Winston Churchill: Essential Biographies E-Book

Robert Blake

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 89

Beschreibung

Winston Churchill is probably still the best-known Prime Minster of Great Britain. Born at Blenheim Palace, he joined the army after Harrow, but in 1899 resigned his commission to report on the Boer War. Elected to Parliament in 1900, he served in both Conservative and Liberal governments, and became Chancellor of the Exechequer under Baldwin, A period in the political wilderness was ended by the declaration of the Second World War and his appointment to the Admiralty; after Chamberlain's resignation in 1940 he led a coalition government. He worked closely with Roosevelt and to a lesser degree with Stalin throughout the war. He lost the election of 1945 but became Prime Minister again from 1951 to 1955. His last years saw a return to writing, including his memoirs of the Second World War.

Leseprobe

Winston Churchill

Series Editor C.S. Nicholls

Highly readable brief lives of those who have played a significant part in history, and whose contributions still influence con­temporary culture.

First published in 1998

This edition first published in 2009

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2012

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© Robert Blake, 1998, 2001, 2009, 2012

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EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 8661 1

MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 8660 4

Original typesetting by The History Press

Winston Churchill

ROBERT BLAKE

CONTENTS

Chronology

1 Youth and Adventure

2 Member of Parliament

3 Admiralty 1911–15

4 Recovery and Relapse 1915–39

5 War 1939–45

6 Coda 1945–65

Notes

Bibliography

CHRONOLOGY

1874

30 November

. Born at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire.

1886–94

Educated: Harrow and Sandhurst.

1895

Death of father, Lord Randolph.

Joins 4th Hussars.

1896

Sent to India with his regiment.

1899

Defeated as Tory candidate in Oldham.

1899

Travels to South Africa as a war corres­pondent. Captured by the Boers.

1900

Stands again for Oldham in the general election and wins.

1906

Returned as a Liberal for North-West Manchester and becomes Under Secretary for the Colonies.

1908

April

. Enters Cabinet as President, Board of Trade.

12 September

. Marries Clementine Hozier.

1909

Daughter Diana born.

1910–11

January 1910 to October 1911

. Home Secretary under Asquith.

1911

Son Randolph born.

Agadir Incident.

1911

Becomes First Lord of the Admiralty.

1914

Daughter Sarah born.

Crisis in Ireland over Home Rule.

Outbreak of First World War.

1915

Dardanelles Campaign. Churchill removed from the Admiralty.

1917–19

Minister of Munitions under Lloyd George.

1918

Daughter Marigold born (dies in 1921).

1919–21

Secretary of State for War and Air.

1921–2

Secretary of State for Colonies and Air.

1922

Daughter Mary born.

Chanak Incident, which leads to the fall of Lloyd George. Churchill loses his seat.

1924

Wins seat in Epping as a ‘Constitutionalist’ supported by the Conservative Association.

1924–9

Chancellor of the Exchequer.

1925

Returns to the Gold Standard.

1926

General Strike and National Gazette.

1931

Resigns from Shadow Cabinet over India.

1931–9

Political ‘wilderness’. Warns against German rearmament.

1936

Churchill backs Edward VIII during the Abdication Crisis.

1939

War declared on Germany.

Churchill becomes First Lord of the Admiralty again and member of the War Cabinet.

1940

Disastrous Norwegian Campaign; Government brought down.

9 May

. Churchill becomes Prime Minister.

1941

December

. Pearl Harbour bombed. The USA enters the war.

1941–2

The Battle of the Atlantic.

1942

Fall of Singapore and Tobruk.

Battle of El Alamein.

1943

Allied landings in North Africa and Italy.

Italian surrender.

1944

The Normandy invasion.

Moscow Conference.

1945

February

. Yalta Conference.

8 May

. Germany surrenders.

5 July

. Crushing Conservative defeat in general election.

Churchill resigns.

1946

‘Iron Curtain’ speech in Fulton, Missouri.

1951

Churchill becomes Prime Minister again.

1953

Survives serious illness concealed from the public.

1955

Churchill retires.

1965

24 January

. Churchill dies.

30 January

. State funeral.

ONE

YOUTH AND ADVENTURE

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill is generally regarded as one of Britain’s greatest statesmen, ranking with the two Pitts, Peel, Gladstone and Lloyd George. But his reputation fluctuated violently during his lifetime. A distinguished historian, Sir Robert Rhodes James, tracing his career to 1939, could plausibly entitle his book Churchill, A Study in Failure. He was an object of blazing controversy from his youth onward. It was his role in war which established his fame, but this occurred only in the Second World War. His part in the First World or ‘Great’ War was a matter of bitter dispute at the time and still is. Nor have all his decisions during the Second World War gone unchallenged.

He was born prematurely in Blenheim Palace on 30 November 1874, the elder of two sons of Lord Randolph Churchill (younger son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough) and of Jennie Jerome, daughter of Leonard Jerome, a prominent and wealthy New York businessman. He was directly descended from the great Duke of Marlborough, who had no male heirs. The dukedom went by special remainder through the Duke’s eldest daughter Anne, who had married Charles Spencer, Earl of Sutherland. It was not until 1817 that the family assumed the name of Churchill in addition to Spencer. The family had a bad reputation in society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were dissolute and debt-ridden. By ducal standards they were far from wealthy (only £35,000 per annum) compared with Devonshire, Portland, Norfolk, Westminster and others. The expense of keeping up this style of life became increasingly irksome.

After a long line of mediocrities Lord Randolph was a throw-back to the earlier brilliance of the family. Like many younger sons within a heartbeat of grandeur, he was intensely ambitious. He was also very clever and had a command of language, which his son was to inherit. But he was reckless, extravagant and promiscuous. He had a bitter quarrel with the Prince of Wales at a time when royalty mattered politically. There were threats of a duel and his father the Duke accepted exile to Dublin as Viceroy of Ireland, taking his son as secretary to keep him out of mischief.

But he bounced back, entered Parliament for the family borough of Woodstock and, from 1880 onwards, headed a small group of Tory dissidents who in opposition made the life of their leader, Sir Stafford Northcote, almost as uncomfortable as that of the Prime Minister, Gladstone. Lord Randolph aimed high. But Lord Salisbury, the new leader of the party, was a very different proposition from Northcote. Back in office, he made Lord Randolph Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1886. The leadership seemed almost within his grasp. But he overreached himself by resigning in December on a trivial issue as a trial of strength. Lord Salisbury accepted at once. It was a classic case of rising like a rocket and falling like a stick. Salisbury repelled all efforts at reconciliation, observing that it would be odd for someone who had got rid of a carbuncle on his neck to want it back. Lord Randolph never held office again. His health rapidly declined. His speeches in the House became embarrassingly confused and incoherent. He died of tertiary syphilis at the beginning of 1895.

Winston Churchill had an unhappy childhood. His father, whom he loved and admired, was remote and cantankerous, given to outbursts of ill temper – possibly a symptom of his disease. His mother too was aloof and lacking in affection. His efforts to get either of them to turn up on parents’ day occasions at his preparatory school or at Harrow nearly always failed. The one woman who gave him sympathy and love was his nurse, Mrs Everest, for whom he retained lasting affection till the day of her death when he was twenty, and whose funeral he tearfully attended. At Harrow, which he entered when he was twelve, the climate of the Hill being considered healthier than that of Eton, he made little mark. He was no good at Greek or Latin, the regular diet of public schools in those days, nor did he take to mathematics. But he did well in history and essay-writing. And he won a prize open to the whole school by reciting by heart the 1,200 lines of Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome without a single mistake. His diminutive height made it hard for him to flourish in games but did not prevent him winning the Public Schools Championship in fencing.

The Law, the Church and the Services were the obvious careers for an upper-class boy in those days. The first two presupposed an Oxford or Cambridge education, but this was ruled out by Churchill’s weakness in classics. In any case, Lord Randolph regarded him as too stupid for the Bar, and, observing his son’s passion for collecting toy soldiers – at the age of seven he had amassed over 1,000 – decided that the Army would be acceptable. The question was whether it would accept him. It did, but only on his third attempt, after leaving school and being taught by a ‘crammer’. His affection for Harrow, however, was long-lasting and he attended its famous ‘Songs’ whenever he could, long into old age. His third attempt got him into Sandhurst as a cavalry cadet, a position easier to secure than one in the infantry but with the drawback of requiring a private income. This greatly annoyed Lord Randolph, who wrote a crushing letter of reproof instead of the congratulations that his son expected. But Churchill enjoyed Sandhurst and learned to ride well. ‘No hour of life is lost’, he wrote, ‘that is spent in the saddle.’1 He followed his father’s political career with the keenest interest and often went to the Strangers’ Gallery to hear him. But there was no rapport between them. ‘When once I suggested that I might help his private secretary to write some of his letters, he froze me into stone.’2 Lord Randolph died leaving a load of debts and an estranged wife, just before Winston joined his regiment, the 4th Hussars, early in 1895.