ON page 2 of his tome, Irving says that Churchill was gazetted from Sandhurst in March 1895, and a year later his father died, "alcoholic and incoherent, aged only forty-six."
It's always best to make a mistake at the beginning. Lord Randolph Churchill's death was reported in the Times for January 25, 1895. He was said to have died in the early hours of the previous morning. The cause of death was given as general paralysis, but it is common knowledge that he was afflicted with syphillis. The lengthy obituary gave his date of birth as February 18, 1849, so actually he died some three weeks later short of his forty-sixth birthday, at the age of forty-five. There was no reference to Lord Randolph Churchill's alleged alcoholism in his obituary, or in any of the biographies the current writers consulted.
Also on page 2, Irving says: "later that year, still aged only twenty-two, he went on furlough to Cuba". Gilbert tells us that "In October 1895 Churchill decided to go with a friend, Reginald Barnes, to Cuba..." Churchill was born November 30, 1874 remember, so in fact he was not yet twenty-one!
On page 8, Irving says "two years later he was back at the desk of Under-Secretary for the Colonies - the same desk he had vacated fifteen years ealier." He was actually Colonial Secretary, his junior days having ended in 1908.
Irving goes on to refer to "the treaty ultimately signed with the new Irish Free State on December 6, 1922."
This treaty was actually signed in Downing Street the previous year. According to The Annual Register for 1921, page 146, it was ratified in the Commons on December 16 by 401 votes to 58; the Lords voted 166 to 47. The Irish Free State came into existence officially on January 15 1922, when the treaty was approved.
Yet another gaffe on the same page is the clami that "The Dundee electorate expressed their personal displeasure with Mr Churchill at the subsequent general election: they turfed him out of the House for the first time since 1900." He'd actually lost his Manchester, North West seat in the 1908 by-election, then compulsory for all new Cabinet Ministers, and had had to get a fresh one in Dundee.
On page 10, in an egregious mistake inexcusable in anyone with the slightest pretension to being a historian of the Twentieth Century, he states that US President "Coolidge was now defeated by Herbert Hoover." This is complete nonsense; the truth is that: "after President Calvin Coolidge, in August 1927, announced that he would not seek reelection, Hooever became the leading Republican candidate for his party's nomination."
Alexander Baron. "Revising the Revisionists." pg 13-14.
Irving's claim on page 16 that in October 1930 "Adolf Hitler [was] then only a minor political poltician leading an opposition party", is too silly to comment on ; the Nazis had just become the second largest party in the Reichstag!
On page 18, Irving refers to Churchill's eldest daughter Diana, whom, he says, was born in 1906. She was actually born July 11, 1909 as the fact that her parents married in 1908 might have hinted!
On page 36 Irving refers to a film allegedly called The Private Lives of Henry VIII. According to a standard reference work, this film was actually titled The Private Life of Henry VIII.
On the following page he refers to "Leslie Howard, alias von Ardenne." According to his obituary in the Times, JUne 4 1943, page 7, Howard's real name was Stainer. He was born April 3 1893 and was shot down in a civil aircraft - by those wicked Nazis - on June 1 1943. The only person who appears ever to have believed Howard used such an alias is David Irving.
On page 122, Irving makes the curious comment that "It was not apparent why Beck...could not squeeze the trigger of his pistol the next time he met Hitler." How about a lack of desire to commit suicide?
Page 141: "600 MPs stood up and cheered {Chamberlin]".
That would mean both Tories and almost all Opposition MPs! According to the Times September 29 1938, "A roar of cheering from his supporters marked the entry of the Prime Minister, accompanied by Captain Margesson. Ministerialists - some of them on the Opposition side of the House - rose as one man, cheering and waving their order papers."
On page 226, we are told that "Drinking was important to Churchill - one of the classic symptoms of the alcoholic."
We suppose that may be called a tautology, but on the same page the claim that "His alcoholism was a family heirloom. His father had died of drink..." is at least half false. Lord Randolph Churchill did not die of drink, but of syphillis. It remains to be seen which of these was the most shameful in that day and age.
Page 428: Irving says, or implies, that Harold Macmillan succeeded Churchill as Prime Minister. Referring to Admiral Sir Dudley North, he says: "During Churchill's second administration in 1954 the Official History magnificently lifted the slur from the Admiral's name, but it was not until 1958 that Sir Winston's successor discharged him entirely of the allegation of dereliction of duty."
In fact, Churchill was succeeded by Anthony Eden on April 6 1955, who was himself succeeded by Harold Macmillan on January 10 1957.
Page 483, the title of Chapter 37 is The Unsorded Act [sic].What a place for a typo!
In the index, page 659 lists Sefton Dalmer [sic]. The only reference in the book proper gives the gent's correct name. This is hardly Irving's fault, but for the record, Denis Sefton Delmer was an anti-Nazi propagandist of some repute. Born in Berlin, the son of an Australian father, he grew up in Germany. A British citizen, he dined with Hitler and was, among other things, Berlin correspondent for the Daily Express. His two volume autobiography was published in 1961 and 1962, and, in view of some of the extraordinareily candid admissions made in the second volume, it is small wonder that the Holocaust revisionists have not subjected the activities of him and his colleagues in the British Psychological Warfare Department to far greather scrutiny that they appear to have done.
Alexander Baron. "Revising the Revisionists." pg 16-17.
According to amazon, there is an edition of Irving's book Churchill's War volume one that was printed in 1999. Alexander Baron's book was published in 1994 and Irving has been aware of Baron since at least 1998 when in September of that year, he wrote an almost indignant reply to Baron.
Leaving aside likely unanswerable questions such as did Irving check out Baron's book for himself, or when did the January 1999 edition of Churchill's war begin being printed in relation to Irving's September letter to Baron, I have other questions to ask.
Are there subsequent editions of volume one of Churchill's war that was made even after 1999? If so, does anyone on this board own them, or do they know someone who does? Can they get these editions if they exist and verify them for me? Are there any editions from 1994 (the year Baron's book came out) onwards aside from the 1999 edition that could have possibly fixed these errors noted by Baron in 1994?
