AutumnBook Number

Third Quarter 1994Number 84

FINESTHOUR

Journal vtf TlTeMiiTe UK •Canada

THE INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILL SOCIETIES

1*1AUSTRALIA CANADA • NEW ZEALAND •UNITED KINGDOM

PATRON: THE LADY SOAMES, D. B.E.UNITED STATES

Founded 1968, the International Churchill Societies work to foster interest in and knowledge on the life, philosophy and literaryheritage of the Rt. Hon. Sir Winston S. Churchill, KG, OM, CH, MP (1874-1965), and the great goals to which he was devoted—

the quest for liberty and democracy. The Societies are independent non-profit organizations which, with the Rt. Hon. SirWinston S. Churchill Society of B.C., jointly sponsor Finest Hour, special publications, conferences, symposia, tours, the

"Teaching the Next Generation" programme, and the Churchill Center for the Study of Statecraft in Washington, DC.

HONORARY MEMBERSWinston S. Churchill, MPMartin Gilbert, CBEGrace Hamblin, OBERobert Hardy, CBEAmbassador Pamela C. HarrimanJames Calhoun HumesMary Coyne Jackman, BA, D.Litt.S.Yousuf Karsh, OCThe Duke of Marlborough, DL, JPAnthony Montague Browne CBE, DFCColin L. Powell, KCBWendy Russell RevesAmbassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr.The Lady Soames, DBEThe Rt. Hon. The Baroness Thatcher, OM, FRSThe Hon. Caspar W. Weinberger, GBE

COUNCIL OF CHURCHILL SOCIETIESJonathan Aitken, MP, Chairman45 Great Peter Street, London SW1P 3LT, EnglandTel. (071) 233-3103

ICS AUSTRALIASubscription office: Robin Linke181 Jersey Street, Wembley, W.A. 6014

ICS CANADARevenue Canada No. 0732701-21-13

Garnet R. Barber, President4 Snowshoe Cres., Thornhill, Ont. L3T 4M6Tel (905) 881-8550

John G. Plumpton, Secretary-Treasurer130 Collingsbrook Blvd. Agincourt ON M1W 1M7Tel. (416) 497-5349 Fax. (416) 395-4587

Committee MembersEdward Bredin, QC; Leonard Kitz, QC

The Other Club of TorontoBernard Webber, President3256 Rymal Road, Mississauga, Ont. L4Y 3C1Tel. (905) 279-5169

SIR WINSTON S. CHURCHILL SOCIETY OF BCIan Whitelaw, President1110 Palmerston AvenueW. Vancouver, BC V7S 2J6

ICS NEW ZEALANDGordon H. J. HoggRiverside Farm, 291 North Road,Clevedon, RD2, Papakura

ICS UNITED KINGDOMCharity Registered in England No. 800030

David Boler, ChairmanPO Box 244, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN3 0YFTel. (071) 247-2345 Fax. (071) 247-4488

Jill Kay, Membership Secretary, "Tympany,"Beckenham Place Park, Beckenham, Kent BR3 2BS

UK TRUSTEESHon. Nicholas Soames MP (Chairman);The Duke of Marlborough, DL, JP:Richard Haslam-Hopwood, Hon. Celia Sandys;L.W. Pilgrim DFC, FCA;David J. Porter; Geoffrey J. Wheeler

COMMITTEEDavid Boler (Chairman); Dennis Jackson OBE, DL,RAF ret. (Vice-Chmn.); David Jones; Jill Kay;Barry Coleman, BA; Mark Weber; Wylma Wayne;L. W. Pilgrim, DFC, FCA (Treasurer)

ICS UNITED STATES, INC.Internal Revenue No. 02-0365444

Ambassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr., Chairman135 S. LaSalle St., Chicago IL 60603Tel. (800) 621-1917, Fax. (312) 726-9474

Richard M. Langworth, President181 Burrage Road, Hopkinton NH 03229Tel. (603) 746-4433, Fax. (603) 746-4260

Merry L. Alberigi, Vice PresidentPO Box 5037, Novato CA 94948Tel. and Fax. (415) 883-9076

William C. Ives, Vice PresidentKeck, Mahin & Cate, 49th floor77 W. Wacker Dr., Chicago IL 60601Tel. (312) 634-5034, Fax. (312) 634-5000

Derek Brownleader, Secretary1847 Stonewood Dr., Baton Rouge LA 70816Tel. (504) 752-3313

George A. Lewis, Treasurer268 Canterbury Road, Westfield NJ 07090Tel. (908) 233-8415

USA TRUSTEESAmbassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr., Chmn.The Hon. J. Sinclair Armstrong, CBERichard M. Langworth, George A. LewisWendy Russell Reves, The Lady Soames, DBEThe Hon. Caspar W. Weinberger, GBE

USA DIRECTORS ('Executive Committee)*Merry L. Alberigi, Marianne Almquist,Derek Brownleader, R. Alan Fitch,Larry Kryske, Richard Hazlett, *William C. Ives,•Richard M. Langworth, *George A. Lewis,*Dr. Cyril Mazansky, James W. Muller,Douglas S. Russell, Jacqueline Dean Witter

CHAPTER COORDINATORDr. Cyril Mazansky50 Dolphin Rd., Newton Center MA 02159Tel. (617) 296-4000 x5000, Fax. (617) 296-2872

ICS STORES (Back issues & Sales Dept.)R. Alan Fitch8001 Harrods Landing, Prospect KY 40059Tel. (502) 228-8774 Fax. (502) 228-7558

ACADEMIC ADVISORSProf. James Muller, Univ. of Alaska (Chairman)Prof. Keith Alldritt, Univ. of British ColumbiaDr. Larry Arnn, Claremont InstituteProf. Raymond Callahan, University of DelawareProf. Eliot A. Cohen, Johns Hopkins UniversityProf. Kirk Emmert, Kenyon CollegeProf. Warren F. Kimball, Rutgers UniversityProf. Patrick Powers, Assumption CollegeProf. Paul A. Rahe, University of TulsaProf. Max Schoenfeld, Univ. of Wis. Eau ClairePres. Jeffrey Wallin, The National AcademyProf. Manfred Weidhorn, Yeshiva University

ICS ALASKAJames. W. Muller, tel. (907) 272-78461518 Airport Hts. Dr., Anchorage AK 99508

ICS ARIZONAMarianne Almquist, tel. (602) 955-18152423 E. Marshall Ave., Phoenix AZ 85016

ICS CALIFORNIANorth: James Johnson, tel. (408) 353-2103

24595 Soquel-San Jose Rd, Los Gatos CA 95030South: Bruce Bogstad, tel. (805) 581-0052

1059 Rambling Road, Simi Valley CA 93065

ICS ILLINOISWilliam C. Ives, tel. (312) 634-5034Keck, Mahin & Cate, 49th floor77 W. Wacker Dr., Chicago IL 60601

ICS MICHIGANJudge Peter B. Spivak, tel. (313) 963-20703753 Penobscot Bldg., Detroit MI 48226

ICS NEBRASKAEdward W. Fitzgerald, tel. (402) 390-9932218 So. 94th St., Omaha NE 68114

ICS NEW ENGLANDDr. Cyril Mazansky, tel. (617) 296-4000 x500050 Dolphin Rd., Newton Center MA 02159

ICS NEW YORKCynthia Newberry, tel. (212) 535-4008903 Park Avenue #8-N, New York NY 10021

ICS NORTH TEXAS (Emery Reves Chapter)Ann & Richard Hazlett, tel. (214) 742-54872723 Routh St., Dallas TX 75208

ICS PENNSYLVANIARichard S. Raffauf, tel. (215) 777-1653RD6, Box 449, Reading PA 19608

ICS WASHINGTONRon Helgemo, tel. (703) 351-29672037 Wethersfield Ct., Reston VA 22091

2/FINEST HOUR 84

CONTEXTS

3rd Quarter 1994FINEST HOUR

Journal of the International Churchill Societies Number 84

D-Day Anniversary Features10 Operation Overlord 1944-1994Thoughts from Normandywith Britain's D-Day veterans, and remarksto American veterans at Grosvenor Squareby Winston S. Churchill, MP

23 How the King Stopped Churchillfrom Risking His Life

Theo Aronson's "Battle Royal" in Monarchy

29 The Kevin Francis D-Day TobyGenesis of the Commemorative Jug

40 D-Day Plus...the Story in StampsOverlord and its Aftermath

24 On to Scapa Flow! 7th International Churchill Tour"I feel like one, Who treads alone,Some banquet hall deserted,Whose lights are fled, Whose garlands dead,And all but he departed!" -wsc QUOTING THOMAS MOORE

by Barbara F. Langworth

4 Amid These Storms5 International Datelines

23 Inside the Journals32 Despatch Box34 Woods Corner36 Riddles, Mysteries, Enigmas37 ICS People38 Action This Day40 Churchill in Stamps47 Churchilltrivia48 Immortal Words

Autumn Book Number12 Four Outstanding New BooksAmidst an outpouring of attack-books comesa quartet no Churchillian should be withoutby Richard M. Langworth

12 Pure Gold: Gilbert's "In Search of Churchill"15 ICS New Book Service16 One of the Best: Rose's "Unruly Life"18 We Need This!: Lawlor's "Politics of War"19 Great Quotes: Humes's "Wit and Wisdom"20 "The Churchill War Papers," Volume II20 "The Churchills: Pioneers and Politicians"21 Ponting's "Churchill" by David Marquand22 "Churchill's Deception," by William Partin

29 Bric-a-brac: Kevin Francis & WedgwoodToday's most prolific producer of Churchilliana faceschange. Noel Thorley revealed as Wedgwood copyist.by Douglas J. Hall

42 Churchill and Eastern Europe, Part 2Poland and Germany—the Balancing Actby Stanley E. Smith

Cover: "After the Battle," reproducedfrom a painting by George A. Campbell of

the Prime Minister in the uniform of acolonel of the 4th Hussars while visiting

the Third Division H.Q. at SchlossMoyland during the crossing of the Rhine

at Xanten on 24 March 1945. Publishedby permission of After the Battle, Battle

of Britain Prints International Ltd.,London, and Mr. Gordon Ramsey.

FINEST HOUR 84 / 3

AMID THESE STORMS

FINEST H O U RISSN 0882-3715

Richard M Langworth, EditorPost Office Box 385Hopkinton, New Hampshire03229 USATel. (603) 746-4433

Senior EditorsJohn G. Plumpton130 Collingsbrook Blvd.Agincourt, OntarioM1W 1M7 Canada

H. Ashley Redburn, OBERosemere, Hollands MeadOvermoigne, Dorchester,Dorset DT2 8HX England

News EditorJohn Frost8 Monks Ave, New Barnet,Herts. EN5 1D8 England

Features EditorDouglas J. Hall183 A Somerby Hill, GranthamLines. NG31 7HA England

ContributorsMartin Gilbert, United KingdomGeorge Richard, AustraliaStanley E. Smith, United StatesRon Cynewulf Robbins, CanadaJames W. Muller, United States

FINEST HOUR is publishedquarterly for Friends of the Inter-national Churchill Societies,which offer several levels of sup-port in their respective currencies.Membership applications andchanges of address should be sentto the appropriate national officeson page 2. Permission to mail atnon-profit rates in the USAgranted by the US Postal Service,Concord, NH, Permit no. 1524.Copyright 1994. All rightsreserved. Designed and producedfor ICS United States by Dragon-wyck Publishing Inc. Printed byMorgan Press Inc. Made in U.S.A.

BOOKS ABOUT CHURCHILL are pouring off the presses in greater numbersthan any year since 1974. Although we have designated this issue with itseight book notices our "Autumn Book Number," as this is written Andrew

Roberts has published Eminent Churchillians and Celia Sandys is about to releaseFrom Winston With Love and Kisses. Coming soon is David Thomas's Churchill: TheMember for Woodford (the story of WSC as a constituency MP) and DavidJablonsky's Churchill and Hitler, a selection of essays on the political-military direc-tion of World War II by the noted military historian. And in the wings is MartinGilbert's editing of The Winston Churchill — Emery Reves Correspondence, containingno fewer than 300 letters from WSC to his publishing collaborator on crucial issuesand bookish pursuits, which should be an important addition to our knowledge ofChurchill as literateur. This is all to the good, of course, especially since it seemsthat the rash of muckraking nonsense-treatises which dominated the headlines forthe last year or so has given way to more serious and contemplative studies ofChurchill, by people genuinely interested in the truth.

I think perhaps we don't say often enough that we are genuinely interested inthe truth. In sixteen years as editor of this journal I can count the number of peoplewho refuse to accept any criticism of WSC on one hand. Churchillians can afford tobe broadminded, for they understand that the great man's virtues far outweighedhis flaws, for he was as Martin Gilbert said a man of quality — a good guide forthe future, and for generations now reaching adulthood.

# WILL the gentleman who telephoned us about his piece on the 1946 Fultonspeech please contact the editor to discuss this subject.

# FLYING HYPHENS have recently bedevilled the text in certain articles, wherethey mysteriously enter into words and subdivide them at someplace other thanthe end of a line. This is a computer glitch which we are correcting. Apologies.

# BLETCHLEY PARK, near Milton Keynes, England, where experts servedChurchill by cracking the German codes during the war, has recently been openedto the public for the first time, under the aegis of the Bletchley Park Trust. This isan important development, about which Douglas Hall will report next issue.

# IT WAS said of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis that "she taught us how to grieve,"which suggests that we didn't know how to grieve before she taught us. Rather, Ithink, it was she who reminded a grieving world of certain Churchillian qualities,and at least two of Sir Winston's maxims: never despair...never give in.

Finest Hour probably published Mrs. Onassis's last words in print, her tribute toRandolph Churchill in our twenty-fifth anniversary number a year ago. A skillededitor, she did not write much, and gave only two interviews in her life, one ofwhich is sealed for years to come. Although she was a very private person, herjudgment of people was much to the point, and worth knowing.

Those who loved or admired her understood her quiet integrity, and muchmore besides. Her country is in her debt, not only for her qualities of character butfor her service to it. Unless you lived in that time you cannot conceive what a greatambassador she was, carrying all before her. "I am the man who accompaniedJacqueline Kennedy to Paris," her husband said, "and I have enjoyed myself." Hertaste and sensitivity revitalized the White House. With her help Grand CentralStation, ~.n architectural masterpiece, was saved for New York City. She gave herchildren a private life in the face of appalling intrusions. And most of all, in theworst four or five days anyone over the age of forty remembers, she held a nationtogether. She will always be the First Lady to me.

RICHARD M. LANGWORTHThe editor's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Churchill Societies or their Trustees.

4 / FINEST HOUR 84

IXTERXAllONAL DATELINESQUOTE OF THE SEASON: "IRELAND"

"Let us on our part be very careful that we do all we have to do in scrupulousand meticulous good faith, and even—if I may dare the word—in credulous good faith-Let us not be led by impatience, by prejudice, by vexation, by anxiety, into courseswhich would lay us open to charges of fickleness or levity in dealing with those issues solong lasting as the relations between the two islands. Let us so direct our steps that, inspite of every disappointment, we give this Treaty arrangement every possible chance ofbecoming the true act of reconciliation."

-WSC ON BRITAIN AND IRELAND, HOUSE OF COMMONS, 31 MAY 1922

"Churchill Was Smoker,"Historian's Shock ClaimSTOP PRESS — The late Sir WinstonChurchill was "a compulsive smok-er," according to controversial histo-rian Andrew Lloyd-Roberts in anarticle in Spectacularlyboring Maga-zine this week. "Churchill put thelives of his entire Cabinet at risk bysubjecting them to passive cigarsmoke," the controversialist explainsat length. His findings are based on aphotograph from the Daily Telegraphon 11 July 1943, showing the hitherto-respected war leader puffing a hugecigar. "It is quite clear," the historiancontinued, "that Churchill imperilledthe whole Allied war effort by thissmokeism and his reckless smokistbehaviour." Churchill, however, wasdefended by his contemporary LordDeedes, the highly respected lawnmower and chainsaw expert, whowrote in a 3,000-word riposte in theDaily Telegraph: "You have to remem-ber that, to men of his generation,smoking was still regarded as accept-able."

-By our Historically Correct Staffthe Duke of Marlboro Country

A UK CUTTING SENT TO US BYDR. DAVID STAFFORD, UNIV. OF EDINBURGH

Newly Published: The Dreamand Shall We Commit SuicideNEW HAMPSHIRE, SEPT 20TH — ICSUnited States has reprinted TheDream, Churchill's haunting shortstory about the return of his father tohis studio in 1947, which it publishedin a limited edition of 500 copies in1986. The Dream will be availablefrom ICS Stores by the time you readthis at $15 postpaid. It is a marvelous

and unique piece of writing, as WSCtells his father the history of theworld since Lord Randolph's deathin 1895, never revealing the parts heplayed. Also republished for the firsttime in seventy years is Churchill'sprescient essay, "Shall We CommitSuicide?," an accurate 1924 predictionof wars to come, $10 from ICS Stores.

Finally, though sidetracked byICS work, the editor continues tomake progress on his Guide to theBooks of Sir Winston Churchill, whoseavailability will be announced soon.

"Churchill as Peacemaker"WASHINGTON, DC, OCT. 28/29TH —The Churchill Center for the Study ofStatecraft and the Woodrow WilsonInternational Center for Scholars hostthe first Nation's Capital ChurchillSymposium, with ten academicpapers by American and British his-torians on Churchill's role as peace-maker over fifty years, from hisyouth as a Liberal radical to hissearch for a "final settlement" in 1953.

British academics are Sir RobertRhodes James, MP; Dr. Paul Addison;and official biographer MartinGilbert. Americans include Mr. Dou-glas Feith; Professors WilliamsonMurray, Frank Mayer and StevenLambakis; and ICS Academic Com-mittee Professors Kirk Emmert, JamesMuller and Manfred Weidhorn. Alsoparticipating as discussants or moder-ators are Professors Warren Kimball,Patrick Powers and Paul Rahe. MartinGilbert, who will be busy on Volume3 of The Churchill War Papers, will beabsent and his paper read; a full dis-cussion will follow and be relayed tohim for comment.

The Symposium occurs from 2-6:30 PM on Friday the 28th and from10-noon and 2-6:30 PM on Saturday.Tickets cost $25 each; anyone 25 orunder is free and ICS will sponsorfifty students. Please order ticketsfrom the Washington Chapter, ICS,2037 Wethersfield Ct., Reston VA22091 or telephone Ron Helgemo at(703) 351-2967.

Symposium chairman JamesMuller says, "We are very grateful tothe Wilson Center, to our participat-ing academics, and to the Friends ofICS whose support makes this eventpossible." Richard Langworth, Presi-dent of ICS/USA, adds, "This firstNation's Capital Symposium turnsaway from war and examinesChurchill's role on an appropriatesubject in 1994. It will prove the valueof studying Churchill's statecraft: asure guide to modern problems."

London Take-Off on D-Day +1LONDON, JUNE 7TH — On the dayafter D-Day, fifty new Friends of ICSUnited Kingdom were recruited byWylma Wayne at a private party shehosted in her apartment in St.James's, moving the UK past Canadaas the second-largest Churchill Soci-ety, now nearing 400 strong. Three

Dominic Sandys, Celia Sandys, Lady Soames, June 7th.

generations of Churchills attended:Patron of the Society Lady Soames;Winston and Minnie Churchill; CeliaSandys and her son, Dominic Wal-ters. Winston Churchill spoke aboutthe D-Day ceremonies he had justattended at Normandy (see his piecethis issue), while David Boler, Societychairman, spoke to the new Friends

FINEST HOUR 84 / 5

International Datelines...

about the Society's ambitions. "Weare on a drive to pull in youth," Bolertold the Daily Telegraph's reporter."Corks exploded, cheques were writ-ten, and new conscripts lined up,"the reporter wrote. Celia Sandys, SirWinston's grand-daughter, spokeabout her own upcoming book, FromWinston With Love and Kisses. "Therehave been some awful books recent-ly, but I can assure you there'll benothing revisionist about mine."

In addition to this impressivemembership campaign, the new UKcommittee are planning futureevents, including a dinner to com-memorate the 120th anniversary ofChurchill's birth in November, andwhat Ms. Wayne promises will be "aspectacular event" to celebrate the50th Anniversary of V-E Day, in theImperial War Museum, 8 May 1995.

UK Friends willing to help withtime and effort are most welcome tocontact David Boler at PO Box 244,Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN3 OYF, orring him at (071) 247-2345.

12th International Conference 1995Boston, October 26-28thThe Copley Plaza Hotel, "GrandDame" of Boston on Copley Square,is the site of the three-day 1995 Inter-national Conference, hosted by ICSNew England under chairwomanBarbara Langworth. The Copley wasselected for its sophisticated oldworld charm and elegant facilities,but it also offers ICS a very low rate,$159/£100 per room, 40% below the"street price" and lower than 1993."This underlines our commitment tomake this conference as affordable asit will be memorable," says Barbara."Advance registration will be offered atmoney saving rates, and dinnerprices will be reasonable."

To avoid overlapping twoweeks, the Conference runs Thurs-day-Saturday, with the two main din-ners Friday and Saturday nights anda farewell breakfast Sunday, enabling

you to be home Sunday night. Thurs-day events will be optional—somepanel discussions and a Boston Har-bor lobster/clambake cruise, buildingon Friday to the Saturday climax.

Mark your calendar now for abrilliant affair: great speakers, absorb-ing panels, student presentations,music and fine dining, and one of thefinest collections of World War IIprint media and memorabilia in theworld. Boston, site of our conferenceten years ago, is a compact, elegantcity filled with history and culture.

Volunteers are needed to help withall kinds of interesting work! If youwish to help in any way, please con-tact Barbara Langworth at (603) 746-4433 or fax (603) 746-4260 weekdays.

ICS/Australia Sub-OfficeWEMBLEY, W.A., MAY 17TH — Long-time Friend of ICS Robin Linke (pro-nounced "Linkey") has organised asubscription office for the conve-nience of Australians who wish torenew or subscribe in Australian dol-lars. The Australian rate of A$34 cov-ers four issues of Finest Hour plusspecialized publications.

Although ICS/Australia hasnever been independent with its ownrules and committee, Australianshave been able to subscribe in localcurrency since 1972. In addition, sev-eral Australians are in touch withICS/USA about formally establishingan Australian Society. Any othersinterested may write the editor whowill put them all in touch. Whether toinstitute a formal Australian ICS is, ofcourse, the business of Australians;every possible help, including a sup-ply of publications from ICS/USA, isassured.

Australians whose Finest Hourlabels bear the number "P84" or"R84" or lower should renew bysending $34 to Robin Linke, 181 Jer-sey St., Wembley 6014. Cheque, Visaor MasterCard are welcome. Fundsare periodically transferred to theUSA to cover the cost of publications.The address is 181 Jersey St., Wemb-ley 6014. Many thanks, Mr. Linke.

Pearl Harbor: Churchill VindicatedLONDON, AUGUST 2ND — Keywartime documents made publictoday by the Public Record Office atKew prove conclusively what FinestHour and every serious historianhave said all along: that Churchilldidn't know about the Japaneseattack on Pearl Harbor until it hap-pened. The secret report was pre-pared in 1945 by A. Hillgarth and R.T. Barrett of Britain's Naval Intelli-gence Division to summarize exactlywhat Britain knew of the matter.

Dr Anthony Best, lecturer ininternational history at the LondonSchool of Economics, cited BritishIntelligence as saying, "It is not ourfault, we did not have enough infor-mation to go on, and we did notknow anything about the attack untilit occurred." Since the report wasintended for internal use, Best contin-ued, "there was no intention to con-ceal the truth ... Naval Intelligencedid not know, so it was impossiblefor Churchill to have foreknowledge.

"The documents say we had notpenetrated Japan's plan to attackPearl Harbour [and] the United Statesknew, as did our own command, thatit was impossible to keep track ofevery Japanese unit. There wasenough to keep U.S. authorities onthe alert, especially given Japan'srecord of making surprise raids with-out declaring war. [But] the clearimplication of the documents is thatthe Americans only had themselvesto blame."Dr Best's book, BritainJapan and Pearl Harbour, will be pub-lished next year by Rutledge.

-MICHAEL SMITH, DAILY TELEGRAPH

Indians (Yes!) Defend ChurchillHULL, UK, MAY 3RD — Indian scholarshave leapt to the defence of Churchillwho was dubbed a "racist" inAndrew Roberts's new book, EminentChurchillians. Bhikhu Parekh, profes-sor of political theory at Hull Univer-sity says the charge is "far too crude,"while Nirad Chaudhuri in Oxfordsputtered with rage: "I am an admir-er of Churchill." Historian Radhakr-

6 / FINEST HOUR 84

ishnan Nayar added, "Indians aremore favourably disposed toChurchill than you might expect."

This robust response by Indiansshows their nation's capacity forhumanity and understanding ratherin the lead of certain British counter-parts. Nayar pointed out thatChurchill admired warrior national-ists like the Mahdi, but was contemp-tuous of lawyer nationalists likeGandhi. Parekh added, "When Indiabecame a republic [WSC] went out ofhis way to accommodate it within theCommonwealth...I wouldn't say hewas a racist — he was a Zionist, whocalled the Jews 'the most formidableand the most remarkable race whichhas ever appeared in the world.'"

LatviesuKrasts '95(Latvian Coast '95)JUNE 1995 — Two directors ofICS/USA, Douglas Russell of Iowaand Richard Langworth of NewHampshire, will bicycle the 300-mileLatvian coast from Lithuania to Esto-nia next June, marking "the end ofWorld War II and the continuingstruggle of Latvia for freedom andindependence." Donations of "X permile" will support the LatvianNational War Veterans Association, acharity benefitting veterans whofought for Latvia's independence.

"Sir Winston would approve,"Langworth says. "Although he wasnot much for exercise, he was exer-cised about Baltic freedom. Thoughhe failed to prevent the postwar reoc-cupation, he refused to recognizeSoviet annexations, saw that Latviangold in London was kept out of Sovi-et hands and encouraged emigreorganizations in Britain. It was his

oft-stated wish that the Baltic peoplesbe free. This trip celebrates thatachievement."

Langworth and Russell are beingassisted in their effort by RichardRalph, British Ambassador to Latviaand a Friend of ICS, formerly Headof Chancery at the Embassy in Wash-ington. Radio Latvia is assisting withroute planning and the securing of avan to carry luggage and spares. "Ithink a spare wheel and some spokesmight be handy," says Russell."Donations of 'X per mile' are onlyfor bike miles; if we have to cover anydistance aboard the van, it doesn'tcount." Riders will use their ownbicycles, and will stay mainly at guesthouses and B&Bs. They are commit-ting two weeks, expecting to averagethirty miles a day. If any cycling read-er is interested in joining the team,please contact the editor.

A Sunny MemoryTORONTO, JUNE 6TH — SunnybrookHealth Science Centre has been thehealing and restorative home forthousands of Canadian soldiers,sailors and aircrew injured in serviceto their country, particularly duringthe two world wars. It is still the per-manent home for several hundredman and women who served in theCanadian and Allied forces. Whatbetter way to honour Sunnybrookwar veterans than with a bust of theman who led the fight for freedom?

ICS, Canada President Randy Barber at Sunnybrook.

A beautiful bronze sculpture ofSir Winston Churchill by Ernest Raabwas unveiled here today by OntarioPremier Bob Rae and Secretary ofState for Veterans Lawrence

MacAualy, in the presence of theBritish, American and French ConsulGenerals. ICS was formally acknowl-edged at the ceremony, attended byFriends of ICS Randy Barber, JohnPlumpton, Bernard Webber, CharlesAnderson and Glynne Jenkins.

The event was part of CanadaRemembers, a national programmebeginning in 1994 to commemoratethe 50th anniversary of major eventsleading to the end of the SecondWorld War. -JOHN PLUMPTON

Kissinger in NY, Kimball in NJNEW YORK, APRIL 26TH—SeveralFriends of ICS gathered tonight atChartwell Booksellers where formerSecretary of State Henry Kissingerwas on hand to inscribe copies of hisnew book, Diplomacy, and to speakabout Churchill's diplomatic art.

"The problem for statesmen isthat they must act on assessmentsthat cannot be proved true whenmade," Kissinger stated. "Churchillwas such a statesman, who today wesee as an overwhelming personality,but who in the 1930s was viewed bymany as a failed politician. Churchillwas willing to walk alone with opin-ions based on a well developed phi-losophy and clear notion of Britain'srole in world politics."

In Red Bank, N.J. on July 21st,Professor Warren and Mrs. JackieKimball were hosted by Barbara &Parker Lee, Gil & Kathy lies, George& Barbara Lewis and Fr. WilliamBenwell for a discussion of Rooseveltand Churchill. So successful was thisthat more such meetings are plannedin the near future, -PARKER H. LEE m

ICS WashingtonBOWIE, MD., JULY 21ST — Our thirdevent this year was a picnic at JohnMather's house. Thirty Friends andguests watched videotapes of WSCspeeches and discussed Dr. Mather'sbook on Churchill's health (FH #82pp28-9). The next chapter event willbe the annual meeting October 20that the Marvin Center, GW Univ. Forinfo, contact Ron Helgemo (page 2).

FINEST HOUR 84 /7

Errata: Finest Hour #83The review of Dame Felicity Peake'sPure Chance (pages 32-33) failed tostate availability and price, whichare: £16.95 from Airlife PublishingLtd., Shrewsbury, England. Also, rethe cover painting, HMS Indomitablewas launched in 1940, not 1939.

D-Day at SouthamptonMAY 27TH — ICS was represented at aD-Day commemoration at Royal Vic-toria Park, by former chairman DavidPorter, treasurer Pil Pilgrim and Mrs.Pilgrim, and membership secretary JillKay. Mr. Pilgrim was also attending inhis capacity as chairman of the RAFBomber Command Association.

HRH the Duke of Edinburghinspected many hundreds of veteransand combatants, both British andAllied. At one point David Porter waspleased to hear the Duke comment ofSir Winston, "A great man whoshaped the destiny of this country."

The national and armed forcesflags of the United Kingdom andAllies fluttered on a mild English sum-mer's day as four military bandsplayed traditional airs and a fly-past ofRAF and USAF WW2 and modern air-craft added to the poignancy of themoment. After the ceremony a '40satmosphere was revived by a superbperformance of Glenn Miller music bythe U.S. Army Field Band. Naval shipswere anchored on SouthamptonWater, overlooked by the Park. HRHPrince Philip aboard Royal Yacht Bri-tannia to carry out a review of theFleet. -D.J. PORTER

David Porter Thanked

Lady Soames presents gift of appreciation to outgo-ing UK chairman David Porter, Chartwell, 16 April.Seated: Michael Wybrow, Pil Pilgrim, Nick Soames.

Liberation Soir ReprintsFor those who

didn't get themyears ago, Bill Beat-

ty again makesavailable excellentcolor photocopies

of the French libera-tion paper during

the visit ofChurchill to Paris on Armistice Day1944. This superb memento of theevents fifty years ago is available post-paid for US$15, £10 and $22 Canadianor Australian. (US checks payable toBill Beatty, Aussie cheques payableRobin Linke, other checks payable toICS). Send orders to Bill Beatty, 194Connor Drive, Henrietta NY 14467.Proceeds go to ICS treasuries.

French TributeMOUGINS, FRANCE, JULY 14TH — An

8' bronze handraised in the V-signwas unveiled on

. V the French Riviera.V / . It was the idea of a\ ; former Resistance

fighter Jean-PaulColas, 83, who saidthe French mustremember Chur-chill's part in thedefeat of Naz-i s m : " W i t h o u t

Churchill there would have been noDe Gaulle, without De Gaulle therewould have been no liberation." Ouronly concern about this one is whichway the other side of the hand is fac-ing; not toward the English Channel,we hope.

Herb Goldberg, R.I.P.His many friends regret the passing ofDr. Herbert Goldberg, 85, on 20August. A native of New York, hisinterest in WSC dated from his days asa medical student. A Fellow of ICS,Herb lectured widely on Churchill,including a 1993 Chapter meeting.

It Won't Be Long NowPORTSMOUTH, MARCH 10TH — Thelunacy of anti-smoking crusaders, who

I

would sue a car company if theycrashed while speeding, has movedfrom grandstanding American con-gressmen and disregard of scientificevidence over "passive smoke" to thelogos of grammar schools. Anti-smok-ists today forced a school named afterengineering genius and cigar aficiona-do Isambard Kingdom Brunei toremove the cigar from his mouth in itslogo. A spokeswoman for the BruneiMiddle School in Portsmouth, Eng-land, said his smoking image was nowconsidered "inappropriate" for chil-dren. How soon before we have todefend the hundreds of images of YouKnow Who? -RML

Christina Back on the MarketKEENE, NH, USA, AUGUST 1ST — Thesale of the former Onassis yachtChristina, reported here last issue fellthrough. If you missed it the first time,here's your chance. Only $2.2 million...

RestitutionWASHINGTON, MARCH 1ST — BritishPrime Minister John Major, who wasput up overnight in the White House,was the first British PM so accommo-dated since Churchill.

Assassination Plot ConfirmedLONDON, MAY 1ST — Four Naziassassins with orders to kill Churchillin North Africa in 1943 were trailed byBritish intelligence, newly releasedwar papers state.The plot was foiledby intercepted German messages, andAttlee cabled Churchill, "Attempts aregoing to be made to bump you off."

Attlee warned Churchill not tofollow his present route and to cut outvisits to Algiers and Gibraltar, stop-ping only at Marrakesh. The head ofBritish SIS, Maj. Gen. Sir Stuart Men-zies ("C") named Hans Peter Schulze,head of German Intelligence, Tangier,as the man behind the plot. Schulzehad requested pistols, ammunition,poisons and mines from Berlin. Thefiles confirm that "at least four sabo-teurs" crossed the frontier on 4 Febru-ary, but reveal no further details.Churchill heeded Attlee's warningand changed his flight plan. $

8 / FINEST HOUR 84

WIT AND WISI)()\1In the book field, nothing is more popular than Churchillian quotes. Sprinkling them into "Inter-national Datelines, "as we've done recently, isn't as effective as this separate column. We concen-trate on the lesser known quotes, or well-known ones which have been mangled recently. -Ed.

STATESMANSHIP"Statesmen are not called upon to

settle the easy questions. These oftensettle themselves. It is when the bal-ance quivers and the proportions areveiled in mist that the opportunitiesfor world-saving decisions presentthemselves." [Attribution requested.]

TRUTH"Truth is so precious that she

must always be attended by a body-guard of lies." -to Stalin (who enjoyedit) at Teheran.

USA VS. UK SYSTEMS"I said it seemed to me that the

British Parliamentary system, wherethe leader of government could bechanged within a short time span, hadmuch to commend it over the Ameri-can system. I shall never forget Mr.Churchill's reply: 'Ah yes, Mr. Byrd,but don't forget this — that the greatstrength of the American system isthat the forty-eight states, actingthrough their own legislatures, can, toa very considerable degree determinetheir own affairs. You in America are

not centralized like we are in England.'Never had I heard such an eloquentappraisal of States Rights." -Sen. HarryByrd Jr. addressing ICS, Richmond,Va. 1991.

MONEY GRUBBINGIn his third and final speech to a

joint session of Congress, Churchill isalleged to have said, "I have not comehere to ask you for money," and thenafter a well-timed pause added, "formyself!" Congress broke up. He hadthem in his pocket, and went on todevelop a strong argument for Ameri-can financial aid to Britain. We havenot found a recording of the passageand are thus unable to confirm this,which is never included in printedversions. Recordings are unreliable asthey could have been edited. Can anyreader confirm that "for myself" wasactually uttered?

"KLOP"Churchill hated staplers, and used

a hole punch to prepare documents forthreading with "treasury tags": smallmetal bars joined by a portion of

string. He referred to the puncher as"Klop" for the sound it made—anonomatopoeic invention, writesHumes in Wit and Wisdom: "Hepreferred the hard bite of Anglo-Saxonmonosyllables to Latin polysyllables."

Early in her secretarial career,Martin Gilbert records, WSC com-manded Kathleen Hill: "Fetch meKlop." Wise about history, Mrs. Hillfound a ten-volume work on the fall ofthe House of Stuart by a Dutchmannamed Klop on the top shelf of thelibrary, and proudly laid the volumesat WSC's feet. "Christ Almighty!," thegreat man exclaimed.

INVENTING TERMSTwo items altered in the latest edi-

tion of Humes are Churchillisms:"arboricide" (he accused Clementineof this when she had his favorite treechopped down) and "black velvet." Iam not convinced that Humes's cor-rection to the second term ("a frequentphrase for death") is absolutely cor-rect. I recall WSC saying that he imag-ined death to be "a long sleep on ablack velvet pillow," occasionally stir-ring, but going back to sleep again.Can a reader confirm that he termeddeath itself "black velvet"? $

Projects Pending*" Churchill Stamp Catalogue: An upcoming ICS publication will catalogue all the Churchill stamps issued, including locals, labelsand German propaganda Feldpost cards, edited by Celwyn Ball. As the book nears completion, would anyone who has a contribution,comment or variety to report kindly send the information to C.P. Ball, Unit 7,47 Biggs Drive, Riverview, NB Canada E1B 4T2.

•" "Reader's Guide to the Books of Sir Winston Churchill": This is not a Bibliography, but a book designed to tell you what you areholding in your hand: first vs. later editions, states, variants, dustwrappers and other phenomena which often make the differencebetween value and worthlessness. Covered are all hardbound books in "Woods Section A," including foreign language editions,though the main emphasis is on English, American, Canadian and Australian issues. Anyone with comments or observations in theseareas should kindly write Richard Langworth, 181 Burrage Road, Hopkinton NH 03229 USA, tel (603) 746-4433, fax 746-4260.

<•" Churchill's Health: Dr. John Mather is writing a book on this subject (see his article in FH #82). Relevant comments and informationare welcome at 12144 Long Ridge Lane, Bowie MD 20715 USA.

<•" Churchill's Military Careen Douglas S. Russell: is writing a book on this subject and welcomes information c/o Stein & Russell, 2211 /2 E. Washington St., Iowa City IA 52240 USA.

•*" Bibliography: Frederick Woods is preparing a new edition of his "Bibliography of the Works of Sir Winston Churchill" and is tour-ing North America on research this autumn. Contact him at 266 Hungerford Rd., Crewe, Cheshire CW11HG, England. $5

FINEST HOUR 84/ 9

RSARYofD'

Thoughts fromNormandy

with Britain'sD-Day veterans,

and remarksto American

veteransat Grosvenor

SquareBY WINSTON S. CHURCHILL, MP

WHAT a wonderfully proud day! Britain's D-Dayveterans, and many from America and Canada,had retuned in their thousands to recall that

heroic day when, in the prime of their youth, they hadstormed ashore in the face of formidable defences and awithering fire from the enemy. They had returned —many for the last time — to pay a final, tearful tribute totheir fallen comrades.

While waiting for the formal international ceremony tostart on Omaha Beach, where the Americans had taken2400 casualties on D-Day, the Prime Minister's wife,Norma Major, asked, "What would it have been like onthe day?" With the waves gently lapping the stretch ofgolden sand in front of us, it was not an easy task to con-jure up in the mind's eye the scene of fifty years ago, espe-cially as I was barely 31/2 years old at the time. Nonethe-less, I did my best:

"Instead of the eight warships we see today (overshad-owed by the looming bulk of the US carrier George Wash-ington), there were 5,000 major warships off these shores,bombarding the enemy defences with all they had, while2,000 landing craft, aided by flotillas of minesweepers,sought to find a path through the minefields to land thetroops,tanks and equipment on the beaches. There fear-some coils of barbed wire and more mines awaited the in-

Sir Winston's grandson is Member of Parliament for Davyhulme,Manchester, and an Honorary Member of the Churchill Societies.

vaders and the sand was pockmarked with explodingshells and mortars as, overhead, some 11,000 Alliedfighter and bomber aircraft pounded the defenders.

"The thunderous noise of the big guns, the explosionsof the shells, the bark of machine-guns, the smell ofcordite, the swirl of smoke, the fear in the hearts of thoseyoung men (their average age was 21 and the majorityhad never heard a shot fired in anger), the agony of thewounded, the sacrifice..."

After the solemnity of the Services of Commemorationheld at Bayeux and four other British military ceremoniesin the morning, with such evocative English hymns as: "OGod, Our help in ages past," "Praise, my soul, the King ofheaven" and a reading from Pilgrim's Progress; after thepomp of the International Commemoration at OmahaBeach with parades of units and bands of the twelve na-tions that took part in the landings, the British Commemo-rative Parade on the beaches of Arromanches in theevening was very much a family affair. I felt privileged tobe there, as the grandson of the man who was the inspira-tion of "Operation Overlord" and, as I arrived, a cheer of"Good Old Winnie!" went up from the crowd in memoryof the man who had led them from the brink of defeatthrough to victory.

With the evening sunlight struggling to break throughthe overcast sky, Britain's D-Day veterans were drawn upin a square on the beach beneath this sleepy seaside vil-lage. In the background, the assault ship HMS Fearless had

10/FINEST HOUR 84

her gaping bow-doors open, while behind her a flotilla ofRoyal Navy ships fired a twenty-four gun salute.

Then they marched past, over 7,000 of them, erect ofbearing and with the same spirit they had shown fiftyyears ago, but weighed down by medals, and by age.They marched past their Sovereign with pride and ban-ners flying, as military bands struck up with such oldfavourites as "It's a long way to Tipperary," "Pack upyour troubles in your old kit bag," "Colonel Bogey" and"We'll hang out the washing on the Siegfreid line."

What a proud moment it was; Among the many thou-sands of disabled veterans, war widows, families andspectators, there cannot have been a dry eye. I know that Ihad tears of pride and sadness coursing down my cheeks— pride for what these brave men had accomplished inthe name of Great Britain — the Liberation of Europe —and sadness for those who had given their lives for ourfreedom.

The gratitude of the people of Normandy was well ex-pressed by the Mayor of Arromanches, who declared tothe veterans: "This is a day when our hearts will beatstrongly and eyes will be damp with tears. Normandy iswhere memories come together. The whole nation rejoicesto welcome you, the soldiers of the Longest Day, you, thesoldiers of Liberty."

In such an assembly of courage, how proud one felt tobe British!

U.S. soldiers wading ashore, Omaha Beach, 6 June 1944

Remarks by Winston S. Churchill MPto US D-Day Veterans, Grosvenor Square, 3 June 1944

CHAIRMAN Montgomery, Representative Michel,Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Veterans ofSHAEF, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a real pleasure

to welcome back to Britain veterans of General Eisen-hower's Army who played such a key role in the Libera-tion of Europe. Without two million Americans and anequal number of British and Commonwealth soldiers and,above all, the sacrifice made by so many, there wouldhave been no Liberation.

I have to tell you that my grandfather and GeneralEisenhower had a major difference of opinion overmy grandfather's determination to accompany the D-Day invasion aboard HMS Belfast. He could not re-sist the idea of participating in the bombardment ofHitler's Atlantic Wall and being where the action was.But Eisenhower forbade him to go, although it tookthe intervention of the King before the Prime Ministerfinally climbed down. Only because of Ike's ban wasChurchill in the House of Commons on the afternoonof D-Day to report to the House. It is now my privilegeto read to you what he said on that momentous occa-sion.

"During the night and the early hours of this morning,the first of the series of landings in force upon the Euro-pean continent has taken place. In this case the liberatingassault fell upon the coast of France. An immense armadaupwards of 4,000 ships, together with several thousandsmaller craft, crossed the Channel. Massed airborne land-ings have been successfully effected behind the enemylines, and landings on the beaches are proceeding at vari-ous points at the present time. The fire of the shore batter-ies has been largely quelled. The obstacles that were con-structed in the sea have not proved so difficult as was ap-prehended.

"The Anglo-American Allies are sustained by about11,000 first-line aircraft, which can be drawn upon as maybe needed for the purposes of the battle. I cannot of coursecommit myself to any particular details. Reports are com-ing in in rapid succession. So far the commanders who areengaged, report that everything is proceeding accordingto plan, And what a plan! This vast operation is undoubt-edly the most complicated and difficult that has evertaken place. It involves tides, winds, waves, visibility,both from the air and the sea standpoint, and the com-bined employment of land, air, and sea forces in the high-est degree of intimacy and in contact with conditionswhich could not and cannot be fully foreseen.

"There are already hopes that actual tactical surprisehas been attained, and we hope to furnish the enemy witha succession of surprises during the course of the fighting.The battle that has now begun will grow constantly inscale and in intensity for many weeks to come, and I shallnot attempt to speculate upon its course. This I may sayhowever. Complete unity prevails throughout the AlliedArmies.

"There is a brotherhood in arms between us and ourfriends of the United States. There is complete confidencein the Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower, and hislieutenants, and also in the commander of the Expedi-tionary Forces, General Montgomery. The ardour andspirit of the troops, as I saw myself, embarking in theselast few days was splendid to witness. Nothing thatequipment, science, or forethought could do has been ne-glected, and the whole process of opening this great newfront will be pursued with the utmost resolution both bythe commanders and by the United States and BritishGovernments whom they serve." &

FINEST HOUR 84/11

Four Outstanding New BooksAmidst an outpouring of attack-books comes a quartet

no Ghurchillian should be withoutBY RICHARD M. LANGWORTH

Pure GoldIn Search of Churchill: A Historian's Journey, by MartinGilbert (London: HarperCollins Publishers 1994).Hardbound, illustrated, 338 pages, £20. Available for$29 + shipping from ICS New Book Service, 181 Bur-rage Rd., Hopkinton NH 03229 (details, page 15).

/

N Search of Churchill is Martin Gilbert's finesthour: as warm, ingenious, generous and humorousas its subject. For the dedicated student of

Churchill it is Guy Fawkes Day and the Fourth of Julyrolled into one, an endlessly fascinating panorama ofrare experience, a book no one seriously interested inWSC will be able to put down.

Ostensibly these are Gilbert's memoirs of his "searchfor Churchill" as Sir Winston's official biographer, fromthe day in 1962 when at Stour, East Bergholt, he be-came one of Randolph Churchill's "Young Gentlemen,"to 1993, when he sat on the Chartwell terrace "over-looking the lakes where Churchill had sat in his lastyears, [as] my search reached its final phase."

This is how newspaper reviews have described it, butIn Search is much more. It is deeply personal. It is Mar-tin Gilbert's answer to all those critics over the years(they are, in his polite way, never mentioned by name)who accused him of being uncritical about a man othershave spent the last two years denouncing as a power-crazed, warmongering, racist drunk, who sold out theEmpire and upped the Yanks and Bolshies. It is also,therefore, a self-defense manual for friends of Churchill,a smorgasbord of historical karate-chops.

Why is Gilbert so pro-Churchill? Because time andagain, as he explains, he would enter a controversialsubject prepared to find the tragic flaw, the feet of clay;and afterward, having examined more evidence thananyone alive or dead, he would come away more im-pressed with Sir Winston's genius, generosity, states-manship and humanity. As Gilbert once said in thesepages (FH #65), he might find Churchill adopting viewswith which he disagreed — "but there would be nothingto cause me to think: 'How shocking, how appalling.'"

I don't have the space to do this book justice. Sorather than try to capture its essence in the usual way,let me go through the dog-eared pages I turned down asI read, too eager to see what was coming next to takemy usual pencil notes.

12/FINEST HOUR 84

The first three chapters deal with Gilbert's years asresearcher for Randolph Churchill, 1962-88 (althoughthe "Beast of Bergholt" reappears regularly throughoutthe book). Martin's friends warned him he wouldn't lastlong, but Sir William Deakin, who had worked forWSC, urged him to take the job, partly because "work-ing with Randolph, for however short a period, wouldprovide a lifetime of anecdotes."

Martin did survive, and Randolphian anecdotes areserved up wholesale. I will content myself with onlyone, about the night a London newspaper editor wasbeing entertained at Stour, Randolph serving a finerepast in the hope of getting the biography serialised inthe paper. The conversation turned to the truncated

1930s reports from Berlin on the Nazi military buildup,and the poor editor made the mistake of saying he hadbeen responsible. Randolph turned from the carvingtable, knife in hand: "S**** like you should have beenshot by my father in 1940!" The editor, Martin recalls,left the next morning. (He felt able to spend the night!?)Randolph admitted that he was "an explosion thatleaves the house standing," but there are many vignettesattesting to his kindliness toward his aides, his fascina-tion with the fruit of their research, which he always re-ferred to as "lovely grub."

A chapter is devoted to the Dardanelles, the firstgreat controversy Gilbert was called upon to discuss, inVolume III. Gilbert leads us through his method ofstudy: photocopy every relevant document in thearchives; explore every source — if necessary, ringeveryone named "X" in the London telephone book. Inthis way, Gilbert learned that initially it was Churchillwho was wary about the Dardanelles campaign, Fisherits ardent backer. Later Churchill, convinced it was vi-able, overextended himself defending an action he couldnot personally control; and his fate was sealed when thePrime Minister, Asquith, formed a coalition with theTories, whose price was Churchill's head.

Why did Asquith give in? Gilbert could not compre-hend it — until he found Judy Montagu, with whosemother, Venetia Stanley, Asquith was besotted at thattime, whose engagement wrecked Asquith's life, andwith it his will to govern. Miss Montagu brought withher the priceless letters in which Asquith poured out hisdespondency. Here was the "lovely grub" which struc-tured Volume Ill 's account of Churchill's worst politi-cal defeat.

In "Soldiers and Soldiering" Gilbert tells how hecame to know the military Churchill, especially his fear-lessness, in both combat and writing about it. (WSC:"After all in writing the great thing is to be honest.")Above all emerged Churchill's detestation of war. Biog-raphers who claim the opposite should read this chap-ter: "Ah, horrible war, amazing medley of the gloriousand the squalid, the pitiful and the sublime, if modernmen of light and leading saw your face closer, simplefolk would see it hardly ever," said Churchill, the war-monger ... (85)

Gilbert found in source after source that his subject"never lost these sentiments." Contrary to claims thathe gloried in World War II, Churchill would have pre-ferred it had never happened. He was rarely vindictive,but he never forgave the Prime Minister he held respon-sible: "I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill, but it would havebeen much better if he had never lived." (106) "In mylong search for Churchill," comments Gilbert, "few let-ters have struck a clearer note than this one."

In his chapter, "The Inhabited Wilderness," Gilbertmakes a point often made in Finest Hour: that the"Wilderness Years" were really a decade of blossom forChurchill the writer, the thinker, the defender of hiscountry. We are introduced to cronies like Lindemann,

the much-loved "Prof," capable of reducing to a fewwords the most complicated scientific theory; and tothose who risked their careers to keep WSC apprised ofGerman rearmament, among them Ralph Wigram,Torr Anderson and Desmond Morton.

An embittered Morton extracted his pound of fleshfrom the Churchill "legend" in later life, as chief consul-tant to an early revisionist author. Evidently Mortonforgot the note Churchill wrote him in 1947 — thisChurchill who we are told cared nothing for others:"When I read all these letters and papers you wrote me,and think of our prolonged conversations, I feel howvery great is my debt to you, and I know that no thoughtever crossed your mind but the public interest." (120)

he vast writing factory of Chartwell, the manywho provided glimpses of it in action, are described inthree chapters devoted to literary assistants, secretariesand private secretaries, all of whom rounded and firmedGilbert's account. The Churchill papers, Gilbert writes,"gave me a day-by-day picture of historical teamwork."Some critics of Churchill's literary life dwell on howmuch of his assistants' work he passed off as his own.In fact he signed off on every word, and his assistantsloved him for the respect and appreciation he paid them.One quote again suffices, by Maurice Ashley, who saidas much to ICS when he addressed us in 1989 and re-ceived our Emery Reves Award: "He treated me withthe utmost consideration, almost as an equal, was ex-ceedingly generous and good humoured, wrote to my fa-ther kindly about me, and raised my salary when I toldhim I was in difficulties. His secretaries adored him. Al-though he kept his chief secretary, Mrs. Pearman,working late at night, he always telephoned himself fora car to take her home. When she died he gave financialhelp to her only daughter." (141)

Winston's secretaries began with a Harrow schoolchum named John Milbanke, who took dictation whileChurchill bathed. With the typical drama of Churchill'ssaga, Milbanke later won the Victoria Cross in the BoerWar and was killed in action at Gallipoli. (153) A suc-cession of young people followed, many of whom cameto tell of their experiences, including such Friends ofICS as Grace Hamblin, the late Kathleen Hill, PatrickKinna, Jo Sturdee (now Lady Onslow), Elizabeth Lay-ton (now Nel), Doreen Pugh and Elizabeth Gilliatt."One lady who worked with Churchill for just underthree months in 1931, while he was in the UnitedStates, did not like him," notes Gilbert, who nevermissed a secretary, pro or con. "She made her objec-tions plain when, nearly sixty years later, she was inter-viewed at length by the BBC. It was curious, and forme distressing, that the other secretaries, who werewith him for so much longer, and saw him at his dailywork, were given far less time to say their piece." Whata shame that unjust criticism is today so much morenewsworthy than forthright praise.

FINEST HOUR 84/13

Another subject of modern hindsight is Churchill'smarriage — which one well publicized biography calleda "loveless farce," a notion Finest Hour took pains lastissue to contradict, with the piece by Lady DianaCooper — and his family life, which another biographyrepeatedly described as "egregious." Gilbert exploredevery aspect, every paper, diary and memory touchingon Churchill's marriage and family: "I became aware ofhow close he had been to his wife and children: a close-ness shown both by the time spent together, and inti-mate correspondence; an uninhibited and open relation-ship within the family circle."

Scores of examples show the love Clementine andWinston bore each other, one involving a Friend ofICS, Bill Beatty, who demonstrated to Gilbert "the un-ending fascination of the search." Volume VIII statedthat Clemmie, Winston's "sagacious cat," prevailedupon him to wear civilian dress in Paris to receive theMe'daille Militaire in 1947, instead of his RAF Hon-orary Air Commodore's uniform — but Gilbert learned,through Mr. Beatty's on-the-spot photograph, taken onthe day and published in Finest Hour, that WSC had foronce rejected her advice, choosing the uniform of the4th Queen's Own Hussars, his old regiment.

Churchill's letters about his children "radiate affec-tion," Gilbert continues — reaching even pretense fortheir sake. Randolph once told Martin of an occasionwhen he and Winston had gone to a cinema, and howRandolph later "felt ashamed" for diverting his busy fa-ther to see a "trashy, slushy" film: "But Winston put hishand on Randolph's shoulder and said with gentleness:'We must lend ourselves to the illusion.'"

Even as he profited from such personal recollections,Gilbert admits that he is probably dealing with just afraction of the true record: "How often must Churchillhave spoken on similar occasions, with no mechanicalor human Boswell present, only a small group of listen-ers caught up in the force of his convictions, and realiz-ing that they had listened to something rare, profoundand extraordinary." (246)

In "Diaries and Diarists" Gilbert describes the"golden inkwells" that mean so much to a biographer; inthis and a chapter entitled "Dear Mr. Gilbert" he chopsaway at the vines of apocryphal stories choking ourimage of Churchill, ascribing to Paul Robinson, Chair-man of ICS United States, the assurance that a famousquote about Royal Navy traditions ("rum, sodomy andthe lash!") was not Churchill's. Paul knew this fromAnthony Montague Browne, whose source was WSChimself; Anthony's speech appeared in Finest Hour #50."I felt ashamed to have been caught telling it," writesGilbert, "being always so scornful myself of unauthenti-cated stories." (232)

"Dear Mr. Gilbert" is a grand finale of spiraling fire-works and shooting stars, the biographical equivalent ofthe final celebratory moments in New York Harbor onthe American Bicentennial. Here amidst queries ofevery kind, Gilbert explodes ridiculous myths with

which the public, and certain writers, seem besotted:How did Churchill get by on so little sleep? (Actually

he averaged seven to eight hours a day; Lady Thatcheroperates on much less.) Did WSC allow Coventry to bebombed to preserve the secrecy of British Intelligence?(Of course not — see also FH #41.) Did actor NormanShelley deliver a Churchill speech over the BBC?(Never, though a cigar sometimes obfuscated WSC'sdelivery.) Was it true that WSC praised Hitler in his1935 Strand article, repeated in Great Contemporaries?(Those who say this ignore the context. The ForeignOffice actually tried to suppress this chapter in the 1937book, fearing it would offend Germany.) Is this signa-ture or that painting a fake? (A surprising number are.)Was WSC really l/16th American Indian? (A qualified"yes.") Did he have royal blood? (undetermined) or ille-gitimate offspring? (No.) Was he unfaithful? (Never.)Did he rant against the Jews, contrary to his Zionistpretensions? (Only those Jews working with Lenin.)Did he blow the 1945 election with his "GestapoSpeech?" ("The Gestapo speech is always quoted, thesocial reform pledge hardly ever.")

questions led to unexpected experiences. ICSFriend Otis Jones asked: had WSC ever been aFreemason? (Yes, from 1901 to 1912.) Prime MinisterHeath asked: how did WSC work with his speechwrit-ers? ("He didn't use them," said Martin, incurring thewrath of a speechwriter present — who is todayBritain's Foreign Secretary.) The Churchill papers onDieppe are open only to Gilbert, right? ("This causedme to blow my top in Canada during a speech ofthanks: I said they were at the Public Record Office atKew ... [The speaker] went a bright puce, and I have feltsorry for him ever since.")

Quote attribution is a heavy Gilbert task, much heav-ier than for ICS, which is also asked, but less often.Thus we understand his delight in finding this precursorto a famous speech, made upon the launch of RMSQueen Mary in 1935: "Never in the history of transat-lantic travel has so much been done for those whotravel tourist."

There are a few trifling mistakes which, after this in-credible narrative, I am almost loath to list. But notquite, since our author is ever ready to amend.Churchill served under five not four Prime Ministers.(50) Phyllis Moir's name is misspelled. (206). It is saidthat Lullenden, WSC's pre-Chartwell country home,was rented (297); but at the outset of his Volume IVGilbert wrote that Churchill bought it, and in a minor"search" of my own I was privileged to see the deed,which Lady Randolph countersigned for Winston, pre-sumably as guarantor, still safely preserved at Lullen-den itself. (In a recent note, Martin thinks Volume IV isright — and will correct In Search at first opportunity.)That the official biography never paid a royalty is cor-rect, but the inroads of inflation did not go unadjusted;

14/FINEST HOUR 84

ICS NEW BOOK SERVICENew books at discount prices: a service to Friends of ICS. BOOKS BY CHURCHILL

Shipping $4 first book, $1 each additional, anywhere in the world . . „„ . , T ,. „ r J- , T > • , •-. T-- »(UPS in USA, bookpost elsewhere). US$ or Sterling only please. 1°,OL ^dm: Defending the Jewel tn the Crown. First AmericanVisa/Mastercard cut into the discounts we pass on to you, but we Edition of the rare 1931 ongmal Facsimile to the first editionaccept them as a convenience on orders outside USA, or any orders M" W e l d h o r a foreword, Illus., 168pp., Woods A38 ($35) ...$25totaling over $100. Order from Churchillbooks, 181 Burrage Rd, m m m „ , , , , - , . . ^ . . . r , , , . r ,XJ /.t• * MU nntn TTCA 1007. Ihe World Crisis. New edition of the 1 vol version of thetiominton Nti 03229 USA. . . . . , ., ,. , . ., „, , ... „ .,

original, with a considerable new material by Churchill. Scnb-JUST PUBLISHED : IN STOCK NOW ?*Ll"2- H a r d b o u n d ' m a P s & P l a n s ' 868PP- W o o d s A^

(.!>.').'">) $£0

1056. Churchill and the Politics of War, 1940-1941, by SheilaLawlor. A remarkable use of original sources shows WSC a 1013. Early Speeches. Clothbound from the "Collected Works"sophisticated and astute politician. Reviewed, FH #84. Soft- volume, including Liberalism and the Social Problem and Thebound, 270pp (£16.95) $26 People's Rights. Hardbound, 502pp $60

1055. Churchill: An Unruly Life, by Norman Rose. In our 1014. Mr. Brodrick's Army. First American Edition, 1977,opinion the best single-volume interpretive biography, judi- replica of Churchill's rarest book (1903). Woods A6. Collec-cious and wise with many new angles. Reviewed, FH #84. tor's edition in half-buckram $18Hardbound, illus., 436pp (£20) $29 1014a. Library edition in brown cloth $16

1054. In Search of Churchill: A Historian's Journey, by Martin 1015. For Free Trade. First American Edition, 1977, compan-Gilbert. The best book of Martin Gilbert's career, simply bril- ion to above, WSC's second rarest book (1906). Woods A9.liant. Reviewed, FH #84. Hardbound, illus., 338pp (£20) ..$29 Collector's edition, half buckram $18

1015a. Library edition in brown cloth $161053. The Churchills: Pioneers and Politicians, by ElizabethSnell. (See FH #83, p26). A genealogical history of the North 1016. Lord Randolph Churchill. Bound in red cloth from theAmerican descendants of the English Churchills. Hardbound, Collected Works, the 1952 edn with new material added,illus., 228pp (£14.95) ...$19 Illus., 856pp., Woods A8c $60

1052. The Wit and Wisdom of Winston Churchill, edited byJames C. Humes. Revised and corrected edition: a cornucopia OTHER BOOKS ABOUT CHURCHHILL IN STOCKof WSC's quips, quotes and ripostes. Indispensible. Hard- 1 A C 1 ,,,, ,. , „. D . .. „„. „,. . „, , .„ , T T- •u J 1W /iom «1/; 1051. The Medalhc Portraits of Sir Winston Churchill, by J. Ericbound, 234pp ($20) $16 ,-, r> ui- u J mn A. ± J J i n J i' w Engstrom. Published 1972, the standard work on all medals,•TTjir /-XIITD^TJTT T W A D BAU171JC coins and plaques issued to date, incredibly detailed & illus-

(COMPANION VOLUMES TO VOL VI) t r a t e d - L g h a r d b a c k > 60PP $ 1 8

966. Volume I: At the Admiralty, September 1939-May 1940, 1048. Winston Churchill — Architect of Peace: A Study of States-edited by Martin Gilbert. The ultimate sourcework of a vital manship and the Cold War by Steven Lambakis. Author ofperiod. Hardbound, 1400 pp. ($75) $60 "Churchill vs. Gorbachev" (FH78, pl5) offers brilliant per-

spective of Cold War strategy. 208pp($48) $42967. The English First Edition of the above, identically bound(£75) $100 1050. Churchill on the Home Front, by Paul Addison, who

writes of WSC's "unique versatility, psychic stamina, Hi-968. Volume II: Never Surrender, May-December 1940. Ready in malayan ego, and incontestable superiority over every otherNovember. Puts you at Churchill's shoulder during Britain's Prime Minister." 494pp illus sftbnd ($20) $17finest hour with all the crucial war papers. Hardbound, 1322pp. ($75). Due in December $60 1043. Churchill The Writer, by Keith Alldritt. A brillliant book

on Churchill and his books ranking with Weidhorn's Sword969. The English First Edition of the above, identically bound and Pen. We found a few more if you missed it. Hardbound,(£75). Due in December $100 466pp ($33) $27

increases were granted over the years, and then therewere the spin-offs, such as this book. On the other hand,the publishing process was tremendously complicated,with publishers going through changes of ownership,mergers and divorces; delays and readjustments of vari-ous terms; the American publisher quit, requiring an-other to be found for the ten final companion volumes.Anent the latter, in our own files are 300 pieces of cor-respondence relating to these volumes alone.

In Search of Churchill properly finishes at Ghartwell,"where every vista, every artifact and every room has astory behind it." Gilbert writes of his first and last visit

there, and the many in between: things old handspointed out to him, the central role Ghartwell played inSir Winston's life. Here, in Gilbert's discrete way, aremore polite but firm rebuttals of silly stories spun by lessfastidious biographers: Churchill's alleged ego, lack offriends, heavy drinking, cavalier treatment of guests.Again one quote will suffice, by Patrick Buchan-Hep-burn, later Lord Hailes, to Martin Gilbert, c. 1970:

"Winston was a meticulous host. He would watcheveryone all the time to see whether they wanted any-thing. He was a tremendous gent in his own house. Hewas very quick to see anything that might hurt some-

FINESTHOUR84/15

one. He got very upset if someone told a story thatmight be embarrassing to somebody else in the room.He had a delicacy about other people's feelings. In hishouse and to his guests he was the perfection ofthoughtfulness." (305)

And, on a broader aspect of his attitudes, Buchan-Hepburn spoke of the Churchill some call a snob, aman who didn't understand ordinary people: "He hadno class consciousness at all. He was the furthest a per-son could be from a snob. He admired brain and char-acter; most of his friends were people who had madetheir own way."

The computer tells me I am well over my allotted2000 words and I haven't told you the half of it. InSearch of Churchill is pure gold, one of the volumes yousimply must have, and mark for reference in your con-frontations with scoffers. It deserves to be bound uni-formly with the Official Biography itself. It is thatwarm, personal side of Martin Gilbert which he set outnot to show in his strictly chronological biographic vol-umes. Honest critics may argue over the merits of thatapproach, and the conclusions it draws; Gilbert himselfadmits that he has barely scratched the surface. Butthey will come away from this book realizing that SirWinston was lucky to have had such a biographer, tostand as a buffer between his life and the hordes of in-terpreters, some worthy and some not; and here that bi-ographer has left a monument as stable and lasting asChartwell itself.

One ofthe BestOne-VolumeBiographies

N O R M A N R O S E

Churchill: An Unruly Life, by Norman Rose (London:Simon and Schuster 1994). Hardbound, illustrated, 436pages, £20. Available for $29 + shipping from ICS NewBook Service.

WHEN the advance notices said Norman Rosebelieved Churchill was pro-appeasement in the1930s I had my doubts about this book. I

wasn't reassured when I began reading, and found thatRose can't spell "Bladon" (2), "Eddie Marsh" (68),"Marigold Frances Churchill" (167) or "Straits" (371);that he thinks Step by Step is a speech book (186), andthat Churchill wrote something called The War Crisis

(121). There is also a curious sentence saying Churchillwanted to restore Czar Nicholas II after he had beenmurdered: difficult even for Churchill! (144) But as Iread, my respect for Rose's book grew, and I finishedit believing that it may be the best single-volume inter-pretive biography yet written: better than HenryPelling's Churchill (1974). I am very glad Dr. Rose wasable to find at least one publisher. Like Gilbert's InSearch of Churchill his book has not been published inthe USA.

A history professor at Hebrew University inJerusalem, Rose comes to Churchill from a neutral cor-ner, and he generally weighs the evidence judiciously.When he concludes Churchill was wrong he says so;but far more often he praises WSC, and that fits withthe broad sense of humanity: Churchill's failures,though great, were dwarfed by his successes.

Rose likes to make points that are new and interest-ing. To the long-running complaint that Churchill was a"slave to his rhetoric" who brooked no opposition, Rosereplies that rhetoric was how Churchill reached a deci-sion (46): he would yield, provided you convinced himhe was wrong. Although Rose falls into cant by accus-ing WSC of "lack of sensitivity," he does admit thatChurchill "was also able to generate loyalty to an un-usual degree" (58) and gives examples throughout ofwhy this was so.

Rose's analysis of the Churchill marriage avoidsthe pitfalls of popular muckrakers. He won't quite buyWSC's claim that from 1908 he lived "happily everafterwards," and notes the "incompatibility of tem-peraments, an in-built tension that on occasion bubbledover." But he concludes that the marriage "proved solidenough to withstand the inevitable stresses in any mari-tal union," and handles Winston's and Clementine'shabit of taking separate holidays with precision.Churchill knew his wife needed those breaks, Rosesays, because of "the work & burdens" he imposed uponher: "They found partings painful, but inevitable.Clementine needed a respite, a few days of tranquillityfree of the stress engendered by Churchill's over-whelming presence." (205) The book shows howChartwell was a balm to that union, not the sourceof conflict others have claimed. "Are you happy?,"Clemmie asks her husband as he watches hisfish. "Yes, as happy as I can be," Winston replies.(204)

Churchill's political style was controversial. He tookchances. He played for keeps and to win, and when helost he usually went down with guns blazing. NormanRose is too good a historian to suggest, as others have,that early Tory (and Liberal) hostility to Churchill wasall Winston's fault: "Churchill's reputation was suchthat he was seldom given the benefit of the doubt. Tothe untrained public eye, and naturally to that of hismore jaundiced colleagues, his image as an adventurerbent on self-glorification was more than confirmed byhis flamboyant behaviour. No doubt, he thrilled to the

16/FINEST HOUR 84

ride on a perilous merry-go-round, believing that hewould be able to descend gracefully to general applause.He was a[n] avid gambler." ( I l l )

Much has been made of Churchill's "flirtations" withanti-democrats, his admiration for Mussolini, his doubtsabout the expanded electorate. Rose happily appliesmore light than heat to this subject. In 1930 Churchilldid begin to question "whether institutions 'based onadult suffrage could possibly arrive at the right decisionsupon the intricate propositions of modern business andfinance.'" But Churchill's concern was that parliamen-tary institutions be able to prevent universal suffragefrom leading to populism, which would endanger suchinstitutions. (188) The same kind of worry goes ontoday over the ability of populations to elect responsibleleadership with what the media allows them to under-stand of the issues.

A worthy aspect of this book is its tendency to lookdeeper at actions some claim demonstrate WSC's lackof judgment, finding in them a broader strategic vision.An example is Churchill's wartime support of Tito inYugoslavia, for which WSC has been roundly criti-cized.

The usual defense of this is that Tito was killing moreGermans than any rival leader, but Rose has a differentanswer: when Tito broke with the Soviet Union in1948, "Stalin held back, tolerating Yugoslavia's growinglinks with the West." This, Rose says, must have raisedChurchill's spirits. (312) Past doubt.

Unlike a lot of recent biographies, this book fairlygleams with unfamiliar quotes. Rose describes WSC'syouthful character with a remark by Charles Hob-house: "Churchill is ill mannered, boastful, unprinci-pled, without any redeeming qualities except his amaz-ing ability and industry." (54) Why that's like saying aFerrari is expensive, thirsty and hard to keep in tune,without any redeeming qualities except performance,handling and beauty!

The author has a knack for the right quote at theright time, e.g. Sir Edward Grey, 1908, that Winstonwas a genius whose only fault was that "words masterhim, rather than he them, [but] his faults and mistakeswill be forgotten in his achievements." (64) Equallygood is Churchill's description of Labour's EmmanuelShinwell and the Tory Lord Winterton: "Arsenic andOld Lace" (317); or this description of WSC's scintillat-ing (and therefore almost always ignored) effectivenessas postwar Leader of the Opposition: "A magnificentanimal" bursting with vigour and vengeance...a stupen-dous performance, audible, polished, unanswerable, anddamning."

Like all books, there are things here that could havebeen better. Rose did not consult one living source, andrelied for his early chapters too heavily on Churchill'scharming but imprecise My Early Life. Thus he falls forWSC's story about his shoulder injury in India and thefake Boer wanted poster (37, 42), refuted respectively inFinest Hour #72 and #57. Rose sometimes uses quotes

out of context and introduces characters, like "Krassin"and "Collins," with no identification. (They were re-spectively Lenin's trade negotiator and the Sinn Feinleader who signed WSC's Irish Treaty.)

To his credit, Norman Rose takes Churchill's liter-ary output seriously, even Savrola. Though he gets itspublishing date wrong (8) he does show how Churchill'snovel, representing his personal philosophy, guided himduring the Dardanelles fiasco. (113, 126) "No less im-pressive," Rose tells us, were Churchill's "narrativegifts and his sense of structure. He possessed the skill toguide his reader through labyrinthine events, to per-suade him that it was worthwhile and enjoyable to per-severe to the last word." But Rose's view of WSC'searly military books is inconsistent: he calls them "littlemore than historical curiosities" in one place and "excit-ing adventure stories" in another. (36, 210)

Over the Dardanelles, Rose needs to read his Gilbert.Fisher did not remain "at the Atheneum, accessible toall" after bolting from the Admiralty in May 1915. (127)Churchill could not have offered Asquith a recon-structed Board of Admiralty sans Fisher "with so manySea Lords against him." (127) Gilbert's battery of secre-tarial quotes could have prevented Rose from such pre-posterous remarks as, "[WSC] lacked the capacity tolaugh at himself." (203) The testimony of private secre-taries such as Jock Colville counter Rose's judgmentthat Churchill "revealed little disposition to thinkthrough to the end the political aftermath of the war."(315) Rose's belief that Churchill's alternative to Mu-nich "contained nothing new" (244) is odd—fightingHitler would have been new! And, contrary to Rose,Britain had a better shot in 1938 with the Czechs thanin 1939 without them. (245)

So Norman Rose is not perfect: who is? In the main,his book is fair, judicious, well written. He weighs theevidence with a proper sense of proportion, never goingoff half-cocked on some silly theory based on a single,doubtful source. He cannot (and need not) assure usChurchill was the greatest Englishman of his time, per-haps of all time. But he can tell us "with absolute cer-tainty that between 1940 and 1941, at a moment of hiscountry's greatest peril, and by virtue of his unique abil-ities, Churchill saved his country from a dreadfultyranny. And by so doing, through his courage andleadership, he inspired the rest of the free world andgave fresh hope to those already crushed under despoticrule."

If that achievement created certain myths in the pub-lic mind, surely they are better myths than the onesmaking London headlines for the past two years. In the1930s, when his advisors urged Churchill not to repeatthe story of King Alfred and the burnt cakes in his His-tory of the English-Speaking Peoples, Churchill overruledthem, "because at times of crisis, myths had their histor-ical importance." Who can say he was wrong, Roseasks. Who indeed?

More Reviews ....FINEST HOUR 84/17

"AllBehind

You,Winston!"

David Low'sfamous

cartoon of14 May 1940.What reader

can nameall the gentsin the firsttwo rows?

Churchill and the Politics of War, 1940-1941, by SheilaLawlor (Cambridge University Press, 1994). Soft-bound, extensively annotated, 278 pages, £16.95. Avail-able from ICS New Book Service for $26 + shipping.

FOR SOME time it has been claimed thatChurchill's war memoirs misrepresent Cabi-net opinion over whether Britain should fight on

after the fall of France: that there were ministers whopreferred an Anglo-Nazi rapprochement; that the bel-ligerent Churchill ignored them; and that he paperedover their views in The Second World War. His critics in-sist that it was terribly naughty of Churchill thus to mis-represent history. They never seem to wonder whether,if he told such lies, he was doing the pacifists a service.

Some readers of Martin Gilbert's Finest Hour (Vol-ume VI of the Official Biography) have likewise de-duced that the Cabinet was not united behindChurchill's resolve. Larry Arnn in Finest Hour #81(page 37) wrote that the War Cabinet "was ready to re-solve for peace until Churchill adjourned it and calledtogether the whole Cabinet," which he rallied withthose memorable words, quoted in the memoirs of HughDalton: "I am convinced that every man of you wouldrise up and tear me from my place, if I were for one mo-ment to contemplate parley or surrender. If this long is-land story is to end at last, let it end only when each oneof us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground."With that, as a famous David Low cartoon portrayed, itwas "All behind you, Winston!"

It ain't necessarily so.In this serious and balanced account of political inter-

play during the Battles of France and Britain, and dur-ing the March 1941 decision to support Greece, SheilaLawlor offers evidence that Churchill's war memoirsare more accurate than either the revisionists orfriendly readers of Volume VI. She also gives the lie totwo other popular notions: that Churchill was blind tothe realpolitik of unleashing Hitler to attack Stalin, andthat he ran the government like an Ottoman Sultan.

"The most striking point which emerges," wrote DavidSexton in the Daily Telegraph, "is that, unlike Hitler,Churchill was extremely receptive to the arguments ofthose around him. This is the kind of stuff we need."We sure do!

Ms. Lawlor's method, which makes this book uniqueand valuable, is to analyze what were often conflictingviews and reactions to events by consulting the diariesand private letters of key players, like Chamberlain andHalifax, alongside the Chartwell Papers (which I wishshe wouldn't call the "Chertwell Papers"). She thencompares the various reactions to events. It is immedi-ately apparent that Churchill's own position was gov-erned by the uncertainties, differences and vacillationsof his colleagues, and that he was a far more sophisti-cated politician than he allowed himself to appear.

After the war, when he wrote that a deal with Hitlerwas "never thought worth a place upon the Cabinetagenda, or even mentioned in our most private con-claves," it turns out from Lawlor's evidence that he wasmore accurate than misleading — and that Chamber-lain and Halifax, contrary to their portrayal as far-see-ing realists who had the true interests of the Empire atheart, were with him all the way once France beganreeling, even when it appeared likely that Britain wouldhave to make peace or face the Nazi storm alone.

The issue alluded to by Dr. Arnn was the Cabinetmeeting of 28 May 1940, which considered whetherBritain should accept the overtures of Mussolini(backed by Roosevelt) to mediate a ceasefire. Lawlor'sevidence is that Halifax entertained this idea only as asop to the fast-fading French: "Although Halifax hadbeen sympathetic to French demands for an approachto Mussolini in late May, that had been in the context ofthe fall of France: Halifax had wanted to avoid givingthe French cause for recrimination. Although he didnot believe in such an approach, and did not in sub-stance differ from Churchill about it, it was probably hisconciliatory attitude (albeit to the French) at that stagewhich led to Halifax's being associated with a peace-move party. Once the French were out of the fight, Hal-ifax rejected the peace feelers..." (73)

18/FINEST HOUR 84

As for Chamberlain, that worldly man of peace whowould have gotten Britain out of this mess, according toat least one recent apologist: "Like Halifax andChurchill he did not see that anything would be gainedfrom talks, though like Halifax he was more willing totreat the French request for an approach to Mussoliniin May with some sympathy as a means of encouragingthe French. Chamberlain had made up his mind aboutHitler: and whatever the circumstances, even in her dark-est hour, there would be nothing for Britain to gain. Andonce that hour had passed there was even less reason to con-template any feelers." (Italics this writer's.) This goes along way toward explaining Churchill's generous eulogyof Chamberlain after the latter's death in November1940 {Finest Hour #62 back cover), and his far morecensorious view of Baldwin (this issue, pl3 lower left).

Why then has this wrongheaded notion about a"peace-move" within the Cabinet been allowed to pros-per? Primarily because we haven't had Sheila Lawlorto say wait a minute — let's look at the record."Churchill's decision to fight on was more reasonableand had more in common with that of Chamberlain andHalifax than his rhetoric might suggest," she concludes,"but it was his rhetoric which, in the summer of 1940,had begun to cast him into his wartime caricature. Al-though this caricature helped to establish him as leaderand particularly as leader of the Conservatives, amongthe sources for his rhetoric were Churchill's predeces-sors, Baldwin and Chamberlain." You may not quitebuy that — but one can certainly understand fromLawlor's clear examination that on peace with Hitler,there was less there than has met the eye in recent revi-sionist argument.

J—/awlor's book is equally fresh about the decision,fatal as it proved, to divert military resources from theMiddle East to help the Greeks in the face of a Germaninvasion in 1941, another mortal sin for whichChurchill gets the blame. Her research proves conclu-sively that this initiative was primarily Eden's, backedby Generals Wavell, Dill and Wilson. Churchill con-stantly queried these worthies, reminding them of Ger-man military preponderance, suggesting that the Greeksmight feel "we had put undue pressure on them and hadpersuaded them against their better judgement to put upa hopeless resistance." He wished to avoid the charge"that we had caused another small nation to be sacri-ficed without being able to afford effective help." (252)But even as WSC was issuing these statements, Eden inAthens on 4 March 1941 had signed an agreement forBritain to go in at Greece's side.

Lawlor admits that hers is a narrow study, confinedto the period when Britain stood alone; but she arguesconvincingly that it sheds light on Churchill's subse-quent behavior within the Grand Alliance: "For onething the often hesitant and tentative nature ofChurchill's strategic leadership in face of the different

and conflicting advice of political and military colleagueswas the corollary to the resolute pursuit of British inter-ests. The problem was not one of identifying nationalinterests"—on which she shows there was remarkableunity. "Rather, in face of so many conflicting views anddemands, and given the scarcity of resources, it washow best they should be pursued. Churchill's positionreflected the uncertainties, differences and vacillationsof his colleagues, far more than appears from his ownaccount." Thus we may consider that Churchill's TheSecond World War is as much an attempt to representhis colleagues' unity over broad British interests, as it isa personal apology or defense, as so many havecharged.

Sheila Lawlor, a director of a London political thinktank and a former Fellow of Churchill College, has ren-dered an important service. Her book shows us that lat-terday interpretations based on hindsight are no substi-tute for immersing ourselves in the primary source ma-terial, recorded at the time of these terrible and greatevents. It is certainly a very worthwhile book for anyone interested in this aspect of Churchill's career.

GreatQuotes,DeplorableWrapper

%eM&MdmofMiston ChurchillN ^cATreasury

ft I IT '

. f O ^ V j

Richard M.Sixan

mJames C Humes

The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill, edited by JamesC. Humes (New York: Harper Collins 1994, FourthPrinting). Hardbound, 234 pages, $20. ICS price $16(see New Book Service, page 15).

THIS ISN'T the best book of Churchill quotesever published, but it comes as close as anythingin the last thirty-five years, thanks to an exten-

sive overhaul of the text after two initial printings. Theresult is a fine compilation over over 1,000 quips andanecdotes, well organized by Humes, an honorarymember of ICS United States, speechwriter to fourpresidents, familiar sight at ICS meetings, and devoteeof Sir Winston. It is worthy company to his excellentSir Winston Method (1991), in which Humes combinedhis rules of a good speech with Churchill's practices toinstruct readers on public speaking.

All reviews of this work to date have been mostlycompilations of the reviewer's favorite Churchillisms;this one will be different. We'll ration you to very few

FINEST HOUR 84/19

quotes, trying instead to outline the structure of thework. To savor the Churchillisms you must buy thebook, which will please us, not to mention Mr. Humes.

The first and largest section, "Observations andOpinions," is organized alphabetically. Churchill is"the most frequent source of quotations next to theBible and Shakespeare," says Humes (who has alsowritten a biography of the latter); but Churchill, whodied at 90 with sixty-three years spent in Parliament,left a wider variety than the Bard, who died at 52.Humes's list runs from "Action" to "Zionism." Theonly trouble with this section is that most entries lackdate or attribution, making readers yearn for the con-text. I read them all in manuscript form and helped rootout almost every one I thought doubtful, but although Irecognized many, I can't place them all in time, and thisis frustrating.

In "Orations and Perorations" Humes captures mostof the great speeches while warning his reader that thisis no substitute for reading entire speeches aloud, or bet-ter yet, listening to WSC himself on recordings. Under"Coiner of Phrases" he groups terms Churchill in-vented (arboricide, bottlescape, triphibian) or used ex-clusively (benignant, purblind, tergiversation). "Saintsand Sinners" records WSC's comments on the greatand near-great of his time, and my wish here is that itincluded a one- or two-line biography on them, for somany will be unknown to younger readers. I like bestthe one on Baldwin: "Occasionally he stumbled over thetruth but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as ifnothing had happened."

Humes wraps up his book with "Escapades and En-counters," which is anecdotal stuff, in no particularorder, seventy pages of wonderful stories from Omdur-man to WSC's last years. These have been carefullycombed to eliminate most of the apocryphal, which isgood. But as Humes states, "in a sense it is misleadingto recount many of the delicious anecdotes about Win-ston Churchill. They could serve to distract from thegreatness of his accomplishments, for character can slipinto caricature."

He couldn't be more right — and proof of that state-ment is the very dust jacket of his book, which is one ofthe worst caricatures of Churchill I've ever seen.(Humes shot at this with his publishers — without re-sult.)

Aside from the fact that Churchill never used a cigarholder, and never was seen with the drunk's red nose,the artist who drew this seemed to have in mind a com-bination Bennett Cerf and W. C. Fields. It is an insult tothe greatness of Churchill and frames the wrong imageof the contents. I am inclined to think it may cause thebook to be mis-sold to people who think they're buying"Jokes for the John." No publisher would run a carica-ture like that on a book of quotes by Martin LutherKing or John F. Kennedy or Douglas MacArthur. Sowhy Churchill?

Buy it anyway — and throw away the jacket!

Alighting under thewatchful eye of

InspectorThompson.

ShortTakes

8

The Churchill War Papers: Volume II, Never Surrender,May-December 1940, edited by Martin Gilbert (London:Heinemann, New York: Norton, November 1994).Hardbound, illustrated, 1322 pages, £75 (English edi-tion), $75 (American edition). ICS prices $100 and $60respectively (see page 15).

IN THE first eight months of his prime ministership,Winston Churchill surmounted more crises thanmany leaders face in an entire career: a fast-disinte-

grating ground war in Europe as the German biltzkriegoverran Holland, Belgium, and France, and drove theBritish army to retreat and evacuate at Dunkirk; theconsolidation of the German occupation of Norway andDenmark; an ongoing state of emergency at home asBritain struggled to modernize its army, navy, and airforces at breakneck speed, and the pivotal weeks of theBattle of Britain, the "Finest Hour" when Britain stoodfast against the unremitting onslaught of the GermanLuftwaffe.

This extraordinary book brings these months beforeus in the diaries, memoranda, letters, telegrams, cabinetminutes, and speeches of Churchill and his closest col-leagues. It puts us at Churchill's side in some of themost tumultuous events of world history and offers anunparalleled view of his leadership qualities and hisflaws, as he organizes the war effort, bolsters morale,bullies those who stand in his way, schemes to out-strategize his own generals, and works tirelessly to in-volve the United States in the fight against Fascism.This is truly history as it was lived, in the war whoseoutcome formed the modern world. Ready by December.

The Churchills, Pioneers and Politicians: England - Amer-ica - Canada, by Elizabeth Churchill Snell (Devon, UK:Westcountry Books, 1994). Hardbound, illustrated, 228pages, £14.95. ICS price $19 + shipping. Copies are onhand as you read this. Order from New Book Service,details on page 15.

FOR OVER 400 years the Churchills have fig-ured prominently in English history — from thefirst Duke of Marlborough, soldier, to Sir Win-

ston Churchill, statesman. But the family's origins are

20/FINEST HOUR 84

obscure and the story of the Ghurchills who foundednew dynasties in the New World is a remarkable one.

Drawing on extensive research, Elizabeth Snell ex-plores the beginnings of the Churchills in the EnglishWest Country. She then gives a convincing account ofhow at least one member of the family, John Churchill,emigrated to North America in the seventeenth cen-tury. From John descended an American novelist ofworld renown and a Canadian who created the fifthlargest shipping fleet in the world.

Elizabeth Snell weaves together the threads of theChurchill story across two continents and a thousandyears to produce a fascinating portrait of this family ofpioneers and politicians in England, America andCanada. She wrote about her genealogical quest inFinest Hour #83, and spoke about it at the InternationalConference at Calgary/Banff in September.

She herself is of the eleventh generation in NorthAmerica and had a grandfather called Randolph Win-ston Churchill, just thirteen years younger than theBritish Prime Minister. Besides a personal interest inthe Churchill family, this subject has also allowed her toindulge her passion for politics, perhaps stemming fromthe fact that at a young age she witnessed WinstonChurchill during one of his last appearances in theHouse of Commons.

H. A. Redburn will review this book next issue.

The following books will be ordered based on advanceorders received, one month after you receive this issue.To order, send no money but advise the New Book Ser-vice by post, fax or phone. Bills will be enclosed withyour books.

PriggishHindsight

of thePoliticallyCorrect

DAVID MARQUAND

Churchill, by Clive Ponting (London, Sinclair-Steven-son 1994). Hardbound, illustrated, 898 pages, £20. ICSprice $29; send no money with order (see note above).

N O MAN is a hero to his valet de chambre, andwe live in a society of valets. With us, heroismis at a discount. On the wilder shores of polit-

David Marquand is a reviewer for The Independent, London.

cal correctness, it is seen as a form of psychopathology:a symptom to be analysed rather than a virtue to be em-ulated. Faced with greatness, exceptional beauty, talentor courage, our instinct is to search for feet of clay.

In Clive Ponting's new biography, mediocrity has itsrevenge. The disorderly and disconcerting mysteries ofpolitical leadership are viewed through the prism of thetidy-minded bureaucrat which the author once was.Page after page glows with the knowing smirk of the po-litically correct, and there are so many warts that theface is invisible.

Churchill, we learn, drank too much. He treated hiswife and children deplorably. He extorted huge ad-vances from his publishers, sponged shamelessly off richfriends and spent money like water. He delivered longmonologues at meetings, refused to listen to others andcould not bear opposition. His judgment of other peoplewas appalling. He was an elitist, a sexist and a racist.He fought to preserve the privileges of his class, hadcontempt for democracy, was beastly to the suffragettes,despised Hindus, feared coloured immigration andwanted to sterilise the degenerate. Insensate ambitiondrove him to folly after folly. His unnecessary butnever-ending intervention in high strategy were uni-formly disastrous, a fact which his grossly overpaidbooks were written to conceal. With such a con-temptible figure at its head, it is a miracle that Britaindid not lose the war. Since Ponting himself was notaround at the time, we can only assume that his equallytidy-minded predecessors in the butler's pantry ofWhitehall must have done the trick.

The trouble with Ponting's book is not — emphati-cally not — that the last word on Churchill had alreadybeen said, still less that the Churchill cult which pre-vailed in the postwar period should be taken at facevalue. As the row over D-Day shows, Britain has stillnot come to terms with the painful contrast betweenwartime glory and peacetime decline. Indeed, the pasttwenty years of British history are inexplicable unlessthat failure is taken into account. Part of the explana-tion for it lies in the iconography of wartime Britain,and Churchill is still one of the most resonant icons.There is plenty of room for revisionism.

But revisionism is not for valets. Still less is it forthe priggish hindsight of a politically correct posterity.Churchill's drinking habits, bouts of depression, monu-mental self-centredness and ambition-driven errorsof judgment were part of him, and therefore partof history. A rounded portrait would certainly includethem. But they were not the whole of him. He also hadgenius — a word which has no place in Ponting's vo-cabulary. The key to Churchill's life, and therefore toan important part of our history, lies in the interplaybetween genius and folly. And that interplay is, bydefinition, incomprehensible unless both receive dueweight.

Ponting the prig is an even more dangerous guide tothe mysteries of past greatness than Ponting the valet.

FINEST HOUR 84/21

His chief message is that Churchill was not a late-20thcentury bien pensant progressive, and that this is shock-ing and dreadful. But how on earth could he have been?He was born in 1874, not 1974. He could no more es-cape the limits of time and place than Ponting can. Theelitism and racism which Ponting condemns were com-monplace then — and among bien pensant progressivesas much as among reactionary aristocrats. Churchill'sassumption that some races are superior to others, andhis fear that overbreeding among degenerates might de-grade the British race, were as politically correct in1910 as Ponting's shocked distaste for them is today.And if anything in life is certain, it is that Ponting'sviews will seem as shocking and dreadful to progres-sives of the late-21st century as Churchill's do to him.

"His ReachHas Exceeded

His Grasp"WILLIAM PARTIN

Churchill's Deception: The Dark Secret That DestroyedNazi Germany, by Louis Kilzer (New York: Simon &Schuster 1994). Hardbound, illustrated, 335 pages, $23.ICS price $19; send no money with order (see page 21).

THE CURRENT growth industry for historiansof Twentieth-Century Britain must surely be"Churchill-Revisionism." In recent years stu-

dents of Churchill's life and career have been subjectedto a number of controversial works whose only purposeseems to be the destruction of Churchill's historical rep-utation. For example, John Charmley sought to provethat Churchill lost the British Empire and contributedto Britain's postwar decline by not accepting Hitler'speace terms, while Eric Nave and James Rushbridgerargued that Churchill lured the United States into theSecond World War. More recently, a rather scurrilousbook by Pat Riott charged Churchill with the orchestra-tion of the stock market crash of 1929. Now there isthis book by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist — awork whose basic themes seem to be that Churchill wasable to trick Adolf Hitler into attacking the SovietUnion and that this deception would lead to the deaths

Dr. Partin is a Professor of History at Salem College and isinterested in organizing a Carolinas Chapter of ICS. Writehim c/o his department at Salem College, Winston-Salem NC27108, telephone (910) 721-2650.

of twenty million Russians, the unleashing of the Holo-caust, and even the onset of the Cold War.

. The supposed peace mission of Rudolf Hess in May1941 serves as the key event around which Louis Kilzerseeks to present his conclusions as to how Churchillmanipulated the "Peace Party" in Britain in such a wayas to encourage Hitler's hopes for peace and his subse-quent attack in the East. This effort to deceive the Ger-man dictator was to be Churchill's way of conservingBritain's resources and saving the Empire (especially inthe Middle East). According to the author, Rudolf Hesswas to reveal the intention of Germany to attack the So-viet Union and thereby to strengthen the Peace Party'sefforts to end the war with Germany. The author givesgreat attention to Hess's treatment in Britain and evengoes so far as to suggest — quite sensationally, onemight add — that the man who was for so many years aprisoner at Spandau was an impostor! The implicationof such an argument is that Churchill wanted no wit-nesses to his deception, yet Kilzer offers no clear expla-nation as to how or why an impostor was put in Hess'splace.

Much of this book actually goes over very old and fa-miliar background (Hitler's early life, the rise of theNazi Party, etc.) for no purpose other than to presentan image of Adolf Hitler as a man of peace whereBritain was concerned. In fact, there are several pointsat which Hitler is either praised as "a statesman" (168),sympathetically portrayed as "confused" (238), or de-clared to be a visionary who might have made Germanythe "master of a United States of Europe" (125). Kilzerconcludes this book with a portrait of Hitler as the greatproponent of peace at a time when Churchill wished towage war only for the sake of saving the British Em-pire.

Other than these unusual descriptions of Hitler —and the far-fetched claim of Churchill's deception —nothing about this book is new or worthwhile for stu-dents of Churchill or the Second World War. The sto-ries of the Peace Party and Hess's mission have beentold before in such books as John Costello's Ten Days ToDestiny. The author's arguments about Churchill's greatconspiracy to deceive Hitler and his alleged responsibil-ity for the Holocaust and the Cold War are often so dif-ficult to follow that (to use Kilzer's own words) "theconspiracy theory gets very complicated and, at times,borders on the absurd" (78). Furthermore, if Kilzer canwrite that "the first task of a statesman is to preservethe state" (219), then he cannot logically attackChurchill for doing whatever he could to save Britain.

Apart from its many faults as a work of history, thisbook is by no means an easy read, for it is the product ofvery poor editing. There are numerous typographicaland grammatical errors, and the name of one source(John Lukacs) is misspelled in both the text and theindex. With so many problems in terms of both contentand form, it would seem (to paraphrase Robert Brown-ing) that Louis Kilzer's reach has exceeded his grasp. M>

22/FINEST HOUR 84

INS1DETHE JOURNALS'How the King Stopped Churchillf r o m R isk ing H i s L i f e ABSTRACT BY JOHN G. PLUMPTON

The PM with Brookie and Admiral Vian approaching the Mulberry Harbour, D-Day +6.

Theo Aronson, "Battle Royal" inMonarchy Magazine, Vol. 15, No.6, June 1994.

The anniversary of the invasionof Normandy also marks the an-niversary of a now largely forgot-ten clash between King George VIand Winston Churchill concerningthe intention of both men to ac-company the invading forces.

Throughout the war George VI,by his close identification with thesuffering of the civilian population,had established himself as a newsort of warrior-king. By their obvi-ous sympathy, as they so tirelesslytoured the bombed out cities, theKing and his wife, Queen Eliza-beth, now the Queen Mother, wongreat popularity and respect.

Yet the King never ceased tochafe against the constitutional re-strictions which prevented himfrom being a warrior-king in themore generally accepted sense."He feels so much at not beingmore in the fighting line," admittedthe then-Queen.

In the months before Overlord,George VI did whatever he couldtoward preparations for the greatday. He even attended the famoussecret conference at St. Paul's

School at which the final plans forOverlord were presented to a dis-tinguished audience which in-cluded the Prime Minister, theChiefs of Staff and over 150 com-manders of the attacking forces.

It was during the last few daysbefore the launching of Overlordthat the King and his Prime Minis-ter, Winston Churchill, were in-volved in a clash of wills. Usuallythe relationship between the twomen was excellent. The King rec-ognized and admired Churchill'sgreat leadership qualities, while thePrime Minister, who was an ar-dent monarchist, always treatedthe King with great reverence andrespect. "The war," Churchillonce wrote to the King, "hasdrawn the Throne and the peoplemore closely together than wasever before recorded."

On 30 May 1944 Churchill, inthe course of his usual Tuesdaylunchtime audience with the Kingat Buckingham Palace, glibly in-formed the monarch that he in-tended to watch the invasion ofNormandy from HMS Belfast.When the King announced his in-tention of accompanying Chur-chill, the Prime Minister was allagreement.

Sir Alan Lascelles, the King'sPrivate Secretary, was appalled.For both the sovereign and thePrime Minister to risk their lives inthis fashion seemed foolish in theextreme.

By the following morningGeorge VI realized how foolhardyit would be for the King and PrimeMinister to proceed, so he wrote toChurchill suggesting that he, too,reconsider the plan.

Churchill was not so easily dis-suaded. Not even when the Kingbacked up his letter by seeingChurchill personally the next daycould he talk the Prime Ministerround. When it was pointed outthat no minister of the Crowncould go abroad without the Sov-ereign's consent, the Prime Minis-ter answered that he would not begoing abroad, since he would be ona British warship and therefore onBritish territory.

The King became alarmed atChurchill's continuing obstinacy."I am very worried about the PM'sseemingly selfish way of looking atthe matter," he confided to hisdiary. "He doesn't seem to careabout the future, or how much de-pends on him."

Churchill received a second ap-peal from the King just three daysbefore the invasion and just as hewas setting out for Portsmouth tosee General Eisenhower. He didnot immediately reply to the letterso the King, by now very worriedindeed, decided that there was onlyone thing left for him to do, hewould have to drive to Portsmouthat dawn the following morning toensure that the Prime Minister didnot embark with the invasionforce.

In the end, this proved unneces-sary. The monarch's latest pleashad proved successful. In defer-ence to his sovereign's wishes, thePrime Minister had given way.

Not until six days after the suc-cessful D-Day landings didChurchill visit Normandy, and notuntil four days after that was theKing able to follow him.

(Theo Aronson's latest book isThe Royal Family at War.) $

FINEST HOUR 84 / 23

THE Seventh International Churchill tour wasone of our most ambitious ever, taking us to thefar north of Britain to the Orkney Isles. Objec-

tive: the great fleet anchorage of Scapa Flow, scene ofnaval history, where we were joined by Lord and LadyJellicoe, the former the son of the World War I FleetCommander: "the only man," Churchill said, "whocould have lost the war in an afternoon." We also hearda fine address by Lord Jenkins, learned of the many"Churchill pursuits" at the University of Edinburgh,presented the 11th Blenheim Award to Sir FitzroyMaclean, and generally had a wonderful time, due notleast to the magnificent weather.

The Eighth Churchill Tour (summer 1996) will ex-plore early Churchill homesites, World War II-relatedplaces and the haunts of Winston's youth in the south ofEngland, including, of course, Chartwell and London. Ifyou wish you had been with us this year, it is not toosoon to put a "hold" on seats for '96: write the editor.

We began on May 19th at Glasgow's NormandyHotel, where our party had arrived from Toronto toOregon, Texas to Michigan. The next morning we madeour way to Edinburgh, lunched at the Mount Royal,and enjoyed a coach-borne tour of the city, where wearrived on the Royal Mile just in time for a wave fromthe Prime Minister, who was in town to attend the fu-neral of Labour leader John Smith. The rest of the daywas spent shopping and sightseeing, or enjoying ourwonderful old railway hotel, the stately Caledonian.(An attempt was made to impress GaddenheadsWhiskey Shop, a favorite of ICS/USA's Cyril Mazan-sky, by us all going in at various times and advising themanagement that Cyril sent us. This resulted in no spe-cial discounts, but considerable baggage of malt.)

The Scottish Evening on May 20th, complete withHighland dancers and ritual Presentation of the Haggis,was a first-rate show, except that the rest of the audi-ence had an average age, Don Stephens estimated, of115. But we woke them up on occasion.

On the afternoon of May 21st we met at EdinburghUniversity, where we were welcomed by Dr. Ged Mar-tin, director of the Centre of Canadian Studies, whobrought two colleagues steeped in Churchilliana: Dr.Paul Addison ("Churchill on the Home Front") andDr. David Stafford, an intelligence specialist who in1995 will publish a new work on Churchill and WW2espionage. We received a fascinating glimpse of their re-searches, Ged telling us about the new MSc. coursecomparing the careers of WSC and Mackenzie King.Students and faculty had also amassed a fine exhibittracing Churchill's years as chancellor of EdinburghUniversity, and a most impressive index of all theChurchill cartoons in Punch.

Our three academic friends joined us for dinner atthe Caledonian that night, Ged Martin providing a fineintroduction to guests of honor Roy Jenkins and DameJennifer Jenkins, who were there to recall Churchillboth personally and historically. Lord Jenkins, a histo-

24 / FINEST HOUR 84

"I feel like one Who treads alot'Whose lights are fled, Whose garla

CHURCHILL QUOTING THOMAS MOORE IN THE t

German High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow

On to ScsThe Seventh Interna

packed naval history \and speeches by Lord J<

BY BARBARA

The beautiful Italian Chapel on Philippa and George Jellicoe atLambholm, built by prisoners of war, the Italian "Triumph of theis open twenty-four hours a day. Spirit" statue at Lambholm.

ie, Some banquet hall deserted,nds dead, And all but he departed!"FATHERING STORM, BOOK TWO, CHAPTER TWO

ipa Flow!tional Churchill Tourvith scholarly pursuitssnkins and Lord JellicoeLANGWORTH

Blair Castle: Duchess Kitty, who Don Stephens at the neolithicsacrificed her Parliamentary career stone circles spotted by the Jelli-in support of Churchill in the 1930s. coes, Orkney Mainland.

rian and biographer as well as Parliamentary veteranwith the Labour and Social Democratic parties, had toreach back to Gladstone to find Churchill's equal, andwe think WSC would have appreciated the comparison.

This was a special event for another reason: the sup-ply of Pol Roger Champagne, provided by our goodfriend Christian Pol-Roger in Epernay. The wine wasintroduced by Sarah Morphew Stephen of PolRoger UK, who noted that the famous black border ofBritish labels, instituted at Sir Winston's death, hasrecently been changed to navy blue, the period ofmourning being long over. The contents are the same,however!

On Sunday the 22nd we set out for Churchill's oldconstituency, Dundee, that "seat for life" from whichhe was summarily ousted in 1922, pausing at St.Andrews, home of golf, which had just welcomed HMThe Queen. At Dundee we visited most of the hallswhere Churchill made his famous speeches as a youngradical on behalf of Liberalism and Free Trade. At onesite of a famous confrontation between WSC and suf-fragettes, the old building had vanished, but this writergave a powerful rendition of the feminist interruption ofa Churchill speech eighty-two years ago, and GarryClark ably impersonated the constable who carried thelady away.

Winding narrow Scottish byways throughPerthshire, we stopped for lunch at Blair Castle, pre-senting a plaque in remembrance of Katharine MarjoryRamsay, Duchess of Atholl. "Duchess Kitty," Scot-land's first woman MP, was one of Churchill's few al-lies in the "Wilderness Years," ultimately sacrificing hercareer out of loyalty to WSC's campaign for Britishrearmament. Then it was on to Inverness to meet theJellicoes, and to bed early for an 8AM departure forScrabster, Sutherland, and the Orkney Ferry.

When the sun is out (and it was!) the A9 from In-verness to Scrabster is a panorama of scenic splendor.In the beginning the Highlands are all around, buttheir snowcapped peaks recede to the horizon as youtravel up along the North Sea and the land levelsout. The Orkneys, 75 ferry minutes from Scrabster, areno higher than the outer banks of the Bahamas, emer-ald green but virtually treeless. Here George andPhilippa Jellicoe, who had cased the scene for us a fewweeks before, showed us fascinating neolithic stone cir-cles, runic inscriptions and the graves of brave sailorswho died here. Evenings were enjoyed amidst fine foodat the comfortable Kirkwall Hotel, where Lord Jellicoespoke movingly of his father and Winston Churchill.During the day, we toured the islands around ScapaFlow, the largest natural harbor in the world, relivinghistory.

On the decision of Lord Fisher and Admiral Sir JohnJellicoe, Scapa Flow was chosen as the northern baseof the British Grand Fleet in 1912. Here in June 1916Lord Kitchener heard Admiral Jellicoe's account of theBattle of Jutland aboard the flagship HMS Iron Duke,

FINEST HOUR 84/25

The five Churchill barriers link Orkney Mainland to Lambholm,Glimpsholm, Burray and Ronaldsay. Hand denotes route of U47 in1939, her path traced by WSC in The Gathering Storm (below).

Brock Comegys, Foster Conklin, George Jellicoe and Norman West atthe neolithic stone circle outside Kirkwall, Orkney.

Domenico Chiocchetti, an Italian prisoner of war, created this magnif-icent trompe l'oeil vaulted interior of the Nissen hut-Chapel.

Above: thanks to Capt. BobSclater, Orkney Harbour-master, we weretaken aboard the pilot boat tovisit the grave ofHMSRoyal Oak, marked by abuoy (left). Below: a wind-blown Jim Pyrros at the fas-cinating Scapa Flow VisitorCentre on Lyness Island,with the propeller fromKitchener's fated HMSHampshire, right,which sank off Hoy Island.

26 / FINEST HOUR 84

before Kitchener sailed to his death off Hoy Islandaboard HMS Hampshire; here the captive German HighSeas Fleet steamed in surrender; here the Germansscuttled that fleet in 1919; here Churchill — First Lordof the Admiralty for the second time in the second Ger-man war within twenty-five years — made his "Admi-ralty Tour" of 1939, feeling "oddly oppressed with mymemories...

"No one had ever been over the same terrible coursetwice with such an interval between. No one had felt itsdangers and responsibilities from the summit as I hador, to descend to a small point, understood how FirstLords of the Admiralty are treated when great ships aresunk and things go wrong. If we were in fact going overthe same cycle a second time, should I have once againto endure the pangs of dismissal? Fisher, Wilson, Bat-tenberg, Jellicoe, Beatty, Pakenham, Sturdee, all gone!'I feel like one, Who treads alone, Some banquet hall de-serted, Whose lights are fled, Whose garlands dead, And allbut he departed!'"

Traveling around these historic islands, we saw thetiny opening — no bigger than a chip shot — where on14 October 1939 Lt. Prien navigated U47 past theblock-ship defenses and torpedoed HMS Royal Oak, re-sulting in the death of 833 British sailors. The FirstLord declared that blockships were not enough —"Churchill Barriers," 5- and 10-ton concrete blocks,were piled up to seal the inlets. Today they form cause-ways over which we drove, linking the islands of Bur-ray and South Ronaldsay to the Orkney Mainland.

On the islet of Lambholm is a former prisoner-of-warcamp. Several hundred Italians, captured during theNorth Africa Campaign, were sent here to work on theChurchill Barriers. They converted two Nissen hutsinto a beautiful chapel. The impressive paintings in theinterior were done by Domenico Chiocchetti, one of theprisoners, who has returned several times to touch themup, welcomed by his former gaolers.

On Wednesday the 25th came a special pleasurearranged by the Jellicoes: we were taken on the pilotboat to the gravesite of HMS Royal Oak, now a warshrine, and were able to "see" the ship, still intact, onsonar. Like USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, Royal Oakstill leaks oil, which forms an eerie slick; like Arizonashe still bears a naval ensign, changed annually bydivers in a Navy ceremony. We were grateful to Capt.Bob Sclater, Director of Harbours, who took us out tothe site, and to Hugh Halcro-Johnston, Convenor ofOrkney Islands Council, who greeted us and exchangedplaques to mark the occasion.

The Orkney Council is responsible for the ScapaFlow Visitor Centre on Lyness, which opened in 1990.Here we spent many hours examining a wonderfulphoto history of the naval base, along with film showsand artefacts that really require a week to appreciatecompletely.

On May 26th, after a visit to Highland Park, Scot-land's most northerly distillery, and to a burial tomb

that predates the Pyramids, we boarded the ferry backto the mainland and rambled down the A9 to Inverness,arriving in time for dinner. The following morning weset off along Loch Ness and the Great Glen toward In-verary Castle, duplicating Churchill's 1939 picnic ingrand style near Glen Coe, amidst the gorse coveredHighlands. (We did scare away a party of tourists, as-tonished to see our jumbo coach deftly navigate the carpark and proceed to set up lunch for thirty.) Thescenery continued magnificant, as did the weather,which was absolutely superb: bright sun daily, only afew brief sprinkles. The time to visit Scotland is May! Inearly June the rains begin and the midges arrive, and itis gloomy for eleven months. (Personal experience!)

We stopped, of course, at the Loch Ness monster ex-hibit, declining to pay the exhorbitant "museum" fee; atthe Commando Monument, and at Inverary's Com-bined Operations museum, which is much better valuefor money. Here Churchill had visited commandosbeing trained for raids on occupied territory. No visitorto Inverary should miss the photos and souvenirs dis-played. Alas the museum is facing extinction because itcan't meet the overhead.

Arriving the same day as Clint Eastwood, who didn'tknow what he was missing, we gazed at LochLomond's blue hills and sparkling water from greatwindows of Cameron House, our final and most elabo-rate hotel. We spent part of the 28th on the water, cruis-ing up the loch, with a piper to entertain us and dramsto sample. On May 28th evening we traveled spectacu-lar Glen Coe and Glen Kinglas to Strachur on LochFyne, the Creggans Inn, and the Macleans.

Sir Fitzroy Maclean, Hereditary Keeper and Captainof Dunconnel in the Isles of the Sea, served as a diplo-mat in the British embassies in Paris and Moscow. As ayoung foreign service officer he astonished colleaguesby asking for Moscow (considered purgatory by most),because he wanted to journey to the fabled cities likeSamarkand and Bokhara in Soviet Central Asia. Hesucceeded, and his books on those travels have becomeclassics. During World War II he served in theCameron Highlanders and Special Air Service Regi-ment, taking part in their now famous operations be-hind enemy lines in the Western Desert. In 1943 he wassecretly dropped by parachute into German-occupiedYugoslavia as Winston Churchill's personal represen-tative and commander of the British military mission tothe Yugoslav partisans. He is married to Lord Lovat'ssister Veronica, a noted cookery writer. Their com-bined literary output is equal in volume to Churchill's.

The Blenheim Award is the highest honor the Inter-national Churchill Society can bestow. It was estab-lished to recognize those individuals who have notablycontributed to the International Churchill Societyand/or the memory of Sir Winston, either by service asan officer, or by sharing their knowledge of Sir Winstonwith posterity. After a memorable dinner of Loch Fynesalmon, local venison and Pol Roger Champagne, the

FINEST HOUR 84 / 27

Left: The Langworths, Sarah Morphew Stephen and Bolers celebrate Pol Roger.Above: Killain Hall, Dundee, a WSC speech site; below: the tour party at Dundee.

Eleventh Blenheim Award was presented to SirFitzroy. He deserved it for his service to the great man,of course, but this presentation took on an added dimen-sion: not only is Sir Fitzroy a Churchillian and a warhero; but far more recently, at the age of eighty-plus, heorganized two important rescue missions, bringing med-ical supplies and equipment to the beleaguered people ofex-Yugoslavia. For that too he deserves the gratitudeand tribute of the English-Speaking Peoples.

Thanks to All Who Helped(In order of involvement) International Churchill Soci-eties of the United States and United Kingdom; TheLady Soames, DBE; The Honorable Gelia Sandys;Garry Clark Cars; Chambers Coaches, Stevenage,Herts, and driver Ken Cook; Drs. Ged Martin, PaulAddison and David Stafford and students, Universityof Edinburgh Centre for Canadian Studies; EdinburghUniversity Library; The Rt. Hon. The Lord Jenkins ofHillhead, O.M. and Dame Jennifer Jenkins, D.B.E.;Christian Pol-Roger; Bill Gunn and Sarah MorphewStephen of Pol Roger UK; Blair Castle, Blair Atholl,Perthshire; The Rt. Hon. The Earl Jellicoe, K.B.E.,D.S.O., M.C., F.R.S., P.C. and Lady Jellicoe; Ambas-sador Paul H. Robinson, Jr.; Lyness Vistor Centre;

Capt. Bob Sclater; Convenor Hugh Halcro-Johnstonand the Orkney Island Council; Highland Park Dis-tillery; Orkney Naval Cemetery; Loch Ness VisitorCentre; Combined Operations Museum, Inverary Cas-tle; Loch Lomond Cruises; Sir Fitzroy Maclean ofDunconnel, K.T., C.B.E., Bart, and Lady Maclean;Jean-Pierre Puech & Creggans Inn; Ann and SarahClark; David and Diane Boler; Stakis NormandyHotel; Mount Royal Hotel; Caledonian Hotel; GeorgeInternational Hotel; Edinburgh and Dundee CityGuides; Mercury Hotel; Kirkwall Hotel; CameronHouse.

Thanks to All Who CameLorraine & Bill Beatty, New York; David & DianeBoler, Kent; Ann & Garry Clark, Hertfordshire; Addie& Brock Comegys, Massachusetts; Carol & FosterConklin, New Jersey; Peter Coombs, Dorset; Lord &Lady Jellicoe, Wiltshire; Lord & Lady Jenkins, London;Barbara & Richard Langworth, New Hampshire;Posey & Dick Leahy, Massachusetts; Charlotte & EarlNicholson, Texas; Betty & James Pyrros, Michigan;Barbara & Don Stephens, Oregon; Jenny & RichardStreiff, Florida; Virginia & Norman West, West Vir-ginia; Marjorie & Bill Williams, Ontario. $

28/FINEST HOUR 84

Bric-a-brac:Kevin Francis & Wedgwood

Today's most prolific producer of Ghurchilliana faces change.Noel Thorley revealed as the Wedgwood copyist.

BY DOUGLAS J. HALL

WHEN Kevin Pearson and Francis Salmon gottogether to form their twin businesses, KevinFrancis Ceramics Ltd and Kevin Francis Pub-

lishing Ltd, they primarily worked with Royal Doulton,handling current RD products, discontinued lines, spe-cial commissions and various books. Both, however,had the ambition to revive the traditional art of hand-made pottery, and in particular to apply the age-old andpopular toby jug format to up-to-date subjects.

Perhaps it was a lucky piece of timing that their ideashad evolved to a critical stage just as Peggy Daviesreached the age of retirement from Royal Doulton.Peggy had no intention of leading an idle retirement andimmediately formed her own business, Peggy DaviesCeramics, in Stoke-on-Trent. A burgeoning associationwas soon formed between the two companies and, inspite of Peggy's sad death in 1989 (her business carrieson in the hands of her son Rhodri), the Kevin Francisbackstamp quickly became synonymous with innova-tion and quality in the field of collectable ceramics.

Kevin Francis/Peggy Davies' output of limited editiontoby jugs, character jugs, figures and vases in just overfive years has been impressive. They must surely havecreated a record in producing no fewer than sevenpieces of Churchilliana between 1989 and 1993! Nowtwo more have arrived; a D-Day toby (available inNorth America from ICS Stores), and "MidshipmiteChurchill", a limited edition of 150 in a modern series ofPolitical Midshipmites reviving the satirical tradition ofthe earliest toby jugs.

The bad news is that Kevin Pearson and FrancisSalmon have split up. Kevin has married and is now liv-ing permanently in the USA; Francis is devoting him-self fulltime to his publishing interests and has severedall contact with the ceramics business. The PeggyDavies Studios are now directly handling all UK salesand they will continue to use the prestigious "KevinFrancis" backstamp. It is understood that Kevin Pear-son will continue to promote Peggy Davies/Kevin Fran-cis products in the USA and Canada.

Peggy Davies Studios are a surprisingly small busi-ness located in rather unpretentious premises in thedeepest downtown of Stoke-on-Trent, but they havethree of the most highly regarded modellers in the in-dustry: Doug Tootle (ex-Royal Doulton and Wood's),Geoff Blower (ex-Royal Doulton and Wedgwood) andAndy Moss (trained by Peggy Davies). Rhodri Davies,who has been proprietor since his mother's death fiveyears ago, is a technically accomplished potter who was

formerly a production manager at Wedgwood.Rhodri bemoans the fact that he is only "a humble

potter at heart" and he is clearly not enjoying the addi-tional marketing and administrative responsibilitiesthrust upon him by the break up of the Kevin Pear-son/Francis Salmon partnership. I fear that the promo-tion of KF products in the UK will suffer without theenergetic presence of Kevin Pearson around the largerfairs, and can only hope that his residence in the USAwill bring dividends there. Except that I would hate tosee every piece crossing the pond!

The Winston Churchill D-Day Toby

I had challenged Rhodri Davies to deliver my toby atdawn on 6 June 1994! He failed but he did telephonethat morning to apologise, saying that my jug was hav-ing its final glazing and would be ready in two days.

FINEST HOUR 84/29

I quickly worked out that the jug should therefore ar-rive on 12 June and replied that that would be highly ap-propriate. Fifty years earlier on "D-Day + 6," Churchillcrossed the Channel in the destroyer HMS Kelvin andwent ashore in Normandy to visit Montgomery's Head-quarters five miles inland. Whilst Montgomery's com-mandeered chateau bore many signs of battle, Churchillseemed disappointed that he was not allowed to observeany actual fighting!

The matter was rectified to his satisfaction on theway back. HMS Kelvin sailed through a squadron ofbattleships and cruisers which were shelling Germanpositions ashore. "Since we are so near," Churchill sug-gested, "Why shouldn't we have a plug at them our-selves before we go home?" Admiral Vian replied,"Certainly." HMS Kelvin fired all its guns to add to thecontinuous bombardment before turning about to re-turn the delighted Prime Minister to Portsmouth.Churchill was to recall, with clear satisfaction, in Vol-ume VI of The Second World War, how it had been theonly time he had ever been on board a naval vesselwhen she fired in anger.

Rhodri Davies had described his ideas for the D-Daytoby to me over the telephone some months earlier. Hisenthusiasm was so infectious and his concept so apt thatI simply had to order the jug "sight unseen." It is 9 1/2inches tall and modelled by Andy Moss. Its title is"Overlord," the D-Day code name, but also a splendidappellation for Churchill's personal role in its planningand execution. A determined Churchill, in siren suitand steel helmet, clutches a cigar in his left hand whilemaking his famous V-sign with his right. Peering overhis shoulders are the small figures of Montgomery andEisenhower acting as finials to the furled flags of GreatBritain and the United States [where's Canada? -Ed.]which form the V-shaped twin handles. A delightfultouch is Churchill's left foot resting on the cracked headfrom a toppled monument of Hitler! Churchill is seatedon a representation of the Normandy cliffs and, on hisleft side, small figures of soldiers can be seen scaling therock-face whilst on the right there is a cameo of troopsleaping from landing craft.

A really fine piece of sculpture, "Overlord" comes ina limited edition of 750. UK shop price is £140 and theICS Stores price is $195.

Midshipmite ChurchillSome of the earliest tobies, made in the late 17th and

early 18th centuries, were the so-called Fiddler andMidshipmite jugs. For many years the original jugswere held to be the work of John Astbury of Shelton(1688-1743) but recent research, notably by VicSchuler ("Mr Toby" of Portobello Road market), hasestablished that they were almost certainly not madeuntil many years after Astbury's death. The Fiddler to-bies depict seated men wearing a tricorn hat, frock coatand breeches playing a violin, and usually with atankard of ale at their side. Subjects included AdmiralLord Rodney (1718-92) and Admiral Lord Howe(1726-99); their portrayal as Fiddlers was a sharplysatirical comment on the substantial bounties they wereawarded for their naval service, Fiddler's Green beingin folklore the sailor's Elysium.

Douglas Hall convincedKevin Francis to addChurchill to the Mid-shipmite group of politi-cal satire ceramics,which revises a craftdating back to the 17thCentury.

The Midshipmite group were similarly dressed buthad the subject holding a sword drawn from a scabbard.The name "Midshipmite" was corrupted from the juniornaval rank of midshipman and the mite, a coin of verysmall value, and thus derogatorily implied a lowering ofthe dignity and worth of any "High and Mighty" sub-ject. Two early Fiddlers were sold at Phillips andSotheby's in 1988 for £19,000 and £26,000 respectively,both going to Mr David Newbon of New York.

In 1993 Kevin Francis Ceramics announced thatthey intended to revive the Fiddler and Midshipmiteconcept, closely following the original designs, in a newseries of political satire featuring prominent 20th cen-tury politicians. The series would be 750 jugs overallwith no more than 150 of any one subject. John Major(playing the same old tune and trying to tell us that the"Green Shoots" of recovery are here) would be the first,supplied with a free treatise entitled "The EconomicConsequences of Mr Major" (Lord Keynes' famous1926 pamphlet was so titled for Churchill).

This went right back to the earliest jugs, which wereoften accompanied by a humorous doggerel appropriateto the subject. KFC issued a list of possible future sub-jects and invited customers to state a preference and/orsend in their own nominations. When I suggestedChurchill, they showed some nervousness at thethought of even gently lampooning a subject whose im-ages thus far had been almost entirely adulatory. Ipointed out that the Goss toby of 1927 had hardly beencomplimentary and that there had in any event beenmany incidents in Churchill's political career before1939, and probably even after, which would have hadthe 18th and 19th century potters reaching for their clayhad they been around at the time.

Thus Midshipmite Churchill, by popular demand (meat least!), became subject number two in the series.Nine inches tall, as were the original jugs, MidshipmiteChurchill was modelled by Andy Moss. It is now avail-able in the UK at £120 after a discount for pre-produc-tion orders. The toby illustrated is number 154 in a se-ries limited edition of 750 — effectively number 4 out ofa possible 150 Churchills since the first 150 numbershave been reserved for the John Major jug, whichlaunched the series and which, for the moment, is stillselling well. ICS Stores is investigating availability inNorth America — contact Alan Fitch (p2) for status.

30/FINEST HOUR 84

Fifty Years of BulldogsPerhaps it was no coincidence that exactly fifty years

separated two famous standing tobies, both entitled"Bulldogs." The first is on the right.

This fine jug first introduced the Churchill/Bulldogconnection, Ernest Bailey's superb design for Burgess &Leigh of Burslem which was issued in 1940. This jugwas primarily made for export to the USA and, initially,only a small number of uncoloured "rejects" were re-leased for sale in the UK. Consequently it has alwaysbeen a rarity in Britain and the few examples appearingon the secondary market have fetched high prices.

At Phillips auction of the Tristan Jones collection ofpolitical commemorative ceramics in January 1991,"Bulldogs" made £581. There were forty-nine pieces ofChurchilliana included in the sale, which was attendedby many members of both Houses of Parliament, andall exceeded the catalogue estimates by anything up tothirteen times! Two different colourways have been ob-served — see also p. 184 & 187 of Ronald Smith'sChurchill: Images of Greatness. An uncolored versionwas listed at $750 in a recent US catalogue.

Kevin Francis Ceramics did not openly proclaim the"Golden Anniversary" for their standing Churchilltoby, issued 1990. Modelled by Douglas Tootle at thePeggy Davies Studios, Stoke-on-Trent, it clearly owessomething to Ernest Bailey's design of exactly half-a-century earlier. A limited edition of 750, it sold outwithin little over fourteen months. It has a double han-dle, in the form of a "V", above a scroll bearing theword "Victory." It was also available in a grey colour-way. The original price was £120 (£90 for pre-produc-tion orders) and the jug quickly went to £140 on the sec-ondary market in the UK and $250 in the US. (ICSStores sold it for less!) A 4 1/2-inch tall "shrink," enti-tled "Mini Winston Churchill," was issued in 1993, alsoin a limited edition of 750. The same year Douglas Too-tle added a "Political Churchill," again incorporating abulldog.

Check Out Your WedgwoodA malachite green and bronze portrait medallion of

Churchill (below) bears a close similarity to Wedg-wood's blue jasper 1974 centenary issue (below right). Ichanced upon the green/bronze medallion at a local an-tiques fair and, failing to find a reference to it in any cat-alogue, sent a photograph to the Wedgwood Museum atStoke-on-Trent.

The Information Officer replied, "The overall ap-pearance is identical to the 1974 Churchill medallionproduced in white on pale blue jasper and I can only as-sume that someone has emulated the appearance of thispiece using an unidentified material. If you would like tobring the item in for direct examination, this may en-able us to furnish you with additional information."

Well, I have not yet had an opportunity to make atrip to Stoke-on-Trent but, in the meantime, the DailyTelegraph (9 June 1994) headlined: "Unmasked: the pot-ter who faked Wedgwood." Currently on exhibition atthe International Ceramics Fair at the Park LaneHotel, Piccadilly were fifty top class Wedgwood fakes,the work of one Noel Thorley, deceased. The items onshow were mainly copies of late 18th century basalt orjasper pieces which would have a value, if genuine, ofup to £8,000. Indeed one of the forgeries on view wassold earlier this year at Sotheby's in New York for$12,100.

Peter Williams, a London Wedgwood specialist,raised the alarm when a piece similar to that sold inNew York was deemed a fake by the Wedgwood Mu-seum. He said it was impossible to speculate how manyfakes might be in circulation or whether Thorley hadbeen the sole source of them but, "I doubt if this was asmall thing. Wedgwood moulds are easily reproducible,and their clay formulas have been well-published, but Ido not expect people would go through the effort ofmaking them if they were producing the things in onlyones and twos. We are going to have to check manypieces against originals in the Wedgwood Museum.Most of the fakes are thought to have been slipped on tomarket in the United States.

Is my little green/bronze portrait medallion a "Thor-ley"? If it is, it might now have a notoriety value well inexcess of the £25 I paid for it! M>

Mr. Hall welcomes your comments; address on page 4.

Possible Wedgwood fake (left) with a genuine article, 1974.

FINEST HOUR 84/31

DhSRVICIIBuX

New Canvas by a New ArtistI enclose a recent painting of mine of SirWinston Churchill. I have also madepaintings of Viscount Alanbrooke andField Marshal Montgomery. MyChurchill portrait is 22x18" and themedium is oil on canvas. I am 24 yearsold and started drawing at 12, steadilyprogressing to the present time, beingself-taught apart from art lessons atschool. My first portrait was painted in1992.1 will be glad to hear of anyone in-terested in purchasing these.

ANDREW BRADLEY

26 CHESTERFIELD RD.

SWALLOWNEST, NR.

SHEFFIELD, S31 OTL UK

From the Next GenerationAs a 16-year-old admirer, I am alwayson the lookout for information about SirWinston. It's a shame how little the av-erage teenager knows about men andwomen of history, who showed greatwisdom, discernment and character. Itfrustrates me that the only things I candiscuss with my peers is MTV andwho's going with whom. Sure they'veheard of Shakespeare, but trying to havea conversation about him is anotherthing, let alone to talk about life, politics,history and the arts. You get only emptysilence. After they get over the fact that Idon't have a TV and favor Mozart toMadonna, and haven't read the latestStephen King (the deepest reading theydo), they haven't anything to talk about.I can discuss the square root of 49 withmy sister, and the importance of landingcraft in the D-Day invasion with mybrother. Has it always been this way forpeople like me?

JENNIFER JAMAR

GIDDINGER TX, USA

Editor's response: Here is Finest Hour#82, reporting on our 1993 conference,wherein you will find that not all young peo-ple are interested only in MTV and who'sdating whom. You live in an exciting time:in just a few years, TV as we know it willhave been replaced by multimedia, offering asurfeit of others your age who prefer Mozartand history—and, if our On-Line Commit-tee has its way, Churchill too — broadly ac-cessible on the Internet. Meanwhile, wel-come aboard at the under-18 rate of $10.

Weidhorn ProI look forward to reading Manfred Wei-dhorn's latest book. I have always hadthe highest regard for him both as awriter on WSC and as a man. He wasmost helpful when I sought informationabout his essays for my bibliographyand nothing was too much trouble forhim. In fact I have found nearly all thehistorians in the USA responded well tomy enquiries, and I am always singingtheir praises. The best work onChurchill is now being done by Ameri-can academics. I enjoyed your skirmishwith the author of some of the worst(FH #78-80) and the reviews by Drs.Arnn and Schoenfeld (#81). There is notmuch zeal for Churchill in British hallsof academe. We have created many newuniversities, but the scholars to supportthem are lacking.

H. ASHLEY REDBURN

OWERMOIGNE, DORSET, UK

Weidhorn ConIt was distressing to read Manfred Wei-dhorn's judgment (FH #83) thatChurchill was a "tragic figure." Weid-horn has missed the basic: it was notthat "Britain went to war to savePoland," though indeed that was amongthe hopes of those gloomy days. The pri-mary fact was that Britain underChurchill's leadership drew the lineagainst Hitler. This heroic stand againstthe tyrant became in the end the differ-ence between freedom and unleashedbarbarism. Churchill's inspiring leader-ship while Britain stood alone enabledthe free world to get hold of itself, andultimately to see off the Nazi threat. Itwas Churchill's, and Britain's, supremegift that the West was able to move be-yond that evil, and face up to new chal-lenges, however formidable they were,and are. In light of that achievement,Churchill is the Man of the Century, the

triumphant hero. It is for his successorsto determine whether history will as-cribe triumph or tragedy to these days.

ROBERT R. HUNT

SEATTLE, WASH. USA

"I Was There"I think I am entitled to one of theTeheran covers postmarked at Teheran,since I was there in 1943. Not 30,1 wasin Security as a bodyguard under In-spector W. H. Thompson, attending SirWinston's 69th birthday party at theBritish Embassy. Around the table satBritish, Russians and Americans. An-thony Eden was well-liked for he couldspeak Russian and Parsi. Churchill andRoosevelt shared jokes and laughed outloud; Stalin could only join in with a"Haw! Haw!" or a grunt. SarahChurchill was the only female at thetable. Happy Memories!

DANNY MANDER,

LOS GATOS, CALIF. USA

"The Soft Underbelly"I found your review of my Aegean Ad-ventures {FH #82) brilliant and extremelywell got-out. On your two main points,firstly, I did not give expected casualtiesfor an attack through the Balkans andthe soft underbelly of Europe. My pointwas, and is, that the casualties wouldhave been insignificant compared withthe two million-plus incurred on theSecond Front.

Having been in Belgrade at the time,i.e. 1943,1 doubt if the total casualties onboth sides in that theatre even ap-proached 100,000. Had the Allies andTurkey attacked along the Danube up toVienna, there is no way that Hitler couldhave stopped them, due to the length ofhis lines of communications and almosttotal lack of airpower and oil.

Where you doubt the Germanswould have capitulated to the WesternAllies rather than the Russians, notingthat they did not capitulate to the Alliesin the West, my point is that that wasJune 1944, not September 1943, whenthe Russian front was over 1,000 mileseast, not a few hundred, and they couldnot capitulate without allowing the vastRussian Armies to overwhelm Ger-many, resulting in appalling massacresand destruction. This was entirely dif-ferent from 1943, when there was nosecond front in Normandy. Thereforethe choice for the German generals was

32 / FINEST HOUR 84

clear-cut and at that time there was agreat conspiracy against Hitler and forpeace, sponsored by over 6,000 top peo-ple in Germany, who were behind thebomb on Hitler, all of whom were liqui-dated.

The current horrors in Yugoslaviasprang directly from Churchill's deci-sion to abandon Michailovitch and toaccept Fitzroy Maclean's plan to backTito and his communist partisans. Mytwo connections at the time were theCommander of the Royal Bodyguard,Major Miskovitch, and Major Har-greaves (still alive) who was parachutedinto Yugoslavia to liaise withMichailovitch. He has no doubt of thetragedy Fitzroy Maclean's decision cre-ated and I believe that WSC came roundto the same conclusion.

MICHAEL W. PARISH, LONDON

Editor's Response: Thank-you for yourgallant response to my critiques.

I do not think it likely that the casualtiesin the Balkans in 1943 indicated the poten-tial casualties of an all-out Danube invasion,and if Hitler's communications would havebeen stretched in such an action, those of theAllies would have been stretched even more.If the Russians were so much closer to Ger-many in June 1944, is it not possible to be-lieve the Germans would have been morelikely to capitulate to the Allies in Francethan to an Allied force on the Danube inSeptember 1943, with the Russians 1,000miles away and many Germans still think-ing they could win? I also think the HitlerPlot is considerably overrated as to itschances for success and the numbers in-volved.

I think there is some misunderstand-ing about Fitzroy Maclean's role and advice.At a dinner with ICS in Argyll last May hetold us: "Sir Winston was very clear as towhat he expected from me. He insisted onthe answer to just one question: who in Yu-goslavia was killing the most Germans? Tothat question in my judgment after review-ing the scene there could be only one answer:Tito." As to turning over Yugoslavs to Titoafter the war leading to the current horrorsthere, could not one argue that Tito, bad ashe was, actually prevented the thousandyears' war among Balkan peoples from re-suming after the WW2 ? It was only after hisdeath that the fighting began again.

Major Parish RepliesI am a great supporter of Sir FitzroyMaclean, and in that period of thewar neither Sir Fitzroy nor Churchillcould have made other decisions. I am

merely saying that the present Yugoslavproblem has been brought on by chang-ing the whole character of the govern-ment and people from being a Royalistcountry, with an army run by peoplelike Michailovitch, to the cruellest andworst type of communist regime. -MWP

WSC at "La Pausa"Did you know that the photo on page33, Finest Hour #82 was taken by Emeryhere in our Hall on Sir Winston's andLady Churchill's Fiftieth Anniversary?Lady C always loved sitting on the hugesofa, which "took two" to plump up af-terwards! La-la—memories!

WENDY R. REVES

CAP MARTIN, FRANCE

"Too Much Inside Chattiness"Regarding this "bug" over Finest Hour inthe recent reader survey (FH #82), I hopethis will be guarded against. On theother hand, to require that the journalreport "only the facts" and none ofwhat's happening socially is equallywrong, even absurd. The vibrancy of anorganization is a reflection of the inter-est and hard work of its people andproof of such vibrancy is provided byreporting activities. It is comforting toknow that I belong to an organizationthat has life. I find Finest Hour overflow-ing with articles of great interest to meand in keeping with "vibrancy," the re-port on the Washington Conference wastruly welcomed. I think you deserve anEverest of commendation.

THOMAS R. FUSTO

FRANKLIN SQ., NY, USA

Editor's Response: One other very im-portant reason for mentioning people withregard to events is that it's the only way vol-unteers can be publicly acknowledged andthanked.

Liberation Bike RideYour mention of cycling activities causesme to wonder if there couldn't be a ride"to pull back the Iron Curtain" on thefiftieth anniversary of the Iron Curtainspeech in March 1996. "From Stettin inthe Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic" isabout 600 miles as the crow flies. Whatabout a trip through each of the formerSoviet satellite countries, with a coupleof riders from each country? Would weget sponsorship? Would it be politicallypossible? Give us the tools...

GERALD LOVELL,

SILVERSTONE, NORTHANTS, UK

Britain Needs a Churchill Day!Thank you very much for running Mrs.Pannett's drawings of Sir Winston'shands and sending me extra copies. Shewill be very pleased and it is most aw-fully kind of you.

All we need now is to grant the es-tablishment of a WSC national memorialday for which I have been unceasinglyagitating ever since he died. Such a ges-ture would earn worldwide acclaimjudging by the remarks constantly ex-pressed everywhere.

TOM CAWTE

3 CAUSEWAY COURT

QUEEN ST., ARUNDEL, W. SUSSEX, UK

The Moon Needs Humes!In a recent conversation, author Humes("The Wit and Wisdom of WinstonChurchill," see Reviews this issue) toldme an interesting story. As a Nixonspeechwriter he was asked to write thewords engraved on the plaque to be lefton the moon: "Here men from theplanet Earth first set foot upon the moonin July 1969. We came in peace for allmankind." Then, after he had had threemartinis, Humes penned a second para-graph without capitalizing the first let-ters of the words. He suggested thisparagraph be added to the moonplaque: "just as man explores space,hope unites mankind exalting science."

Unfortunately for Humes, Chief ofStaff H. R. Haldeman "decoded" thesecond paragraph, realizing that the firstletter of each word spelled JAMESHUMES. Haldeman angrily orderedthat the second paragraph not be en-graved on the plaque!

GERRY LECHTER, FT. LEE, NJ, USA

Editor's Response: Vintage Humes.WSC would have been tickled, and had itbeen a British landing, would have insistedit remain, if he had a speechwriter write it,which he wouldn't have! IS

FINEST HOUR 84/33

Addenda, Corrigenda and Comment on the WoodsBibliography of the Works of Sir Winston Churchill.

WOODS CORNER

the luxury of real leatherthe grandeur of 23 carat gold

to honour Sir Winston Churchill inthis Centennial Year of his birth

What more fitting tribute in this Centennial Year of his birth to one ofthe greatest men in the history of our nation - the man who became

the living symbol of freedom to the people of all nations - couldthere be than his own immortal words magnificently bound into afamily heirloom edit ion. . . to keep alive the values and freedoms

for which he so indomitably fought. . . to be an inspiration toour children and their children.

// was this thought that inspired our Swiss craftsmento create the truly noble volumes we offer here.

Complete in12 matching

volumes mosthandsomely boundwith richly-grained

leather, tanmarbled Kidron

and 23 caratgold.

as an introductory gifttake this beautiful volume

SIRWINSTONCHURCHIUffiswrr

ANDWISDOM

Bound with realleather embossedwith gleaminggolden tooling.

Oddballs and Bargains BY THE EDITOR

A123 The Second World War

Iread recently that "not manynon-first edition books appreci-ate in value over the years,"

and I want to disspell that notionvery firmly! Perhaps we shouldnot say this out loud, because forBritish booksellers especially, littleemphasis is placed on non-firsts,resulting in incredible bargains.Ten years ago my shelves receiveda fine Colonial Issue Malakand for£35 because the seller thought itwas not a (apple green cloth) firstedition. In fact it is just as much afirst edition as the home marketbinding, since it was printed fromthe same plates at the same time.(You don't find Colonial Mala-

kands for £35 in England or any-where else nowadays, but eventhen, it was a bargain.) There arecountless other instances — theChartwell Edition Second WorldWar and English-Speaking Peoples,the single-volume River War from1902 through 1965, Canadian andAustralian issues of the war speechvolumes, the Monaco Savrola —where substantial gains in valuehave been made over the years.

The Second World War had anenormous press run and only nowhave first edition prices for finejacketed sets begun to rise beyondthe $200 or £130 ceiling. Happily,however, there are a number ofnon-first editions that have hungpretty steady over the past decade,

and which may still be enjoyed fora relative pittance. One of these isthe Heron Books edition of 1974,here pictured in the original adver-tisement published in Britain.

Heron's effort, issued to markthe 1974 Churchill Centenary,made a twelve-volume set by divid-ing the original six volumes intotheir component "books." Theyalso added vivid illustrations. Thisis the third illustrated edition, fol-lowing the Chartwell Edition of

34/FINEST HOUR 84

1956 and the twelve-volume Gas-sell paperback of the 1960s.

Douglas Hall rightly calls thisset "one of the best affordable edi-tions," and describes it thusly:"Bound in marbled Kidron (an im-itation goatskin) with gold toolingand raised bands on a dark brownleather spine, each volume havinga 2 1/4-inch diameter, 23ct goldmedallion of Churchill embossedon the front board. Silk head andtail bands and a silk bookmarkwere bound into each copy. Forthe budget conscious in 1974, theedition could be purchased fortwelve monthly installments of£2.75 (total cost £33) with thebonus of a charming little gold-tooled, leatherbound volume of'Sir Winston Churchill: His Witand Wisdom' by Jack House and a1 1/2-inch bronze memorial medal.I was pleased to note recently in awell-known London dealer's cata-logue that this set is currently onoffer for £60, which must be a bar-gain." It certainly is, but ordinarilyeven the typical USA price of$150-175, given the cost of ship-ping sets over, is quite attractive,and Heron Editions are oftenbought for gift presentations.

Although the gold cover medal-lions are usually chafed from thebooks rubbing together, HeronEditions are otherwise almost al-ways found in fine or near-finecondition. As such, they cost onlyabout half or a third the price of afine 1956 Chartwell Edition (themost elaborate and beautiful of theillustrated editions), and usuallyless than a jacketed first edition.The little "Wit and Wisdom" bookis still in print, available atChartwell, and presented byICS/USA from time to time todonors and guest speakers.

"Twainiana":Woods Section D(b)

Over the years this columnhas tried to keep up withthe plethora of discoveries

of Churchill letters and speechesappearing in various books andpamphlets. At right, courtesyGlenn Horowitz, is a particularlynice four-page 8 1/2 x 11-inchprinting sample for Old HampshireBond paper, produced by Carew

Manufacturing in South HadleyFalls, Massachusetts. Page 1 con-tains the Karsh "Angry Lion"photo taken after the "SomeChicken" speech in Ottawa in late1941. Page 3 contains Churchill'sletter to the International MarkTwain Society of 25 October 1943,reproduced by courtesy of Twain'sdescendant, Cyril Clemens.

This charming letter is not theonly piece of Churchilliana/Twainiana. Woods B52/2, MarkTwain and Dwight D. Eisenhower,is a rare pamphlet published by theInternational Mark Twain Societyin 1953, again by courtesy of CyrilClemens. It is one of the most elu-sive "B" items and I would bepleased to receive a photocopy ifanyone has an original.

A39a Thoughts and Adventures

Copies of the 1932 first edi-tion (ICS A39aa) havebeen known for quite

awhile to exist in a dark greenscored cloth binding, different fromthe standard unscored khaki cloth,and in fact identical to the cloth

used on later trade impressions ofthis work, and the Keystone[cheap] Edition by the same pub-lisher (ICS A39ab), first releasedin 1933. Mark Weber now reportsdiscovery of a first Keystone Edi-tion in the khaki cloth of the firstedition! So yet another binding va-riety is added to our list.

I tend to think modern collec-tors get too excited about thesevariations. By the standards of theday, given the small runs of firsteditions at that time, it was hardlyuncommon for binderies to run outof a certain color or style of clothand substitute another; and it wasa frequent practice (first editioncollectors will hate this) to stopbinding first edition sheets if thedemand didn't look like materializ-ing, and then to take them upagain at a later date (with no indi-cation, of course, anywhere in thebook). About this khaki Keystoneone can only guess, but since theKeystone imprint didn't appear onThoughts and Adventures until1933, it could not have been issued

continued on page 37...

we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strengthin the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost maybe, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the land-ing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,we shall fight in the hiils; we shall never surrender, and evenif, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or alarge part ofit were subjugated and starving, then our Empirebeyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet,would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, theNew World, with all its power and might, steps forth to therescue and the liberation of the old."

Dear Ilr. Claiens,

I an writing to express ny thanks to the

International Mark Twain Society for their Gold lledil,

which his been banded to ne by I t . Philip Guedalla.

It wil l serve to keep fresh ay nenory of a great

American, who showed me nuch kindness vhen I visi ted

Sew York as a young nan by taking the Chair at ny f i r s t

public lecture and by autographing copies of his iorks,

i*ich s t i l l form a valued part of my l ibrary .

Yours very t ru ly .

Ilr. Cyril Clenens.

Not in Woods:A paper sample of "Old

Hampshire Bond" producedby Carew Manufacturing

Co., Massachusetts, containsan unrecorded letter fromWSC (above) and a fineKarsh photo on its cover.This is a companion piece

to Woods B52/2, Mark Twainand Dwight D. Eisenhower.

M

L

rtlDmb

M C

FINEST HOUR 8 4 / 3 5

J-lS.Nn.sTI-KIKS. I:\KJMVS

Errata: WSC's personal car in 1925was more likely a Wolseley!

DET. THOMPSON, WSC, CUNLIFFE-LISTER, 1925

From Hon. Member, and longtimeChurchill secretary Grace Hamblin: 'I won-der why you think the car in the photographis a Daimler, and that "Churchill alwaysowned Daimlers through the 1920s and1930s"? Do see Sir Winston's chauffeur(1928-36) in Martin Gilbert's CompanionVol. V, Part 3, page 505, item 2: "We stillhad the old Wolseley car"; then on page 507:"...and sat beside me in the Daimler car."Unfortunately these items are undated. Ithink the car in the picture is the Wolseley,and that the Daimler appeared about 1930.It needed repainting in 1935 — see"Chartwell Bulletin" Number 10! Thank-you for the beautiful cover picture on issue#83 — the best so far! — and for LadyDiana Cooper's contribution: all so true, andbeautifully recorded.'

More on the "Two Fingered Salute"-Re this column in the past two issues,

Robert Hardy said that the reverse (palm in)of Churchill's V-sign was probably in use atAgincourt. Now John Frost sends a clipfrom the Daily Mail answers section (4 Jan-uary 1994) stating that the "V" gesture wasknown "long before the invention of thelongbow, which is drawn with three fingers,not two. The sign has long been linked withthe occult, being used pointing downwards'to block the Devil's horns' and stop him ris-ing up to create havoc on Earth. Conversely,the sign was used conventionally to wish theDevil on one's enemies. Back in the Hun-dred Years War, any Englishman fallinginto the hands of the French would have suf-fered far greater injuries than the mereamputation of a couple of fingers." (Sent inby M.G. Taylor, Grouville, Jersey. Is heright?)

Q: Mrs Roslyn Stuart writes: 'I was re-reading the wonderful epic poem "Sav-itri," written in English by the great In-dian visionary, Sri Aurobindo (d. 1950),

who spent thirty-five years writing it. Tomy astonishment, on page 444 in BookSix, Canto Two ("The Way of Fate andthe Problem of Pain") I found thewords, "A doom of blood and sweatand toil and tears." I do not know whenthey were written though I will en-deavor to trace it. My query is, who firstused the words? Or is it a case of dualinspiration. Remember that "Savitri"was written over the course of yearsfrom 1915 but not published until 1950-51. Though many famous people did goto Pondicherry to visit Sri Aurobindo, Idon't think Churchill ever did, or didhe? Do you know of any connection?'

.A. ' We don't, though we hope a readermight. Churchill had a photographic mem-ory and was an inveterate borrower of goodwords and phrases he encountered. "A Rov-ing Commission," the American title of"My Early Life," was a chapter heading inhis "Ian Hamilton's March" but even ear-lier, the title of a 19th century Henty novel."Iron Curtain" has been traced at least asfar as a travel book published by two ladieswho journeyed to Asia in the 1920s. IfChurchill ever met Aurobindo the phrasecould have permeated, though he was neverin India this century. Given the date of"Savriti," the osmosis was more likely theother way 'round.

Q: I have £100 worth of Churchillcrowns in mint condition. What are theyworth and what should I do with them?

At Churchill crowns are still worth onlytheir face value (25p), so your collection isstill worth that £100. Oscar Nemon wasnever happy about the light impression ofWSC on the reverse of the coin. However,beautiful pendants and medals have oftenbeen made by experts with gilding and jew-eler's enamel, which helps to pick out the ex-cellent Nemon likeness.

Q'. What is the origin of Churchill's re-mark over Munich, "The government

had the choice between war and shame.They chose shame. They will get war,too."? It is not in any of the speechbooks I've consulted.

At You can find the quote on page 366 ofThe Last Lion, Vol. 2 (Alone: 1932-1940)by William Manchester (Boston: LittleBrown 1988). His source was Hugh Dalton,Labour MP in his Memoirs 1931-1945:The Fateful Years (London: 1957). It wasnot part of a Churchill speech but rather aremark, probably uttered more than once.

Ql Attached is an advert for a U.S.Army Airforce "briefing bag" said to be"Winston Churchill's favorite briefcase."Ever hear of it?

At Never! Can anyone shed some light onthis?

Q'. Why do Americans use the term"Victorian"? Why not "McKinlean" orwhatever?

A' The Widow of Osborne cast a longshadow. America remained a "culturalcolony" of Britain long after 1776 andcopied Victorian Britain in many thingsfrom self-help to crinolines to mutton-chopwhiskers. Even the anti-slavery and earlywomen's movements took some of their in-spiration from British Victorians. (DailyMail)

Send your queries to the editor. 13

Blenheim Postcard (G. Lovell)

36 / FINEST HOUR 84

"You meet good,interesting people ..."Pennsylvania's Raffauf

FKIHNDS OF 1(5

JOHN N. FARRELL

Dick Raffauf takes his dogwith him on short car trips,keeps sheep to spare him

from mowing the bulk of his eigh-teen acres in Cumru Township,Pennsylvania. He earns his livingworking with his son, Richard Jr.,on figuring ways to get odd, littleindustrial necessities made for bigbusiness and the government.

And every so often, Dick delightsin donning black tie, dining well,and discussing the finer details of acertain gone, but not forgotten,British statesman and literary lion."He ate too well, and he drankplenty, so he's my hero," Dicklaughs.

Dick is a director of the Pennsyl-vania Chapter of the InternationalChurchill Society, which is dedi-cated to keeping Sir Winston'smemory alive and teaching ayounger generation his principlesand philosophy.

"You meet good interesting peo-ple, and you wind up talking aboutthings Churchill did or said that youhadn't heard before," Dick says. Heunfortunately did not hear Chur-chill's famous wartime speeches asthey were made. At the time, Dickwas in the U.S. Army, stationed inthe Pacific, and he was in the firstwave of troops to land in Japan afterthe atomic bombs fell.

After the war, however, Raffaufcouldn't help but get caught up on

Joseph N. Farrell is a reporter forthe Reading Eagle-Times.

Churchill, who was a favorite sub-ject of a number of early televisiondocumentaries. He also startedreading, and there was plenty ofthat to do because Churchill as awriter was prolific — his memoirsof the two World Wars alone runtwelve volumes, his nearly fiftybooks together won him the NobelPrize for literature.

About three years ago, about thetime his wife died, Dick heard aboutthe International Churchill Societyand joined.

What he received in return wasFinest Hour, the Society's quarterly,and various special publications.But it wasn't nearly enough of aconnection. Dick asked the Societyto help him organize a state chapterso he could discourse with fellowdevotees in a social setting.

The Pennsylvania chapter nowhas eighteen active members, al-though there are over 100 Friends ofICS statewide. Seven of them, Dick

included, plus two student guests,attended the chapter's first dinnerthis year in Philadelphia.

Over dinner they discussed "TheWit and Wisdom of WinstonChurchill" with James C. Humes,author of this latest addition tothe Churchill library. It was, Dicksays, quite a night, and he seesa good future for the chapter. Thepeople who buy Churchill booksas quickly as they come out, hesays, can write him at 116 Hamp-shire Road, Reading, 19608, ifthey're interested in pursuing thematter further.

It should be noted that, whilethere was much about Churchillthat was heroic, this is not hero wor-ship as much as it is a celebration ofa flesh-and-blood man whose suc-cesses outnumbered his failures."He was a simple person," Dicksmiles, paraphrasing the great man,"who was easily satisfied with thebest." $

Woods Corner from page 35 ...

simultaneously with the khaki1932 first edition. The binderyprobably found a batch of leftoverkhaki cloth at the time of the Key-stone, and used it up.

A8a Mv African Journey ColonialFor some time collectors havepuzzled over copies of the first edi-

tion with a small star or "asterisk"emblazoned in gilt on the lowerspine, just below the HODDER &STOUGHTON imprint. Virtuallydozens of these copies have nowbeen examined, and every onewhose origins can be traced camefrom the British Empire, includingnot a few which bear the originalstickers of booksellers in suchplaces as Cape Town, Bombay,

etc. Although A8 did not have aformal Colonial Issue as did theMalakand and Savrola (their titlepages state they are intended forsale in British Colonies), it seemslogical to assume that the "aster-isked" African Journey was simi-larly intended. Its contents, ofcourse, are identical to the stan-dard first English edition.

continued on page 39...

FINEST HOUR 84/37

ACTION THIS DAYJOHN G. PLUMPTON

Third Quarter 1894 • Age 19Winston Churchill later wrote,

"in the spring of 1894 it becameclear to us all that my father wasgravely ill," but when he saidfarewell as his parents embarkedupon a world tour in June he wasstill unaware of just how grave itwas. During the summer he begana stream of correspondence whichtotalled thirty letters before theyreturned.

While Lord Randolph rested inBar Harbor, Maine, he wrote tohis son to remind him that he wascommitted to enter the 60th Riflesinfantry regiment and that heshould forget about his wish forthe 4th Hussars. Winston's heartand goal, however, remained onthe cavalry regiment.

Lord and Lady Randolphheaded west across Canada after adispute with the President of theCanadian Pacific Railway overthe costs of a private railway car."A Canadian is not a generousAmerican," wrote Lady Ran-dolph.

Because of Lord Randolph's de-teriorating health, they stopped atthe Banff Springs Hotel in Al-berta. Sitting on the terrace LadyRandolph wrote her sister that "itis the finest scenery in the Rockiesand is certainly beautiful. I am sur-rounded by enormous mountains— and a cascade just below mefalling into a pale green river wind-ing away as far as the eyes canreach."

Her enjoyment of this idyllicsetting was marred by Lord Ran-dolph's moods. "He is very kindand considerate when he feels well— but absolutely impossible whenhe gets excited — and as he getslike that 20 times a day — you mayimagine my life is not a very easyone."

Winston and Jack were in thecare of their grandmother, theDuchess of Marlborough, whowas encouraging Winston's entryinto "good society." He was a chal-lenge to her, a fact she frequentlymentioned to his parents, "...he isaffectionate and pleasant but you

know he is mercurial" and"...there is nobody but me to keephim in order and you know he re-quires checking sometimes."

During an August visit toSwitzerland Winston received histerm marks from Sandhurst. Al-though he continued to do well, hismarks had dropped a little, towhich he attributed "the fact thatthe papers did not suit me quite aswell as last time — being ratherapart from the notes from which Iworked."

Third Quarter 1919 • Age 44British political opinion was

split over Russia. Prime MinisterLloyd George said that althoughBritain was "at war with the Bol-sheviks she would not make warwith them."

Churchill believed that unlessthey actively supported and tradedwith the area controlled by theWhite Russians "the anti-Bolshe-vik movement might collapsewithin the next few months andthen the Lenin and Trotsky em-pire would be complete."

He resented having to imple-ment a Cabinet decision to evacu-ate British troops from Archangeland Murmansk. According to theChief of the Imperial GeneralStaff, Sir Henry Wilson, Churchilleven considered resigning overGovernment policy in Russia.

On 29 July Churchill summedup his position in a speech to theHouse: "I can never clear mymind from a sense of anxiety re-garding the danger of a hostileRussia and a revengeful Germany.We should make a fatal mistake ifwe assume that the great victorywhich has been won can now besafely left to take care of itself, thatwe should not interest ourselves inthe affairs of Russia, and that weshould leave the Russian people tostew in their own juice."

Many people disagreed with himand the Labour Daily Herald com-plained: "here as everywhere elseChurchill cannot see that the re-volt against far-off costly and reac-tionary adventures grows into tur-bulence at home." The Prime Min-

ister admonished him: "I havefound your mind so obsessed byRussia that I felt I had goodground for the apprehension thatyour great abilities, energy andcourage were not devoted to thereduction of expenditures."

In the middle of August,Churchill, accompanied by hiswife, visited British troops sta-tioned on the Rhine. Clementinelater related to her daughter Maryhow she had unfavorably viewedthe arrogant manner in whichmany senior army wives treatedthe German populace.

While Churchill was in Ger-many the Cabinet ordered cuts inmilitary spending. Churchill's op-position to these cuts was deridedby Maurice Hankey: "Churchillobviously does not care to be aWar Minister without a war inprospect."

In the middle of SeptemberChurchill was invited to join LloydGeorge at the Paris Peace Confer-ence. From there he wrote his wifeon their anniversary: "Only thesefew lines to mark the eleventh timewe have seen the 12th Sep to-gether. How I rejoice to think ofmy gt good fortune on that day!There came to me the greatesthappiness and the greatest honourof my life. My dear it is a rock ofcomfort to have yr love & compan-ionship at my side. Every year wehave formed more bonds of deepaffection. I can never express mygratitude to you for all you havedone for me & for all you havebeen to me." Clementine re-sponded: "I love to feel that I am acomfort in your rather tumultuouslife. My Darling, you have beenthe great event in mine. You tookme from the straitened little bypathI was treading and took me withyou into the life and colour andjostle of the highway."

Third Quarter 1944 • Age 69In a note to Stalin, Churchill

summed up the military situation:"The enemy is burning and bleed-ing on every front at once."

38 / FINEST HOUR 84

The enemy was still capable ofinflicting serious injury, however,and many casualties resulted fromthe flying bomb attacks againstLondon. Unfavorable weathermade it difficult for Allied planes tofind the launch sites. An evengreater threat was imminent fromV2 rockets being tested by theGermans.

On 7 July Churchill received afull report on the situation inAuschwitz. His instructions toEden were to provide as much as-sistance as possible to prevent theGermans from transporting pris-oners to the concentration camp,and to "invoke my name if neces-sary."

Churchill's family was very im-portant to him. Whenever possiblehe took some time to be with themat Chequers. On one occasion, ashe left to return to London, hisgrandchildren, Winston Churchilland Celia Sandys, cried to the de-parting car: "Don't go Grand-papa." Churchill commented to hissecretary: "What a world to bringchildren into." He was relieved tohear that Randolph had survivedan air crash upon his return toduty in Yugoslavia, but greatly dis-tressed when the marriage of Ran-dolph and Pamela broke up.

On the day German officers at-tempted to assassinate Hitler at theWolfs Lair, Churchill flew toCherbourg. From there he droveto Utah Beach and boarded a tor-pedo boat to Arromanches. Aftertouring among the British troopsan officer remarked how much itmeant to the soldiers to haveChurchill "see them at work in thegun pits."

In early August the inhabitantsof Warsaw rose up against theGerman occupier. Churchill ap-pealed to Stalin for assistance ontheir behalf. He was very con-cerned about a "summit," yet both

Stalin and Roosevelt declined hisinvitation to come to Britain; buthe and the American Presidentagreed to meet in Quebec in Sep-tember.

Before that meeting, Churchillflew to Italy where he met Tito atthe Villa Rivalta in Naples. Whilethere he had time for relaxationand on several occasions he swamin the Bay of Naples. "My vigourhas been greatly restored," hewrote the King. From Naples hedrove to the battlefield at Cassinoand then flew to Siena for discus-sions with Alexander, "whosesplendid army," he lamented, "ispulled to pieces by American pol-icy," meaning the resource re-quirements of the invasion of thesouth of France.

On 23 August, while the FrenchResistance revolted in Paris,Churchill had an audience withPope Pius XII. "We had no lack oftopics for conversation" but themost important to both was thedanger of communism. As they leftthe Vatican, Lord Moran remem-bers Churchill "declaiming a finepassage from Macaulay's essay onRanke's History of the Papacy."Paris was liberated on 25 August.

Although ill on his return voy-age to Britain he immediatelybegan to prepare to meet Rooseveltat Quebec. After crossing the At-lantic on the Queen Mary, they ar-rived at Halifax amid "great cheersand cameras clicking," thenboarded a Canadian NationalRailways train for Quebec. At theConference, Churchill and Roo-sevelt were awarded honorary de-grees by officials of McGill Univer-sity in Montreal, who had come toQuebec for the ceremony.

On 17 September, while Britishairborne troops were landing atArnhem, Churchill went by trainto Roosevelt's home at Hyde Park,New York. From Hyde Park he

returned to New York City wherehe boarded the Queen Mary for thejourney home. Upon his return toBritain his good health returnedand he immediately prepared toleave for Moscow.

Churchill was always a peri-patetic leader. There was never atime when he was more so as heprepared for the final victory overGermany and the creation of apostwar world. It was an incredi-ble feat for a man about to cele-brate his 70th birthday.

Third Quarter 1969The achievements of Sir Win-

ston Churchill were being hon-oured throughout Britain. On 3July Prime Minister Harold Wil-son announced that if there waspublic support for a fund to erect astatue of Churchill in ParliamentSquare, the Government wouldgive it all the help they could.

On 23 July virtually the entirepopulation of Westerham turnedout for the unveiling of a massivebronze Oscar Nemon statue ofChurchill, on the village green.The design and site were chosenby public ballot among the peopleof Westerham. The plinthe was agift from "the people of Yu-goslavia." Former AustralianPrime Minister Sir Robert Men-zies, successor to Churchill asWarden of the Cinque Ports, un-veiled the statue.

Lady Spencer-Churchill, sup-ported by canes because of a fall,led a large group of three genera-tions of the Churchill family. TheTimes reported that when the par-ticipants retired for refreshments,"Churchill was left on the green asa permanent reminder that thegreat man of England and of West-minster had his roots and his affec-tions also in the small countrytown in the green heart of Eng-land." M

Woods Corner from page 37...

Three New "C" Items"C191/1": The World Economic Cri-sis. Churchill's speech before theEconomic Club of New York on 8February 1932 (after he had re-turned from the Bahamas wherehe recuperated following his being

knocked down by a taxi on ParkAvenue) seems to have had its firstappearance in The Consensus, quar-terly journal of the National Eco-nomic League, Boston, VolumeXVII, No. 1, published March1932. Thanks to Marvin Nicelyfor this discovery.

During the 1930s Churchill

published a number of original ar-ticles in the pulp weekly Answers,a "commuter sheet" which wasusually discarded, making origi-nals extremely rare today. Re-cently Mark Weber came upontwo additional Answers which arenot listed by Woods, to which we

concluded on page 47...

FINEST HOUR 84 /39

D-Day Plus...Churchill in Stamps

BY RICHARD M. LANGVVORTH

ADDENDUM: FIFTY YEVRS U;<)In commemoration oi ihe e \ents halt" a ieniiii> afjo this season.

«v temporalil \ depart from uur chronolo}:u..il piesentatiou nfChurchill's life in stamps to dwell mi I he eu-uls loll.iw NIL Operalion Overlord. These pages aic all tii>m pre-i-ompuiei l . i \ouis. .milwill probabl} be levised in liiuirc installments.

Catalogue numbers .ire Scott I * I aiul Si.mle\ dibbtuis c u i . \slash mark (/I indicates a ->ei with a common design tnini uh iehany value may be used.

\. A huge expansion nf m> co\e iaj:e m OpiT.iiii'ii O-.eiloid isnow possible, thanks t" the n u n \ c o m m e m o i a l i \ e Mumps i .suedon the fiftieth a m m e r s a n . I i l i m i >eais a s o when these pajicswere l.iid out. theie wasn't much besides "sand June" countriesand a Caribbean island 01 two. Churihill i>. -hnv n on u-mp 111-tpcciions wilh Lisenhow^i M u r e I)-P.i> mi I-UIK-M Minku- "I•ind 71A. Dominic;! *4«Ui. \L' 4 .V: and Maii.ini.i Mtuku-s ' " I .Cams -M) O-IJa> iinaMon iroops .lie on II.1111 "(iHS and I 'Vi" v:IJ15 and 1120. Nicaragua »j; I'JO^. MinkiiN 2 !*fi ha- an aiiuiMiis:I »w c j u o n n of W S C •XTMIM* .!•» lu^ own Liniihiiation "IOII.I

Chiefs i->r Maft."

B. 1'aiis w.i\ libei.iti-d on 2 I \U-.MI-.[ l " 4 l .mJ I J i o v h . i n . .+RW2-33 . M; lhVi-4i i SIIHWIIIL- (KMI. I e i L u . alum; wuh I S \tti)}A. ««i: 9^1 shkiwwi^ .111 \ iui> p.ii.ulc tliroii'-'li th^ \iv-li \ e i >nian> iimre libeiauon •>i\'in'<« .1111 now ,i\.nl.ihk on i»\i'iii sianip-i.and the hiL's-'eNt prohleni lot t lv plulaielu* buii:i.:plu-r i» 10 Minienough to saj ti) till all the neieN-ai} pa^*«-

(.*. The SeiMiul Quchei. ContiMi-iui1 when ( luiulul l and Roose\e l t planned the tinal moppnr: up O[VMIIH>I'I .i^ain^i ihe \\i">.is ddkimiented with a h.imNoine Can.uli.in Special l ) i - l r . u \Mamp. ^ l . | 0 , sg s i ? , ami llu- ( an.idiaii ( huu-hill v.oiniiiJinoi.1-U\c. W440, sj; 5<»5 In.-n »>2LI. - o M and -C 1 KL' -2 \ -12? and42~i fill ihe paire hut aie unielaieJ

I). Chilli-lull's triumphant \ M t t'« I'.nio on \IIIMMH.I- 1) i\ IV>U 1*ddL'umented heie bv CiR'nada"* WW."1 IV (laulU- issue, -"'"o SL1

4 0 1 : \ jman Mmkiis V*". *M and "S< Cams (*r. (,i)u l l M j n - \and f-rance f ; 50' . ss: l)Dl. an .MII; 1IIVI.HI..II lonniKMiioiaiixe

I1'. Ihe Ardennes cnunu'i-ol lei is ive >-i "Ualtle 01 tin- Hul';e" 111Deci'inbei l'J41 isi-nniini'iiixiau-d h> I s \ - | n 2 ' i . s- | u 2 5 and .1Luxembourg set. bmh IIIIISU.IIIIIL1 d e n I'aiii-u L .mada - 2 ^ s s«js» .'S-l'SS pmir.ixs the lank, coiucis i 'd l\\ ( huiihil l and dei'^i-.i-at ihe Rul.<:e- the (leimaiiN lan nut ol tuel1

K. Ciude hut e l l e i i n e 1 I IMM--1 SI \ IIK.MII - . * " I I . ->.• HM ..\.-i ilu-

iesf nt the phoiojiiaph it w.'s lakju l imn i- inieiesuu.' . luu Ishould h a \ e s i / ed ihe phmo 10 ihe saiiu- se.-le as ihe sianip1 IT11-v ill be fixed Widei i i opped \e is i i . i i s o| t lu same photo, shov.m .

.SC alJuliiiiig on the lai s[,k- ol the Kliiue. an1 sh.n n oncaragua *C5hk and "( 5'«l •*£ I >1."'v! .uul I ""2

' 11> / ' • I 1 •"•".'.".'Ic 1.1'

It.

PLANMING RECONQUEST

Churchill repeatedly urged the Allies to work up toward Germanythrough "the soft underbelly" of the Axis via Italy, but Elsen-hower, backed by Roosevelt, felt a frontal assault on Francewas the only way to decide the war. It was WSC's Dardanellesstrategy all over again and—judging by what happened postwar--who is to say he wasn't right?

Meetingswith Ike:a cordialif waryrelation-ship.

All of theabove "JointChiefs" areWSC, ofcourse!Cartoonby Low.

PARIS LIBERATED

French General Leclerc, whose 2d Armored Division was attachedto Patton, took the surrender of General von Choltltz, commandingthe German garrison of Paris, on 24 August 1944. Leclerc wroteto De Gaulle, "I have had the impression...of living over againthe situation of 1940 in reverse."

GeneralLeclerc

WSC to De Gaulle,20 November 1944:"It must bewonderful to bea Frenchman 20years old withgood weapons inhis hands andFrance to avengeand save."

A Parisinvasionwithout thegoose step.

SECOND QUEBEC CONFERENCE

During 11 to l6 September 19^4, Canada once again hosted theBritish Prime Minister and American President at Quebec. Mr.Churchill offered units of the Royal Navy for the final driveagainst Japan, and the President accepted. Churchill was indoubt that Germany would surrender in 1944.

Here too, FDR'sTreasury SecretaryHenry Morgenthauproposed the'Morgenthau Plan,"to render Germanya mainly agrariancountry after thewar. Churchill wasopposed. Hie ideadid not survive.Had WSC supportedit, Britain wouldhave benefitted.But Churchill feltpostwar Germanywould need to beplaced on equalfooting. K.

CREDIT WHERE DUE

After Normandy, General Patton and the U.S. Third Army clearedBrittany and surged toward Rouen and the Loire. When the furiousArdennes counter-attack ("Battle of the Bulge") occurred, thePrime Minister emphasized who was standing up to it—the Yanks:"I never hesitate...to stand up for our own soldiers when theirachievements have been cold-shouldered or neglected...But wemust not forget that it is to American homes that the telegramsof personal losses and anxiety have been going...

GeneralGeorge S.Patton, Jr.

"...A gap wastorn open as agap can alwaysbe in a linehundreds of mileslong. GeneralEisenhower atonce gave thecommand to thenorth of the gapto Field-MarshallMontgomery, andto the south ofit to GeneralOmar Bradley...these highlyskilled comman-ders (acted inwhat may) becomea model formilitary studentsin the future."

plate flaw lwr rt.

DE GAULLE IN COMMAND

"...The present French Government, under General de Gaulle,commands the full assent of the vast majority of the Frenchpeople...it is the only Government which can possibly dischargethe very heavy burdens which are being cast upon it (to enabledevelopment of) the constitutional and Parliamentary processes,which it has declared its purpose to reinstate."

—House of Commons, 27 October 1944

"Thus we completedthe process begunin the dark: andfar-off days of1940."

—"Triumphand Tragedy"

WSC made his firstvisit to Parisafter liberationon Armistice Day1944. On 12November, he andGeneral de GaulleaccompaniedGeneral de Lattrede Tassigny on anInspection of therevitalized FrenchArmy, holding theline at Besancon.

"The Frenchsoldiers seemedto be in thehighest spirits."

CROSSING THE RHINE

"I desired to be with our armies at the crossing, and Montgomerymade me welcome.. .The next day (25 March 194-5) I said to Mont-gomery, 'Why don't we go across and have a look at the otherside?' Somewhat to my surprise he answered, 'Why not?1 After hehad made some inquiries we started across the river with threeor four American commanders and half a dozen armed men."

—"Triumph and Tragedy"

Churchill andEastern EuropePart 2: Poland and GermanyThe Balancing ActBY STANLEY E. SMITH

jL Hied negotiations over the composition of the/ ^ P o l i s h government were accompanied through-

JL A. out the war by negotiations over the postwarborders of Poland.

The shock of the German invasion of Russia in 1941did not deter Stalin from wanting ultimately to reclaimthe land he had acquired under the notorious Nazi-So-viet pact of 1939.95 This territory included not only a siz-able chunk of Poland, but later also a "frontier secu-rity" area encompassing Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,Finland's Karelian isthmus, the Romanian province ofBessarabia, and Bukovina.96

The wishes of the Soviet government regardingPoland's frontiers were specific and definite as early asEden's visit to Moscow in December 1941, and theychanged little throughout the war. Stalin wantedPoland's eastern border to be based on a delineationknown as the Gurzon Line, which ran near the borderoccupied by the Red Army in 1940. Stalin said he con-sidered this frontier to be "ethnologically correct."97 Thewestern border was to expand westward at Germany'sexpense as far as the Oder River. The Moscow discus-sions of 1941 left the frontier question open. WhenMolotov visited London in May 1942, he offered to signa treaty with the Polish government-in-exile in Londonon the basis of the Curzon Line or the 1941 borderprior to the German attack on Russia. In exchange,Britain was to abandon the London Poles. Eden saidthis was impossible.98

The Curzon Line quickly became the center of at-tention in the debate over Poland's eastern frontier. Itsorigin dated to 1919, when it was recommended by theSupreme Council of the Allied Powers as the easternfrontier of Poland. On 12 July 1920, Lord Gurzon, thenBritish Foreign Secretary, had sent an official note tothe Soviet government proposing that the frontier linerun along Grodno, Jalovka, Nemirov, Brest-Litovsk,Dorohusk, Ustiling, east of Grobeshov, Krilov, and thenwest of Rava-Ruska east of Przemysl to the Carpathi-ans.99 The Soviets had spurned it but were soon forcedby the Poles to accept a more eastward line.

At the Teheran conference in December 1943,Stalin prohibited Poland from keeping any territory inthe Ukraine or in White Russia.100 He also asked that

Grodno

'/ '•••V.--'' !\ U. IS. S. R

U.r*tf\ Brest-Li tovsk

\soka, !

Sept 1939 frontiers

Post-war variations

Curzon Line

«o THE FRONTIERS OF CENTRAL EUROPETiilBS

Russia be ceded the cities of Lvov and Konigsberg andthe northern part of East Prussia.101 The followingmonth, Churchill appeared to concede Estonia, Latviaand Lithuania to Stalin, noting in a memo to Eden thatStalin's claim to them "in no way exceeds the formerTsarist boundaries."102 (See also "Churchill and theBaltic," Finest Hour #53-54.)

The expectations of the London Polish government-in-exile about the postwar eastern frontier of Polandwere very different from those of Stalin. Before 1939,the eastern frontier of Poland had been defined by theRiga Treaty of 1921, concluded when Polish forces hadrepulsed a Russian attack and stood very well militarily.The Riga Treaty frontier therefore lay considerablyeastward of the Curzon Line. In the rapprochment be-tween Russia and the London Poles following theGerman invasion of Russia, General Sikorski, thenPolish Prime Minister, offered to sign an agreement onthe basis of a restored Riga Treaty frontier. The Soviet

42 / FINEST HOUR 84

Government refused, and in the agreement that wassigned at the end of July 1941, the frontier question wasleft open."13 As late as the time of the Teheran confer-ence, Mikolajczyk was telling Eden that the Polish peo-ple expected to emerge from the war with their easternprovinces intact.104

In a meeting with Eden in March 1943, Soviet Am-bassador Ivan Maisky argued that the Soviet-Polishborder should be the Gurzon Line with minor adjust-ments."15 On 10 January 1944, the Soviet governmentpublicly proclaimed the Gurzon Line as its border withPoland.1"' On February 4th, Stalin complained toChurchill that the Polish leaders had not yet publiclyabandoned the Riga Treaty frontier in favor of the Cur-zon Line.107 By the Moscow conference of October,1944, the London Poles were willing to accept the Gur-zon Line as "a line of demarcation between Russia andPoland," but the Soviet government insisted on regard-ing the line as "a basis of frontier." Neither side wouldbudge. By this time, Stalin was doing business with theLublin Poles and had no interest in accommodatingtheir London counterparts.108

Despite these continued difficulties between Stalinand the exiled Polish leaders, discussions of the easternfrontier of Poland among the three major Allies wentfairly smoothly. As early as March 1943, Roosevelt ex-pressed to Eden his opinion that, if granted concessionsin the west, Poland would gain by accepting the GurzonLine, and would in any case have to abide by the even-tual decision of the Big Three."109

JL he Polish frontier was discussed by the Big Threeat the Teheran conference. Stalin defended the 1939(Molotov-Ribbentrop) frontier as being "ethnologicallythe right one." Churchill proposed that Poland's fron-tiers be based on the Gurzon Line and the Oder (includ-ing East Prussia and Oppeln), but that the actual trac-ing of the frontier line be done only following a carefulstudy of the population questions involved. Stalin's at-tempt to treat the 1939 border and the Curzon Line asthe same did not succeed. Maps were produced, and thediscussion centered for a time on whether Lvov lay tothe east or to the west of the Gurzon Line. Stalin saidhe would gladly give up his claim to any district with aPolish population.110

Agreement was soon reached. Churchill said he was"not prepared to make a great squawk about Lvov."Stalin replied that, with Lvov and Konigsberg left in So-viet hands, he was prepared to accept Churchill's for-mula.111

Much more labored were the discussions betweenChurchill and Eden on the one side and the LondonPoles on the other following the Teheran conference.Acting initially through Eden because of a serious ill-ness, Churchill took a very hard line in urging the Polesto accept the Teheran formulation, at least in principle.

Noting that the Teheran agreement left the Poles with"a magnificent piece of country," Churchill warned thatif the Poles cast the agreement aside, "I do not see howHis Majesty's Government can press for anything morefor them..."112

The initial hostility of the London Poles to any re-duction of their eastern provinces angered Churchill,who felt that he had done all that could be done forthem under the circumstances. In a 7 January 1944telegram to Eden, Churchill said he was contemplatingtelling the world that Britain had never undertaken todefend Poland's pre-1939 borders. He noted that Russiahad a right to the "inexpungeable security" of her west-ern frontiers, and that Poland now owed its life to theRussian armies. Churchill threatened to withdraw helpand recognition from the London Poles, scoffed at theidea that Britain would consider going to war againstRussia over Poland's eastern frontier, and concludedpointedly that "[n]ations who are found incapable of de-fending their country must accept a reasonable measureof guidance from those who have rescued them andwho offer them the prospect of a sure freedom and inde-pendence.""3 Time and circumstances would not bearout his optimism.

On January 20th, Churchill met in London withMikolajczyk, Tadeusz Romer (Polish Foreign Minis-ter), and Edward Raczynski (Polish Ambassador inLondon) to discuss the frontier agreement. According toan aide, the Prime Minister "gave it to them hot andstrong.""4 He said the Curzon Line was the best Polandcould hope to obtain, and that valuable German landwould be awarded to Poland in return for the easternlands (including extensive marshland) that would go toRussia. In return for the agreement of the LondonPoles, Churchill said he would stoutly defend their legit-imacy against Russia. When Mikolajczyk replied thathe could not survive politically if he ceded any easternlands, let alone Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania) andLvov, Churchill urged him and his colleagues to make asettlement quickly. On January 28th he told Stalin thathe had advised the London Poles to accept the CurzonLine, and warned Stalin against setting up a rival Polishgovernment. As Martin Gilbert points out, Churchillhad thus acted against the deepest wishes both of theLondon Poles and of Stalin, and had begun a long andultimately futile effort to reconcile these wishes.115

More Anglo-Polish talks were held, but they weremarked by acrimony and little progress. At a February6th meeting at Chequers, Mikolajczyk reported thatthe Polish underground adhered firmly to the easternfrontier established by the Riga Treaty. Churchill, inreply, again defended the Gurzon Line and pointed outthat "...the people of Poland have been unable tomaintain their independence throughout the centuries,and even during their short period of freedom, had nothad a record of which they could be proud. Now theyhad a fine opportunity if they were prepared totake it."116

FINEST HOUR 84 / 43

A,Lt a February 16th meeting at Downing Street,Churchill told the Poles that "his heart bled for them,but the brutal facts could not be overlooked. He couldno more stop the Russian advance than stop the tidecoming in. It was no use saying something which wouldonly make the Russians more angry and drive themto...a puppet government in Warsaw.""7

On 20 February 1944, the Polish government re-lented to the extant of accepting the text of a note inwhich Churchill told Stalin that the Poles were ready torenounce the Riga Treaty frontier line, and that he hadtold them of the likely loss of Vilnius, Konigsberg, andLvov.118 Churchill followed up his message by announc-ing his support of the Curzon Line as a "reasonable andjust" border in the House of Commons on 22 Febru-ary."9 In his reply, Stalin sneered off the Polish conces-sions.120

The eastern frontier of Poland was further discussedat the (Anglo-Soviet) Moscow conference of October,1944. Churchill pressed Mikolajczyk to accept the Cur-zon Line as a de facto arrangement.121 On October 13th,Mikolajczyk met with Stalin, who asked that the Lon-don Poles publicly accept the Curzon Line, Mikola-jczyk was unable to agree to this. Later he offered toagree to the Curzon Line if Stalin would give up hisclaim to Lvov, but Stalin held fast.122 Mikolajczyk re-turned to London and, being unable to persuade his col-leagues to accept the Curzon Line, resigned in Novem-ber from the government-in-exile.123 This virtually endedthe influence of the London Poles on the frontier ques-tion.

At the Yalta conference in February 1945, relativelyquick agreement was reached on the eastern frontier ofPoland. In pressing the acceptance of the Curzon Line,Stalin argued that he could hardly claim less for the So-viet Union than Curzon and Clemenceau had offeredafter World War I.124 He also argued that the Soviet-Pol-ish border was a matter of vital security to Russia.125

Roosevelt noted that Polish-American opinion wasready to accept the Curzon Line, but he urged Stalin tocede Lvov and possibly some oil fields in compensationfor the annexation of Konigsberg. As Stalin was not es-pecially sensitive to the feelings of Polish-Americans,this suggestion went nowhere.'26

Churchill was of course quite willing to accept theCurzon Line as the frontier, though he too encouragedStalin to make the "magnanimous" gesture of cedingLvov. To him the frontier question was secondary tothe question of the Polish government.127 The Yalta De-claration stated that "the eastern frontier of Polandshould follow the Curzon Line with digressions from itin some regions of five to eight kilometers in favor ofPoland."128 Lvov and Konigsberg went to Russia; EastPrussia south and west of Konigsberg went to Poland.129

The Big Three agreed early in the war that Polandshould be compensated for the loss of its easternprovinces by territory in eastern Germany. Just how farto expand Poland's western border was, however, amatter of considerable dispute.

At the Teheran conference (1943), the "line of theOder" was proposed by Churchill as the western fron-tier of Poland. The Oder River ran south from theBaltic Sea less than a hundred miles east of Berlin. Be-tween Berlin and Dresden, the Oder divided into theWestern Neisse, which continued to run south, and theOder itself, which continued in a southeastern direction.Further south, the Oder was joined by the EasternNeisse, which ran to the southwest. The distinction be-tween the Western and the Eastern Neisse became veryimportant in the ensuing controversy.

At the Yalta conference, Stalin proposed that theOder and Western Neisse Rivers be designated thewestern border of Poland.130 Roosevelt objected to this.He was willing to extend Poland's territory as far as theOder in the northwest, but saw "little justification" inexpending Poland to the Western Neisse in the south-west. Churchill agreed with him.131 Though all agreedthat Poland should be compensated by German land inthe West, the Western allies preferred that the frontierfollow the Oder and the Eastern Neisse.132

The British position on this question was consistentwith the discussions between the British leaders andMikolajczyk the previous autumn. At that time theBritish had been willing to agree to a frontier up to theOder in order to strengthen the position of the LondonPoles, but, according to Eden, "there had never beenany question of our agreeing to the Western Neisse."'33

Churchill at Yalta argued that Poland should not beawarded more land in the West than the Poles couldreadily assimilate. "It would be a pity," he said, "to stuffthe Polish goose so full of German food that it gets indi-gestion."134 His principal objection to expanding thewestern frontier as far as Stalin proposed was that itwould require moving six million Germans. Stalin dis-puted that figure, and contended that most Germanshad already fled west of the Western Neisse. Churchillsaid that the British War Cabinet would not agree to theWestern Neisse, and suggested that the question be re-ferred to the new Polish government and deferred to thepeace conference.135

Stalin agreed to defer the question to the peace con-ference. The Yalta Declaration stated that Polandshould in principle receive compensatory territory to thenorth and west, that the new provisional government inPoland should be consulted, and that the delineation ofPoland's western border should await the peace confer-ence. So the matter rested, at least on paper.136

I,Ln reality, the war and its consequences crashed on.By the time of the next Big Three conference, held inPotsdam in July 1945, Roosevelt had died, Germany had

44/FINEST HOUR 84

surrendered, and Soviet forces had occupied all the landeast of the Western Neisse and turned it over to the pup-pet Polish government to administer. This effectivelysettled the question of Poland's western frontier.

At the Potsdam conference, Stalin again formallyproposed that the Oder and the Western Neisse be rec-ognized as the western border of Poland. President Tru-man protested the de facto creation of a Polish zone in apart of what had been eastern Germany without priorAllied agreement. Stalin replied that the Germans hadfled the area, and that he couldn't stop the Poles fromfilling the administrative vacuum. Churchill restated hisobjections to a Western Neisse frontier: the territorialcompensation was disproportionate, the food and fuelwere needed in other parts of Germany, millions of Ger-mans would have to be moved. The disputes over theGerman population in the territory and over the mean-ing of the "line of the Oder" phrase used at Teherancontinued.137

Churchill was forced from power in the GeneralElection held during the Potsdam conference, and socould not see the conference through to its conclusion.In his memoirs, he stated that he had planned to con-front Stalin at the end of the conference with the "un-finished business" of Poland, including the question ofthe western frontier. Rather than agree to the WesternNeisse border, he wrote, he would have made a publicbreak with Stalin.138

This intention was penned with the benefit of hind-sight, but no doubt with sincerity. Whether under differ-ent circumstances Churchill would indeed have seen fitto break with one of his principal allies over the disposi-tion of a relatively minor stretch of territory is perhapsless than certain. Even less certain is the prospect thatStalin might have yielded part of his newly won empirein Eastern Europe when confronted by a rupture withBritain. Truman had already made what Churchillcalled the "fateful decision" to withdraw the WesternAllied forces into the agreed-upon zones of occupation,so Churchill's real bargaining power was slight. Stalinheld the winning cards.

Clement Attlee replaced Churchill at the Potsdamconference. On August 2nd, he, Truman, and Stalinagreed to regard the line of the Oder and WesternNeisse as Poland's de facto western border.

On 16 August 1945, the Soviet and Polish govern-ments signed a treaty recognizing the Curzon Line,with minor adjustments, as the eastern border ofPoland. Poland's western frontier remained officiallyunresolved until June 1991, when a newly reunited Ger-many signed a treaty with Poland recognizing the Oder-Western Neisse line.

Churchill and the Fate of Germany

The Allies began serious discussions about the man-agement of postwar Germany shortly after the war took

a permanent turn in their favor in early 1943. Thatsummer, a British Cabinet committee chaired by Attleerecommended that Germany be occupied in three zonesof roughly equal size. Britain would occupy the north-west, the United States the southwest and south, andRussia the east. Berlin would be jointly occupied.139

The question of occupied Germany was discussed atthe Teheran conference in 1943, but no final decisionwas reached.140 At Quebec in September 1944,Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to the British proposal,with additional harbor arrangements for the UnitedStates. In September and November, representatives ofthe Big Three allies on the European Advisory Com-mission signed agreements along those lines.141 The ulti-mate disposition of the occupation zones was still notsettled. At their meeting in Moscow in October 1944,Stalin and Churchill discussed the possibilities of puttingthe Ruhr and Saar regions under international controland of forming a separate state in the Rhineland.142

Though secondary to the Polish question, the ques-tion of the occupation zones was discussed at the Yaltaconference. Churchill there proposed to allot an occu-pation zone to France. Stalin treated the idea skepti-cally, but Roosevelt assured Churchill privately that hewas prepared to give France a section of the Americanzone. Near the end of the conference, the Big Threeagreed to give France a seat on the German ControlCommission.143

By the time of the Yalta conference, General Eisen-hower had been urging Roosevelt for two years not toset up zones of occupation in Germany. He even senthis chief of staff, General Bedell Smith, to Yalta to seeRoosevelt and repeat the advice, particularly on thegrounds that the Western Allied forces now appearedlikely to penetrate further into Germany than earlier es-timates had predicted. FDR nonetheless stood by thezones idea.144

The agreed-upon zones came under further pressureas the armies of the Western Allies advanced throughGermany in the spring of 1945. Churchill urged Eisen-hower to push his forces as far eastward as possible, butthe general, for what seemed to him to be sound militaryreasons, instead diverted some of his forces southwardto the Leipzig-Dresden area.145 He also stopped short oftaking Prague.146

Though the western armies did not take Berlin, theydid advance over one hundred miles into what had beendesignated the Soviet occupation zone in Germany. Asnoted earlier, Churchill saw this advance as an impor-tant bargaining chip with Russia. He therefore arguedthat the western armies should not withdraw into theiroccupation zones until agreements were reached withRussia about Poland and other important political is-sues. As he noted to General Ismay nearly a month be-fore the German surrender, "we consider the matter isabove the sphere of purely military decision by a com-mander in the field."147

Churchill expressed his misgivings more fully in a

FINEST HOUR 84 / 45

May 4th note to Eden. He said the withdrawal of thewestern armies would mean the "sweeping forward" ofthe Soviet armies some 120 miles on a 300-400-milefront, which "would be one of the most melancholy[events] in history." In a foreshadow of his 1946 "IronCurtain" (or "Sinews of Peace") speech, he noted thatthe territory under Soviet control would include "theBaltic provinces, all of Germany to the occupation line,all Czechoslovakia, a large part of Austria, the whole ofYugoslavia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria [and] all thegreat capitals of Middle Europe, including Berlin, Vi-enna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia..."14*

On May 6th, he advised Truman to "hold firmly tothe existing position obtained or being obtained by ourarmies..."149 On June 4th, he told Truman that "I viewwith profound misgivings the retreat of the AmericanArmy to our line of occupation in the central sector,thus bringing Soviet power into the heart of WesternEurope and the descent of an iron curtain between usand everything to the eastward. I hoped that this re-treat, if it has to be made, would be accompanied by thesettlement of many great things which would be the true

foundation of world peace."15" On June 12th Truman re-jected Churchill's plea to postpone the withdrawal.151

Though generous to Truman in his memoirs,Churchill forever afterwards regretted this decision. Inconversation years later with his assistant, JohnColville, Churchill accused the United States of givingaway "vast tracts of Europe" to please Russia. He saidthat if he had been less occupied with the British Gen-eral Election, and if Roosevelt had been alive and well,matters might have worked out better.152

Keeping the western armies on the territory they oc-cupied at the end of the war would not have changedthe situation entirely, and Churchill probably realizedthis. The notion that Stalin might have relaxed his irongrip on Poland in order to advance further westwardbeyond Poland hardly seems plausible. Nonetheless, itwas the only realistic military leverage the West hadagainst Russia, and the rejection of what could reason-ably have been regarded as an obsolete occupation planwould at least have preserved in freedom the not incon-siderable territory that was ceded by the western with-drawal. $

FOOTNOTES

95. Colville in Commentary, p. 44.96. Ibid.97. Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring (Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 1951), pp. 394-7; Gilbert, p. 589.98. Eden, pp. 335, 338, 342, 370, 380-1.99. Stalin, p. 391, n. 57; Gilbert, p. 589.100. Gilbert, p. 589.101. Eden, p. 496.102. Gilbert, p. 652103. Eden, pp. 314-16.104. Colville in Commentary, p. 44.105. Eden, pp. 429-30.106. Gilbert, p. 642.107. Stalin, p. 196.108. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, p. 237.109. Eden, p. 432.110. Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 394-7; Gilbert,

pp. 589-93; Stalin correspondence.111. Gilbert, p. 590; Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp.

394-7; Stalin correspondence; Gilbert, p. 593.112. Gilbert, p. 615.113. Ibid., pp. 641-2, 648.114. Ibid., pp. 657-60.115. Ibid., pp. 657-60, 665.116. Ibid., pp. 672-5; Colville, Fringes of Power, p. 471.117. Gilbert, pp. 681-4.118. Stalin, pp. 201-4; Gilbert, pp. 686-88.119. Gilbert, p. 691.120. Stalin, p. 207.121. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, p. 235.122. Eden, p. 563.123. Ibid., pp. 574-6.124. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 369-71;

Stettinius, pp. 154-6.

125. Stettinius, pp. 154-6.126. Ibid., p. 41; WSC, Triumph and Tragedy, p. 367.127. Ibid., pp. 367-9; Stettinius, pp. 152-3.128. Ibid, pp. 335-8.129. Churehill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 661-4.130. Ibid., pp. 373, 369-71; Stettinius, pp. 181-2.131. Ibid., pp. 209-10; Churchill, Triumph and

Tragedy, pp. 376-9.132. Ibid., pp. 647-8.133. Eden, p. 597.134. Stettinius, p. 184.135. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, p. 374; Stet-

tinius, pp. 184-6: Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp.385-6; Stettinius, p. 123.

136. Stettinius, pp. 301, 335-8.137. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 647-8, 654-

7, 659-60.138. Ibid., pp. 672-4.139. Ibid., pp. 507-510.140. Ibid., p. 351.141. Ibid., pp. 507-10; Stettinius, p. 37.142. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 240-1.143. Bishop, p. 323; Stettinius, p. 262.144. Bishop, p. 323.145. Stettinius, p. 299; Dwight D. Eisenhower, Cru-

sade in Europe (Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1948), pp. 396,400, 402; Colville in Commentary, p. 46.

146. Ibid.; Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 506-7.147. Ibid., p. 513.148. Ibid., pp. 502-3.149. Ibid., p. 501.150. Ibid., p. 603.151. Ibid., pp. 604-5.152. Colville, Fringes of Power, p. 658.

46 / FINEST HOUR 84

CHURCHLLTRIVIAEDITED BY BARBARA F. LANGWORTH

Test your skill and knowledge. Virtuallyall questions can be answered in back is-sues of Finest Hour or other ICS publi-cations (but it's not really cricket tocheck). Twenty-four questions appear ineach issue, the answers in the followingissue. Questions fall into six categories:Contemporaries (C), Literary (L), Mis-cellaneous (M), Personal (P), Statesman-ship (S) and War (W).

553. What was the name of theChurchill's illustrious cook, who wrotea book entitled Recipes from Number10? (C)

554. What well known historian andOxford Don did Churchill ask to vetthe Tudor portion of his History of theEnglish-Speaking Peoples? (L)

555. What vintage of Pol Roger Cham-pagne was Sir Winston's favorite? (M)

556. Name Winston and Clementine'sten grandchildren. (P)

557. What issue caused Churchill topart company with the Tory Party in1930? (S)

558. What were some of the reasonsChurchill gave Stalin for the slowprogress of troops in North Africa inearly 1943? (W)

559. Who was Wlaydslaw Sikorski?(C)

560. Name the six individual titles ofThe Second World War. (L)

561. According to WSC, who (orwhat) "looks you straight in the eyeand treats you as an equal"? (M)

562. Name the first Churchill ancestorof Sir Winston who purportedly cameto America (from Dorset). Where andwhen did he land? (P)

563. What was the Atlantic Charter?(S)

564. How did Churchill hear about theJapanese attack on Pearl Harbor? (W)

565. In 1934 Churchill was offered£10,000 by producer AlexanderKorda. What was it for? (C)

566. Name the titles of the seven vol-umes of speeches Churchill gave dur-ing WW2. (L)

567. Churchill's first regiment, the 4thHussars, was combined with the 8thHussars in 1958 and known as TheQueen's Royal Irish Hussars. Theynow have been amalgamated with theQueen's Own Hussars. What is thename of the new regiment? (M)

568. In 1919 the Churchills sold theirEast Sussex home "Lullenden" towhat well-known general? (P)

569. In 1919 WSC said, "if Russia is tobe saved, as I pray she may be saved,she must be saved by [whom]"? (S)

570. What British action in July 1940caused the French government tosever relations with Britain? (W)

571. In 1934 Churchill accused SirSamuel Hoare of what action whichwas later decreed by Parliament as"false charges"? (C)

572. "...their origins, their quarrels,their misfortunes and their reconcilia-tion" was used by Churchill to de-scribe which of his works? (L)

573. What traditional symbol did theRoosevelts give the Churchills as aChristmas present in 1943 and 1944?(M)

574. Name three painters who influ-enced WSC. (P)

575. In 1919, what did Churchill thinkwould "create a condition of barbarismworse than the Stone Age"? (S)

576. What are the most famous wordsin Churchill's first WW2 speech asPrime Minister on 13 May 1940? (W)

ANSWERS TO LAST TRIVIA(529) Harry Hopkins encouragedChurchill to meet with Roosevelt in1941. (530) The Birth of Britain, TheNew World, The Age of Revolution andThe Great Democracies are the fourbooks of the History of the English-Speaking Peoples. (531) The statue withfeet on UK and US soil stands inWashington, DC. (532) During his ca-reer Churchill held every major gov-ernment office except Foreign Secre-tary. (533) Churchill said the Russians"feared the friendship of the West" in1949. (534) Churchill considered in-vading the Baltic island of Borkum inboth World Wars. (535) CartoonistDavid Low thought Churchill gave the"impression of genius." (536) Into Bat-

tle covers Churchill's speeches be-tween May 1938 and November 1940,both in Parliament and on the wire-less. (537) Churchill served in the 4thHussars, 31st Punjab Infantry, 21stLancers, South African Light Horse,Oxfordshire Hussars, OxfordshireYeomanry, Grenadier Guards, RoyalScots Fusiliers and Oxfordshire Ar-tillery. (538) Jennie was an excel-lent pianist. (539) Churchill deliveredhis "blood toil tears and sweat" speechin the House of Commons, 13 May1940. (540) Churchill wanted to sup-port whichever side was killing themost Germans in Yugoslavia. (541)Philip Tilden was Churchill'sChartwell architect; he wrote True Re-memberances. (542) A fictitious shortstory by WSC, "Man Overboard," ap-peared in Harmsworth Magazine inJuly 1899. "On the Flank of theArmy" appeared in Youth Companionon 18 Dec 1902. (543) WSC told hiswife that flying gave him a feeling of"conquest over space." (544) Winstonwas listed under the S's as "SpencerChurchill" when he first went to Har-row. (545) The famous rearmamentquote: "I do not hold that we shouldrearm to fight, I hold that we shouldrearm to parley." (546) WSC offeredto take up field command of troopsstationed in Antwerp after he touredthe defenses. (547) Edward Marshwas Churchill's private secretary dur-ing three periods from 1905-1929 anda lifelong friend. (548) The Rockefellerfamily asked WSC to write a biogra-phy of John D. (549) the purpose ofthe Other Club was "to dine." (550)Pug dogs and pussy kats were drawnby Winston and Clemmie. (551) Thesubject of Churchill's first publicspeech (1897) was the Workmen'sCompensation Bill. (552) WSCthought Hitler might attack Francethrough Belgium and Holland, ormount an air attack on British facto-ries and ports, and/or make a peace of-fensive. $5

Woods Corner from page 39...have assigned these "temporaryWoods numbers":

"C342B": The Ebbing Tide of So-cialism, published 16 October 1937,page 3. This is a second appear-ance of Woods C342 which ran inthe Evening Standard on 9 July1937.

"C359/1": Must There Be War?,published 13 November 1937, page3. This appears to be a first ap-pearance. $

FINEST HOUR 84 / 47

IMMORTAL WORDSTHE FIRST TWENTY YEARS ...

What a disappointment the Twentieth Century has beenHow terrible & how melancholy

its long series of disastrous eventswh have darkened its first 20 years.

We have seen in ev country a dissolution,a weake.iing of those bonds,

a challenge to those principlesa decay of faith

an abridgement of hopeon wh structure & ultimate existence

of civilised society depends.We have seen in ev part of globe

one gt country after anotherwh had erected an orderly, a peaceful

a prosperous structure of civilised society,relapsing in hideous succession

into bankruptcy, barbarism or anarchy...Can you doubt, my faithful friends

as you survey this sombre panorama,that mankind is passing through a period marked

not only by an enormous destruction& abridgement of human species,

not only by a vast impoverishment& reduction in means of existence

but also that destructive tendencieshave not yet run their course?

And only intense, concerted & prolonged effortsamong all nations

can avert further & perhaps even greater calamities?

Notes for an Election Address, Dundee, 11 November 1922

CHURCHILL IN 1922NEWFIELD COLLECTION

SCAPA FLOW AS WE LEFT IT, PEACEFULLY SLUMBERING, 25 MAY 1994