March 12, 2015

Churchill’s major concerns, India and Europe, were linked in a speech which tied Baldwin’s Conservatives to MacDonald’s Labourites. “Well might Sir John Simon exclaim,” he said, “We are all Socialists now.’” The essence of his feelings on India was revealed in a review of Clive of India (Woods C228): “Now, in this period of exhaustion after so many triumphs, when our very right to reign and rule in the East is assailed by morbid subversives or featherheaded sentimentalists, it is refreshing and, indeed, inspiring to review our contact with the splendid vigour of our forbears.”

“…it is refreshing and, indeed, inspiring to review our contact with the splendid vigour of our forbears.”

In February, to derisive laughter, he defiantly told the Oxford University Conservative Association that Germany had been responsible for the Great War and warned that “…the hideous curse of war from the air has fallen on the world.” While critics accused him of contributing to anarchy and ruin, many were rallying to him on the European issue. Sir Maurice Hankey wrote him that “…we badly need some leadership on this subject just now and it is a better horse than India.”

He worked as frequently as possible on Volume II of Marlborough (A40). He worried about his lack of formal academic training but the great historian Lewis Namier wrote that … there is no-one alive engaged in history work with your experience of politics, government and war. Please do not write history as other historians do, but do it in your own way.

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