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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Winston Churchill article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
"...The Churchills' children were entrusted to a French nursery governess in Kent named Mlle."
I believe Mlle should point to Mademoiselle_(title). I've very little knowledge of history but it also seems odd to say she was named "Mlle." I apologize if this note doesn't follow guidelines which I'm striving to understand.
Overlinking
There is so much distracting blue in this article, particularly in the first several paragraphs, that it becomes exacting to read. Is it really necessary to link words such as "officer", or lieutenant-colonel", etc.? Eliminating the blue of a few dozen words would make this article a little more user-friendly.--Lubiesque (talk) 17:33, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Historian?
"Amateur" implies something "done for love" (i.e. unpaid). As an historian, Churchill might at times be "academically "impure", or "popular" (in a mildly pejorative sense), but not really "amateur". Perhaps "the author of autobiography, memoirs and popular historical works"? But all historians have their quirks really - I can't see what is that wrong with just calling him an historian, especially in the lead. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 20:47, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Amateur" also implies lesser quality. Actually his multi-volume works on Marlborough and the two world wars are pretty substantial, were assembled from the drafts of teams of researchers, and have been the subject of academic commentary teasing out what he got right and where his arguments need to be treated with caution.Paulturtle (talk) 01:03, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Churchill bombed the Germans before they bombed England
Not sure what fact you think we are censoring, I dont think there was any requirement for the Germans to bomb England first as the declaration of war was related to the invasion of Poland. MilborneOne (talk) 21:49, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sure? I seem to remember reading that the first strategic bombing raids were carried out by Germany on England in January 1915; several years before Churchill bombed Germany in May 1940.--Ykraps (talk) 15:20, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The British bombed Cologne and Dusseldorf in September 1914, four months before the first Zeppelin raids on England. The "We shall never surrender" section should mention that Churchill ordered the RAF to begin bombing German cities on 11 May 1940. However it was Chamberlain who first bombed Germany on the night of 3 September 1939. (DavidRichardLlewelyn (talk) 18:01, 11 January 2016 (UTC))[reply]
David, you are attempting to answer a question that hasn't been asked. The statement was "Churchill bombed the Germans before they (the Germans) bombed England". As Churchill didn't order the bombings in 1914 or any bombing of Germany prior to May 1940 the initial statement is untrue. I am not against adding a short statement to say Churchill ordered the bombing of Germany in 1940 but anything more would be undue; this is an article about Churchill, not who bombed who first.--Ykraps (talk) 20:37, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure Churchill was an advocate of the aerial bombing of Germany in 1914. The fact that the RAF began bombing German cities in May 1940 needs to be mentioned as it led directly to the Blitz. (DavidRichardLlewelyn (talk) 09:49, 12 January 2016 (UTC))[reply]
Well I don't think we can hold Churchill responsible for the September 1914 bombings whether he agreed with them or not. Nor do I think we can say that the May 1940 bombings led directly to the Blitz because to my mind, that is the same as saying the Germans would not have bombed England had they not been provoked, and I'm fairly certain they would've. I have already said what I think is an acceptable addition to the article, what is the precise wording you wish to add?--Ykraps (talk) 17:52, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I just think the section should say that Churchill instructed RAF Bomber Command to begin bombing Germany on 11 May 1940 in response to the invasion of France and the Low Countries. It's debatable whether the Germans would have bombed England without provocation, British Principal Secretary of the Air Ministry J.M Spaight wrote in his 1944 book "Bombing Vindicated" that the attacks on German cities from May to August 1940 did cause Hitler to launch the Blitz. (DavidRichardLlewelyn (talk) 19:09, 12 January 2016 (UTC))[reply]
Well it's a moot point I'm sure. Your suggested wording however seems perfectly agreeable so if you have a reliable source to back it up, feel free to insert it into the article.--Ykraps (talk) 21:19, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Are you suggesting that that article would benefit from having a similar sentence inserted? The article seems quite clear that "The RAF bombed German warships and light vessels in several harbours on 3 and 4 September", "Germany's first strikes were not carried out until 16 and 17 October 1939, against the British fleet at Rosyth and Scapa Flow" and "The RAF bombed Mönchengladbach on the night of 11/12 May 1940, while Bomber Command attempted to hit roads and rail near the Dutch-German border; four people were killed", all from the "The Western Front, 1939 to June 1940" sub-section, and in the "Policy at the start of the war" section, it says "The British changed their policy on 15 May 1940, one day after the German bombing of Rotterdam, when the RAF was given permission to attack targets in the Ruhr Area" and "The first RAF raid on the interior of Germany took place on the night of 15/16 May 1940 while the Battle of France was still continuing". It is true it doesn't mention Churchill by name but one might assume that when the article talks about Britain did this, the RAF did such and such, and bomber command decided to..., that the go ahead was given by Churchill, or to be more precise, the war cabinet. I'm not against changing anything, just wondering if it's necessary.--Ykraps (talk) 22:54, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, no, I wasn't suggesting inserting anything. A fair assumption, but yes it would have been the war cabinet, and thus, if anyone's decision, the Prime Minister's. If we had a good source that said "Churchill ordered ..." or even "Churchill pressed ...", that would be different. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:26, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Churchill most certainly did personally order the September 1914 bombings of Zeppelin works, and it was done by the RNAS, and the German bombing of England in WW1 was, at least in name, in retaliation for British schrecklichkeit (see p.20 of Richard Overy “The Bombing War”). As far as I can see though, the Sep 1914 bombings were an attempt (doubtless comically unsuccessful) to knock out a military target, unlike much of the strategic bombing in WW2 which was aimed very deliberately at killing civilians under various pretexts (that they were industrial workers, that it would help bring about German collapse, that the Germans deserved it because of Warsaw and Rotterdam etc).
I haven’t come across anything that specifically says that Churchill personally ordered the Monchengladbach bombing, only that Chamberlain had been against it out of concern that it would provoke retaliation. As far as I can see it was more a case of letting Bomber Command take the gloves off and do what they had always wanted to do, in other words Churchill lifted the veto when he became PM rather than personally initiating it. Unless anyone comes across an authoritative work which says otherwise.
And yes, it is “debatable” whether the Germans would have bombed Britain if we hadn’t “started it”, although once it was underway other factors came into play, e.g. it was part of the attempt to bully Britain into suing for peace in 1940. The Germans for their part thought that we deserved it because they had never forgotten the Allied naval blockade in WW1, which killed elderly and infant Germans long before it had any serious impact on the German war effort, and which had been kept in place – by then allegedly causing real starvation, although that too is a bit of a moot point – long after the armistice, until Germany signed the Versailles Treaty.
I did start preparing some material on “Churchill and bombing” last spring following discussion on this page as there is obviously a fair bit to be said on the topic – his bloodthirstiness for much of the war then pangs of conscience towards the end etc - but it’s on hold and nowhere near the top of the pile at the moment. One day …Paulturtle (talk) 07:24, 14 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's highly unlikely the Germans would have bothered to bomb British cities if the RAF had not already bombed German cities. Hitler did not even start bombing RAF fighter bases until 8th August 1940 - three months after the attacks on Germany had started. For some reason an urban myth developed about the Germans bombing Britain first, when in reality the reverse was true. (DavidRichardLlewelyn (talk) 15:13, 14 January 2016 (UTC))[reply]
It's hardly surprising that "urban myths" develop in times of war. That is after all, the main purpose of the various departments of government propaganda. Burning seas is another area where the myth was much more impressive than the reality. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:23, 14 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Selwood is definitely a reliable source. However if there is any doubt as to whether Churchill personally gave the order, the section could just say that the RAF began bombing German cities on 11 May 1940. (DavidRichardLlewelyn (talk) 21:34, 14 January 2016 (UTC))[reply]
Selwood is indeed a reliable historian, but this is a newspaper article and I think the phrase “on Churchill’s orders” may be poor choice of words in a swiftly-written piece.
Richard Overy, whom Selwood rightly points out is the up-to-date authority, doesn’t really attribute Monchengladbach to Churchill personally, let alone to any new initiative which he ordered. Churchill’s enthusiasm for bombing came a bit later.
Martin Gilbert (Vol 6) doesn’t really have Churchill doing anything much on 11 May apart from a couple of War Cabinet meetings at which nothing much of note seems to have been discussed. Maybe he was gathering his thoughts about which job to offer people over the next few days, maybe he was having lots of handover meetings which don’t show up in the document trail. Gilbert does, however, have the War Cabinet discussing the pros and cons of bombing the Ruhr over the days which followed (Samuel Hoare, of all people, seems to have been quite keen on it – 11 May was his last day in office before Churchill sacked him), with the general tenor being Churchill going along with the wishes of the majority rather than pushing any new line, although he did argue that the Germans had done so much bombing of their own by then that they need not worry about offending US opinion. However, Gilbert is for all his voluminousness not necessarily a complete record, and there may be other records which he did not include. Absence of proof is not proof of absence etc.
Still, the comments of the Selwood article are a good laugh, with various people rattling off all the old porkies about how Dresden was a military target (full of “industry”, important transport hub, full of soldiers – in fact hardly any soldiers were killed) despite being told that the RAF didn’t really see it as such, and that anyone who claims otherwise must be a “blinkered spineless revisionist” etc etc.Paulturtle (talk) 07:16, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's just occurred to me that Sam Hoare was Air Secretary and like many service ministers before and since may well have seen his role as acting as mouthpiece for the top brass, besides any feeling that being as gung ho as possible in wartime couldn't do him any harm at a time when his sparring partner over India from a decade previously was just taking office and quite likely to drop him.Paulturtle (talk) 17:49, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As there were no objections I have added a line on this into the article. Given the later controversy over civilian bombing it's important that we should mention when it started. (DavidRichardLlewelyn (talk) 19:12, 15 January 2016 (UTC))[reply]
It's touched on under "Stroke and Resignation". It wasn't really much to do with Churchill - he was no longer playing much active part in government by then. He did lobby President Eisenhower to lean on the Egyptians to sign during his last trip (as PM) to the USA that summer.Paulturtle (talk) 05:06, 16 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I know, he was hobbyhorsing about this topic on Harold Macmillan's talk page a month or so ago. Still, I'll always give somebody one courteous answer ...Paulturtle (talk) 02:22, 17 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Churchill began bombing German cities in May 1940, four months before the London Blitz started. I'm kind of shocked this isn't mentioned in the article. (92.15.205.134 (talk) 17:38, 18 January 2016 (UTC))[reply]
Why would it even be relevant? In May 1940, the UK and Germany had been at war for almost a year. By that time, the Germans had already terror bombed cities in several other countries, it's not like the war or the bombing started then. Jeppiz (talk) 17:47, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The Germans only bombed military targets in Poland and Holland. Churchill's decision to start bombing German cities on 11 May 1940 led directly to the Blitz. (92.15.205.134 (talk) 19:46, 18 January 2016 (UTC))[reply]
That is of course utter nonsense, the Germans raised Rotterdam to the ground. However, none of that matters. What matters here is reliable sources. If you can provide books or articles by respected historians (no blogs, forums or self-publish books will do) to support your view, please do so. Any attempt to abuse this talk page as a forum will be removed, it is only about how to improve the article by using reliable sources. Jeppiz (talk) 19:51, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The attack on road and rail communications behind German lines on 11 May 1940 has no relevance to this article and was part of a strategy decided before Churchill came to power. Not relevant to Churchill either, but to answer your point Churchill started it, the Germans had attacked civilian targets in Poland before May 1940. MilborneOne (talk) 20:05, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is now at least the third time this topic, or something similar to it, has come up, presumably raised by the same person. I really think enough is enough. I said I'd write something in the article at some stage but that it wasn't going to be just yet, so if this comes up again I'm just going to refer people back to this.
In a nutshell: accusing Mr Anonymous of forumising is a little unfair, since he or somebody like him did attempt to add Monchengladbach to the article, but no, nobody is censoring the page. Yes, it is true that Monchengladbach was “crossing a (perhaps somewhat legalistic) line” although not really, it seems to me, one which British leaders were all that bothered about at the time. Deciding to bomb the Ruhr (east of the Rhine) a few days later was another. It is also true that the German bombing of parts of Warsaw and Rotterdam, both of them seriously exaggerated in both sides’ propaganda at the time, was technically (in modern parlance) collateral damage in a zone of ground fighting. Ditto Wielun in September 1939. The oft-repeated claim that British bombing was a response to Rotterdam is largely false and is not supported by documentary evidence. There is some truth in the claim that the Blitz was a response to RAF bombing of Germany, but it is not the whole story. The topic is of some relevance to Churchill, however Dominic Selwood exaggerates if he claims that Churchill “ordered” the bombing campaign on becoming Prime Minister – throughout 1940 there was gradual tit-for-tat escalation to which Churchill was party, but Area Bombing – deliberate flattening of German cities and killing civilians under the pretext that they were industrial workers or in the hope of causing a German morale collapse – was still a couple of years in the future.
There are a few dubious claims about this kind of thing on Wikipedia, e.g. claims that the Germans deliberately bombed hospitals, synagogues etc in Poland, or the claim that Germans bombed French towns on night of 9/10 May 1940, cited to the “Miami Daily News” at the time (hardly a reliable source, I mean really). My comments below are cited to Richard Overy “The Bombing War”, which is the up to date 800 page scholarly account, not some book with a silly title like “Eagle over the West” by some bloke who knows more about the performance characteristics of ME-109s and ME-110s than about decisions taken by politicians and top brass. Bold in others’ arguments is my added emphasis. My interjections are shown [thus].
pp.238-9 “both sides at first stuck to the pledge not to attack targets in cities where civilians were at risk (though this did not prevent the German Air Force from killing non-combatants during its operations in Poland)”. [I think he is referring specifically and perhaps somewhat legalistically to bombing other than in support of ground operations here – although he does not mention the bombing of Frampol, and I’d be interested to know his thoughts on that matter] In September 1939 Chamberlain turned down Polish appeals that Britain bomb Germany - out of worry at retaliation on British towns. “For the first months of the war Bomber Command strained at the leash”. Britain and France negotiated a half-hearted agreement to bomb the Ruhr if the Germans “threatened” Belgium or “decisively” menaced Franco-German forces. (cited to a 15 November 1939 brief for the Secretary of State for Air for the Supreme War Council – an Anglo-French body which had been set up in November 1917). However, it was “the British who ended the international embargo agreed in September” by attacking industrial and transport targets in Monchengladbach, killing 4 people.
pp.243-4 [Bombing targets where civilians were likely to be at risk, entirely divorced from ground operations] “was a threshold that had to be crossed consciously.” Chamberlain had been opposed, but Churchill had no objections (he had supported Trenchard’s long range bombing force in late WW1, and an independent RAF in the early 1920s). “A government headed by Churchill rather than Chamberlain was always more likely to endorse a bombing campaign.” It was because of the Battle of France, not a response to the bombing of Rotterdam three days later - Rotterdam was not even mentioned in the War Cabinet discussions of 12, 13 and 15 May (the ones I mentioned in the previous discussion).
pp.83-5 Between mid-May and September there were 103 British bombing raids on German cities. In August the RAF flew twice as many night-time sorties as the Luftwaffe flew over the UK, and were so inaccurate (many bombs landed in rural areas) and ineffective that the Germans couldn’t figure out any rationale and wrongly thought the British were deliberately killing civilians per se [that came later!!]. This caused German civilian anger, especially after memories of the WW1 naval blockade. [On 24 August the Germans bombed London by accident, after which Churchill gave permission to bomb Berlin] Revenge for the Berlin raids of late August was part of the explanation for Hitler’s Blitz on London - Hitler lifted his veto on bombing London after taking it as what his Air Force adjutant von Below called “a calculated insult”. The 7 September attack on London was mainly aimed at port and transport infrastructure but it was also part of the half-hearted plans to invade England at some stage in September and/or bomb Britain back to the conference table (to use the phrase which Nixon and Kissinger used in late 1972).
The most, I think, that one can say is that Churchill raised no objection to the RAF’s escalation of the air war in early May 1940 and throughout the year, but plenty of other politicians were also willing to let Bomber Command do their thing. There is a fair bit to be said about Churchill and bombing – in particular how he was an enthusiast for Area Bombing in the mid to late war, then, politician that he was, sensed the way the wind was blowing and had qualms later on when key opinion formers began to have public doubts about the bombing of Dresden, a city of minimal military significance (whatever fibs were told immediately afterwards and which some people are still silly enough to believe) flattened at a time when German collapse was clearly only a matter of a few more months. But decisions taken in May 1940 are only a very small part of the story.Paulturtle (talk) 02:19, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step, and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it (Islam) has vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."
The quote is truncated without notifying the reader, and additions have been made to it.
The correct and complete text includes:
1- after "qualities": "Thousands become the brave an loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die: but the influence..."
2- after "every step": there is a semicolon, not a comma. This is important as a semicolon indicates the separation between two independant clauses
3- the portion starting with "the science" and ending with "struggled", is delimited by Em dashes, not commas. Em dashes in this context act as parenthesis
4- "(Islam)" has been inserted after "the science which it"
5- The reader has not been notified of these edits
Please understand that I'm not nitpicking here. These edits to a controversial quote susbstantially modify its meaning and context. Point 1 omits the context of Churchill being at war with some Muslims -therefore sees most of them as adversaries- and finds those of them fighting for the British a redeeming quality. In point 2, omitting the semicolon depicts the two parts of the sentence as dependent. Finally, point 4 deliberately places a word in Churchill's writing, against the meaning of the quote, as marked by the original punctuation.
Also, if this quote were to stay, it would be beneficial to state its context. It came after his engine failed in the wilderness, in the middle of a war, and after his "native" engine driver said "But who should say Allah had not some wise purpose?"
Futhermore, I wonder how such a quote is allowed on the page, and occupies so much of the space dedicated to the Sudan war, while numerous requests that have made to state Churchill's controversial race/ethinicity related quotes have been turned down as non-relevant, for the reason that "everyone thought like him at that at the time"?
19:21, 26 February 2016 (UTC)19:21, 26 February 2016 (UTC)19:21, 26 February 2016 (UTC)~
[1]
The insertion of the word '(Islam)' is not just unjustified, but shows a misunderstanding of Churchill's meaning, which is that *Christianity*, not Islam, had vainly struggled against science. (Incidentally it is 'had' and not 'has'.)109.150.75.126 (talk) 22:38, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Update: quote removed
When it comes to Western leaders, the majority view is that their controversial comments about race/religion/ethinicity are merely a sign of their time and therefore not notable.
I can live with that unwritten rule, as long as it is applied to all of their controversial quotes.
As previously mentioned, the River War quote about Muslims is not relevant to the Sudan war paragraph, and occupies over 50% of it, which is very disproportionate. Furthermore, as I previously pointed out: the quote has been modified to sound more damning to Muslims, and the same pattern has been noted in The River War page. This quote has been used by far right groups (in its modified form) in their anti-Muslim campaigns. I don't believe Wikipedia's spirit is compatible with such manipulation.
I would support reintroducing this quote in a paragraph dedicated to Churchill's controversial views on "savages", "uncivilized races", "mongrels", Blacks, Indians, Kurds and there are plenty of them. This would also include the Indians famine and his concentration camps in Kenya and South Africa. The reason being: first to be fair, and second to give perspective on the man's supremacist views and actions, therefore providing the non-expert reader with tools to understand and put them in context.
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