Winston Churchill

Churchill redirects here. For other uses, see Churchill (disambiguation).

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can) (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was an English statesman, soldier, and author. Well-known as an orator and strategist, Churchill was one of the most important leaders in modern British and world history. A prolific author, he won the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature for his many books on English and world history.^[1] He was voted the greatest-ever Briton in the 2002 BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.^[2]

Churchill was an officer in the British Army and served in India, Sudan and South Africa. He fought during the Second Boer War and at the Battle of Omdurman. At the forefront of the political scene for almost sixty years Churchill held numerous political and cabinet positions. Before the First World War he served as President of the Board of Trade and Home Secretary during the Liberal governments. In the First World War Churchill served in numerous positions, as First Lord of the Admiralty, Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. He also served in the British Army on the Western Front and commanded the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. During the interwar years he served twice as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

After the outbreak of the Second World War Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain in May 1940 Churchill became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and led the British war effort against the Axis powers. Churchill's speeches were a great inspiration to the embattled Allied forces.

After losing the 1945 election Churchill became the leader of the opposition. In 1951 Churchill again became Prime Minister before finally retiring in 1955. Upon his death, he was granted the honour of a state funeral which saw one of the largest assemblies of statesmen in the world.

Early life

A descendant of a famous aristocratic family, Churchill's full surname was Spencer-Churchill. His family was the senior branch of the Spencer family, which added the surname Churchill to its own in the late eighteenth century. They did this to highlight their descent from John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (see George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough and below).

Churchill descended from the second member of the Churchill family to achieve public prominence, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Winston's father, Lord Randolph Churchill, the third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough was also a politician; Winston's mother, Lady Randolph Churchill (née Jennie Jerome), the daughter of American millionaire Leonard Jerome, was of mostly Colonial American, ultimately English, descent. Churchill was born in Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire on 30 November 1874, arriving only eight months after his parents' hasty marriage.^[3] He had one brother, John Strange Spencer-Churchill.

Churchill had an independent and rebellious nature and generally did poorly in school, for which he was punished. He entered Harrow School on April 17, 1888 where his military career began—within weeks of his arrival, he had joined the Harrow Rifle Corps.^[4] Churchill earned high marks in English and history; he was also the school's fencing champion. He was rarely visited by his mother (then known as Lady Randolph), whom he loved very dearly, and wrote letters begging her to either come to the school or to allow him to come home.

Although Churchill had a distant relationship with his father, he followed his career closely. Churchill's desolate, lonely childhood haunted him throughout his life. Yet, as a child he was very close to his nanny, Elizabeth Anne Everest, whom he used to call "Woom".^[5] ^[6]

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". Although the Stuttering Foundation has claimed that Churchill stuttered, the Churchill Centre has concluded that he lisped.^[7] Churchill's impediment may also have been cluttering, which would fit more with his inattention to unimportant details and his very secure ego. Weiss suggests that Churchill may have "excelled because of, rather than in spite of his cluttering".^[8]

The Army

Template:More sources

Sandhurst

File:Winston Churchill as a young man.jpg

Churchill as a young man

After Churchill left Harrow in 1893, he attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst; he passed the entrance exams on his third and final attempt, due to chance knowledge of the topography of New Zealand.^[9] He graduated twentieth out of a class of 130 in December of 1894^[9] and was immediately commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars on February 20, 1895.^[9] In 1941, he received the honour of Colonel of the (succeeding) Regiment.^[9]

India

When Churchill finished training he asked to be posted to an area of action Template:Fact and was transferred to Bombay, India, in early October 1896. He was one of the best polo players in his regiment and led his team to many prestigious tournament victories.^[10]

About this time he read Winwood Reade's Martyrdom of Man, a classic of Victorian atheism, which completed his loss of faith in orthodox 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. He passed for a time through an aggressively anti-religious phase, but this eventually gave way to a more tolerant belief in the workings of some kind of divine providence.

In 1897, while preparing for a leave in England, Churchill heard that three brigades of the British Army were going to fight against a Pathan tribe; he asked his superior officer to join the fight.Template:Fact His account of the battle was one of his first published stories, for which he received £5 per column from the Daily Telegraph.^[11]

Later in 1897, young Churchill went to Bangalore, where he was granted permission to engage in active fighting. He fought under the command of General Jeffery, who was the commander of the second brigade. Jeffery sent fifteen scouts and Churchill to explore a valley; while on reconnaissance, they encountered the 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. Churchill thought that they had ventured too far—his judgement was correct.Template:Fact Hundreds of tribesmen rushed in and opened fire on them forcing them to retreat. As they were retreating four men were carrying the leader but the fierceness of the fight forced them to leave him behind.^[12] The man who was left behind was slashed to death in front of Churchill’s eyes; afterwards he wrote, "I forgot everything else at this moment except a desire to kill this man".^[13] Churchill and his fellow soldiers regrouped at the bottom of the hill as the tribesmen attacked again, but they repelled them with heavy fire. Template:Fact However the Sikhs' numbers were being depleted so the next commanding officer told Churchill to get the rest of the men to safety. Before he left he asked for a note so he would not be charged with desertion. Template:Fact He received the note, quickly signed, and headed down 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. Churchill wrote in his journal: "Whether it was worth it I cannot tell. At any rate, after a fortnight, the valley was a desert, and honour was satisfied. A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails and then asks you not to kill him."^[13]^[14]

Churchill's future was looking bright until he got a message that his nanny was dying in 1896. He immediately returned to England and went to her side and stayed with her for a couple of days until she died. He wrote in his journal "She was my favourite friend." In Churchill's My Early Life he wrote "She had been my dearest and most intimate friend during the whole of the twenty years I had lived."^[15] Indeed, Churchill had invited her to visit Harrow with him when he was a student, surprising his wealthy classmates. Years later, one noted that this act was one of the greatest acts of courage and compassion he had ever seen.Template:Fact

Cuba, India (again) and South Africa

File:WinstonChurchillRiverWar.jpg

The River War, one of Churchill's first books

In 1895 Churchill travelled to Cuba to observe the Spanish fight the Cuban guerrillas; he had obtained a commission to write about the conflict from the Daily Graphic. To Churchill's delight, he came under fire for the first time on his twenty-first birthday.^[9] Two years later, in 1897, Churchill attempted to travel to the Greco-Turkish War, but this conflict effectively ended before he could arrive. He briefly went home to England before rushing back to India to help quell the Pathan revolt on the North West Frontier. He had to ask his mother to pull some strings with some of her influential ex-lovers, including the Prince of Wales, to get permission to cover the battlesTemplate:Fact.

In 1897 Churchill went to South Africa to fight in the Second Boer War. On 12 October 1899, the war between Britain and the Afrikaners broke out in South Africa. Churchill went to South Africa as a war correspondent to cover the Second Boer War in 1899. Caught in an ambush while travelling on a train, Churchill helped clear the track and get the train moving again with the wounded. Template:Fact Churchill himself, however, was captured and held in a POW camp in Pretoria. His actions during the ambush led to speculation that he would be awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy, but this did not occur.^[9] Churchill would later claim that he had been captured by General Louis Botha, subsequently prime minister of the then Union of South Africa, but this claim has been challenged, notably by Churchill's grand-daughter Celia Sandys in her book Churchill Wanted Dead or AliveTemplate:Fact.

Churchill escaped from his prison camp and travelled almost 300 miles (480 km) to Portuguese Lourenço Marques in Delagoa Bay, with the assistance of an English mine manager. Template:Fact His escape made him a minor national hero for a time in Britain Template:Fact, though instead of returning home, he rejoined General Redvers Buller's army on its march to relieve Ladysmith and take Pretoria. This time, although continuing as a war correspondent, Churchill gained a commission in the South African Light Horse Regiment. He was one of 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 guards of the prison camp there.Template:Fact

In 1900, he published two books on the Boer war, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and Ian Hamilton's March, which were published in May and October respectively.

Malakand

An account was published in December of 1900 as the The Story of the Malakand Field Force. He received £600 for his account. During the campaign, he wrote articles for the newspapers The Pioneer and The Daily Telegraph.

Sudan and the Battle of Omdurman

While in India, Churchill used his family connections to get himself assigned to the army being put together and commanded by Lord Kitchener. Template:Fact He intended to achieve the reconquest of the Sudan. While in the Sudan, Churchill participated in what has been described as the last meaningful British cavalry charge at the Battle of Omdurman. He also served as a war correspondent for the Morning Post. By October 1898, he had returned to Britain and begun work on the two-volume The River War, published the following year.

Early years in Parliament

Churchill's election poster, Oldham

Churchill decided that the military did not suit him, so he entered upon a political career. During 1900 when looking for a vote, he asked a person for his support, to which the man responded: "Vote for you? I’d rather vote for the devil." Churchill replied: "I quite understand, but since that man is not running this time, could I count on your support?" Because Churchill had a slight lisp when he spoke, he practiced his speeches for tone and fluency. Template:Fact

In 1899, Churchill stood as a Conservative candidate in Oldham in a by-election. He failed to be elected, coming in third (Oldham was at that time a two-seat borough). After a short time he was eligible to stand again. This time, in the 1900 general election, also called "the Khaki election," he was elected; but rather than attending the opening of Parliament, he embarked on a speaking tour throughout Britain and the United States, in the process raising ten thousand pounds for himself. (Members of Parliament were unpaid in those days and Churchill was not rich by the standards of other MPs at that time.) In both these elections, his campaign expenses were paid by his cousin the 9th Duke of Marlborough ( p37 "The Aristocratic Adventurer by David Cannadine originally an essay entitled Churchill: The Aristocratic Adventurer" in "Aspects of Aristocracy" )

In Parliament, Churchill became associated with a group of Tory dissidents led by Lord Hugh Cecil called the Hughligans, a play of words on "hooligans". During his first parliamentary session, Churchill provoked controversy by opposing what he viewed as the government's extravagant military expenditure.Template:Fact By 1903, he was drawing away from Lord Hugh's views. He also opposed the Liberal Unionist leader Joseph Chamberlain, whose party was in coalition with the Conservatives. Chamberlain proposed extensive tariffs intended to protect Britain's economic dominance. This earned Churchill the detestation of his own supporters—indeed, Conservative backbenchers even staged a walkout once while he was speaking.Template:Fact His own constituency effectively deselected him, although he continued to sit for Oldham until the next general election.

In 1904, Churchill's dissatisfaction with the Conservatives had grown so strong that, on returning from the Whitsun recess, he crossed the floor to sit as a member of the Liberal Party. It was however rumoured at the time that his real reason in doing so was that he would receive an official salary. (Cannadine op cit 27)As a Liberal, he continued to campaign for free trade. He won the seat of Manchester North West (carefully selected for him by the party- his electoral expenses were paid for by his uncle Lord Tweedmouth a senior Liberal (See Cannadine op cit p3)) in the 1906 general election. As a Liberal, Churchill played an instrumental role in passing minimum wage in Britain.

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.Template:Fact However, filial devotion caused him to soften some of his father's less attractive aspects.Template:Fact Theodore Roosevelt who had known Lord Randolph reviewed the book as "a clever tactful and rather cheap and vulgar life of that clever tactful and rather cheap and vulgar egotist" (Cannadine op cit 47). Some historians (e g Cannadine op cit p 41, Robert Rhodes James - Churchill a study in failure p34-35)suggest Churchill used the book in part to vindicate his own career and in particular to justify crossing the floor.

Ministerial office

Growing prominence

Winston Churchill (highlighted) at the Sidney Street Siege, 3 January 1911

When the Liberals took office, with Henry Campbell-Bannerman as Prime Minister, in December 1905, Churchill became Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. Serving under the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, Churchill dealt with the adoption of constitutions for the defeated Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony and with the issue of 'Chinese slavery' in South African mines. He also became a prominent spokesman on free trade.

Churchill became the most prominent member of the Government outside the Cabinet, and when Campbell-Bannerman was succeeded by Herbert Henry Asquith in 1908, it came as little surprise when Churchill was promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. Under the law at the time, a newly appointed Cabinet Minister was obliged to seek re-election at a by-election. Churchill lost his Manchester seat to the Conservative William Joynson-Hicks but was soon elected in another by-election at Dundee constituency. As President of the Board of Trade, he pursued radical social reforms known as the Liberal reforms, enacted in conjunction with David Lloyd George, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. Most notable amongst these was the People's Budget that led to the downfall of the House of Lords as well as the opposition of Navy building by then First Lord of the Admiralty, Reginald McKenna.

In 1910, Churchill was promoted to Home Secretary, where he was to prove somewhat controversial. A famous photograph from the time shows the impetuous Churchill at the scene of the January 1911 Sidney Street Siege, peering around a corner to view a gun battle between cornered anarchists and Scots Guards. His role attracted much criticism. The building under siege caught fire and Churchill supported the decision to deny the fire brigade access, forcing the criminals to choose surrender or death. Arthur Balfour asked, "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?"

1910 also saw Churchill preventing the army being used to deal with a dispute at the Cambrian Colliery mine in Tonypandy. Initially, Churchill blocked the use of troops fearing a repeat of the 1887 'bloody Sunday' in Trafalgar Square. Nevertheless, troops were deployed to protect the mines and to avoid riots when thirteen strikers were tried for minor offences, an action that broke the tradition of not involving the military in civil affairs and led to lingering dislike for Churchill in Wales.

First Lord of the Admiralty

Churchill in 1912 as First Lord of the Admiralty

In 1911, Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty, a post he held into World War I. He gave impetus to reform efforts, including development of naval aviation, tanks, and the switch in fuel from coal to oil, a massive engineering task, also depending on securing Mesopotamia's oil rights, bought circa 1907 through the secret service using the Royal Burmah Oil Company as a front company.Template:Fact

The development of the tank was financed from naval research funds via the Landships Committee, and, although a decade later development of the battle tank would be seen as a stroke of genius, at the time it was seen as misappropriation of funds. The tank was deployed too early and in too small numbers, much to Churchill's annoyance. He wanted a fleet of tanks used to surprise the Germans under cover of smoke, and to open a large section of the trenches by crushing barbed wire and creating a breakthrough sector.

In 1915, Churchill was one of the political and military engineers of the disastrous Gallipoli landings on the Dardanelles during World War I. Churchill took much of the blame for the fiasco, and when Prime Minister Asquith formed an all-party coalition government, the Conservatives demanded Churchill's demotion as the price for entry. For several months Churchill served in the sinecure of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, before resigning from the government, feeling his energies were not being used. He rejoined the army, though remaining an MP, and served for several months on the Western Front commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. During this period, his second in command was a young Archibald Sinclair who later led the Liberal Party.

Return to power

In December 1916, Asquith resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by David Lloyd George. The time was thought not yet right to risk the Conservatives' wrath by bringing Churchill back into government. However, 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, but the 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".^[16] 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 always disliked Éamon de Valera, the Sinn Féin leader. Churchill, to protect British maritime interests engineered the Irish Free State agreementTemplate:Fact to include three Treaty Ports — Queenstown (Cobh), Berehaven and Lough Swilly — which could be used as Atlantic bases by the Royal Navy. Under cuts instituted by Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer and others, the bases were neglected. Under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement the bases were returned to the newly constituted Éire in 1938.

As Colonial Secretary he advocated the use of poison gas against tribesmen revolting in what was soon to become Iraq. He did however set up a Middle East Department of the Colonial Office and under the instigation of T E Lawrence (who had earlier been dispatched to the Middle East by Lord Curzon ) he supported the claims of Feisal and Abdullah as Kings of Iraq and Jordan respectively (James op cit 172)

Career between the wars

Second crossing of the floor

In 1920, as Secretary for War and Air, Churchill had responsibility for quelling the rebellion of Kurds and Arabs in British-occupied Iraq.

File:ChurchillandInonu.jpg

Churchill secretly meets with President Ismet Inönü at the Yenice Station 15 miles outside of Adana in south-east Turkey, on January 30, 1943

In October 1922, Churchill underwent an operation to remove his appendix. Upon his return, he learned that the government had fallen and a General Election was looming. The Liberal Party was now beset by internal division and Churchill's campaign was weak. Even the D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd, a local newspaper publisher, published vitriolic rhetoric about his political status in the city, particularly from David Coupar Thomson. At one meeting, he was only able to speak for 40 minutes when he was barracked by a section of the audience.^[17] He came only fourth in the poll and lost his seat at Dundee to prohibitionist, Edwin Scrymgeour, quipping later that he left Dundee "without an office, without a seat, without a party and without an appendix".^[18]

Churchill stood for the Liberals again in the 1923 general election, losing in Leicester, but over the next few months he moved towards the Conservative Party in all but name. His first electoral contest as an Independent candidate, fought under the label of "Independent Anti-Socialist," was narrowly lost in a by-election in a London constituency — his third electoral defeat in less than two years. However, he stood for election yet again several months later in the General Election of 1924, again as an Independent candidate, this time under the label of "Constitutionalist" although with Conservative backing, and was finally elected to represent Epping (a statue in his honour in Woodford Green was erected when Woodford Green was part of the Epping constituency). The following year, he formally rejoined the Conservative Party, commenting wryly that "Anyone can rat [change parties], but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat."

Chancellor of the Exchequer

He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924 under Stanley Baldwin and oversaw Britain's disastrous return to the Gold Standard, which resulted in deflation, unemployment, and the miners' strike that led to the General Strike of 1926. This decision prompted the economist John Maynard 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. Interestingly, the pamphlet did not criticise the decision to return to the gold standard per se. Churchill later regarded this as the greatest mistake of his life; he stated he was not an economist and that he acted on the advice of the Governor of the Bank of England, Montagu Norman. However in discussions at the time with McKenna, himself a former Chancellor 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 (James op cit 206)

During 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." Furthermore, he controversially 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."^[19]

Political isolation

The Conservative government was defeated in the 1929 General Election. In the next two years, Churchill became estranged from the Conservative leadership over the issues of protective tariffs and Indian Home Rule, which he bitterly opposed. When Ramsay MacDonald formed the National Government in 1931, Churchill was not invited to join the Cabinet. He was now 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 Marlborough: His Life and Times — a biography of his ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough — and A History of the English Speaking Peoples (which was not published until well after World War II). When struck by a taxi he wrote an article about the experience. He supported himself largely by his writing and was one of the best paid writers of his time. HE spent so much time in writing that he rarely attended Parliament unless he intended making a speech. He continued writing A History of the English Speaking Peoples while First Lord of the Admiralty at the height of the Norwegian campaign (Cannadine op cit p 46)

He became most notable for his outspoken opposition towards the granting of independence to India (see Simon Commission and Government of India Act 1935).He denigrated the father of the Indian independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi, as "a half-naked fakir" who "ought to be laid, bound hand and foot, at the gates of Delhi and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new viceroy seated on its back." His views on India were set by his experience as a junior cavalry officer stationed in India in the 1890s and are shown in his book My Early Life which was published in 1930 (See James op cit 257f). He helped found 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 to India. (James op cit 260). He opposed the official government policy both in and out of parliament. On the eve of the St George by election in which an independent supported by Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook and their respective newspapers stood against Duff Cooper the official conservative candidate he spoke at a rally in which he attacked Baldwin's policy.

Soon, though, his attention was drawn to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the dangers of Germany's rearmament. For a time, he was a lone voice calling on Britain to strengthen itself to counter the belligerence of Germany.^[20] Churchill was a fierce critic of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler, leading the wing of the Conservative Party that opposed the Munich Agreement which Chamberlain famously declared to mean "peace in our time".^[21] He was also an outspoken supporter of King Edward VIII during the Abdication Crisis, leading to some speculation that he might be appointed Prime Minister if the King refused to take Baldwin's advice and consequently the government resigned. However, this did not happen, and Churchill found himself politically isolated and bruised for some time after this.

Role as wartime Prime Minister

File:YousufKarsh.jpg

Yousuf Karsh portrait of Winston Churchill on cover of Life magazine.

"Winston is back"

After the outbreak of the Second World War Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and a member of the War Cabinet, just as he was in the first part of the First World War. The Navy sent out the signal: "Winston is back."^[22]

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 German invasion of Norway, which was successful despite British efforts.

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 could not govern effectively as a member of the House of Lords instead of the House of Commons. Although traditionally, the Prime Minister does not 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.^[23]

Churchill with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Field Marshal Alan Brooke, 1944

Churchill's greatest achievement was that he refused to capitulate when defeat by Germany was a strong possibility and all seemed hopeless, and he remained a strong opponent of any negotiations with Germany. Few others in the Cabinet had this degree of resolve. By adopting a policy of no surrender, Churchill kept democracy alive in the UK and created the basis for the later Allied counter-attacks of 1942-45, with Britain serving as a platform for the supply of Soviet Russia and the liberation of Western Europe.

Among the many consequences of this stand was that Britain was maintained as a base from which the Allies could attack Germany, thereby ensuring that the Soviet sphere of influence did not extend over Western Europe at the end of the war.

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" speech. He followed that closely with two other equally famous ones, given just before the Battle of Britain. One included the immortal line, "We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." The other included the equally famous "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 famously said:

"This is not the end. It is not 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 emphasize the dangers instead.

"Rhetorical power," wrote Churchill, "is neither wholly bestowed, nor wholly acquired, but cultivated."

Relations with the United States

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Churchill at the Cairo Conference in 1943

His 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. On 26 December 1941 Churchill addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress, asking of Germany and Japan, "What kind of people do they think we are?".^[24] 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 suffered, 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 100,000 miles throughout the war to meet other national leaders. For security, he usually travelled using the alias Colonel Warden.^[25]

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, where they pledged to convert Germany after its unconditional surrender "into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character."^[26]

Relations with 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. 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 in 1944, "Expulsion is the method which, insofar as we have 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 am 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.

On 9 October 1944, he and Eden were in Moscow, and that night they met Joseph Stalin in the Kremlin, without the Americans. Bargaining went on throughout the night. Churchill wrote on a piece of paper that Stalin had a 90 percent "interest" in Romania, Britain a 90 percent "interest" in Greece and a 100 percent "interest" in Italy, both Russia and Britain a 50 percent "interest" in Yugoslavia. The crucial questions arose when the Ministers of Foreign Affairs discussed "percentages" in Eastern Europe. Molotov's proposals were that Russia should have a 75 percent interest in Hungary, 75 percent in Bulgaria, and 60 percent in Yugoslavia. This was Stalin's price for ceding Italy and Greece. Eden tried to haggle: Hungary 75/25, Bulgaria 80/20, but Yugoslavia 50/50. After lengthy bargaining they settled on an 80/20 division of interest between Russia and Britain in Bulgaria and Hungary, and a 50/50 division in Yugoslavia. U.S. Ambassador Averell Harriman was informed only after the bargain was struck. This gentleman's agreement was sealed with a handshake.^[27]

After World War II

Although the importance of Churchill's role in World War II was undeniable, he had many enemies in his own country. He expressed contempt for a number of popular ideas, in particular public health care and better education for the majority of the population, and produced much dissatisfaction amongst the population, particularly those who had fought in the war.Template:Fact Immediately following the close of the war in Europe, Churchill was heavily defeated in the 1945 election by Clement Attlee and the Labour Party.^[28] Some historians think that many British voters believed that the man who had led the nation so well in war was not the best man to lead it in peace. Others see the election result as a reaction not against Churchill personally, but against the Conservative Party's record in the 1930s under Baldwin and Chamberlain. During the opening broadcast of the election campaign Churchill astonished many of his admirers by warning that a Labour government would introduce into Britain "some form of Gestapo, no doubt humanely administered in the first instance". Churchill had been genuinely worried during the war by the inroads of state bureaucracy into civil liberty, and was clearly influenced by Friedrich Hayek's anti-totalitarian tract, The Road to Serfdom (1944).

Winston Churchill was an early supporter of the pan-Europeanism that eventually led to the formation of the European Common Market and later the European Union (for which one of the three main buildings of the European Parliament is named in his honour). However, this is often seen as his supporting Britain's membership in that pan-Europeanism, which is far from the truth. Rather, he saw Pan Europeanism as a Franco-German project which would foster cooperation amongst European countries and the rest of the world and prevent war on the European continent.This can be seen in Churchill’s landmark refusal to join the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951 as well as his often quoted speech in which he said of Britain's role with Europe:

We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined.We are interested and associated but not absorbed.^[29]

This stance has, arguably, shaped Britain's feelings toward European integration and its subsequent general ambivalence towards all things Europe. He much more saw Britain's place as separate from the continent, much more in-line with the countries of the Commonwealth and the Empire and with the United States, the so-called Anglosphere.As evidenced in his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, given on 5 March 1946 where as a guest of Harry S. Truman, he declared:

The sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organisation will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States.^[30]

It was also during this speech that he famously popularised the term "The Iron Curtain":

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere.^[30]

Churchill was instrumental in giving France a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (which provided another European power to counterbalance the Soviet Union's permanent seat).

Second term

Churchill was restless and bored as leader of the Conservative opposition in the immediate post-war years. 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 — would last until his resignation in 1955. During this period, he renewed what he called the "special relationship" between Britain and the United States, and engaged himself in the formation of the post-war order. On racial questions, Churchill was still a late Victorian. He tried in vain to manoeuvre the cabinet into restricting West Indian immigration. "Keep England White" was a good slogan, he told the cabinet in January 1955.^[31]

Churchill with Canadian Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent in 1954

His domestic priorities were, however, 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. Trying to retain what he could of the Empire, he once stated that, "I will not preside over a dismemberment."

The Mau Mau Rebellion

For more information, see: Mau Mau Uprising.

In 1951, grievances against the colonial distribution of land came to a head with the Kenya Africa Union demanding greater representation and land reform. When these demands were rejected, more radical elements came forward, launching the Mau Mau rebellion in 1952. On 17 August 1952, a state of emergency was declared, and British troops were flown to Kenya to deal with the rebellion. As both sides increased the ferocity of their attacks, the country moved to full-scale civil war.

In 1953, the Lari massacre, perpetrated by Mau-Mau insurgents against Kikuyu loyal to the British, changed the political complexion of the rebellion and gave the public-relations advantage to the British. Churchill's strategy was to use a military stick combined with implementing many of the concessions that Attlee's government had blocked in 1951. He ordered an increased military presence and appointed General Sir George Erskine, who would implement Operation Anvil in 1954 that broke the back of the rebellion in the city of Nairobi. Operation Hammer, in turn, was designed to root out rebels in the countryside. Churchill ordered peace talks opened, but these collapsed shortly after his leaving office.

Malayan Emergency

For more information, see: Malayan Emergency.

In Malaya, a rebellion against British rule had been in progress since 1948. Once again, Churchill's government inherited a crisis, and once again Churchill chose to use direct military action against those in rebellion while attempting to build an alliance with those who were not. He stepped up the implementation of a "hearts and minds" campaign and approved the creation of fortified villages, a tactic that would become a recurring part of Western military strategy in South-east Asia. (See Vietnam War).

The Malayan Emergency was a more direct case of a guerrilla movement, centred in an ethnic group, but backed by the Soviet Union. As such, Britain's policy of direct confrontation and military victory had a great deal more support than in Iran or in Kenya. At the highpoint of the conflict, over 35,500 British troops were stationed in Malaya. As the rebellion lost ground, it began to lose favour with the local population.

While the rebellion was slowly being defeated, it was equally clear that colonial rule from Britain was no longer plausible. In 1953, plans were drawn up for independence for Singapore and the other crown colonies in the region. The first elections were held in 1955, just days before Churchill's own resignation, and in 1957, under Prime Minister Anthony Eden, Malaya became independent.

Stroke

In June 1953, when he was 78, Churchill suffered a stroke after a meeting with the Italian Prime Minister at No. 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. He returned to public life in October to make a speech at a Conservative Party conference at Margate, having decided that if he couldn't make the speech, he would retire as Prime Minister — but he was able to deliver it without problems.

Family and personal life

A young Winston Churchill and fiancée Clementine Hozier shortly before their marriage in 1908.

Winston Churchill with son Randolph and grandson Winston

On 12 September 1908 at the socially desirable St. Margaret's, Westminster, Churchill married Clementine Hozier, a woman whom he had met at a dinner party that March (he had proposed to actress Ethel Barrymore but was turned down). They had five children: Diana; Randolph; Sarah, who co-starred with Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding; Marigold (1918–21), who died in early childhood; and Mary, who has written a book about her parents. Churchill's son Randolph and his grandsons Nicholas Soames and Winston all followed him into Parliament. The daughters tended to marry politicians and support their careers.

Clementine's mother was Lady Blanche Hozier, second wife of Sir Henry Montague Hozier and a daughter of the 7th Earl of Airlie. Clementine's paternity, however, is open to debate. Lady Blanche was well known for sharing her favours and was eventually divorced as a result. She maintained that Clementine's father was Capt. William George "Bay" Middleton, a noted horseman. But Clementine's biographer Joan Hardwick has surmised, due to Sir Henry Hozier's reputed sterility, that all Lady Blanche's "Hozier" children were actually fathered by her sister's husband, Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, better known as a grandfather of the famous Mitford sisters.

When not in London on government business, Churchill usually lived at his beloved Chartwell House in Kent, two miles south of Westerham. He and his wife bought the house in 1922 and lived there until his death in 1965. During his Chartwell stays, he enjoyed writing as well as painting, bricklaying, and admiring the estate's famous black swans.

As a painter he was prolific, with over 570 paintings and two sculptures; he received a Diploma from the Royal Academy of London. His paintings were catalogued after his death by historian David Coombs with the support of the Churchill family. Coombs has published two books on the subject. The modern archive of Churchill's art work is managed by designer Tony Malone, who oversees the administration and management of digital catalogue. Anthea Morton Saner and the Churchill Heritage Trust are responsible for all copyrights.

Like many politicians of his age, Churchill was also a member of several English gentlemen's clubs — the Reform Club and the National Liberal Club whilst he was a Liberal MP, and later the Athenaeum, Boodle's, Bucks, and the Carlton Club when he was a Conservative. Despite his multiple memberships, Churchill was not a habitual clubman; he spent relatively little time in each of these, and preferred to conduct any lunchtime or dinner meetings at the Savoy Grill or the Ritz, or else in the Members' Dining Room of the House of Commons when meeting other MPs.

Churchill's fondness for alcoholic beverages was well-documented. While in India and South Africa, he got in the habit of adding small amounts of whisky to the water he drank in order to prevent disease. He was quoted on the subject as saying that "by dint of careful application I learned to like it." He consumed alcoholic drinks on a near-daily basis for long periods in his life, and frequently imbibed before, after, and during mealtimes. He is not generally considered by historians to have been an alcoholic, although his drinking did very probably cause a number of noticeable negative effects on his ability to govern and possibly on his personal life.Template:Fact The Churchill Centre states that Churchill made a bet with a man with the last name of Rothermere (possibly one of the Viscounts Rothermere) in 1936 that Churchill would be able to successfully abstain from drinking hard liquor for a year; Churchill apparently won the bet.^[32]

According to William Manchester in The Last Lion, Churchill's favourite whisky was Johnnie Walker Red.

For much of his life, Churchill battled with depression (or perhaps a sub-type of manic-depression), which he called his black dog.^[33]

Churchill was recognised for his trademark cigar, suit with bow tie and his red hair, (which became sandy as he grew older).

Mary Machado (aka Mary Stanley Low), the well-known author of Red Spanish Notebook, was Winston Churchill's second cousin

Churchill was an hereditary member of the Society of the Cincinnati by right of descent from his great-great grandfather Reuben Murray.

Last days

Aware that he was slowing down both physically and mentally, Churchill retired as Prime Minister in 1955 and was succeeded by Anthony Eden, who had long been his ambitious protégé (three years earlier, Eden had married Churchill's niece, Anne Clarissa Spencer-Churchill, his second marriage.) Upon his resignation, the Queen offered him a dukedom; he declined, sometimes voting in parliamentary divisions, but never again speaking in the House. He continued to serve as an MP for Woodford until he stood down for the last time at the 1964 General Elections. His private verdict on the Suez fiasco was: "I would never have done it without squaring the Americans, and once I'd started I'd never have dared stop".^[34] In 1959, he became Father of the House, the MP with the longest continuous service. Churchill spent most of his retirement at Chartwell House in Kent, two miles south of Westerham.

As Churchill's mental and physical faculties decayed, he began to lose the battle he had fought for so long against the ["black dog"] of depression. He found some solace in the sunshine and colours of the Mediterranean. He took long holidays with his literary adviser Emery Reves and his wife, Wendy Russell, at La Pausa, their villa on the French Riviera, seldom joined by Clementine. He also took eight cruises aboard the yacht Christina as the guest of Aristotle Onassis. Once, when the Christina had to pass through the Dardanelles, Onassis gave instructions that it was to do so during the night, so as not to disturb his guest with unhappy memories.

In 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, acting under authorisation granted by an Act of Congress, proclaimed Churchill the first Honorary Citizen of the United States.^[35] Churchill was physically incapable of attending the White House ceremony, so his son and grandson accepted the award for him.

Churchill's final years were melancholy. He never resolved the love–hate relationship between himself and his son. Sarah was descending into alcoholism and Diana committed suicide in the autumn of 1964. Churchill himself suffered a number of minor strokes. It was a figure ravaged by age and sorrow who appeared at the window of his London home, 28 Hyde Park Gate, to greet the photographers on his ninetieth birthday in November 1964.

The Grave of Winston and Clementine Churchill at St Martin's Church, Bladon

On 15 January 1965, Churchill suffered another stroke — a severe cerebral thrombosis — that left him gravely ill. He died at his home nine days later, at age 90, shortly after eight o'clock on the morning of 24 January 1965, 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.^[36] 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, the cranes of London's docklands bowed in a spontaneous 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 state funeral was the largest gathering of dignitaries in Britain as representatives from well over 100 countries attended, including French President Charles de Gaulle, Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, Prime Minister of Rhodesia Ian Smith, former U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower, and many other heads of state, including past and present heads of state and government, and members of royalty. The cortège left London from Waterloo station, as (according to legend) Churchill had requested should he predecease De Gaulle.^[37] The train was hauled by Battle of Britain class Locomotive No. 34051 — Winston Churchill.^[38]Fittingly, this was the last great State occasion to be movingly commented upon by the great British broadcaster Richard Dimbleby who died of lung cancer in December 1965. The funeral also saw the largest assemblage of statesmen in the world until the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005.

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. In the fields along the route, and at the stations through which the train passed, thousands stood in silence to pay their last respects. In 1998 his tombstone had to be replaced due to the large number of visitors over the years having eroded it and its surrounding area. A new stone was dedicated in a ceremony attended by members of the Spencer-Churchill family.^[39]

Because the funeral took place on 30 January, people in the United States marked it by paying tribute to his friendship with Franklin D. Roosevelt because it was the anniversary of FDR's birth. The tributes were led by Roosevelt's children at the president's grave at the FDR Presidential Library. On 9 February 1965, Churchill's estate was probated at £304,044 (equivalent to about £3.8m in 2004).

Churchill as historian

For more information, see: Winston Churchill as historian.

Honours

For more information, see: Honours of Winston Churchill.

Aside from receiving the great honour of a state funeral, Churchill also received numerous awards and honours, including being made an Honorary Citizen of the United States.

File:Petitpalaisandchurchill.jpg

Churchill and the Petit Palais in Paris

Churchill and Roosevelt in Bond Street, London

Churchill's Cabinets

Churchill's war cabinet, May 1940 – May 1945

For more information, see: Coalition Government 1940–1945.

Winston Churchill — Prime Minister, Minister of Defence and Leader of the House of Commons.
Neville Chamberlain — Lord President of the Council
Clement Attlee — Lord Privy Seal and effective Deputy Leader of the House of Commons.
Lord Halifax — Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
Arthur Greenwood — Minister without Portfolio

Changes

August 1940: Lord Beaverbrook (a Canadian-British citizen), Minister of Aircraft Production, joins the War Cabinet
October 1940: Sir John Anderson succeeds Neville Chamberlain as Lord President. Sir Kingsley Wood, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Ernest Bevin, the Minister of Labour, enter the War Cabinet. Lord Halifax assumes the additional job of Leader of the House of Lords.
December 1940: Anthony Eden succeeds Lord Halifax as Foreign Secretary. Halifax remains nominally in the Cabinet as Ambassador to the United States. His successor as Leader of the House of Lords is not in the War Cabinet.
May 1941: Lord Beaverbrook ceased to be Minister of Aircraft Production, but remains in the Cabinet as Minister of State. His successor was not in the War Cabinet.
June 1941: Lord Beaverbrook becomes Minister of Supply, remaining in the War Cabinet.
1941: Oliver Lyttelton enters the Cabinet as Minister Resident in the Middle East.
4 February 1942: Lord Beaverbrook becomes Minister of War Production; his successor as Minister of Supply is not in the War Cabinet.
19 February 1942: Beaverbrook resigns and no replacement Minister of War Production is appointed for the moment. Clement Attlee becomes Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister. Sir Stafford Cripps succeeds Attlee as Lord Privy Seal and takes over the position of Leader of the House of Commons from Churchill. Sir Kingsley Wood leaves the War Cabinet, though remaining Chancellor of the Exchequer.
22 February 1942: Arthur Greenwood resigns from the War Cabinet.
March 1942: Oliver Lyttelton fills the vacant position of Minister of Production ("War" was dropped from the title). Richard Gardiner Casey (a member of the Australian Parliament) succeeds Oliver Lyttelton as Minister Resident in the Middle East.
October 1942: Sir Stafford Cripps retires as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons and leaves the War Cabinet. His successor as Lord Privy Seal is not in the Cabinet, Anthony Eden takes the additional position of Leader of the House of Commons. The Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, enters the Cabinet.
September 1943: Sir John Anderson succeeds Sir Kingsley Wood (deceased) as Chancellor of the Exchequer, remaining in the War Cabinet. Clement Attlee succeeds Anderson as Lord President, remaining also Deputy Prime Minister. Attlee's successor as Dominions Secretary is not in the Cabinet.
November 1943: Lord Woolton enters the Cabinet as Minister of Reconstruction.
January to November 1944: Lord Moyne replaces Richard Gardiner Casey as Minister Resident in the Middle East.