Over the past 113 years, there have been 1,009 biographies of Winston Churchill (Britain's wartime leader between 1940 and 1945). Is it necessary to write a new biography of Churchill? I believe it is necessary, and have just launched Churchill: Walking with Fate in London, with Chinese edition coming later this year. Books about Churchill have been written, but my comprehensive biography from his birth to his death still has its place. I'm sure I'm not proud to say that.
Churchill's Biography: Walking with Fate (all two volumes), by Andrew Roberts, translated by Li Xiaoxia, CITIC Publishing Group, May 2021 edition.
Churchill was chosen because I was British, born less than two years after winston Churchill's death. He is always present in my consciousness. Many controversies and controversies about him and his actions have always been in my memory, and I wanted to resolve them as much as possible, both for the sake of the reader and for myself. I have written five books with Churchill in the title and more than 200 articles and reviews about him. I felt ready to take on the task of writing a biography. When Churchill became prime minister, he said: "I feel that my whole life has been prepared for this moment, this test. "Writing his biography, I feel the same way!
Winston Is Back: David Jagger created this very Churchill portrait in the Navy in 1939.
I also feel that now is a good time to write a biography of Churchill. In 1960, Churchill was in wartime chief of staff, Hastings" When General Hastings 'Pug' Ismay began writing his memoirs, he told President Eisenhower that it would not be until at least 2010 to write an unbiased and objective biography of Churchill. Ismail is right, because it was not until the second decade of the 21st century that the last archival materials about Churchill were declassified and read by researchers. Fifty years after Churchill's death, we can finally portray him fully and truthfully.
I would very much like to see Churchill. If I could talk to him for one night, even if it cost me a finger of my right hand, I would not hesitate. There is no doubt about it. I must ask him a question: "You promised to write a biography of Napoleon during the 'Wilderness Age' when you were temporarily withdrawing from politics, why didn't you write it later?" "If he had written it, it would have been the greatest biography in history."
My biography of Churchill is generally based on archives and first-hand material, many of which have never been used by any churchill biography, such as the 41 documents that the people who worked with Churchill were later deposited at Churchill College, Cambridge, and the documents of his daughter Mary Soames. The Queen allowed me to use the diaries of her father, King George VI, which no Churchill biographer had read before. George VI's diary is a good illustration of Churchill's thoughts during the darkest hours of World War II. The diary of Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador to Britain, was also recently made public. I was also fortunate enough to find the minutes of the meetings of the war cabinet during Churchill's tenure as Prime Minister (and verbatim), where I dug up a lot of stuff for use in this book.
I referenced the complete and uncut diaries of King George VI and the Soviet ambassador Ivan Maiysky, lawrence Burgis' verbatim account of wartime cabinet meetings, Churchill's daughter's diary in 1940, and many other precious historical sources. I referenced the private documents of 138 people who knew Churchill and worked with him, and cited 350 books, so my biography is the most comprehensive depiction of Churchill.
In 1929, Churchill delivered a campaign speech wearing an Astrakhan lambskin coat.
While doing research for this biography, I went to the jungles of Cuba, where Churchill first heard the sound of gunfire shortly before his twentieth birthday; I went to the Gallipoli Battlefield in Turkey, where his reputation was battered; I went to the trenches where he fought in Belgium between 1915 and 1916; and where he crossed the Rhine in 1945. I've been to the room where he was born and the room where he died (other historians don't have a chance to go). I've been to his beloved country house, Chatwell Manor. I visited his London apartment where he lived during the Second World War, 10 Downing Street, Chequers and the RAF room at Akers Bridge, where he watched the Battle of Britain. As for Churchill's wartime office in London, I've been there dozens of times. I also revisited my past, collating and revising notes from interviews with more than a hundred people when I wrote my first book thirty years ago. Those people knew Churchill and had worked with him. It gives me a clear memory of the giants and heroes who have long since passed away, and I am very honored to have known them.
I'm sure the reader will be surprised to learn that he is a passionate and compassionate man. He cried fifty times in public during World War II, more easily driven by his own emotions than any other politician of his generation. He sympathized with the common people and spent his life helping the common people in a low-key manner, which was part of his belief that the nobility should act noblely. That is to say, the nobility, since it enjoyed privileges, had obligations to the rest of society. This is a major part of his philosophy of life.
During the Second World War, Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff and Field Marshal of the Army, often denounced Churchill to his face, but Brooke wrote in his diary: "Thank God I have the opportunity to work with such a man." Thank God for showing me that sometimes there are really supermen on Earth. Churchill's superhuman efforts to defeat Hitler and save Britain from the clutches of fascism would make the British love him forever.
There are dozens of myths about Churchill, especially those circulating online. He wasn't an alcoholic, nor was he a depressed person. He drank a lot, and indeed he was depressed at times, but his condition was by no means what amateur doctors and civil psychologists called alcoholism and depression in the medical sense. He is also definitely not a bipolar disorder sufferer. He did not cause the Great Famine in Bengal, nor did he prolong it. On the contrary, he shortened the famine. He did not advocate gassing the rebellious Iraqi tribesmen, but only suggested tear gas against them. The deaths of Admiral Darlan, General Sikorsky, the Prime Minister of Greece, and others were not Churchill's responsibility. There are so many absurd myths about Churchill that I have refuted them in my book. Recently there was even a headline in a newspaper article that said, "Churchill never smoked." "It's ridiculous. Churchill smoked 160,000 cigars in his lifetime.
On 25 March 1945, Churchill crossed the Rhine into Germany. Leaving the landing craft behind him were Field Marshal Brooke and Eisenhower's mistress, Kay Somersby.
Churchill's childhood was unfortunate, with ferocious corporal punishment at the preparatory school; his parents were busy and selfish and ignored him. His father also unabashedly despised his own son. By the age of twenty-six, however, Churchill had fought four wars, published five books, written 215 newspaper articles, participated in the largest cavalry charge in half a century, and experienced a thrilling and successful escape from prison.
If he were in politics today, he would surely have millions of Twitter followers. The vast majority of his brilliant and witty quotes can be condensed into 280 words or less. He was not very popular for most of his political career, but part of his greatness was that he kept talking about how he dealt with Hitler and the Nazis, regardless of what others thought.
One of my favorite Churchill quotes comes from his eulogy for Neville Chamberlain at Westminster Abbey in November 1940: "History stumbles along the paths of the past with its flickering lights, trying to reconstruct its scene, to restore its echoes, to illuminate the passions of the old days with dim lights." This sentence very poetically sums up the work that we historians have worked so hard to do and how difficult it is.
Churchill was a very humorous and funny person, often joking. When his government was heavily criticized in November 1941, he told a joke to the House of Commons: "There was a custom in the Chinese Empire that anyone who wanted to criticize the imperial court had the right to do so." As long as he commits suicide after criticizing him, everyone will respect his words very much and will not feel that he has any ulterior motives. In many ways, this may seem like a wise custom, but I would never recommend adopting it in the UK. ”
I believe that even half a century after Churchill's death, the international evaluation of him is still very positive. During World War II, listening to Churchill's radio speech on the radio was a capital offense in Nazi-occupied territories, but millions of people bravely insisted on listening to him. One of them, Anne Frank, at the secret attic in Amsterdam, wrote that "hearing the speech of our dear Winston Churchill" made her very happy. Today, the world recognizes him as a great example of inspiring and unwavering leadership, even if some of his ideas no longer apply half a century after his death.
Churchill liked many countries outside of England. He was particularly fond of Canada and visited frequently; after the war he went to Cuba; he painted many paintings on the lakes of southern France and Italy, and gambled money in Monaco. He spent his time writing and painting at the Mamounia Hotel in Marrakech and, of course, made 16 trips to the United States and 28 states.
In the process of writing, I need to condense more historical facts than I did in the past when I was writing (I have written a total of 19 books). Churchill's writings and articles are 6 million words long, and his public speeches are 5 million words long. He almost never wrote or said something repetitive, and almost never wrote or uttered a dull and boring word. I have written more than a dozen books, but it is more difficult to condense the historical facts about Churchill into a volume than I have done before. But nazi Germany's threat to Britain was overwhelming at the time, so it particularly attracted the attention of historians.
What surprised me the most when reading the diary of King George VI was that Churchill expressed great frustration and sometimes anger to the king, because before Pearl Harbor the Americans had little interest in entering the war. Churchill said to the king something about Franklin D. Roosevelt and his government that Churchill would never have spoken publicly.
The biggest challenge of writing for me was how to balance the Second World War and the rest of Churchill's life. In the end, I chose to let each of these two sides take half the space, because I recognized how correct Churchill's words when he became prime minister in May 1940 were: "I feel that my whole life has been prepared for this moment, for this test." "So his life needs to be properly deeply handled, and I hope I do well."
There is now a new, vicious conspiracy theory against Churchill on the Internet and elsewhere, out of touch with the truth to the point of outrage. Churchill made many mistakes, but never out of malice. I reviewed all the allegations against Churchill and refuted them one by one based on historical evidence. I want readers to feel that in today's well-behaved, aggressive and narrow-minded world, there is still honor and heroism. And no matter how many mistakes you make in your life (Churchill made many mistakes), as long as you can learn the lessons like Churchill, you can still achieve great things. Churchill said to his beloved wife Clementine: "If I do not make mistakes, I cannot achieve anything." He was right.
Written | Andrew Roberts
Translated | Lu Dapeng
Excerpt from | Li Yongbo
Edited | Anya
Introduction Proofreading | Liu Jun