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Richard M. Langworth
The Churchill Project - Hillsdale College > Richard M. Langworth
“The World Crisis” (5) Dardanelles to Gallipoli: Failure is an Orphan
09
Mar
2024
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
What a story! A prime minister unwilling to be prime; a war minister reluctant to make war; backbiting among colleagues; idle babble to outsiders; changes of tune; dreams about the spoils of war; unwillingness to hear those who understood. It doesn't sound so far removed from the criticism now thrown at Western governments who have inherited the mistakes of a generation, and are expected to mend them overnight.
“The World Crisis” (4) Dardanelles: Success Has 1000 Fathers
04
Mar
2024
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
The War Council waxed euphoric over Dardanelles prospects, "turning eagerly from the dreary vista of a ‘slogging match’ on the Western Front." Next, why not a naval attack up the Danube, landing at Salonika, and sending a fleet up the Adriatic? One member envisioned the end of the Ottoman Empire and expansion of the British Empire as far as Palestine. None of these naively optimistic visions were voiced by Winston Churchill.
“The World Crisis” (3): Antwerp—Folly or Success?
13
Feb
2024
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
“Only one man of all your people had the prevision of what the loss of Antwerp would entail and that man was Mr. Churchill. Delaying an enemy is often of far greater service than the defeat of the enemy. The delay the Royal Naval Division caused was of inestimable service to us. These three days allowed the French and British Armies to move northwest. Otherwise, our whole army might have been captured and the Northern French Ports secured by the enemy.” —King Albert of the Belgians
Great Contemporaries: The Three Lives of Churchill’s Hitler Essays
03
Jan
2024
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Did Churchill ever admire Hitler? The question, ridiculous on its face, is frequently asked. Critics have long quoted selectively from Churchill to show he was “for Hitler before he was against him.” In fact, Churchill never deviated in his view of Hitler, who was himself so infuriated that he lodged a diplomatic protest against Churchill’s “personal attack.”
Gift Copies of Churchill’s “Marlborough: His Life and Times”
13
Sep
2023
1
By MICHAEL RICHARDS
Best buy for gift giving is the four-volume 1991 Folio Society edition, handsomely bound and boxed in maroon buckram. A plus for this edition is a special introduction by Maurice Ashley. Churchill’s literary assistant in the 1930s, Ashley knew as much about the writing as anyone. This is the most luxurious production of an individual set since the signed limited edition of the 1930s. It is regularly available, and makes a gift anyone would be proud to receive.
Winston Churchill Retells the World’s Great Stories, Part 3
21
Aug
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Adam Bede’s fictional county of Loamshire is, like Churchill’s favored Kent, “an early paradise...with its rich and rewarding farmlands, its flowery gardens, fruitful orchards and spotless dairies, its people secure and contented in their own traditions.” This was the England he would invoke so effectively a few years on, when the terror of imminent extinction flickered. Perhaps too, in the sorry march to Munich in 1938, he would ponder George Eliot’s wise maxim: “Consequences are determined not by excuses but by actions.”
Churchill’s Shakespeare: “Romeo and Juliet”
16
Aug
2023
By VALERIE LILLINGTON AND RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Churchill wrote of his father, “Would he, under the many riddles the future had reserved for such as he, snapped the tie of sentiment that bound him to his party, resolved at last to ‘shake the yoke of inauspicious stars’….?” The line is from Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Sc. 3, almost at the end of the play, where Romeo slays Count Paris....
Winston Churchill Retells the World’s Great Stories, Part 2
11
Aug
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Churchill was busy in 1933, and Eddie Marsh wrote large tracts of the Great Stories. Yet Churchill signed off on every word and edited freely. His aim was not “great stories summarised, but great stories retold. It is essential to select the salient features of the tale and make them live in all their fullness.” These were old tales, but Churchill’s view was balanced: “Even in the 20th century, there have been some well-known writers, but I think that modesty must prevent me from pursuing that line of thought to its legitimate and inevitable conclusion.”
Winston Churchill Retells the World’s Great Stories, Part 1
03
Aug
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
“[W]e are not writing great stories summarised, but great stories retold,” Churchill wrote Eddie Marsh. “It is essential to select the salient features of the tale and make them live in all their fullness, leaving the rest in darkness. Both Dickens and Dumas mixed up a lot of rot and padding in their writing for feuilleton purposes, all of which goes overboard through my lee scuppers.... I know A Tale of Two Cities well, though I suppose I shall have to re-read it. It certainly lends itself to dramatic pemmicanisation.”
Pure Gold: Martin Gilbert’s “In Search of Churchill”
10
Jul
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
More than any of his nearly 90 works, "In Search of Churchill" is deeply personal. It is Sir Martin’s answer to all those critics over the years who accused him of being uncritical about a figure some have spent years denouncing. It is also, therefore, a self-defense manual for friends of Churchill: a smorgasbord of historical karate-chops.
Boris Resigns, Churchill Reminds: Constitutional Duty of Representatives
15
Jun
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
“The first duty of a Member of Parliament is to do what he thinks in his faithful and disinterested judgment is right and necessary for the honour and safety of Great Britain. His second duty is to his constituents.... It is only in the third place that his duty to the party organization or programme takes rank.” —WSC, 1955
Great Contemporaries: John Morley, Giant of Old
18
May
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
“Present party designations have become empty of all contents... Vastly extended State expenditure, vastly increased demands from the taxpayer who has to provide the money, social reform regardless of expense, cash exacted from the taxpayer already at his wits’ end—when were the problems of plus and minus more desperate?... We can only trust to the growth of responsibility; we may look to circumstances and events to teach their lesson.” —John Morley