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“The World Crisis” (1): Exploring Churchill’s Masterwork
The World Crisis Hillsdale Dialogues
The Hillsdale Dialogues are weekly broadcasts of discussions between Hillsdale College President Larry P. Arnn and radio host Hugh Hewitt. In 2023 they began extended discussion of Churchill’s The World Crisis: his outstanding memoir of the First World War.
Upon publication in 1923, the first two volumes drew close attention. Churchill’s colleague Arthur Balfour (who quite admired it) referred to “Winston’s magnificent autobiography, disguised as a history of the universe.” A century later, Dr. Arnn considers it one of Churchill’s best works, vying with Marlborough and The Second World War for its lyrical style and powerful message. The first paragraph of the preface astonished him with the somber warning Churchill conveyed.
Mr. Hewitt, for his part, considers The World Crisis a baleful portent of a world not unfamiliar now. He asks, does reading this great work make you pessimistic today? “No,” replies Dr. Arnn. “It’s a glorious story. Churchill always expected war to be hell. And he always expected to prevail. One must reason about that of course—but one must cultivate the attitude.”
What follows is a written accompaniment by Hillsdale students and others to these important Dialogues, which are worth the listening. Additional articles appear as the Dialogues progress. To search for all published essays to date, click here.
Audio: The World Crisis Dialogues 1-13
Introduction
“The Vials of Wrath”
“Milestones to Armageddon”
“The Crisis at Agadir”
“Admirals All”
“The German Navy Law”
“The Romance of Design”
“The North Sea Front”
“Ireland and the European Balance”
“The Crisis”
“The Mobilization of the Navy”
“War: The Passage of the Army”
“The Battle in France”
Availability
Many connoisseurs of Churchill and the Churchill style, who found him through The Second World War or A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, soon learned of his earlier, multi-volume memoir of the First World War. Published 1923-31 by Thornton Butterworth, Scribners and Macmillan of Toronto, it was an immediate best-seller.
Abridgments arrived as early as 1931, but for many years a complete set was obtainable only in the early editions. (The 1963-64 Scribners illustrated edition had a small press run and was harder to find than the originals.) In 1991, this writer persuaded the Easton Press to issue a complete edition with the postwar Scribners illustrations. Later, booksellers offered an inexpensive complete text by combining the unabridged 1939 Odhams two-volume edition with two volumes (from the Collected Works) Odhams did not publish: The Aftermath and The Eastern Front.
Today, availability is much better, and prices considerably lower. Bloomsbury publishes the six books as paperbacks, while Rosetta offers e-books. See Amazon.com. For earlier editions, search Bookfinder.
The volumes
Though commonly considered a six-volume work, The World Crisis is actually five volumes in six books: the middle two volumes, subtitled 1916-1918, were sold as a pair, slipcased together in the USA and Canada. The fastidious refer to them as “Volumes 3a and 3b.” Thus the last two volumes, The Aftermath and The Eastern Front, are correctly Volumes 4 and 5 respectively.
This causes confusion, since English editions from Volume 2 on carried sequential stars on their spines. The two 1916-1918 books have three and four stars, The Aftermath five and The Eastern Front six. Scribners added to the muddle by labeling the 1916-1918 volumes “Volume I” and “Volume II.” Later Scribners simply referred to Volumes 1-6. Nevertheless, the most accurate description is “5-in-6.”
The first volume begins with the great power rivalries that led to the war and the opening campaigns. Volume 2, 1915, is the most personal, largely devoted to Churchill’s failed efforts to break the deadlock in Europe by forcing the Dardanelles, knocking Turkey out of the war and succoring the Russians. Volume 3, 1916-1918 (two parts) covers the carnage on the Western Front, the German victory over Russia, Germany’s near-victory over the Allies in 1918, and the final, exhausted end of the war. The Aftermath, Volume IV, chronicles the ten years after victory, including the Irish Treaty. Volume V, The Eastern Front, recounts the titanic battles between Russia and the German-Austrian armies. Western chroniclers of the war generally ignored this aspect.
It is important to note two major additions not in the originals. In 1931 for a one-volume abridgment, Churchill added extensive commentary on the Battle of the Marne (1914) and Lord Fisher’s resignation (1915). Be sure to read these in 1931 abridged one-volume edition, or the unabridged 1939 Odhams two-volume edition (both covering 1911-18 only), and modern editions (such as the Kindle e-book) which incorporate these vital topics.
The World Crisis: An Appreciation
Asked to recommend a “big work” by Churchill, many scholars name The World Crisis. The author is personal, writing to defend his role in affairs. But one of his endearing characteristics was his unabashed honesty: Churchill learned from his mistakes and was forthright in admitting them. He stoutly defended the personal account. He declared it was “not history, but a contribution to history.” Later, of The Second World War, he would say similarly, “This is not history; this is my case.”
It is hard to think of another 20th Century statesman who not only spent most of the two World Wars in high office and was able to write about them in beautiful English. Even those who do not usually read war books thrill to Churchill’s account of the awful, unfolding scene.
“Unknown masterpiece”
Algis Valiunas’s Churchill’s Military Histories: A Rhetorical Study is not as well-known as it should be. It is less an evaluation of Churchill’s military histories than a judgment of his rhetoric. “Each of Churchill’s histories must be considered in the peculiar light it gives off,” he writes. “The theme is always war, as regarded by a writer with an aristocratic turn of mind in democratic times.”
To Valiunas, The World Crisis was Churchill’s “unknown masterpiece…. [T]he reasons for its greatness are the reasons for its obscurity.” It is a polemic against modern war, which Churchill understood for the grisly horror it was. In April 1991 in The American Spectator, Valiunas wrote:
Carnage on an unprecedented scale was the salient feature of the First World War, and the writing on that carnage is largely responsible for the modern disgust not only with war but also with politics in general. Churchill knew everything about war’s horror that others knew, but he rejected their conclusions. For him, the war did not mean the death of politics as previously known. In examining the political and military failures that were responsible for the slaughter, and in suggesting how prudence might have averted disaster, Churchill reasserted the dignity of the political life, which the war had made men regard as ignominious, unnatural, and mad….
The virtues that Churchill honors as preeminent are, awfully, those of the men who were smashed in the general wreckage. It is above all to demonstrate how the chronic infirmity of political and military command made them suffer as they did that Churchill writes this history.
“Are you quite sure?”
A grand passage from Volume 1 was a favorite of the late General Colin Powell, who asked for its attribution. Churchill is describing the Agadir Crisis of 1911, when, amid calm, diplomatic messages, Germany and France almost went to war. Agadir was a stark warning not lost on Britain, and propelled Churchill to the Admiralty. It summarizes General Powell’s prudence about resort to arms, which he shared with Churchill:
They sound so very cautious and correct, these deadly words. Soft, quiet voices purring, courteous, grave, exactly-measured phrases in large peaceful rooms. But with less warning cannons had opened fire and nations had been struck down by this same Germany. So now the Admiralty wireless whispers through the ether to the tall masts of ships, and captains pace their decks absorbed in thought. It is nothing…. It is too foolish, too fantastic to be thought of in the twentieth century.
Or is it fire and murder leaping out of the darkness at our throats, torpedoes ripping the bellies of half-awakened ships, a sunrise on a vanished naval supremacy, and an island well-guarded hitherto, at last defenceless? No, it is nothing. No one would do such things. Civilization has climbed above such perils. The interdependence of nations in trade and traffic, the sense of public law, the Hague Convention, Liberal principles, the Labour Party, high finance, Christian charity, common sense have rendered such nightmares impossible. Are you quite sure? It would be a pity to be wrong. Such a mistake could only be made once—once for all.
“The Vials of Wrath”
In the first Hillsdale dialogue on The World Crisis Dr. Arnn quotes Churchill’s arresting first chapter, “The Vials of Wrath.” Here, he realized on his first encounter, was something out of the ordinary, the setting of a stage by a great writer. This quotation is the best possible argument for reading The World Crisis:
It was the custom in the palmy days of Queen Victoria for statesmen to expatiate upon the glories of the British Empire, and to rejoice in that protecting Providence which had preserved us through so many dangers and brought us at length into a secure and prosperous age. Little did they know that the worst perils had still to be encountered and that the greatest triumphs were yet to be won….
Three separate times in three different centuries had the British people rescued Europe from a military domination…. Always at the outset the strength of the enemy had seemed overwhelming, always the struggle had been prolonged through many years and across awful hazards, always the victory had at last been won: and the last of all the victories had been the greatest of all, gained after the most ruinous struggle and over the most formidable foe….
It seemed inconceivable that the same series of tremendous events through which since the days of Queen Elizabeth we had three times made our way successfully, should be repeated a fourth time and on an immeasurably larger scale. Yet that is what has happened, and what we have lived to see.
* * * * *
The Great War through which we have passed differed from all ancient wars in the immense power of the combatants and their fearful agencies of destruction, and from all modern wars in the utter ruthlessness with which it was fought. All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them…..
Every outrage against humanity or international law was repaid by reprisals often on a greater scale and of longer duration. No truce or parley mitigated the strife of the armies. The wounded died between the lines: the dead mouldered into the soil. Merchant ships and neutral ships and hospital ships were sunk on the seas and all on board left to their fate, or killed as they swam. Every effort was made to starve whole nations into submission without regard to age or sex. Cities and monuments were smashed by artillery. Bombs from the air were cast down indiscriminately. Poison gas in many forms stifled or seared the soldiers. Liquid fire was projected upon their bodies. Men fell from the air in flames, or were smothered, often slowly, in the dark recesses of the sea. The fighting strength of armies was limited only by the manhood of their countries.
Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa became one vast battlefield on which after years of struggle not armies but nations broke and ran. When all was over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and these were of doubtful utility.
Continued in The World Crisis (2)
I just read through The World Crisis. The First World War is much more understandable, if you have a good timeline or outline of events. I typed out such a document for my own use. Others may find it useful. It can be found here. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of all the dates as they vary from source to source. (The dates in Churchill’s books are the most questionable.)
President Arnn was saying that America is a bottom up country when Hugh interrupted him to get back to The World Crisis. I’m would like to hear more on what America being a bottom up country means.
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Dr. Arnn thanks you for your question and replies: “1) The authority to govern comes from the governed. 2) Administration of government and law is accomplished as near as possible to, and as nearest possible by, the governed. 3) Laws are few and simple to read. 4) Most of the things necessary to society are done locally and many privately. Raising children is an example.”