The Churchill Series - Mar. 21, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about 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.

His letters and the recollections of friends and family confirm that as a youth George S. Patton believed he was destined to command great Armies.

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

Churchill also had a sense of destiny. His biographer Martin Gilbert tells us 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.

I wish you all a blessed weekend.

John