Is this Churchill quote legitimate? (Says America should've stayed out of WWI)

New York Enquirer ^ | 1936 | na

[woofie]

Churchill said that in a taxi going to the train station...trying to catch the 11:30 to Manchester

[Jimmy Valentine]

It does not sound like him. Also during his tenure as First Sea Lord, he did everything in his power to get the U.S. involved.

The whole issue of the sinking of the Lusitania involved much more than convoy defense.

regards,

[Charlotte Corday]

The consensus is that it wasn't Churchill, and I certainly agree.

Nonetheless, America staying out of WWI is one of the most challenging of all historical what-ifs, and it's not hard to make the case that it would have been a Good Thing.

[Snowyman]

Churchill was first Lord of the Admiralty which he resigned in 1915. Churchill said "it". If it doesn't sound like him it's because there is a difference between the way he spoke and the way he wrote. His speeches are written.

Barbara W. Tuchman wrote:

The belief in our safe isolation was reinforced by Wilson, who, bent on pursuing the New Freedom through domestic reform, was irritated by the threatened interference with his program from overseas. He declared in December 1914 that the country should not let itself be "thrown off balance" by a war "with which we have nothing to do, whose causes cannot touch us." (The familiar ring can be traced to a more famous echo twenty-five years later in Neville Chamberlain's reference to Czechoslovakia as "a far-away country of which we know nothing.")

1917: "We are counting on the probability of war with the United States," Field Marshal von Hindenburg had said at Supreme Headquarters when the decision was taken, but "things cannot be worse than they are now. The war must be brought to an end by whatever means as soon as possible." Headquarters had convinced itself that in the time before the submarine could knock out the Allies, American military assistance would "amount to nothing."

[driftless]

Whether the quote is real or not, the subject of what would have happened if we had stayed out of the war is a fascinating one. But the people who claim that communism and Nazism wouldn't have occurred are making a syllogism. It doesn't necessarily follow that good things would have followed if the U.S. had remained at peace. Hitler wouldn't have gotten in if the worldwide Great Depression hadn't seriously weakened Germany's fragile republic. Russia was a seething cauldron before the war, and the Czar's government had already fired on demonstrators in the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1905. History is fascinating, but to say that what did actually happen wouldn't have happened if certain circumstances were different is impossible to affirm.

[Oztrich Boy]

Is "minded" even a word that could be used (in this sense) by anyone with a enbiggened understanding of the English language?

[JohnGalt]

Without American troops, the Germans, who were winning the war on the ground would have won peace from the Allies. Kaiser Whilehm would have stayed in power; Franz Joseph would have continued to manage his Empire, and the Germans never would have put Lenin on a train to Russia to stir up trouble.

Secondly, the Wehmarcht would have happily joined the anti-Bolshevick White Russians troops in the years after the First World War to overthrow any Red Revolution so as Kaiser Bill could have avenged the murder of his cousin.

[aculeus]

Niall Ferguson, a British historian, wrote a well-reviewed book The Pity of War in which he argued that Britain made a monumental mistake in entering WWI. If they hadn't the Germans would have won and established a Euro common market, Hitler and Lenin both would have lived out their lives as nonentities, etc.

An amazon review:

If someone less distinguished than Jesus College, Oxford, fellow Niall Ferguson had written The Pity of War, you could be forgiven for thinking the book was out for a few cheap headlines by contradicting almost every accepted orthodoxy about the First World War. Ferguson argues that Britain was as much to blame for the start of the war as Germany, and that, had Britain sacrificed Belgium to Germany, the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution would never have happened. Germany, he continues, would have created a united European state, and Britain could have remained a superpower. He also contends that there was little enthusiasm for the war in Britain in 1914; on the other hand, he claims the war was prolonged not by clever manipulation of the media, but by British soldiers' taking pleasure in combat. If that isn't enough, he further maintains that it wasn't the severity of the conditions imposed on Germany at Versailles in 1919 that led inexorably to World War II, and blames instead the comparative leniency and the failure to collect reparations in full.

The Pity of War, with no pretensions to offering a grand narrative of the war, goes over its chosen questions like a polemical tract. As such it is immensely readable, well researched, and controversial. You may not end up agreeing with all of Ferguson's arguments, but that should not deter you from reading it. All of us need our deeply held views challenged from time to time, even if only to remind us why we've got them. --John Crace, Amazon.co.uk .

It's a serious interesting read and here's the amazon link.

[Moby Grape]

This quote does not match ANYTHING else Churchill EVER said about WW11. Churchill wanted the US to get into the war in the worst way. Before WW11 began, Churchill was aksed what he thought of Hitler. He replied, "One should pluck a weed BEFORE it takes over the garden."...If Churchill thought Hitler should have been taken out early, why would he make such a silly statement as the one in the article? Churchill many times pointed out to a world that did not want to believe him that Hitler intended war...he was ignored. Many liberals of the day were suggesting that Germany should be allowed to rearm (which it was doing anyway) because if Germany were strong then she would not feel threatened, and therefore, would not cause war. Churchill replied, "To allow Germany to rearm is to appoint the hour of the next world war."

Statements like these do not suggest that Churchill believed that anything LESS than crushing Hitler would bring peace, and he believed this BEFORE Hitler made any moves against another territory or country.

[pawdoggie]

As to whether the quote is genuine or not, I don't know. Churchill was spot on when it came to his assessment of the Nazi threat prior to WWII, but he was certainly not infallible. The disastrous amphibious assault at Gallipoli in WWI, the dispatching of a British expeditionary force to Greece in WWII(which seriously weakened the Eigth Army in North Africa at a critical time), and the amphibious fiasco at Anzio were all failed Churchill ideas. He also made a pre-WWII comment to the effect that "England needs a Hitler". Sort of Trent Lott-ish, n'est-ce pas?

[pawdoggie]

Make that "the Eighth Army..", sorry.

[u-89]

This quote does not match ANYTHING else Churchill EVER said about WW11

The statement in question was about the 1st World War. Are you thinking of the wrong war or are you trying to compare his views of the 2nd war to discount a statement under question regarding the 1st war? Not sure of your point.

P.S. I know the neocons are two up on the rest of us calling the war with Islam W.W.IV (the cold war being W.W.III) but you seem to beat even the neocons by being up to "WW11" (eleven) already. I should pay closer attention to current events, seems I missed a few conflicts somewhere.

[u-89]

Are you saying that this view is bogus as pertaining to Churchill or do you mean this view of the US staying out of the war is bogus by itself no matter who said it?

[Snowyman]

He's not talking about WW2 . Hitler was becoming a threat , in Churchill's opinion, because the first war had not ended when it should have, under different conditions for both sides. WW2 was still 3 years away.

[N. Theknow]

I believe it was this Winston Churchill.

[Moby Grape]

Thanks for the correction. However, AFTER WW11, Churchill said that WW11 was the avoidable war. He said that if Hitler had been crushed when he took the Rhineland, then the other horrors would never have followed. Chruchill blamed the liberal appeasing leaders of the day for the fact that Germany was allowed to get strong eoungt to begin the war. It is just too simplistic to believe that the US being in WW1 caused WW2. However, it was Churchill's view that the harsh treatment and restrictions placed on Germany after WW1 created a despertate Germany, which in turn allowed Hitler to gain a footing.

[Moby Grape]

I have been corrected. I misread, thinking the quote refered to WW2.

[Snowyman]

However, it was Churchill's view that the harsh treatment and restrictions placed on Germany after WW1 created a despertate Germany, which in turn allowed Hitler to gain a footing.

Is Churchill not saying that it's possible had the US not been in the first war, had it ended in 1917 when both sides were economically and militarily different from late 1918 that Hitler would never have been. That the end of the WW1 may not have come as a surrender, rather a negotiated peace.

[Remole]

I agree with you. I have read quite a lot of Churchill and this series of "If . . . " followed by the pluperfect subjunctive just doesn't sound like his style.

[wideawake]

Churchill didn't write like this. Compare this quote to any passage from his History of the English-Speaking Peoples.