For nine days the struggle went on. Medical experts said that only phenomenal tenacity and spirit of life could enable a man of 90 to hold off death so long in these circumstances.
But then those were the qualities that had made Winston Churchill a historical figure in his lifetime. His pluck in rallying Britain to victory in World War II saved not only this country but, in all likelihood, free nations everywhere.... With almost all of Europe under or about to fall under the Nazi jackboot, it was Sir Winston who flung this challenge at the enemy:
"We shall not flag, or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
January 24, 2015
50 years ago today: "The great figure who embodied man's will to resist tyranny passed into history... He was 90 years old."
"The world had been watching and waiting since Jan. 15, when it was announced that Sir Winston had suffered a stroke. The last authentic giant of world politics in the 20th century was going down." Wrote Anthony Lewis in the NYT.
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50 years, today, ago.
Heroism has become unfashionable among the leaders of the modern world. You need only look at the lengths to which our literati go to denigrate the American Sniper. But that tubby old man who saved the world believed in heroism, because he knew that he was a hero. Our leaders today go to great lengths to prove that they are not heroes.
I could be wrong, but that doesn't appear to be leading from behind.
Thanks.
Note the yawning gulf between Churchill and David Cameron, and between Eisenhower and Obama.
Passed.
The account in the WSJ, by Churchill's granddaughter is the most moving. I doubt Lewis appreciates him.
Ten years later we celebrated his 90th birthday at his Hyde Park Gate home. He had left his beloved Chartwell for the last time the month before. As we raised our glasses of Pol Roger to toast him, the unspoken thought was that the final meeting could not be long delayed.
Six weeks later, on Jan. 10, 1965, he suffered a stroke, the effects of which worsened over the next few days. On the evening of Jan. 15, I received a call from his personal secretary, Anthony Montague Browne, to tell me that my aunt Sarah was on her way from Rome. She would be arriving at Heathrow in the early hours of the morning and had asked if she could stay with me.
It is most moving. We all should know what he accomplished in his life. Sadly, British school children do not, for the most part.
Passed?
I've been to his grave and to the room in which he was born. Both moving experiences.
Can't I just eat my waffle?
I fear we shall not see his like again.
Churchill did everything but pass into history.
Making; deciding; concluding; writing might begin an attempted accurate description of what Churchill did and was to history; passed is unChurchillian to a degree that staggers jagged.
He did not pass into history. He preceded himself there. It's quite a trick.
"Never, never, never quit."
"We are all worms, but do believe that I am a glowworm."
Churchill
It's understandable that after the first war so many leaders were wary of another, and willing to go so far to avoid one. And all the more commendable that Churchill was able to see what Hitler was really about, and able to understand that war with him was necessary and unavoidable.
Sadly, his American counterpart didn't take seriously enough Churchills warnings about Stalin.
Winston had some interesting things to say about the Muslims....
If I were on my Windows (apologies Bill just stay out of local/state/federal issues that impact me because Buckley) I could search and link and be credible to my own truth*.
*I hate this idea to an absurd length. In fact, I've rewritten Gram Parson's lyrics to include "and not that shit like 'to mine own self be true'."
"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'"
Winston Churchill - June 18, 1940
Winston to Barry: should give even a "Progressive" pause.
To this day we don't know whether or not his Maker was ready to meet him.
http://www.metrolyrics.com/return-of-the-grievous-angel-lyrics-gram-parsons.html
50 years ago today: 'The great figure who embodied man's will to resist tyranny passed into history... He was 90 years old.'
This is also the centenary Churchill's ill-fated Gallipoli campaign.
I was in London when Churchill died, and regret to this day not having stood in the long line to pay my respects.
On his last visit to Parliament before he died, after he departed the Chamber Sir Harold MacMillan paid tribute by saying: "The man who you saw before you is unique in all of history. None of us, however old we are, can remember his like, and the youngest among you, however long you may live, will never see his like again."
Truer words....
"The last authentic giant of world politics in the 20th century was going down."
Not quite right, Mao did not die until 1976.
PS: As a sophomore in college I remember watching his funeral (live on film, heh) on our old B&W TV in my dorm room as I ironed my shirts just having come back from the laundry. A VERY moving experience..
@John Cunningham, please don't write anything like that again. I'm bawling at my keyboard over the shame of modern politics.
Of course, another take on the matter is that he dragged the US into an alliance with pure evil, to fight a war that Hitler could not possibly have won, in order to save an Empire that was not worth saving, and in any case could not be saved.
And there was that Gallipoli thing...
We listened to one of his speeches a couple days ago. I don't remember what inspired my husband to pull it up on youtube, but I was surprised as to how uncharismatic his actual speech-giving was, even though the words were powerful in their meaning. Perhaps it simply was the case that people at the time didn't expect their leaders to have dizzying oratorical prowess.
On the other hand, I grew up with his World War II history on the bookshelf at home; it was something that, after he retired, my Dad would re-read. We ourselves acquired a set from a used bookstore (back when there was one in town; my husband bought it on a whim and had to carry the whole set home), and Dad would pick a volume to read when nothing in particular was going on, during his visits.
Anyway -- it had always impressed me that Churchhill didn't just go golfing but had quite an extensive list of books to his credit, and with no ghostwriter.
(One thing I'd really like to know is: of our recent president-authors, how extensive was the ghostwriting/"editing"?)
chickenman@5:36pm/
Actually the Gallipoli Campaign was a brilliant strategic plan to break-out of the static meat-grinder of trench warfare carnage on the Western front by a strategic "end-around" and end the war early. Most military historians are now in agreement that it was the tactical cowardice/faint-heartedness of the naval commanders who failed to press the attack with sufficient fire support to knock out the Turkish shore batteries and breach the straits that guaranteed that an otherwise brilliantly conceived strategic plan came to disaster.
Sure sure you have comments on Churchill: Otherwise are you.
"Sadly, his American counterpart didn't take seriously enough Churchills warnings about Stalin."
FDR was surrounded by communists but I don't think we could have done much about the Soviets. The public was so hostile to more war that the army almost ran out of replacements during the Bulge campaign. The draft boards would not increase the numbers. Congress was sure the war was won. The public was tired of rationing.
The Olympic campaign could easily have been a disaster as the Japanese hoped. The atomic bomb saved us.
Engaging freedom's abyss, you jerks seemingly think I should have Buckley in me, regardless of genetics and science.
Why do you think that shit?
Why, beyond erroneous payments, do you continue judging with abhorrent judgement?
"Actually the Gallipoli Campaign..."
I agree completely. I have read quite about about it and have been there at Gallipoli.
Former White House butler Alonzo Fields wrote in his memoir that Churchill requested "a tumbler of sherry in my room before breakfast, a couple of glasses of scotch and soda before lunch and French Champagne and 90-year-old brandy before I go to sleep at night."
And he smoked Havana cigars every day.
My understanding is that Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty (?) noticed that the Bosporus lay practically unguarded and ordered the British Mediterranean fleet to sen an expedition through to locate the German warship "Graben" and its attendant Q-ship and sink them.
This order was garbled in some fashion, and resulted in a failed attempt, and the Germans got on the Turks to reinforce their defences in the straits on the double or else, which they did.
Then, on the British side, everybody and his uncle got involved, and the Gallipoli Campaign resulted.
This was not any of Churchill's doing, but nor could he get it stopped.
So, unlike many other "leaders," then or today, he accepted the blame for having started it all without whining, resigned from the Navy, and went to France with the Army.
Blogger Michael K said...
"Actually the Gallipoli Campaign..."
I agree completely. I have read quite about about it and have been there at Gallipoli.
1/24/15, 6:26 PM
-----------------------------
Agree. In the Admiralty he was surrounded by men more worried about losing ships than winning wars.
@virgil: I actually wrote that Gallipoli was ill-fated, not ill-conceived.
BTW, didn't there used to be a bust of Churchill in the White House?
"And he smoked Havana cigars every day."
There is a story which you've probably heard. Montgomery was a famous health nut. In north Africa, during a meeting with Churchill, Monty mentioned, "I never drink or smoke, exercise daily and I am 100% fit !"
Churchill replied, "I drink and smoke cigars and do not exercise and I am 200% fit."
@Chickenman/
RE: Churchill's bust. HEH!
Remember that in fighting at Gallipoli the English-speaking forces were fighting Enemy Turks who were often the same people who were excited about the genocidal eradication of Armenian Christians and Greek Christians in Asia Minor. Or don't remember. The victims are dead now, in their uncountable multitudes, and almost nobody cares about them or the truth.
Gallipoli actually had some serious resemblance to Anzio in which troops landed and generals spent days siting under enemy fire dithering.
Unfortunately, the Anzio ditherers were American this time but it was Churchill who wanted the invasion as an end run around the Germans at the "Winter Line."
Mark Clark was an inferior general who faced a superior, albeit Luftwaffe, General Kesselring. The US general on scene did an imitation of Gallipolli.
Any delay could result in the occupation of the mountains by the defenders and the consequent entrapment of the invaders. Lieutenant General Mark Clark, commander of the U.S. Fifth Army, understood that risk, but Clark did not pass on his appreciation of the situation to his subordinate, General Lucas, who preferred to take time to entrench against an expected counterattack. The initial landing achieved complete surprise with no opposition and a jeep patrol even made it as far as the outskirts of Rome. Despite that report, Lucas, who had little confidence in the operation as planned, failed to capitalize on the element of surprise by delaying his advance until he judged his position was sufficiently consolidated and his troops ready.
The whole story of the Italian campaign is a dreary tale, well told in Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson in volume 2 of his trilogy.
One of my favorite Churchill stories is about the time German General Von Thoma surrendered to Montgomery and Montgomery had Von Thoma to dinner.
The tale was carried to Churchill by Montgomery rivals in an attempt to portray Montgomery as being inappropriately friendly with an enemy.
Churchill responded, "Poor Thoma. I too have dined with Monty."
“What We Do In Life Echoes In Eternity” Maximus Decimus Meridius
The man of the 20th Century.
And for you Mao boosters the Chairman and his Commie tools pretty much sat out WW2 in the West of China while the Japanese slaughtered at will. Then they moved in to sweep up. Kinda like the Russians pulling up short in front of Warsaw and letting the Germans deal with the Polish non-communist resistance. It's so like lefties.
chillblaine: Former White House butler Alonzo Fields wrote in his memoir that Churchill requested "a tumbler of sherry in my room before breakfast, a couple of glasses of scotch and soda before lunch and French Champagne and 90-year-old brandy before I go to sleep at night."
And as he famously claimed, "I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."
My local (poorly stocked) liquor store carries the Pol Roger cuvée Winston Churchill. It is beyond my means, but one of these days I'll have a splurge, and maybe even an unladylike puff of a Havana. Not because I'm an uncritical Churchill fan, but for auld lang syne.
OT and btw, his beautiful mother was an American, and apparently quite a (scandalous) force of nature in her own right.
Jupiter said...
"I fear we shall not see his like again."
They are around. Progressives have just been trying to keep them out of power and trash them before they are elected.
We will need another Churchill soon when Iran upends the world. Obama is bent on letting them get nuclear weapons and soon the world will be in an existential crisis. It is now already burning.
We visited Chartwell this past summer. Very impressive. Viewed the brick wall he built.
Don't forget that Churchill was also in the Sudan and South Africa. Sudan as a young Army Officer, and SF as a news correspondent. The Boers put a very large reward on his head after he escaped from them. A long and varied life.
Had Obama been the PM of GB at the time of WWII we would be speaking German today. And there would be no blacks or Jews in America.
Anglelyne said...
OT and btw, his beautiful mother was an American, and apparently quite a (scandalous) force of nature in her own right.
I wish indeed that my mother, whose memory I cherish across the vale of years, could have been here to see. By the way, I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way round, I might have got here on my own. In that case, this would not have been the first time you would have heard my voice. In that case I should not have needed any invitation, but if I had, it is hardly likely it would have been unanimous. So perhaps things are better as they are. I may confess, however, that I do not feel quite like a fish out of water in a legislative assembly where English is spoken.
How Churchill was not TIME's Man of the Century is beyond me.
Winston Churchill trained as a cavalry officer and participated in one of the last real cavalry charges in military history. And he played a part in the secret strategy to deploy a nuclear weapon. He was a Liberal, and they a Tory. He was the greatest Parliamentarian of his time. He was First Admiralty Lord, then replaced, and asked to be assigned to a trench in the Great War. He wrote more great books than most people who devote a lifetime to writing, and he discussed the writing business with Mark Twain on his first American book tour. And in the dark days of 1940, before FDR committed the United States to war, Churchill was the one and only indispensable man who was the fulcrum for the eventual Allied victory and the defeat of fascism. He was the single greatest man of the 20th century, and it isn't even close.
If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Winston Churchill
"We visited Chartwell this past summer. Very impressive."
I envy you. Maybe I have one more trip in me. Maybe.
I want to go to Greece again.
We read Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples in our homeschool. What a thorough history! He was not reticent about sharing his opinions.
Something else astonishing: Churchill was 66 in 1940 when he became PM. All his inspiring words were written after the normal retirement age.
The story is that Obama sent the bust of Churchill home. I like to think it met Barry, and high tailed it out of there, lest he be associated with him.
Several commenters have mentioned Gallipoli. The thing about Churchill is not that he never failed, but that he never gave up. As someone said here, after Gallipoli, Churchill resigned his Admiralty post and went to France as an Army Major.
In WWII, under Churchill's leadership, England suffered defeat after defeat in France, in Norway, in Singapore and elsewhere in the Far East, in North Africa. But Churchill -- and England -- never gave up. And he kept the British people behind him the whole way. In much smaller wars, US leadership has not managed that.
Has it?
@ Jane - Now, "yes we can" passes for dizzying oratorical prowess. Although, it does make me dizzy, but not the good kind.
It is nice that he outlived them all- Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt - by a lot, cigars, whisky and all. I wonder if Franco attended the funeral?
Michael O’Donoghue's 'The Churchill Wit':
When the noted playwright George Bernard Shaw sent him two tickets to the opening night of his new play with a note that read: “Bring a friend, if you have one,” Churchill, not to be outdone, promptly wired back: “You and your play can go fuck yourselves.”
At an elegant dinner party, Lady Astor once leaned across the table to remark, “If you were my husband, Winston, I’d poison your coffee.” “And if you were my wife, I’d beat the shit out of you,” came Churchill’s unhesitating retort.
Churchill was known to drain a glass or two and, after one particularly convivial evening, he chanced to encounter Miss Bessie Braddock, a Socialist member of the House of Commons, who, upon seeing his condition, said, “Winston, you’re drunk.” Mustering all his dignity, Churchill drew himself up to his full height, cocked an eyebrow and rejoined, “Shove it up your ass, you ugly cunt.”
While serving as a subaltern in the Boer War, the young Churchill was asked by a superior officer to give his opinion of the Boers as soldiers. “They’re assholes, sir,” he ventured, then paused briefly and added, with a whimsical smile, “They’re assholes.”
I am Laslo.
Churchill was one of a kind. Margaret Thatcher was close but he was unique. We will never see his like again. I am something of a student of history but I cannot think of a comparable figure. Maybe the the Pitts, elder and younger who stood off Napoleon. and Louis XIV.
the elder stood off the French of Louis XIV and the younger the Younger were two men who, perhaps equaled Churchill, but did not surpass him.
My grandparents were born a few years behind the Man in the late 1800s, and lived their own unique version of that amazing span of history. They made their home in Mexico and lived through the revolution, Pancho Villa's raids and all. They lost everything in the Depression but had the fortitude to get through it and build their lives back from scratch.
I say this because of all the family photo scrapbooks my Pana carefully tended, there was one set apart, devoted to nothing but clippings of Sir Winston, a thoughtful, robust selection, and I understood that she saw in him the exemplary vigor she cultivated for herself and her family: The Backbone of a Champion, who will not go down defeated.
As she would have done, I praise the Most High God for the life of Winston Churchill.
When I went to London, I didn't know much Brit history but did love Churchill, so I visited the Cabinet War Rooms. There I saw Churchill's chamber pot.
I fear there is no place for a person such as Churchill today. The sad truth is that the stage was already diminishing when he lived. It is easily forgotten today just how quickly and unceremoniously Churchill was dumped from office once victory in Europe was secured, to be replaced by a Labour government far to Churchill's left.
virgil xenophon said...
chickenman@5:36pm/
Actually the Gallipoli Campaign was a brilliant strategic plan to break-out of the static meat-grinder of trench warfare carnage on the Western front by a strategic "end-around" and end the war early. Most military historians are now in agreement that it was the tactical cowardice/faint-heartedness of the naval commanders who failed to press the attack with sufficient fire support to knock out the Turkish shore batteries and breach the straits that guaranteed that an otherwise brilliantly conceived strategic plan came to disaster.
1/24/15, 6:10 PM"
Sadly repeated at Anzio by another too cautious commander.
chillblaine said...
Former White House butler Alonzo Fields wrote in his memoir that Churchill requested "a tumbler of sherry in my room before breakfast, a couple of glasses of scotch and soda before lunch and French Champagne and 90-year-old brandy before I go to sleep at night."
And he smoked Havana cigars every day.
1/24/15, 6:27 PM
And lived to ninety. Maybe good booze and smokes aren't so bad afterall.
Churchill wrote the History of the English Speaking People. Positively brilliant and I would recommend the update for the 20th century, see your Althouse Amazon portal.
Biff said...
I fear there is no place for a person such as Churchill today. The sad truth is that the stage was already diminishing when he lived. It is easily forgotten today just how quickly and unceremoniously Churchill was dumped from office once victory in Europe was secured, to be replaced by a Labour government far to Churchill's left.
1/24/15, 11:04 PM"
True and perhaps for now, the best. When the truly great arrive on the scene it usually portends great disasters and tragedies.
Churchhill at write:
‘At the same time [as the Welsh wars of Edward I] a counter-revolution in the balance of warfare was afoot. The mailed cavalry which from the fifth century eclipsed the ordered ranks of the legion were wearing out their long day. A new type of infantry raised from the common people began to prove its dominating quality. This infantry operated, not by club or sword or spear, or even by hand-flung missiles, but by an archery which, after a long development, concealed from Europe, was very soon to make an astonishing entrance upon the military scene and gain a dramatic ascendancy upon the battlefields of the Continent. Here was a prize taken by the conquerors from their victims. In South Wales the practice of drawing the long-bow had already attained an astonishing efficiency, of which one of the Marcher lords has left a record. One of his knights had been hit by an arrow which pierced not only the skirts of his mailed shirt, but his mailed breeches, his thigh, and the wood of his saddle, and finally stuck deep into his horse's flank. This was a new fact in the history of war, which is also a part of the history of civilisation, deserving to be mentioned with the triumph of bronze over flint, or iron over bronze. For the first time infantry possessed a weapon which could penetrate the armour of the clanking age, and which in range and rate of fire was superior to any method ever used before, or ever used again until the coming of the modern rifle. The War Office has among its records a treatise written during the peace after Waterloo by a general officer of long experience in the Napoleonic wars recommending that muskets should be discarded in favor of the long-bow on account of its superior accuracy, rapid discharge, and effective range. […]
‘The English people stood at this time possessed of a commanding weapon, the qualities of which were utterly unsuspected abroad. The long-bow, handled by the well-trained archer class, brought into the field a yeoman type of soldier with whom there was nothing on the Continent to compare. An English army now rested itself equally upon the armoured knighthood and the archers.
‘The power of the long-bow and the skill of the bowmen had developed to the point where even the finest mail was no certain protection. At two hundred and fifty yards the arrow hail produced effects never reached again by infantry missiles at such a range until the American civil war. The skilled archer was a professional soldier, earning and deserving high pay. He went to war on a pony, but always with a considerable transport for his comfort and his arrows. He carried with him a heavy iron-pointed stake, which, planted in the ground, afforded a deadly obstacle to charging horses. Behind this shelter a company of archers in open order could deliver a discharge of arrows so rapid, continuous, and penetrating as to annihilate the cavalry attack. Moreover, in all skirmishing and patrolling the trained archer brought his man down at ranges which had never before been considered dangerous in the whole history of war. Of all this the Continent, and particularly France, our nearest neighbour, was ignorant. In France the armoured knight and his men-at-arms had long exploited their ascendancy in war. The foot-soldiers who accompanied their armies were regarded as the lowest type of auxiliary. A military caste had imposed itself upon society in virtue of physical and technical assertions which the coming of the long-bow must disprove. The protracted wars of the two Edwards in the mountains of Wales and Scotland had taught the English many hard lessons, and although European warriors had from time to time shared in them they had neither discerned nor imparted the slumbering secret of the new army. It was with a sense of unmeasured superiority that the English looked out upon Europe towards the middle of the fourteenth century.’
Churchill maintained a voluminous correspondence with his Mother. In one of his many letters to her he wrote:
"You have asked me what my political philosophy is as a conservative. It is simply this: Look before you leap, and don't leap if you can find a ladder."
LOL! (And pretty damn good advice, too!)
Churchhill at write (continued):
‘By the spring of 1346 Parliament had at length brought itself to the point of facing the taxation necessary to finance a new invasion. The army was reconstituted, more efficiently than before, its old elements were refreshed with carefully chosen levies.
‘In one wave 2,400 cavalry, twelve thousand archers, and other infantry sailed, and landed unopposed at St. Vaast in Normandy on July 12, 1346. Their object this time was no less than the capture of Paris by a sudden dash. The secret was well kept; even the English army itself believed it was going to Gascony. The French could not for some time collect forces sufficient to arrest the inroad. Caen fell, and Edward [III] advanced, burning and laying waste the country, to the very walls of Paris. But by this time the whole power of the French monarchy had gathered against him. A huge force which comprised all the chivalry of France and was probably three times as big as Edward's army assembled in the neighbourhood of St. Denis. Against such opposition, added to the walls of a fortified city, Edward's resources could not hope to prevail. King Philip grimly invited him to choose upon which bank of the Seine he would fight a pitched battle.
‘The thrust had failed and retreat imposed itself upon the army. The challenger was forced to quit the lists at a pace which covered sixty miles in four days. The French army moved on a parallel line to the southward and denied the Seine valley to the retreating English. They must now make for the Somme, and hope to cross between Amiens and the sea.’ [...]
[After a narrow escape crossing the mouth of the Somme, Edward's army was brought to bay by King Philip's host next to the forest of Crécy.]
‘Edward and his army were intensely convinced of the narrowness of their deliverance. That night they rejoiced; the countryside was full of food; the King gathered his chiefs to supper and afterwards to prayer. But it was certain they could not gain the coast without a battle. No other resolve was open than to fight at enormous odds. The King and the Prince of Wales, afterwards famous as the Black Prince, received all the offices of religion, and Edward prayed that the impending battle should at least leave him unstripped of honour. With the daylight he marshalled about eleven thousand men in three divisions. Mounted upon a small palfrey, with a white wand in his hand, with his splendid surcoat of crimson and gold above his armour, he rode along the ranks, “encouraging and entreating the army that they would guard his honour and defend his right.” “He spoke this so sweetly and with such a cheerful countenance that all who had been dispirited were directly comforted by seeing and hearing him…. They ate and drank at their ease … and seated themselves on the ground, placing their helmets and bows before them, that they might be the fresher when their enemies should arrive.” Their position on the open rolling downs enjoyed few advantages, but the forest of Crécy on their flanks afforded protection and the means of a final stand.’
Churchhill at write (continued):
‘King Philip at sunrise on this same Saturday, August 26, 1346, heard Mass in the monastery of Abbeville, and his whole army, gigantic for those times, rolled forward in their long pursuit. Four knights were sent forth to reconnoitre. About midday the King, having arrived with large masses on the farther bank of the Somme, received their reports. The English were in battle array and meant to fight. He gave the sage counsel to halt for the day, bring up the rear, form the battle-line, and attack on the morrow. These orders were carried by famous chiefs to all parts of the army. But the thought of leaving, even for a day, this hated foe, who had for so many marches fled before overwhelming forces, and was now compelled to come to grips, was unendurable to the French army. What surety had they that the morrow might not see their enemies decamped and the field bare? It became impossible to control the forward movement. All the roads and tracks from Abbeville to Crécy were black and glittering with the marching columns. King Philip's orders were obeyed by some, rejected by most. While many great bodies halted obediently, still larger masses poured forward, forcing their way through the stationary or withdrawing troops, and about five in the afternoon came face to face with the English army lying in full view on the broad slopes of Crécy. Here they stopped.
‘King Philip, arriving on the scene, was carried away by the ardour of the throng around him. The sun was already low; nevertheless all were determined to engage. There was a corps of six thousand Genoese cross-bowmen in the van of the army. These were ordered to make their way through the masses of horsemen, and with their missiles break up the hostile array in preparation for the cavalry attacks. The Genoese had marched eighteen miles in full battle order with their heavy weapons and store of bolts. Fatigued, they made it plain that they were in no condition to do much that day. But the Count d'Alençon, who had covered the distance on horseback, did not accept this remonstrance kindly. “This is what one gets,” he exclaimed, “by employing such scoundrels, who fall off when there is anything for them to do.” Forward the Genoese! At this moment, while the cross-bowmen were threading their way to the front under many scornful glances, dark clouds swept across the sun and a short, drenching storm beat upon the hosts. A large flight of crows flew cawing through the air above the French in gloomy presage. The storm, after wetting the bow-strings of the Genoese, passed as quickly as it had come, and the setting sun shone brightly in their eyes and on the backs of the English. This, like the crows, was adverse, but it was more material. The Genoese, drawing out their array, gave a loud shout, advanced a few steps, shouted again, and a third time advanced, “hooted,” and discharged their bolts. Unbroken silence had wrapped the English lines, but at this the archers, six or seven thousand strong, ranged on both flanks in “portcullis” formation, who had hitherto stood motionless, advanced one step, drew their bows to the ear, and came into action. They “shot their arrows with such force and quickness,” says Froissart, “that it seemed as if it snowed.”’
Churchhill at write (continued):
‘The effect upon the Genoese was annihilating; at a range which their own weapons could not attain they were in a few minutes killed by thousands. The ground was covered with feathered corpses. Reeling before this blast of missile destruction, the like of which had not been known in war, the survivors recoiled in rout upon the eager ranks of the French chivalry and men-at-arms, which stood just out of arrow-shot. “Kill me those scoundrels,” cried King Philip in fury, “for they stop up our road without any reason.” Whereupon the front line of the French cavalry rode among the retreating Genoese, cutting them down with their swords. In doing so they came within the deadly distance. The arrow snowstorm beat upon them, piercing their mail and smiting horse and man. Valiant squadrons from behind rode forward into the welter, and upon all fell the arrow hail, making the horses caper, and strewing the field with richly dressed warriors. A hideous disorder reigned. And now Welsh and Cornish light infantry, slipping through the chequered ranks of the archers, came forward with their long knives and, “falling upon earls, barons, knights, and squires, slew many, at which the King of England was afterwards exasperated.” Many a fine ransom was cast away in those improvident moments.
‘In this slaughter fell King Philip's ally, the blind King of Bohemia, who bade his knights fasten their bridles to his in order that he might strike a blow with his own hand. Thus entwined, he charged forward in the press. Man and horse they fell, and the next day their bodies were found still linked. His son, Prince Charles of Luxembourg, who as Emperor-elect of the Holy Roman Empire signed his name as King of the Romans, was more prudent, and, seeing how matters lay, departed with his following by an unnoticed route. The main attack of the French now developed. The Count d'Alençon and the Count of Flanders led heavy cavalry charges upon the English line. Evading the archers as far as possible, they sought the men-at-arms, and French, German, and Savoyard squadrons actually reached the Prince of Wales's division. The enemy's numbers were so great that those who fought about the Prince sent to the windmill, whence King Edward directed the battle, for reinforcements. But the King would not part with his reserves, saying, “Let the boy win his spurs” — which in fact he did.
‘Another incident was much regarded. One of Sir John of Hainault's knights, mounted upon a black horse, the gift that day of King Philip, escaping the arrows, actually rode right through the English lines. Such was their discipline that not a man stirred to harm him, and, riding around the rear, he returned eventually to the French army. Continuous cavalry charges were launched upon the English front, until utter darkness fell upon the field. And all through the night fresh troops of brave men, resolved not to quit the field without striking their blow, struggled forward, groping their way. All these were slain, for “No quarter” was the mood of the English, though by no means the wish of their King.’
Churchhill at write (continued):
‘When night had fallen Philip found himself with no more than sixty knights at hand.
‘He was slightly wounded by one arrow, and his horse had been shot under him by another. Sir John Hainault, mounting him again, seized his bridle and forced him from the field upon the well-known principle which, according to Froissart, he exactly expounded, of living to fight another day. The King had but five barons with him on reaching Amiens the next morning.
‘“When on the Saturday night the English heard no more hooting or shouting, nor any more crying out to particular lords, or their banners, they looked upon the field as their own and their enemies as beaten. They made great fires, and lighted torches because of the obscurity of the night. King Edward who all that day had not put on his helmet, then came down from his post, and, with his whole battalion, advanced to the Prince of Wales, whom he embraced in his arms and kissed, and said, ‘Sweet son, God give you good perseverance. You are my son, for most loyally have you acquitted yourself this day. You are worthy to be a sovereign.’ The Prince bowed down very low, and humbled himself, giving all honour to the King his father.”
‘On the Sunday morning fog enshrouded the battlefield, and the King sent a strong force of five hundred lancers and two thousand archers to learn what lay upon his front. These met the columns of the French rear, still marching up from Rouen to Beauvais in ignorance of the defeat, and fell upon them. After this engagement the bodies of 1,542 knights and esquires were counted upon the field. Later this force met with the troops of the Archbishop of Rouen and the Grand Prior of France, who were similarly unaware of the event, and were routed with much slaughter. They also found very large numbers of stragglers and wandering knights, and “put to the sword all they met.” “It has been assured to me for fact,” says Froissart, “that of foot-soldiers, sent from the cities, towns, and municipalities, there were slain, this Sunday morning, four times as many as in the battle of the Saturday.” This astounding victory of Crécy ranks with Blenhiem, Waterloo, and the final advance in the last summer of the Great War as one of the four supreme achievements.’ [Note: Written in 1939.]
Churchhill at write (continued):
‘Edward III marched through Montreuil and Blangy to Boulogne, passed through the forest of Hardelot, and opened the siege of Calais. Calais presented itself to English eyes as the hive of that swarm of privateers who were the endless curse of the Channel. Here on the nearest point of the Continent England had long felt a festering sore. Calais was what Dunkirk was to become three centuries later. The siege lasted for nearly a year. Every new art of war was practised by land; the bombards flung cannon-balls against the ramparts with terrifying noise. By sea elaborate barriers of piles stopped the French light craft, which sought to evade the sea blockade by creeping along the coast. All reliefs by sea and land failed. But the effort of maintaining the siege strained the resources of the King to an extent we can hardly conceive. When the winter came his soldiers demanded to go home, and the fleet was on the verge of mutiny. In England everyone complained, and Parliament was morose in demeanour and reluctant in supply. The King and his army lived in their hutments, and he never recrossed the Channel to his kingdom. Machiavelli has profoundly observed that every fortress should be victualled for a year, and this precaution has covered almost every case in history.
‘Moreover, the siege had hardly begun when King David of Scotland, in fulfilment of the alliance with France, led his army across the Border. But the danger was foreseen, and at Neville's Cross, just west of the city of Durham, the English won a hard-fought battle. The Scottish King himself was captured, and imprisoned in the Tower. He remained there, as we have seen, for ten years until released under the Treaty of Berwick for an enormous ransom. This decisive victory removed the Scottish danger for a generation, but more than once, before and after Flodden, the French alliance was to bring disaster to this small and audacious nation.
‘Calais held out for eleven months, and yet this did not suffice. Famine at length left no choice to the besieged. They sued for terms. The King was so embittered that when at his demand six of the noblest citizens presented themselves in their shirts, barefoot, emaciated, he was for cutting off their heads. The warnings of his advisers that his fame would suffer in history by so cruel a deed left him obdurate. But Queen Philippa, great with child, who had followed him to the war, fell down before him in an edifying, and perhaps prearranged, tableau of Mercy pleading with Justice. So the burghers of Calais who had devoted themselves to save their people were spared, and even kindly treated. Calais, then, was the fruit, and the sole territorial fruit so far, of the exertions, prodigious in quality, of the whole power of England in the war with France. But Crécy had a longer tale to tell.’
Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume 1: “The Birth of Britain,” Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1956; p. 300, pp. 332-333, pp. 341-351.
And now, view this YouTube video: “Lars Anderson: A new [old] level of archery.”
I remember his death well.
As he was being taken to the hospital for the last time, he gave the V sign.
Michael K said...
Gallipoli actually had some serious resemblance to Anzio in which troops landed and generals spent days siting under enemy fire dithering.
Unfortunately, the Anzio ditherers were American this time but it was Churchill who wanted the invasion as an end run around the Germans at the "Winter Line."
Mark Clark was an inferior general who faced a superior, albeit Luftwaffe, General Kesselring. The US general on scene did an imitation of Gallipolli.
No, Clark knew a disaster when he saw it.
Anzio and, for that matter, the entire Italian campaign, like Gallipoli, was Winnie's idea ("soft underbelly"?) and we went in with 1 1/2 divisions with a lot of Rangers, commandos, and paratroops they hoped would make up the difference (they didn't - witness what happened to Darby's Rangers).
Had Clark and Lucas not "dithered", Kesselring would have had VI Corps for supper. This is the opinion of most historians.
For an alternate view, check out Samuel Eliot Morison's "Sicily, Salerno, Anzio", especially where he says, "It was a job for an entire army or no job at all".
Michael K. wrote: I am something of a student of history but I cannot think of a comparable figure. Maybe the the Pitts, elder and younger who stood off Napoleon. and Louis XIV.
Wrong Louis, I think.
Lord Chatham's great project was the Seven Years War against Louis XV, the grandson of Louis XIV.
The Seven Years War represented a reversal of fortune against Great Britain as her great continental ally against France turned her coat and joined the House of Bourbon in a war to destroy Prussia and establish a Catholic hegemony across Germany. Without British participation in the Seven Years War Frederick would have almost certainly been deposed with British influence in Europe reduced to ashes. Thankfully an obscure colonial officer gave the Whigs a casus belli by touching off a war between France and her Indian allies and the 13 American colonies.
RE: The WW II Anzio campaign:
I'm reminded of Napoleon's remark that "The Italian boot should be entered from the top or not at all." (para)
As they found out in WWI, that didn't work, either.
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