Vincent Delmas - Churchill: A Graphic Biography

C HURCHILL

a graphic biography

Churchill

This English-language edition first published in 2020 by

Greenhill Books

c/o Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

47 Church Street, Barnsley,

S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS

www.greenhillbooks.com

Greenhill edition ISBN: 978-1-78438-512-5

eISBN: 978-1-78438-513-2

Mobi ISBN: 978-1-78438-514-9

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

This edition Greenhill Books 2020

Ivanka Hahnenberger English language translation Greenhill Books, 2020

Andrew Roberts foreword Greenhill Books, 2020

Foreword and Introduction images The Taylor Library

Original French edition Editions Glnat/Librarie Arthme Fayard

Publishing History

First published in French in 2018 as

Ils ont fait lHistoire: Churchill

by Editions Glnat/Librarie Arthme Fayard

CIP data records for this title are available from the British Library

Published in the U.S.A. in 2020 by

Dead Reckoning

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

Dead Reckoning edition ISBN: 9781682475287

Dead Reckoning is an imprint of the Naval Institute Press, the book-publishing division of the U.S. Naval Institute, a non-profit organization. All rights reserved.

With the exception of short excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019951064

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First printing

Text

Vincent Delmas

Translated by

Ivanka Hahnenberger

Historical Consultant

Franois Kersaudy

Story-Board

Christophe Regnault

Design

Alessio Cammardella

Artwork

Alessia Nocera

That ought to be a publishers mantra, as ever since the first one was written in 1905 when Churchill was thirty years old and only one-third of the way through his life there have been no fewer than 1,010 biographies written of him. These comprise dozens of excellent, full-scale, cradle-to- grave lives, but also some sub-standard hack biographies churned out during the Second World War and during his Indian Summer premiership of 19515. There have been magisterial oversights of the man and his era, but also appalling hagiographies which absurdly attempt to pretend that he could do no wrong.

Yet almost all of these books have adopted the standard practice of telling his life chronologically through the use of words illustrated by as many photos as the publishers (often limited) budgets could afford. By total contrast, this excellent book uses graphics, and in such a way that both adults and children can appreciate the heroism and splendour of Winston Churchill. Nor does it ignore the many pitfalls of his life and career that all too often he dived into head first and with his eyes open. It is thus a full and wholly fair representation of the most adventurous life in the history of British politics.

I expected nothing less, for the distinguished Vincent Delmas wrote the script and one of the foremost historians of Churchill and his era, Franois Kersaudy, was the historical consultant. It was Kersaudy who wrote De Gaulle and Churchill (1981) and Norway, 1940 (1990), which despite being published over a quarter of a century ago are still today the standard texts for both important aspects of the Second World War. Loaded with all the honours that French history has to give, Kersaudy is a giant in his field, and readers can be assured that this book is historically accurate. Having just myself written the 1,010th biography of Churchill, there is not a word I would have changed in the text of this excellent graphical account.

To add to the historical accuracy and fine text of this work, Christophe Regnault, Alessio Cammardella and Alessia Nocera have prepared the illustrations, which in places especially during the coverage of the Blitz amount to genuine art, of the kind that Winston Churchill who painted around 530 pictures in his life would have approved. The graphics draw the reader into the sheer excitement of a life of pure adventure, as Churchill lived out the destiny that he had prescribed himself as a 16-year- old schoolboy, when he told a fellow pupil, I can see vast changes coming over a now peaceful world, great upheavals, terrible struggles; wars such as one cannot imagine. London will be attacked and I shall be in command of the defences of London and I shall save London and England from disaster. In the high position I shall occupy, it will fall to me to save the capital and save the Empire. Half a century later he did just that, indeed he saved Civilization itself.

How he achieved that is brilliantly illustrated in this superb book, which I hope will bring the Churchill story to an entirely new generation of enthusiasts, who might then go on to join the International Churchill Society to learn more about the Greatest Englishman. Churchill had many flaws and failings which rightly feature in this book and he made several important mistakes in his life. Overall, however, his foresight was exemplary, his leadership superb, his heart gigantic, and his courage sublime. All of these qualities needed today as much as ever before are evident from this fine work of graphics and of history.

Andrew Roberts

Author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny

www.andrew-roberts.net

Helped along by a succession of expressive and impressive illustrations, readers of this book may follow the main turning points in Churchills eventful life. There remains to fill in the background, in an effort to catch a better glimpse of this elusive and in many ways unique personality. Born half American and a descendant of the great Duke of Marlborough, with four quite remarkable grandparents, a brilliant, ambitious and distant father, an energetic, frivolous and absent mother, a devoted and loving nurse such are the main ingredients to start with. But the boys temperament was uniquely his own: unruly, quarrelsome, headstrong and fiercely independent, he developed into a bright but difficult schoolboy, who would work only in the subjects that met his fancy chiefly English, poetry and history. But even these seemed to wane before his consuming passion: growing up in the decidedly martial environment of his grandparents palace of Blenheim, learning from his nurse all about the exploits of his illustrious Marlborough ancestor, receiving from his fathers friends and his mothers lovers a sizeable collection of tin soldiers, young Winston developed early on a lifelong interest in all things military. This was to lead him first to the Army class at Harrow, then, aged 19, to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst.

At Sandhurst, Winston Churchill was to prove an unconventional cadet: rather short with a slight stoop, slimly built, unfit for long marches, hopelessly unpunctual and even prone to oppose orders, he was nonetheless a brilliant horseman, practically unbeatable at fencing, swimming and shooting, and his capacious memory enabled him to digest the whole programme of tactics, topography and military law with very little effort. He graduated in December 1894, ranked 20th out of 130 cadets, and four months later, Second Lieutenant Churchill was gazetted to the 4th Queens Own Hussars. From then on, with or without leave from his regiment, he was to take part in four campaigns in less than five years: Cuba in 1895, the Northwest Frontier in 1896, the Sudan in 1898 and South Africa in 1899. In all these theatres, he drew attention to himself by a bravery verging on foolhardiness, a seemingly innate pugnacity and sense of command, an uncommon luck and a talent for self-advertising the latter being made easier by the fact that he doubled as a well-paid press correspondent and became the author of five books on his campaigns. From these bloody battlefields he emerged unscathed, with the sense that Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result, but also with the conclusion that journalism and authorship were rather more profitable than a career in the Army and that, at any rate, he had other ambitions...