From the opening pages of William Manchester’s The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932.
That is from volume one of a proposed three volume biography. Unfortunately Manchester died before completing the third volume. The third volume has now been published.
(HT: Infidel Tiger)
That short excerpt was some of the best writing I have come across in a while.
tgs
15 Nov 12 at 4:08 pm
You gotta love prose like that. 14 lines in the second last sentence. That was written to be read and enjoyed.
Andrew Reynolds
15 Nov 12 at 4:09 pm
We rarely see writing like that anymore, but worse is we don’t see people like that anymore.
harrys on the boat
15 Nov 12 at 4:22 pm
The making of the third volume is worthy of its own book.
Infidel tiger
15 Nov 12 at 4:34 pm
Remembered well by his countrymen, but perhaps not so well by us colonials.
My father who served in the RAAF in New Guinea in WW2 always referred to him as “that rotten old drunk”.
He was responsible for the shambles that was Gallipoli, and had no compunction in attempting to defend the realm with the last drop of Australian blood. Many of his actions as they applied to Australia when we were threatened can only be described as deceitful.
1735099
15 Nov 12 at 4:56 pm
Marvelous.
Abu Chowdah
15 Nov 12 at 4:57 pm
I don’t need to read that trilogy to know Churchill was a great man–yes he also was fat and strange but he was a “”lion” indeed!
Jazza
15 Nov 12 at 5:00 pm
Great choice in cigars too. Smoked one of his R&J’s the other night.
Abu Chowdah
15 Nov 12 at 5:04 pm
By the Lord Harry, don’t it make a chap proud to be an Englishman ! There is a time coming when yet another such figure will be called upon, but buggered if I can see him anywhere.
Amfortas
15 Nov 12 at 5:07 pm
This is the Great Man Theory on crack. Without the US, England would have been crushed like a cockroach – passionate Manichaen, sublime mood, intuitive genius and inflexible resolution nothwithstanding.
C.L.
15 Nov 12 at 5:15 pm
I’ve found two similar stories
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor_of_Mankind
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/God-Emperor_of_Mankind
.
15 Nov 12 at 5:19 pm
Yes, good stuff, but no victorious legion ever paraded through Persepolis, so perhaps his history is a bit suss really.
Still if you want to read good writing a certain Nobel Laureate described those events in his own words. Speaking of which, if you like that sort of thing the first few paras of the History of the English Speaking Peoples will suit you very well.
Pedro
15 Nov 12 at 5:37 pm
Yes, but let’s not diminish the heroism of the Brits in the years before and after the US did The Right Thing.
Abu Chowdah
15 Nov 12 at 5:38 pm
Without Churchill, England would have surrendered.
Sinclair Davidson
15 Nov 12 at 5:38 pm
Only if you’re being pedantic. Alexander’s Macedonian troops marched through/looted Persopolis before Alexander put it to the torch.
Cold-Hands
15 Nov 12 at 5:44 pm
I think you mean Britain.
I don’t want to start an argument but that’s not accurate.
Hitler cancelled the invasion of Britain due to the failure of Goering’s Luftwaffe to gain dominance of the air as in “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.
manalive
15 Nov 12 at 5:53 pm
Calling a legion a legion is hardly being pedantic!
Without the US I think the Ruskies would still have won the way and the Brits still would not have been invaded. But it would have been very very different.
Pedro
15 Nov 12 at 5:53 pm
You do realise this is the Cat?
Gab
15 Nov 12 at 5:58 pm
manalive – indeed but I was responding to CL.
Sinclair Davidson
15 Nov 12 at 5:58 pm
Still sooking numbers?
Churchill, as Lord of the Admiralty was responsible for the plan to take the Dardanelles. It was a great idea designed to end the stalemate on the Western Front. If it had worked the war could have been over a year or two earlier and who knows, maybe the world could have been spared communism?
Unfortunately the Generals implementing the plan were duffers and it failed. Note that Churchill did the honourable thing – resigned as Lord of the Admiralty, rejoined the army and deployed as a battalion commander on the Western Front.
jupes
15 Nov 12 at 6:02 pm
Actually no – up until the 1940s and 50s “England” was understood to stand for what we now call Britain.
I wonder where we would find such a man as Churchill if such were needed today?
God? Evil? National Destiny? Que?
Viva
15 Nov 12 at 6:04 pm
Many, many years ago, I read Manchester’s The Death of a President, his extremely detailed account of the Kennedy assassination. It was a very compelling read.
steve from brisbane
15 Nov 12 at 6:05 pm
1735099
“He was responsible for the shambles that was Gallipoli”
Because the strategy on the Western Front was going so well??
You know how much of a “side show” the attempt on the Ottomans was in the grand scheme of things?
A great idea, poorly executed.
thefrollickingmole
15 Nov 12 at 6:05 pm
Says who?
To a Scot or Welshman, ‘thems fighting words’ and always have been.
manalive
15 Nov 12 at 6:10 pm
“If it had worked the war could have been over a year or two earlier”
Good for the blokes on the Western Front but a disaster for the Middle Eastern countries who wanted to see the back of their Ottoman Turk rulers. They were driven out by the British including the 12 Australian Light Horse Regiments commanded by Chauvel.
The ALH entered Damascus in 1918.
Alfonso
15 Nov 12 at 6:26 pm
What happened to the Great in front of Britain?
Has it been dropped by the snivelling empire apologists?
Splatacrobat
15 Nov 12 at 6:29 pm
Ah, yes, Europe’s soft underbelly, a ‘great idea’ all right, so good he went back for seconds. Churchill was many things but grand military strategist was not one of them.
Remember also that serious thought was given to replacing him with Menzies during WWII.
Greg P.
15 Nov 12 at 6:33 pm
Bwaaa…..Britain hasn’t been Great since Victoria was a girl.
The welfare state will do that to you, guv.
Alfonso
15 Nov 12 at 6:37 pm
Alfonso.
The plan included the defeat of the Ottomans. Hence the invasion of Gallipoli.
The Light Horse could have been home a lot earlier.
jupes
15 Nov 12 at 6:38 pm
I must admit to being a WWII junkie.
What continues to amaze me is the astonishing personal experiences, bravery, endurance etc … of ordinary people in the affected nations caught up in those most terrible six or so years.
manalive
15 Nov 12 at 6:40 pm
“Light Horse could have been home a lot earlier.”
Well, no, Gallipoli was a failed campaign so if the Turks are to be defeated you have to start in Cairo and fight to Damascus.
Alfonso
15 Nov 12 at 6:40 pm
Well they got to see the back of the Ottomans so it looks like they averted a disaster…
jupes
15 Nov 12 at 6:41 pm
“looks like they averted a disaster…”
My point entirely.
Alfonso
15 Nov 12 at 6:42 pm
Yes it was.
However my post was about what could have happened if it was a success.
jupes
15 Nov 12 at 6:43 pm
Sure, coulda, woulda, the reality is different.
Alfonso
15 Nov 12 at 6:46 pm
Sorry, I will never speculate again.
jupes
15 Nov 12 at 6:47 pm
Speculate away, but expect incoming.
Alfonso
15 Nov 12 at 6:58 pm
Alfonso
You may be interested to know (trivia/nerd alert) the Turkish government still have the minelayer that wrecked Gallipoli as a floating museum.
If that plucky little boat hadnt been so incredibly successful the original plan (may) have worked, with landings and shelling much further north.
Probably the most devastating ship in history.
Nusret played a pivotal role in the Dardanelles Campaign, laying 26 mines in an unexpected position in February 1915 just prior to the ill-fated invasion which sank HMS Irresistible, HMS Ocean and the French battleship Bouvet, and left the British battle cruiser HMS Inflexible badly damaged
One pissant minelayer… incredible.
thefrollickingmole
15 Nov 12 at 7:15 pm
But who gives a shit what a bunch of whiny butt hurt subjugated unwashed Pongos and Taffs think? Those pricks always huff and puff.
Abu Chowdah
15 Nov 12 at 7:18 pm
…from people with comprehension deficit disorder.
jupes
15 Nov 12 at 7:28 pm
Indeed mole.
For the sake of a nail the shoe was lost, for the sake of a shoe the horse was lost…..etc.
Depression deepens….could Australia raise the 5 Divisions on the Western Front plus the 12 ALH Regiments of anything like that quality today?
I fear not.
Alfonso
15 Nov 12 at 7:36 pm
Don’t sulk jupes. It isn’t dignified.
Alfonso
15 Nov 12 at 7:36 pm
In 1965, the historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote,
“When the Oxford History of England was launched a generation ago, “England” was still an all-embracing word. It meant indiscriminately England and Wales; Great Britain; the United Kingdom; and even the British Empire. Foreigners used it as the name of a Great Power and indeed continue to do so. Bonar Law, by origin a Scotch Canadian, was not ashamed to describe himself as “Prime Minister of England” Now terms have become more rigorous. The use of “England” except for a geographic area brings protests, especially from the Scotch.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_people
Viva
15 Nov 12 at 7:39 pm
Nor is beclowning yourself.
jupes
15 Nov 12 at 7:40 pm
A Bex and a good lie down is indicated for jupes.
Alfonso
15 Nov 12 at 7:42 pm
The standard of insult is degenerating rapidly so you can have the last word Alfonso.
jupes
15 Nov 12 at 7:44 pm
You’ll lose, so a good decision.
Alfonso
15 Nov 12 at 7:45 pm
It’s like watching Statler and Waldorf at the Cat.
Gab
15 Nov 12 at 7:45 pm
Stop acting like a pair of pouves.
Abu Chowdah
15 Nov 12 at 7:48 pm
Even if the Luftwaffe had been successful, transporting a hundred thousand troops across the Channel in towed Rhine barges was never going to work.
lotocoti
15 Nov 12 at 7:53 pm
Thanks Abu, do the other cheek, I needed that.
“failure of Goering’s Luftwaffe to gain dominance of the air”
Hitler at a critical point switched the attack from airfields to cities, after the cunning “accidental” Bomber Command attack on a Germany city. Played him like violin. Psychologists involved, must be. The airfields survived the rest is history.
Alfonso
15 Nov 12 at 8:03 pm
I don’t think any Scot (for instance) cares what A. J. P. Taylor wrote — an otherwise excellent historian of course.
Until the last 100 years or so, no indigenous Welshman or Scot spoke English — the Welsh language is P-Celtic and the highland Scots is Q-Celtic, both quite separate from English which is a teutonic language and to quote Samuel Johnson “languages are the pedigree of nations”.
As with other national cultures world-wide, the adoption of the English language does not wipe out their national identity.
manalive
15 Nov 12 at 8:23 pm
Welcome, Alfonso.
Abu Chowdah
15 Nov 12 at 8:29 pm
To also quote Johnson, “The finest prospect a Scotsman ever sees is the road to London.”
That’s why all those whiny bastards are working in the BBC, the SAS, and the British Labour party and union movement. Verily, no whiner like a Scottish ingrate.
Abu Chowdah
15 Nov 12 at 8:32 pm
LOL.
manalive
15 Nov 12 at 8:45 pm
Laugh Our Arses Off, verily.
Abu Chowdah
15 Nov 12 at 8:52 pm
And verily I believe it. Ought be used much more than it is.
Pickles
15 Nov 12 at 9:04 pm
Waasn’t Churchill’s mum American? That means they get at least a half share in his glory…..
JakartaJaap
15 Nov 12 at 9:46 pm
It is pedantry to ignore the use of “legion” as a poetic or figurative descriptor for a body of armed troops. I suppose you’d tick off Byron for his
because Sennacherib didn’t have ‘cohorts’!
Cold-Hands
15 Nov 12 at 9:56 pm
Yep
Pedro
15 Nov 12 at 10:07 pm
I’m with sinc. Without Churchill we’d be conducting this argument in German.
DrBeauGan
15 Nov 12 at 10:35 pm
Agreed, to a certain extent. But the same can be said about Stalin.
Stalingrad was very close. If Paulus had won, then the Russians east of the Urals would have been cut off from European supplies, except via the north which is very fickle. With the east won the Nazis would easilly have invaded the UK in 1943, before the Yankees got their act together.
There has been a lot of talk about Alamein as a turning point. With no disrepect to those who fought there – it was an inflection point that denied the Nazis the Black Sea – Stalingrad was the real turning point of WW2.
Lazlo
15 Nov 12 at 10:47 pm
I hate C W Bean and A J P Taylor. They wouldn’t have made a quid as a fiction writer.
.
15 Nov 12 at 10:50 pm
The man to really be grateful for, not nervous Montgomery by 1944, not brash and lucky Patton, not sensible Eisenhower, but Zhukov…
Lazlo
15 Nov 12 at 10:57 pm
“Stalingrad was the real turning point of WW2″‘.
Maybe for Russia, but not pivotal in the West.
Had the German Divisions on the Eastern Front been deployed to the French Coast you think it might have been decisive re D Day?
Alas no, if you don’t count the complete destruction of German infra structure and selected cities by air, the complete destruction of the Luftwaffe, perhaps, ….WW2 was the first modern lesson…without air superiority you are finished.
Just takes longer.
And of course too much nonsense from a resisting Germany meant A bomb attention.
Stalingrad? More relevant to Russian peasants.
Alfonso
15 Nov 12 at 11:09 pm
Yes, an estimated 25 million of them. It was the eastern front that bled Nazi Germany dry. The western front was a pimple.
Lazlo
15 Nov 12 at 11:12 pm
They had been liquidated by D Day, by the Russians..
Lazlo
15 Nov 12 at 11:14 pm
“Great Britain” is a geographic term for the island that has on it the bulk of the countries of England, Scotland and Wales. Together with several other islands off their shores and the provinces of Northern Ireland, they form the political entity of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The British Isles is all of the islands off the north-west coast of France, possibly not including the islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Sark and …
Sod it. Where’s a beer? Not a bloody lager.
Andrew Reynolds
15 Nov 12 at 11:23 pm
I had to explain to number 2 son (12) that there is an island called Ireland with two political entities. One called Northern island that is part of the UK and one called the Republic of Ireland. Took some time but he got it in the end.
Sinclair Davidson
15 Nov 12 at 11:29 pm
Is that where the term “mind your P’s and Q’s” comes from?
Splatacrobat
15 Nov 12 at 11:30 pm
My grandfather explained the same to me. He said Northern Ireland are the bloody Irish and the other part they are the bog Irish.
Splatacrobat
15 Nov 12 at 11:41 pm
With what?
How do you think a horse drawn, continental army was going to cross The Channel?
On Strength Through Joy cruise ships?
lotocoti
16 Nov 12 at 12:08 am
The great in GB refers to the area/ total land mass. Nothing to do with glory, though for Churchill it would have had that meaning as well. Brittany is the smaller portion.
daggers
16 Nov 12 at 12:10 am
It is strange he was not even elected you know. But on the other hand, he was a typical statesman in a time of crisis. This is something what gave him eternal pride.
I don´t think Churchill would be able to succeed in fighting the current global economic crisis. He was a leader of desperate and devoted people, not a democratic politician who likes to argue in the parliament.
Anyway, I recommend his books to anyone who wants a fresh and intelligent analysis of the Britain´s history.
John B.
16 Nov 12 at 12:17 am
Wasn’t always the case. In the late 19th and early 20th Century the finest capitalists and industrialists mankind has and ever will know were Scotsman.
Of course Scotland is now a putrid toilet much reminiscent of the boghole in Trainspotting, its inhabitants all welfare dependent, scabies ridden pieces of shit who you’d sooner shoot than let near your manor.
Infidel Tiger
16 Nov 12 at 12:35 am
Yes, as a result of the industrial revolution. I never said Scots were dumb or averse to seizing opportunities to prosper – the opposite, in fact.
Still a bunch of insufferable ingrates.
Abu Chowdah
16 Nov 12 at 1:03 am
Force of numbers and arms..
Lazlo
16 Nov 12 at 1:15 am
Concentrate Lazlo….”Had the ..”
The war in the west was won by air….the Russians were irrelevant.
Alfonso
16 Nov 12 at 1:18 am
The para on the rescue of the troops from Dunkirk made me cry – “English fathers sailiing to rescue England’s exhausted, bleeding sons” – what a beautiful, heartrending image. A writer who loves his country and is not afraid to admire a great leader – just how rare that is in writing these days.
Cath mother of four sons
16 Nov 12 at 10:38 am
Number, for a guy posing as a military man, you have a poor grasp of military history, and you should read more.
And if you were ever officer material, the first thing you would have learnt would have been the meaning of responsibility.
Jannie
16 Nov 12 at 10:58 am
Sea Lion was abandoned for more than the RAF only just repelling the Luftwaffe.
The Royal Navy would of had to be defeated first as well. The home defences the British had prepared were utterly brutal. The attack would have been repelled with unacceptable casualties and then the continent would have been ripe for invasion – whereas the British had saved around 26 divisions at Dunkirk which could be redeployed.
.
16 Nov 12 at 11:06 am
Dot, Lazlo doesn’t appear to understand that triumph of the will is no substitute for maritime capability.
lotocoti
16 Nov 12 at 11:52 am
Too much.
steve from brisbane
16 Nov 12 at 12:00 pm
The more I read, the more I understand Scotland is suffering from the pussification of their society.
I’ve been reading a bit about the Great Northern War and was referred by a Polish friend onto this amazing book – With Fire and Sword – where you read how the great Swedish army was full of hard Scottish warriors.
A lad born in Scotland 200 years ago who did not have 2 parents would’ve gone to the US, India or Russia and made a man of themself.
What will a lad born today in Scotland on who does not have 2 parents do?
Token
16 Nov 12 at 12:02 pm
Good times! Good times! – Says Shitfer.
.
16 Nov 12 at 12:02 pm
Just one of the many lies endlessly peddled by the Australian Left in their attempts to redefine the culture.
Consider the fact Numbers tells us regularly he is a teacher/principal of a school, yet he is so unbelievably ignorant of so much.
Token
16 Nov 12 at 12:08 pm
Numbers also reckons Stalin wasn’t a communist.
.
16 Nov 12 at 12:19 pm
Viva that was often the perspective of some non Britons, I recall for eg in 1900 the Boers thought the Irish were ‘English’. But the Irish (and Scots and Welsh) were never of that view.
Jannie
16 Nov 12 at 12:55 pm