Everything about Winston Churchill totally explained
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill,
KG,
OM,
CH,
TD,
FRS,
PC,
PC (Can) (
30 November 1874 –
24 January 1965) was a
British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the
United Kingdom during
World War II. He served as
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted
statesman and
orator, Churchill was also an
officer in the
British Army, a historical
writer, and an
artist.
During his army career Churchill saw combat in
India, in the
Sudan and the
Second Boer War. He gained fame and notoriety as a war correspondent and through contemporary books he wrote describing the campaigns. He also served briefly in the British Army on the
Western Front in World War I, commanding the 6th Battalion of the
Royal Scots Fusiliers.
At the forefront of the political scene for almost sixty years, he held many political and cabinet positions. Before the
First World War, he served as
President of the Board of Trade,
Home Secretary and
First Lord of the Admiralty as part of the
Asquith Liberal government. During the war he continued as First Lord of the Admiralty until the disastrous
Battle of Gallipoli caused his departure from government. He returned as
Minister of Munitions,
Secretary of State for War and
Secretary of State for Air. In the
interwar years, he served as
Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Conservative government.
After the outbreak of the
Second World War, Churchill was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of
Neville Chamberlain on 10 May 1940, he became
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and led Britain to victory against the
Axis powers. Churchill was always noted for his speeches, which became a great inspiration to the British people and embattled
Allied forces.
After losing
the 1945 election, he became the leader of the opposition. In 1951, he again became Prime Minister before finally retiring in 1955. Upon his death
the Queen granted him the honour of a
state funeral, which saw one of the largest assemblies of statesmen in the world.
Family and early life
A descendant of the famous
Spencer family,
Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, like his father, used the surname Churchill in public life. His ancestor
George Spencer had changed his surname to Spencer-Churchill in 1817 when he became
Duke of Marlborough, to highlight his descent from
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Winston's father,
Lord Randolph Churchill, the third son of
John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, was a politician, while his mother,
Lady Randolph Churchill (
née Jennie Jerome) was the daughter of American millionaire,
Leonard Jerome. Born two months premature on
30 November 1874 in a bedroom in
Blenheim Palace,
Woodstock,
Oxfordshire; he arrived eight months after his parents' hasty marriage. Churchill had one brother,
John Strange Spencer-Churchill.
Independent and rebellious by nature, Churchill generally did poorly in school, for which he was punished. He entered
Harrow School on
17 April 1888, where his military career began. Within weeks of his arrival, he'd joined the
Harrow Rifle Corps. He earned high marks in
English and
history and was also the school's
fencing champion.
He was rarely visited by his mother (then known as Lady Randolph), and wrote letters begging her to either come to the school or to allow him to come home. He had a distant relationship with his father and once remarked that they barely spoke to each other. Due to his lack of parental contact he became very close to his nanny, Elizabeth Anne Everest, whom he used to call "Woomany". His father died in 24 Jan 1895, leaving Churchill with the conviction that he too would die young, so should be quick about making his mark on the world.
Speech impediment
Churchill described himself as having a "speech impediment", which he consistently worked to overcome. After many years, he finally stated, "My impediment is no hindrance." Trainee speech therapists are often shown videotapes of Churchill's mannerisms while making speeches and the Stuttering Foundation of America uses Churchill as one of its role models of successful stutterers. This diagnosis is confirmed by
various persons
writing in the 1930s and 1940s. The
Churchill Centre mentions his other speech problem: a
lisp.
A recently proposed amendment to the 'stuttering' diagnosis that his impediment may have been
cluttering, which would fit more with his lack of attention to unimportant details and his very secure ego. Weiss suggests that he may have "excelled because of, rather than in spite of, his cluttering."
Marriage and children
Churchill met his future wife,
Clementine Hozier, in 1904 at a ball in Crewe House, home of the
Earl of Crewe and his wife
Margaret Primrose (daughter of
Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery). In 1908 they met again at a dinner party hosted by
Lady St Helier. Churchill found himself seated beside Clementine, and they soon began a lifelong romance. He proposed to Hozier during a house party at
Blenheim Palace on
10 August 1908, in a small
Temple of Diana. On
12 September 1908, they were married in
St. Margaret's, Westminster. The church was packed; the
Bishop of St Asaph conducted the service. In March 1909 the couple moved to a house at 33 Eccleston Square.
Their first child,
Diana, was born in London on
11 July 1909. After the pregnancy, Clementine moved to Sussex to recover, while Diana stayed in London with her nanny. On
28 May 1911, their second child,
Randolph, was born in 33 Eccleston Square. Their third child,
Sarah, was born on
7 October 1914 at
Admiralty House. The birth was marked with anxiety for Clementine, as Winston had been sent to
Antwerp by the Cabinet to "stiffen the resistance of the beleaguered city" after news that the Belgians intended to surrender the town.
Clementine gave birth to her fourth child, Marigold Frances Churchill, on
15 November 1918, four days after the official end of World War I. In the early months of August, the Churchills' children were entrusted to a French nursery governess in Kent named Mlle Rose. Clementine, meanwhile, travelled to
Eaton Hall to play tennis with
Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster and his family. While still under the care of Mlle Rose, Marigold had a cold, but was reported to have recovered from the illness. As the illness progressed with hardly any notice, it turned into
septicaemia. Following advice from a landlady, Rose sent for Clementine. However the illness turned fatal on
August 23 1921, and Marigold was buried in the
Kensal Green Cemetery three days later. On
September 15 1922, the Churchills' last child was born,
Mary. Later that month, the Churchills bought
Chartwell, which would be Winston's home until his death in 1965.
Service in the Army
After Churchill left Harrow in 1893, he applied to attend the
Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. It took three attempts before he passed the admittance exam, for cavalry rather than infantry because the entrance requirement was lower, and required him to learn mathematics which he otherwise disliked. He graduated eighth out of a class of 150 in December 1894 and was then commissioned as a
Second Lieutenant in the
4th Queen's Own Hussars on
20 February 1895. He didn't intend to follow a conventional career of promotion through army ranks, but to seek out all possible chances of military action and used his mother's and family influence in high society to arrange postings to active campaigns. His writings both brought him to the attention of the public, and earned him significant additional income.
He acted as a war correspondent for several London newspapers and wrote his own books about the campaigns.
Cuba
In 1895, Churchill travelled to
Cuba to observe the Spanish fight the Cuban guerrillas; he'd obtained a commission to write about the conflict from the
Daily Graphic. To his delight, he came under fire for the first time on his twenty-first birthday. He had fond memories of Cuba as a "...large, rich, beautiful island..." While in New York he stayed at the home of
Bourke Cockran, an admirer of his mother's, who was an established American politician, member of the House of Representatives and potential presidential candidate. He greatly influenced Churchill, both in his approach to oratory and politics, and encouraging a love of America.
He soon received word that his nanny, Mrs Everest, was dying; he then returned to England and stayed with her for a week until she died. He wrote in his journal
"She was my favourite friend." In
My Early Life he wrote: "She had been my dearest and most intimate friend during the whole of the twenty years I'd lived."
India
In early October 1896, he was transferred to
Bombay,
India. He was considered one of the best
polo players in his regiment and led his team to many prestigious tournament victories.
About this time Churchill read
William Winwood Reade's
Martyrdom of Man, a classic of Victorian
atheism, which completed his loss of faith in Christianity and left him with a sombre vision of a godless universe in which humanity was destined, nevertheless, to progress through the conflict between the more advanced and the more backward races. When he was posted to India, and began to read avidly to make up for lost time, he was profoundly impressed by
Darwinism. He lost whatever religious faith he may have had through reading
Edward Gibbon, he said and took a particular dislike, for some reason, to the Catholic Church, as well as Christian missions. He became, in his own words, "a materialist to the tips of my fingers," and he fervently upheld the worldview that human life is a struggle for existence, with the outcome the survival of the fittest. This philosophy of life and history he expressed in his one novel,
Savrola.
Malakand
In 1897, Churchill attempted to travel to both report and, if necessary, fight in the
Greco-Turkish War, but this conflict effectively ended before he could arrive. Later, while preparing for a leave in
England, he heard that three brigades of the
British Army were going to fight against a
Pashtun tribe and he asked his superior officer if he could join the fight. He fought under the command of General Jeffery, who was the commander of the second brigade operating in
Malakand, in what is now
Pakistan. Jeffery sent him with fifteen scouts to explore the
Mamund Valley; while on reconnaissance, they encountered an enemy tribe, dismounted from their horses and opened fire. After an hour of shooting, their reinforcements, the 35th
Sikhs arrived, and the fire gradually ceased and the brigade and the Sikhs marched on. Hundreds of tribesmen then ambushed them and opened fire, forcing them to retreat. As they were retreating four men were carrying an injured officer but the fierceness of the fight forced them to leave him behind. The man who was left behind was slashed to death before Churchill’s eyes; afterwards he wrote of the killer,
"I forgot everything else at this moment except a desire to kill this man". He received the note, quickly signed, and headed up the hill and alerted the other brigade, whereupon they then engaged the army. The fighting in the region dragged on for another two weeks before the dead could be recovered. He wrote in his journal:
"Whether it was worth it I can't tell." An account of the
Siege of Malakand was published in December 1900 as
The Story of the Malakand Field Force. He received £600 for his account. During the campaign, he also wrote articles for the newspapers
The Pioneer and
The Daily Telegraph. His account of the battle was one of his first published stories, for which he received
£5 per column from
The Daily Telegraph.
Sudan and Oldham
Churchill was transferred to
Egypt in 1898 where he visited
Luxor before joining an attachment of the
21st Lancers serving in the
Sudan under the command of General
Herbert Kitchener. During his time he encountered two future military officers, whom he'd later work with, during the
First World War:
Douglas Haig, then a captain and
John Jellicoe, then a gunboat lieutenant. While in the Sudan, he participated in what has been described as the last meaningful British
cavalry charge at the
Battle of Omdurman in September 1898. He also worked as a war correspondent for the
Morning Post. By October 1898, he'd returned to Britain and begun his two-volume work;
The River War, an account of the reconquest of the Sudan published the following year.
Churchill stood for parliament in 1899 as a
Conservative candidate in
Oldham in
a by-election, which he lost, coming third in the contest for two seats.
South Africa
After Churchill's failure to win the election in
Oldham, he went to
South Africa in 1899 to report on the
Second Boer War. On
12 October 1899, the war between Britain and the
Boer Republics broke out in
South Africa. He was captured and held in a
POW camp in
Pretoria.
He escaped from the prison camp and travelled almost 300 miles (480 km) to
Portuguese Lourenço Marques in
Delagoa Bay, with the assistance of an English mine manager. His escape made him a minor
national hero for a time in Britain, though instead of returning home, he rejoined General
Redvers Buller's army on its march to relieve the British at the
Siege of Ladysmith and take Pretoria. This time, although continuing as a war correspondent, he gained a commission in the South African
Light Horse Regiment. He was among the first British troops into
Ladysmith and Pretoria. In fact, he and
the Duke of Marlborough, his cousin, were able to get ahead of the rest of the troops in Pretoria, where they demanded and received the surrender of 52 Boer prison camp guards.
In 1900, Churchill returned to England on the
RMS Dunottar Castle, the same ship on which he set sail for South Africa eight months earlier, and published books on the
Second Boer War including
London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and
Ian Hamilton's March, which he then marked by a small tour of the
United States
Western front
Churchill was first lord of the admiralty at the start of world war I, but was obliged to leave the war cabinet after the disastrous
Battle of Gallipoli for which he was largely blamed. He attempted to obtain a commission as a brigade commander, but settled for command of a battalion, the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, on 1 January 1916. Correspondence with his wife shows an understanding between them that his intentions in taking up active service was to rehabilitate his reputation, but that this was balanced by the not inconsiderable risk of being killed. As a commander he continued to exhibit the reckless daring which had been a hallmark of all his military action, though he disapproved strongly of the mass slaughter involved in many western front actions.
Lord Deedes explained to a gathering of the
Royal Historical Society in 2001 why Churchill went to the front line: "He was with
Grenadier Guards, who were dry [withoutalcohol] at battalion headquarters. They very much liked tea and condensed milk, which had no great appeal to Winston, but alcohol was permitted in the front line, in the trenches. So he suggested to the colonel that he really ought to see more of the war and get into the front line. This was highly commended by the colonel, who thought it was a very good thing to do."
Political career to World War II
Early years in Parliament
Churchill stood again for the
seat of Oldham at the
1900 general election. After winning the seat, he went on a speaking tour throughout Britain and the United States, raising £10,000 for himself. In Parliament, he became associated with a faction of the Conservative Party led by
Lord Hugh Cecil; the
Hughligans. During his first
parliamentary session, he opposed the government's
military expenditure and
Joseph Chamberlain's proposal of extensive tariffs, which were intended to protect Britain's economic dominance. His own constituency effectively deselected him, although he continued to sit for Oldham until the next general election. After the
Whitsun recess in 1904 he
crossed the floor to sit as a member of the
Liberal Party. As a Liberal, he continued to campaign for
free trade. When the Liberals took office with
Henry Campbell-Bannerman as Prime Minister, in December 1905, Churchill became
Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies dealing mainly with
South Africa after the Boer War. From 1903 until 1905, Churchill was also engaged in writing
Lord Randolph Churchill, a two-volume biography of his father which was published in 1906 and received much critical acclaim.
Following his deselection in the seat of Oldham, Churchill was invited to stand for
Manchester North West. He won the seat at the
1906 general election with a majority of 1,214 and represented the seat for two years, until 1908. When Campbell-Bannerman was succeeded by
Herbert Henry Asquith in 1908, Churchill was promoted to the Cabinet as
President of the Board of Trade.. In 1908 he introduced the Trade Boards Bill setting up the first minimum wages in Britain, In 1909 he set up
Labour Exchanges to help unemployed people find work. He helped draft the first unemployment pension legislation, the
National Insurance Act of 1911.
Churchill also assisted in passing the
People's Budget becoming the President of the Budget League, an organisation set up in response to the opposition's "Budget Protest League". The budget included the introduction of new taxes on the wealthy to allow for the creation of new social welfare programmes. After the budget bill was sent to the Commons in 1909 and passed, it went to the
House of Lords, where it was vetoed. The Liberals then fought and won two general elections in January and December of 1910 to gain a mandate for their reforms. The budget was then passed following the
Parliament Act of 1911 for which he also campaigned. In 1910, he was promoted to
Home Secretary. His term was controversial, after his responses to the
Siege of Sidney Street and the
dispute at the Cambrian Colliery and the
suffragettes.
In 1910, a number of
coal miners in the
Rhondda Valley began what has come to be known as the
Tonypandy Riot.
In early January 1911 Churchill made a controversial visit to the
Siege of Sidney Street in
London. There is some uncertainty as to whether he attempted to give operational commands. A biographer, Roy Jenkins, comments that the reason he went was because "he couldn't resist going to see the fun himself" and that he didn't issue commands. His role and presence attracted much criticism. After an inquest,
Arthur Balfour remarked, "He [Churchill] and a photographer were both risking valuable lives. I understand what the photographer was doing but what was
the Right Honourable gentleman doing?" Churchill's proposed solution to the suffragette issue was a referendum on the issue but this found no favour with
Herbert Henry Asquith and women's suffrage remained unresolved until after the
First World War.
In 1911, Churchill was transferred to the office of the
First Lord of the Admiralty, a post he held into
World War I. He gave impetus to several reform efforts, including development of
naval aviation (he undertook flying lessons himself),, the construction of new and larger warships, the development of tanks, and the switch from coal to oil in the
Royal Navy.
World War I and the Post War Coalition
On 5 October 1914 Churchill went to
Antwerp which the Belgian government proposed to evacuate. The
Royal Marine Brigade was there and at Churchill’s urgings the 1st and 2nd Naval Brigades were also committed. Antwerp fell on 10th October with the loss of 2500 men. At the time he was attacked for squandering resources. It is more likely that his actions prolonged the resistance by a week (Belgium had proposed surrendering Antwerp on 3rd October) and that this time saved Calais and Dunkirk.
Churchill was involved with the development of the
tank, which was financed from naval research funds. He then headed the
Landships Committee which was responsible for creating the first tank corps and, although a decade later development of the battle tank would be seen as a tactical victory, at the time it was seen as misappropriation of funds. In 1915 he was one of the political and military engineers of the disastrous
Gallipoli landings on the
Dardanelles during World War I. He took much of the blame for the fiasco, and when Prime Minister Asquith formed an all-party
coalition government, the Conservatives demanded his demotion as the price for entry.
For several months Churchill served in the
sinecure of
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. However on 15 November 1915 he resigned from the government, feeling his energies were not being used. and, though remaining an MP, served for several months on the
Western Front commanding the 6th Battalion of the
Royal Scots Fusiliers, under the rank of Colonel. In March, 1916 Churchill returned to England after he'd become restless in France and wished to speak again in the House of Commons. In July 1917, Churchill was appointed
Minister of Munitions, and in January 1919,
Secretary of State for War and
Secretary of State for Air. He was the main architect of the
Ten Year Rule, a principle that allows the Treasury to dominate and control strategic, foreign and financial policies under the assumption that "there would be no great European war for the next five or ten years".
A major preoccupation of his tenure in the
War Office was the Allied intervention in the
Russian Civil War. Churchill was a staunch advocate of foreign intervention, declaring that
Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle". He secured, from a divided and loosely organised Cabinet, intensification and prolongation of the British involvement beyond the wishes of any major group in Parliament or the nation — and in the face of the bitter hostility of Labour. In 1920, after the last
British forces had been withdrawn, Churchill was instrumental in having arms sent to the Poles when they invaded
Ukraine. He became
Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1921 and was a signatory of the
Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which established the
Irish Free State. Churchill was involved in the length negotiations of the treaty and to protect British maritime interests, he engineered part of the
Irish Free State agreement to include three
Treaty Ports—Queenstown (
Cobh),
Berehaven and
Lough Swilly—which could be used as Atlantic bases by
the Royal Navy. Under the terms of the
Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement the bases were returned to the newly constituted
Éire in 1938.
Rejoining the Conservative Party – Chancellor of the Exchequer
In September, the Conservative Party withdrew from the Coalition government following a meeting of
backbenchers dissatisfied with the handling of the
Chanak Crisis, a move that precipitated the looming
October 1922 General Election. Churchill's ability to campaign was affected by the internal division that continued to beset the Liberal Party, and he came only fourth in the poll for
Dundee, losing to the
prohibitionist Edwin Scrymgeour. Churchill later quipped that he left
Dundee "without an office, without a seat, without a party and without an appendix".. His decision, announced in the 1924 Budget, came after long consultation with various economists including
John Maynard Keynes, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Sir
Otto Niemeyer and the board of the
Bank of England. This decision prompted Keynes to write
The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill, arguing that the return to the gold standard at the pre-war parity in 1925 (£1=$4.86) would lead to a world
depression. However, the decision was generally popular and seen as 'sound economics' although it was opposed by
Lord Beaverbrook and the Federation of British Industries.
Churchill later regarded this as the greatest mistake of his life. However in discussions at the time with former Chancellor
McKenna, Churchill acknowledged that the return to the gold standard and the resulting 'dear money' policy was economically bad. In those discussions he maintained the policy as fundamentally political - a return to the pre-war conditions in which he believed. In his speech on the Bill he said "I will tell you what it [thereturn to the Gold Standard] will shackle us to. It will shackle us to reality."
The return to the pre-war exchange rate and to the Gold Standard depressed industries. The most affected was the
coal industry. Already suffering from declining output as shipping switched to oil, as basic British industries like cotton came under more competition in export markets, the return to the pre-war exchange was estimated to add up to 10% in costs to the industry. In July 1925 a Commission of Inquiry reported generally favouring the
miners, rather than the mine owners' position. Baldwin, with Churchill's support proposed a subsidy to the industry while a Royal Commission prepared a further report.
That Commission solved nothing and the miners dispute led to the
General Strike of 1926, Churchill was reported to have suggested that
machine guns be used on the striking miners. Churchill edited the Government's newspaper, the
British Gazette, and, during the dispute, he argued that "either the country will break the General Strike, or the General Strike will break the country" and claimed that the
fascism of
Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing, as it had, "a way to combat subversive forces" — that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of
Communist revolution. At one point, Churchill went as far as to call Mussolini the "Roman genius… the greatest lawgiver among men."
Later economists, as well as people at the time, also criticised Churchill's
budget measures. These were seen as assisting the generally prosperous rentier banking and salaried classes (to which Churchill and his associates generally belonged) at the expense of manufacturers and exporters which were known then to be suffering from imports and from competition in traditional export markets, and as paring the Armed Forces too heavily
Political isolation
The Conservative government was defeated in the
1929 General Election. Churchill didn't seek election to the Conservative Business Committee, the official leadership of the Conservative MPs. Over the next two years, Churchill became estranged from the Conservative leadership over the issues of protective tariffs and
Indian Home Rule and by his political views and by his friendships with press barons, financiers and people whose characters were seen as dubious. When
Ramsay MacDonald formed the
National Government in 1931, Churchill wasn't invited to join the
Cabinet. He was at the low point in his career, in a period known as "the wilderness years".
He spent much of the next few years concentrating on his writing, including — a biography of his ancestor
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough — and
A History of the English Speaking Peoples (though the latter wasn't published until well after World War II),
Indian Independence
During the first half of the 1930s, Churchill was outspoken in his opposition to granting
Dominion status to
India. He was one of the founders of the India Defence League, a group dedicated to the preservation of British power in India. In speeches and press articles in this period he forecast widespread British unemployment and civil strife in India should independence be granted. The Viceroy
Lord Irwin who had been appointed by the prior Conservative Government engaged in the
Round Table Conference in early 1931 and then announced the Government's policy that India should be granted Dominion Status. In this the Government was supported by the Liberal Party and, officially at least, by the Conservative Party. Churchill denounced the Round Table Conference.
At a meeting of the West
Essex Conservative Association specially convened so Churchill could explain his position he said, "It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle-Temple lawyer, now posing as a
fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace...to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor." He called the
Indian Congress leaders "Brahmins who mouth and patter principles of Western Liberalism."
There were two incidents which damaged Churchill's reputation greatly within the Conservative Party in the period. Both were taken as attacks on the Conservative front bench. The first was his speech on the eve of the
St George by-election in April 1931. In a secure Conservative seat, the official Conservative candidate
Duff Cooper was opposed by an independent Conservative. The independent was supported by
Lord Rothermere, Lord Beaverbrook and their respective newspapers. Although arranged before the by election was set, Churchill's speech was seen as supporting the independent candidate and
as a part of the Press Baron's campaign against Baldwin. Baldwin's position was strengthened when Duff Cooper won and when the civil disobedience campaign in India ceased with the
Gandhi-Irwin Pact. The second issue was a claim that Sir
Samuel Hoare and
Lord Derby had pressured the Manchester Chamber of Commerce to change evidence it had given to the Joint Select Committee considering the Government of India Bill in June 193 and in doing so had breached Parliamentary privilege. He had the matter referred to the
House of Commons Privilege Committee which after investigations, in which Churchill gave evidence reported to the House that there had been no breach. The report was debated on 13 June. Churchill was unable to find a single supporter in the House and the debate ended without a division.
Churchill permanently broke with
Stanley Baldwin over Indian independence and never held any office while Baldwin was Prime Minister. Later Churchill was to selectively quote Baldwin to give the impression that Baldwin put party before country by not pursuing a rearmament policy for fear of losing the 1935 election. This canard had been first put forward in the first edition of
Guilty Men but in subsequent editions (including those before Churchill wrote the Gathering Storm) had been corrected. Some historians see his basic attitude to India as being set out in his book
My Early Life (1930).. Historians also dispute his motives in maintaining his opposition. Some see him as trying to destabilise the National Government. Some also draw a parallel between Churchill's attitudes to India and those towards the
Nazis.
German rearmament
Beginning in 1932 when he opposed those who advocated giving Germany the right to military parity with France, Churchill spoke often of the dangers of Germany's rearmament. He later, particularly in
The Gathering Storm, tried to portray himself as being for a time, a lone voice calling on Britain to strengthen itself to counter the belligerence of Germany. However
Lord Lloyd was the first to so agitate. Churchill's attitude toward the fascist dictators was ambiguous. In 1931 he warned against the
League of Nations opposing the Japanese in Manchuria "I hope we'll try in England to understand the position of Japan, an ancient state.... On the one side they've the dark menace of Soviet Russia. On the other the chaos of China, four or five provinces of which are being tortured under Communist rule". In contemporary newspaper articles he referred to the Spanish Republican government as a Communist front, and
Franco's army as the "Anti-red movement". He supported the
Hoare-Laval Pact and continued up until 1937 to praise
Benito Mussolini.
In his 1937 book
Great Contemporaries, Churchill wrote: "One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievements. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable (as
Hitler) to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations". Speaking in the House of Commons, in 1937, he said "I won't pretend that, if I'd to choose between communism and Nazism, I'd choose communism". In the same work, Churchill expressed a hope that despite Hitler's apparent dictatorial tendencies, he'd use his power to rebuild Germany into a worthy member of the world community. Churchill's first major speech on defence on 7 February 1934 stressed the need to rebuild the
Royal Air Force and to create a Ministry of Defence; his second, on 13 July urged a renewed role for the League of Nations. These three topics remained his themes until early 1936. In 1935 he was one of the founding members of
Focus which brought together people of differing political backgrounds and occupations who were united in seeking 'the defence of freedom and peace'.
Focus led to the formation of the much wider Arms and the Covenant Movement in 1936.
Churchill was holidaying in Spain when the
Germans reoccupied the Rhineland in February 1936, and returned to a divided England—Labour opposition was adamant in opposing sanctions and the National Government was divided between advocates of economic sanctions and those who said that even these would lead to a humiliating backdown by Britain as France wouldn't support any intervention. Churchill's speech on 9 March was measured and praised by
Neville Chamberlain as constructive. But within weeks Churchill was passed over for the post of
Minister for Co-ordination of Defence in favour of the Attorney General Sir
Thomas Inskip.. Alan Taylor called this; 'An appointment rightly described as the most extraordinary since Caligula made his horse a consul.' In June 1936 Churchill organised a deputation of senior Conservatives who shared his concern to see Baldwin, Chamberlain and Halifax. He had tried to have delegates from the other two parties and later wrote "If the leaders of the Labour and Liberal oppositions had come with us there might have been a political situation so intense as to enforce remedial action". As it was the meeting achieved little, Baldwin arguing that the Government was doing all it could given the anti-war feeling of the electorate.
Abdication Crisis
Walter Monckton told Churchill that the rumours that King
Edward VIII intended to marry Mrs
Wallis Simpson were true. Churchill then advised against the marriage and said he regarded Mrs Simpson's existing marriage as a 'safeguard'. In November he declined
Lord Salisbury's invitation to be part of a delegation of senior Conservative backbenchers who met with Baldwin to discuss the matter. On 25 November he,
Attlee and Sinclair met with Baldwin and were told officially of the King's intention and asked whether they'd form an administration if Baldwin and the National Government resigned should the King not take the Ministry's advice. Both Attlee and Sinclair said they wouldn't take office if invited to do so. Churchill's reply was that his attitude was a little different but he'd support the government.
The Abdication crisis became public, coming to head in the first fortnight of December 1936. At this time Churchill publicly gave his support to the King. The first public meeting of the Arms and the Covenant Movement was on 3rd December. Churchill was a major speaker and later wrote that in replying to the Vote of Thanks he made a declaration 'on the spur of the moment' asking for delay before any decision was made by either the King or his Cabinet. Later that night Churchill saw the draft of the King's proposed wireless broadcast and spoke with Beaverbrook and the King's solicitor about it. On 4 December he met with the King and again urged delay in any decision about abdication. On 5th December he issued a lengthy statement implying that the Ministry was applying unconstitutional pressure on the King to force him to make a hasty decision. On 7th December he tried to address the Commons to plead for delay. He was shouted down. Seemingly staggered by the unanimous hostility of all Members he left.
Churchill's reputation in Parliament and England as a whole was badly damaged. Some such as
Alistair Cooke saw him as trying to build a King's Party. Others like
Harold Macmillan were dismayed by the damage Churchill's support for the King had done to the Arms and the Covenant Movement. Churchill himself later wrote "I was myself smitten in public opinion that it was the almost universal view that my political life was ended." Historians are divided about Churchill's motives in his support for Edward VIII. Some such as
A J P Taylor see it as being an attempt to 'overthrow the government of feeble men'. Others such as Rhode James see Churchill's motives as entirely honourable and disinterested, that he felt deeply for the King.
Return from exile
Churchill later sought to portray himself as an isolated voice warning of the need to rearm against Germany. While it's true that he'd little following in the House of Commons during much of the 1930s he was given considerable privileges by the Government. The “Churchill group” in the later half of the decade consisted only of himself,
Duncan Sandys and
Brendan Bracken. It was isolated from the other main factions within the Conservative Party pressing for faster rearmament and a stronger foreign policy. In some senses the ‘exile’ was more apparent than real. Churchill continued to be consulted on many matters by the Government or seen as an alternative leader .
Even during the time Churchill was campaigning against Indian independence, he received official and otherwise secret information. From 1932, Churchill’s neighbour, Major
Desmond Morton with
Ramsay MacDonald's approval, gave Churchill information on German air power. From 1930 onwards Morton headed a department of the
Committee of Imperial Defence charged with researching the defence preparedness of other nations.
Lord Swinton as Secretary of State for Air, and with Baldwin’s approval, in 1934 gave Churchill access to official and otherwise secret information.
Swinton did so, knowing Churchill would remain a critic of the government but believing that an informed critic was better then one relying on rumour and hearsay. Churchill was a fierce critic of
Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of
Adolf Hitler and in a speech to the House of Commons, he bluntly and prophetically stated, "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you'll have war."
Role as wartime Prime Minister
"Winston is back"
After the outbreak of
World War II Churchill was appointed
First Lord of the Admiralty and a member of the War Cabinet, just as he was in the first part of
World War I. The Navy, according to myth, sent out the signal: "Winston is back." In this job, he proved to be one of the highest-profile ministers during the so-called "
Phony War", when the only noticeable action was at sea. Churchill advocated the pre-emptive occupation of the neutral Norwegian
iron-ore port of
Narvik and the iron mines in
Kiruna,
Sweden, early in the war. However, Chamberlain and the rest of the
War Cabinet disagreed, and the operation was delayed until the successful
German invasion of Norway.
Bitter beginnings of the war
On
10 May 1940, hours before the German invasion of France by a
lightning advance through the
Low Countries, it became clear that, following failure in Norway, the country had no confidence in Chamberlain's prosecution of the war and so Chamberlain resigned. The commonly accepted version of events states that
Lord Halifax turned down the post of Prime Minister because he believed he couldn't govern effectively as a member of the
House of Lords instead of the
House of Commons. Although the Prime Minister doesn't traditionally advise the King on the former's successor, Chamberlain wanted someone who would command the support of all three major parties in the House of Commons. A meeting between Chamberlain, Halifax, Churchill and
David Margesson, the government
Chief Whip, led to the recommendation of Churchill, and, as a constitutional monarch,
George VI asked Churchill to be Prime Minister and to form an all-party government. Churchill's first act was to write to Chamberlain to thank him for his support.
Churchill's greatest achievement was his refusal to capitulate when defeat seemed imminent, and he remained a strong opponent of any negotiations with
Germany throughout the war. Few others in the Cabinet had this degree of resolve. Although there was an element of British public and political sentiment favouring negotiated peace with a clearly ascendant Germany, among them the
Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, Churchill nonetheless refused to consider an armistice with Hitler's Germany. Churchill's skillful use of
rhetoric hardened
public opinion against a peaceful resolution and prepared the British for a long war. Coining the general term for the upcoming battle, Churchill stated in his
"finest hour" speech to the
House of Commons on
18 June 1940, "I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin." By refusing an armistice with Germany, Churchill kept resistance alive in the
British Empire and created the basis for the later
Allied counter-attacks of 1942-45, with Britain serving as a platform for the supply of
Soviet Union and the liberation of
Western Europe.
In response to previous criticisms that there had been no clear single minister in charge of the prosecution of the war, Churchill created and took the additional position of
Minister of Defence. He immediately put his friend and confidant, the industrialist and newspaper baron
Lord Beaverbrook, in charge of aircraft production. It was Beaverbrook's business acumen that allowed Britain to quickly gear up aircraft production and engineering that eventually made the difference in the war.
Churchill's speeches were a great inspiration to the embattled British. His first speech as Prime Minister was the famous "
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat". He followed that closely with two other equally famous ones, given just before the
Battle of Britain. One included the words:
we shall fight in France, we'll fight on the seas and oceans, we'll fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we'll defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we'll fight on the landing grounds, we'll fight in the fields and in the streets, we'll fight in the hills; we'll never surrender.
The other:
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour'.
At the height of the Battle of Britain, his bracing survey of the situation included the memorable line "
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few", which engendered the enduring nickname "
The Few" for the Allied fighter pilots who won it. One of his most memorable war speeches came on
10 November 1942 at the Lord Mayor's Luncheon at
Mansion House in
London, in response to the Allied victory at the
Second Battle of El Alamein. Churchill stated:
This isn't the end. It isn't even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Without having much in the way of sustenance or good news to offer the
British people, he took a
political risk in deliberately choosing to emphasise the dangers instead.
"
Rhetorical power," wrote Churchill, "
is neither wholly bestowed, nor wholly acquired, but cultivated." Not all were impressed by his oratory. Robert Menzies, who was the Prime Minister of Australia, said during World War II of Churchill: "His real tyrant is the glittering phrase so attractive to his mind that awkward facts have to give way." Another associate wrote: "He is . . . the slave of the words which his mind forms about ideas. . . . And he can convince himself of almost every truth if it's once allowed thus to start on its wild career through his rhetorical machinery."
Relations with the United States
Churchill's good relationship with
Franklin D. Roosevelt secured vital food, oil and munitions via the
North Atlantic shipping routes. It was for this reason that Churchill was relieved when Roosevelt was
re-elected in 1940. Upon re-election, Roosevelt immediately set about implementing a new method of providing military hardware and shipping to Britain without the need for monetary payment. Put simply, Roosevelt persuaded Congress that repayment for this immensely costly service would take the form of defending the USA; and so
Lend-lease was born. Churchill had 12 strategic
conferences with Roosevelt which covered the
Atlantic Charter,
Europe first strategy, the
Declaration by the United Nations and other war policies.
After
Pearl Harbor was attacked, Churchill's first thought in anticipation of U.S. help was, "We have won the war!" On
26 December 1941 Churchill addressed a joint meeting of the
U.S. Congress, asking of Germany and Japan, "What kind of people do they think we are?" Churchill initiated the
Special Operations Executive (SOE) under
Hugh Dalton's Ministry of Economic Warfare, which established, conducted and fostered covert, subversive and partisan operations in
occupied territories with notable success; and also the
Commandos which established the pattern for most of the world's current
Special Forces. The Russians referred to him as the "British Bulldog".
Churchill's health was fragile, as shown by a mild
heart attack he suffered in December 1941 at the White House and also in December 1943 when he contracted pneumonia. Despite this, he travelled over throughout the war to meet other national leaders. For security, he usually travelled using the alias Colonel Warden.
Churchill was party to treaties that would redraw post-World War II European and Asian boundaries. These were discussed as early as 1943. Proposals for European boundaries and settlements were officially agreed to by
Harry S Truman, Churchill, and
Stalin at
Potsdam. At the second
Quebec Conference in 1944 he drafted and, together with U.S. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, signed a toned-down version of the original
Morgenthau Plan, in which they pledged to convert Germany after its
unconditional surrender "
into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character." Churchill's strong relationship with Harry Truman was also of great significance to both countries. While he clearly regretted the loss of his close friend and counterpart Roosevelt, Churchill was enormously supportive of Truman in his first days in office, calling him, "the type of leader the world needs when it needs him most."
Relations with the Soviet Union
When
Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Winston Churchill, a vehement anti-Communist, famously stated "If Hitler were to invade Hell, I should find occasion to make a favourable reference to the Devil," regarding his policy toward Stalin. Soon, British supplies and tanks were flowing to help the Soviet Union.
The settlement concerning the borders of Poland, that is, the
boundary between Poland and the Soviet Union and
between Germany and Poland, was viewed as a betrayal in Poland during the post-war years, as it was established against the views of the
Polish government in exile. It was Winston Churchill, who tried to motivate
Mikołajczyk, who was Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile, to accept Stalin's wishes, but Mikołajczyk refused. Churchill was convinced that the only way to alleviate tensions between the two populations was the transfer of people, to match the national borders.
As he expounded in the House of Commons on
15 December 1944, "Expulsion is the method which, insofar as we've been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble... A clean sweep will be made. I'm not alarmed by these transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions." However the
resulting expulsions of Germans was carried out by
the Soviet Union in a way which resulted in much hardship and, according to a 1966 report by the West German Ministry of Refugees and
Displaced Persons, the death of over 2,100,000. Churchill opposed the effective annexation of Poland by the Soviet Union and wrote bitterly about it in his books, but he was unable to prevent it at the conferences.
During October 1944, he and Eden were in
Moscow to meet with the Russian leadership. At this point, Russian forces were beginning to advance into various eastern European countries. Churchill held the view that until everything was formally and properly worked out at the
Yalta conference, there had to be a temporary, war-time, working agreement with regard to who would run what. The most significant of these meetings were held on
October 9 1944 in the
Kremlin between Churchill and Stalin. During the meeting, Poland and the
Balkan problems were discussed. Churchill recounted his speech to Stalin on the day:
On reflection, under pressure from the Chiefs of Staff and in response to the views expressed by Sir
Charles Portal (
Chief of the Air Staff,) and
Arthur Harris (
AOC-in-C of
Bomber Command,) among others, Churchill withdrew his memo and issued a new one. This final version of the memo completed on
April 1 1945, stated:
After Labour's defeat in the
General Election of 1951, Churchill again became Prime Minister. His third government—after the wartime national government and the brief caretaker government of 1945 — lasted until his resignation in 1955. His domestic priorities in his last government were overshadowed by a series of foreign policy crises, which were partly the result of the continued decline of British military and imperial prestige and power. Being a strong proponent of Britain as an
international power, Churchill would often meet such moments with
direct action. One example was his dispatch of British troops to
Kenya to deal with the
Mau Mau rebellion. Trying to retain what he could of the Empire, he once stated that, "I won't preside over a dismemberment." Once again, Churchill's government inherited a crisis, and Churchill chose to use direct military action against those in rebellion while attempting to build an alliance with those who were not. While the rebellion was slowly being defeated, it was equally clear that
colonial rule from Britain was no longer plausible.
Churchill also devoted much of his time in office to Anglo-American relations and although Churchill didn't get on well with President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Churchill attempted to maintain the
special relationship with the
United States. He made four official
transatlantic visits to America during his second term as Prime-Minister.
Retirement
In June 1953, when he was 78, Churchill suffered a stroke at
10 Downing Street. News of this was kept from the public and from Parliament, who were told that Churchill was suffering from exhaustion. He went to his country home, Chartwell, to recuperate from the effects of the stroke which had affected his speech and ability to walk. However aware that he was slowing down both physically and mentally, Churchill retired as
Prime Minister in 1955 and was succeeded by
Anthony Eden. Over the coming years Churchill spent less time in parliament until he stood down at the
1964 General Election.
Churchill spent most of his retirement at Chartwell and at his home in Hyde Park Gate, in
London. but he was unable to attend the
White House ceremony. On
15 January 1965, Churchill suffered a severe
stroke that left him gravely ill. He died at his home nine days later, at age 90, on the morning of Sunday
24 January 1965, coincidentally 70 years to the day after his father's death.
Funeral
By decree of the
Queen, his body
lay in state for three days and a
state funeral service was held at
St Paul's Cathedral. This was the first state funeral for a non-royal family member since 1914, and no other of its kind has been held since. As his coffin passed down the
Thames on the
Havengore, dockers lowered their
crane jibs in a salute. The
Royal Artillery fired a
19-gun salute (as
head of government), and the
RAF staged a fly-by of sixteen
English Electric Lightning fighters. The funeral also saw the largest assemblage of statesmen in the world until the 2005
funeral of Pope John Paul II. In the fields along the route, and at the stations through which the train passed, thousands stood in silence to pay their last respects. At Churchill's request, he was buried in the family plot at
St Martin's Church, Bladon, near Woodstock, not far from his birthplace at
Blenheim Palace.
Churchill as an artist
Winston Churchill was also an accomplished artist and took great pleasure in painting, especially after his resignation as
First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915. He found a haven in art to overcome the spells of
depression or as he termed them 'Black Dog' which he suffered throughout his life, as William Rees-Mogg has stated, "In his own life, he'd to suffer the "black dog" of depression. In his landscapes and still lives there's no sign of depression". He is best known for his impressionist scenes of landscape, many of which were painted whilst on holiday in the South of France or Morocco.
Churchill as a historian and writer
Aside from his work as a politician, Churchill was a prolific writer, writing over 25 stories, biographies and histories. Two of his largest undertakings included his Nobel prize winning six-volume history on
The Second World War and
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples; a four-volume history covering the period from
Caesar's invasions of Britain (55 BC) to the beginning of the
First World War (1914).
Honours
Aside from receiving the great honour of a
state funeral, Churchill also received numerous awards and honours, including being made the first
Honorary Citizen of the United States. Churchill received the
Nobel Prize in Literature for his numerous published works, especially his six-edition set
The Second World War. In a 2002
BBC poll of the "
100 Greatest Britons", he was proclaimed "The Greatest of Them All" based on approximately a million votes from BBC viewers. Churchill was also rated as one of the most influential
leaders in history by
Time magazine.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Winston Churchill'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://winston_churchill.totallyexplained.com">Winston Churchill Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
