FREE ESSAY ON CHURCHILL

CHURCHILL

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL, (1874-1965), British leader. English on his
father's side, American on his mother's, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
embodied and expressed the double vitality and the national qualities of both peoples.
His
names testify to the richness of his historic inheritance: Winston, after the Royalist
family
with whom the Churchills married before the English Civil War; Leonard, after his
remarkable grandfather, Leonard Jerome of New York; Spencer, the married name of a
daughter of the 1st duke of Marlborough, from whom the family descended; Churchill,
the family name of the 1st duke, which his descendents resumed after the Battle of
Waterloo. All these strands come together in a career that had no parallel in British
history for richness, range, length, and achievement. 
Churchill took a leading part in laying the foundations of the welfare state in
Britain, in preparing the Royal Navy for World War I, and in settling the political
boundaries in the Middle East after the war. In WORLD WAR II emerged as the leader of
the united British nation and Commonwealth to resist the German domination of Europe,
as an inspirer of the resistance among free peoples, and as a prime architect of victory.
In
this, and in the struggle against communism afterward, he made himself an indispensable
link between the British and American peoples, for he foresaw that the best defense for
the free world was the coming together of the English-speaking peoples. Profoundly
historically minded, he also had prophetic foresight: British-American unity was the
message of his last great book, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. 
His dominant qualities were courage and imagination. Less obvious to the public,
but no less important, was his powerful, original, and fertile intellect. He had intense
loyalty, marked magnanimity and generosity, and an affectionate nature with a puckish
humor. Oratory, in which he ultimately became a master, he learned the hard way, but he
was a natural wit. The artistic side of his temperament was displayed in his writings
and
oratorical style, as well as in his paintings.
He was a combination of soldier, writer, artist, and statesman. He was not so good
as a mere party politician. Like Julius Caesar, he stands out not only as a great man of
action, but as a writer of it too. He had genius; as a man he was charming, gay,
ebullient,
endearing. As for personal defects, such a man was bound to be a great egoist; if that is
a
defect. So strong a personality was apt to be overbearing. He was something of a
gambler,
always too willing to take risks. In his earlier career, people thought him of
unbalanced
judgment partly from the very excess of his energies and gifts. That is the worst that
can
be said of him. With no other great man is the familiar legend more true to the facts.
We
know all there is to know about him; there was no disguise. 
He was born on Nov. 30, 1874, at Blenheim Palace, the famous palace near
Oxford built by the nation for John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, the great
soldier.
Blenheim, named after Marlborough's grandest victory (1704), meant much to Winston
Churchill. In the grounds there he became engaged to his future wife, Clementine Ogilvy
Hozier (b. 1885). He later wrote his historical masterpiece, The Life and Times of John
Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, with the archives of Blenheim behind him. 
His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a younger son of the 7th duke of
Marlborough. His mother was Jennie Jerome; and as her mother, Clara Hall, was
one-quarter Iroquois, Sir Winston had an Indian strain in him. Lord Randolph, a
brilliant
Conservative leader who had been chancellor of the exchequer in his 30's, died when only
46, after ruining his career. His son wrote that one could not grow up in that household
without realizing that there had been a disaster in the background. It was an early spur
to
him to try to make up for his gifted father's failure, not only in politics and in
writing, but
on the turf. Young Winston, though the grandson of a duke, had to make his own way in
the world, earning his living by his tongue and his pen. In this he had the comradeship
of
his mother, who was always courageous and undaunted. 
In 1888 he entered Harrow, but he never got into the upper school because, always
self-willed, he would not study classics. He concentrated on his own language, willingly
writing English essays, and he afterward claimed that this was much more profitable to
him. In 1894 he graduated from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He then was
commissioned in the 4th Hussars. On leave in 1895, he went for his first experience of
action to serve as a military observer and correspondent with the Spanish forces
fighting
the guerrillas in Cuba. 
Rejoining his regiment, he was sent to serve in India. Here, besides his addiction
to polo, he went on seriously with his education, which in his case was very much
self-education. His mother sent out to him boxes of books, and Churchill absorbed the
whole of Gibbon and Macaulay, and much of Darwin. The influence of the historians is to
be observed all through his writings and in his way of looking at things. The influence
of
Darwin is not less observable in his philosophy of life: that all life is a struggle,
the
chances of survival favor the fittest, chance is a great element in the game, the game is
to
be played with courage, and every moment is to be enjoyed to the full. This philosophy
served him well throughout his long life. In 1897 he served in the Indian army in the
Malakand expedition against the restless tribesmen of the North-West Frontier, and the
next year appeared his first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force. In the same
year, 1898, he served with the Tirah expeditionary force, and came home to seek service
in General Kitchener's campaign for the reconquest of the Sudan. Once again young
Churchill managed to play the dual role of active officer and war correspondent. As such
he took part at Omdurman in one of the last classic battles of earlier warfare; cavalry
charges, a thin red line of fire against clouds of fanatical dervishes. The Battle of
Omdurman was the end of a world. Once more Churchill wrote it up, and the whole
campaign, in The River War (2 vols., 1899), a fine example of military history by an
eyewitness. He made enemies among the professional soldiers by his frank criticisms of
army defects. He entertained himself by writing a novel, Savrola (1900), which curiously
anticipates later developments in history, war, and in his own mind. 
On the outbreak of the South African War in 1899, he went out as war
correspondent for the London Morning Post. Within a month of his arrival, he was
captured when acting more as a soldier than as a journalist, by the Boer officer Louis
Botha (who subsequently became the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa
and a trusted friend). Taken to prison camp in Pretoria, Churchill made a dramatic
escape
and traveled via Portuguese East Africa back to the fighting front in Natal. His escape
made him world-famous overnight. He described his experiences in a couple of
journalistic books and made a first lecture tour in the United States. The proceeds from
the tour enabled him to enter Parliament (M. P.'s were not paid in those days). 
On Jan. 23, 1901, Churchill became member of Parliament for Oldham
(Lancashire) as a Conservative. But he had returned from South Africa sympathetic to the
Boer cause, and his army experiences had made him extremely critical of its command
and administration, which he proceeded to attack all along the line. The tariff proposals
of
Joseph Chamberlain completed his alienation from the Conservative party, and in 1904
Churchill left the party to join the Liberals. In consequence he was for years execrated
by
the Conservatives, and was unpopular with army authorities. 
As Liberal M. P. for Northwest Manchester and for Dundee, he was in a position
to share in the long Liberal run of power and to take his place in one of the ablest
British
governments in modern times. As undersecretary of state for the colonies he played a
considerable part in making a generous peace with the Boers. In 1906, he published the
authoritative biography, Lord Randolph Churchill (2 vols.), and in 1908, My African
Journey, a first-class example of his lifelong flair for journalism. In this year, 1908,
he
married and, in his own words, lived happily ever afterwards. By his marriage to
Clementine Hozier there were one son (Randolph) and four daughters (Diana, Sarah,
Mary, and one who died in infancy). 
As president of the board of trade (1908-1910) and home secretary (1910-1911),
he contributed largely to the early legislation of the welfare state. He helped to
create
labor exchanges, to introduce health and unemployment insurance, to prescribe minimum
wages in certain industries, and to limit working hours. As first lord of the admiralty
(1911-1915), he was in a key position, as German naval power rose to its peak and
modernization of the British fleet became an urgent necessity. Churchill's collaboration
with Admiral Lord Fisher to this end was historic: it produced the changeover to
oil-fueled ships from coalburning vessels, the creation of a naval air service, and the
first
development of the tank. With war approaching, Churchill, on his own responsibility,
kept the fleet fully mobilized. 
With the German onrush through neutral Belgium in 1914, he led a naval
detachment to Antwerp, but failed to stem the tide. In 1915 he made himself responsible
for the campaign to force the Dardanelles, with the aim of pushing Turkey out of the
war,
of linking up with Russia, and of taking the Central Powers in the rear. The campaign
foundered, partly through bad luck, partly through lack of experience in combined
operations. Churchill was made to take the responsibility, and when a coalition
government was formed in May 1915, the Conservatives made it a condition that he
should be dropped as first lord of the admiralty. 
The Dardanelles failure seemed the end of his political career. He took up painting
as a hobby and a consolation, and he remained devoted to it for the rest of his life.
His
accomplishment in the art should not be underestimated. In 1916 he went back to the
army, gallantly volunteering for active service on the western front, where he commanded
the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers. But his energy and ability could not be dispensed with,
and
Prime Minister Lloyd George called him back to become minister of munitions. 
At the end of the war, Churchill became secretary of state for war and also for air
(1919-1921). In this post he pushed through army reforms and the development of air
power, and became a pilot himself. He involved himself in much controversy by backing
the efforts of the counterrevolutionaries against the Bolsheviks in Russia. As secretary
of
state for air and colonies (1921-1922), he took a leading part in establishing the new
Arab
states in the Middle East, while supporting a Jewish national home in Palestine as an
act
of historic and humanitarian justice. He was also closely concerned in the negotiations
to
establish the Irish Free State, and thus earned further Conservative distrust. 
Having lost his seat in Parliament in the 1922 elections, Churchill lived in the
political wilderness for the next two years. He was able to go forward with his memoirs,
The World Crisis (5 vols., 1923-1929), a large canvas. After various attempts to form a
central, antisocialist grouping, he went back to the Conservative party in time to
become
chancellor of the exchequer in Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's government
(1924-1929). He was least happy in this office and ill at ease with economic affairs.
During the whole of this disastrous period of 1929-1939, Churchill was out of office.
During these years of political frustration he wrote his major works: Marlborough (4
vols., 1933-1938); the first draft of A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (4
vols.,1956-1958); a vivid and characteristic autobiography, My Early Life (1930); a
revealing and suggestive book, Thoughts and Adventures (1932); and a volume of
brilliant, if generous, portrait sketches, Great Contemporaries (1937). He also began to
collect his speeches and newspaper articles warning the country of the wrath to come. 
No one would take heed of his reiterated warnings of the folly of attempting to
appease HITLER and of the necessity to bring together a Grand Alliance against the
aggressor powers before it was too late. Baldwin and Chamberlain were too solidly
entrenched in power to shift. Churchill tried to rally the right-wing Conservatives
against
Baldwin's liberal Indian policy, and he backed Edward VIII against Baldwin at the time
of
the king's abdication in 1936. These weapons broke in his hands, and only lost him
support. Appeasement went on to the bitter end. 
When war came in 1939, Churchill was inevitably recalled, as first lord of the
admiralty. The signal went round the fleet, Winston is back, a quarter of a century
after
his first going to the post. But the first wave of German military power overwhelmed
Poland in September, and in the spring of 1940 the tidal wave overwhelmed northwestern
Europe, followed shortly afterward by the fall of France. 
On May 10, 1940, in the midst of this cataract of disasters, Churchill was called to
supreme power and responsibility by a spontaneous revolt of the best elements in all
parties. He, almost alone of the nation's political leaders, had had no part in the
disaster of
the 1930's, and he really was chosen by the will of the nation. For the next five years,
perhaps the most heroic period in Britain's history, he held supreme command, as prime
minister and minister of defense, in the nation's war effort. At this point his life and
career
became one with Britain's story and its survival. 
At first, until 1941, Britain fought on alone. Churchill's task was to inspire
resistance at all costs, to organize the defense of the island, and to make it the
bastion for
an eventual return to the continent of Europe, whose liberation from Nazi tyranny he
never doubted. He breathed a new spirit into the government and a new resolve into the
nation. Upon becoming prime minister he told the Commons: I have nothing to offer but
blood, toil, tears, and sweat: You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage
war, by
sea, land, and air, with all our might. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one
word:
Victory. 
Meanwhile he made himself the spokesman for these purposes among all free
peoples, as he made Britain a home for all the faithful remnants of the continental
governments. These included the Free French, for Churchill had himself picked out
Charles DE GAULLE as the man of destiny. But Churchill's personal relationship with
President Franklin D. ROOSEVELT was Britain's lifeline. Britain had lost most of her
army equipment in the fall of France and during the evacuation of the British
Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk in June. Roosevelt rushed across the Atlantic a supply
of weapons that made a beginning. 
By the autumn of 1940, Churchill was convinced that Germany could not bring
off the invasion of Britain. Secure in this conviction, he took the momentous decision
to
send one of the only two armored divisions left in Britain to Egypt, to hold the land
bridge to the East. Submarine warfare had placed asevere strain on the British navy, and
Roosevelt again came to Britain's aid with the lease of 50 destroyers. Churchill took
the
grievous decision to cripple the French fleet at Oran, Algeria. He could not take the
risk
of the French navy's being taken over by the Germans, for this probably would have been
the end for Britain. 
The turning point of the war came in 1941, when Churchill took advantage of his
opponents' mistakes. Hitler's invasion of Russia brought Russia into the war, and
Churchill seized the opportunity of welcoming a powerful ally with both hands. Japan's
attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war, and Hitler made the
mistake of declaring war on the United States. Churchill's unforgettable speech to
Congress after Pearl Harbor expressed something of the inspiration and high resolve in
the face of mortal danger that he had given his countrymen while they had fought on
alone for over a year. 
The Grand Alliance to combat aggression that he had had in mind from the 1930's
was now a fact. Churchill made himself the linchpin, journeying uncomplaining between
Roosevelt and STALIN, though an older man than either. It was possible now to plan the
liberation of the world from the aggressors. He and Roosevelt set forth their war aims
in
the Atlantic Charter, signed aboard the U.S.S. Augusta off Newfoundland in August
1941. The first results of Allied cooperation were the landings in North Africa, the
rounding up of the Nazi forces there, and the invasion of Sicily and Italy, the soft
under-belly of the Axis. It proved harder going than was expected, supporting
Churchill's opposition to the opening of a second front in the west. Not until the
summer
of 1944 were the preparations complete for the invasion of Normandy, to break open
Hitler's Europe.Churchill had always had an acute personal interest in combined
operations, and he regarded the mobile Mulberry harbors as in large part his own idea.
Only the personal order of King George VI prevented the prime minister from landing
with the landing forces on D-day. 
The last year of the war saw the famous partnership between Churchill and
Roosevelt dissolving. Churchill looked to the shape of things that would emerge after
the
war, with the immense accession of strength to Russia and to communism in Europe. At
the summit conferences in Teheran and Yalta, Churchill was grieved to find the president
not supporting him in his struggle with Stalin to contain Russian expansion after the
war.
On the surrender of Germany in May 1945,Churchill rode around London in the victory 
celebrations, but, as he wrote, there was foreboding in his heart. 
Before the surrender of Japan, Churchill's wartime government broke up, and the
Labour party won a large majority in the general election of July 1945. Churchill was
deeply affected by this blow, though it was in no sense a vote of censure upon him but
upon 20 years of Conservative rule. He continued to enjoy esteem as leader of the
opposition Conservative party. 
He turned to writing a personal history, The Second World War (6 vols.,
1948-1953), and to painting, exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy. Though he was
out of office, his prestige was a major asset to his country. In his famous iron curtain
speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., he warned the West against Russia's aims
and the aggrandizement of communism, making a plea for cooperation between the
English-speaking peoples as the only hope of checking it. This aroused a storm of
controversy in theUnited States, but events soon confirmed Churchill's view of the world
picture. 
On Oct. 26, 1951, at the age of 77, he again became prime minister, as well as
minister of defense. As the Conservatives held a very small majority and Britain faced
very difficult economic circumstances, only the old man's willpower enabled his
government to survive. He held on to see the young Queen Elizabeth II crowned at
Westminster in June 1953, himself attending as a Knight of the Garter, an honor he had 
received a few weeks earlier. In 1953, also, he received the Nobel Prize in literature.
On
April 5, 1955, in his 80th year, he resigned as prime minister, but he continued to sit
in
Commons until July 1964. 
Churchill's later years were relatively tranquil. In 1958 the Royal Academy
devoted its galleries to a retrospective one-man show of his work. On April 9,1963, he
received, by special act of the U.S. Congress, the unprecedented honor of being made an
honorary American citizen. When he died in London on Jan. 24, 1965, at the age of 90,
he was acclaimed as a citizen of the world, and on January 30 he was given the funeral
of
a hero. He was buried at Bladon,in the little churchyard near Blenheim Palace, his
birthplace.