The History Book Club discussion

Hello Everyone,

For the week of August 11th through and including August 17th, we are reading the next 50 pages of My Early Life. This thread will discuss the following chapters (XXV, XXVI, XXVII): pages 318 through 354). We will open up a thread for each week's reading. Please make sure to post in the particular thread dedicated to those specific chapters and page numbers to avoid spoilers.

This thread will be kicked off on August 11th.

You can always still get your book and post to the specific thread where you happen to be. There is no rush and we are thrilled to have you join us. It is never too late to get started and/or to post.

August 11
Chp. XXV. The Relief of Ladysmith - 318
Chp. XXVI. In the Orange Free State - 327
Chp. XXVII. Johannesburg and Pretoria - 343

Just as a reminder, this is a no spoiler thread; various supplemental threads are opened up for"open discussion" and there is also the Off-Topic Cafe for discussions that may veer off of Winston Churchill altogether.

Thank you,

Bentley

TIMBUKTU POSTED:

Couldn't wait to post on this. How brilliant is this man?
His description of how to win a war, to go at it ruthlessly and then extend friendship is wonderful. He's describing WWII, unconditional surrender and then the Marshal Plan. I was left wondering if this was something he'd read elsewhere or his own insight.

Also, his analysis of the problem with human beings, that we have a brain that's in two parts. How he sees that some people are left-handed and some are right-handed and that that's an indication of different thinking styles. The people who can win a war are not the same ones who can make a good peace. I was just awed by his insight. I have no idea how prevalent these ideas were or if they were original to him, but this was a real surprise.

OLDESQ POSTED:

This insight was remarkable and I was as struck by the intelligence of it as well.

Did you wonder at all about WSC as journalist in this section? Clearly, Churchill was the ultimate in embedded journalists. But I wonder at what he saw as his true role. On page 332 WSC writes about his reports back home,

In all my writings from Natal I had laboured ceaselessly to maintain confidence at home and put the best appearance possible upon the many reverses and "regrettable incidents" which had marked the operations in Natal. War Correspondents were considerable people in those days of small wars, and I was at that time on of the best-known writers among them and serving one of the most influential newspapers.

Then after learning that his criticism of the Army Chaplain's sermon was the cause of his failure to be reassigned as requested he writes:

I received in due course, and with pious resignation, the lecture of the Military Secretary, and from that moment had entire liberty to move where I would, and, subject to mild censorship, write what I chose. (p. 334).

The French Cavalry didn't trust him:

Here I found myself in a none too friendly atmosphere. It appeared that like a good many other Generals at this time, French disapproved of me. The hybrid combination of subaltern officer and widely-followed war correspondent was not unnaturally obnoxious to the military mind. (p. 341).

What was Churchill's role? True correspondent? Cheerleader? Adventurer? I know that journalistic ideals were different at the turn of the last century but I don't think that WSC can truly be a war correspondent if he is minimizing defeats and "regrettable incidents." I don't believe he even sees himself as anything other than a minor celebrity. I found the whole "hybrid" issue very interesting- did you?

BENTLEY RESPONDED:

Oldesq wrote:
This insight was remarkable and I was as struck by the intelligence of it as well.

Did you wonder at all about WSC as journalist in this section? Clearly, Churchill was the ultimate in embedded journalists. But I wonder at what he saw as his true role. On page 332 WSC writes about his reports back home,

In all my writings from Natal I had laboured ceaselessly to maintain confidence at home and put the best appearance possible upon the many reverses and "regrettable incidents" which had marked the operations in Natal. War Correspondents were considerable people in those days of small wars, and I was at that time on of the best-known writers among them and serving one of the most influential newspapers.

Then after learning that his criticism of the Army Chaplain's sermon was the cause of his failure to be reassigned as requested he writes:

I received in due course, and with pious resignation, the lecture of the Military Secretary, and from that moment had entire liberty to move where I would, and, subject to mild censorship, write what I chose. (p. 334).

The French Cavalry didn't trust him:

Here I found myself in a none too friendly atmosphere. It appeared that like a good many other Generals at this time, French disapproved of me. The hybrid combination of subaltern officer and widely-followed war correspondent was not unnaturally obnoxious to the military mind. (p. 341).

What was Churchill's role? True correspondent? Cheerleader? Adventurer? I know that journalistic ideals were different at the turn of the last century but I don't think that WSC can truly be a war correspondent if he is minimizing defeats and "regrettable incidents." I don't believe he even sees himself as anything other than a minor celebrity. I found the whole "hybrid" issue very interesting- did you?
__________________________________________________________

Winston was a lovable person in many ways; but he was not a neutral journalist; but nowadays neutral journalists seem hard to come by. However, during this time period they were not; however, I do not count WSC among them. Winston also was very much in self promoting mode in most of these accounts. He was very much an adventurer and a promoter of his own ideas.

OLDESQ RESPONDED:

I agree Bentley that he was much the self promoter but I guess my question is did he see himself that way? Did he secretly think he was "pulling one over" on the reading public or did he truly see himself as performing a service while getting paid for it.


****Potential spoiler for The Histories******

We will encounter this issue as we look to sources and biases in reading the Histories- whose account of events is correct?

BENTLEY RESPONDED:

Oldesq wrote:
I agree Bentley that he was much the self promoter but I guess my question is did he see himself that way? Did he secretly think he was "pulling one over" on the reading public or did he truly see himself as performing a service while getting paid for it.


****Potential spoiler for The Histories******

We will encounter this issue as we look to sources and biases in reading the Histories- whose account of events is correct?
I have said before that I thought he suffered from megalomania; I think he actually believed he was performing a service while getting paid for it. He thought he was giving the UK public what they wanted and at the same time getting what he wanted; he probably viewed it as a fair exchange.

BENTLEY RESPONDED:


And likewise, I believe that Churchill was one of the greatest statesmen of all times.

OLDESQ RESPONDED:

Don't worry Bentley- we didn't think you lost your adoration for the man!

This section finally brings WSC's first real hint of the tragedy of battle that he witnessed and how horrific the picture:
For two of these days hundreds of woulnded lying on Inniskilling Hill suffered a cruel ordeal. The plight of these poor men between the firing lines without aid or water, waving pitiful strips of linen in mute appeal, was hard to witness. (p. 324).
I always wonder about these breaks to collect the dead and wounded. I guess the idea of civilized war or specific rules of engagement are hard to get my brain around.
Message Edited by Oldesq on 08-13-2008 03:23 PM

BENTLEY RESPONDED:


Well I am glad of that. I was presenting a balanced view.

TIMBUKTU RESPONDED (VANESSA):


Timbuktu1 wrote:

Couldn't wait to post on this. How brilliant is this man?
His description of how to win a war, to go at it ruthlessly and then extend friendship is wonderful. He's describing WWII, unconditional surrender and then the Marshal Plan. I was left wondering if this was something he'd read elsewhere or his own insight.

Also, his analysis of the problem with human beings, that we have a brain that's in two parts. How he sees that some people are left-handed and some are right-handed and that that's an indication of different thinking styles. The people who can win a war are not the same ones who can make a good peace. I was just awed by his insight. I have no idea how prevalent these ideas were or if they were original to him, but this was a real surprise.

One of the books we'll be reading in my program this year is Darwin's The Descent of Man. I was thumbing through it and there's a discussion of the anatomy of the human brain. I have a hunch (and I think I might remember this from MEL) that Churchill did read this book and so his understanding of the effect of brain anatomy on personality, cognition, etc. may have come from this. Also, phrenology was such a popular idea in the late l9th century, these ideas were in the air.

TIMBUKTU RESPONDED (VANESSA):

The "rules of war" came, in part, from the Iliad. A classmate of mine has a daughter at West Point. She said the Iliad is required reading at West Point as the rules still apply. Never leave a body behind, etc.

BENTLEY RESPONDED:

Timbuktu, that is very interesting. I did not know that.

BENTLEY RESPONDED:

Brilliant man. You are right Timbuktu.

BENTLEY RESPONDED TO OLDESQ:

Oldesq,

I was thinking about your post and I think what really seems not to fit is the idea of rules when you are talking about something like war. Rules of engagement or a gentleman's understanding of how a war should be run or what should happen or what constitutes war crimes are frankly subjective.

War is so debilitating and has such horrific consequences that you have to wonder how rules or codes of conduct have anything to do with the other. This is not a sporting event without dire consequences.

But I really believe that war was sport for men and they were treating it like a cricket game. It seems to show in history if you have something that someone else wants; then the other person can attack you and try to take it away forcibly whether it be your land, your house, your freedom, your way of life and then they can impose their own way of life on the other and think somehow that the war was a means to an end and the people whose country they invaded are somehow better off. I seem to have heard the above arguments in one form or another in terms of the expansion of the British Empire.

I think the risk you run at having institutions that turn out professional soldiers and a war industry in any country is that a) the soldiers need a war to fight, and the war industry needs war to be profitable. So I am wondering how war really has any sense of decency or rules in it; why pretend there are. If you are dropping bombs or pointing guns at each other; I really wonder what kind of outcome Churchill or anyone else would expect.

Also in terms of war tribunals for example; I find that it is ludicrous that the winning party then tries the defeated party for war crimes as if saying I am the victor so I can decide which activities are senseless killing and which ones are not.

I wish we could learn from history but I am not sure we are doing that.

Bentley

TIMBUKTU (VANESSA) RESPONDING TO BENTLEY:

This has been rolling around in my mind a lot lately. I think I agree with you, but as usual, I'm not sure! LOL!
When you speak of war as a "cricket match" I can only think of the British. How they fought in the American Revolution, lined up in red coats. The idea that there are rules to war did not occur to the Americans.

I think we'd been fighting the Indians long enough to know that there are no rules in war if you really want to win. But the British way, soldier against soldier, spares women and children. There does seem to be something different about having a kind of "duel" where everyone is able bodied and armed. Everyone has a chance, at least in theory, to survive.

After seeing "Hiroshima Mon Amour" I was left with a dilemma. There is no way that dropping that bomb on innocent children and crippling future generations, yet unborn, through radiation, can be acceptable. But that bomb saved my father's life as well as thousands of others and restored peace to the world. Since then the bomb has not been used. That's a kind of "rule". Poison gas was not used in WWII for similar reasons. When each side knows that using these weapons will mean having them used upon themselves, a kind of reason is introduced into war.

Don't do unto others as ...
Today I saw the air show over lake Michigan. I don't normally go to these things but I happened to be there. It was thrilling! I was riding my bike and listening to the Herodotus tapes about how the Ionians developed factual thinking which led to science. Here was the embodiment of that progress. How amazing is man, who can create and operate these machines.

There is a lot of negative thinking about America. Watching those planes zoom, in formation, through the clouds, watching them rotate and plunge, took my breath away. It made me proud. And it made me wonder why, with this kind of power, any of our soldiers must die?

Why are men going door to door in Iraq? To protect the enemy? If we're protecting the enemy seems to me we shouldn't be at war. Our men are not cannon fodder. They should be our first priority. If we really believe a war is necessary then I think it should be fought in such a way that we don't lose OUR citizens. That should be the number one objective of our government. As Churchill said, fight ruthlessly and then extend a hand, don't extend a hand and shoot with the other.

These are just rambling thoughts, driven by emotion. I hope the powers that be know what they're doing and I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. But yes, the "rules" of war is a strange concept.

BENTLEY RESPONDED:

Emotion has to play into war; life and death situations always do. The problem is that I am not sure that the powers that be know what they are doing or why.

OLDESQ POSTED:

There is also the theory that combatants are usually fighting the last war. I am not well schooled in military tactics but as a child I learned that an important edge for the Revolutionary forces in the US war of independence was the difference between the British use of a phalanx system versus colonist use of natural barriers and raids.

TIMBUKTU POSTED (VANESSA):

That's what I meant. Guerilla warfare isn't "cricket". Of course in America we were taught that this was the right thing to do, the winners write history. And winning is everything in war. Sigh... will it never end?

BENTLEY RESPONDED TO OLDESQ:


Excellent point.

BENTLEY RESPONDED TO TIMBUKTU (VANESSA):

Timbuktu1 wrote:

That's what I meant. Guerilla warfare isn't "cricket". Of course in America we were taught that this was the right thing to do, the winners write history. And winning is everything in war. Sigh... will it never end?

Timbuktu, as long as we have a military operation and a conglomerate industry of companies which gain monetarily from war and professional soldiers; I have to wonder too. Eisenhower warned of this when he left office.

We are living with this now. Churchill had a frame of reference based also upon his experiences at Sandhurst and in support of the British Empire which also had to influence his future decisions beyond this book. Interesting reading this book and knowing what lies ahead for him and the world.

~Bentley