Churchill’s Brains Saved the Civilized World from Disaster – The Cleverest Military Strategist of the 20th Century

75TH ANNIVERSARY

BY JAYANTHA GUNASEKERA, PRESIDENT’S COUNSEL

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born to a highly respectable family. He was the son of Lord Randolph Churchill and was born at Blenheim Palace on 30th Nov, 1874. How he got into Harrow is a mystery, for he showed no scholastic ability beyond a remarkable capacity for memorizing poetry. He never mastered Latin and did not rise above the Junior School. He had no University Education. After two failures, he was squeezed into the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. There he suddenly matured. Not only did he do brilliantly in his military studies, but he began to take a keen interest in his father’s political career. His father, Lord Randolf died of a questionable ailment.

Leaving Sandhurst in 1894, Winston was gazetted to the Fourth Hussars in 1896. In 1896 he went out with his Regiment, to India. He was a War Correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and the Allahabad Pioneer. Four years later he fought in Sudan under Kitchener to crush the rebel Dervishes.

Back in England, Winston wrote the tale of the “River War” which brought him high praise and profits. He decided to give up the Army and enter Politics. In 1899, he fought and lost a bi-election at Old Ham. The Boer War started in the Autumn, and he served as the Chief War Correspondent of the Morning Post. Whilst he was in an Armoured Train venturing into Boer Territory, the train was ambushed and he was taken prisoner, to Pretoria. He escaped to Durban. The Boers had offered a reward of 25 Pounds for his capture – Dead or Alive. In the 1900 election, he was elected to Old Ham, and soon made his mark in Parliament as a brilliant speaker. In 1902 he opposed Joseph Chamberlain’s Tariff Reform Campaign and he crossed the floor of the House to join his friend, Lloyd George in the Liberal Party.

In the 1906 Elections, Churchill was returned as a Liberal for North West Manchester. He was then appointed Undersecretary for the Colonies and piloted giving Transvaal self-government. During this period, he met Ms. Clementine Hozier, a granddaughter of the Countess of Airlie. They got married and in Winston’s own words, “lived happily ever after”.

In 1911 he took over the Admiralty from McKenna and equipped the country with battleships. As Lord of the Admiralty, sensing danger he arranged a big naval rally and retained the fleet on an Active Service footing, without Cabinet authority. When the First World War broke out in 1914, the British Navy thanks to Churchill was ready. In the first few months, the Oceans were swept clear of German Vessels and every hostile warship was either sunk or bottled up in enemy harbours.

War was Churchill’s native air, and he plunged joyously into the struggle. He organized the Royal Naval Air Service to defend Britain’s Coasts, and directed the unsuccessful defence of Antwerp. He launched an amphibious attack on Turkey through the Dardenelles, but Kitchener would not spare the men and they failed. Churchill got the blame. When the First Coalition was set up, the Tories insisted on driving away Churchill from the Admiralty into the ineffective post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

In 1917 Prime Minister Lloyd George made Churchill the Minister of Munitions, and at the end of the War, he took over the War Office, to superintend demobilization. In 1924, the Tories won the election, and Churchill became Chancellor of the Exchequer.

At the 1929 elections the government fell and Labour again took office. Churchill made no secret of his opinion of Ramsay MacDonald . He also quarreled with Stanley Baldwin about the issue of Indian Self government. In 1931, with the financial depression, Churchill was left out of government. During this period he wrote books, and painted pictures. His history of the First World War and life at Marlborough are treasured by the reading public.

When King Edward the 8th ascended the throne , the Prime Minister was Stanley Baldwin. The King ordered the Prime Minister to better the lot of miners. Baldwin said that Britain had no money , as they were recovering from the financial depression of 1931. The King also sought approval to marry the twice married divorcee American, Wallis Simpson. Baldwin declared to the King that it will be done only over his dead body. The King abdicated , married Simpson and became the Duke of Windsor.

In 1939, the Second World War broke out. Holland surrendered to the Germans, and Belgium surrendered two weeks later. In the first speech to the House of Commons, Churchill said, “I have nothing to offer but blood, tears, toil and sweat”. He spoke to the heart of the British people who welcomed his tone of grim and unyielding defiance. Then followed the miracle of Dunkirk. Churchill voiced the spirit of the Nation in a broadcast, conveying it’s unconquerable determination , “we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets”.

Britain stood all alone, for Mussolini had joined Hitler. Now came the Battle of Britain. The Nazi aircraft of the Luftwaffe, swarmed across the Channel to begin a German Invasion. They were brought down by the far smaller RAF fighter force. Churchill, in thanking the few heroic British pilots said, “never in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many, to so few”. He kept the morale of the British Forces and the Nation, by his electrifying speeches, more than with weapons.

He met Roosevelt the President of the USA. He also met Russia’s Stalin, laying aside his antagonism to Bolshevism promising support to the Soviets. He signed the Atlantic Charter with Roosevelt . The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour soon thereafter, and the USA found herself drawn into the War. This is just what Churchill wanted, because the USA all this time only spoon fed Britain, and did not come out openly to the War.

In 1942, he placed Alexander and Montgomery in charge of the North African campaign. Rommel and his Italo-Germans were sent flying , and the Germans were in retreat. In June 1944 was the Normandy Invasion. British and America troops steamed across, and in April 1945, the German forces surrendered. It was on May 8, 1945 that the War in Europe was over. Wildly enthusiastic crowds were cheering Churchill as their hero. Had Britain lost the War, Churchill would have been blown to smithereens by the Germans.

Though Germany and Italy surrendered, their ally Japan was ordered by Emperor Hirohito to keep fighting. He told his subjects, “I am not interested in my allies Germany and Italy surrendering, we will continue to fight”. By that time the USA had perfected the Atom Bomb. They had no choice but to order Capt Tibbets to drop these bombs from his aircraft “Enola Grey”, on Hiroshima and a little later on Nagasaki. Nearly one million Japanese people died.

It is very strange that Emperor Hirohito was not tried at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, though he too was guilty of the carnage where millions died. The Japanese Military Commanders were as inhuman as the German Commanders.

At the very next elections after the War, Churchill lost, and Clement Attlee became Prime Minister. Churchill was in the Opposition for six long years, and was elected Prime Minister in 1951. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, the present Queen of Britain.

Whatever the vicissitudes as Party Leader in domestic politics , Britain has known no greater leader in time of war. Sir Winston Churchill will go down in history as a soldier-citizen, whose courage and eloquence sustained and inspired the people of his motherland Great Britain, in their Darkest Hour, and whose many sided genius brought them through to victory.