David Lloyd George

“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.”

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.

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.

Much of Churchill’s pre-1914 career was tied into that of Lloyd George, who kick-started the rebuilding of that career in 1917. The memory of Lloyd George’s experience as war leader helped shape how Churchill structured his own position in 1940. Lloyd George’s career is worth remembering for its own sake, and for its impact on Churchill, who led Britain through a second and greater total war.

Morris offers a more accurate quotation book than most, but that is a fairly low bar, and we are disappointed by how many he gets wrong.

Lady Violet: “He had no doubts about his star. He felt that he had been preserved through many perils in order to fulfil its purpose.”

Churchill's best war books: “fascinating products of the human spirit, epic tales filled with the depravities, miseries, and glories of man.”

Churchill’s imagination in engaging with science and its potential consequences enabled him to confront vast change between the Victorian and Atomic eras.

The Churchill Project provides descriptions of the twelve most significant locations in Whitehall, London as they relate to Winston Churchill.

Early in the 20th century, Armenian peoples suffered the greatest and bloodiest of all the great mass-slaughters which till then there was record.

Prudence, Aristotle’s primary quality of statesmen was well demonstrated by Churchill at the Admiralty in the years leading up to the First World War.

Throwback to vanished age, Sassoon served his country in war and peace, and entertained the glitterati at his palatial mansions. He died too young.