Our Favorite Quotes

I learned about the War of 1812 on the TV. NatGeo, History channel...
I think I'd heard about it in school, but that was 60 years ago.

 

I thought I'd wait until the comments on Churchill finished before sticking my oar in:-

“ . . . Winston Churchill was a pompous *** hole . . . a walking disaster anytime he got near military strategy . . . a heck of a motivational speaker . . . ”

He was a great deal more than a motivational speaker or a war leader. He was a moderately talented artist (rather better than Hitler who actually was quite good) and one of the great historians of his or any other age, and still found time to be a bricklayer with full union membership.

There was little wrong with his military strategy. He had all the faults of his age and was indeed clumsy and weak on tactics but he was a master of strategy at the highest levels, as well as a political visionary. Regretfully his warnings regarding Hitler and Stalin went unheeded.

The British will always be grateful for the generosity of the American nation and its leader FDR who was indeed friend-in-need. He is still viewed and spoken of with great respect and admiration in Britain.

 

Strategy is the big picture plan and laying out of objectives. Tactics are the limited, short-term decisions made (usually in the field by relatively small units) to further the strategy.

Churchill's plan to carry out a major naval and amphibious assault in the Dardanelles during World War 1 was a strategic decision -- and a bloody, costly failure. It cost him his position as First Lord of the Admiralty. Yet a generation later, he was trying to persuade the Allies to make the same ruinous mistake all over again.... I first heard that blunt assessment from a Naval Science instructor, and I suspect most other instructors and historians would say the same.

On the plus side, while Churchill was First Lord he pushed for modernization of the fleet, and the development of naval aviation.

 

Dardanelles was a battle. The conduct of a war is strategy in the sense I was using. A war leader conducts a war, and military leaders should be left to plan battles to achieve the objectives that he assigns. No argument for this simplistic discussion. Moving on to reality:

Churchill had to take over the leadership of an unprepared nation, weakened by a pacifist government and supported only by a scattered empire thousands of miles away through more than two years of war with a larger, centralized, better prepared, trained and equipped enemy with access to the resources of much of a continent. After taking over, almost immediately Britain's primary ally, France, despite having the largest army in the world at the time, caved in. Churchill guided Britain through this seemingly impossible task to sucess.

At the time, many of the military leaders available to him were sure the war could not be brought to a successful conclusion, and wanted him to sue for peace. He endured a great deal of opposition and obstruction from generals who did not yet comprehend the nature of a modern, fast-moving war. The temptation to take over the conduct of battles must have been considerable. Succumbing to it left lesser men with some resentment, I am sure. I imagine he would have given his right arm for someone like Rommel.

He was quite ruthless about the conduct of the war. I am sure he regretted it when the Nazis began the blitz on London, but I am also sure it was a deliberate strategy to draw german air attacks away from RAF resources that were under great strain.

Pompous? Yes of course, my Grandfather was also pompous, it was the style of the times, like revisionism is today.

Mistakes? Yes, he made many. Big ones too. small folk like to discuss those and point out with 20/20 hindsight how he could have avoid them. Perhaps you can name a leader who has guide his nation through dangerous times without making any. I know I can't.

 

Churchill also viewed the the end game of WWII in light of the post war period.
The US approach 'won the battle, but lost the war' in this sense.
As a strategist his vision was perhaps broader than that of his contemporaries.

Dardanelles- Churchills attempt to provide succor to Russian which collapsed into Communism shortly after the failure there.

WWII end game- Churchills attempt to limit the spread of Communism into Eastern Europe in the post war period.


He had his 'eye on the ball' which virtually defined the next 40 years of global conflict..

 

The Dardanelles Campaign wasn't a battle; it was a campaign.

My critique of Churchill referred to his incompetence regarding military strategy, and I'll stand by it... your reply encompasses grand or national strategy instead.

While I'm at it, here's a classic summary of the difference between tactics and strategy.

I'm no expert on Churchill's overall career; I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on your summary of it.

 

"Duirt me leat go raibh me breoite" - Irish inscription on the tombstone of Spike Milligan

Or in English - "I told you I was ill"

 

I never vote for anyone. I always vote against.
W. C. Fields

 

I follow the same strategy. When the race is between Dumb and Dumber, I will always vote for Dumb.

 

My Garmin

I have a little Garmin
It sits there in my car
A Garmin is a driver's friend
It tells you where you are

I have a little Garmin
I've had it all my life
It�s better than the normal ones
My Garmin is my wife

It gives me full instructions
Especially how to drive
"It's thirty miles an hour", it says
"You're doing thirty five"

It tells me when to stop and start
And when to use the brake
And tells me that it's never ever
Safe to overtake.

It tells me when a light is red
And when it goes to green
It seems to know instinctively
Just when to intervene.

It lists the vehicles just in front
And all those to the rear
And taking this into account
It specifies my gear.

I'm sure no other driver
Has so helpful a device
For when we leave and lock the car
It still gives its advice.

It fills me up with counselling
Each journey's pretty fraught
So why don't I exchange it
And get a quieter sort?

Ah well, you see, it cleans the house,
Makes sure I'm properly fed,
It washes all my shirts and things
And - keeps me warm in bed!

Despite all these advantages
And my tendency to scoff,
I wish there was a switch so I
could turn the damned thing off!

 

Favorite Quotes

Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made. Robert N. Rose

"The sail, the play of its pulse so like our own lives: so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless when it labors hardest, so noisy and impatient when least effective." - Henry David Thoreau

To quote Mark Twain:
"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than by the things you did do. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

 

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. - Albert Einstein

 

There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.
Niels Bohr

 

As long as I count the votes what are you going to do about it? Say?
Boss Tweed

 

Let's teach the savages a lesson. Gen. Custer.