The Churchill Series – Apr. 6, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Some people have a sense of destiny. They’re certain they were put on earth for a particular purpose.

From his letters and the recollections of friends and family, we know that even as a youth Patton believed he was destined to command great Armies.

De Gaulle confirms in his war memoirs that the lodestar of his life was his belief in a mystical union between France and himself; and that a time would come when she would be, as he put it, “dishonored” and he would be called to rescue and restore her.

Churchill too had a sense of destiny. Martin Gilbert tells us something of that in Continue to Pester, Nag and Bite: Churchill’s War Leadership:

At the centre of Churchill’s mental energies as war leader was his belief in himself – in his abilities and in his destiny. While at school, he had gathered a group of boys around him and explained his confidence that one day, far in the future, when London was under attack from an invader, he would be in command of the capital’s defenses. (p. 36)

And we have Churchill's own words describing what he felt the night of May 10, 1940 after the King asked him to form a government and serve as his Prime Minister:

I felt I was walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.

Those words are so familiar, they need no citation. Many of us never read them without being moved.