Winston Churchill, in a 31 July 1936 letter to Charles Corbin, French Ambassador to the United Kingdom (1933-1940), reproduced in The Second World War: The Gathering Storm (1948), Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, hardcover, p. 214-215
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One of the greatest difficulties I meet with in trying to hold on to the old position is the German talk that the anti-communist countries should stand together. I am sure if France sent airplanes, etc. to the present Madrid Government, and the Germans and Italians pushed in from the other angle, the dominant forces here would be pleased with Germany and Italy, and estranged from France. I hope you will not mind my writing this, which I do, of course, entirely on my own account. I do not like to hear people talking of England, Germany, and Italy teaming up against European Communism. It is too easy to be good. I am sure that an absolutely rigid neutrality, with the strongest protest against any breach of it, is the only correct and safe course at the present time. A day may come, if there is a stalemate, when the League of Nations may intervene to wind up the horrors. But even that is very doubtful.

— Winston Churchill on Spanish Civil War

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "One of the greatest difficulties I meet with in trying to hold on to the old position is the German talk that the anti-communist countries should stand together. I am sure if France sent airplanes, etc. to the present Madrid Government, and the Germans and Italians pushed in from the other angle, the dominant forces here would be pleased with Germany and Italy, and estranged from France. I hope you will not mind my writing this, which I do, of course, entirely on my own account. I do not like to hear people talking of England, Germany, and Italy teaming up against European Communism. It is too easy to be good. I am sure that an absolutely rigid neutrality, with the strongest protest against any breach of it, is the only correct and safe course at the present time. A day may come, if there is a stalemate, when the League of Nations may intervene to wind up the horrors. But even that is very doubtful." in the context of "Winston Churchill, in a 31 July 1936 letter to Charles Corbin, French Ambassador to the United Kingdom (1933-1940), reproduced in The Second World War: The Gathering Storm (1948), Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, hardcover, p. 214-215" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Spanish Civil War" (C) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed February 05, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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Winston Churchill

About Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG OM CH TD FRS PC (November 30, 1874 – January 24, 1965) was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was a Sandhurst-educated soldier, a Nobel Prize-winning writer and historian, a prolific painter, and one of the longest-serving politicians in British history. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955, though he was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.