The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

by Erik Larson

There was comfort in the fact that bombers and, more importantly, their fighter escorts would have to fly all the way from their bases in Germany, a distance so great as to sharply limit their reach and lethality. But this presumed that France, with its mighty army and Maginot Line and powerful navy, would stand firm and thereby hem in the Luftwaffe and block all German paths to invasion. French endurance was the cornerstone of British defensive strategy. That France might fall was beyond imagining.

“All I hope is that it is not too late,” Churchill said. “I am very much afraid that it is. But we can only do our best, and give the rest of what we have—whatever there may be left to us.”

Coveting power for power’s sake was a “base” pursuit, he wrote, adding, “But power in a national crisis, when a man believes he knows what orders should be given, is a blessing.”

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

The speech set a pattern that he would follow throughout the war, offering a sober appraisal of facts, tempered with reason for optimism. “It would be foolish to disguise the gravity of the hour,” he said. “It would be still more foolish to lose heart and courage.”

“I am convinced that every man of you would rise up and tear me down from my place if I were for one moment to contemplate parley or surrender. If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.”

Here, as in other speeches, Churchill demonstrated a striking trait: his knack for making people feel loftier, stronger, and, above all, more courageous.

he “gave forth a confidence and invincible will that called out everything that was brave and strong.” Under his leadership, Martin wrote, Britons began to see themselves as “protagonists on a vaster scene and as champions of a high and invincible cause, for which the stars in their courses were fighting.”

“We shall go on to the end,” he said, in a crescendo of ferocity and confidence. “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—”

Churchill would be “silent, grumpy and remote” at the start of a meal, she wrote. “But mellowed by champagne and good food he became a different man, and a delightful and amusing companion.” After Clementine once criticized his drinking, he told her, “Always remember, Clemmie, that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”

“Love me, love my dog, and if you don’t love my dog you damn well can’t love me.”

General Brooke recalled one night when Churchill, at two-fifteen A.M., suggested that everyone present retire to the great hall for sandwiches, which Brooke, exhausted, hoped was a signal that soon the night would end and he could get to bed. “But, no!” he wrote. What followed was one of those moments often to occur at Chequers that would remain lodged in visitors’ minds forever after. “He had the gramophone turned on,” wrote Brooke, “and, in the many-colored dressing-gown, with a sandwich in one hand and water-cress in the other, he trotted round and round the hall, giving occasional little skips to the tune of the gramophone.” At intervals as he rounded the room he would stop “to release some priceless quotation or thought.” During one such pause, Churchill likened a man’s life to a walk down a passage lined with closed windows. “As you reach each window, an unknown hand opens it and the light it lets in only increases by contrast the darkness of the end of the passage.” He danced on. —

Churchill believed marriage to be a simple thing and sought to dispel its mysteries through a series of aphorisms. “All you need to be married are champagne, a box of cigars, and a double bed,” he said. Or this: “One of the secrets of a happy marriage is never to speak to or see the loved one before noon.” Churchill had a formula for family size as well. Four children was the ideal number: “One to reproduce your wife, one to reproduce yourself, one for the increase in population, and one in case of accident.”

Headed, appropriately enough, by the succinct title “BREVITY,” the minute began: “To do our work, we all have to read a mass of papers. Nearly all of them are far too long. This wastes time, while energy has to be spent in looking for the essential points.” He set out four ways for his ministers and their staffs to improve their reports. First, he wrote, reports should “set out the main points in a series of short, crisp paragraphs.” If the report involved discussion of complicated matters or statistical analysis, this should be placed in an appendix. Often, he observed, a full report could be dispensed with entirely, in favor of an aide-mémoire “consisting of headings only, which can be expanded orally if needed.” Finally, he attacked the cumbersome prose that so often marked official reports. “Let us have an end to phrases such as these,” he wrote, and quoted two offenders: “It is also of importance to bear in mind the following considerations…” “Consideration should be given to the possibility of carrying into effect…” He wrote: “Most of these woolly phrases are mere padding, which can be left out altogether, or replaced by a single word. Let us not shrink from using the short expressive phrase, even if it is conversational.” The resulting prose, he wrote, “may at first seem rough as compared with the flat surface of officialese jargon. But the saving of time will be great, while the discipline of setting out the real points concisely will prove an aid to clear thinking.”

“The night,” he wrote, “was cloudless and starry, with the moon rising over Westminster. Nothing could have been more beautiful and the searchlights interlaced at certain points on the horizon, the star-like flashes in the sky where shells were bursting, the light of distant fires, all added to the scene. It was magnificent and terrible: the spasmodic drone of enemy aircraft overhead; the thunder of gunfire, sometimes close sometimes in the distance; the illumination, like that of electric trains in peace-time, as the guns fired; and the myriad stars, real and artificial, in the firmament. Never was there such a contrast of natural splendor and human vileness.”

In another entry, Shirer noted that a joke had begun making its way around the more cynical quarters of Berlin: “An airplane carrying Hitler, Göring and Goebbels crashes. All three are killed. Who is saved?” Answer: “The German People.”

“I don’t see how in the course of having to make endless decisions one can avoid some mistakes.”

As one diarist noted, “The pubs were all full of happy, drunken people singing ‘Tipperary’ and the latest Army song which goes ‘Cheer up my lads, fuck ’em all.’ ”

The moon was shining up above, Poor puzzled moon he wore a frown! How could he know we were so in love That the whole darned world seemed upside down?

“We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.”