Trudeau, Pierre Elliott

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Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau PC CC CH QC FRSC (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000), also referred to by the initials PET, was a Canadian politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada (1968–1979, 1980–1984) and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 1968 to 1984, with a brief period instead as Leader of the Opposition in 1979 and 1980.

Trudeau rose to prominence as a lawyer, intellectual, and activist in Quebec politics. Although he aligned himself with the social democratic New Democratic Party, Trudeau felt that they could not achieve power and instead joined the Liberal Party. He was elected to the Canadian Parliament in 1965, quickly being appointed as Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson's Parliamentary Secretary. In 1967, he was appointed Minister of Justice and Attorney General. Trudeau's outgoing personality and charismatic nature caused a media sensation, inspiring "Trudeaumania", and helped him to win the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1968, when he was appointed Prime Minister of Canada. From the late 1960s until the early 1980s, Trudeau's personality dominated the political scene to an extent never before seen in Canadian political life. After his appointment as Prime Minister, he won the 1968, 1972 and 1974 elections, before narrowly losing in 1979. He won a fourth election victory shortly afterwards, in 1980, and eventually retired from politics shortly before the 1984 election. Trudeau won three majority governments and one minority government during his tenure, and he is the last Prime Minister of Canada to win more than three terms. His tenure of 15 years and 164 days makes him Canada's third longest-serving Prime Minister, behind William Lyon Mackenzie King and John A. Macdonald.

Despite his personal motto, "Reason before passion", his personality and policy decisions aroused polarizing reactions throughout Canada during his time in office. While critics accused him of arrogance, of economic mismanagement, and of unduly centralizing Canadian decision-making to the detriment of the culture of Quebec and the economy of the Prairies, admirers praised what they considered to be the force of Trudeau's intellect and his political acumen that maintained national unity over the Quebec sovereignty movement and the 1980 Quebec referendum. Trudeau suppressed the 1970 Quebec terrorist crisis by controversially invoking the War Measures Act, the third and last time in Canadian history that the act was brought into force.

In a bid to move the Liberal Party towards economic nationalism, Trudeau's government oversaw the creation of Petro-Canada and launched the National Energy Program, a policy that was extremely unpopular in Western Canada and particularly in the oil-rich province of Alberta, leading to what many coined "Western alienation." In other domestic policy, Trudeau pioneered official bilingualism and multiculturalism, fostering a pan-Canadian identity. Trudeau's foreign policy included making Canada less dependent on the United States and the United Kingdom. He patriated the Constitution and established the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, actions that granted full Canadian sovereignty. He formed close ties with the Soviet Union, China, and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, putting him at odds with other capitalist Western nations.

Trudeau is ranked highly among contemporary scholars in retrospective rankings of Canadian prime ministers. His eldest son, Justin Trudeau, became the 23rd and current Prime Minister, following the 2015 election and 2019 election, and is the first prime minister of Canada to be the child or other descendant of a former prime minister.

von Stauffenberg, Claus

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Claus Von Stauffenberg - Operation Valkyrie & 20 July Plot at the Wolf's Lair - PePr > .

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Wintringham, Thomas Henry - Home Guard training school

Thomas Henry Wintringham (15 May 1898 – 16 August 1949) was a British soldier, military historian, journalist, poet, Marxist, politician and author. He was an important figure in the formation of the Home Guard during the Second World War and was one of the founders of the Common Wealth Party.

On returning from Spain, Wintringham began to call for an armed civilian guard to repel any fascist invasion, and as early as 1938 he had begun campaigning for what would become the Home Guard. He taught the troops tactics of guerrilla warfare, including a movement known as the 'Monkey Crawl'. They were also taught how to deal with dive bombers.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Wintringham applied for an army officer's commission but was rejected. When the Communist Party promulgated its policy of staying out of the war due to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, he strongly condemned their policies. Because of the appeasement policies of prime minister Neville Chamberlain, he also regarded the Tories as Nazi sympathizers and wrote that they should be removed from office. He wrote for Picture Post, the Daily Mirror, and wrote columns for Tribune and the New Statesman.

LDV ..
Publications ..

In May 1940, after the escape from Dunkirk, Wintringham began to write in support of the Local Defence Volunteers, the forerunner of the Home Guard. On 10 July, he opened the private Home Guard training school at Osterley Park, London.

Wintringham's training methods were mainly based on his experience in Spain. He even had veterans who had fought alongside him in Spain who trained volunteers in anti-tank warfare and demolitions. He also taught street fighting and guerrilla warfare. He wrote many articles in Picture Post and the Daily Mirror propagating his views about the Home Guard with the motto "a people's war for a people's peace".

The British Army still did not dare trust Wintringham because of his communist past. After September 1940, the army began to take charge of the Home Guard training in Osterley and Wintringham and his comrades were gradually sidelined. Wintringham resigned in April 1941. Ironically, despite his activities in support of the Home Guard, Wintringham was never allowed to join the organisation itself because of a policy barring membership to Communists and Fascists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wintringham .

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"Financed by Edward Hulton, proprietor of Picture Post, the magazine to which he contributed regularly throughout the 1940s, Wintringham set up the 'Home Guard Training School' in Osterley Park, west London. Inspired by the militias that held Madrid in the autumn of 1936, Wintringham saw the newly formed Local Defence Volunteers as the vanguard of a genuine citizen army. His instructors drew upon their experience in Spain to give two-day intensive courses in enemy tactics and guerrilla warfare. By September 1940 a reluctant War Office was obliged to recognize the 'Osterley reds'. Endorsed by those regular officers who had actually experienced combat, the course became the template for Home Guard training nationwide, with Wintringham regularly expounding the principles of a 'people's war' in Picture Post, the Daily Mirror, and a succession of books in the series Penguin Specials. With invasion seemingly imminent, Allen Lane in July 1940 rushed out New Ways of War: a short, practical guide to guerrilla fighting. It later became required reading for many African and Asian nationalists. Like George Orwell and J. B. Priestley, Wintringham insisted that radical politics and a deep love of one's country were not incompatible, and that the nation's united defiance in the face of imminent invasion signalled an early end to the old, now much discredited, order.

By June 1941 the military had established full control over the Home Guard, but Wintringham had already departed to complete The Politics of Victory, a detailed critique of communist opposition to the war."

http://diplomatist2.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-very-british-communist.html . 

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"Tom Hopkinson recruited Wintringham to work for the Picture Post. He also wrote a regular column for the Daily Mirror, Tribune and the New Statesman. This gave him a readership of several million. He also wrote several pamphlets on the war effort including New Ways of War (1940), Freedom is Our Weapon (1941) and Politics of Victory (1941).

In New Ways of War he wrote: "Knowing that science and the riches of the earth make possible an abundance of material things for all, and trusting our fellows and ourselves to achieve that abundance after we have won, we are willing to throw everything we now possess into the common lot, to win this fight. We will allow no personal considerations of rights, privileges, property, income, family or friendship to stand in our way. Whatever the future may hold we will continue our war for liberty."

Wintringham "believed that war provided the best opportunity for revolution and that a revolution was necessary for fascism to be defeated." George Orwell agreed with him: "We are in a strange period of history, in which a revolutionary has to be a patriot and a patriot has to be a revolutionary." Both men had been deeply influenced by their experiences of fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

In October 1939, Winston Churchill suggested to Sir John Anderson, the head of Air Raid Precautions (ARP), that a Home Guard of men aged over forty should be formed. Anderson agreed with Churchill's suggestion but it was not until the German Army had launched its Western Offensive that action was taken and on 14th May, 1940, Anthony Eden appealed on radio for men to become Local Defence Volunteers (LDV). In the broadcast Eden asked that volunteers should be aged be aged between 40 and 65 and should be able to fire a rifle or shotgun. By the end of June nearly one and a half a million men had been recruited.

Wintringham wrote several articles where he argued that the Home Guard should be trained in guerrilla warfare. Tom Hopkinson and Edward Hulton came up with the idea private training school for the Home Guard. On 10th July 1940, Wintringham was appointed as director of the Osterley Park Training School at Isleworth, Middlesex. In the first three months he trained 5,000 in the rudiments of guerrilla warfare.

In 1940 Wintringham wrote a 20,000 word pamphlet entitled How to Reform the Army. Over the next few months over 10,000 copies were sold and he was consulted by Sir Ronald Adam, the Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir John Brown, the Deputy Adjutant-General and Major General Augustus Thorne, the Commander of the Brigade of Guards.
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On 20th May 1940 Wintringham became the Military Correspondent of the Daily Mirror. He continued to write for other publications. One article published in the Picture Post on 15th June that gave practical instructions for a people's war to resist invasion was bought by the War Office which printed off 100,000 copies and distributed them to Home Guard units.

The War Office became concerned about the activities of the Osterley Park Training School. The Inspector's Directorate of the Home Guard reported in July 1940: "While approving of the school in principle, the London District Assistant Commander did not think the Instructors were of a suitable type because of communistic tendencies. On 10th September General Pownall informed the Inspector's Directorate that "the school at Osterley was gradually being taken over by the War Office." In the spring of 1941 Wintringham was dismissed from his post as director of the training school.

Wintringham published People's War in 1942. He argued that a modern people's war combines "guerrilla forces behind enemy lines with a blitzkrieg striking force." In another pamphlet, Freedom is Our Weapon, Wintringham wrote: "If we are able to achieve the making of a people's army, we can be sure that the men will come back determined to achieve and capable of achieving for themselves their own homes for heroes, their own society linking liberty, agreement and co-operation.""
https://spartacus-educational.com/Jwinteringham.htm .

http://tom.wintringham.ch/ .

Wilson, Horace

Sir Horace Wilson - 23 September 1938 - British Ambassador to Germany, Nevile Henderson .

Sir Horace John Wilson, GCB, GCMG, CBE (23 August 1882 – 19 May 1972) was a senior British government official who had a key role with government of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in the appeasement period just prior to the Second World War.

10 March 1938 saw Wilson meet with Theodor Kordt, the counsellor at Germany's London Embassy. Wilson stated his pleasure at hearing that Hitler had referred to England and Germany as 'two pillars upon which the European social order could rest'. Wilson expanded the metaphor by expressing his wish 'that an arch of co-operation should be erected on these two pillars'. He also expressed his hope that Germany would succeed in fulfilling her goals regarding Austria and Czechoslovakia 'as much as possible without the use of force'.

In June Wilson went further, intimating to Helmut Wohlthat of the German Ministry of Economics, that Britain was prepared to recognise German economic dominance in central Europe. Furthermore, Britain would also accept the transfer of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia to Germany. However, in exchange for this recognition Hitler would need to state the limits of Germany's territorial ambitions.

August ended with Lord Halifax sending a letter from Winston Churchill to Wilson on the 31st. It suggested a joint declaration by Britain, France and Russia calling for a peaceful solution to the crisis. However, Wilson counselled Chamberlain against the inclusion of the Russians as he felt this would anger the Fuhrer and take away any benefit a declaration may bring. Wilson went further still, stating that he doubted the ability of Britain, France and Russia to act militarily against Germany. Furthermore, that if it came to military action, Britain would to all intents and purposes be attacking alone.

Kordt returned to Downing Street in early September but on this occasion as a member of the German resistance to Hitler. Kordt had already urged Wilson on August 23 that Britain must speak and act with clarity on the matter. Now he came with specific intelligence that Hitler would invade Czechoslovakia on September 19 or 20 as he felt France would not honour it's pledge to the Czechs. Kordt urged Wilson that Chamberlain should broadcast to Germany and state unequivocally that Britain would assist the Czechs in resisting a Nazi invasion. Moved by the request Wilson asked Kordt to come back the following day to say the same to Halifax and Cadogan. It was they who vetoed the idea as they felt it would preclude the possibility of a peaceful solution to the crisis. According to Kordt, Wilson stated that Russia could be left out of any European settlement as "in his opinion the system there was bound 'to melt away' some day".

On 15 September 1938, Prime Minister Chamberlain left for Germany to negotiate with Adolf Hitler regarding the disputed territory of the Sudetenland. He was accompanied on this mission by Wilson in what was his first diplomatic mission. Sir Harold Nicolson described the pair and their mission as "the bright faithfulness of two curates entering a pub for the first time".

While he travelled with Wilson to meet Hitler during the crisis, Chamberlain still consulted the inner cabinet (Lord Halifax, Sir John Simon and Sir Samuel Hoare) on the matter as well as meetings of the full cabinet.

Wilson travelled with the Prime Minister to three meetings with Hitler, but also travelled to see the Fuhrer alone on 26 September.

His lone mission on 26 September to see Hitler followed the German leader issuing his Godesberg ultimatum to Czechoslovakia regarding the ceding of the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. Wilson carried with him a letter from Chamberlain. It proposed direct negotiations between Germany and Czechoslovakia and His Majesty's Government would act for the Czechs if both parties agreed. Wilson was unable to deliver the second part of the message due to Hitler being in a bad mood, which left him impatient and irritable. Returning the following day, Wilson was able to complete his task, stating "if, in the pursuit of her treaty obligations, France became actively engaged in hostilities against Germany, the United Kingdom would feel obliged to support her".

Later, in July 1939, Wilson continued his efforts at negotiation. Herr Wohlthat, a junior German government official was in London for a whaling conference. Wilson invited Wohlthat to a meeting in which Wilson presented a memorandum outlining a possible agreement between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany. The paper proposed a joint declaration to abstain from aggression, arms limits, and economic cooperation. As Wohlthat left he reported Wilson as saying "...he saw the possibility of a common foreign and trade policy for the two greatest European states". Feeling himself too junior an official for such matters, Wohlthat reported to his superiors and asked what should be the reply. No reply has been found to that question.

Wilson also liaised with the press, meeting newspaper owners to gain support for appeasement. He also warned the BBC to exercise self-censorship in relation to Germany.

Wilson was referred to in the book Guilty Men by Michael Foot, Frank Owen and Peter Howard (writing under the pseudonym 'Cato'), published in 1940 as an attack on public figures for their failure to re-arm and their appeasement of Nazi Germany.  Wilson later stated in 1962 that, "Our policy was never designed just to postpone war, or enable us to enter war more united. The aim of our appeasement was to avoid war altogether, for all time."

Just after the outbreak of war, John Colville joined the Downing Street staff as Chamberlain's Private Secretary in October 1939. Colville noted that Chamberlain seldom took action without Wilson's advice. Colville also felt that "he came to believe himself as infallible as the prime minister thought him to be". Labour Party leader Clement Attlee also commented that during Chamberlain's premiership Wilson "had a hand in everything, ran everything". However, Chamberlain's sister Hilda observed that her brother used Wilson purely as a messenger and knew his own mind. Wilson himself refuted the idea that he exercised power and felt himself to be merely a "chopping block" for the Prime Minister's ideas.

Wilson reverted to his role as Permanent Secretary to the Treasury until August 1942 when he retired, having reached the age of 60, then the pensionable age for the Civil Service. In January 1944 Wilson was appointed by the Minister of Health to act as Chairman of the National Joint Council for Local Authorities' Administrative, Professional, Technical and Clerical Services. The council was engaged in matters of pay and conditions of those in local government as well as supervision of recruitment and training provision.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Wilson_(civil_servant) 

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Wintringham, Thomas Henry - Home Guard training school ..