Churchill in Antwerp Mystery: Hunt the Photograph January 17, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary , trackback
Invisible an old and dear friend of this blog has sent the following story in from an American newspaper, Evening Ledger, 20 Oct 1914. The problem is the story was not published with the photograph in question: why publish a story if you have to describe rather than print the snap? The one above is Beach’s best bet. It corresponds in several respects. Interesting to see Churchill in such a ‘concentrate’ pose.
There is a mysterious picture, taken by flashlight, of Winston Spencer Churchill, British Lord of the Admiralty. There is a capital story behind it and few persons in England know the story. Even the pavement under Mr Churchill’s feet has been altered in the photographs, so that it will give no clue to the circumstances under which it was taken.
By a happy accident the facts about the picture have been learned. It shows Mr Churchill in Antwerp. He is in undress uniform. He has just stepped out of the hotel on to the sidewalk. He holds in his left hand a serviette and listen[s] to certain distant sounds. The intens[e] expression on his face and his whole hearing show his deep interest. The British First Lord of the Admiralty is listening to the opening guns that marked the beginning of the German attack on the fortifications of Antwerp.
At the interrupted dinner, Mr Churchill being its guest of honor, were also the Belgian Premier and his ministerial colleagues. There was just one toast [to the scrap of paper!], the dinner throughout being under the sound of guns.
Churchill was in Antwerp in October 1914 getting, as was his habit, a little too close to the action. He was sent by the British government to assess the possibility of defending the Belgian city against the German sweep: he counselled British reinforcements, but the city fell anyway, 9 Oct, though not before distracting the Germans from more important attacks further to the south. The picture is almost certainly the one described in the newspaper. Churchill is in dress uniform; the pavement may have been altered, certainly there is something fishy about that part of the photograph; there is the serviette, grasped with some tension in his left hand; and there is no question that the subject of the photograph is listening or looking hard. The photograph was sourced here.
Beach has previously done a listening to artillery story: the Somme as heard from London.
Beach is always on the look out for unusual photographs of this calibre: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
18 Jan 2014: Leif answers this question ‘Your ‘Churchill in Antwerp Mystery’ post of January 17, 2015 wonders ‘[why] publish a story if you have to describe rather than print the snap?’ Considering the photograph was taken in Antwerp, and the article published in the USA, the reporter was on your side of the puddle and sent the story by wire. In 1914, a photograph would have to cross the Atlantic aboard ship, with perhaps a week’s delay. Telephotography was only invented in 1921, and was not widely used until the mid 1930s.’
