Quotes from Andrew Roberts

Among Berthier's many qualities was a diplomatic nature so finely attuned that he somehow managed to persuade his wife, the Duchess Maria of Bavaria, to share a chateau with his mistress Madame Visconti (and vice versa).

I admire his brains and mental capacity but I decry his judgement

As one Finn put it after the battle of Kuhmo, 'There were more Russians than we had bullets.

When General Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult, who was in charge at Saint-Omer (77 letters) reported that it was impossible to embark the entire force in twenty-four hours, Napoleon expostulated, 'Impossible, sir! I am not acquainted with the word; it is not in the French language, erase it from your dictionary.

Revenge may be sweet, but it is also most expensive .

As a Free Trader, he was convinced by Mayo's detailed arguments, supported by a large quantity of evidence, that far from Britain being an economic drain on India, trade had been mutually beneficial.117 The fact that almost all the richest people in India were Indian merchants or princes, not Britons, struck him as further evidence that the British were not the exploitative colonialists of other European empires in Asia and Africa.

most of the French retreated into pursuit of their immediate material interests, hating the Occupation of course, but doing next to nothing to hasten its end. This was precisely what the Germans needed.

could never brook authority or discipline.

I have tried very sincerely to adopt a neutral attitude of mind in the Spanish quarrel,' he told the Commons. 'I refuse to become the partisan of either side. I will not pretend that, if I had to choose between Communism and Nazi-ism, I would choose Communism. I hope not to be called upon to survive in the world under a Government of either of those dispensations

Churchill summed up the neutrals' position in a radio broadcast of 20 January 1940: 'Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.

because a native-born American was 'a very effeminate thing, very unfit for and very impatient of war'.

journalism is the first draft of history

It is foolish to waste lamentations upon the closing phase of human life. Noble spirits yield themselves willingly to the successively falling shades which carry them to a better world or to oblivion.

To Hitler, personal and ideological loyalty was more important than professional aptitude and performance.

Churchill made his last political speech on 29 September 1959, in the election campaign at Woodford. 'Among our Socialist opponents there is great confusion,' he said. 'Some of them regard private enterprise as a tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk.

recalled the rancorous, partisan tempers and epithets

It's not enough to kill a Russian,' went the admiring saying in the Grande Armée, 'you have to push him over too.')

My hatred of Bolshevism and Bolsheviks is not founded on their silly system of economics, or their absurd doctrine of an impossible equality. It arises from the bloody and devastating terrorism which they practise in every land into which they have broken, and by which alone their criminal regime can be maintained.

Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery.

it is far more pleasant to read books or write articles than to try to convince ministerial nonentities that twice two is four'.

It might be unpalatable in our more egalitarian era to admit it, but Churchill became prime minister by a process that was far from democratic.

El único caso en el que creo ver el dedo de Dios en la historia contemporánea es el de la llegada de Churchill al más alto cargo de la nación en ese preciso momento de 1940».

Politicians rise by toils and struggles. They expect to fall; they hope to rise again.

It was an integral part of Churchill's leadership code never to scapegoat subordinates.