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[fpb]

I just watched a passage of a fictionalized account of Ike Eisenhower's life, featuring a singularly unpleasant and frankly incredible version of Churchill - evidently the writer had felt the need to play up his hero by playing down those around him, a foolish but understandable contrivance. It was clear to me, however, that the writer simply did not understand how the British upper crust of the imperial period managed to make their rank felt. And yet, in Churchill's own life there is a delightful display of imperial superiority that everyone has seen - it is in some of the most famous photos in history - and whose arrogance is nevertheless so subtle and specific that most people do not notice it. Churchill had started out in life as a cavalry officer, and had eventually commanded a regiment in the trenches in France in 1917. Not much later, Stalin had commanded part of the southern front during the Russian civil war; and from 1941 on, he had taken overall command of the whole Soviet war effort. He had, therefore, the full right to wear the resplendent uniform of a Soviet field-marshal, and, in the Allied conferences of Tehran and Yalta, he did so. Churchill, however, turned up in the uniform of a British colonel - the rank he had gained in 1917; as if to say, a British colonel is the equal of any damned foreign officer whatever his rank!

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[fpb.livejournal.com]

Churchill actually loved dressing up, and there is a famous photo of him in a striped suit, a fedora and a tommy-gun, acting the Chicago gangster. On one occasion he visited the Eighth Army in Lybia wearing a white suit and a white colonial helmet, causing at least one soldier to wonder how on Earth a Prime Minister could be allowed to wear anything that silly - and how on Earth he still managed to look impressive.