WOLFGANG MIEDER
"MAKE HELL WHILE THE SUN SHINES"
Proverbial Rhetoric in Winston Churchill's The Second World War
For my British friend Venetia J. Newall
While literary historians have investigated the use and function of
proverbial speech in the works of such major English authors as Geoffrey
Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, and many
others,[1] relatively little attention has been paid to the rhetorical
employment of proverbs and proverbial phrases in political speeches and
writings. A few more recent studies on proverbs as effective verbal
strategies during election campaigns,[2] as formulaic arguments during
political discussions on television,[3] as part of the political diplomacy
of the United Nations,[4] and as captions of political cartoons and
caricatures[5] exist, but Joseph Raymond's general article on "Tensions in
Proverbs: More Light on International Understanding"[6] from 1956 still
serves as an informative introduction to the political use of proverbs as
ready-made slogans and verbal weapons.
Not much is known about utilization of proverbial language by individual
politicians. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Hugo Blmmer
looked at the metaphorical style of Otto von Bismarck's (1815-1898)
speeches
and letters, showing that this important statesman used German proverbs as
well as literary quotations effectively to argue a point, to disarm his
opponents, and to add folkloric spice to his political rhetoric.[7] There
are also five short essays on Vladimir Ilich Lenin's (1870-1924) and Nikita
Khrushchev's (1894-1971) rhetorical use of proverbs for propaganda,
agitation, and manipulation.[8] An article by Wolfgang Mieder has shown
that
proverbs became dangerous tools in the hands of many National Socialists,
not only of Adolf Hitler or Joseph Goebbels, who misused them as
anti-Semitic folk wisdom to discredit the Jewish population.[9] There is
also Mieder's detailed study on "Proverbial Manipulation in Adolf Hitler's
Mein Kampf"[10] which shows how this demagogue made frequent use of German
proverbs and proverbial phrases to explain his ill-conceived racial and
political ambitions in his massive "manifesto".
Scholars thus far have paid particular attention to the proverbial rhetoric
of such folk deceivers as Lenin and Hitler. Where, one might well ask, are
the studies on politicians and statesmen like Theodore Roosevelt, Harry S.
Truman, Willy Brandt, Ronald Reagan, and Ross Perrot, who all included
proverbial wisdom in their political speeches? Several systematic
investigations of such public figures of the twentieth century (or earlier
times) are necessary to ascertain the permeating presence of proverbs in
political rhetoric. Speeches, essays, letters, diaries, memoranda,
autobiographies, etc. need to be studied to gain a complete picture of the
role that folk speech plays in the verbal communication on the highest
political level. There is no immediate need to investigate yet another
literary author for the inclusion of proverbial materials. Paremiologists
would indeed do well to cast their nets over the use and function of
proverbs in the public life of major and minor politicians.
A unique person who fits this bill is without doubt Winston S. Churchill
(1874-1965), whose long life as a high public servant has been treated in
perhaps more volumes than any other individual of this century. The
scholarship on Churchill is so vast that it is now barely manageable. There
are also his own voluminous writings which range from extremely personal
letters to his beloved wife Clementine and their children to highly
secretive memoranda and telegrams, from local campaign speeches to major
addresses in the House of Commons and parliaments abroad, from journalistic
war reports to biographical essays on great contemporaries, and from his
novel Savrola (1900) to multi-volume histories of the two World Wars and of
the English speaking peoples. His complete oeuvre comprises approximately
40,000 pages, the three main themes of which are "politics, war, [and]
history"[11] as he saw, experienced, and interpreted them. There is
definitely one more major aspect that unites all of Churchill's speeches
and
writings, and that is his love of and fascination with the English language
as an orator, journalist, politician, biographer, historian, and scholar.
Manfred Weidhorn, who has analyzed Churchill's life and works in a number
of
books, summarizes the verbal power of this multi-faceted individual as
follows:
His story of one prominent man's role in many of the crises of the
twentieth
century, his fascinating if eccentric reading of the events of his epoch,
has its literary as well as historical interests. The manner of the
narrative is as compelling as the matter, thanks to his often poetic or
novelistic imagery, his awareness of history, his agile use of the
colloquial and the intimate no less than the literary and the Latinate
vocabulary, of understatement, periphrasis, hyperbole, parallelism,
antithesis, wordplay, zeugma, "as if" statements; his sustained and
sparkling humor directed at idealism, religion, stupidity, at military and
political men and mores, at self and, more frequently, political or
national
opponents; his ability with phrases, sentences, short passages; and his
sustained effects, rhetorical or narrative.[12]
There are those professional historians who do not see Churchill as a
serious scholar, while others acknowledge quite willingly his encyclopedic
historical knowledge as well as his interpretive abilities.[13] Churchill
was liked or disliked throughout his long life, and it is the fate of any
prominent statesman to attract some and to alienate others. Neither friend
nor foe, however, can deny that he was a rhetorical master, who in 1953 won
the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his historical and biographical
presentations and for the scintillating oratory in which he has stood forth
as defender of human values."[14]
As early as 1926, on the occasion of Churchill's fiftieth birthday, A.G.
Gardiner characterized the life of this British politician as being "one
long speech. He does not talk: he orates."[15] Gardiner also shows with two
splendidly employed proverbs how Churchill's verbosity and his insistence
on
being a major player in European politics precipitated one personal crisis
after another just as the political world was challenged by a continuous
series of crises:
It is not true that a rolling stone gathers no moss. Mr. Churchill has
gathered a great deal of moss. Not that a stone, whether stationary or
rolling, is a suitable symbol for this extraordinary man. He is like a
rocket that intermittently dazzles the night sky, disappears, and dazzles
it
again; flashes now from this quarter, now from that; is always meteoric but
never extinguished. The principal difference between Mr. Churchill and a
cat, as Mark Twain might say, is that a cat has only nine lives. By all the
laws of mortality, Mr. Churchill should have perished a score of times,
sometimes in laughter, sometimes in anger, sometimes in contempt; but the
funeral has always been premature, the grave always empty. You may scotch
him for a moment, but you cannot kill him, and we grow weary of pronouncing
his obsequies.[16]
This only too true characterization was written long before Churchill's
stormy political career reached its summit when in 1940 he became Prime
Minister and Minister of Defence, two pivotal posts which he held until
1945
and which enabled him to mobilize Britain and the rest of the free world
against the fascist forces in Europe and Japan.
For a period of five years this man of words and deeds was indeed at the
proverbial top of his political power and prominence, rallying the British
people, those of the British Empire, the United States, and numerous other
nationalities to fight the menace of Hitlerism. It would be wrong to argue
away his deeds, for on numerous occasions Churchill risked his life
crossing
the Atlantic to meet with Franklin D. Roosevelt or visiting leaders and
troops on the European continent. His organizational skills gained from the
multitude of high government offices which he held made it possible for him
to oversee the strenuous war efforts. Yet to all of this high activity
level
must always be added "his rhetorical machinery"[17] which catapulted those
around him into dedicated action:
Day after day, and often night after night, he poured forth words and
phrases in tumultuous torrent and inexhaustible abundance--inspiring,
exhorting, moving, persuading, cajoling, thundering, bullying, abusing,
enraging. In private engagement or public appearance, Cabinet meetings or
Commons debate, car or boat, train or plane, dining-room or drawing-room,
bedroom or bathroom, his flow of oratory never ceased.[18]
Fortunately most of what Churchill uttered and wrote during those eventful
five years of World War II has survived and has been published. Clearly,
all
of these materials and more in the form of memoranda and notes were all
available to Churchill when he set out to write his celebrated six-volume
personal and yet historical account of The Second World War (1948-1954).
Some titles of the individual volumes--The Gathering Storm, Their Finest
Hour, The Grand Alliance, The Hinge of Fate, Closing the Ring, and Triumph
and Tragedy--have become proverbial in a way, attesting to their impressive
publishing success as an autobiographical history of the Second World War
by
one of its major players.[19]
There have been a number of general statements regarding Churchill's
literary style, but Joseph Miller's comments lead directly into an analysis
of the rich proverbial language of these six volumes. It must be noted,
however, that Miller as so many other scholars, fails to include the word
"proverb" in his list of rhetorical characteristics:
On the whole, Churchill is most inclined to use distinctively English
idioms, personalized address, negative statement, mainly loose sentences
varied now and then by strikingly constructed periodic ones, rhetorical
questions, exclamations, coined maxims, parallel structure, balanced
clauses, antithesis, metaphor, epithets, and amplification.[20]
Manfred Weidhorn in a chapter on Churchill's style entitled "An Affair of
Sentences" reaches quite similar conclusions some thirty-five years later.
He speaks of Churchill's "comprehensive, flexible, and perceptive use of
imagery from the institutions of society and the disciplines of man--from
Scripture, marriage, commerce, science, medicine, sponstances in which
Churchill made use of these words:
But middle courses are proverbially unpopular. (1902)
The French had a proverb, "Drive away nature and it returns at a gallop."
(1904)
The proverbial three courses lay open to him. (1906)
The vanity of authors is proverbial. (1914)
It is well said, there is nothing wrong in change if it is in the right
direction. [...] does not it justify and prove the truth of the somewhat
doubtful proverb that I quoted a few minutes ago to the House? (1925)
That would be one of those hard cases which proverbially do not make good
law. (1928)
There is only one word of advice which I would venture to offer him [...]
and that is the old Scotch proverb: Don't try to beat two dogs at one time.
(1938)
To one of his former associates he [John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland]
wrote, "An old proverb there is, and that most true--a living dog is better
than a dead lion." (1956)
"By woman and land are men lost" ran the Maori proverb. (1958)[27]
Churchill usually employs such markers as "saying" and "maxim" to introduce
his many proverbs when he wants to state explicitly that he is citing a
piece of folk wisdom. His aversion from the term "proverb" is probably
merely a personal preference for other designators and should not be
interpreted as an intentional attempt to stay away from calling a
traditional statement a proverb. He is well aware of and "knows a good deal
about the value of [proverbial] common sense, always applies it when
actually handling a crisis, and in his oratory always extols it."[28]
Churchill purposely used proverbs and proverbial phrases right from the
beginning, and he made ample use of them throughout his life and all the
way
to his last utterances and writings.
Although Mieder and Bryan have now put together a complete index of
Churchill's citations of proverbial language,[29] it may be of interest to
see how he used them in one of his major multi-volume historical works. The
six volumes of The Second World War contain 410 proverbial texts on a total
of 4405 pages which yields a ratio of one proverbial phrase for every 10.7
pages. A statistical analysis of the six volumes can be summarized in the
following table:
volume | pages | number of texts | ratio
I | 655 | 92 | 1: 7.1
II | 701 | 40 | 1:17.5
III | 804 | 78 | 1:10.3
IV | 892 | 107 | 1: 8.3
V | 658 | 37 | 1:17.8
VI | 695 | 56 | 1:12.4
I-VI | 4405 | 410 | 1:10.7
Mieder and Bryan established a ratio of one proverb for every eleven pages
of Churchill's entire oeuvre, and this shows that The Second World War is
actually quite rich in proverbial language. It might be interesting to note
here, however, that Churchill's major enemy Adolf Hitler used about 500
proverbial phrases on a total of 792 pages of his Mein Kampf (1926/27),
making this aggressive, polemic, and propagandistic "Bible" of National
Socialism and Anti-Semitism much more "proverbial" and by extension
manipulatively authoril wisdom to strengthen
his
points and arguments. A short proverb or fitting proverbial phrase enables
him to hit the nail on the head, as it were, also realizing very well that
everybody would understand these proverbial colloquialisms when they were
juxtaposed to the normal and factual rhetoric of organizing the war
effort.
There are a number of proverbial leitmotifs which run through these
volumes,
which are comprised of various letters, memoranda, speeches, and telegrams
together with Churchill's historical analysis in connecting this wealth of
information into the six massive volumes during the years of writing them
between 1948 and 1954. Not surprisingly, the proverbial twin formula "life
and/or death" appears repeatedly in these books to refer to the struggle of
Great Britain and its allies against Hitler and his war machinery.
Churchill
experiences a tremendous up-hill fight to convince the British government
of
the menace of Hitler in the mid 1930s, and it is in relation to this
situation that he uses this formula for the first time in a rather
subjective way:
Although the House listened to me with close attention, I felt a sensation
of despair. To be so entirely convinced and vindicated in a matter of life
and death to one's country, and not to be able to make Parliament and the
nation heed the warning, or bow to the proof by taking action, was an
experience most painful (I,96).[31]
In 1938 Churchill became ever more aware of Hitler's move towards war, and
he used the binary formula once again to express his frustration over the
continued policy of isolationism on the part of the United States in light
of the obvious threats of war confronting Europe:
No event could have been more likely to stave off, or even prevent, war
than
the arrival of the United States in the circle of European hates and fears.
To Britain it was a matter of life and death. No one can measure in
retrospect its effect upon the course of events in Austria and later in
Munich We must regard its rejection--for such it was--as the loss of the
last frail chance to save the world from tyranny otherwise than by war
(I,199).
Later in this first volume, Churchill recalls a meeting with Vyacheslav
Molotov after having signed the Anglo-Soviet Treaty in the spring of 1942:
At the garden gate of Downing Street, which we used for secrecy, I gripped
his arm and we looked each other in the face. Suddenly he appeared deeply
moved. Inside the image there appeared the man. He responded with an equal
pressure. Silently we wrung each others's hands. But then we were all
together, and it was life or death for the lot (I,288-289).
Also relating to Soviet Russia is another use of this twin formula in a
letter by Churchill to President Roosevelt on 8 October 1941. This
reference
clearly shows Churchill's understanding of the dangerous situation in which
Stalin and his Russian people found themselves in view of the German
military aggression:
As things are now, it appears to us virtually out of the question either to
conclude an agreement [concerning the sale of wheat] which may seriously
affect her [Russia's] interests without consulting her, or to approach her
on such a matter at a time when she is engaged in a life-and-death
struggle,
and when her richest wheatfields are in the battle area (III,739-740).
In a final use of this leitmotif, Churchill refers to the British
intervention in Greece in a letter of 5 December 1944 as "the matter is one
of life and death" (VI,253), once again alluding to the urgency of the
situation. Churchill also made use of the somewhat related somatic binary
formula "body and soul" in a statement which he wrote on 17 November 1938
regarding Nerville Chamberlain's controversial policy of appeasement:
By this time next year we shall know whether the Prime Minister's view of
Herr Hitler and the German Nazi party is right or wrong. By this time next
year we shall know whether the policy of appeasement has appeased, or
whether it has only stimulated a more ferocious appetite [Churchill's
emphasis]. All we can do in the meanwhile is to gather forces of resistance
and defence, so that if the Prime Minister should unhappily be wrong, or
misled, or deceived, we can at the worst keep body and soul together
(I,261).
Churchill had a definite predilection towards the use of such twin
formulas,
most likely because their reduplicative nature helped to increase the
strength of a particular statement. What follows is a list of some of these
proverbial formulas in chronological order of their appearance in the six
volumes of The Second World War:
The wholesale massacre [...] in the German execution camps exceeds in
horror
the rough and ready butcheries of Ghengis Khan, and in scale reduces them
to
pygmy proportions (I,14).
[...] the Fleet [...] would have to go on playing hide-and-seek (I,344).
[...] he [Chamberlain] was never more spick and span or cool and determined
than at the last Cabinets which he attended (II,305).
[...] we should do everything possible, by hook or by crook, to send at
once
to Greece the fullest support (III,14).
[...] they [German troops and tanks] badly needed rest and overhaul after
their mechanical wear and tear in the Balkans (III,323).
It is now or never with the Vichy French (III,507).
Please remember how much they [German troops] got by brass and bluff at the
time of the French collapse (III,508).
This was no time for a constitutional experiment with a "period of trial
and
error" to determine the "future relationship" of India to the British
Empire
(IV,194).
[...] action will emerge from what will otherwise be almost unending
hummings and hawings (IV,473).
The pros and cons of this have to be very carefully weighed (IV,759).
I [Churchill] have the greatest confidence in you [General Alexander] and
will back you up through thick and thin (V,448).
This [the friendly relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt] continued
through all the ups and downs of the world struggle (VI,414).
It is interesting to note that Churchill also uses twin formulas to
describe
Hitler's grasp of power and Germany's move under him towards military
power:
"Thus did Hitler obtain by hook and crook a majority vote from the German
people" (I,55) and "[...] the German might grew by leaps and bounds, and
the
time for overt action approached" (I,66). He also refers to the
assassination of Rhm and other early party members during the night
of
30 June 1934, employing the phrase of "the night of the long knives"[32]
which has become an internationally disseminated proverbial expression: "In
that 'Night of the Long Knives', as it was called, the unit of National
Socialist Germany had been preserved to carry its curse throughout the
world" (I,79). A dozen pages later, Churchill observes with the accuracy of
hindsight that "If Great Britain and France had each maintained
quantitative
parity with Germany [in military rearmament] they would together have been
double as strong, and Hitler's career of violence might have been nipped in
the bud without the loss of a single life. Thereafter it was too late"
(I,91).
One senses a certain feeling of fatalism not only in many incidents in
which
Churchill employs proverbial language but also throughout many of these
over
four thousand pages of war history. Once the free democracies of the world
permitted Hitler to gain ultimate power, Churchill resigned himself to the
fact that this foe had to be fought on his terms, i.e., through the resolve
of the British people and the strongest military alliance that could
possibly be assembled. There was no way to escape the fate of a major war,
and a number of proverbial leitmotifs underscore this determined viewpoint
in these volumes.[33] The proverb that by its nature expresses the
inescapable course of events that would occur once all attempts at
preventing it had been exhausted is the classical "The die is cast," used
by
Julius Caesar on crossing the Rubicon after coming from Gaul and advancing
into Italy against Pompey (49 B.C.). Churchill in a similar vein plunged
himself into desperate and daring action when he accepted the position of
Prime Minister during the Second World War. Being a man of action and deeds
who worked best in crisis situations, he made use of this fatalistic
proverb
three times in short and decisive statements before the war:
However, the die was now cast. (1929)
Accordingly the die was cast. (1935)
But now the die was cast to fight it out. (1938)[34]
The proverb appears seven times in The Second World War, unmistakably
indicating Churchill's unshakable resolve to bring Hitler and his allies to
their knees:
The die was cast. (I,305)
Anyhow, the die is cast. (II,431)
The Die is Cast (III,514 [part of chapter headnote])
I did not know that the die had already been cast by Japan or how far the
President's [Roosevelt's] resolves had gone. (III,532)
But the die was cast. (III,627)
The die was cast, and the [British] fleet dispersed before dark to their
several destinations (IV,555)
At 4 a.m. on June 5 of a temporary improvement on the
morning of the 6th. After this they predicted a return of rough weather for
an indefinite period. Faced with desperate alternatives of accepting the
immediate risks or of postponing the attack for at least a fortnight,
General Eisenhower, with the advice of his commanders, boldly, and as it
proved wisely, chose to go ahead with the operation, subject to final
confirmation early on the following morning. At 4 a.m. on June 5 the die
was
irrevocably cast: the invasion would be launched on June 6 (V,556).
It is, of course, generally accepted today that the informed gamble on the
weather by Eisenhower and others proved to be a lucky throw of the dice for
the Allies who brought the European theatre of the war to an end within the
following year.
Churchill, who had proudly served as the First Lord of the Admiralty,
clearly felt at home on the high seas, and it should not be surprising that
he enjoyed the rich proverbial metaphors of the English language that
relate
to the sea and seafaring.[35] Among others Churchill made use of the
following texts:
The nation was as sound as the sea is salt. (II,333)
After shooting Niagara we had now to struggle in the rapids. (III,3-4)
One of the difficulties of this narrative is the disproportion between our
single-handed efforts to keep our heads above water from day to day and do
our duty. (III,4)
This is a lot of sail to carry on so small a hull. (IV,63)
The Eighth Army under Auchinleck had weathered the storm. (IV,389)
The sailing expression "to make heavy weather" with the meaning of making
too much out of a small thing (i.e., to make a mountain out of a molehill)
is once again used as a leitmotif of sorts in order to get beyond petty
details and on to the major task of fighting and winning a war:
We must be very careful not to damp the ardour of officers in the flotillas
by making heavy weather of occasional accidents. (I,582)
We must be careful not to make heavy weather over the manning of
landing-craft. (IV,804)
There will be no need to make heavy weather over this [the losses in a
naval
battle] at all. (V,199)
Of particular interest is yet another use of a proverbial expression at a
time of an earth-shaking historical event. In the chapter on "Pearl Harbor"
(III,537-554), Churchill reports that he received a telephone call from
President Roosevelt in which the latter stated that "'They [the Japanese]
have attacked us at Pearl Harbor. We are all in the same boat now'"
(III,538). Two days later, on 9 December 1941, Churchill began a letter to
Roosevelt by repeating this maritime expression which so aptly expresses
the
fact that the United States and Britain were now in the same position of
fighting Japan and Germany:
Now that we are, as you say, 'in the same boat', would it not be wise for
us
to have another conference? We could review the whole war plan in the light
of reality and new facts, as well as the problems of production and
distribution. I feel that all these matters, some of which are causing me
concern, can best be settled on the highest executive level. It would also
be a very great pleasure to me to meet you again, and the sooner the better
(III,541).
It is doubtful that either Roosevelt or Churchill knew that he was
employing
the classical Latin proverbial expression "in eadem es navi" which has been
traced back to a letter by Cicero from 53 B.C.[36] Yet in the same boat
they
certainly were now, for just as Britain, "the United States was in the war,
up to the neck and in to the death" (III,539).
As to classical phrases, it should be noted that Churchill as a pupil of
Harrow School had not been particularly fond of Latin.[37] Yet he was acute
enough to realize that "when they [writers in Latin] arrived at fairly
obvious reflections upon life and love, upon war, fate or manners, they
coined them into slogans or epigrams for which their language was so well
adapted, and thus preserved the patent rights for all times."[38] Even if
he
did not remember them in Latin, he certainly found them as well as other
foreign and English quotations and proverbs in the collection of such
formulaic language, namely John Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1st ed.
1855). In his autobiography, My Early Life (1930), he comments on his
discovery of "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations [which] is an admirable work,
and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory
gives you good thoughts."[39] It is of little wonder, then, that he cites
foreign proverbs and quotations in their original language or in
translation
by means of his "phenomenal retentivity"[40] throughout his works, and
certainly also in his history of The Second World War, as the following
examples show:
Among the other Service Ministers [...] I was 'first among equals'."
(I,463)
Please remember in your stresses that [...] noblesse oblige. (III,93)
She [Japan] would in fact 'cut the Gordian knot'." (III,165)
Goering gained only a Pyrrhic victory in Crete. (III,268)
As Napoleon said, "La bataille rpondra." (III,293)
Bis dat qui cito dat.[41] (III,418)
Inter arma silent leges. (III,428)
I also remembered that wise French saying, "On ne rgne sur les
mes que par le calme." (IV,54)
[...] to prove my sincerity I will use one of my very few [an
understatement] Latin quotations: Amantium irae amoris integratio est.
(VI,409)
Les absents ont toujours tort. (VI,637)
There is one foreign proverb for which Churchill has a predilection which
deserves a special comment since it belongs to the German enemy. Its German
form is "Es ist dafr gesorgt, da die Bume nicht in den
Himmel wachsen," which in English translation is "Care is taken that the
trees don't grow up to the sky."[42] There is an equally common variant
which adds "God" to the basic text as "Gott sorgt dafr, da die
Bume nicht in den Himmel wachsen" (God takes care that the trees
don't
grow up to the sky).[43] Churchill does not appear to have known this
stronger variant, but he certainly likes the basic message of the proverb
which is that nobody will grow to such a point that someone (God) will not
eventually cut him/her down. Thus when Churchill speaks of the
indiscriminate night bombing of British cities by the German Luftwaffe, he
finds solace in the thought that this powerful aggression cannot continue
forever in light of the fortitude and bravery of the British fighter
pilots:
There is a useful German saying, "The trees do not grow up to the sky."
Nevertheless we had every reason to expect that the air attack on Britain
would continue in an indefinite crescendo. Until Hitler actually invaded
Russia we had no right to suppose it would die away and stop. We therefore
strove with might and main to improve the measures and devices by which we
had hitherto survived and to find new ones (II,346).
And in due time Hitler's air menace was cut down like a tree that had grown
too strong for its roots. While Churchill used this proverb only once in
The
Second World War, he integrated it an additional twelve times in his works
before and afterwards:
The trees do not grow up to the sky. (1926)
Mercifully, 'the trees do not grow up to the sky.' (1927)
The most hopeful comment [...] is the German saying: 'The trees do not grow
up to the sky'." (1930)
The trees do not grow up to the sky. (1931)
Once more it has been proved that the trees do not grow up to the sky.
(1931)
The trees do not grow up to the sky. (1934)
I comforted myself by the old German saying: 'The trees do not grow up to
the sky.' (1938)
The trees do not grow up to the sky. (1945)
The Germans have a wise saying, 'The trees do not grow up to the sky.'
(1949)
But there is a wise saying 'the trees do not grow up to the sky.' (1951)
But, as has been wisely observed, the trees do not grow up to the sky.
(1956)[44]
The twelfth occurrence, however, especially reveals Churchill' he would
have said that if he had lived through this frightful twentieth century
where so much we feared was going to happen did actually happen. All the
same it is a thought which should find its place in young as well as old
brains.[45]
Churchill is indeed correct that Goethe used this proverb in his
autobiography Dichtung und Wahrheit (1811),[46] but while this example of
his phenomenal memory is truly astounding, it is of greater importance to
notice how Churchill appears to elevate the wisdom of this proverb to a
philosophical statement somewhat reminiscent of the Biblical proverb "Pride
goes before a fall" (Prov. 16:18). An examination of the standard proverb
dictionaries,[47] however, shows that Churchill's wish that the proverb
might become ingrained "in young as well as old brains" has not born
fruit.
Suffering and fighting were, of course, the driving forces behind
Churchill's famous and by now proverbial statement made in a speech to the
House of Commons on 13 May 1940, his first after having become Prime
Minister three days earlier:
In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at
any
length to-day. [...] I would say to the House, as I said to those who have
joined this Government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and
sweat." [...] At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I
say, "Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength."[48]
With this statement Churchill electrified not only members of the House of
Commons but also the entire British nation and free peoples throughout the
world who heard it broadcasted in the radio waves. The novelty of the
famous
phrase, however, rests only in the fact that Churchill made a quadratic and
rhythmic structure out of the triad of "blood, sweat, and tears" which he
himself had used in The World Crisis (1931) to describe the valiant
struggle
of the Russian armed forces during World War I: "These pages [...] record
the toils, perils, sufferings and passions of millions of men. Their sweat,
their tears, their blood bedewed the endless plain."[49] The order of the
three nouns is reversed here, but the preceding sentences mention the
"toils" which were be added about nine years later. It must also be noted
that John Donne (1572-1631) already in 1611 speaks of "tears, or sweat, or
blood", and Lord Byron in 1823 has the rhyming couplet "Year after year
they
voted cent per cent, / Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions--why? for
rent?"[50] Churchill might have known these earlier references, but there
is
also the chance that he might have remembered the classical twin formula of
"sanguis et sudor" (blood and sweat) which was very popular with Cicero and
many other Latin authors[51] Be that as it may, there is no instance in
classical Latin literature or anywhere else in English literature for that
matter of the rhetorical group of four nouns corresponding to the sweeping
"blood, toil, tears, and sweat."
Yet Churchill himself experienced some confusion with the sequence of the
four terms in his later uses of the phrase. Speaking of the war situation
to
the House of Commons on 8 October 1940, Churchill described how
appreciative
the French, Belgian and Dutch people have been of the help that they had
received from the British forces: "In all my life, I have never been
treated
with so much kindness as by the people who have suffered most. One would
think one had brought some great benefit to them, instead of the blood and
tears, the toil and sweat which is all I have ever promised."[52] In a
speech on 7 May 1941 to the House of Commons on the war situation,
Churchill
repeated the reversed order of "tears and toil" in an impassioned promise
to
lead the free world to victory over Nazi Germany: "I have never promised
anything or offered anything but blood, tears, toil and sweat, to which I
will now add our fair share of mistakes, shortcomings and disappointments,
and also that this may go on for a very long time, at the end of which I
firmly believe--though it is not a promise or a guarantee only a profession
of faith--that there will be complete, absolute and final victory."[53]
This
variant is cited once again in a review of "man-power and woman-power" for
the war effort in a House of Commons speech of 2 December 1941: "I promised
eighteen months ago 'blood, tears, toil and sweat.' There has not yet been,
thank God, so much blood as was expected. There have not been so many
tears.
But here we have another instalment of toil and sweat, of inconvenience and
self-denial, which I am sure will be accepted with cheerful and proud
alacrity by all parties and all classes in the British nation."[54] In a
speech to the House of Commons on 2 July 1942 on the conduct of the war,
Churchill finally quoted his original statement correctly by claiming that
"I have stuck hard to my 'blood, toil, tears and sweat,' to which I have
added muddle and mismanagement."[55] Yet a mere four months later, on the
occasion of the British victory at the Battle of El Alamein, Churchill
returned to the earlier variant at a Lord Mayor's luncheon in London on 10
November 1942: "I have never promised anything but blood, tears, toil, and
sweat. Now, however, we have a new experience. We have victory--a
remarkable
and definite victory."[56]
The apparent confusion with the order of the four nouns gets worse when
Churchill writes The Second World War from the point of view of the
autobiographical historian. Speaking of various policies of the British
government between the two world wars, Churchill remarks that "A national
Government had been formed under Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, the founder of the
Labour-Socialist Party. They proposed to the people a programme of severe
austerity and sacrifice. It was an earlier version of 'Blood, sweat, toil
and tears,' without the stimulus or the requirements of war and mortal
peril" (I,29). In the remaining three cases of Churchill's repetition of
his
own phrase, he quotes himself correctly:
"Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat" (II,3 [headnote])
After reporting the progress made in filling the various offices, I said:
"I
have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." (II,24 [citing
original speech of 13 May 1940])
I have never ventured to predict the future. I stand by my original
programme, blood, toil, tears, and sweat, which is all I haveal phrase
correctly in this last reference, he changes the
order of "mistakes, shortcomings and disappointments" from his 7 May 1941
speech. He is also mistaken about the five months' interval mentioned, for
it appears that he added the statement concerning various problems a year
later. All of this shows that Churchill in his hectic and prolific literary
production did not always adhere to his frequently used personal maxim
"Verify your quotations" (see IV,604 and 616).[57] We will never know why
he
published a volume of his speeches with the title Blood, Sweat, and Tears
(1941),[58] but perhaps his publisher preferred this shorter triadic
structure for a "catchy" title. In any case, ironically, it is this shorter
formulation which has gained even greater proverbial currency than
Churchill's original phrase.
Of course Churchill had no difficulty in remembering his famous phrase of
the "iron curtain" once he used it in what he called his "Iron Curtain"
telegram to President Harry S. Truman on 12 May 1945. In the sixth volume
of
The Second World War, the last book book of which is entitled "The Iron
Curtain," he expresses the opinion that of all his public statements on the
emergent division of Europe, he would rather be judged by this one
document.
He then quotes the five paragraphs of this historic telegram, of which the
third begins as follows:
An iron curtain is drawn down upon their front [Russian and Eastern
Europe].
We do not know what is going on behind. There seems little doubt that the
whole of the regions east of the line Lbeck-Trieste-Corfu will soon
be
completely in their hands (VI,498-499).
In a second telegram to Truman on 4 June 1945, Churchill repeats this
phrase
to express his concern about the retreat of the American army from central
Europe towards the end of the war, "thus bringing Soviet power into the
heart of Western Europe and the descent of an iron curtain between us and
everything to the eastward" (VI,523). These two secret telegrams could not
have made the "iron curtain" phrase into a dominant slogan of the Cold War
period. This feat was accomplished by Churchill in his famous speech on
"The
Sinews of Peace" which he delivered on 5 March 1946 at Westminster College
in Fulton, Missouri. This address, broadcasted throughout the world, is a
masterful example of Churchill's rhetorical skills,[59] and it includes the
following memorable and often cited passage:
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has
descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of
the
ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe, Warsaw, Berlin, Prague,
Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities
and
the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and
all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to
a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from
Moscow.[60]
The proverbial phrase of the "iron curtain" has inextricably become
attached
to the name of Churchill, and yet, he could lay no claim to having
originated it. He probably knew it as a theatrical term.[61] The iron
curtains hung inside the proscenium arch and, in the event of fire, could
be
dropped to separate the auditorium from the stage. Churchill might also
have
remembered reading the sentence "an iron curtain had dropped between him [a
scientist] and the outer world" in the novel The Food of the Gods (1904) by
his friend H. G. Wells. There are other earlier references from the
twentieth century which refer to an iron curtain separating Russia from
other parts of Europe that might have influenced Churchill to capitalize on
this fitting metaphor. Ironically, he might even have been "inspired" by
Joseph Goebbels who on 25 February 1945 had used the phrase metaphorically
in the newspaper Das Reich: "If the German people lay down their arms, the
whole of eastern and south-eastern Europe, together with the [German]
Reich,
would come under Russian occupation. Behind an iron screen, mass butcheries
of peoples would begin [...]." The Nazi propaganda machine had sent this
text to the world press on 22 February, and it appeared in this English
translation in The Times on 23 February. There can hardly be any doubt that
Churchill read this report and that he quickly noticed that the translator
of the German expression "eiserner Vorhang" should have rendered it as
"iron
curtain" rather than "iron screen."[62] One thing is certain: for Churchill
this phrase became a rhetorical leitmotif after the Fulton speech, and he
used it repeatedly[63] to describe the division of Europe and the menace of
the Cold War. Yet despite his apocalyptic gloom about the immediate future
of Europe, Churchill in a speech of 4 August 1947 shone a prophetic
spotlight on the European stage after the eventual lifting of the iron
curtain:
It is true that an Iron Curtain has descended across Europe, from Stettin
on
the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic. We do not wish the slightest ill to
those who dwell on the east of that Iron Curtain, which was never our
making. On the contrary, our prosperity and happiness would rise with
theirs. Let there be sunshine on both sides of the Iron Curtain; and if
ever
the sunshine should be equal on both sides, the Curtain will be no more. It
will vanish away like the mists of the morning and melt in the warm light
of
happy days and cheerful friendship. I trust these thoughts will become
facts
and not merely dreams.[64]
Churchill repeated the very last sentence of this quotation in a more
proverbial form in the first volume of The Second World War where he
describes his feelings about having been named Prime Minister on 10 May
1940: "I thought I knew a good deal about it all [the political situation
and the war], and I was sure I should not fail. Therefore, although
impatient for the morning, I slept soundly and had no need for cheering
dreams. Facts are better than dreams" (I,527).
It happens rather frequently in Churchill's narrative that he uses
proverbial language in a personal manner. It must not be forgotten that The
Second World War and his other historical volumes were not written in an
objective scholarly style. Churchill himself is the persona in the center,
and sentences with the "I" pronoun abound, including those that include
folk
speech:
I lived in fact from hand to mouth.[65] (I,62)
I felt sure his heart was in the right place. (I,190)
I do not feel that we are getting to the root of the matter on many points.
(I,361)
I then talked of the importance of finding a way out: "He that ruleth his
spirit is greater than he that taketh a city."[66] (I,533)
As usual I put my case in black and white. (II,376)
I fear this may be another example of the adage "A stitch in time saves
nine." (III,52)
I thought it my duty to break the ice. (III,340)
I am too busy to chase these rabbits as they deserve. (III,777)
I was grateful to James Maxton for bringing the matter to a head. (IV,62)
I had a great desire to have something in hand. (IV,167)
Personally I longed to see British and American armies shoulder to shoulder
in Europe. (IV,290)
I was to turn the tables upon him. (IV,362)
I slept the sleep of the just till long after daylight. (IV,469)
I think a golden opportunity may be lost. (IV,626)
I thought it well that the President should take the rough with the smooth
about British public opinion. (IV,649)
I found it very hard to make head or tail of the bundle of drafts.
(IV,726)
I appreciate your point about being able to take a short cut, and having
that up your sleeve. (IV,792)
I am very pleased with the way in which you used such poor bits and pieces
as were left you. (V,195)
I have been fighting with my hands tied behind my back. (V,198)
I feel very much in the dark at present. (V,278).
I am completely at the end of my tether. (V,373)
As usual I am optimistic; the tortoise has thrust his head out very far.
(VI,240)
I feel also that their word is their bond. (VI,351)
I am very glad you got into Trieste [...] in time to put your foot in the
door. (VI,482)
I said we must face the facts. (VI,565)
"Facing e collective "we," thus arguing for a
united front. A few convincing examples of this shrewd and at times
manipulative procedure can be seen in the following list:
The President [Roosevelt] regarded recognition [of the Italian occupation
of
Abyssinia] as an unpleasant pill which we should both have to swallow, and
he wished that we should both swallow it together. (I,198)
We must just make the best of things as they come along. (II,451)
We will let bygones go and work with anyone who convinces us of his
resolution to defeat the common enemy. (II,466)
We should have felt more confidence in the success of our policy. We should
have seen that he [Hitler] risked falling between two stools. (III,84)
Why do we want that hanging over our head anyway? (III,115)
Somehow we had to contrive to extend our reach [of destroyer escorts] or
our
days would be numbered. (III,119)
We had to make the best of it, and that is never worth doing by halves.
(III,361-362)
We were therefore able to be better than our word to the United States.
(III,543)
Thus we all found ourselves pretty well on the same spot [regarding
Anglo-American intervention in French North Africa]. (III,588)
We must see they [de Gaulle and all Frenchmen who regard Germany as a foe]
have a fair deal. (IV,566)
We [...] plan a world in which all branches of the human family may look
forward to what the American Declaration of Independence finely calls
"life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."[68] (IV,616)
We may, by "tightening the belt', save perhaps a million tons [i.e.,
seaborne tonnage of supplies]. (IV,782)
Everything we had touched had turned to gold, and during the last seven
weeks there had been an unbroken run of military success. (VI,132)
The last reference refers to Churchill's remarks during a meeting with
President Roosevelt and numerous other high officials on 13 September 1944
in Washington D.C. Like Midas in the classical myth, the war efforts of the
Allies were bearing gilded fruit if not turning literally to pure gold.
Much
of this was due to the deep friendship and absolute trust between Churchill
and Roosevelt. Churchill in particular never tired of reflecting and
commenting on their unique relationship. His feeling of appreciation of the
United States and its people can be found on many pages of his works and
The
Second World War. When President Roosevelt and General Marshall in the
summer of 1942 helped Britain once again, this time by dispatching much
needed engines for tanks, Churchill summarizes his account of this
generosity and support by simply couching it into the proverb that
describes
the British and American relationship during the entire war: "A friend in
need is a friend indeed"[69] (IV,344).
The feeling of gratitude led Churchill in a speech to the House of Commons
on 20 August 1940 to formulate one of his most memorable utterances which
by
now has taken on a proverbial status of sorts. Expressing his appreciation
of the British pilots who in the summer of 1940 fended off the German air
attacks, he said:
The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed
throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the
British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant
challenge
and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess
and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much
owed
by so many to so few.[70]
Churchill was well aware of this quotable formulation, and he used it on
two
subsequent occasions. Reflecting on the entire Second World War he reminded
his listeners during a radio broadcast on 13 May 1945 of the heroic actions
of British pilots during the Battle of Britain:
In July, August and September, 1940, forty or fifty squadrons of British
fighter aircraft in the Battle of Britain broke the teeth of the German air
fleet at odds of seven or eight to one. May I repeat again the words I used
at that momentous hour: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much
owed by so many to so few."[71]
Understandably so, Churchill concludes his chapter on "The Battle of
Britain" (II,281-300) in The Second World War (1949) with the proud
observation of the appropriateness of his memorable phrase:
At the summit the stamina and valour of our fighter pilots remained
unconquerable and supreme. This Britain was saved. Well might I say in the
House of Commons [on 20 August 1940]: "Never in the field of human conflict
was so much owed by so many to so few" (II,300).
Churchill returned once more to this proverbial phrase at the beginning of
a
broadcast appeal for the "R.A.F. Benevolent Fund" on 16 September 1951:
'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so
few.' With those words in 1940--our darkest and yet our finest hour--I
reported to the House of Commons on the progress of the Battle of Britain,
whose eleventh anniversary we now celebrate. I repeat my words tonight with
pride and gratitude. They spring from our hearts as keenly at this moment
as
on the day I uttered them.[72]
This last citation also includes yet another famous phrase coined by
Churchill. In a major speech to the House of Commons on 18 June 1940,
Churchill made it clear to Hitler and Nazi Germany that Britain would fight
them to the bitter end, no matter at what price or sacrifice. The speech
concludes with the following resolution that set the tone for the entire
war
effort:
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war.
If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world
may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole
world, including the United States, including all that we have known and
cared for, will sink into the abyss of a New Dark Age made more sinister,
and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us
therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the
British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will
still say, "This was their finest hour."[73]
Churchill was well aware of the special and memorable formulation of this
phrase. After repeating this passage from his speech in his war history, he
states that "all these often-quoted words were made good in the hour of
victory" (II,199). In calling Churchill a "phrase forger," Manfred Weidhorn
is certainly correct in observing that Churchill "made his rhetoric
memorable by these simple, proverb-like utterances."[74]
Yet Churchill's own inclination towards coining "proverb-like" phrases did
not prevent him to make use of traditional proverbs whenever they suited
his
rhetorical purposes. If, on the other hand, a traditional proverb did not
quite express what the moment called for, Churchill had no problems in
changing the wording to fit his needs. At times such innovative proverb
manipulations actually resulted in powerful statements the messages of
which
appear to carry the authority of traditional wisdom.[75] Thus, commenting
on
a speech by Austen Chamberlain in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had
argued in 1936 that "If you do not stop Germany now, all is over,"
Churchill
simply alludes to the proverb "Actions speak louder than words": "These
were
brave words; but action would have spoken louder" (I,153). It should
surprise no one that Churchill delighted in using the proverb "Deeds, not
words" as a leitmotif throughout his long life. Not that words or rhetoric
were not important to the great orator, but the following fifteen citations
from his speeches clearly show that they were only a means to the more
important end of precipitating action:
The only answer. . . must be by deeds, not by words. (1901)
To back words with deeds, the Commons proceeded. (1938)
It emphasized his reliance on deeds instead of words. (1938)
One of the ways to bring this war to a speedy end is to convince the enemy,
not by words, but by deeds, that we have the will. (1940)
In wartime there is a lot to be said for the motto: "Deeds, not words."
(1941)
It is a case of deeds, not words. (1941)
[...] I should immediately be answered, "Let us have deeds, neds and not words.
(1944)
In these matters, it is not words that count, it is deeds and facts.
(1946)
But deeds are stronger than words, and it is the deeds, or misdeeds, of the
Socialist Government [...] which have brought about the violent internal
antagonism. (1950)
We seek to be judged by deeds rather than by words. (1951)
We ask to be judged by deeds not words. (1952)
We hope to be judged by deeds, and not by words, and by performance rather
than by promises. (1953)
Against all their words, we can set deeds. (1959)[76]
One wonders, of course, what Churchill's political opponents might have
thought of this last statement, when everybody in Britain knew about his
love of words. It must also not be forgotten that Churchill was a man of
action, that no assignment ever appeared too much for him, and that he
worked untiringly for His Majesty's Government and its people. As Victor
Albjerg in his chapter on "The Essence of the Man" has put it so aptly,
"Churchill enjoyed work. To him it was not drudgery, but purposeful
creativity."[77]
Churchill also used proverbs to characterize certain persons or situations.
Lord Cranborne, Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, is described as "a
man in whom 'still waters run deep" (I,206); and Churchill even includes
the
nasty remarks which his Labour Party foes used after he had narrowly
escaped
a bomb attack during the London Blitz: "Our Labour colleagues [in the
Cabinet] facetiously remarked: 'The devil looks after his own'" (II,307).
One can well imagine that Churchill took this ironic slam with a good dose
of "devilish" humor. He was, however, much more serious when he vented his
frustration over the slowness of the 1940 Supreme War Council and the War
Cabinet in seeing that the flow of iron from Narvik (Norway) to Germany had
to be stopped by the British navy. Seven valuable months were lost until a
decision to act was reached:
But in war seven months is a long time. Now Hitler was ready. [...] One can
hardly find a more perfect example of the impotence and fatuity of waging
war by committee or rather by groups of committees. [...] Had I been
allowed
to act with freedom and design when I first demanded permission [to stop
iron carrying boats], a far more agreeable conclusion might have been
reached in this key theatre, with favourable consequences in every
direction. But now all was to be disaster.
He who will not when he may,
When he will, he shall have Nay. (I,458)
There appears to be somewhat of a "pouting" mood in the use of this proverb
to describe this blundered situation--the proverb being cited as an "I told
you so" reprimand of all those who stood in the way of preventive action.
In his countless memoranda to various ministers and generals, Churchill
again and again cited proverbs to support his arguments. They acted as
folkloric strategies to add emphasis to what would otherwise be rather
bureaucratic messages. An example of this is his short memorandum of 27 May
1944 to the Minister of Aircraft Production in which he expresses his
perturbation about the minister's proposal "to centralise jet-propulsion
development in [a] new Government company. There is a great deal to be said
for encouraging overlapping in research and development rather than putting
all the eggs in one basket" (V,629). In another memorandum of 16 November
1944, Churchill informed General Ismay of about twenty 18-inch howitzers
which he could make available to him for the direct attack of Germany:
"Every dog has his day, and I have kept these [very heavy guns] for a
quarter of a century in the hope that they would have their chance"
(VI,611). What a way to give "life" to these cannons by comparing them
figuratively with a "dog"! General Ismay must have chuckled over this
proverbial metaphor, but he probably was also in awe (as modern readers of
such memoranda are) of Churchill's detailed knowledge of war supplies at
this crucial time in the European theatre of war. There appears to be no
detail that escaped Churchill. One gets the feeling that he thought of
everything, as can be seen from yet another memorandum of 4 April 1945 to
Sir Edward Bridges. The war was not even over yet, but Churchill as the
shrewd politician and proponent of the British Commonwealth was already
planning to transfer some ships to Canada and Australia as a goodwill
gesture for their contributions to the war:
Arrange with the Admiralty to bring up both cases of the transfer of
warships to Canada and Australia at some Cabinet meeting to which the
Dominion Ministers are summoned. Then make them a full and free
presentation
there and then across the table. [...] No financial considerations should
be
adduced. We owe too much to Canada in money alone, and the effect of
gestures like this upon both Dominions concerned will be achieved far
better
than by arguments about trading off the value of the ships against certain
financial considerations. This is not a moment for a "penny-wise,
pound-foolish" policy. We must either keep the ships or give them [...] now
is the time to make the presentation in the most friendly form. Cast your
bread upon the waters; it will return to you in not so many days (VI,639)
Notice how Churchill supplements the wisdom of the folk proverb in this
situation with the authority of the Biblical proverb (Ecclesiastes 11:1),
even though he does not quite remember the original second part as "for you
shall find it after many days." Or is he, in fact, altering the proverb on
purpose in order to indicate that this benevolent gesture will bear its
fruit in return sooner than people might think? In view of Churchill's
ability to retain quotations, a case could certainly be made that this not
insignificant change was made intentionally. The appearance of the two
proverbs in this memorandum shows once again that Churchill is indeed a
masterful proverbial strategist and that proverbs do play a role in the
diplomatic ups and downs of the world.
This can also be seen in Churchill's effective use of two proverbs in his
reflection on the fateful signing of the Non-Aggression Pact between the
Soviet Union and Germany on 22 August 1939. The proverbs serve as
moralizing
tools by Churchill who had worked hard to keep Stalin from siding with
Hitler:
A moral may be drawn from all this, which is of homely simplicity. "Honesty
is the best policy." [...] Several examples of this will be shown in these
pages. Crafty men and statesmen will be shown misled by all their elaborate
calculations. But this is the signal instance. Only twenty-two months were
to pass before Stalin and the Russian nation int its scores of millions
were
to pay a frightful forfeit. If a Government has no moral scruples, it often
seems to gain great advantages and liberties of action, but "All comes out
even at the end of the day, and all will come out yet more even when all
the
days are ended." (I,307)
In addition to their moralizing purpose, the proverbs in the narrative of
this first volume of The Second World War also serve as prophetic
statements
of "homely simplicity" that dishonesty and treachery will lead to doom.
Other proverbs show Churchill's pragmatism in his dual role as Prime
Minister and Minister of Defence. In one of his typical memoranda, he
raises
the question about much-needed war supplies and then gives a bit of "pithy"
advice that action should be taken immediately:
What is being done about getting our twenty motor torpedo-boats, the five
P.B.Y. [Flying-boats], the one hundred and fifty to two hundred aircraft,
and the two hundred and fifty thousand rifles, also anything else that is
going on? I consider we were promised all the above, and more too. Not an
hour should be lost in raising these questions. "Beg while the iron is
hot."
(II,590)[78]
What an ingenious way to vary a standard proverb in order to express the
definite need of getting these war supplies! Churchill clearly was a master
of this type of proverb manipulation, his best "creation" perhaps being the
following anti-proverb[79] based on the well-known English proverb "Make
hay
while the sun shines."[80] In a memorandum of 23 June 1941 to General
Ismay,
Ch that I ought to be put out to grass I
tell
you I would take it with the best of grace. But, on the contrary, I must
warn you, as I did when I began this five years' task--and no one knew then
that it would last so long--that there is still a lot to do, and that you
must be prepared for further efforts of mind and body and further
sacrifices
to great causes if you are not to fall back into the rut of inertia, the
confusion of aim, and "the craven fear of being great". (VI,672)
The victory speech becomes sort of a campaign speech by the ultimate "work
horse" which is by no means ready "to be put out to grass," as it were.
When, despite his valiant struggle and final victory in the war, he lost
the
general election later during 1945, Churchill had extreme psychological
difficulties in being pushed aside. In defeat and as leader of the
opposition, he used his rhetorical power until in 1951 he once again became
Prime Minister. Churchill neither needed nor wanted retirement and used his
tongue and pen to the end of his life to help shape the destiny of Great
Britain and the world, perhaps also mindful of the proverb that "The pen is
mightier than the sword."[82] Towards the end of his long life, even more
honors came to him, one of the most coveted being the honorary citizenship
of the United States which was bestowed upon him on 9 April 1963. On that
occasion President John F. Kennedy summarized Winston S. Churchill's
rhetorical grandeur with the statement that "In the dark days and darker
nights when England stood alone--and most men save Englishmen despaired of
England's life--he mobilized the English language and sent it into
battle."[83] It is doubtful that either Kennedy or Churchill thought of the
importance that proverbial speech played in this mobilization. Yet a good
twenty years earlier, in a long speech on the war situation to the House of
Commons on 27 January 1942, Churchill expressed his thoughts on the
rhetorical significance of proverbial folk speech:
There is no objection to anything being said in plain English, or even
plainer, and the Government will do their utmost to conform to any standard
which may be set in the course of the debate. But no one need be
mealy-mouthed in debate, and no one should be chicken-hearted in voting.
(IV,58)
Despite his erudition and vast knowledge that could lead Churchill to very
sophisticated heights of the English language, he was always ready "to
speak
in plain English" and to voice his opinion without fear of the
consequences.
Speaking plainly and proverbially certainly helped in arousing the peoples
of the free world against the tyranny of dictators. There definitely is
proverbial truth in the claim that Winston S. Churchill "mobilized the
English language and sent it into battle."
Notes:
See Wolfgang Mieder, Proverbs in Literature: An International Bibliography
(Bern: Peter Lang, 1978); and W. Mieder, International Proverb Scholarship:
An Annotated Bibliography, 3 vols. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1982,
1990, and 1993).
See Werner Koller, Redensarten: Linguistische Aspekte, Vorkommensanalysen,
Sprachspiel (Tbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1977), esp. pp. 122-174; Theres
Gautschi, Bildhafte Phraseologismen in der Nationalratswahlpropaganda
(Bern:
Peter Lang, 1982); Edmund Kammerer, Sprichwort und Politik: Sprachliche
Schematismen in Politikerreden, politischem Journalismus und Graffiti (M.A.
Thesis University of Freiburg, 1983); Shirley L. Arora, "On the Importance
of Rotting Fish: A Proverb and Its Audience [during the Michael Dukakis
presidential campaign]," Western Folklore, 48 (1989), 271-288; and Karen E.
Richman, "'With Many Hands, the Burden Isn't Heavy': Creole Proverbs and
Political Rhetoric in Haiti's Presidential Elections," Folklore Forum, 23
(1990), 115-123.
See Dmtrios Loukatos, "Proverbes et commentaires
politiques:
Le public devant les tl-communications actuelles,"
Proverbium, 1 (1984), 119-126; and Peter Khn, "Routine-Joker in
politischen Fernsehdiskussionen. Pldoyer fr eine
textsortenabhngige Beschreibung von Phraseologismen," Beitrge
zur Phraseologie des Ungarischen und des Deutschen, ed. Regina Hessky
(Budapest: Lornd-Etvs-Universitt, 1988), pp.
155-176.
See R.D. Hoggs, "Proverbs," Secretariat News, 14 (1960), 5-7; and Victor
S.M. de Guinzbourg, Wit and Wisdom of the United Nations: Proverbs and
Apothegms on Diplomacy (New York: privately printed, 1961; supplement
1965).
See Lutz Rhrich, "Die Bildwelt von Sprichwort und Redensart in der
Sprache der politischen Karikatur," Kontakte und Grenzen: Probleme der
Volks-, Kultur- und Sozialforschung. Festschrift fr Gerhard
Heilfurth,
ed. Hans Friedrich Foltin (Gttingen: Otto Schwarz, 1969), pp.
175-207;
Wolfgang Mieder, "'It's Five Minutes to Twelve': Folklore and Saving Life
on
Earth," International Folklore Review, 7 (1989), 10-21; and Fionnuala
Williams, "'To Kill Two Birds with One Stone': Variants in a War of Words,"
Proverbium, 8 (1991), 199-201.
Published in Western Folklore, 15 (1956), 153-158; and reprinted in The
Wisdom of Many: Essays on the Proverb, eds. Wolfgang Mieder and Alan Dundes
(New York: Garland Publishing, 1981), pp. 300-308.
See Hugo Blmmer, Der bildliche Ausdruck in den Reden des Frsten
Bismarck (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1891), esp. pp. 182-186; and H. Blmmer,
"Der bildliche Ausdruck in den Briefen des Frsten Bismarck,"
Euphorion, 1 (1894), 590-603 and 771-787.
See Gnter Wein, "Die Rolle der Sprichwrter und Redensarten in
der Agitation und Propaganda," Sprachpflege, 12 (1963), 51-52; Aleksandr M.
Zhigulev, "Poslovitsy i pogovorki v bol'shevitskikh listovkakh," Sovetskaia
Etnografia, 5 (1970), 124-131; L.A. Morozova, "Upotreblenie V.I. Leninym
poslovits," Russkaia Rech', no volume given, no. 2 (1979), 10-14; N.A.
Meshcherskii, "Traditsionno-knizhnye vyrazheniia v sovremennom russkom
literaturnom iazyke (na materiale proizvedenii V.I. Lenina)," Voprosy
frazeologii, 9 (1975), 110-121; and Jean Breuillard, "Proverbes et pouvoir
politique: Le cas de l'U.R.S.S.," Richesse du proverbe, eds.
Franois
Suard and Claude Buridant (Lille: Universit de Lille, 1984), vol.
2,
pp. 155-166.
See "Proverbs in Nazi Germany: The Promulgation of Anti-Semitism and
Stereotypes Through Folklore," in Wolfgang Mieder, Proverbs Are Never Out
of
Season: Popular Wisdom in the Modern Age (New York: Oxford University
Press,
1993), pp. 225-255.
See Wolfgang Mieder, "'... as if I were the master of the situation':
Proverbial Manipulation in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf," De Proverbio: An
Electronic Journal of International Proverb Studies, Volume 1, Number 1,
1995; International Folklore Review (in press).
1 Manfred Weidhorn, "'Always the Same Set of Songs': Topoi," in M.
Weidhorn,
Sir Winston Churchill (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979), pp. 34-45.
Ibid., p. 162.
See for example Robert Rhodes James, Churchill: A Study in Failure,
1900-1939 (New York: The World Publishing Company, 1970); and Maurice
Ashley, Churchill as Historian (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968).
Cited from Reed Whittemore, "Churchill and the Limitation of Myth," Yale
Review, 44 (1954-1955), 248 (entire article on pp. 248-262); rpt. as
"Churchill as a Mythmaker" in Language and Politics, ed. Thomas P. Brockway
(Boston: D.C. Heath, 1965), p. 56 (entire article on pp. 56-68). See also
Keith Alldritt, Churchill the Writer: His Life as a Man of Letters (London:
Hutchinson, 1992).
A.G. Gardiner, "Genius Without Judgment: Churchill at Fifty," in G.
Gardiner, Portraits and Portents (New York: Harper & Row, 1926), p. 63
(entire article pp. 58-64); rpt. in Churchill: A Profile, ed. Peter Stansky
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1973), p. 52 (entire article pp. 48-53.
Ibid., p. 58 (rpt., pp. 48-49).
James (see note 13), p. 29.
David Cannadine (ed.), Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Speeches of
Winston
Churchill (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989), p. 1 (introduction).
Regarding these six volumes as "history" see Ashley (note 13), pp. 159-209;
Keith Niles Hull, The Literary Art of Winston Churchill's "The Second World
War" (Diss. University of Washington, 1969); and Manfred Weidhorn, Sword
and
Pen: A Survey of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill (Albuquerque, New
Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 1974), pp. 139-177.
Joseph W. Miller, "Winston Churchill, Spokesman for Democracy," Quarterly
Journal of Speech, 28 (1942), 137 (the entire essay on pp. 131-138.
Weidhorn (see note 11), p. 133 (the entire chapter on pp. 130-150). On
Churchill's use of imagery see also Joaquim Pao d'Arcos, Churchill:
The Statesman and Writer (London: The Caravel Press, 1957), p. 25.
Ibid., p. 134. See also Gwendoline Lilian Reid, Winston S. Churchill's
Theory of Public Speaking as Compared to His Practice (Diss. University of
Minnesota, 1987), pp. 149-163.
Ibid., p. 136 and p. 137. On Churchill's frequent use of colloquialisms see
also Manfred Weidhorn, Churchill's Rhetoric and Political Discourse
(Lanham,
Maryland: University Press of America, 1987), pp. 31-32. See also the
comment that Churchill "often rounded off [a discussion] by a sudden
colloquialism that from most other people would be an anticlimax" by Collin
Brooks, "Churchill the Conversationalist," in Churchill by His
Contemporaries, ed. Charles Eade (London: The Reprint Society, 1953), p.
248
(the entire essay on pp. 240-248).
Cited from Randolph S. Churchill, WWorks of Sir Winston Churchill
(Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1994).
In addition to the references already cited, see the lack of comments on
Churchill's use of proverbs in the following three essays included in
Charles Eade (ed.), Churchill by His Contemporaries (London: The Reprint
Society, 1953): Colin Coote, "Churchill the Journalist" (pp. 114-121);
Norman Birkett, "Churchill the Orator" (pp. 223-233); and Ivor Brown,
"Churchill the Master of Words" (pp. 312-317). The following two studies
are
also void of any comments regarding proverbs: Herbert Leslie Stewart, Sir
Winston Churchill as Writer and Speaker (London: Sidgwick and Jackson,
1954); and Charles W. Lomas, "Winston Churchill: Orator-Historian,"
Quarterly Journal of Speech, 44 (1958), 153-160. A special disappointment
in
this regard is the study by Edd Miller and Jesse J. Villarreal, "The Use of
Clichs by Four Contemporary Speakers [Winston Churchill, Anthony
Eden, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Henry Wallace]," Quarterly Journal of
Speech, 31 (1945), 151-155.
For bibliographical references concerning these nine citations see Mieder
and Bryan (note 25). For the Maori proverb cited by Churchill see Raymond
Firth, "Proverbs in Native Life, with Special Reference to Those of the
Maori," Folk-Lore (London), 38 (1927), 153.
Herbert Howarth, "Behind Winston Churchill's Grand Style," Commentary, 11
(1951), 551 (the entire article on pp. 549-557).
It should be noted that the following "popular" collections of Churchill's
wit and wisdom do not contain any scholarly annotations and are, of course,
limited to Churchill's own quotable statements (often in the form of entire
paragraphs): Colin Coote (ed.), Maxims and Reflections of the Rt. Hon.
Winston S. Churchill (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947); Bill Adler,
The Churchill Wit (New York: Coward McCann, 1965); Adam Sykes and Iain
Sproat, The Wit of Sir Winston (London: Leslie Frewin, 1965); Jack House,
Winston Churchill: His Wit and Wisdom (London: Hyperion Books, 19?); and
James C. Humes, The Wit and Wisdom of Winston Churchill (New York:
HarperCollins, 1994). See also James C. Humes' earlier collection of "Wit
and Wisdom" in his book Churchill: Speaker of the Century (New York: Stein
and Day, 1980), pp. 261-279, with the following comment: "The titanic
output
of his work is staggering to those editors and anthologists who try to
select for readers the choicest of his wit and wisdom. Among writers in the
English language, perhaps only Shakespeare offers more quotable lines.
[...]
There are more gems to be gleaned in the writings and speeches of Churchill
than in the sayings of Mao or the observations of Machiavelli" (p. 263).
See Mieder (note 10).
All citations are taken from the following standard edition: Winston S.
Churchill, The Second World War (London: Cassell & Co., 1948-1954). The two
numbers in parentheses refer to the volume and page.
For a short study of this proverbial expression see Wolfgang Mieder and
David Pilachowski, "Die 'Nacht der langen Messer'," Der Sprachdienst, 19
(1975), 149-152.
For proverbs expressing a fatalistic worldview see Matti Kuusi, "Fatalistic
Traits in Finnish Proverbs," in Fatalistic Beliefs in Religion, Folklore
and
Literature, ed. Helmer Ringgren (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1967), pp.
89-96; rpt. in Mieder and Dundes (note 6), pp. 275-283.
See Mieder and Bryan (note 25) for precise references.
For two representative collections see Robert Hendrickson, Salty Words (New
York: Hearst Marine Books, 1984); and Wolfgang Mieder, Salty Wisdom:
Proverbs of the Sea (Shelburne, Vermont: The New England Press, 1990).
For a history of this proverbial phrase see Dietmar Peil, "'Im selben
Boot':
Variationen ber ein metaphorisches Argument," Archiv fr
Kulturgeschichte, 68 (1986), 269-293; and Wolfgang Mieder, "'Wir sitzen
alle
in einem Boot': Herkunft, Geschichte und Verwendung einer neueren deutschen
Redensart," Muttersprache, 100 (1990), 18-37. See also the more general
study by Irene Meichsner, Die Logik von Gemeinpltzen. Vorgefhrt
an Steuermannstopos und Schiffsmetapher (Bonn: Bouvier, 1983).
See Brown (note 26), p. 312.
Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1958 [1930]), p. 23.
Ibid., p. 116. See also Darrell Holley, Churchill's Literary Allusions: An
Index to the Education of a Soldier, Statesman and Litterateur (Jefferson,
North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 1987); Reid (note 22), pp. 284-290;
and more generally Paul F. Boller, Quotesmanship: The Use and Abuse of
Quotations for Polemical and Other Purposes (Dallas, Texas: Southern
Methodist University Press, 1967).
See Victor L. Albjerg, Winston Churchill (New York: Twayne Publishers,
1973), p. 46. See also Ashley (note 13), p. 23; and Weidhorn (note 11), p.
30.
For a history of this Latin proverb see Anette Erler, "Zur Geschichte des
Spruches 'Bis dat, qui cito dat' [He gives twice who gives quickly],"
Philologus, 13 (1986), 210-220.
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander, Deutsches Sprichwrter-Lexikon, 5 vols.
(Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1867-1880; rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1964), vol. 1 (1867), col. 278 (no. 112).
Ibid., vol. 2 (1870), col. 45 (no. 1024).
See Mieder and Bryan (note 25) for precise references.
Cited from Robert Rhodes James (ed.), Winston S. Churchill: His Complete
Speeches, 1897-1963 (London: Chelsea House Publishers, 1974), vol. 8, p.
8507.
See J. Alan Pfeffer, The Proverb in Goethe (New York: King's Crown Press,
1948), p. 24 (no. 56).
The only reference work in which it is registered with a reference to
Goethe
is Lilian Dalbiac, Dictionary of Quotations (German) (New York: Frederick
Ungar, 1958 [1st ed. 1909]), p. 155.
James (note 45), vol. 6, p. 6220.
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1931 [1959]), vol. 6, p. 1. See Manfred Weidhorn, "Churchill the Phrase
Forger," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 58 (1972), 170 (the entire essay on
pp. 161-174).
See John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, ed. Justin Kaplan, 16th ed.
(Boston:
Little, Brown and Company, 1992), p. 620:5 (note 1).
For an intriguing article on possible classical origins of Churchill's
phrase see Richard Henry Crum, "Blood, sweat and tears," The Classical
Journal, 42 (1947), 299-300.
Cited from James (note 45), vol. 6, p. 6287.
Ibid., pp. 6397-6398,
Ibid, p. 6516.
Ibid., p. 6657.
Ibid., p. 6693.
For Churchill's six citations of this statement see Mieder and Bryan (note
25). Dr. Martin J. Routh, president of Magdalen College, seems to be the
source of this sound scholarly advice, having made the statement in 1847
that "You will find it a very good practice always to verify your
quotations." Churchill's friend, Lord Rosebery, on 23 November 1897,
altered
it somewhat to "Always wind up your watch and verify your quotations." See
Burton Stevenson, The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Famous Phrases
(New
York: Macmillan, 1948), p. 1929 (no. 3).
It is of interest to note that David Cannadine used the original quadratic
form of the phrase for the title of his later edition of Churchill
speeches:
Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Speeches of Winston Churchill (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989).
For analyses of this speech see W.R. Underhill, "Fulton's Finest Hour,"
Quarterly Journal of Speech, 52 (1966), 155-163; Weidhorn (see note phrase
forger), pp. 162-163; Henry B. Ryan, "A New Look at Churchill's 'Iron
Curtain' Speech," The Historical Journal, 22 (1979), 895-920 (esp. pp.
897-898); Fraser J. Harbutt, The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America, and the
Origins of the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp.
183-208; and John P. Rossi, "Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech: Forty
Years After," Modern Age: A Quarterly Review, 30 (1986), 113-119.
Cited from James (note 45), vol. 7, p. 7290.
Churchill delighted in using theatrical phrases. For some examples see
Weidhorn (note 49), pp. 162-163; Weidhorn (note 23), p. 70; and Mieder and
Bryan (note 25), pp. 36-38.
For a detailed study of the origin and history of this phrase with many
bibliographical references see Wolfgang Mieder, "Bibliographische Skizze
zur
berlieferung des Ausdrucks 'Iron Curtain' / 'Eiserner Vorhang',"
Muttersprache, 91 (1981), 1-14.
For a complete list of references see Mieder and Bryan (note 25).
Cited from James (note 45), vol. 7, p. 7509.
This inversion of the proverbial expression "to live from hand to mouth"
refers to Churchill's literary activities during the years from 1931 to
1935
which he very much enjoyed: "I earned my livelihood by dictating articles
which had a wide circulation not only in Greap. 551,
notes correctly that Churchill "likes to call on the Bible for prophetic
metaphors." For many examples of this see Mieder and Bryan (note 25), pp.
47-50.
For additional references see Mieder and Bryan (note 25).
Churchill delighted in using this quotation as can be seen from the
citations in Mieder and Bryan (note 25). It should be noted, however, that
he sometimes cites its source incorrectly as coming from the Constitution
of
the United States.
A page later Churchill returns again to this special relationship: "Thus
began a friendship which across all the ups and downs of war I have
preserved with deep satisfaction to this day" (IV,345).
Cited from James (note 45), vol. 6, p. 6266. See also Birkett (note 26), p.
226; Weidhorn (note 49), pp. 168-169; and Bartlett (note 50), p. 620 (no.
10).
Ibid., vol. 7, p. 7158.
Ibid., vol. 8, p. 8243.
Ibid., vol. 6, p. 6238. See also Bartlett (note 50), p. 620 (no. 8).
See Weidhorn (note 49), p. 174.
For this type of political use of proverbs see Charles H. Titus, "Political
Maxims," California Folklore Quarterly, 4 (1945), 377-389; Wolfgang Mieder,
Das Sprichwort in unserer Zeit (Frauenfeld: Huber, 1975), pp. 14-22; and W.
Mieder, Deutsche Sprichwrter in Literatur, Politik, Presse und
Werbung
(Hamburg: Helmut Buske, 1983), pp. 11-41.
Cited from Mieder and Bryan (note 25).
Albjerg (note 40), p. 51. Albjerg continues: "If he was not preparing a
speech, organizing a report, planning a campaign, painting a mural, writing
a book, building a wall, digging a ditch, he was off in the Enchantress
inspecting dockyards or observing naval maneuvers. Each enterprise,
whatever
it was, constituted an entrancing experience which, in its performance,
held
him spellbound."
See also the interesting rephrasing of this proverb as "The iron stands hot
for the striking" (VI,190), cited by Churchill from a communication to him
by Sir A. Clark Kerr, British Ambassador in Moscow, concerning Churchill's
upcoming trip to Russia to meet Stalin in October 1944.
The term was coined by Wolfgang Mieder, who also collected 4,500 German
anti-proverbs in his Antisprichwrter, 3 vols. (Wiesbaden: Verlag
fr deutsche Sprache, 1982 and 1985; Wiesbaden: Quelle & Meyer,
1989).
See Richard Jente, "Make Hay While the Sun Shines," Southern Folklore
Quarterly, 1 (1937), 63-68.
It might be of interest to note here that Churchill describes Stalin's
pragmatism through a proverb as well, stating that "Marshall Stalin
followed
the Russian maxim , 'You may always walk with the Devil [in this case the
Italian fascists] till you get to the end of the bridge'" (V,167).
For the five references of Churchill's use of this proverb see Mieder and
Bryan (note 25).
Quoted in The Churchill Years 1874-1965, intro. Lord Butler of Saffron
Walden (New York: The Viking Press, 1965), p. 231.
Wolfgang Mieder
Department of German and Russian
Waterman Building
University of Vermont
Burlington, Vermont 05405
USA
Wolfgang Mieder
DE PROVERBIO
An Electronic Journal of International Proverb Studies
ISSN 1323-4633
VOLUME 1 - Number 2 - 1995
URL: http://info.utas.edu.au/docs/flonta/
E-mail: deproverbio.editor@modlang.utas.edu.au
------------------------------
Сайт управляется системой
uCoz