August 3, 2013

Finest Hour 122, Spring 2004

Page 44

Churchill’s son Randolph intended each volume of the official biography to lead with a “theme, following the style of his father’s memoirs, The Second World War. The themes were omitted after Volume II, but Paul Courtenay recalls them from notes he made at the time.


A notable characteristic of Winston Churchill’s The Second World War is the theme assigned to each of the six volumes. These are all pithily and memorably expressed, almost without punctuation but arranged so as to emphasize the rhythm.

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Curiously, while the Cassell English edition themes are all in capitals, the Houghton Mifflin American edition renders them in upper and lower case. Since the American version is more interesting, we reproduce its arrangement below.

I The Gathering Storm
How the English-speaking peoples
through their unwisdom,
carelessness, and good nature
allowed the wicked
to rearm

II Their Finest Hour
How the British people
held the fort
ALONE
till those who
hitherto had been half blind
were half ready

III The Grand Alliance
How the British fought on
with Hardship their Garment
until
Soviet Russia and the United States
were drawn
into the Great Conflict

IV The Hinge of Fate
How the power of the
Grand Alliance
became preponderant

V Closing the Ring
How
Nazi Germany was Isolated
and
Assailed on All Sides

VI Triumph and Tragedy
How the Great Democracies
Triumphed
and so
Were able to Resume
the Follies
Which Had so Nearly
Cost Them Their Life

One cannot help noticing the increase in force and emphasis through the use of capital letters and one- or two-word lines as the themes evolve. Of the last theme, it is worth asking why Churchill chose the word “Life” rather than “Lives.” Could it be that he was trying to tell us that the Great Democracies were indivisible?

On 31 January 1965, the day after Sir Winston’s state funeral, The Sunday Telegraph gave details of his official biography, which his son Randolph Churchill had been commissioned to write. It reported that five volumes were planned and stated the theme proposed for each. These were clearly designed to be in the same mould as those coined by Sir Winston himself in his war memoirs; but the enormous canvas of the life to be described meant that the themes could not be stated anything like as succinctly.

In the event, as we know, Randolph died in June 1968, after the publication of the first two volumes; when Sir Martin Gilbert took over the project he found that eight volumes (not five) would be required and gave up the idea of themes. For the record, here are the five themes as originally drafted by Randolph Churchill:

I 1874-1900

How an under-estimated boy of genius
of noble character and daring spirit
seized and created a hundred opportunities
to rise in the world
and add glory
to a name already famous
by his own merit and audacity

[This wording, except for the substitution of “esteemed” for “estimated” and the juxtaposition of the last two phrases, appeared in the published volume.]

II 1901-1914

How a soldier of fortune
by diligence and high ambition
turned himself while in his thirties
into a parliamentarian
statesman and author
of the first order

[This wording was unchanged by the editorial process and remains part of Volume II in every edition published.]

III 1914-1922

How a career of dazzling promise
was shattered
and how it was rebuilt

IV 1923-1939

How a statesman in middle age
changed his party for the second time:
how he kept himself afloat
in years of exceptional political complexity

How he warned his countrymen
of the dangers that lay ahead
and how he prepared himself
by a study of history
to be their leader and saviour
in the darkest episode of their fortunes

V 1940-1965

How in his sixties
a man of sagacious judgment
vast experience fertile imagination
and superb courage both physical and moral
united his nation
and was the architect of a grand alliance
which brought a war
that seemed to have been lost before it began
to a triumphant victory

How his fellow countrymen
repaid his prodigious efforts:
how he rejected their repudiation
and regained their support:
how he spent his declining years
and died amid the love and honour
of free men everywhere
mantled in the imperishable glory
of heroic genius

I made a note of these intended themes when they were announced on 31 January 1965, and wonder if this is indeed the first time that the last three have seen the light of day in the intervening four decades.

We sent this text to Randolph Churchill’s successor as official biographer, and our honorary member, Sir Martin Gilbert, who writes:

“How vividly I remember Randolph working on those themes, dictating them, polishing them, repolishing them, mulling over them, reading them aloud to his ‘young gentlemen,’ re-reading them aloud—and asking us to re-read them—to his various guests. It is wonderful to see them again in their final form.” 


Woods Corner is named in memory of Frederick Woods, the first bibliographer of Winston Spencer Churchill

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