WINSTON CHURCHILL 1874 – 1965

             Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill be­came one of the greatest statesmen in world history. Churchill reached the height of his fame as the heroic prime minister of Great Britain during World War II. He offered his people only “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” as they struggled to keep their freedom. Churchill also was a noted speaker, author, printer, soldier, and war reporter.

                Early in World War II, the British people refused to give in despite the great odds against them. Churchill’s personal courage, the magic of his words, and his faith in victory inspired the British to “their finest hour”. The mere sight of this stocky deter­mined man — a cigar in his mouth and two fingers raised high in a “V for victory” sa­lute — cheered the people. Churchill seemed to be John Bull, the symbol of the English people, come to life.

            Winston Churchill was born on November 30, 1874, in Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England. He was the elder of the two sons of Lord Randolph Churchill (1849-1895) and Lady Churchill (1854-1921), an American girl whose maiden name was Jennie Jerome. Win­ston’s mother was famous for her beauty.

                 William did poorly in his schoolwork. His stubbornness and high spirits annoyed eve­ryone. In addition, his parents had little time for him.

             When William was six years old, his broth­er John was born. The difference in their ages prevented any real companionship. At the age of 12, Winston entered Harrow School, a leading English secondary school. Winston entered as the lowest boy in the lowest class, and in that unhappy position he stayed. At Harrow, however, his love of the English language began to grow.

                Lord Randolph noticed that Winston spent many hours playing with toy soldiers. He decided that soldiering was the only career for a boy of limited intelligence. In 1893, at the age of 18, Winston entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He had failed the entrance examinations twice before pass­ing them. But he soon led his class in tactics and fortifications, the most important sub­jects. He was graduated eighth in a class of 150. In 1895, Churchill was appointed a sec­ond lieutenant in the 4^th Hussars, a proud cavalry regiment.

             20-year-old Lieutenant Churchill ached for adventure. For a soldier, adventure meant fighting. But the only fighting at the mo­ment was in Cuba, where the people had revolted against their Spanish rulers. Churchill was on leave from the army, and used his family’s influence to go to Cuba as an observer with the Spanish. While there, he wrote five colourful articles on the revolt for a London newspaper. Churchill re­turned to London with a love for Havana cigars that lasted the rest of his life.

           In 1896, Churchill’s regiment was sent to Bangalore, in southern India. There he ac­quired a fondness for polo, and read many books he had neglected in school.

             Churchill’s adventurous spirit made him restless. A British force was being built up in Egypt to invade the Sudan. Churchill got himself transferred to the force, and again obtained a newspaper assignment. In 1898, he took part in the last great cavalry charge of the British army. Churchill returned to England and wrote a book about the Suda­nese campaign, The River War (1899).

               In 1899, while working on his book, Church­ill resigned from the army and ran for Par­liament as a Conservative from Oldman. But he did not impress the voters of Oldham, most of whom were laborers and belonged to the Liberal party. Churchill lost his first election.

               The Boer War in South Africa began in October 1899. A London newspaper hired Churchill to report the war between the Boers (Dutch settlers) and the British. Soon after Churchill arrived in South Africa, the Boers ambushed an armoured train on which he was riding. He was captured and impris­oned, but made a daring escape. He scaled the prison wall one night, and slipped by the sentries. Then, travelling on freight trains, he crossed 300 miles (480 kilome­tres) of enemy territory to safety. He be­came a famous hero overnight.

                   In 1900, Churchill returned to England and to politics. Oldham gave him a hero’s welcome, and the voters elected him to Parliament.

                 In January 1901, Churchill took his seat in the House of Commons for the first time. He soon began to criticize many Conserva­tive policies openly and sharply. In 1904, Churchill broke with his party completely. In the next election, in 1906, Churchill ran as a Liberal and won.

                 With enormous energy, Churchill moved through three government positions during the next few years. He served as undersec­retary of state for the colonies (1906-1908), president of the board of trade (1908-1910), and home secretary (1910-1911). His ap­pointment to the board of trade was his first cabinet position.

               In the spring of 1908, Churchill met Clem­entine Hozier (1885-1977), the daughter of a retired army officer. Clementine and Churchill were married on September 12, 1908. Years later, Churchill wrote that he “lived happily ever afterwards”. Churchill became a devoted parent to his four chil­dren.

                   In 1911, Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith* appointed Churchill first lord of the admi­ralty.

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*Asquith, Herbert Henry, I^st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852- 1928) - British Liberal politician, prime minister 1908-1916.

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                 The build-up of German military and naval forces had convinced Asquith that the admiralty needed a strongleader. Churchill was one of the few people in England who realized that the war with Germany would probably come. He reorganized the navy, developed antisubmarine tactics, and mod­ernized the fleet. He also created the navy’s first air service. When Britain entered World War I, on August 4, 1914, the fleet was ready.

               In 1915, Churchill urged an attack on the Dardanelles and the Galliopoli Peninsula, both controlled by Turkey. If successful, the attack would have opened a route to the Black Sea. Aid could then have been sent to Russia, Britain’s ally. But the campaign failed disastrously, and Churchill was blamed. He resigned from the admiralty, although he kept seat in Parliament. Church­ill regarded himself as a political failure.

                   David Lloyd George* became prime minis­ter in December 1916.

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*Lloyd George, David, I^st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (1863— 1945) — Welsh Liberal politician, prime minister of Britain from 1916 to 1932.

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                  He appointed Church­ill minister of munitions in July 1917. While in the admiralty, Churchill had promoted the development of the tank. Now he began large-scale tank production. Churchill vis­ited the battlefield frequently. He watched every important engagement in France, of­ten from the air.

                World War I ended in November 1918. The next January, Churchill became secretary of state for war and for air. As war secre­tary, he supervised the demobilization of the British army. In 1921, Lloyd George named him colonial secretary.

In 1924, Churchill was returned to Parlia­ment from Epping after he rejoined the Conservative Party.

                 During the years between World Wars I and II, Churchill spent much of his spare time painting and writing. He did not be­gin painting until in his 40s, and surprised critics with his talent. He liked to use bold, brilliant colours. Painting provided relax­ation and pleasure, but Churchill consid­ered writing his chief occupation after pol­itics. In his four-volume World Crisis (1923-1929), he brilliantly recorded the history of World War I. In speaking and writing after 1932, Churchill tried to rouse his nation and the world to the danger of Nazi Germany. The build-up of the Ger­man armed forces alarmed him, and he pleaded for a powerful British air force. But he was called a warmonger.

                    German troops marched into Poland on Sep­tember 1, 1939. The war that Churchill had so clearly foreseen had begun. On Septem­ber 3, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain* at once named Churchill first lord of the admiralty, the same post he had held in World War I.

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*Chamberlain, (Arthur) Neville (1869-1940) — British Con­servative politician, prime minister 1937-1940.

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                        The British fleet was notified with a simple message: “Winston is back”.

                In April 1940, Germany attacked Denmark and Norway. Britain quickly sent troops to Norway, but they had to retreat because they lacked air support. In the parliamentary debate that followed, Chamberlain’s govern­ment fell. At the age of 66, Churchill be­came prime minister of Great Britain.

                       In August 1941, Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt met aboard ship off the coast of Newfoundland. They drew up the Atlantic Charter, which set forth the common postwar aims of the Unit­ed states and Britain. Churchill and Roo­sevelt exchanged more than 1,700 messag­es and met nine times before Roosevelt’s death in 1945.

                           The United States entered the war after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Later that month, Churchill and Roosevelt conferred in Washington, D.C. On December 26, Churchill addressed the United States Congress. He stirred all Amer­icans with his faith “that in the days to come the British and American peoples will walk together side by side in majesty, in justice, and in peace.”

                           In August 1942, Churchill journeyed to Moscow to meet with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. The Soviet Union had entered the war in June 1941, after being invaded by Germany. Almost immediately, Stalin had demanded that the British open a second fighting front in western Europe to relieve the strain on the Soviet Union. Churchill explained to Stalin that it would be disas­trous to open a second front in 1942 be­cause the Allies were unprepared.

                         In January 1943, Churchill and Roosevelt met in Casablanka, Morocco. They an­nounced that the Allies would accept only unconditional surrender from Germany, It­aly and Japan. After returning to England, Churchill fell ill with pneumonia. But he recovered with incredible vigor.

                       The first meeting of Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt took place in Teheran, Iran, in November 1943. The Big Three, as they were called, set the British-American invasion of France for the following spring. On his way home from Teheran, Churchill was again struck down by pneumonia. Again he recovered rapidly.

                         In February 1945, the Big Three met in Yalta. The end of the war was in sight. The three leaders agreed on plans to occupy de­feated Germany. Churchill distrusted Sta­lin. He feared the USSR might keep the ter­ritories in eastern Europe that its troops occupied. Roosevelt, a close friend of Churchill’s as well as an ally, died two months after the conference, and Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) became President. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. In July, Churchill met with Truman and Stalin in Potsdam, Germany, to discuss the administration of Germany. But Churchill’s presence at the meeting was cut short. He had lost his post as prime minister. People in Britain were voting against the Conserv­ative party, for failing to prepare Britain to war. The Labourer Clement R. Attlee* succeeded Churchill as prime minister.

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*Attlee, Clement Richard (1883-1962) — British Labour pol­itician, prime minister 1945-1951.

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                    Churchill took his place as leader of the opposition in the House of Commons. He urged Parliament to plan for national de­fense, and warned the western world against the dangers of communism. On March 5, 1946, in his speech Churchill declared: “Be­ware “time may be short”. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent”. Many people in the USA and Britain called the speech warmongering.

                  Politics, lecturing, painting, and writing kept Churchill busy. But these activities did not completely satisfy his great energy. He found much to do around Chartwell Manor, his county estate in Kent. He took pride in his cattle and his race horses. In 1948, the first volume of Churchill’s Second World War was published. The sixth and last volume of these magnificent memoirs appeared in 1953.

                   The Conservatives returned to power in 1951. Churchill again became prime minister. As usual, he concentrated most of his energy on foreign affairs. He worked especially hard to encourage British-American unity. He visited Washington in 1952, 1953, and 1954.

                  In April 1953, Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. In June 1953, Sir Win­ston suffered a severe stroke that paralyzed his left side. He made a remarkable recovery.

                    Late in 1953, Sir Winston won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was honoured for “his majesty of historical and biographical presentation and for his brilliant oratory”.

                      For some time it had been rumoured that Churchill would retire because of his ad­vanced age. But he showed no intention of doing so, and seemed to enjoy keeping peo­ple guessing. However, the years and two world wars had taken a toll. In April 1955, Churchill retired.

                  In 1963, Congress made Churchill an honor­ary U.S. Member. The action reflected the American people’s affection for the man who had done so much for the cause of freedom.

                      Churchill suffered a stroke on January 15, 1965. He died nine days alter, at the age of 90. He was buried in St Martin’s Churchyard in Oxfordshire, near his birthplace, Blenheim Palace.

               Churchill not only made history, he also wrote it. As a historian, war reporter, and biographer, he showed a matchless command of the English language. Churchill spoke as he wrote — clearly, vividly, majestically. Churchill entered the service of his country in 1895 as an army lieutenant under Queen Victoria. He ended his career in 1964 as a member of the House of Commons under Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria’s great great granddaughter. Few men ever served their country so long or so well.