Happy Birthday Winston Churchill!

Sir Winston S Churchill was born on this day Nov. 30 1874. I have come to the realization that we Americans seem to have more of an appreciation of this great man than his own Countrymen.

Here are some quotes:

“I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents.”

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

“It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.”

“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”

“One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.”

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”

“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”

“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.”

“All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”

Yes, we Americans like Winston Churchill.

 

He was truely an amazing human being. His lifetime accomplishments just boggle the mind. His paintings hang in the louvre (sp?) in Paris. His speeches would fill a room. 8 volume tome on WWII. Still found time to renovate a 1000 year old house (Chartwell) dug ponds, accomplished stone mason. Not to mention the fact that he was a POW in the Boer War who escaped and eventually made it back to England. MP, PM
Could go on and on. Can you think of any more?

 

"You do your worst and we will do our best"

Winston Churchill

Gotta love that cigar!

 

It seems the cynics always seem to crawl out of the woodwork around here.
“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”


Churchill had faults no doubt. One could make a list of faults of any great man whether it be Churchill, Lincoln, the Apostle Paul,or Martin Luther King.

There were lots of reasons for this, as any impartial analysis shows. For example: people wanted a new start that the Labour party appeared to promise, they distrusted the Conservatives who had failed the country so dismally by Appeasement. Churchill was a part of the defeat, for sure, but there was more to it than that.

As for Dresden, he was not solely responsible, as any look at the records or an impartial history book will show. The strategic bombing campaign, as has already been discussed, was a long-held one, with many people involved in inception and operation. The Dresden raid was undertaken on the insistence of the Russians, who believed that a column of German armour was moving through the city that day.

The purpose was military necessity, be it to destroy the armour, or to break the will of the German people to resist. It is the aim behind the action that matters, in this case to end the war as soon as possible, with minimum loss to your troops. That is what distinguished our actions from the Nazis.

The Dardanelles is a complicated subject, and I cannot deal with it properly here, save to say that, while he must bear some responsibility, Churchill was made the scapegoat. Others were responsible too, including Fisher and Kitchener.
In my opinion, the reason it failed was in large part none of Churchill's doing, and as he was the only person who tried to find an alternative to throwing men at barbed wire in Flanders, I feel he should receive far more credit than he does.

I will try to deal with the other points later, the dinner bell is ringing.

 

And voted him back in in 1951