CHURCHILL OUT OF HIBERNATION, WEEK 26

Christmas approaches and here in New York City our “Out of Hibernation” status wanes. Do remember: Our new holiday catalogue, “CHURCHILL MASKED FOR VICTORY,” contains First Edition copies of every book that we have thus far visited in our “Churchill Out of Hibernation” tour of Winston Churchill’s works. This week only we will Overnight ship any book in the catalogue free of charge. A final flourish before we and Winston Churchill return to hibernation.

Meanwhile, the third volume of Churchill’s war speeches, THE END OF THE BEGINNING, beckons.

And then things got even worse. The speeches and broadcasts collected in
The End of the Beginning are an awfully somber assemblage, as Churchill narrates with implacable Churchillian moxie a period from January through December 1942 that witnessed Japan’s brutally quick conquest of Malaya, Rangoon and Singapore, Rommel’s tank onslaught in Africa, continued U-boat carnage in the North Atlantic and even a no-confidence motion for the Prime Minister in the House of Commons that thankfully failed to pass.

Churchill weathers it all with words. And then, in November 1942, there is victory, at last, with the Battle of Alamein. “I have never promised anything but blood, tears, toil and sweat,” Churchill reminded the Lord Mayor’s Day luncheon in London on November 9th 1942, and then exulted, “Now, however, we have a new experience. We have victory — a remarkable and definite victory. The bright gleam has caught the helmets of our soldiers, and warmed and cheered all our hearts…Rommel’s army has been defeated. It has been routed. It has been very largely destroyed as a fighting force…The Germans have received back again that measure of fire and steel which they have so often meted out to others.

“Now this is not the end,” noted Churchill. “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

We wish you health, peace and masked safety heading into the holidays, as we celebrate what is, perhaps, our end of the beginning.