I think the first world war also changed him in this regard, but I may be wrong.

See the poem, (and play, and film adaptation - which is a moving depiction of his experience of his son being killed) my boy jack.

Although as for "product of his time" and WW1 poetry in general, remember that Wilfred Owen was writing around the same time and is very much ahead of many warmongers to this day. People are products of their circumstances, cultural and temporal.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decoru...

A friend of mine's great-whatever apparently confessed on his deathbed to having shot his commanding officer who had begun summarily executing retreating soldiers for deserting (i.e. not walking directly into a wall of machine gun fire)

That's an incredible story. Has it been recorded anywhere?

I have no idea, assuming it's even true.

I have this opinion of Churchill too. Should we solely praise him, absolutely not, was he still one of the great men of history, yes.

That being said the former viewpoint is still being elucidated to many people so I am not overly critical of those who express it too enthusiastically.

The Mythos of Churchill must be challenged, just as the good celebrated and analysed.

Very few people seem to know of Clement Attlee these days, which is probably a tragedy considering his influence on what really matters in Britain today.

This is the zeitgeist of today: no nuance, no complexity. One cannot be both good and bad in same lifetime. One cannot be both flawed and redemptive. Witness the crucifixion of Ernest Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Rudyard Kipling, and countless other writers from the past.

I don't see anyone crucifying anyone here, it's just you trying to stir shit where there's none tbh.

Perhaps you are right. But reading the link which OP provided, I was expecting to hear how terrible a man Kipling must have been to support racist imperialism regardless of the beauty he also produced. If I jumped the gun, I apologize.

I think it's fair to say he was quite a reactionary even for the standards of the time. In my opinion, that does not erase the beauty he produced, and neither does that beauty erase his less unsavory featured.

But yes I'm quite against the tendency to crucify dead people, which is annoyingly prevalent in some circles.

The systematic destruction of everything strong and good in the past is done on purpose to disorient and make people more open to dramatic, sudden change.

Even for his time he didn't an "excellent personal character". That being said I'm generally in favour of separating the author from the art and against putting people on a pedestal in general.