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Great Contemporaries
Great Contemporaries: Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound
02
Mar
2023
By ROBIN BRODHURST
Churchill and Pound were vividly contrasting types, but in the emergency of a world war they fitted together. Each recognised the strengths and weaknesses of the other. Churchill famously wrote that he felt he was walking with destiny. It was equally true to say of Pound: “He is not a Roosevelt figure; rather he is like Truman, and like Truman, he stayed in the kitchen and he took the heat.”
Great Contemporaries: Asquith: The Last Victorian Liberal (1)
17
Feb
2023
By RAYMOND A. CALLAHAN
Asquith reshaped the Liberal Cabinet, promoting Lloyd George to the Exchequer and Churchill to the Board of Trade. These two intelligent, ambitious, future prime ministers provided much of the firepower and nearly all the color that in the early Asquith government. It reflects well on Asquith’s self-assurance that he successfully managed both of them for so long.
Great Contemporaries: George Nathaniel Curzon
16
Jan
2023
1
By BRADLEY P. TOLPPANEN
Churchill described Curzon’s funeral as “dull and dreary,” but he had “faced his end with fortitude and philosophy. I am v[er]y sorry he is gone. I did not think the tributes were v[er]y generous. I w[oul]d not have been grateful for such stuff. But he did not inspire affection, nor represent g[rea]t causes.”
Great Contemporaries: The Age of Lloyd George (Part 4)
15
Sep
2022
By RAYMOND A. CALLAHAN
“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.”
Churchill’s Sovereigns: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
09
Sep
2022
By DAVID DILKS
"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
Great Contemporaries: Anthony Eden (Part 3), 1939-1977
04
Aug
2022
By FRED GLUECKSTEIN
As war approached, Eden and Churchill developed an increasingly close friendship. Churchill Eden “was a devoted adherent of the French Entente…he was anxious to have more intimate relations with Soviet Russia. He felt and feared the Hitler peril. It might almost be said that there was not much difference of view between him and me, except, of course that he was in harness.”
Great Contemporaries: Anthony Eden (Part 2), 1934-1938
21
Jul
2022
By FRED GLUECKSTEIN
“From midnight till dawn I lay in my bed consumed by emotions of sorrow and fear. There seemed one strong young figure standing up against long, dismal, drawling tides of drift and surrender, of wrong measurements and feeble impulses…. Now he was gone. I watched the daylight slowly creep in through the windows, and saw before me in mental gaze the vision of Death.” —WSC
Great Contemporaries: Churchill in the Age of Lloyd George (Part 3)
09
Jun
2022
By RAYMOND A. CALLAHAN
Versailles is often viewed as short-sighted and vindictive, laying the foundation for future calamity. But Lloyd George was under enormous pressure to satisfy clamant allies whose mood was either deeply angry (France) or unrealistically messianic (America). At home, the Tories wanted a harsh peace. Churchill, still a Liberal and characteristically magnanimous, argued vainly for milder treatment of Germany.
Great Contemporaries: Churchill in the Age of Lloyd George (Part 2)
07
Jun
2022
By RAYMOND A. CALLAHAN
The first thing to know about Lloyd George’s premiership is that it destroyed the Liberal Party. Internecine fighting opened the door for the Labour Party (which joined the wartime coalition). A few years later, moving from minor third-party status, Labour formed a government. The Liberals would never govern again.
Great Contemporaries: Anthony Eden (Part 1), 1897-1934
18
Mar
2022
By FRED GLUECKSTEIN
Anthony Eden shared Free Trade principles, but was at first a Churchill critic. During the Dardanelles Campaign he wrote: “Why can’t W. Churchill look [Navy ships] instead of making strategical plans about which he knows nothing about at all?” Later they became allies, Eden remarking on Churchill’s “masterly performance” as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Great Contemporaries, Clemenceau (3): How the Tiger Inspired Churchill
24
Feb
2022
By PAUL A. ALKON
Churchill saw in Clemenceau the importance of projecting the right mood in a crisis. He remembered the particular words Clemenceau had tried out to him, before exclaiming them in the French parliament: “I will fight in front of Paris; I will fight in Paris; I will fight behind Paris.” In 1940, Churchill adopted the Tiger’s trope: “Clemenceau was quite right. The only thing that mattered was to beat the Germans.
Great Contemporaries: Georges Clemenceau (2), The Statesman
10
Feb
2022
By PAUL A. ALKON
“He represented the French people risen against tyrants—tyrants of the mind, tyrants of the soul, tyrants of the body; foreign tyrants, domestic tyrants, swindlers, humbugs, grafters, traitors, invaders, defeatists—all lay within the bound of the Tiger; and against them the Tiger waged inexorable war. Anti-clerical, anti-monarchist, anti-Communist, anti-German—in all this he represented the dominant spirit of France.”