Winston Churchill (1874-????)
Churchill’s life encompassed the both the highest tide and lowest ebb of Britain’s power. Born at the height of the Victorian era, Churchill could remember hearing Prime Minister Gladstone describing the stories of veterans of Waterloo. Of all the Entente leading figures of Second Great, none were as romanticized as Britain’s wartime leader. Unlike King Charles XI, Tsar Mikhail and President Featherston; Prime Minister Churchill leadership was able to avoid many of the excesses of the actionist powers of the 1930’s and 1940’s. For many on both sides Britain’s gambit during the Second Great Wars was the British Lion's last defiant roar. His near victory and stunning victories transformed him into a Napoleonic figure. As a result in the post war Second Great War period Britain remains the least reconstructed of all the former Entente powers. Decades after the nations defeat Churchill’s image is still hung in many working class Britain’s home. He will forever remain of symbol of Britain’s past glory.
Youth
Born into the aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the noble Spencer family, Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, like his father, used the surname "Churchill" in public life. Churchill's father, Lord Randolph Churchill, the third son of John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, was a politician; and his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill (née Jennie Jerome) was the daughter of American millionaire Leonard Jerome. The marriage took place in the 1870’s before the outbreak of the Second Mexican War. Despite Britain’s intervening in the War of Secession, many wealthy New York families married their children into the British Aristocracy. Earning acceptance and status, among european elites to go along with their newly acquired wealth. This became less popular after the Second Mexican War when U.S. British relations reached their nadir. Though the practice never entirely died out. Winston would pay of price for his American lineage, he was routinely ridiculed as a half breed american. Despite his father’s exceptional lineage.
Winston was born on 30 November 1874, two months prematurely, in a bedroom in Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire. From age two to six, he lived in Dublin, where his grandfather had been appointed Viceroy and employed Churchill's father as his private secretary. Churchill's brother, John Strange Spencer-Churchill, was born during this time in Ireland.
Independent and rebellious by nature, Churchill generally had a poor academic record in school.He was educated at three independent schools: St. George's School, Ascot, Berkshire; Brunswick School in Hove, near Brighton (the school has since been renamed Stoke Brunswick School and relocated to Ashurst Wood in West Sussex); and at Harrow School from 17 April 1888. Within weeks of his arrival at Harrow, Churchill had joined the Harrow Rifle Corps. As a result of his poor grades, Lord Randolph saw his eldest son as a failure. Early on in his Winston’s life Lord Randolph decided that he should send his son into the army, believing he would be a failure at school or any other path. This was a sentiment he shared with him before his own collapse in syphilitic senility.
Lord Randolph
Like his more famous son, as a member of Parliament Lord Randolph was the leader of a maverick faction of the conservative party throughout the 1870’s and 80’s. Made up of Sir Henry Drummond-Wolff, Sir John Gorst and Arthur Balfour, the group championed the policies of Benjamin Disraeli and point out the hypocrisy of the policies of Prime Minister Gladstone’s invasion of Egypt and backing of the Confederacy in the Second Mexican War. In 1884 he masterminded the Conservative electoral victory through the campaign strategy of adopting progressive causes and undermine middle class reformers, which he called “Tory Democracy.” Believing he should be the leader of the conservative party he resigned his position as Chancellor of the Exchequer, believing that no one would stand up to take his place, forcing Lord Salisbury to step aside. In the interim he made speeches attacking Lord Salisbury's policies on Irish Home Rule and the British- Confederate alliance, both unpopular with the british working class. The CS- British alliance had been a cornerstone of British Foreign that Lord Salisbury helped lay, when he was a young man working at the Foreign office under Lord Palmerston. When the Party eventually rallied around Lord Salisbury Lord Churchill’s career as a conservative was dead. Within ten years he would be dead from complications of Syphilis he contracted as a young man.
Military Service
After Winston left Harrow in 1893, he applied to attend the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He tried three times before passing the entrance exam; he applied to be trained for the cavalry rather than the infantry because the required grade was lower and he was not required to learn mathematics, which he disliked. He graduated eighth out of a class of 150 in December 1894, and although he could now have transferred to an infantry regiment as his father had wished, chose to remain with the cavalry and was commissioned as a cornet (second lieutenant) in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars on 20 February 1895.
Churchill's pay as a second lieutenant in the 4th Hussars was £300 annually. However, he believed that he needed at least a further £500 to support a style of life equal to that of other officers of the regiment. His mother provided an allowance of £400 per year, but this was repeatedly overspent. Churchill never intended to follow a conventional career of promotion through army ranks, but rather to seek out all possible chances of military action, using his mother's and family influence in high society to arrange postings to active campaigns. His writings brought him to the attention of the public, and earned him significant additional income. He acted as a war correspondent for several London newspapers and wrote his own books about the campaigns.
Cuba
In 1895, during the one of Cuba’s perennial revolts, Churchill and fellow officer Reginald Barnes travelled to Cuba to observe the Confederate authorities fight the insurgent Cuban guerrillas; he had obtained a commission to write about the conflict from the Daily Graphic. He came under fire on his twenty-first birthday, and the Cuban governor even awarded him his first medal. Churchill had fond memories of Cuba. While there, he soon acquired a taste for Havana cigars, which he would smoke for the rest of his life. While in New York, he stayed at the home of Bourke Cockran, an admirer of his mother. Bourke was an established Remembrance Democrat politician, and a member of the House of Representatives. He greatly influenced Churchill, both in his approach to oratory and politics, and encouraging a love of America. Cockran arraigned an interview with the hero of the Battle of Teton, Theodore Roosevelt then Inspector General New York National Guard. Churchill had studied the battle of Teton River in depth and wanted to write a biographical piece of Roosevelt, who he considered the battles true hero. Despite pretending otherwise, Roosevelt would remember the their meeting. Roosevelt’s opinion of the Churchill would remain constant. A formidable young man who liked talk about himself too much. (Completely unaware of the irony of such a statement). For remainder of Churchill’s life he would invite comparison between himself and Roosevelt.
India and Self-education
In early October 1896, he was transferred to Bombay, British India. On arrival Churchill badly wrenched his shoulder while leaping from the boat, an injury which would plague him throughout his life. While he was considered one of the best polo players in his regiment his injury would later require him to play polo with his upper arm strapped to his side. Partly at his mother’s urging, Churchill passed the long hot afternoons reading. He read multi-volume historical works by Sir Edmund Burke, Gibbon (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) and Macaulay (History of England) as well as Plato's Republic and works of economics.With some reluctance because of the weight and cost, his mother also sent out copies of Parliamentary debates of the last few generations. In an obvious echo of what he perceived his late father’s position to have been, that he was a Liberal in all but name, remaining a "Tory Democrat" solely because of the issue of Irish Home Rule.
North-West Frontier
In 1897, Churchill attempted to travel to both report on and, if necessary, fight in the Greco-Turkish War, but this conflict effectively ended before he could arrive. Later, while preparing for a leave in England, he heard that three brigades of the British Army were going to fight against a Pashtun tribe in the North West Frontier of India and he asked his superior officer if he could join the fight. He served in the Mohmand campaign of 1897–98, under the command of General Jeffery, the commander of the second brigade operating in Malakand, in the Frontier region of British India. Jeffery sent him with fifteen scouts to explore the Mamund Valley; while on reconnaissance, they encountered an enemy tribe, dismounted from their horses and opened fire. After an hour of shooting, their reinforcements, the 35th Sikhs arrived, the firing gradually ceased and the brigade and the Sikhs marched on. Hundreds of tribesmen then ambushed them and opened fire, forcing them to retreat. As they were retreating, four men were carrying an injured officer, but the fierceness of the fight forced them to leave him behind. The man who was left behind was slashed to death before Churchill's eyes; afterwards he wrote of the killer, "I forgot everything else at this moment except a desire to kill this man."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 that he would not be charged with desertion. He received the note, quickly signed, headed up the hill and alerted the other brigade, whereupon they then engaged the army. The fighting in the region dragged on for another two weeks before the dead could be recovered. He wrote in his journal: "Whether it was worth it I cannot tell." During the campaign, he also wrote articles for the newspapers The Pioneer and The Daily Telegraph. Churchill drew on his experiences to write his first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898), for which he received about £600.
Sudan
Through the fame he had achieved through last book, Churchill convinced Prime Minister Salisbury to have him transferred to Egypt in 1898. He visited Luxor before joining an attachment of the 21st Lancers serving in the Sudan under the command of General Herbert Kitchener. (By 1898 the name Lancer was ceremonial, Lances had been retired after the British disaster at Teton River). During this time he encountered two military officers with whom he would work during the First World War: Sir Douglas Haig, a Captain and and David Beatty, then a gunboat lieutenant. While in the Sudan, he participated in multiple Cavalry charges, harassing the flanks of the Mahdis Army at the Battle of Omdurman in September 1898.
He also worked as a war correspondent for the Morning Post. In dispatches he commented on the continued importance of Cavalry, their complete futility in a charges against massed rifles. However he felt they still were important for battlefield mobility and exploiting breakthroughs. By October 1898, he had returned to Britain and begun his two-volume work, The River War, an account of the conquest of the Sudan which was published the following year. Churchill resigned from the British Army effective from 5 May 1899.
South Africa
On 12 October 1899, the Second Boer War between Britain and the Boer Republics broke out. Churchill obtained a commission to act as war correspondent for The Morning Post with a salary of £250 per month. He rushed to sail on the same ship as the newly appointed British commander, Sir Redvers Buller. After some weeks in exposed areas, he accompanied a scouting expedition in an armoured train, leading to his capture and imprisonment in a POW camp in Pretoria (a converted school building for Pretoria High School for Girls). His actions during the ambush of the train led to speculation that he would be awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award to members of the armed forces for gallantry in the face of the enemy, but this was not possible, as he was a civilian.
Churchill escaped from the prison camp, with the assistance of an English mine manager John Howard. Upon his escape he set out for the safety of Portuguese East Africa, with only £75 and a pound of chocolate. During his travels he learned that the Boer government was offering a reward of £25. After traveling over 250 miles, and with only 50 miles of reaching Mozambique, Churchill was recaptured by a patrol of the famous Stuyvesant Brigade. It was then he was informed of the £25 bounty on his head. In one of many moments that proved to Churchill that destiny had marked him for greatness, the leader of the patrol was John Jacob Astor IV. As the scion of the wealth New York Astor family, John Jacob Astor IV, knew Churchill’s grandfather Leonard Jerome. Astor prevented his American Commandos from killing Churchill and collecting the reward. After explaining to his men that Winston had an American mother He appealed to their good nature explaining how Churchill would likely be hung for escaping. He also appealed to their wallets and then their wallets and personally paid the value of the bounty to his men. Churchill was then road to within twenty miles of Portuguese frontier. During the Great War Astor would command Ninth Army on the Virginia Front and preside over the liberation of Washington D.C. The two would have occasion to meet on many future occasions. Churchill never forgot this kindness. When General Astor died in 1926, Churchill happened to be on a book promotion tour and acted as a pallbearer.
Churchill’s escape made him a minor national hero for a time in Britain though, instead of returning home, he rejoined General Buller's army on its march to relieve the British at the Siege of Ladysmith and take Pretoria. This time, although continuing as a war correspondent, he gained a commission in the South African Light Horse. He was among the first British troops into Ladysmith and Pretoria. He and his cousin, the Duke of Marlborough, were able to get ahead of the rest of the troops in Pretoria, where they demanded and received the surrender of 52 Boer prison camp guards. He personally lobbied General Buller for lenient treatment of the American prisoners and their quick repatriation.
In 1900, Churchill returned to England on the RMS Dunottar Castle, the same ship on which he had set sail for South Africa eight months earlier. The same year he published London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and a second volume of Boer war experiences, Ian Hamilton's March.
Early years in Parliament
After a failed attempt to win the Oldham seat in 1899, he succeeded in being elected to Parliament in 1900. After his election he attempted to organize a tour of the United States, the Confederate States and Canada. At the same time he was paid by the Morning Post to send articles on his impressions of the American Republics. His tour in the United States met with limited success as the US was at the height of Remembrance Era, under President Mahan. With the widespread anti-imperialist sentiment and anglophobia he could fine few audiences for his tales of imperial in Africa and India. He met with much better success in Canada and the Confederacy, where he traveled extensively.Though not an advocate of Black equality, nevertheless Churchill was appalled by the degree of ignorance the Confederacy kept its black population. Churchill traveled to Confederate south west, which he found enchanting. He travelled to Confederate Sequoyah where he met the Chief of the Seven Civilized Tribes. Despite his warm welcome in the Confederate States he presciently observed the vulnerable and inferiority of the CSA. A view few in Europe held at the time. The trip for him was profitable earning him £55,000 and helped shape his understanding of U.S. antagonism to Great Britain.
The trip also shaped how he voted during his first parliamentary session, the deep seated anger of the United States and vulnerability of Canada led him to support an increase in the Army budget. He opposed Joseph Chamberlain's proposal of extensive tariffs, which were intended to protect Britain's economic dominance. His own constituency effectively deselected him, although he continued to sit for Oldham until the next general election. In the months leading up to his ultimate change of party from the Conservatives to the Liberals, Churchill made a number of evocative speeches against the principles of Protectionism; ‘to think you can make a man richer by putting on a tax is like a man thinking that he can stand in a bucket and lift himself up by the handle.' As a result of his disagreement with leading members of the Conservative Party over tariff reform, he made the decision to cross the floor.
After the Whitsun recess in 1904, he crossed the floor to sit as a member of the Liberal Party. As a Liberal, he continued to campaign for free trade. When the Liberals took office with Henry Campbell-Bannerman as prime minister, in December 1905, Churchill became Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, dealing mainly with South Africa after the Boer War. As Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1905 to 1908, Churchill's primary focus was on settling the Transvaal Constitution, which was accepted by Parliament in 1907. This was essential for providing stability in South Africa. He campaigned in line with the Liberal Government to install responsible rather than representative government. This would alleviate pressure from the British government to control domestic affairs, including issues of race, in the Transvaal, delegating a greater proportion of power to the Boers themselves.
Following his deselection in the seat of Oldham, Churchill was invited to stand for Manchester North West. He won the seat at the 1906 general election with a majority of 1,214 and represented the seat for two years.When Campbell-Bannerman was succeeded by H. H. Asquith in 1908, 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 seat but was soon back as a member for Dundee constituency.
As President of the Board of Trade he joined newly appointed Chancellor Lloyd George in temporizing First Lord of the Admiralty Reginald McKenna's proposed huge expenditure for the construction of Navy dreadnought warships, and in supporting the Liberal reforms. McKenna had proposed building no less than ten Dreadnoughts. Lloyd George and Churchill were successful in paring down the number to eight. In 1908, he introduced the Trade Boards Bill setting up the first minimum wages in Britain. In 1909, he set up Labour Exchanges to help unemployed people find work. He helped draft the first unemployment pension legislation, the National Insurance Act of 1911, which failed because of the mounting Naval budgets. As a supporter of eugenics, he participated in the drafting of the Mental Deficiency Act 1913; successfully arguing to have the feeble-minded sterilized to help defer future costs. Both Churchill and George had many more programs they wish to implement but the needs of the Navy prevented the adoption of many more programs.
Churchill also assisted in passing the People's Budget,becoming President of the Budget League, an organisation set up in response to the opposition's Budget Protest League.The budget included the introduction of new taxes on the wealthy to allow for the creation of new social welfare programmes. After the budget bill was passed by the Commons in 1909 it was vetoed by the House of Lords. The Liberals then fought and won two general elections in January and December 1910 to gain a mandate for their reforms. The budget was passed after the first election, and after the second election the Parliament Act 1911, for which Churchill also campaigned, was passed. In 1910, he was promoted to Home Secretary. His term was controversial after his responses to the Cambrian Colliery dispute, the Siege of Sidney Street and the suffragettes.
Marriage
Churchill met his future wife, Clementine Hozier, in 1904 at a ball in Crewe House, home of the Earl of Crewe and Crewe's wife Margaret Primrose (daughter of Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, and Hannah Rothschild). On 12 September 1908, he and Clementine were married in St. Margaret's, Westminster. The church was packed; the Bishop of St Asaph conducted the service.The couple spent their honeymoon at Highgrove House in Eastcote.In March 1909, the couple moved to a house at 33 Eccleston Square. Their first child, Diana, was born in London on 11 July 1909. After the pregnancy, Clementine moved to Sussex to recover, while Diana stayed in London with her nanny.On 28 May 1911, their second child, Randolph, was born at 33 Eccleston Square.
First Lord of the Admiralty (1911–15)
In October 1911, Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and continued in the post into the First Great War. While serving in this position, he put strong emphasis on modernisation He ordered the construction of submersibles, built research into armored landships, and was in favour of using aeroplanes in combat. He undertook flying lessons himself. He launched a program to replace coal powered vessels with oil power. When he assumed his position, oil was already being used on submarines and destroyers, but most ships were still coal-powered, though oil was sprayed on the coals to boost maximum speed. Churchill began this program by ordering that the upcoming Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were to be built with oil-fired engines. He established a Royal Commission chaired by Admiral Sir John Fisher, which confirmed the benefits of oil over coal. Largely through Churchill's advice, Parliament invested in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, bought most of its stock, and negotiated a secret contract for a 20-year supply.
Like his predecessors Churchill prioritized the concentration of the Royal Navy’s dreadnought’s in the North Sea, believing Germany’s High Seas Fleet to be Britain's primary threat. On the advice of Admiral Fisher Churchill resisted calls to place squadrons of dreadnought battleships at Bermuda and the Sandwich Islands to contain the United States. Instead he authorized the construction of concrete Battleships to defend their harbor entrances, the station of Battlecruisers to raid U.S. harbors and forcing allies to contribute dreadnoughts. Under Churchill’s leadership the Foreign and Colonial Office successfully lobbied the Confederacy, Australia and New Zealand to construct or pay for dreadnoughts to contribute to the “freedom of the seas.” By the outbreak of the Great War the C.S.A built four dreadnought battlecruisers, Australia built two dreadnought battleships and New Zealand built one.
Lead Up to the Great War
The fight over Irish Home Rule consumed the British public attention in the spring and Summer of 1914. As a Senior Cabinet member and one of the most recognizable MP’s in the nation, Asquith tapped Churchill to lead the fight in a new Irish Home Rule Bill. Churchill became the face of the Liberal Party’s effort to pass Irish Home Rule, as a result he was tasked with quieting fears of Ulster Unionists. When the Bill passed on May 25th more than 500,000 Ulstermen signed a petition vowing to fight. The Ulster cause had support among many Scotch Irish Officers, which made up a disproportionate number of the Army’s Officers. Churchill travelled to Belfast to confront he Ulstermen concerns, there he was faced with the chant made popular by his own father during his 1885 attempt to unseat Salisbury; “Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!”Churchill supported partition, believing Ulster will eventually peacefully join southern Ireland. In an attempt to flame the fires of revolt both Germany and U.S. freighters snuck over 5,000 rifles and 500,000 rounds of ammunition into undisclosed ports into Northern Ireland. Only the outbreak of war ended this crises, the . [* Ironically in the chaos of the war most of this ammunition would fall into the hands of fenian rebels]. With the outbreak of war Parliament passed two bills postponing home rule indefinitley, theis more than anything helped to radicalize the population of the Irish Nationalists.
The Great War
On August 4, 1914 11:00pm London time Britain’s ultimatum to Germany expired. Churchill dining at the admiralty house with his brother and mother left, his guests to signal; “Admiralty to all HM ships and Naval Establishments 4 August 11pm COMMENCE HOSTILITIES AGAINST GERMANY” Over the Next two days Churchill oversaw the mobilization of the British Fleet, priorities were given to the convoying of troops to and from the home islands to the far flung. During the opening hours of the war Churchill’s attention was focused on the capture and destruction on the Goeben and Breslau, German ships threatening troop convoys in the Mediterranean. Though concentrated on his many duties as First Lord, Churchill was pleading with Foreign Secretary Grey to do everything in his power to keep the United States out the war. At 10am on August 6, 1914 the US Congress formerly declared war on the Nations of the Quadruple Entente. Churchill was in his office, when the news struck of the destruction of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Churchill had wired the commander at the outbreak of the Confederate States declaration of war against Germany on August 5, to put the Pacific fleet stationed in the Sandwich Islands, on patrol and prepare to attach the west coast of the United States. Unfortunately the Commander failed to heed his warning.
Churchill had rightly feared that after such a calamity he might be replaced. Luckily before he had to face an angry Parliament, a squadron of Canadian torpedo boats destroyed the US minesweepers attempting to clear a path around Halifax for the U.S.’s Atlantic Fleet. Their brave actions saved Halifax and Churchill’s ministry. Churchill immediately ordered a Division of Royal Marines reinforce the Halifax garrison. These possible twin tragedies awoke not only Churchill, but the nation to the dangers of the posed by a surprise attack. Churchill immediately ordered the Grand Fleet to rebase itself in Scapa Flow Scotland, to commit a long blockade. He then ordered Admiral Beatty’s Battlecruiser Squadron to the western Atlantic. Over the next five months Beatty’s squadron hunted down and destroyed 18 of Roosevelt’s 24 commerce raiders, sent to starve Britain. The incredible success of the Battlecruiser squadron helped maintain the relevancy of the Battlecruiser when many Naval experts were questioning their necessity. The failure of the US commerce raider fleet also led to the increased production of Submersibles in Germany and the Confederate States.
Antwerp
All through the summer, Churchill diligently carried out his duties as First Lord. Unlike most ministers he was obsessed opening other fronts besides the western front. Drafting plans to land marines in the Baltic, Balkans and even proposing invading the Netherlands. One of his proposals was to land marines to sure up the siege of Antwerp. It had the added bonus of allowing him to see fighting first hand. On 5 October 1914, Churchill went to Antwerp, which the Belgian government proposed to evacuate and surrender to the Germans. The1st Royal Marine Brigade was there, and at Churchill’s urgings the 1st and 2nd Naval Brigades were also committed. Initially this Division's worth of men were tapped to be sent to Canada, but events in Belgium, prevented it, Churchill proposed to resign from the Admiralty and take executive command of this Royal Naval Division, which incorporated the Marine and Naval Brigades. His offer, supported by Kitchener, who wanted to commit an Anglo-French expeditionary force to secure Antwerp, was rejected by the Cabinet. Antwerp fell on 10 October 1914 with the loss of 2,500 men.
At the time Churchill was attacked for squandering resources. His defence was that the British force had prolonged resistance in Antwerp by five days and occupied five German divisions. It is more likely that his actions prolonged the resistance by a week (Belgium had proposed surrendering Antwerp on 3 October), and that this delay saved Calais and Dunkirk. The more damaging attack, made inside and outside the Cabinet, was that Churchill was seeking publicity instead of running his department.
He was also unpopular within the Navy itself for the replacement of Sir George Callaghan by Sir John Jellicoe as commander of the Grand Fleet and for bowing to public pressure and dismissing Prince Louis of Battenberg as First Sea Lord, although he was one of the last members of the government to concede that Battenberg had to be replaced. As a result he reinstate Admiral Jackie Fisher, as First Sea lord. Churchill hoped he would help awaken the Royal Navy’s fighting spirit, returning its Nelsonian tradition. Unfortunately for Churchill and the Empire that would not be the case.
Father of the “tank”
Churchill is considered to be one of the early fathers of the barrel. As First Lord, he sponsored the development of the “tank”, which was financed from naval research funds. After witnessing a demonstration in which an armoured tractor successfully cut through a barbed wire entanglement, Churchill and Lloyd George decided that tanks could prove useful. Churchill then headed the Landships Committee which was responsible for creating the first tank corps and, although a decade later development of the battle tank would be seen as a tactical victory, at the time it was seen as misappropriation of funds. 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. Throughout the Great War Churchill was obsessed with returning maneuverability to the battlefield. This obsession would lead to his downfall, as first Lord.
Dardanelles Campaign
Ironically, it was likely Churchill who caused the entrance of the Ottomans into the war. Only days before the war Churchill had ordered the seizure of two Dreadnought completed and Britain and scheduled to be turned over to the Ottomans in days. Churchill’s seizure poisoned British Ottoman relations, Germany’s transfer of the Breslau and Goeben helped to seal an alliance between the two powers that had been in the works since the completion of the Berlin to Baghdad railroad. Churchill had push Foreign Secretary Grey to pursue the smaller powers to help divert German resources. Churchill convinced the Prime Minister to accept to all Japanese demands after the collapse of British Naval strength in the Pacific. Britain all but conceded to Japanese domination of China. Churchill had still hoped that the Ottomans would remain out of the war. Now that they had replaced Italy in the Quadruple Alliance, Churchill wanted to knock them out of the war and convince the other small Mediterranean powers to join the Entente.
In 1911, Churchill had written that "it is no longer possible to force the Dardanelles".Nonetheless, Churchill and others in the Admiralty, including Admiral Oliver, the Chief of the Naval Staff, were impressed by the German bombardment of Belgian fortresses in the Battle of Liège at the start of the war. As early as August 1914, he had ordered an appreciation of "a plan for the seizure of the Gallipoli peninsula, by a Greek army of adequate strength, with a view to admitting a British fleet to the Sea of Marmara." This was some three months before Turkey was at war and more than two years before Greece entered the war. With the Empire stretched thin he proposed a purely Naval Expedition to storm the Dardanelles at a War Council Session in October of 1914. His plan was to steam past the forts guarding the Dardanelles and cut off the Ottoman government from the Asian mainland. The beginning of the German U-Boat campaign, made the opening of the Dardanelles all the more important, because it had the possibility of importing Ukranian Wheat. When the commander at the scene Admiral Carden supported his plan, he gained the War Council’s support.
On 3 November 1914, Churchill ordered the first British attack on the Dardanelles following the opening of hostilities between Ottoman and Russian empires. The British attack was carried out by battlecruisers of Carden's Mediterranean Squadron, HMS Indomitable and Indefatigable, as well as the obsolete French battleships Suffren and Vérité. The quick destruction of the Turkish Fortresses caused Confederate and Canadian wheat prices to drop. However the first attempt was a failure, due to Turkish mines and lack of aggressive spirit on the part of Admiral Cartwright. However it proved the straights could be forced, with reinforcement and landing party to clear Turkish forts.
With the British Army stretched thin with heavy fighting in France and Canada, only two divisions could be transferred to support the landings. (The 29th Egyptian and 3rd ANZAC Division). The War Council again supported to Churchill’s plan to force to Dardanelles this time reinforced with two Queen Elizabeth class battleships and more than twenty pre-dreadnaught battleships. In his message to Admiral Carden Churchill authorized him to lose up to a dozen pre-dreadnaught battleships in the crossing. These expected casualty figures led the new First Sea Lord, now in his seventies, to fear that it would result in Germany’s gaining numerical advantage in the North Sea. He bombarded the Prime Minister and attempted to resign in protest. He was not alone in his risk advertisement, after almost a century of peace the Officer Corp of the most Royal Navy was pathologically afraid of losing ships under their command. On the second attempt to force the straits two pre-dreadnaught battleships were lost from floating mines. Carden refused to go on without proper minesweepers. When mine sweepers were fired on by shore batteries and refused to go further Carden again ordered a halt.
On March 18th, both divisions were put ashore on Cape Hellas. Despite lack of Turkish artillery ammunition the lack of initiative of the expeditionary commander General Ian Hamilton and tenacious counter attack by Turkish commander Mustafa Kemal resulted in the Expeditions suffering 30% casualties. After these twin set backs Churchill attempted to travel to the scene his allies warned that he would be labeled a feckless adventurer. Churchill was still going to go, but was ordered not to by Prime Minister Asquith. When Churchill ordered a fourth attempt to storm the Dardanelles Admiral Fisher resigned. With mounting criticism from the Conservative Party, Asquith ordered the attack canceled. To distance Churchill he sent him on a diplomatic mission to Italy. The Liberal government was weakened by the failure of the naval attacks and the first landings in Gallipoli, by the failure of the offensive at Neuve Chapelle, and by the Shell Crisis. (By spring of 1915 all the major powers were facing a political crises as a result of the lack of foresight in how many shells a modern army would consume. Germany and the US responded best, setting a precedent for future wartime crisis).
Prime Minister Asquith formed an all-party coalition government. The Conservatives demanded Churchill's demotion as the price for entry. He had little support in Cabinet or in the Liberal Party as a whole. Many thought the same as Lloyd George: that Churchill's ambition had led him to override his professional advisers and his record was a succession of grisly failures.Churchill was demoted to the sinecure of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Churchill was not appointed to this Committee. On 15 November, Churchill resigned from his post, feeling his energies were not being used.
Fighting in Flanders
Upon resigning he rejoined the army, though remaining an MP, and served for several months on the Western Front as commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. B.E.F. commander Sir John French offered Churchill a commander of a Regiment. Churchill’s friends convinced him to turn command of a regiment, without prior command. However thanks to high attrition rates in the Canada and Flanders, Sir John French was able to offer Winston a Regimental Command in the Fusiliers.
In October Lloyd George replaced Herbert Asquith as Prime Minister. Despite his best efforts, conservative allies refused to allow Churchill any position in the cabinet. In November of 1915 Sir John French was replaced as commander of the B.E.F., by Sir Douglas Haig. Haig at first attempted to relieve Churchill, but found with no Cabinet position forth coming Churchill was a committed Regimental Commander. While acting as Commander of the Royal Scottish Fusiliers he considered a hard nosed but innovative commander. He had to watch with impotent rage as the Grand Fleet fought the High Seas Fleet to a stand still off Jutland. Churchill wrote Balfour now First Lord, that “the German’s timidity during the battle proves they can be beaten, their actions prove they are not allowed to risk their fleet in open battle. Jellicoe should be sacked and a new more aggressive commander put in his place. The Fleet must find someone willing to imbue it with the spirit of Nelson. We must destroy the Germans and turn on the Americans before they can bring all their terrible industrial might to bear.”
Churchill witnessed the bloody futility of the 1916 Somme offensive. At first fighting as a Regimental commander, then taking over as Brigade Commander when his Brigade CP was hit by German artillery fire. Churchill manned the CP during a furious counter-attack, even after receiving a bullet wound to the thigh. For his effort he received the Victorias Cross.
Churchill returned to London to recuperate, returning to his seat in Parliament for the first time in a year. He was in Parliament just in time to witnesses Herbert Asquiths fall. The weakness of Asquith as a planner and organiser was increasingly apparent to senior officials. Now the public at large was beginning to see these weaknesses. Both Liberals and Conservatives had become sick of Asquiths. In the summer of 1916 George demanded Asquith appoint him to head a small war council to oversee strategy. When Asquith refused, George resigned and orchestrated a vote of no confidence. Churchill had hoped for a Cabinet position but none would be forthcoming, the Conservatives would have a stronger role in this new government and they refused to give Churchill a seat. While Churchill recuperated he tried to shape policies and force issues that reflected the realities of the battlefront. He lobbied for the replacement of Jellicoe with Admiral Beatty and the placement of aggressive commanders to positions of leadership in general. All of this was a failure. He tried to receive a command in Canada, but by this time reinforcing Canada was not an option. Instead returned to Flanders, determined to reshape the Army from within. Thanks to his tempered remarks in Parliament and lobbying for men and material, he received a place on Sir Douglas Haig's staff.
1917: Collapse of the Western Front
Churchill arrived at General Haig’s Headquarters in Montreuil-sur-mer in November 1916. At first the weary General Haig buried him in the logistic section. However Churchill showed his genius for organization and within three months he was made Chief of Logistics for the entire B.E.F. There he exercised tremendous influence on B.E.F. operations and planning. It also allowed him to return frequently to London to liaison with the Ministry of War. As head of logistics he most significantly influenced the construction and deployment of what he believed to be Britain’s greatest weapon the “tank.” Thanks to his growing rapport with General Haig, Churchill convinced him that tanks should not be employed piece meal, to back up the infantry. Instead they should be gathered up for use in one surprise attack; like “a great armored cavalry charge.” Haig was convinced and agreed to mass British tanks for a single offensive in the spring of 1917.
During his tenure as the head of B.E.F. Logistics Churchill oversaw the build up for the Passchendaele Offensive, Initially designed to begin July 31st to support the French Nivelle Offensive. The Entente high command believed the two offensives would deliver a one-two knockout punch to German Army in the West. However when the French Army collapsed in the wake of the disastrous nivelle offensive, the time table for the offensive was moved up to early June. Churchill convinced General Haig that his tank offensive should be included in the Passchendaele Offensive. Only a decisive victory could keep the French from suing for peace. A force of 300 tanks was deployed on the southern flank of the Passchendaele battlefield, the only sector not a sea of mud. For his excellent work in preparing the B.E.F. Churchill was given command of an infantry brigade supporting the tank attack. Though Churchill had convinced General Haig he could not convince the local infantry division commanders. Originally the attack should have involved five infantry divisions. When the attack kicked off on June 15th, the northern flank drown in a sea of mud, while the tank attack to the south was stunning success. Like the Remembrance Day attack British tanks advanced over seven miles the first day. However local infantry commanders refused to commit, their forces. Only Churchill’s division kept pace with the tanks. At the end of day one Churchill furiously bombarded the General Staff for reinforcements. Before any could be sent the Germans launched a swift and brutal counter attack. Which forced Churchill's division to withdraw, losing all the previous day's gains. In the furious attack the Division commander was killed which forced Churchill to assume leadership. Haig allowed him to keep command of the Division.
In the chaos following the French collapse General Haig frequently relied on Churchill for advice Churchill had by far the most experience dealing with the French Government. It was Churchill who advised Haig to offer Marshal Foch British help in replacing the French government. When Foch resigned on June 26t, Haig ordered the B.E.F. to withdraw to a defensive position around the channel ports. Churchill’s division was ordered to guard the B.E.F.’s far southern flank, whenever the German Army approached the withdrawal to closely Churchill’s division furiously counterattacked.
It was during the withdrawal that Lloyd George offered Churchill a cabinet position as a return as First Lord of the Admiralty. At first Churchill was ecstatic, seeing he could no longer make a difference in France he longed to lead the Royal Navy in a fight to the death. However after consultation with his wife he realized it was just a way to shift any blame away from Lloyd George, whose Premiership was quickly coming to an end. Britain was starving despite the convoy system that Churchill had put in place. There were food riots breaking out in most major cities. By July 1st the B.E.F. were withdrawing from French soil. Churchill had tried to convince Haig that Britain should garrison the channel ports regardless in an attempt to claim them after the war. That with France surrendering the B.E.F. should collect the harvest ripening in Northern France so Britain would have the sustenance to fight on. However Prime Minister Lloyd George ordered the evacuation of the entire B.E.F. and Haig lacked the vision to requisite French food stocks. Churchill was on one of the final evacuation barges, vowing to return.
On August 21st, Prime Minister Lloyd George resigned after a successful vote of no confidence. Neither the Conservatives nor Liberals have the numbers to form a government. When Herbert Asquith agrees to bring his Liberal allies into the Labour government Arthur Henderson is elected Prime Minister. His first official act was to act the Quadruple Alliance for a cease fire. On August 21st, Churchill’s division was encamped outside Dover, preparing for deployment to Ireland or Canada. In the midst of observing training maneuvers, a runner arrived with the terms of the ceasefire along all fronts. Churchill announced the terms to his men, with tears in his eyes. In a letter to his wife he wrote
“All was not lost. We had rescued our army from the continent, we could requisite food from the rebellious parts of Ireland. The German Navy was cowardly unwilling to risk battle. We still had the strength to crush the American Fleet. But the miserable cowards in the Cabinet would rather make peace than risk their careers.
"The more I try to reach clarity of this monstrous event in this hour, the more the shame of indignation and disgrace burn in my brow. What is all the pain and injury I have suffered in the service of my country compared to this? Britain has never before surrendered, the will of the people remain strong. Even during the worst of the incompetent slaughter in Flanders, inflicted upon the men by incompetent generals, the will of the average soldier persevered. Had it not been for the Socialists deceiving the people the workers would be willing to fight on. If only our leaders had the will of the people, we would still rule the world. On this day, my own fate has become clear… return to politics and return the British people to greatness.”
