Having read Charmley’s 'The Gathering Storm' essay on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/churchill_gathering_storm_01.shtml , I just couldn't help posting these few observations here:
He calculatedly distorts the implications of a sentence that Churchill wrote about Hitler in his 'Great Contemporaries'. He says: "It is not just that Churchill was inconsistent in his criticisms of Hitler (whom he once hoped to see 'a kinder figure in a gentler age'); his whole reading of events leading up to World War Two was badly flawed, and looks good only with the advantage of hindsight." Any person with even a fraction of the understanding of the English language that Charmley must possess (or should, if he doesn't) will see immediately that Churchill was making an essay in being fair: seeking to avoid pre-judging Hitler too harshly (given that he had already, by this stage in his essay, dealt very sternly with his subject) lest he turned out, after all, to redeem himself as time unfolded. At the time of writing, Hitler had not performed many of the acts that were to make his name stink in the nostrils of the world - or that were to extort the admiration of men like Chamberlain and Halifax; so Churchill could not, in fairness, denounce Hitler with the summariness that we can today. He was giving Hitler - in those pre-war years - the benefit of the doubt, while still making some very stringent pronouncements on his record thus far. To re-present that statement to today's readers as does is, to my mind, malignant, mischievous, and unscrupulously evasive of context. Not to put too fine a point on it, he misuses his status as a historian (demonstrably discountable in my opinion, if all his vast learning could lead him only to behaviour such as this) to prostitute a view of Churchill that is blatantly skewed. And in doing so, he shows a contemptuous disregard for the intelligence and discernment of his reading public. It offends me to be lied to by someone who poses as a construer of historical truth. I think he should have dealt more honourably with the material that he purveys. Also, to illustrate a point that would be clear to anyone with a nodding acquaintance with the principles of logic, to say that a person's judgement 'looks good with the advantage of hindsight' is to concede unequivocally that that judgement was particularly *foresighted*. History abounds with examples of actions and words that were proved wrong in the event - i.e. with hindsight. We often criticise these actions but at the same time acknowledge that they 'couldn't have known'. But to be proven *right* by later events is to show oneself to be possessed of uncanny percipience, if not uncommon brilliance. So for Charmley to say ".... and looks good only with the advantage of hindsight" does his argument no favours, and in fact contradicts and dissipates it. Not only that, but by inserting the word 'only' he convicts himself of irrationality: seeking to invest an observation with pejorative tones looks decidedly stupid when the observation itself can only compel admiration for its object – in this case, Churchill. In fact Charmley’s whole thesis recalls to my mind a line from the prolegomenary pages in Lytton Strachey's 'Eminent Victorians': *"...the polemic was cheaper than it should have been because many of its gems were fakes".* -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
