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Churchill Between the Wars
“Churchill Always Admired and Offered Peace to Mussolini”
06
Feb
2024
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
One tends to say polite things about a nation’s leader when he has promised to pay your country a lot of money. Things changed when Mussolini declared war on the Allies in June 1940. Three years later he was deposed, and Churchill told Parliament. “The keystone of the Fascist arch has crumbled.” Long before then, Mussolini had long gone from “renowned chief” to “hyena” in the Churchill lexicon.
The Modern Middle East: How Much is Churchill’s Fault?
06
Nov
2023
2
By DAVID FROMKIN
The Middle East was ruled by the Ottoman Empire for almost 500 years, but by 1918 it was occupied by a British army of one million. No other major military force was on scene. British plans were in shambles: subversive foreign plots were suspected. At this truly horrendous moment, Lloyd George in effect turned to Churchill and said, in effect: You deal with it. Britain would often do that when all else had failed and other policies had proven not to work.
Churchill: A Great Reformist Chancellor of the Exchequer
24
Aug
2023
By NICK BOSANQUET AND ANDREW HALDENBY
The truth needs to be recognized: Winston Churchill was the first Chancellor of the Exchequer whose policies explicitly aimed at promoting economic growth. He was the first to institutionalize protections for widows, their children and the aged. His Local Government initiatives spurred the growth of hospitals. His scheme of “derating” initiative was the first move by a Chancellor to manage an economy—not just to manage a budget.
Did Churchill Waffle in 1938?: The Tale of Hubert Ripka
08
Dec
2022
By Richard M. Langworth
“Every one of us leading politicians has to ask ourselves whether we have the right, whether we can in all conscience force our country into war….[But] Masaryk was right. Death is better than slavery. [If war does come] “we’ll smash them to smithereens so they don’t trouble us for a century or more.” —WSC to Hubert Ripka, 22 June 1938
“Law Giver” Mussolini: Churchill’s Quotation as Used and Abused
06
Jan
2022
Rapscallions? What Churchill Actually Said and Thought about the Irish
09
Dec
2021
Churchill and the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”
08
Nov
2021
Forster, Appeasement, and Fascism: What Churchill Really Believed
04
Apr
2021
1
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
The Forster Meeting: Churchill dealt easily with concepts and political ideas. If he had genuinely admired Fascism, he would have said so.
Glasgow, 1919: “Churchill Rolled the Tanks” – What Really Happened
20
May
2019
3
By GORDON J. BARCLAY
Tanks never appeared at the famous Glasgow riot; troops killed or injured no one, and Churchill’s was a leading voice of moderation among British ministers.
Robert Harris on Air Power, Munich, and Chamberlain’s “Finest Hour”
30
Oct
2017
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Robert Harris, author of the famous historical novel Fatherland, has published a new novel on Munich. He says it will rehabilitate Neville Chamberlain’s decision to accept Hitler’s demands for the Czech Sudetenland. His thesis—“Chamberlain’s finest hour” as he calls it—is that Munich bought time for Britain to prepare for war. Among other things, he contends in interviews that by the summer of 1940, the Royal Air Force had ten times as many aircraft as it had had in 1938.