CHURCHILL IN FEBRUARY
After a January of atrocities in our country that surely would have shocked Winston Churchill, saddened Winston Churchill and impelled Winston Churchill to take action, we invite you to take solace with us in a new month, and all that Churchill accomplished in February, throughout a life defined by his opposition to dictatorship in any form.
In February 1895, 20-year-old Winston Churchill emerged from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and formally received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the 4th (Queen’s Own) Hussars.
In February 1910, Churchill was named Home Secretary in David Lloyd George’s Liberal Party government; the second youngest in British history. For one week in February 1921, he actually held the seals of three separate Secretaryships of State simultaneously: Colonies, War, and the just-created independent Air Ministry for which Churchill had long been campaigning.
In February 1931, Charlie Chaplin, while in England for the London premiere of his film, City Lights, visited Churchill at Chartwell for a day, admiring Chartwell’s “family feeling.” On February 7, Churchill joined Chaplin at his opening night party.
On February 17, 1933, just weeks after Hitler become Chancellor of Germany following a campaign of Nazi intimidation and terror, Churchill anxiously addressed Parliament. “My mind turns across the narrow water of Channel and the North Sea,” he declared. “. . . I think of Germany with its splendid clear-eyed youth marching forward on all the roads of the Reich singing the ancient songs, demanding to be conscripted into an army; eagerly seeking the most terrible weapons of war; burning to suffer and die for their fatherland.”
With the conclusion of the Casablanca Conference in February 1943, Winston Churchill took Franklin Roosevelt with him on a four-hour drive to Marrakech, to show the President the brilliant sunset over the snow-covered Atlas Mountains; one of Churchill’s favorite views. Arriving at the Villa Taylor, Churchill climbed the winding stairs to the rooftop. Two servants made a sling seat for the President of their linked arms and brought him up as well. The next day, after Roosevelt departed, Churchill painted the view; his only painting of the war.
We wish you resistance to tyranny and hope for a better day,
or at least a better month.