Long live the Queen...no really

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Reece

When he was married to Dianna he was having an affair with Camilla, then when Dianna was killed he shacked up with her and then married her, Camilla was also married at the time so marrying her is not really a good example (adultery) for a prince or future king to show/behave! My wife is still a British subject and she is furious with him and frankly I don't blame her!

All true, and I don't blame you either. I suppose he sees himself as the suffering hero, denied his true love and forced into a pretend marriage. On the other hand Tribesman has a point as well, which was mine. Henry VIII did all those things as well, and the moral goaltender in all this was created just so he could do exactly that.

Again, I'm not really taking sides. I just find human nature fascinating, both the tendency to go against moral codes and the tendency to create them in the first place. If the King or Queen truly did still rule England, what kind of ruler would any of them make? I sure don't know. Here we don't hold with absolute idiot rulers. We have to choose between our idiot rulers, then kick them out every chance we get. Are we really better? No, just a different sort of lunacy.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by sidslotm

Churchill and Roosevelt the giants of freedom, two men able to put their Country before personel interests and desires, where would we be without them, in Uboats,

The greatest among you will be a servant, Jesus.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

All true, and I don't blame you either. I suppose he sees himself as the suffering hero, denied his true love and forced into a pretend marriage. On the other hand Tribesman has a point as well, which was mine. Henry VIII did all those things as well, and the moral goaltender in all this was created just so he could do exactly that.

Again, I'm not really taking sides. I just find human nature fascinating, both the tendency to go against moral codes and the tendency to create them in the first place. If the King or Queen truly did still rule England, what kind of ruler would any of them make? I sure don't know. Here we don't hold with absolute idiot rulers. We have to choose between our idiot rulers, then kick them out every chance we get. Are we really better? No, just a different sort of lunacy.

Two crackin and tought provocative posts

Would not be surprised if Liz was the next to last British monarch since her brood has generally embarrassed the institution, perhaps beyond repair. It has been said that having an hereditary Head of State is like having hereditary dentists, it might work out for a while but eventually it will become very painful.

As for $0.02 CAD on Churchill he was an appallingly poor war leader and many of Britain's greatest defeats and military blunders can be laid directly at his door including:

The escape of SMS Goeben - 1914
Broad Fourteen's - 1914 (U-9 sinks armoured cruisers Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue)
Battle of Coronel - 1914
The Dardinelles - 1915
Gallipoli - 1915
Loss of HMS Courageous - 1939
Norway - 1940
Tobruk - 1941
Greece and Crete - 1941
Force Z - 1941 (Prince of Wales and Repulse sunk off Malaysia)
Singapore - 1942
Dieppe - 1942

With a handful of notable exceptions he surrounded himself with non-entities and sycophants and never accepted responsibility for any of his decisions that went wrong, preferring to throw a suitable military man under the bus instead.

He wanted to go to war in Turkey over Chanak in 1922, advocated bombing rebelling Iraqi villages with mustard gas and allowed several million Indians to starve to death in 1943-44 by exporting vast quantities of Indian grain to the British Isles in support of the war effort after the harvests had failed. He was very much a man of his times, self-promoting, imperialist and dogmatic.

That said, he was a brilliant parlimentarian and orator. If there is an entity known as "Western Civilization", he is owed a priceless debt as Hitler's most implacable enemy.

Favorite Churchill quote:
"I know History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."

Favorite quote about Churchill (attributed to Lord Balfour but possibly apocryphal):
"Winston's gone and written some great big book about how he won the War and he's calling it The World Crisis."

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Randomizer

The escape of SMS Goeben - 1914
Broad Fourteen's - 1914 (U-9 sinks armoured cruisers Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue)
Battle of Coronel - 1914
The Dardinelles - 1915

Gallipoli is obvious, but exactly how can the above be "laid directly at his door"? I know about the Man In Charge being responsible, but what specifically could he have done to avoid those?

All also ask the same concerning Courageous and Force Z.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Gallipoli is obvious, but exactly how can the above be "laid directly at his door"? I know about the Man In Charge being responsible, but what specifically could he have done to avoid those?

All also ask the same concerning Courageous and Force Z.

Escape of the Goeben - As First Lord he interfered directly in the deployments and actions of the two Admirals on the spot, Adm Milne, CinC Med and RAdm Troubridge SO 1 Cruiser Squadron. Due to confusing, poorly written and untimely orders directly from Churchill, Goeben was allowed to escape to Constantinople without being brought to action. Milne was cashiered (no great loss to the Navy but still...) and Troubridge was court-martialed for interpreting a poorly worded Churchill order regarding engaging superior forces in a manner the Churchill (and the Navy generally) did not like.
See The Ship that Changed the World by Dan van der Vat; and
Superior Force by Geoffery Miller.

Action off the Broad Fourteen's - Churchill directly interfered against the advice of the technical experts in the Admiralty Operations Division and ordered patrols off the Dutch coast using elderly armoured cruisers ill suited to the task in waters where U-Boat were known to operate. This after tasking the escorting destroyers to other duties.
See The Great war at Sea by Richard Hough; and
From Dreadnaught to Scapa Flow Vol II by Arthur Marder

Battle of Coronel - Again Churchill's micro-managing assets from the Admiralty and confusing orders placed RAdm Cradock in a position where he felt he had no choice but to fight a greatly superior East Asia Squadron. Amongst these were orders telling Cradock he was being reinforced by HMS Defence followed by new orders to Defence's captain to proceed elsewhere - without informing Cradock! By the time Cradock knew Defence was not joining he was already in the Pacific and committed to a fight, particularly as Troubridge's court-martial was pending.
See Coronel and the Falkland's by Geoffery Bennett, Hough and Marder.

The fleet action off the Dardinelles was Churchill's own creation. First Sea Lord Sir John Fisher wanted to strike Germany directly from the Baltic but Winston brought him around to the Dardinelles adventure and between them they convinced the War Cabinet. When the commander on the scene, VAdm Carden, who was ill but was very familier with the problems of the Straights objected, Churchill replaced him with RAdm de Roebeck, a compliant and unimaginative subordinate. Again through micro-management and poor instructions Churchill ensured that de Roebeck would be risk adverse rather than with boldness and decisiveness which was required if the operation was to have succeeded. Churchill also refused de Roebeck requested minesweeping experts from the North Sea which contributed to the losses on 18 March when Bouvet, Ocean, Irresistable and Inflexible were mined. Once his pet scheme to force the Straights using battleships collapsed he became the principle advocate of the amphibious operations at Gallipoli, again against the advice of many of his own technical advisors.
See Gallipoli by Allan Morehead, Hough and Marder.

When the war begin the Admiralty suspended the plan for using aircraft carriers for agressive anti-U-Boat patrolling. One of Churchill's first acts as First Lord was to reinstate these against the advice of the Director of Operations. They were suspended again after Courageous was torpedoed.
See The War at Sea by Stephen Roskill (a huge Churchill promoter)

Force Z was Churchill's baby from the start. His arrogant belief that two British capital ships would deter Japanese aggression was in spite of warnings from the Director of Naval Intelligence, Foriegn Office Asia Section and CinC Far East that this was not at all likely. When the fleet carrier allocated to Force Z, HMS Indomitable ran aground off Jamaica he did nothing to hold the squadron at Cape Town or Colombo until she was repaired, sending the obvious message to Adm Phillips that air cover was not required. The poor state of the RAF and the Army in Malaysia was the direct result of Churchill starving the Far east for resources to defend the home islands against the threat of an invasion that was over 16-months past.
See Battleship by Martin Middlebrook and Patrick Mahoney.

The Man at the Top bears responsibility for failure of an operation where he directly interfered with the chain of command or takes deliberate action to deprive the commander on the spot of necessary but available resources or issuing confusing, vague or restrictive orders that stifle initiative. Churchill was famous for both in how he would frequently run roughshod over senior officers, issuing orders directly to their subordinates and acting as though if he believed it to be so, it had to be true. For a man who's command of the English language was incredible, many of his written military and naval orders are models of chaotic thought, confusing, ambiguous and counter-productive.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Randomizer

Escape of the Goeben - As First Lord he interfered directly in the deployments and actions of the two Admirals on the spot, Adm Milne, CinC Med and RAdm Troubridge SO 1 Cruiser Squadron. Due to confusing, poorly written and untimely orders directly from Churchill, Goeben was allowed to escape to Constantinople without being brought to action. Milne was cashiered (no great loss to the Navy but still...) and Troubridge was court-martialed for interpreting a poorly worded Churchill order regarding engaging superior forces in a manner the Churchill (and the Navy generally) did not like.
See The Ship that Changed the World by Dan van der Vat; and
Superior Force by Geoffery Miller.

According to Richard Hough's The Great War at Sea Troubridge was court-martialed for making his own decision to break off the interception after discussing it with his flag-captain and deciding that his entire squadron would be wiped out without harming Goeben. His actions were contrasted with those of the Kelly brothers who engaged Goeben and Breslau at great risk to their ships and their lives.

Action off the Broad Fourteen's - Churchill directly interfered against the advice of the technical experts in the Admiralty Operations Division and ordered patrols off the Dutch coast using elderly armoured cruisers ill suited to the task in waters where U-Boat were known to operate. This after tasking the escorting destroyers to other duties.
See The Great war at Sea by Richard Hough; and
From Dreadnaught to Scapa Flow Vol II by Arthur Marder

And according to my reading of the events the three cruisers were well escorted, but the destroyers were sent home due to the constantly worsening weather. I have a copy of Hough as well. I hope the misspelling of Dreadnought is yours. If the book has it that way I wouldn't trust it.

Battle of Coronel - Again Churchill's micro-managing assets from the Admiralty and confusing orders placed RAdm Cradock in a position where he felt he had no choice but to fight a greatly superior East Asia Squadron. Amongst these were orders telling Cradock he was being reinforced by HMS Defence followed by new orders to Defence's captain to proceed elsewhere - without informing Cradock! By the time Cradock knew Defence was not joining he was already in the Pacific and committed to a fight, particularly as Troubridge's court-martial was pending.
See Coronel and the Falkland's by Geoffery Bennett, Hough and Marder.[/quote]
I haven't read that one, but I have read the excellent Graf Spee's Raiders, by Keith Yates. Was Churchill aware of Defence's redeployment at the time he sent the message to Craddock, i.e. was he misinformed or did he flat-out lie? I know about Craddock's own decision. How much blame does Churchill truly deserve.

The fleet action off the Dardinelles was Churchill's own creation.

That one I won't argue, as the whole Gallipoli campaign was a disaster which led to his dismissal, so blame was assigned and properly so.

As to the others, yes, you can blame the man in charge, but I don't think it has been shown that any of the failures was actually caused by him directly, or even indirectly.

[Jimbuna]

Nothing wrong with reading references and books etc. then debating them but one point that can never be dismissed is the fact that he looked adversity square in the face and never gave in to it.

When Britain needed a powerful leader he answered the call and was much admired and respected by the population, especially during the dark years of WWII.

Roosevelt and him made a pretty potent pair of adversaries at the beginning of the conflict.

Heaven only knows what might have been the outcome had Chamberlain remained in office longer.

In fairness Randomizer he took more blame for Gallipoli than was deserved. But there are also issues over his South African adventures including the ambush of the Dublin Fusiliers/Durban LI as well as his claimed presence at major events there when he was supposedly many miles away.

All also ask the same concerning Courageous and Force Z.

Perhaps he means Glorious,there was lots of complaints at the time about political interference and reckless misuse of carriers directed his admiralty position in the early war, especially with Glorious being ordered to sail independantly to a hearing with only 2 destroyers as escort.
Force Z is a simpler matter, Churchill was the architect of the plan and was still adamant about the vital importance of Fortress Singapore(which was always starved of resources which is strange for a vital fortress that must never fall)....yet his own plan said of force Z that it could not go ahead without carrier support.
It went ahead without a carrier and the ships went to the bottom.