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Good God I Wish That I Could Write Like Sir Winston Churchill


Here's Sir Winston's description of some British military operations conducted in the late 19th century in the northern African Country of the Sudan, adjacent to the Nile River:

As the severity of military operations increases, so also must the sternness of discipline.

The zeal of the soldiers, their warlike instincts, and the interests and excitements of war may ensure obedience of orders and the cheerful endurance of perils and hardships during a short and prosperous campaign.

But when fortune is dubious or adverse; when retreats as well as advances are necessary; when supplies fail, arrangements miscarry, and disasters impend, and when the struggle is protracted, men can only be persuaded to accept evil things by the lively realisation of the fact that greater terrors await their refusal.

The ugly truth is revealed that fear is the foundation of obedience. It is certain that the influence of General Gordon upon the garrison and townspeople of Khartoum owed its greatest strength to that sinister element.

'It is quite painful,' he writes in his Journals in September, 'to see men tremble so, when they come and see me, that they cannot hold the match to their cigarette.'

Yet he employed all other methods of inspiring their efforts. As the winter drew on, the sufferings of the besieged increased and their faith in their commander and his promises of relief diminished.

To preserve their hopes--and, by their hopes, their courage and loyalty--was beyond the power of man. But what a great man in the utmost exercise of his faculties and authority might do, Gordon did...


Ten thousand men had thus been killed in the space of three months in the Eastern Soudan. By the discipline of their armies the Government were triumphant. The tribes of the Red Sea shore cowered before them.

But as they fought without reason, so they conquered without profit.


Do these word's not adequately describe some of the goings on which we all see in the world today?

I think so, but Sir Winston wrote these words way back in 1902 in a book called THE RIVER WAR--An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan.

Click on the link and go LEARN something this morning, if you will...