Gary Stiles offers a brilliant catalogue of Mr. Punch’s Churchill

For an archivist and curator of books such as this writer, Stiles has crafted an exquisite work. It will delight both the connoisseur and the casual reader of Churchill or British history. A noted physician and collector of Churchilliana, Stiles offers an heirloom volume: every Churchill cartoon in Punch, Britain’s famed magazine of humor and satire. Over 600 drawings span nearly a century from 1899 to 1988.

“And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mark 3:25). Given renewed fame by Lincoln, the verse applies as well to the Wars of the Roses. Their vicious course saw the old order passing to something entirely new. The tragic events are a reminder: The familiarity of Churchill's words is uncanny given the rampant social, political, and ideological divisions in Western countries. Churchill calls us to learn from the tragedies of the past to avoid experiencing a similar upheaval.

The conflict between orderly Roman society and the native tribes’ efforts to preserve their homeland produced a distinctly British character over the coming centuries. In part, the rebellion and continued struggle came to define Churchill, himself, nearly 1900 years later. In 1940, he found himself presiding over a period nearly as tumultuous as the rebellion of 61 A.D. Now he was forced into a position similar to that of the Britons.

Libertarian disdain for Churchill stems from his 1940 premiership, without which, they believe, America would not have gone to war with Germany. Could they have lived with the consequences of a Nazi triumph? Churchill prevented that consequence. The world which resulted from his stubborn courage is better for it—and perfectly willing to accept the judgment of history.

“One of the most necessary features of a public man’s equipment is some distinctive mark which everyone learns to look for and to recognize,” Churchill said. He nurtured many such features, particularly headgear. His choice of a hat for an occasion was never happenstance but a thoughtfully conceived notion of the image and the impact he wanted to portray. He acquired hundreds of hats in every genre: military, political, formal, equestrian, leisure, even an Indian headdress.

“David Lloyd George's personal failings are clear, but a historian’s verdict ought to be that, in utterly unprecedented situations, he rose very well to the challenges—and far better than any conceivable alternative leader. Overshadowed now by the memory of Churchill, he deserves respectful remembrance in his own right.”

"Our Island no longer holds the same authority or power that it did in the days of Queen Victoria. A vast world towers up around it and after all our victories we could not claim the rank we hold were it not for the respect for our character and good sense... I regard it as the most direct mark of God’s favour we have ever received in my long life that the whole structure of our new-formed Commonwealth has been linked and illuminated by a sparkling presence at its summit." —WSC to The Queen, 1955

Churchill’s virtues included the acceptance of defeats as necessary to wielding power; a tough but generous relation with rivals in politics, magnanimity toward a defeated enemy; a willingness to experiment; and above all, in the supreme crisis, an absolute refusal to compromise or surrender. From all this, there is powerful evidence to support Isaiah Berlin’s judgment of him as “the largest human being of our time.”

“My father was a Manchester Liberal. bearing with cheerful stoicism the fact that his wife always voted Conservative….. His youth was spent during what he always said were Winston’s great years, 1906 to 1910, during the memorable Liberal Parliament, when the two great radicals, Lloyd George and Churchill, embarked on the reform of British society.”

“The orator is the embodiment of the passions of the multitude. Before he can inspire them with any emotion he must be swayed by it himself. When he would rouse their indignation his heart is filled with anger. Before he can move their tears his own must flow. To convince them he must himself believe.” —WSC, “The Scaffolding of Rhetoric,”1897

Although it commands less historical attention than some of the war’s later “summits,” Arcadia was very important. It brought together for the first time the small group that, sustainably unchanged, would manage the largest, most complex coalition war in recorded history. It also shaped the Allies’ controlling machinery and grand strategy. Without it, effective Anglo-American cooperation and coordination would have been much harder, if not impossible.

“What I mean by frightfulness is the inflicting of great slaughter or massacre upon a particular crowd of people, with the intention of terrorising not merely the rest of the crowd, but the whole district or the whole country. We cannot admit this doctrine in any form. Frightfulness is not a remedy known to the British pharmacopoeia.” —WSC