Source 3 is another historian giving his view on Churchill. I think that this is not a fair interpretation because David Irving was a firm believer in Hitler. He did though bring up some good points such as recommending the use of dum dum bullets and poison gas.
Again source 4 is a historian giving his own views. I think that this is a fair interpretation of Churchill because he was quick to criticise his admirals and generals.
Again it is a historian but this time he is saying what he thought that Hitler did wrong in the Narvik Campaign. It is a fair interpretation because he should have gone with them to use his motivation techniques and to keep up morale. He also failed to execute the plan properly from his desk at Whitehall.
Source 6 is a picture of Churchill looking confident and Chamberlin looks beaten. This is a fair interpretation because he was confident of returning to become prime minister and he was rightly confident. Britannia is also there pointing at Churchill as if saying that that is who Britain want as the next prime minister. It also shows that he is not scared of Hitler.
Source 7 is a newspaper article saying that Hitler fears him. It also says that this is the person that people want as the prime minister and the man that they had wanted from the start of the war as they though that he was the only one that would defeat Hitler. This is a fair interpretation because it is from a real newspaper at the time and it shows that he was the one for the people.
The next source is a fair interpretation of him being a great war leader because it shows people just how confident he was of winning because of his "V" for victory sign, and so source 9 is also a fair interpretation because it shows Churchill's face on a British bulldog’s body. Because it was painted by an American artist it also shows that the Americans had confidence in him. It shows him holding the line against Germany, which he did really well.
Source 10 is a fair interpretation because it is Churchill himself that said it. It shows his confidence in his people and in himself and that they would get the victory that he wanted.
Source 11 is a cartoon that came out at the time of him being elected as the prime minister. He had two jobs to do. He was the prime minister and he was also the defence. This is a fair interpretation because all that it says is what he had to do.
Source 12 is a speech from Churchill and some people say that is was his finest moments. This is a fair interpretation of him being a great war leader because it shows his courage and determination. It also shows us that he knew how to get people psyched up for the battle.
Source 13 is not a fair interpretation of him being a great war leader because it shows him sitting next to Roosevelt and Stalin but he looking up to them because he is lower down. This shows that they did not think that he was at the same level as the other two leaders. But it does show that he had the fighting spirit to carry on and win.
Source 14 is a fair interpretation because it is a paper from 1944 that says that Churchill wanted to go to the battle but the king would not let him go. This shows us that he was willing to do what it took to win and he was confident that his keeping up of morale would have helped them.
The next source says that 89% of people in 1940, when Britain were staring defeat in the face, still thought that he was a good war leader. This source is a fair interpretation because it shows what people at the time thought of him which was a overall good response. The main reason that the source says that they did this was because of the image that was created of him from the media.
Source 16 is not a fair interpretation of Churchill being a great war leader because it shows that he was ruthless about people making mistakes and if they did make a mistake then they would be sacked. In a way this is good because it shows that he would not tolerate mistakes and this would drive his men to work harder and they would try and make less mistakes but this could be a bad thing because it might make some people nervous and they would not try their best because of the thought that they might muck up. This was written by Clive Ponting in 1994 who was involved in a spy incident and that makes what he says more believable.
Source 17 shows that he was not a great war leader. This is because it shows that some of his decisions were wrong such as giving bases to the Americans in return for poor quality ships.
Source 18 is not a fair interpretation because it shows that he did have a weakness. He lost two battles, one in Singapore and one in Hong Kong and this shows that he was beatable.
Source 19 is not a fair interpretation of him being a great war leader because it shows again that as soon as someone does not give him the thing that he wanted he does not think that it might not have been their fault and he sacks them. He did bring someone in who did do well for a while but when Hitler sent rommel some more men to win, they did the job and took 30,000 prisoners.
Source 20 is not a fair interpretation of Churchill because it shows that the War Cabinet were getting tired of him and they did not have the encouragement for him anymore.
Source 21 is a fair interpretation of him being a great war leader because he is not doing what the Russian leader Stalin is telling him to do. He had his own ideas and he is willing to stick to them.
Source 22 is not a fair interpretation of him being a great war leader because he is being told that the Germans will not succumb to the night bombing and that it will not make the Germans give up.
Source 23 is a fair interpretation because it says that even if they have done bad in Norway and France he still gave good public speeches and this kept some of the people believing in him. This shows that he would not give up even though some people were questioning his judgement.
Source 24 is a fair interpretation because it is saying that he was a brilliant speaker and that is one of most important things to a successful war.
Source 25 is not a fair interpretation of Churchill being a great war leader. He always persued the slogan "Victory at all costs" but no one knew what the costs were. The three things that he wanted to achieve were not achieved. This again shows that he did have weaknesses and some of the things that he had promised, he could not deliver.
The next source is again not a fair interpretation of him being a great war leader. It shows that however good he did do at the beginning of the war he could not sustain the attacking qualities that he promised that he would deliver. He stopped giving broadcasts and this only increased popular perceptions that he was not the man to win the peace.
Source 27 is a fair interpretation that he is a great war leader. He has had the victory in Europe despite people saying that he wouldn’t and without the backing of some of the officials in the war cabinet. He had delivered what he said that he would do from the beginning.
Source 28 is again a fair interpretation. He had won the war, obtained the American alliance and helped save us all from the Soviets.
Source 29 is not a fair interpretation because by basically writing his own biography he knew that some of the things that he done, he did not want future generations to know about them. But in another way this was a clever plan because it did stop people questioning some of the things that he had done and some of the decisions that he had made.
Source 30 shows that it is a fair interpretation that he was a great war leader. At the beginning he said that he would win the war and with his "V" for victory symbol he always had faith in himself and up until the last few years of the war most of the British public did as well. He fused together "British power" to its maximum possible extent to survive and to participate in victory.
Churchill's strengths were his morale boosting techniques and his speeches to his troops and the officials in the war cabinet, but he did make some rash decisions which led to the losses on Norway and France. He sacked people for making minor mistakes and he was too domineering. All of the media coverage of Churchill makes us think that all that he did was good and that influences our opinions of him.
