[go: up one dir, main page]
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill
    The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill
    The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill
    Ebook96 pages54 minutes

    The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill

    By Dominique Enright

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A celebration of the boundless humor, intellect, and eloquence of one of the greatest Englishmen in history   "Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times."   Winston Churchill was the greatest orator of his day, the greatest statesman of his age, and the greatest Englishman of the 20th century. This enchanting collection gathers hundreds of his funniest and wickedest quips in tribute to the exhilarating wit of this great-hearted, infuriatingly conceited, wildly funny, and brilliantly talented Englishman. Accessibly and thematically organized, this collection is perfect to dip into at the reader's whim.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael O'Mara
    Release dateSep 1, 2011
    ISBN9781843175896
    The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill
    Author

    Dominique Enright

    Dominique Enright is a freelance writer and editor. She has a degree in English Language and Literature from Oxford University. Her previous work for Michael O'Mara Books includes The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill, and she is also the compiler and editor of selections from the verse of Burns, Keats, Kipling and Wordsworth. She lives in London with her husband; they have three grown-up children.

    Read more from Dominique Enright

    Related to The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill

    Related ebooks

    Quotations For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill

    4.5/5

    6 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill - Dominique Enright

      1930

      Introduction

      Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born in 1874 at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, the eldest son of Lord Randolph Churchill and his American wife, and a nephew of the Duke of Marlborough. Despite an undistinguished career at Harrow, he attended the RMA, Sandhurst, before being gazetted to the 4th Hussars. Following service in India and on the North-West Frontier, he took part in the Nile Expeditionary Force in the Sudan in 1898, and was attached to the 21st Lancers when that regiment made its famous mounted charge against the dervishes during the Battle of Omdurman. As a newspaper correspondent during the Boer War of 1899–1901 he was captured when the armoured train he was travelling in was ambushed and derailed, but later successfully escaped his captors and made an epic journey back to British lines. He was present at a number of the most famous battles of the campaign, including Spion Kop.

      Churchill entered Parliament as a Conservative MP in 1900 but, finding himself increasingly at odds with the party, in 1904 crossed the floor of the House and joined the Liberal Party, becoming Under-Secretary for the Colonies in 1908 and President of the Board of Trade a year later, in which post he introduced labour exchanges. Appointed Home Secretary in 1910, he was involved in the Siege of Sidney Street the following year, and not long afterwards changed his post for that of First Lord of the Admiralty, and thereafter worked furiously to prepare the Royal Navy for the war with Germany that he knew must come; he also worked tirelessly on the development and deployment of tanks, an invention for which (as was later officially acknowledged) he was partly responsible. In 1915 he resigned in the face of blame for the costly failure of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli operations, and went to France to take command of an infantry battalion on the Western Front. He returned to Britain in 1917 and took up the post of Minister of Munitions in the Coalition government now headed by Lloyd George. He was Secretary for War and Air from 1919 to 1921, but in 1924 changed allegiance once more when he was elected to a different constituency as a ‘constitutionalist’ Conservative; from then until 1929 he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

      Without office in the 1930s under Ramsay MacDonald’s National government and the succeeding Tory administrations, he increasingly warned from the backbenches of the dangers of German rearmament, of appeasement of the dictators, and of Britain’s absolute lack of preparedness for war, referring to the Munich settlement of 1938 as ‘a total and unmitigated defeat’. The fall of Norway in May 1940, and the imminent threat to British forces in France and to Britain herself, led to a vote of no confidence in the administration headed by Neville Chamberlain, whom Churchill succeeded as Prime Minister, immediately forming a Coalition government. Despite the disasters in Belgium and France, victory in the Battle of Britain, followed by successes at sea and in North Africa, helped to stiffen the country’s sinews, aided immeasurably by Churchill’s leadership and his oratory. His close personal friendship with President Roosevelt ensured American support and, following Japanese and German declarations of war against the USA in December 1941, did much to smooth the often rocky path of inter-Allied cooperation, while his ability both to flatter and to stand up to Stalin promoted a relationship with the Soviet Union that helped to ensure the defeat of the Axis. After German defeats in North Africa and Russia, and American naval victories over the Japanese in the Pacific, the tide of war began to turn, and Churchill increasingly directed his formidable talents to the total defeat of Germany, Italy and Japan and the maintenance of the Triple Alliance which was to bring that about. He was not to share in the final triumph, however; in the general election of July 1945, two months after Germany’s unconditional surrender, the war-weary British people voted the Labour Party into power, and Churchill handed over the premiership to Clement Attlee.

      He remained an untiring leader of the Opposition, while his fame and reputation ensured that he maintained an overwhelming presence on the international stage. In 1951, aged seventy-seven, he became Prime Minister again, resigning in 1955 in favour of the much younger Anthony Eden, although

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1