Winston Churchill – Old Magazine Articles

The Gathering Storm
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1948)

This is the Pathfinder book review for the first in Winston Churchill’s monumental six-volume account of the struggle between the Allied Powers in Europe against the Axis during the Second World War. Told from the unique vantage point of a British prime minister, it is also the story of one nation’s heroic role in the fight against fascist tyranny. When the other volumes in the series were completed, in 1953, Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his effort.

The Gathering Storm
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1948)

48 Hours With Winston Churchill
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

It is not an interview with the Prime Minister. He is too busy to give interviews and his sense of fairness long ago forced him to make the rule of ‘no interviews’. If he couldn’t give an interview to all, he wouldn’t give an interview to one. But I spent two days with him and this story is of the Winston Churchill I got to know well in forty-eight hours.

H.G. Wells on Winston Churchill
(Collier’s Magazine, 1940)

H.G. Wells and Winston Churchill first met in 1901. Churchill was a deep admirer of Well’s fiction, and he eagerly pursued a friendship. The two enjoyed a spirited exchange of letters that went on for decades – although it seemed to have taken a hit in the Twenties when the two disagreed on the nascent USSR – but their friendship was not seriously shaken. In this 1940 article, Wells stepped up to tell American readers how fortunate Britons are to have such a man of discernment standing at the helm:

I will confess I have never felt so disposed to stand by a man through thick and thin as I do now in regard to him. And I think that, in writing that, I write for a very great number of my fellow countrymen who have hitherto felt frustrated and fragmentary amidst the rush of events.

Winston Churchill: Up-and-Comer
(Saturday Evening Post, 1912)

He is only thirty-eight now and he is a member of the English Ministry… he has been a wonder of the Empire since he was twenty-five. The only American he can be compared to is [Teddy] Roosevelt; and that comparison is not especially apt, because Churchill writes far better than Roosevelt does, talks far better, and at thirty-eight has gone farther than Roosevelt had when he reached that age… Churchill will undoubtedly be a prime minister of England one of these days.

A Cartoon that Lampooned Balfour, Churchill, the Whole Iraq Adventure
(Punch Magazine, 1922)

A 1920s cartoon from a well-known British humor magazine depicted the doomed British adventure in Iraq as a result of an unbridled lust for oil and nothing else.

Click here to read about Punch Magazine.

Another piece about Churchill and Iraq can be read here.

Americans ♥ Winston Churchill
(Collier’s Magazine, 1942)

Shortly after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a solemn visit to the White House in order to plot the course of the war with FDR. The affect that the Prime Minister impressed upon the average American was profound and was soon made manifest in the form of innumerable gifts that began descending upon the White House addressed to him. An unsigned editorial in Collier’s Magazine noticed the event and remarked:

If we hadn’t liked Mr. Churchill immensely from the moment he arrived here, none of us would have sent him anything. The size and variety of this shower of gifts are the best measure of the terrific hit he made with all kinds and conditions of Americans.

Winston Churchill Steps Down as First Lord of the Admiralty
(Vanity Fair, 1916)

After the British withdrawal from Gallipoli it was time for the architect of the disaster, Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, to resign his office. Wishing to still play a part in the Great War, Churchill assumed the rank of Major with his old regiment, the Oxfordshire Hussars:

To have been ruler of the King’s Navy, and then to take a subordinate place in a trench in Flanders, involved a considerable change even for one whose life had been full of startling and dramatic moments.

Click here to read a review of Churchill’s remembrance of World War I .