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Winston S. Churchill
The Churchill Project - Hillsdale College > Winston S. Churchill
Churchill’s Travels: Fifty-six Countries, Ninety Years
22
Apr
2024
1
By PER ERIKSSON
Churchill, a grand traveler, visited at least fifty-six countries. Here are the dates of first visits and what he did and said about each. We omit places where we cannot confirm he went ashore, such as Port Said, Egypt en route India in 1896. If his remarks were addressed to anyone in particular, they are identified. The presentation is chronological by year or alphabetical within the same year. An appendix lists countries alphabetically.
“The World Crisis” (7): The “Soul-Stirring Frenzy” of Verdun
05
Apr
2024
By JOSEPH STURDY
For Churchill, Verdun was a lesson on what to avoid: protracted trench warfare and slaughter in exchange for a few yards of territory. Worse was to come, at the Somme and Passchendaele. Verdun typified the horrors ahead. It was also a proving ground for terrible new technologies like machine guns, poison gas, anti-aircraft guns and flamethrowers. All these were features of a war Churchill had feared and tried to stop.
Great Contemporaries: Edmund Murray, Churchill’s Ubiquitous Bodyguard
19
Mar
2024
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
“The Churchill I knew was the epitome of all that was ever good and fine in our island race and he was always proud of his American heritage. Always his aim was to make Britain great, and to join all European countries in peace and freedom.... We all have a job to do and indeed the tools to do it are in your hands. Vivre a jamais dans l’esprit des gens, n’est-ce pas l’immortalite? There is the heritage he left us, our raison d’etre. May we all be worthy of his trust.”
The Lion and the Mouse: Did Churchill Desecrate Rubens?
14
Mar
2024
By THE CHURCHILL PROJECT
Did the Prime Minister defile a Rubens? Technically it was possible, especially if Churchill used tempera. But official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert was doubtful: “This story, charming though it is, and often retold, may be typical of (dare I say it?) the wilder shores of oral evidence. Churchill was surely too great an art lover to ‘touch up’ a Rubens.”
Churchill in Film and Video: Part 2, Documentary Productions
12
Mar
2024
1
By GWEN THOMPSON, DAVE TURRELL AND RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Part 1 of “Churchill in Film and Video” comprised dramatizations—fiction based on Churchill’s life. Part 2 presents documentary productions. Both compilations constitute a work on progress, subject to amendment and addition. Comments or corrections are most welcome.
We have linked films available on the Internet. For others, check streaming video suppliers such as Netflix.
Churchill in Film and Video: Part 1, Dramatizations
23
Feb
2024
1
By GWEN THOMPSON, DAVE TURRELL, AND RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Churchill bio-films began well and generally of high quality for decades. Four of the all-time classics appeared early: “Young Winston” (1972), “The Wilderness Years” “The Gathering Storm” and “Jennie” (1974), and “The Wilderness Years” (1981). A long, mixed spell ensued, though there were many honorable mentions. In 2018, Garry Oldman starred in another superb production, “Darkest Hour,” proving that there is hope yet.
Pericles and Churchill: Matching Leadership, Millennia Apart
15
Feb
2024
By JUSTIN D. LYONS
Pericles sought to preserve Athens, its glory, power and reputation. Churchill demanded struggle not only for Britain, but for the very meaning of Britain—something larger than its borders, more powerful than its military strength and, ultimately more important than its survival: liberty. Churchill’s war was a battle for the freedom of man, to be defended first at home and then upon whatever far-flung fields the conflict would rage.
“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 World Crisis” (2): The Marne and Its Meaning
29
Jan
2024
By GWEN THOMPSON
“One must suppose upon the whole that the Marne was the greatest battle ever fought in the world,” Winston Churchill wrote in 1931. Its scale, he added, “far exceeded anything that has ever happened.” It actually “decided the World War,” for “never after the Marne had Germany a chance of absolute triumph.”
Writers and Writing: Churchill to the Authors’ Club
22
Jan
2024
By WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
“Someone—I forget who—has said: ‘Words are the only things which last forever.’ That is, to my mind, always a wonderful thought. The most durable structures raised in stone by the strength of man, the mightiest monuments of his power, crumble into dust, while the words endure. And, leaping across the gulf of three thousand years, they light the world for us today.”
Churchill’s classic, “The River War” Returns to Print
08
Jan
2024
By LARRY P. ARNN
The book is a portent of what Churchill will become and achieve. It demonstrates two things about him, the first his incessant ambition. Young British officers used every artifice to get sent to a war, any war. Churchill did the same, but when he was emphatically refused, he went anyway and found a job, a fighting job, when he got there. The second thing demonstrated about Churchill in this book is his power to see beyond the battlefield to something more strategic and political: the meaning of the battle to the way of life and the way of government of the peoples involved.
Great Contemporaries: George Marshall and America at War (2)
05
Jan
2024
1
By RAYMOND A. CALLAHAN
Despite sharp wartime differences, the British never forgot George Marshall. At the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, as he entered Westminster Abbey representing the United States, the vast congregation stood as a mark of respect. When he was hospitalized and dying in 1959, Churchill (by then “Sir Winston”), on a visit to Washington, accompanied President Eisenhower to see him. He left Walter Reed Medical Center with tears in his eyes.