Sir Winston Churchill

[Ausgirl]

Thanks, Robert.

[Mayerling]

Jeff, interesting to speculate whether Mussolini could have gone on after the war if, like Franco, he had remained neutral.

Yes it is an interesting point Robert. Up to 1941 Americans were still traveling and enjoying Italy as a vacation spot. Mussolini really did not have any quarrel with us - except he got angry about FDR's reaction to his declaring war on France after it surrendered and seizing some territory on the Riviera ("The hand that plunged the knife into the back of his neighbor.").

Actually he probably could have survived the end of the war had he remained neutral - except his position (geographically) was not the same as Franco's. Mussolini was a next door neighbor of Hitler because Italy is south of the Greater Germany (which included Austria) that Hitler had created by 1938. Had Austria managed to retain it's independence through World War II, Mussolini might have had a pro-Nazi neutrality until Hitler began losing the war. Franco did exactly that, being very friendly to the regime that helped put him in power. But Spain was separate from Germany by France (yes , by the Vichy semi-puppet state). For Germany to reach Spain required the permission of Vichy, and while it is doubtful that Petain and Laval would have refused, it meant delays for Hitler's war machine - and then the mountains between Spain and France would have been a problem as well.

In 1943 Hitler met with Franco for what proved to be the most grueling and frustrating meeting Hitler ever held with any head of state. Other heads of state had been frightened by a head-on-head meeting with the raging monster (Prime Minister Hacha of the rump Czechoslovakia actually had a mild heart attack as a result in Marcy 1939). But Franco was known as the coolest tempered man in power at that time. Hitler went through every argument to get Franco's Spanish forces into the war to somehow threaten the North African position of the Allies (a bit late in the day though) and to attack Gibraltar.

Franco was fully aware that after the bloody civil war of the 1930s Spain was in no condition to do anything like this. Hitler apparently pulled out all stops, but got no where with El Jefe. Instead, at the end of the meeting Hitler was told by Franco to keep up the good fight against those Commies in Russian, and that if any Spaniard wished to volunteer to fight with the Nazis he wouldn't stop them (and he didn't - many fascists in Spain who disliked Franco for not joining the Nazis, and wanted Franco out of power, did precisely that, and got killed: thus removing right wing threats to El Jefe's position).

Mussolini was in no position to do that and (figuratively) tweak Hitler's nose like Franco did. Moreover, after 1941 Italy was increasingly dependant on German trade in it's economy (Spain wasn't). Finally, due to his own ego, Mussolini would not have deserted Hitler - Hitler highly respected Mussolini as his role model of a right wing dictator. Interestingly Hitler had little use (even before the War) for the rest of the Italian population. It was Mussolini's death at the hands of the partisans in April 1945 that convinced Hitler not to attempt to escape from Berlin but commit suicide.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Hi Ausgirl

The British might conceivably have been able to hold out against Hitler, but we certainly couldn't have toppled him. For that, we needed Germany to be at war against the Soviet Union and the USA. Happily for us, Hitler obligingly delivered both requirements.

He knew nothing about the Soviet Union, its terrain, its climate or its people. He paid zero attention to political preparation, taking no steps to try to exploit nationalist sentiment within its constituent republics. His policy was one of blanket brutality. He threw men away, ignoring the advice of his Generals whose opinions he despised on account of his triumph over France in the teeth of their misgivings. He underestimated the fighting spirit of the soviet troops, convinced that their 'racial inferiority' would present him with an easy victory. He came to see the whole theatre as a battle of will-power. He refused to make strategic retreats. And when the final defeat came, large quantities of troops were scattered round the periphery of his empire, instead of concentrated in the centre where they were needed.

Re America, he himself declared war. We will never know if the Americans would have ignored Germany and concentrated solely on Japan. Hitler made the decision for them. If he thought that the Japanese would reciprocate by attacking the USSR, he was very quickly disillusioned.

Yes, he had quite a good first two years, but from mid 1941 his fate was sealed.

I found (on You Tube) lectures from the U.S. Army War College and one dealt with the Eastern Front War. It turns out that both sides fought very bloodily, with Russian tactics (even Zhukov's, with Stalin's blessings) going to the tendency, "never stop attacking". It was the French Plan 17 of World War I gone loopy because Russian happened to have far more people for building up armies than Germany did.

But the lectures pointed out an interesting little formula. The failure of Hitler's Wehrmacht to take Moscow in December 1941 showed he could be stopped. The defeat at Stalingrad showed he could be defeated - but it was not clear how badly defeated. It was the tank disaster at Kursk that showed he could be destroyed - and if one studies that battle in detail, it really was a closer fight than most people are aware of (literally tanks firing at each other one on one).

Hitler's blindness towards the courage, resourcefulness, and character of other nationalities was notorious. He belittled the Communists Russians, dismissing Slavs as dull-witted two legged animals, good for future slave labor. He felt the government was a haven for Jews (not totally true - Stalin did not like Jews either). He thought the United States a mongrel race, hardly worthy of consideration as it was degenerative in it's make-up and an ocean away. The French he felt were frivolous fools and incapable of more than greed. Except for Mussolini he felt the Italians were just useful as cannon fodder. And, despite the alliance with Japan, he disliked being connected to a non-Caucasian group. In fact, in 1942, upon hearing of the Japanese success in capturing Singapore, he told his intimates he was sorry he was at war with Britain, as he would have loved assisting them in retaking their colony.

But these national slanders were common for Germans generally speaking in both World Wars. When that fool Zimmermann sent his telegram to Mexico about restoring lost territories in the U.S. to Mexico again, the Germans (at the time) regarded Zimmermann as one of their leading diplomatic experts on the United States. Why? Barbara Tuchman points out in her "The Zimmermann Telegram" that the gentleman had spent a big four days criss-crossing the U.S. in the 1890s by train from San Francisco to New York City. He didn't stop off anywhere or spend much time in the two cities, but just four days. If in World War II there were plenty of nasty propaganda cartoons against the Allies or the Jews or the Slavs or whatever, in World War I there had been just as nasty a set of propaganda cartoons against the Entente members and others (the one difference: Japan allied itself against the Germans - cartoons in Germany from 1914-1918 showed Japanese as monkeys).

Of course the Americans, Russians, British, and Japanese also showed short sightedness. A general lack of respect for the Asians helped the Americans and European colonial powers to underestimate Japan's muscle in the 1930s, paving the way for all those victories in 1941-43. Italy did try to maintain a degree of military vigor, but it's failure to be as able as Germany or Japan to do so, plus the posturing of Il Duce, made it into an international joke (which unfortunately still resounds a bit - don't forget these people are the descendants of the Romans and Etruscans, highly developed warriors). The failure of France would leave an unpleasant taste to her three wartime allies that still resounds too. Had Britain or the United States been as badly divided politically as France was in 1940 we might have been easy to defeat as well. And until the Nazis were a few hundred miles within Russian territory in 1941 Stalin could not believe that Non-Aggression Pact was being violated - keep in mind, part of the Non-Aggression Pact allowed him to reclaim part of Poland and the three Baltic Republics. The reclamation of his portion of Poland led to the Katyn Forest Massacre of Polish civilian, military, and cultural leaders.

Nobody in power could escape racist feelings towards the common peoples of the earth that were not of their nation states. And within those nation states there were levels of racist feelings towards minorities. The only reason that the antics of Hitler and the Japanese were worse than the other was because these attitudes were turned into serious policies, resulting in death camps, death prison ships, death marches - anything to destroy what the Nazis or the Japanese militarists considered vermin. That the U.S. also set up the camps for Japanese - American citizens was pretty bad too, except we never intended to exterminate any of them.

Jeff

[Robert]

Hi Jeff

Yes, Hitler does seem to have had a genuine fondness for Mussolini. Maybe Mussolini's example had given him hope through the 1920s that he really would be able to seize power one day. For whatever reason, he seems to have stood by his promise to stick to Mussolini through thick and thin. Mussolini, the man who so wanted to be hero-worshipped, was undone by the hero-worship of a non-Italian.

The strange thing is that although Hitler overestimated Mussolini, he also seems to have overestimated Italian strength. His anxiety at the time of the Anschluss concerning Mussolini seems rather silly today. Mussolini did nothing. Mussolini could do nothing. Again, he sent Mussolini a note asking him when he could be ready for war. Mussolini had to send back a note detailing all the equipment he would need, carefully making sure that it was beyond Hitler's ability to supply.

I suppose everyone underestimated the soviets - apart from Japan, who'd had a border encounter with them where they had come off worst. The Stalinist army purges seemed to have had unfortunate results for the soviet performance in Finland, and the USSR seemed to be a lame duck. I think that Hitler's personality made a difference in what followed - in WW1 Lenin ceded huge chunks of territory to the Germans in order to preserve Bolshevik rule. In WW2, there'd have been no point whatsoever in Stalin's doing the same - if you're going to die, you might as well take someone with you. Hitler inspired the kind of desperation where men were stationed behind soviet lines with orders to shoot anyone who retreated.

Re national prejudices : I think the historian AJP Taylor once detected anti-slavism in Karl Marx, but I cannot now remember the details.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill.

The right man in the right place at the right time.

The only commoner to be accorded a state funeral.

Oh that Britain could summon a statesman of such nerve and sinew today.

Regards,

Simon

[Robert]

Hi Simon

Maybe people like that don't actually have the nerve and sinew until they find themselves in the chair. Cometh the hour, cometh the man - but first, cometh the hour.

[Mayerling]

Hi Robert,

That is true - sometimes the hour finds the man. Witness the remarkable rise to the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, coming after eight years of buffoonery in time to handle the secession and Civil War. And sometimes the job and the circumstances of it's devolving on the man makes the man.

Chester Alan Arthur is not among our greatest Presidents. He was connected to an unfortunate scandal in the 1870s that resulted on his being removed from his post as Collector of the Port of New York (an extremely important post - most of the funds for the U.S. Treasury at that time came from our import taxes). Arthur was the right hand man for Senator Roscoe Conkling, the boss of the Republican Party in New York State and an extremely arrogant boss at that. Due to political considerations Arthur was made the Vice Presidential candidate in 1880 by the Republicans. The Vice Presidency was not highly thought of by most people, and yet Arthur was proud to be considered for it (Conkling thought he should have rejected it). When Garfield was shot, his assassin Guiteau labelled himself a "Stalwart of the Stalwarts" and proclaimed "Now Arthur is President!!" Arthur and Conkling were the head of the Stalwart wing of the Republican Party, and at odds (since the start of the Garfield administration) with the President. It horrified Arthur to be seen by many as a conspirator with Guiteau. He refused to take over the government while his chief was trying to recover - he did not want to look like an ambitious usurper. When poor Garfield died (really due to medical bungling) two and a half months later, Arthur then was sworn in. Frequently people were heard to say, "Good God, Chet Arthur as President!"

He fooled them - he turned out to be far better as President than people expected. Former President Hayes had been the one who removed Arthur in 1877 from the Customs House post. After watching how Arthur strove to push reform and honest government he publicly apologized for doing him an injustice. Mark Twain would write that he, like most Americans, could hardly expect how the Presidency could have been better run than by Arthur.
He had the White House (rather stodgy looking) redecorated by Louis Comfort Tiffany. He started a serious upgrading and revamping of the old navy with new steel hulled ships. He vetoed a bill to curb Chinese immigration. He was the first U.S. President to visit the first American national park - Yellowstone. He saw not only the full and fair prosecution of Guiteau (our only really well tried Presidential assassin - Czolgosz had an eight hour trial, Guiteau three months) and various high ranking Republicans in what was called the "Star Routes" Post Office Scandal. He broke with Conkling. And he helped push (as a monument to Garfield's martyrdom, the Pendleton Civil Service Act. Most of this is not as impressive as what Lincoln or FDR did, but for that time it is impressive.
Although many wished him to seriously seek a term of his own, Arthur only allowed his name in the convention in 1884 - he knew he was going to die soon of Bright's Disease, so he did not wish to put the country through a second Presidential death in office. He left well respected, and died in 1886.
Of the Presidents who served less than one full four year term, Arthur is second to John Fitzgerald Kennedy as effective.

Churchill had far more experiences in important Government posts than Arthur or Lincoln (Lincoln served in the Illinois legislature and had one two year term in Congress; Arthur only got elected once - the Vice Presidency).
Churchill (like Lincoln) was the person to truly handle the war effort (technically alone for nearly a year) against Hitler's juggernaut. It remains a remarkable historical moment for which his countrymen should be proud.

However, he served that second ministry from 1950 to 1955, and while he did the best he could he suffered a serious stroke during this period but refused to step down (had he done so Anthony Eden would have been Prime Minister earlier). There have been poles of historians about the modern Prime Ministers of Britain since 1945 (just as the war ended). Atlee is the one in the number one spot (and he only served one ministry -but five years of one, and he set up the modern socialist welfare state). MacMillan and Thatcher and Wilson are the ones who get high ranks - Churchill (regarding his second ministry) is in the middle. Poor Eden - who arrived too old and too late - is at the bottom with Alec Douglas - Home; in Eden's case due to the Suez mess, and with Douglas - Home because he could not repair the Tories after the Profumo Scandal. Gordon Brown is low too. Cameron is in the middle as is Heath and Callaghan, Major and Blair.

Lists and rankings are subjective. Churchill gets fairly high marks from the public. For 20th Century Prime Ministers as a whole he is ranked highly, as is Attlee and Thatcher and MacMillan. But there are dissents. Thatcher does weakest among lower class members in poles, as does Churchill. Also there are pleasant surprises. While Asquith and Lloyd George are in the upper group, as is Wilson, so is Stanley Baldwin, who is finally getting some recognition as a really astute Parliamentarian and even farsighted regarding the Commonwealth, the need to support the Labour Government in coalition, and the matter of Indian independence (a matter Churchill was on the wrong side of). But even Churchill admitted Baldwin was the hardest fighter he ever came across in Parliament. Naturally the bottom of the list is Chamberlain. Few defenders for appeasement now. The first to reject it was of course Sir WInston Churchill.

[Robert]

Really nice story about Arthur, Jeff. A politician who confounded expectations instead of living down to them.

[Limehouse]

Winston wasn't a saint...he was an old time Conservative, born in riches, who crossed the floor to the Liberals, then later back...to be fair his basic beliefs didn't shift that much, whilst those of the parties certainly did...

In truth he wasn't, in early days at least, much of a friend to the working classes, though he wasn't that much in touch with them until his South African adventures...he certainly didn't lack courage though...

He certainly experienced his share of both glory and f**k ups, though I think he was somewhat harshly treated over the Turkish expeditions...had what he actually wanted to do been carried out promptly and without prior grandstanding he might well have substantially shortened WWl...prevarication, however, carried the day and now the southern hemisphere tends to remember Gallipoli without the necessary background...

In 1939, at an age where most of us retire, he came into his own and became the very image of everything the British speaking peoples needed...a trucculent and gutsy bastard who wouldn't give in whatever...the rest is history...

I was eleven when he died and count myself fortunate to have shared breathing space with a man, who although diametrically opposite to much I believe in, contributed greatly to the survival of so much I adhere to...

All the best

Dave

I think this is a very fair assessment Dave.

Churchill was a man of contrasting parts. On the one hand, he gave us paid breaks at work, longer paid holidays and slightly better working conditions. On the other hand, he turned out the troops to striking miners and dealt with other industrial and civilian disputes with relative brutality.

He certainly, in my view, engendered determination and motivation in the hearts and minds of the British public, particularly those who remained at home to fight the war in their own way by working long shifts, rallying and supporting each other and simply refusing to be trodden down.

However, in general, I think he was very much a man of his time and his class and, whilst I can find much to respect him for, I can also find much to dislike.