The First World War began at a fortuitous mo-ment for the Royal Navy: a test mobilization had been carried out in July 1914, and the main fleet of dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers was therefore already assembled and crewed when the moment of destiny arrived. All that was required was to withhold the order to disperse and despatch the ships instead to their designated war stations. That was all well and good, but what would happen thereafter was less clear.
There is a famous story recorded in the brutally frank diary of Captain Herbert Richmond, then Assistant Director of Naval Operations, that on the second day of the conflict Churchill had remarked that “Now we have our war, the next thing is to decide how we are going to carry it on.”1 For the intellectual and hyper-critical Richmond, Churchill’s off-the-cuff admission was simply appalling. It was, he confided, “a damning confession of inadequate preparation for war.”2 Richmond’s outrage would have been fully justified had the First Lord’s quip been illustrative of the state of the Royal Navy in 1914. It was not, however, strictly speaking, true; or, at least, it was not entirely true, and Churchill had played an important role in many important reforms instituted prior to the outbreak of hostilities.
Home Waters
This story is from the Fall 2018 edition of Finest Hour.
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This story is from the Fall 2018 edition of Finest Hour.
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Perfect Preparation: What Churchill Learned from the First World War
Winston Churchill famously wrote about his feelings on becoming prime minister in May 1940, “I felt as if I were walking with Destiny and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.”1 It was true, and no part of his life had been a better preparation than 1914–18.
War Lord in Training: Churchill And The Royal Navy During The First World War
Churchill’s contribution to naval affairs in the First World War is a polarizing topic. It divided people at the time and it remains a matter of sharply delineated opinions even now. The reasons for this are not difficult to spot. Although no decisive sea engagement was fought while Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty, the opening ten months of the war were nevertheless eventful, and the operations that took place at that time appeared to highlight the worst aspects of Churchill’s character as a civilian naval leader. The reality is—inevitably—more complex, but a quick check of what went visibly wrong and what appeared to go right will illustrate the point.
The World Crisis Breeds New Publishing Relationships For Churchill
This is a behind-the-scenes article. It focuses not on the content of The World Crisis (which former Prime Minister A. J. Balfour described as “Winston’s brilliant Autobiography, disguised as a history of the universe”) but rather on how that multi-volume history of the Great War—Churchill’s twelfth work—came to be published in both the UK and the USA.
The Mistaken View of Churchill's First World War “Mistakes”
A common verdict on Churchill’s First World War is that he was the perpetrator of costly disasters, but that he learned from his mistakes. Consider this, from the Imperial War Museum’s website:
THE FULTON REPORT From the National Churchill Museum
High Hopes and Unbounded Confidence? The Aftermath of the Great Wars
November 11, 1918: The Hour of Deliverance
In his memoirs of the First World War published as The World Crisis, Winston Churchill vividly recalls the scene he witnessed at the moment the Armistice took effect.
Churchill's World Crisis
Today, whenever major political leaders come to the end of their careers, we have learned to expect an announcement at no distant point that a contract has been signed for the publication of their memoirs, with large advances mentioned.
Churchill's New Audience | # Armistice100
For the past four years, the centenary of the Great War, I have been managing social media content for the National World War I Museum of the United States in Kansas City, Missouri.
Action This Day
125 Years ago Autumn 1893 • Age 19 “Sandhurst Has Done Wonders for Him”
The International Churchill Society's First Fifty Years
This is the 180th issue of Finest Hour. The operating budget for the first year of what became the International Churchill Society was $180. The first issue of the journal was sent out to the founding members—all twelve of them—in the spring of 1968 with a note that the title was only “temporary” until a better suggestion arose. Fifty years on, the current editor has determined that the cut-off date for suggestions has now passed.
