tory Plan B" (Tony Blair) I had in mind. I was thinking of his puppet master, 'Dubbya' the 'leader of the free world'.

You are quite right, history will be the judge.

Do you really think that Churchill was right and the vast majority of the population "high-minded but silly"?

IIRC WC was speaking out in favour of Mussolini in the 1920s and would have agreed with Hitler on Russia and keeping organised Labour in its place. The "high-minded but silly" men probably also had a better idea of the reality of the trenches than Churchill who only went to the front as a Lt Col when in political disgrace.

Despite his faults, which were legion and varied, Churchill was the right man in the right place after Norway. Churchill made amends for all his faults in one year spread over 1940 and 1941.


However, people who knew him first hand, rather than out of history books, very quickly got rid of him and voted for the "Welfare State" in 1945. Funny that.

Of all the basic concepts is he was a many of energy and ideas - some good - some bad ... but he believed in himself and in Great Britain. His belief in the Empire was rooted in 19th C concepts as his work against Dominion status for India and his WWII preference for CIB theater at the expense of the Australian front shows.

Remember the 1945 Campaign poster "Cheer Churchilll, Votre Labor" ... that is the essense ... the Torys had nothing to offer but him and he was a war leader (as shown by his catagorization of Atlee as a Nazi Gestapo type of guy (???) )

But, in the end, The BN was ready and Jellicoe was there to command ... he was one of the few guys making decisions who had faced fire ... and he kept trying to find a more reasonable way out of the war beyond the meat grinder ...

A further question for you ... While he was right about Hitler and WW2 .... what if Roosevelt hadn't bailed the UK out in the battle of the Atlantic?


Any comparison between WSC and GW - though we had one presenter who continually tried to make it work - is beyond me ...


I can tell you this ... as a little boy I remember my father (WWII vet) listening to him speak on 78 records with tears running down his cheeks. Neither universally good or bad, right or wrong ... he was Great.

It is history that has proven Churchill right, Beppo, and condemned those in power at the time as high-minded but misguided. Even as late as August 1939 the high-minded were still at it. I quote:

Full text can be found here here Guardian Unlimited The Guardian Lord Aberconway.htm

Lord Aberconway - One of seven British businessmen sent secretly to Germany to offer a 'second Munich', he revealed the truth just three years ago

Andrew Roth
Thursday February 6, 2003
The Guardian

"The industrialist Lord Aberconway, longtime chairman of both John Brown, the Clydeside shipbuilding firm, and English China Clays, and also a master-gardener, has died aged 89. Three years ago, he belatedly unburdened himself of a 60-year-old guilty secret.

He told the Tory historian Andrew Roberts that, as a 26-year-old, he had been one of seven British businessmen dispatched secretly by Neville Chamberlain's pro-appeasement government to try to stop an Anglo-German war over Poland. Three weeks before the war the seven made their separate ways to the island of Sylt off the German coast, to meet Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering. Their purpose was to offer a "second Munich" - a four-power agreement involving Britain, Germany, France and Italy - to make further concessions to German demands for lebensraum, on condition that the Nazis did not invade Poland.

This offer, authorised by the leading appeaser, Chamberlain's Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, came as a shock to Halifax's biographer Roberts, who had not found any reference to this last-minute offer in either Foreign Office documents or Halifax's private papers. Aberconway backed his claims by showing Roberts 38 pages of documents. The result of this secret meeeting was to encourage the Nazis to invade Poland, in the belief that Britain would not fight."

You say, Beppo, that Churchill agreed with Hitler about Russia - I also agree with Hitler about the Soviet Union (as much as I dislike saying it), and history has also proven Churchill to be right about that evil empire.

You intimate, that the high-minded but silly men knew more about the horrors of the trenches than Churchill? I quote:

Full text available here http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/....cfm?pageid=182

"On 1 July, the British army launched a full-scale attack north of the Somme River, despite Churchill's warning that victory would not be gained "simply by throwing in masses of men on the western front." On the first day the British suffered eighty thousand casualties, including twenty thousand dead. Although Churchill was an admirer and friend of the British commander, Sir Douglas Haig, he was sickened and revolted by the carnage. Later he compared Haig to a competent and confident, but distanced, surgeon who would not reproach himself if the patient died."

As for it being funny that he was voted out in 1945; I've already given an answer to this conundrum in an ealier post, but would ask you, how funny was it that the very same electorate voted him back five years later?

Churchill was flawed, he was human after all - but history itself has proven him right at the very time our nation faced its darkest hour. I'm happy to let history defend this greatest of all Britons (warts and all).


Cheers - salesie.

Salesie

I think that we are just going to have to agree to differ on Churchill. If you look at the last Churchill thread you will see that I wrote quite a bit on Churchill, but I don't have the time to do it now.

The year between Munich and the start of WW2 was when Britain was re-arming so I don't think that the people in charge were all that high-minded or silly. So too with secret talks to avoid war. Is avoiding war such bad thing?

I agree with you that Churchill was the right man for the job in 1940, but as for history proving him right: "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." - Sir Winston Churchill.

My personal view is that Churchill's role in the summer of 1940 was crucial in ensuring that Britain did not throw in the towel and that this continued into 1941. Frankly, one the USA entered WWII, he became very much the junior member of the "big" three after Roosevelt and Stalin. By 1945, he was irrelevant.

As far as WWI is concerned, what aspect do you want to consider? First Lord, infantry battalion commander, or Minister of Munitions in Lloyd George's government?

I think he does have to carry the can over the Dardanelles for the crass stupidity of imagining that it could be done by naval forces alone without troops landing.

I am not a Churchill fan. I do regard him as being responsible for Welsh miners being shot down in the street when he was Home Secretary before WWI, for following the wrong policies while Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1920s and for being an out and out racist in relation to the Empire, notably India.

I don’t think that Churchill has to shoulder too much blame for the Dardanelles/Gallipoli campaign. It was a good idea whose execution was flawed, but not primarily by WSC.

It is often forgotten that the Tories took revenge on him for his having defected to the Liberals and it was they who demanded his exclusion from significant office in the coalition government. WSC was kicked out of the Admiralty to (I think) the Chancelorship of the Duchy of Lancaster in mid-May1915, when the Gallipoli campaign was certainly underway, but not necessarily irrevocably lost.

Regards
Michael D.R.

I don't see it as a Dardanelles/Gallipoli campaign. There was a flawed Dardanelles campaign followed by a flawed Gallipoli campaign.

The Dardanelles campaign was restricted to naval forces only precisely because Kitchener would not commit troops, yet it is ludicrous to imagine that the Turkish batteries could be silenced just by naval gunfire, or that ships could prevent Turkish minelaying. It required troops to be landed in sufficient strength to take and hold ground.

I think that Churchill carries full responsibility for the Dardanelles campaign.

Please remember that I am very moved by Churchillian prose. I also believe that if one man were responsible for mobilizing England/UK to fight, then it is him. Also I truly believe that the UK's defiance in 1940 was the human race's finest hour and that the US was shameful in it's isolationism.

Okay, emotion aside. Without the US on the allied side, the war, simply would not have progressed as it did and the Battle of the Atlantic might, or quite possibly would have been lost. No British offensive could have been maintained without US aid, etc. etc. So British politicians, not as sure of American involvement might have been doing the best thing by trying to buy more time.

I judge him as perhaps the epitome of a British Empire Man. He was everything the 19th C sought to be - but sadly coming at its end.

If history is Biography - then his is wonderful stuff.

A couple of posters have referred to Churchill's role in repressing a Welsh coal strike before WW1. Troops were undoubtedly sent to Tonypandy but is there any evidence that they fired on strikers? I assumed for many years that they did because that seemed to be the accepted version but Roy Jenkins' biography of Churchill says that the army "never engaged with the strikers............There were no serious casualties, apart from the one man who died before either the Metropolitan [London] Police or the military reinforcements arrived." The BBC's web site also says that only one person died, by a police truncheon rather than an army bullet.

BBC web site

The following web site is very critical of Churchill but says:
"The left has kept the memory of Tonypandy alive, quite properly, though some on the left have crapped up by exaggerated talk about ‘massacres’ which allows smooth-talking Tories to dismiss those claims and ignore the substantive issue."

Churchill attacked

On a different point, I wonder what neo-con fans of Sir Winston would make of his role in a (for the time) radical Liberal govt. before WW1. He completed a move started by Lloyd George to impose an maximum 8 hour day for miners, set up trade boards to fix minimum wages for "sweated labour", introduced labour exchanges in order to fight unemployment & carried out prison reform. This govt. imposed taxes that were, again by the standards of the day, very high. He was seen as a close ally of the radical Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George.

My opinion is that he made a lot of mistakes but was the right man for the right time in 1940 & hence deserves fulsome praise. I think that he was the sort of person where you have to take the whole package & couldn't have the good (anti-appeasement & WW2) without the bad (Dardanelles & his performance as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1920s).

On his defeat in the 1945 General Election, I think that many people voted against the Conservatives & the economic policies of the 1930s & for the Welfare State rather than against Churchill. Remember that he'd been a Liberal, a maverick backbencher & the leader of a Coalition govt. for much of his Parliamentary career so wasn't closely associated with the party that he was leading in 1945. It's also often been said that Churchill ran the war whilst Attlee ran the country so it could be argued that electing Attlee as the peacetime premier was closer to maintaing the status quo than electing Churchill.

You could be right about it being the police, rather than the army. who brutalised the striking workers, and their kin, at Tonypandy.

However, Churchill was no friend of Labour:

"In the Dock Strike of 1911, again Churchill threatened to use 25,000 troops in defence of the employers. Asquith was forced to intervene "least Mr Churchill's habit of calling in the military to settle industrial disputes should bring open warfare in the streets." (Francis Williams). In the rail strike of the same year, Churchill nevertheless mobilised 50,000 troops to crush the strike. In Liverpool and Llanelli, troops opened fire on strikers."

Beppo, as I said earlier, I'm happy to let history defend the great man, but I must answer your question; Is avoiding war a bad thing?

The true warmongers are those who believe that everyone else is just like them; those men and women, who, in times of dire threat, believe that their own virtues of honesty, integrity, and high-minded morals are shared by those who oppose them and that rational, open and fair argument will win their enemies over and persuade them to lay down their arms. Those out and out appeasers who refuse to listen even when rational warnings are accompanied by firm and plentiful intelligence.

The real tragedy of the meeting in August 1939 was not that they tried to stop war and failed, but that they only succeeded in further convincing our enemies that we were weak and irrelevant. Getting the balance right is not for the faint hearted - just a cursory look at all of Churchill's speeches will show that he was not a warmonger, but neither was he an appeaser. He was simply a man who understand the true nature of mankind - understood that sometimes those we need try to live with are deceitful, immoral villains who see our fundamental values as our weakness, thus making us ripe for the plucking.

Avoiding war is not a bad thing, but having that mantra to the exclusion of all others certainly is - for that singular doctrine, historically, has only ever lead to even greater conflict, even more lives lost, even greater suffering. Who are the true warmongers? I would say, the out and out appeasers just as much as the bellicose demagogues.


Cheers - salesie.

Never mind what he did before August 1914 (except maybe as First Lord) or after November 1918, what about his performance in the Great War?

Salesie

Do you have any evidence that they were not simply playing for more time? We had begun to re-arm after Munich. An extra year or two might have helped. So, it went wrong. Life is like that.

If you are happy with your neo-Con view of Churchill, so be it. I have said that he was the right man for the job in 1940. I shudder when I think of what would have happened if Lord Halifax had had his way.

However, when all said and done, IMHO Churchill had just one good year in his life. In making a stand he allowed the British people to save humanity, but he was still a deeply flawed individual.

Hi Folks

WSC was surely one of the greatest ever Britons, up there with Nelson & Wellington, although, like all great men he had his faults.

His performance in WW1 was typical of the man, & he displayed his courage on more than one occasion, both morally & psychically.

Yes, he was defeated at the 1945 election, but remember he was returned to power at the next one, showing that the 1945 Labour government appears not to have been as popular with the electorate once they showed their true colours (remember, the Attlee government gave the Americans the right to use jet technology for non military purposes, thus losing this country Billions that could have been demanded for product licences)

WSC has been judged kindly by history, but we must remember he was just a man & had faults, just like the rest of us. History has also shown him to have been visionary over both the Nazi & Soviet threats, even when he was ridiculed for his views.

Cheers

Mark

Unfortunately Essexboy68's stuff about the elections doesn't quite stand up.

Churchill was not returned at the next election after 1945. The next election was in held in 1950 when Labour were re-elected. In fact Labour increased their vote from 11.967m (1945) to 13.266m (1950).

Likewise in the following election in 1951, the one that Churchill 'won' , saw Labour increase their vote yet again. This time to 13.948m - still polling more votes than the Conservatives.

The Conservatives were only able to form a government by forming an alliance with the National Liberals (hardly a ringing endorsement of Churchill or any supposed disatisfaction of Labour's 'true colours' I would suggest).

Unfortunately much of what is taught and is believed owes an awful lot to myth.

Why we need one dimentional heroes might be a better question to ask and what part in history has been played by those all too willing to indentify themselves with such 'heroes'.

For the real heroes, the ones whose lives and actions are not publically recorded, we need to at least represent history with a bit more depth and understanding than a 1930's Boy's Own annual.

Now now ChrisMac

Leave the 'plucky little Brits' to their Soviet-style cult of the personality revolving around 'the man with the big cigar'.

Give it another 50 years and "History" will be telling us the same sort of guff about Thatcher. Just wait until the people that were actually there are dead and safely out of the way...

You should have heard the WW2 'sharp end' veterans laying into Churchill back in the 1970s!

It was the British people, and their 'Blood, toil, tears and sweat' that won WW2.

There was no need to deny being a Colonial when wound up by your mate Evans of the Broke.

As Winston tried to obliterate the Colonials by sending them to Gallipoli, following up in WW2 with Greece & Crete, and trying to divert the recalled Australians to Burma, not too many Colonials share your views.

Not just the 'Colonials'.

I used to work with a member of the Norfolk Regiment who ended up on the Burma Railway because Churchill diverted the 18th (East Anglian) Division to Singapore.

"Arrived too bloody late, off the boat and straight into the cage, no proper kit, that useless f------ clown Churchill" etc etc etc

Always amazed me how, in these so-called debates online, it doesn't take long for the sneering to start. Beppo, why mention Thatcher? Then you slip in Soviet-style cults, followed by unsourced anecdotal snippets from disgruntled individuals? Not so much Boys Own but Socialist Worker?

As for the coalition with the liberals in 1951, not so, Chrismac; Tory majority of 36 seats, although they did poll slightly fewer votes than Labour (Labour managed a 6 seat majority in the 1950 election).

One dimensional? You're having a laugh, I've heard Churchill described in many ways but never thus; if nothing else, he had more faces than Big Ben.


Cheers - salesie.

I'm not going to rise to the bait about Colonials!

On the subject of the election in '45, my dad - a Tory through and through - voted Labour in '45. He spent the rest of his life regretting it, mind.

Oh, go on - I'll raise to that bait, then.

I don't think Gallipoli was a master plan to obliterate the colonials, any more than Crete was in WW2 - they just happened to be there, that's all. And by the same token, I also worked with veterans of the 18th Division, and I don't ever remember them feeling bitter to Chirchill personally - they were victims of years of complacency and neglect. We could hardly expect the Chiefs of Staff (or Churchill) not to send reinforcements to a threatened Front, if such reinforcements were available.

I note that nobody has anything of substance to say about Churchill in WWI as per the topic title.

Does his alleged greatness in later life blind everyone to his earlier career, or is it simply that people don't have much of a clue about his role in WWI?

Nobody has come back to dispute my comments on his responsibility for the Dardanelles.

Salesie

If you know in advance what these online debates turn into, why complain when they do?

I have pointed out that Churchill was discussed here before you joined. If you want 'sneering' see that thread.

My mention of Thatcher is fair comment. The 'right' would not dare tell us what a paragon of virtue she was, much safer to stick to Churchill. People who know the truth of it are mostly dead and we have only history, which some have described as 'lies told by thieves'.

I would say that an individual who spent three and a half years as a Japanese POW, and saw his mates starved and worked to death, had every right to be 'disgruntled'. He was also sick, as a result of his experiences, a lot of the time I knew him. This was in the 1970s! I have this mans full details, including his army number. However, as I don't work for the 'Daily Mail' I have respected his privacy. He could still be alive.

Do none of your Churchill books mention the 18th Infantry Division landing at Singapore? The fate of the 'Prince of Wales' and the 'Repulse'? etc etc etc

I don't complain, Beppo, just make a statement of fact.

What on earth the fate of 18th infantry division and those two warships has to do with the context of this debate is beyond me. Unless, of course, they're thrown in as red-herrings?

On a bitterly cold December morning in 1977, a year after being discharged from the colours on medical grounds, I spent a not so pleasant half hour or so trying my best to vainly breath life back into a workmate who had collapsed. I'd worked with him for about a year; he'd been captured at Singapore and a guest of the sons of Nippon. He'd worked on the railways before the war and, having never regained his health after his treatment, had been given a "soft job" as a messroom bobby.

This man never blamed Churcill for his misfortune, I repeat never. He saved his wrath for the real culprits; the BLOODY JAPS. Also, he wasn't the only ex-jap prisoner I've met over the years and each and every one blamed the japs - and Percival sometimes - why wouldn't they?

However, I have heard criticism of Churchil from some, I'd be amazed if I hadn't. But come on, Beppo, do you think you're the only one that's been around a bit? Do you think you're the only one that recognises Churchill's faults? Think you know something we don't?


Cheers - salesie.

Sorry Folks!

I forgot the 1950 election, which inded was won by Labour, but they were unable to hold onto power................

Please forgive my slight oversight.

Angie, I did comment on WSC's conduct in WW1. Basically, he oversaw the debacle that was the Dardanelles & Gallipoli campaigns (indeed he seems to have been a bit obsessed by the area, as he attempted to persuade his commanders to undertake large scale operations there in WW2), & quite rightly, resigned when the extent of it's failure was shown. He then rejoined the army, seeing action on the Western front, & was decorated as a result of his actions. As i said, more briefly previously, this shows the courage & character of the man, IMHO.

Thanks

Mark

Positives of Churchill's role in WW1:
He ensured that the RN was ready for war.
He encouraged the development of the tank.
He did a competent job as Minister of Munitions, a role that he didn't seem suited to given his bad relations with the trade unions.
When out of office he was prepared to risk his life in the trenches. I know that some think that his subsequent return to Westminster should count agianst him but how many in the same position would have gone in the first place. Also, his battalion (6th Royal Scots Fusiliers) was merged with another (7th RSF) due to heavy casualties & command was given to the more senior CO of the 7th. He could have sort another command but can't be accused of leaving his unit in the lurch as it was ceasing to exist.

Negatives:
He seemed to regard himself as an operational rather than political head of the RN & interfered too much with operational details.
The Dardanelles. He was the man who argued for a purely naval operation so must take the blame when it went wrong.

I must confess to not knowing enough detail of is time as Minister of Munitions to decide for sure if the balance is positive or negative but the size of the error at the Dardanelles makes me lean towards the negative. This view isn't strrong enough to alter my positive view of his overall career.

Salesie

In answer to your question "What on earth the fate of 18th infantry division and those two warships has to do with the context of this debate". A lot of the people involved in those incidents blame Churchill for them. The argument is that he gave orders for these things to happen, and he should have left the actual running of the war to the Generals and Admirals. I just wondered what the books that you read had to say about those incidents?

Did I say that the man I mentioned did not also blame the Japanese for the way they treated POWs? What I said was that he, and many others, blamed Churchill for 'dropping them in it' in the first place.

Of course, people are people. Some POWs blamed Churchill, some blamed Percival. A lot of the Australians blamed the high ranking Australian officer, whose name escapes me at present, who 'regrouped' in Australia/ 'ran away and left us'. Your friends took another view. This probably says rather more about the way that you and I choose our friends than anything else.

As for being "the only one that recognises Churchill's faults" I would say that I am certainly not the only one. Simply read the rest of this thread, and the earlier one as well.

I have said that Churchill, for all his faults, allowed the British people to save the world in 1940/1941. However, I am also saying that he had 'feet of clay'.

Are you the only one who thinks he was perfect?

The Australian whose name I could not remember was Gordon Bennett.

http://www.awm.gov.au/people/110.asp

What I'm saying, Beppo, is that I understand what you're saying, I know precisely where you're coming from; I just don't agree with your methods or your conclusions.

Now, this phenomenon is not unusual, most peoples' opinions are formed from very different points of view, and, as an aspiring writer, I welcome diversity in all its forms; otherwise what would we write about? However, what I do not like are your attempts at sneering instead of forming rational and relevant counter arguments; those tactics are counter-productive. For example, you openly state in your last post that I believe Churchill to be perfect, yet, on several occasions, I've stated that is the last thing he was. English is your first language I assume, so there is no logical explanation that I can see, apart from an attempt to divert the debate, as to why you reached this conclusion.

Has it ever occured to you that in a debate, two opposing positions are needed to give that debate a semblance of interest? Why are you so afraid, why do you fear opposing views, why this paranoia about Churchill, why the political undertones? If your research is so solid, why can't it stand up to rational questioning and counter argument without bringing out churlish asides?


Cheers - salesie.

Churchill served 4 years in the 4 Hussars, 1895-9. When he elected to serve in France he was given a battalion and rank of Lt Colonel. Sounds like the kind of political military appointment more common in the US Civil War. I can`t find any evidence of a WW1 gallantry decoration though? A list of his medals is below:- Phil B

The Order of Precedence

1. Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, UK, appointed 24Apr53, installed 14Jun54.

2. Order of Merit, UK, appointed 1Jan46, installed 8Jan46.

3. Order of the Companions of Honour, UK, appointed 19Oct22, invested 16Jun23.

4. India Medal, 1895 (clasp: Punjab Frontier 1897-98), UK, authorized 10Dec 1898.

5. Queen's Sudan Medal 1896-98, UK, authorized 27Mar 1899.

6. Queen's South Africa Medal 1899-1902 (clasps: Diamond Hill, Johannesburg, Relief of Ladysmith, Orange Free State, Tugela Heights, Cape Colony), UK, authorized 15Jul 1901.

7. 1914-1915 Star, UK, authorized 10Oct19.

8. British War Medal 1914-1918, UK, authorized 13Oct19.

9. Victory Medal, UK, authorized 4Jun20.

10. 1939-1945 Star, UK, authorized 9Oct45.

11. Africa Star, UK, authorized 9Oct45.

12. Italy Star, UK, authorized 2Aug45.

13. France and Germany Star, UK, authorized 9Oct45.

14. Defence Medal 1939-45, UK, authorized 9Oct45.

15. War Medal 1939-45, UK, authorized 11Dec46.

16. King George V Coronation Medal, UK, 1911.

17. King George V Silver Jubilee Medal, UK, 1935.

18. King George VI Coronation Medal, UK, 1937.

19. Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal, UK, 1953.

20. Territorial Decoration (King George V), UK, 31Oct24.

21. Cross of the Order of Military Merit, Red Ribbon, First Class, Spain, granted 6Dec 1895, ratified 25Jan 1896.

22. Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold with Palm, Belgium, 15Nov45.

23. Knight Grand Cross, Order of the Lion of the Netherlands, Holland, May 1946.

24. Grand Cross, Order of the Oaken Crown, Luxembourg, 14Jul46.

25. Grand Cross with Chain, Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, Norway, 11May48.

26. Order of the Elephant, Denmark, 9Oct50.

27. Order of Liberation, France, awarded 6Nov58.

28. Most Refulgent Order of the Star of Nepal, First Class, Nepal, 29Jun61.

29. Grand Sash of the High Order of Sayyid Mohammed bin Ali el Senoussi, Kingdom of Libya, awarded 14Apr62.

30. Army Distinguished Service Medal, United States, authorized 10May19, awarded 16Jul19.

31. War Cross with Palm, Belgium, 15Nov45.

32. Military Medal 1940-45, Luxembourg, 14Jul46.

33. Military Medal, France, 8May47.

34. War Cross with palm, France, 8May47.

35. Cuban Campaign Medal, 1895-98, Spain, awarded 1914.

36. Khedive's Sudan Medal (clasp: Khartoum), Egypt, 1899.

37. King Christian X's Liberty Medal, Denmark, 10Sep46.

Salesie

I am saying the same thing about you. I understand why you feel as you do about Churchill, but suggest that you are avoiding anything that shows him in a bad light.

As I have repeatedly stated in this thread, and in the earlier one, that I think that what Churchill enabled the British people to do in 1940 and 1941 was wonderful. If you think that that should make me think that the sun shone out of Churchill's earhole, you are wrong. He was a bloody politician not a saint.

I have no 'paranoia' about Churchill. The man is not that important to me. You make it sound as if I am staying up nights worrying about this person. To claim that my comments are 'sneering' is your right. Just as it is mine to think that you are being a toady. I just wonder how on earth you feel that we can discuss Churchill at all without 'political undertones'?

As for my 'research' being 'solid' I don't claim to know everything, and use this board in order to learn. Twice now I have asked you what the books you read say about Churchill and the fate of the 18th Division. The 'Prince of Wales' and the 'Repulse'. I am still none the wiser. Instead of an answer we now seem to have a smoke screen, complete with dialectics - Thesis,Anti-Thesis,Synthesis.

Are you sure it is not you that reads "Socialist Worker"?

Kneejerk reaction ... aside from his performance in WW2?
NO time for the man .. but thankfully he had qualities of obstinacy and political 'nous' which were needed in a particular period.
That's just my latest opinion. It fluctuates the more I read.

Tonight's image of bedtime. Me, the working class lad from the backstreets of Rotherham, reading the socialist worker (getting to know my enemy). You, Beppo, with........................?

One last thought, and perhaps another example of your subtle, but certain, sneering and churlish asides? Maybe even a little hypocrisy on your part?

In one of your earlier posts, you intimate, as a counter point, that history is not a reliable source in the context of this thread, (perhaps even all historical debate?) with your, "lies told by thieves," quote. A point of logic; if this quote is a truism about history then why your obsession in asking me what books I've read about 18th Inf & the two warships? Surely, if "lies told by thieves" is an accurate representation then the books read by either of us become irrelevant, don't they? Or, do you just wish to satisfy yourself that my personal reading tastes are "polluted by lies" and that yours aren't? I hope you see my point about hypocrisy?

So, given this illogicality (and hint of hypocrisy) in your posts, how can you be certain that your own conclusions don't have feet of clay?

By the way, there are methods to counter "lies of thieves" if one is so inclined, but I won't go into detail as this nonsense has gone on long enough. I rest my case - go on, you can have the last word.


Cheers - salesie.

Hello

Will have to check up on this, but was convinced he had been awarded the DSO whilst serving on the Western front, prior to his return to Westminster. I seem to remember reading that he promised his beloved Clemmie he would win such an award before he came home.

However, I am always willing to be corrected.

Cheers

Mark

Churchill joined a Yeomanry regiment, the Oxfordshire Hussars, when he left the Regular Army & continued to attend its annual camp even when a Cabinet Minister. His rank in 1914 was Major so a battalion command was a promotion of only one grade. Sir John French originally wanted to give him a brigade but was persuaded by Asquith not to do so.

The source for this is Churchill by Roy Jenkins, which makes no mention of Churchill receiving a gallantry award. I have heard the story about him promisiong Clemmie that he'd win one but I don't think that he did so.

[quote=Gibbo,Jul 13 2005, 12:45 AM]
Churchill joined a Yeomanry regiment, the Oxfordshire Hussars, when he left the Regular Army & continued to attend its annual camp even when a Cabinet Minister. His rank in 1914 was Major so a battalion command was a promotion of only one grade. Sir John French originally wanted to give him a brigade but was persuaded by Asquith not to do so.

Quite right, Gibbo - I failed to notice that. Even so, his actual army experience wouldn`t normally have been seen as suitable for battalion command, would you think? Phil B

Salesie

In answer to your question. I can't be certain that my conclusions 'don't have feet of clay', and neither can anyone else be certain of theirs.

My real point about history is that there aint no such animal - if you take history to mean what actually happened. The best we can do is to read a broad selection of the 'propaganda of the victors'/'lies told by thieves' and make up our own minds. Of course, this can all be overturned by new evidence. Some documents can be released under the 75 year rule, an author can write a new book using evidence that has not been widely known before, and so on. Remember the German who wrote a book in the 1960s that overturned the usually held view on WW1 and its origins/cause?

The danger, of course, is only reading one sort of lie - establishment lies or anti-establishment lies - and forming an opinion based on them alone.

My point about asking what your sources had to say about those particular incidents was to see if they are mentioned at all? Were they glossed over or hushed up? It is the books you have read, and those that you haven't, that have formed your view of Churchill. I think that a book that makes no mention of his actions around the time of the fall of Singapore is badly flawed.

I think that your problem here, if problem it be, is that you have become involved in a discussion with people that know some of the nitty-gritty about Churchill. I am by no means the only one, and have learned from this discussion. For example, I didn't know that Churchill was so unpopular with his men that they had plans to kill him in an attack.

What were the rules for awarding WW2 "Stars" and just how did Churchill qualify?

IIRC "Mad Mitch" - the man who was involved in the campaign to "Save the Argylls" fought in Italy in the last days of WW2. However, he was not on active service long enough to qualify for the "Italy Star".

On one occasion he was slightly wounded, but carried on with his job and did not report for medical attention. If he had gone to the RAP, or wherever, he would have got the medal as a result of being wounded.

According to the Burma Star Association's web site 1 day's service in an operational theatre was enough. Assuming that the criteria was the same for all the Stars the question is why Mad Mitch didn't qualify. I think that you had to apply for WW2 campaign medals rather than receiving them automatically as was the case in WW1 so perhaps he didn't apply? That theory doesn't explain your point about his wound though. The remaining question on Churchill's entitlement is whether he was strictly a serving member of the armed forces during WW2.

Burma Star