MR. ENGLAND THE LIFE STORY OF WINSTON CHUREHILLTHE FIGHTING BRITON

92 C?63ma (2) __

Manning
j.r^JE^

92 (2)

Books will be issued only on presentation of proper
library cards.

Unless labeled otherwise, books may be retained
for two weeks. Borrowers finding books marked, de
faced or mutilated are expected to report same at
library desk; otherwise the last borrower will be held
responsible for all imperfections discovered.

The card holder is responsible for all books drawn
on this card.

Penalty for over-due books 2c a day plus cost of
notices.

Lost cards and change of residence must be re
ported promptly.

Public Library

Kansas City, Mo.
Keep Your Card in This Pocket

BERKOWITZ ENVELOPE CO., K. 0., MO.

iliffliiiw

D 0001 D310Et,S

QCT 5'

Britislt Combine, Ltd.

Mr.

The Life Story ; ofWi6stoi Churchill

The JFighting Briton

by
Paul Manning and Milton Bronner

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY

CHICAGO PHILADELPHIA TORONTO

Copyright 1941, by
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY

Copyright in Great Britain and in the
British Dominions and Possessions

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

CONTENTS
Part One: MR. ENGLAND

PAGE

Chapter One: Portrait of the Man ... 1

Part Two: ME. ENGLAND'S FIRST PERIOD

Chapter Two: The Early Years .... 17

Chapter Three: The Young Warrior . . 40

Chapter Four: The Rising Politician ... 58

Chapter Five: World War and Aftermath . 72

Part Three: IN THE WILDERNESS

Chapter Six: The Lone Wolf .... 90

Chapter Seven: In Jeremiah's Role. . . 110

Chapter Eight: Pleading for Airplanes . . 152

Part Four: CLIMAX AT SIXTY-SIX

Chapter Nine: "Winston Is Back" . . .170

Chapter Ten: Captain in the Storm . . 195

Chapter Eleven: Personalia 235

Epilog 248

Index 249

PROLOG

In times of great national stress and stormy it
often seems to religious men and women as if
Divine Providence in its infinite wisdom and mercy
had raised up a leader to face the crisis, to bring
good cheer and courage to failing hearts, and to
speed them on to final victory.

In the United States, we think of Washington,
reared on a Virginia plantation, and Lincoln, bom
in a humble Kentucky log cabin, as such God-given
leaders of the American people,

Today there are many lovers of freedom all over
the world who in these anxious times look 'upon
Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great
Britain, as another leader marked by destiny for
immortality. He who fought as a youth in Britain's
battles and in after years helped govern his coun
try stands today in the hopes and prayers of free
men as the embodiment of all that is best and
finest in the long history of his island home. His
words and actions spur his countrymen on to deeds
of endurance and of valor that are the admiration
of the civilized world.

Here, then, let the curtain rise on a simple tale
of how he came to be where he is and what he is.

Part ONE - MR. '

Chapter One
PICTURE OF THE MAN

There they were, Winston Churchill, Harry
Hopkins and Lord Halifax. Three men in a mine
sweeper with Harry Hopkins getting sicker
every minute and Halifax not feeling so well
himself.

But up on deck Winston Churchill, as usual,
was doing all right. First he'd walk up to the prow
and check the drift, then he ? d walk back to the
stern and peer into the mist at the other "boat
carrying Mrs. Churchill and Lady Halifax. And, to
the despair of Harry Hopkins, every time Churchill
would pass the cabin he'd shout without shifting
the Havana cigar from his mouth:

"Hopkins, come up on deck and see how these
paravanes work."

Then, laughing uproariously as Hopkins would
weakly decline, he'd go back and take another
squint at the boat behind.

It was like that all the way to the George V,

anchored some miles up the coast from the rain-

i

2 Mr. England

swept dock where the good-will party had boarded
the mine sweeper for the big battleship which was
to carry Lord and Lady Halifax to America.

The climax to this Odyssey came, however, when
they boarded the 35,000-ton ship. A narrow ladder ?
dangling well above the water level, made it neces
sary to jump from the cabin top of the ice-covered
mine sweeper onto the ladder at the moment when
the boat was on the upbeat of a swell.

Churchill made it all right. Despite Ms short
legs and sixty-six years, the jump was made to
order for him. But Halifax and the others nearly
hit the water and when it came to Harry Hopkins,
the little mine sweeper banged against the side and
smashed the lower rungs.

But with Churchill leaning over the side and
shouting encouragement, Hopkins jumped and
made it. Scrambling up the ladder and probably
wondering why he ever left peaceful Washington,
he was greeted not with a compliment for the ex
cellent jump, but with the highly impersonal and
extraneous observation :

"Hopkins, I think these admirals are all wrong
about this armor plate. It could have been a quar
ter-inch thicker with no trouble at all."

With that he set off to find an admiral.

Picture of the Man 3

That's the way with Winston Churchill. Sixteen

hours a day he's out In front.

His exhaustive schedule begins In the misty
early morning, when a car sweeps up to No. 10
Downing Street. Out of this car steps the Prime
Minister. Wearing a black Homburg hat, a heavy
black overcoat, a conservative dark suit with
striped trousers and carrying a gold-headed cane,
he walks quickly up the two short steps and dis
appears through the entrance way.

Inside, he goes at once to a ground-floor bedroom
where he undresses, gets into a pair of striped
pajamas and hops once again Into bed. It's the
extreme vulnerability of No. 10 Downing Street
to bombs that prevents Churchill from sleeping
every night In this traditional home of all prime
ministers.

When he does sleep occasionally at another ad
dress which is secret, he hurries back as early as
possible to this Downing Street bedroom In which
he feels he can really relax. The bedroom Is roomy,
and from the large mahogany bed facing the
window, Churchill commands a view of the small
grass plot at the rear of No. 10.

To the housekeeper this room Is too plain. It's
not good enough for the Prime Minister, she says;

4 Mr. England

so, to keep her from despair, Churchill reluctantly
says nothing about the bright red curtains she has
hung from gleaming brass rods, but he does remain
adamant on the point of not having anything on
the floor but one inexpensive mouse-colored Wilton
carpet,

First on his list is reading official papers, gen
eral mail, reports from the Near East, the Balkans,
the high seas. At eight-thirty he rings for his
breakfast. Like all his meals, there's nothing fancy
about it. Bacon and eggs, sometimes with a little
kidney. And always coffee. He doesn't drink tea
at any meal.

A secretary moves in about then. He has six,
plus a confidential parliamentary private secre
tary, the Right Hon, Brendan Bracken. With one
of the six taking dictation on a noiseless portable
typewriter, he begins replying. Sometimes, how
ever, it's a key speech for Parliament or the first
draft of a radio talk.

Until Churchill became prime minister, most of
his books were written in this fashion. First a
rough draft in bed, then the finished product in
his office or country home study with plenty of
reference notes spread out over his desk. His six-
volume life of Marlborough an ancestor was

Picture of the Man 5

written that way, as were most of the twenty-two
volumes he has written.

At 10 A. M., which leaves him thirty minutes be
fore his cabinet meets, he dismisses his secretary.
Springing out of bed, he shaves, using a safety
razor. He is too old-fashioned for an electric razor*
he says. He takes baths because showers have not
yet been introduced at Downing Street. Then he's
off to the large, log-heated conference room in the
adjoining wing.

He moves swiftly to his chair at the long cabinet
table. Each minister reports in turn, then answers
Churchill's many questions. After which follows a
round table discussion of domestic and foreign
policy, and then the conference breaks up. This is
around noon, and the next hour until lunch time is
spent with key men of the Admiralty and War
Office, who have stepped across to No. 10.

Lunch at one o'clock is a simple meal First
an aperitif with ice, then cold roast beef as the
main dish, finished off with black coffee, brandy
and a cigar. Cigars are his one real luxury. They're
all very expensive and outsize. When asked by an
inquisitive visitor how many he smoked a day, he
replied : "Fourteen, and I like every one of them."

6 Mr. England

An hour nap follows lunch and then he f s off to
address Parliament, receive more people, maybe
visit Buckingham Palace or inspect a military unit

At five he's back in Downing Street dictating to
another secretary. Striding up and down Ms office^
the words at times flow smoothly, at other times
not so smoothly. When his sentences lose their pre
cision, hell stride over to the serving tray, pour a
small glass of vermouth, light a cigar and begin
once again.

One hour of this high-pressure dictation and he
moves from the room, going downstairs for a short
thirty-minute sleep. Then, to Churchill, comes the
high point of the day: evening dinner presided
over by Mrs. Churchill, with up to a dozen famous
people as guests. Generals, admirals, politicians
they can all be found any night at the Churchill
dinner table.

It's when dinner is over that the real conference
of the day begins. Churchill and his key dinner
guests sit around in an atmosphere of heavy cigar
smoke and beat and mould Britain's policy into a
malleable form.

Winston Churchill is as familiar and easygoing
as an old side-button shoe.

Picture of the Man 7

He is a Tory f an imperialist, a member of the
old school tie group, a descendant of the first Duke
of Marlborough . . . yet he is an earthy man of the
people such as perhaps no other prime minister
has been.

He is "Mr. England." '

He is, by some curious human alchemy, just
what every British working man and shopkeeper
would like to be ... and he has lived the full life
every little man in England would like to live.

The ordinary man in the street has probably
imagined himself, as Churchill now is, in the
driver's seat of this colossal three-ring show. He
has probably dreamed of giving orders to generals
and admirals and of being constantly surrounded
by famous figures. Knowing that nothing like it
would ever happen to Mm, the ordinary man can
still remain happy and chuckle when a newsreel
flashes a picture on the screen of "Winnie" run
ning up a gangplank, as his party of younger men
pant breathlessly behind or laugh, when he hears
of some new jest which the Prime Minister has
just used to ginger up some too-slow member of
Whitehall

To this ordinary man and millions like him, old-
time politician Churchill is a beloved character

8 Mr. England

actor who finally, and deservedly, has been given
the star role in a great drama.

The ordinary man delights in knowing the re
vealing "little things' 9 about Churchill

That the Prime Minister likes good but not fancy
food.

That he likes good drinks and fine cigars,

That during a dinner hour he likes beautiful and
witty women he says they put bubble in the party
and that at such times his pet peeve is the bore.

That at all times his big hate is to have some
body whistling, whether on or off key.

But best of all, the man in the street and his wife,
being what they are a thoroughly domesticated,
home-loving couple enjoy and appreciate Church-
ilFs utter dependency upon Mrs. Churchill in per
sonal matters. It proves to them that while Win
ston is the most sparkling bon vivant ever to sit in
the prime minister's chair, he is still an essentially
simple and uncomplicated person. In personal mat
ters, for example, like clothing. Churchill has a
remarkably small amount of clothing for a prime
minister. Yet the fact he always looks well dressed
is due to Mrs. Churchill. Not only does she preside
over the Churchill dinner table, but she takes
charge of her husband's appearance. Victory is

Picture of the Man 9

hers, she says, when after a long campaign Win
ston consents to go with her to the family tailor in
Saville Row for a new suit.

All England takes new confidence in the spec
tacle of Churchill hustling as he goes about his
monumental tasks. Everyone Churchill meets, in
fact, becomes impregnated with the same hustle.
This is probably the reason why he carries a cane
with a gold knob and band embossed with the arms
of the Spencer-Churchills not to support his
sixty-six-year-old body, but to prod anyone who
doesn't hustle.

Whether he is in Downing Street or on an in
spection tour, Churchill is persistent and aggres
sive. They say the way he got the unwilling Lord
Beaverbrook into his cabinet was to call him up
every two hours for thirty-six hours until the
London Daily Express tycoon gave in.

The Scotland Yard man who has been with
Churchill nearly twenty years says that when the
Prime Minister goes to Dover or to some other area
to inspect defenses, he misses nothing. Like some
hawk-eyed American chain-store supervisor fol
lowed by an uneasy store manager, Churchill al
ways spots what a Commanding Officer might
prefer to have overlooked until the next visit.

10 Mr. England

At Downing Street, there is no such thing as a
highly routined day for Winston Churchill. Neville
Chamberlain, for example, was entirely run by his
secretariat. They put a timetable on Ms desk in
the morning and he kept faithfully to it, minute
by minute, throughout the day. Eleven minutes for
an interview, nine minutes at the Admiralty, six
minutes to dictate a reply to some minister.

But not Churchill. He would just as soon cancel
a cabinet meeting as bat an eye. And the morning
after any great blitz, he and his much publicized
chimney-pot hat are seen moving through the area
and keeping a lot of people waiting in Downing
Street.

In the House of Commons, Winston Churchill is
usually at his best. He is the ablest orator in Par
liament, even if he does commit his speeches to
heart and practice them before a mirror. He is
sharpest in unrehearsed debate a master of the
barbed phrase and the pungent retort

This came to him naturally from his youngest
days. In school, one of his teachers angrily threw
some papers on the floor, raging:

"What can one do with boys who know abso
lutely nothing?"

Up piped Winston's treble: "Teach us, sir."

In his father's footsteps! Randolph Churchill leaves 10 Downing

Street with Prime Minister and Mrs. Churchill to be presented to

the House of Commons by his father.

Picture of the Man 11

It was the same dashing impudence that led him
to say of Ramsay MacDonald, when MacDonald
was premier: "He has the gift of compressing the
largest amount of words into the smallest amount
of thought"

When Stanley Baldwin was premier, Churchill
said that he "had the habit of occasionally stum
bling over the truth and then picking himself up
and going on again as if nothing had happened."

He called Prime Minister Chamberlain "the un
dertaker from Birmingham."

Yet it is as a serious speaker, particularly when
the country is on edge, that Winston Churchill
excels.

The effect is always dramatic. He steps to the
rostrum, slowly glances at his notes with the grim
look of a Disraeli or Gladstone, and then goes into
action. He starts slowly, and because of this slow
ness his lisp and inability to pronounce the letter
s easily become apparent.

But as he warms to the job, occasionally hesitat
ing as if searching for the right word, his speech
moves with greater speed. At the high point he is
delighting everyone with his not subtle but very
biting humor and his grand refusal to pronounce
foreign words and names in anything but ordinary

12 Mr. England

English. Like "Naazi" for "Nazi" with the accent
on the z to make it sound like "nasty."

It is illustrative of the nature of the man that
while his greatest speeches are genuine clarion
calls to his brave compatriots, he has also an eye
on posterity and the great niche he will occupy in
history. It was in June, 1940, shortly after he had
fulfilled his lifelong ambition of becoming Eng
land's prime minister, that he said :

"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty,
and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire
and its Commonwealth last for one thousand years,
men will still say, 'This was their finest hour/ "

Wearing an old suit of overalls fastened up the
front by a zipper and carrying a spade in one hand,
Winston Churchill dictated to a secretary in the
garden of his Westerham, Kent, country home.

He said that if he had a second chance in life, he
might have done a lot of things differently.

For example, he might have placed his money
on black instead of red during his visits many
years ago to Monte Carlo. Then if the ivory ball
had dropped into the black slot as it so often did
when he was playing red he might have made a
lot of money.

Picture of the Man 13

Then if he had invested this money twenty
years ago in plots of land on the lake shore at Chi
cago and had never gone to Monte Carlo any
more, he might be a millionaire today.

Of course, he said, he might have become so
fired by his good luck that he might have become
an habitue of the tables, one of those melancholy
shadows you always saw creeping around the gam-
rung rooms of Monte Carlo in the old days
^- So maybe after all it's just as well you only
have one chance in life. "I know," said Churchill,
^"when I survey the scene of my past life as a
^ whole, I have no doubt that I do not wish to live it
3 over again. The journey has been enjoyable and
V} well worth taking once/' With that he turned and
^ began spading around a /pet rose bush.

The scene just described occurred shortly before

^the present war, and before Winston Churchill

x) could have known that the most vital chapter of his

life story still was to be written in the prime

minister's office at No. 10 Downing Street

When, for years after 1930, the services of
Winston Churchill were not requested by prime
ministers, he used his enforced political leisure
writing books, articles, putting up small brick
walls and buildings, painting landscapes under

14 Mr. England

the name of Charles Marln. It was during these
settled, easy years that he was able to produce
enough literary work and fulfill sufficient lecture
engagements to make $100,000 a year.

Today there is little time for such profitable
leisure, but Winston Churchill doesn't mind. He's
delighted with the fact that he has lost some weight
since assuming the premiership. His job, despite
its exhaustive schedule and grave responsibilities,
is so interesting to him that he feels no sense of
personal sacrifice.

Naturally the Prime Minister's family life has
suffered somewhat. No longer are there the famous
country dinner-table gatherings of family and
guests, where it was the Churchill standing rule
that if you had anything to say it must be tossed
into the center of the table for everyone to
pounce on.

Churchill always enjoyed this general conversa
tion game, but not so the feminine part of Ms
family. When Churchill got this game rolling, Mrs.
Churchill would begin nervously rearranging and
polishing silver around her plate. Daughters Sarah
and Diana just sat quietly. Occasionally, though,
when Sarah would get up nerve enough to brave
the cynosure of eyes which immediately followed

Picture of the Man 15

every statement, her contribution would usually
be given in a low, hesitant tone. And her father
always made it worse, she says, by demanding in
a loud, stentorian voice: "Speak up, child! Re
peat the gem so we can receive full benefit."

All this has largely gone by the boards now,
though. Sarah is married to actor Vic Oliver, who
is doing war entertainment. Diana, also married,
is doing war work. And Eandolph is in the army,
while eighteen-year-old Mary recently made her
first speech to help raise money for British relief.

Which means that the running of the Churchill
household is no longer the great problem of past
years to Mrs. Churchill. But Mrs. Churchill, like
so many millions of other mothers, has resigned
herself to the fact that the children have grown up.
So today all the energy and devotion which she
possesses is lavished exclusively on Winston, ex
cept when the children rush down to the country
for a quick visit.

Though Churchill no longer plays polo, which
he likes immensely, or piquet or backgammon,
which he does indifferently, he still takes a
keen pride in his large collection of swans and
ducks. He now has many rare breeds In his little
lake at Westerham and enjoys watching them al-

16 Mr. England

most as much as he likes playing with his two cats
the one at Westerham and the black kitten re
cently adopted that he has to keep as a permanent
resident at No. 10 Downing because Old Tom at
Westerham wants no part of the new feline.

In the country, Churchill's real work is done in
his study. It's a long, narrow room. Down one side
is a mammoth table holding books, notes, newspa
pers. On the floor are two valuable rugs. The rugs
cause Mrs. Churchill considerable embarrassment,
because right down the center from one end of the
room to the other runs the clear, beaten track of
Winston's feet.

"But it's no use getting new rugs," says Mrs,
Churchill. "If we do, hell quickly wear them out
too."

The only thing that seems never to wear out is
Winston Churchill himself.

Part Two * MR.

Chapter Two
THE EARLY YEARS

When Winston Spencer Leonard Churchill came
to the United States some forty years ago on a
lecture tour during which he retold the famous
tale of his miraculous and thrilling escape from
a Boer prison in Pretoria Mark Twain intro
duced him to a New York audience in these words :

"Ladies and gentlemen : The lecturer tonight is
Winston Churchill By his father he Is an English
man. By his mother he is an American. Behold the
perfect man !"

That double national strain helps to explain
much about the subject of this biography, but the
roots of the matter go back much further in time,
beyond his parents, his grandparents, or even his
great-grandparents, for as long ago as the conflict
between Roundhead and Cavalier in the middle of
the seventeenth century there was a Winston
Churchill on the English scene. Indeed, the
Churchill family is easily traced back to the time
of William, nicknamed the Conqueror.

17

18 Mr. England's First Period

But just as important as the family tree of a
man or woman are the early formative years and
the impressions they and the environment make
on a child's mind.

In this case, the child being Winston Churchill,
he would naturally be told much about his ances
tors. He would learn about the Churchills who
preceded the greatest of their line. But special
stress would be laid precisely on that great man
John Churchill, born in the year 1650 in the small
manor house of Ash in Devonshire, son of that
earlier Winston Churchill, and later to be known
as the Duke of Marlborough, England's greatest
soldier.

On the surface the story of John Churchill takes
on a fairy-tale quality; it is the story of a man
upon whom fortune, most of the time, turned her
most favorable smiles. In his early youth John and
his sister Arabella had the luck to enter the circles
of royalty at a time when royal favor was the
stepping stone to good fortune. John became at the
age of fifteen page of honor to the Duke of York,
while Arabella became maid of honor to the
Duchess. Like his father, John was interested in
soldiering, and through the influence of his patron
he was given a commission at the age of seventeen

The Early Years 19

in the King's regiment of Foot Guards, now known
as the Grenadier Guards, then as now a crack regi
ment of the British Army. In 1672, when England
sent six thousand troops to France in the war
against Holland, Churchill was sent along, and he
soon became a captain in the Duke of York's own
regiment. Churchill knew that he could only obtain
distinction and advancement through hard work
and daring, and throughout the campaign he was
in the fore of every engagement. His reckless dar
ing won the attention of the great French marshal,
Turenne, and on a bet made by Turenne, Churchill
recaptured a position lost by a French colonel with
only half the number of men. At the siege of Maes-
tricht the Duke of Monmouth, Churchill, and a
dozen others held off a considerable force of Dutch
and recaptured a position the Dutch had taken.
Later the Duke of Monmouth gave Churchill credit
for the exploit and acknowledged that Churchill
had saved his life.

In 1678 John Churchill performed one of the
luckiest feats in his whole career ; he won the heart
of Sarah Jennings and married her. Lucky, for
Sarah was the favorite attendant of the Princess
Anne, daughter of the Duke of York, and destined
to shine in history as Queen Anne. For many

20 Mr. England's First Period

years while she was Queen,, Anne was only putty
in the hands of the astute Sarah, with the result
that John Churchill always received ample reward
for his various services to the state. More than
that, John and Sarah were for many years the
most powerful couple in court circles.

When James II, the former Duke of York, came
to the throne, the Churchills were in direct line for
advancement. Three years before Colonel Churchill
had been created a Scottish peer, and now he be
came an English baron. When Monmouth put in
his ill-fated bid for the English crown, Churchill
was made commander of the king's forces till
James remembered he owed a debt of gratitude to
Feversham, a relation of Turenne's, and Churchill
took second place. He swallowed his pride and did
his best to offset the blunders of Feversham, and
at the battle of Sedgmoor, where Monmouth was
decisively defeated, Churchill led regiments into
vigorous action while Feversham was getting
dressed and shaved.

Although James placed implicit confidence in his
general, Churchill was greatly opposed to James*
attempt to make England a Catholic nation, and
he was one of the first to write to William of
Orange pledging his support should William de-

The Early Years 21

cide to come over to England. Nevertheless, James
put him in command of the troops opposing Wil
liam when the latter landed in 1688. James was
surprised, and greatly chagrined, when his best
general went over to the enemy's camp.

For his part in the bloodless revolution, William
made Churchill Earl of Marlborough. Not alto
gether trusting his new earl, however, William
sent him as far from home as he could to the
Netherlands in 1689 and to Ireland the following
year, where Marlborough proved himself by cap
turing Cork and Kinsale.

In 1692 Marlbor ough's fortunes took a turn for
the worse. Accused of treason, he was thrown in
the Tower. Later, there being no proof of his guilt,
he was released. It was quite true, however, that
Marlborough was in touch with the exiled James,
as were most of William's ministers. He wanted
to make perfectly sure that the pig-headed Dutch
man was going to be no worse than the Stuarts.
In those days of vacillating and despotic rulers,
when even the monarchs themselves were on the
payroll of foreign countries, it paid to heed where
the ax might fall. At any rate, there is no doubt
that Marlborough valued his country's honor
higher than a ruler's loyalty.

22 Mr. England's First Period

Gradually William lost Ms distrust of Marlbor-
ough and gradually he was given more responsible
positions. He was not to reach the height of favor,
though, until Anne came to the throne in 1702.
Then it was that Sarah's patient tutoring and flat
tery bore fruit. In short order Marlborough was
named commander-in-chief of the English forces
at home and abroad and made a Knight of the
Garter.

In the same year war was declared on France
by England, Holland and Austria, and thus began
the bloody, and sometimes futile, War of the Span
ish Succession. Through the influence of Anne,
Marlborough was given chief command of the al
lied forces; but, as is usual with allies, Marlbor
ough spent more time fighting jealousy and
conflicting aims than he did the enemy. Like all
great generals, he wanted to get at the seat of the
trouble and this meant invading France. But the
Dutch were fearful that their frontiers would be
left undefended and the Austrians were more wor
ried about putting an Austrian on the Spanish
throne than defeating the French. Despite jealousy
and opposition Marlborough gained several bril
liant victories by capturing the fortresses of Kal-
serwerth, Venlo, and Liege, and on his return to

The Early Years 23

England the grateful Anne made him duke and
granted Mm 5000 a year as long as she should
live.

The campaigns of the following year were not
so successful for the Allies, which was largely due
to the obstinacy and incapacity of the Dutch, and
Marlborough had only minor successes to offset a
rousing defeat inflicted on the Dutch.

Bolstered up by his imagined strength,, Louis
XIV became ambitious and decided to capture Vi
enna. Marlborough was equally determined to give
the French a sound drubbing to make up for his
lack of success the preceding year. French troops
were sent into Bavaria to make a junction with
Bavarian troops and march up the Danube to
Vienna. Gifted with that ability of a great general
to fathom his enemy's intentions, Marlborough
guessed Louis' destination, and pretending to at
tack the northeastern frontier of France he moved
into Bavaria. The French and Bavarians, taken
by surprise near the village of Blenheim, were
drawn up in two separate, extended armies. Nev
ertheless their position was very strong, with the
Danube on their right flank and the river Nebel
in front. At noon on August 13, 1704, after waiting
for the Prince Eugene to join Ms forces, Marlbor-

24 Mr. England's First Period

ough attacked. At first the fighting looked as
though it was going in favor of the French, who
were somewhat stronger. The British brigade in
their first attack on the village of Blenheim lost a
third of their men. Further attacks had no more
success and the losses were heavier. Marlborough
did not want a soldier's battle, so, ordering Lord
Cutts to hold the village of Blenheim and Eugene
to hold the right, Marlborough attacked in the
center, succeeding in repulsing the French and
crossing the river. The battle was soon oven Lead
ing the cavalry in the center, Marlborough pierced
the French line and rolled up the enemy on both
sides. The French lost heavily in killed and
wounded, some being drowned in the Danube.
Eleven thousand men, one hundred guns and two
hundred colors were captured. This battle, Marl-
borough's greatest, marked the decline in the
power of French arms, which hitherto had been
supreme on the continent

In England Marlborough's name was a synonym
for glory. By an act of parliament he was given
the manorial estate of Woodstock, formerly crown
property, Anne built him a palace on the estate,
and 240,000 of public money was spent on the
buildings alone. The estate was renamed Blenheim

The Early Years 25

in honor of Marlborough's victory. Nothing was
too good for England's hero.

The Duke went on to win the battles of Ramil-
lies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet, and he was ac
tively engaged upon the Continent until several
unexpected circumstances brought about Ms down
fall. For one thing he became mixed up in politics,
and while he was fighting on the Continent his
position was undermined at home by hostile politi
cal factions. But worst of all, Queen Anne started
listening to other counsel than her beloved Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough, and Sarah, who had as
bitter a temper as she had a clever brain, became
too loudspoken in her espousal of the Whig cause.
The result was that the Duchess was dismissed
from her offices in 1710, and the following year
Marlborough himself fell out of favor. He left
England and remained on the Continent until the
death of Anne in 1714, when he returned and re
sumed all his former military jobs. He had learned
Ms lesson, and from this time till his death in 1722
the great general did not meddle in politics.

This great story was told to the young Winston
Churchill with all of its most glorious sides turned
outward. England has a superfluity of naval
heroes, but their great military men are few and

26 Mr. England's First Period

far between, and it was a source of satisfaction to
the young Winston to claim the greatest as his
ancestor. Little was said, probably, of the asper
sions cast upon the great Duke's character by
smaller, carping critics his meddling in politics,
his flirting with two royal masters at the coming
of William and Mary, his inordinate love for
money, the attribution of Ms success in war to
good fortune. Many years later the boy was to
write a monumental biography of the Duke which
would serve to vindicate him in the face of the
bitter things said by his enemies.

It is also quite certain that the young boy was
not told the famous poem by Robert Southey on
the battle of Blenheim:

"It was the English/' Kaspar cried,
"Who put the French to rout;

But what they fought each other for,

I could not well make out;

But everybody said/' quoth he,

"That 'twas a famous victory/'

\

The poem stresses the futility of war. And the
boy was destined to take part in almost every war
his country waged during his grown life.

The Early Years 27

There Is a popular French song about Marlbor
ough that Napoleon used to sing before every bat
tle. Some say the song refers to the great Duke f
others to a later Marlborough who led an unsuc
cessful expedition against St. Halo in Brittany;
but the song is probably older than either of these
gentlemen. It goes

"Malbrouck s'en va-t~en guerre,
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine;
Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre
Nul sait quand reviendra yi

All of which means that Marlborough the French
could not pronounce this hard English name the
same way is off to the wars and no one knows
when he will return. Some have fancied that this
song may have influenced the young Churchill to
learn French. Certainly it is the only foreign lan
guage he ever really tried to learn.

Coming down to later times, the seventh Duke
of Marlborough married the daughter of the third
Marquess of Londonderry, thus continuing a pro
cess that had started long ago that of intermar
riage of the house of Churchill with many of the
other old aristocratic families.

28 Mr, England's First Period

To this seventh Duke and Duchess was born in
1849 Randolph Churchill, father of the present
Winston. Lord Randolph Churchill had a short and
brilliant career in politics. He entered the House
of Commons in 1874 from the constituency of
Woodstock, the family seat. A member of the Con
servative party, he was no more a slavish camp
follower and yes man than has been his distin
guished son. It was Lord Randolph who tried to
force the party to liberalize itself as Disraeli had
preached it must do. "Tory democracy 1 " was ever
on his lips. Lord Randolph told his Tory elders
that they must not allow the Liberal party to be
the only party which cared about the well-being
and progress of the masses. At one time in Parlia
ment he had his own "cave/' which from its num
bers was called the "Fourth Party/' He was a
severe and dangerous critic of the Gladstone gov
ernment. Nor did he hesitate in attacking some of
the policies of his own party. Like his son, he was
a maker of phrases that stuck. He called some of
his political opponents the "old gang" and they
could never shake off the epithet. When Gladstone
was proposing a Home Rule Bill for Ireland, Lord
Randolph Churchill opposed it The people of
Ulster were afraid they might be included in its

The Early Years 29

provisions. They were bitterly against any sever
ance from the union with England. In one of his
speeches he coined the famous sentence which was
to become a battle cry of the Ulstermen: "Ulster
will fight and Ulster will be right."

When the Conservatives came back to power, so
brilliant was Lord Randolph Churchill's reputation
that the Prime Minister gave him the important
post of Secretary of State for India. In the very
next year, he was promoted to be Chancellor of the
Exchequer, a cabinet post which is regarded as a
steppingstone to the ultimate goal of prime
minister.

The handsome, eloquent, popular Chancellor
seemed destined to be the natural leader of his
party when the older men stepped off the political
scene. But a sudden squall arose. He differed with
the cabinet about some appropriations for the
army. Being overruled by his fellow ministers, he
astounded the Prime Minister and stunned the
country by resigning on December 23, 1886.
He did not expect that his resignation would
be accepted. Without him, it would be difficult to
form a cabinet. In after years he confessed he "f or-
got Goschen," The man he referred to was George
Goschen, afterwards a Viscount. He had been a

30 Mr. England's First

member of the Liberal party, but left it when he
fought Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. He was a bril
liant master of financial problems. Lord Salisbury
quickly made him Chancellor and he was a very
successful one. Lord Randolph Churchill never
again held office. However, he continued to be a
caustic critic of many of the measures discussed
during Ms time. In 1891 he traveled in South
Africa for his health and, upon returning, wrote
Ms book. Men, Mines and Animals in South Africa.
In the election of 1892 his constituency of South
Paddington in London returned him to the House
of Commons, where he distinguished himself in the
fight on Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill.

When he was twenty-four and leading the life
of a young man of leisure, he spent part of the
summer of 1873* at Cowes, center of the yacht
races, and, consequently, of fashion. All doors
were, of course, open to him. It was sometMng to
be son of a duke. At Cowes he met the stunning
Miss Jennie Jerome, who, with her mother and
sister, was touring Europe. With Mm it was a
ease of love at first sight, a tMng that was to be
repeated in the story of his eldest son. The very
day he met the girl, he said to an intimate friend :
a There is my future wif e."

The Early Years 31

But if Ms feelings were soon reciprocated by the
pretty girl* their path was not entirely smooth*
The young man's father was not pleased at the
idea of an American daughter-in-law* When that
obstacle was removed, the girl's father proved ob
durate. The fact that his daughter had fallen in
love with a young man who was the son of a duke
did not particularly thrill or awe Mm. But what
aroused Ms ire was the European custom of the
bride bringing a dowry to her husband, who
thenceforth had control over it. But that, too, was
smoothed out.

If the groom's family had a long and distin
guished lineage* less could be said of the bride's.
Her father, Leonard W. Jerome, sprang from plain
country farming folk in northern New York state.
He was one of ten children. Like his brothers and
sisters, he did his share of work on the farm. Like
many another American country boy, they could
not keep Mm on the farm. He worked his way
through Union College, graduated when nineteen^
studied law at Albany, and at twenty-two was ad
mitted to the bar. After practicing his profession
for a few years, he got into the newspaper business
and became publisher of the Rochester, New York*
Native American. In the days when it was not al~

82 Mr. England's First Period

ways safe to attack slavery, even in the North,
Jerome wrote editorial after editorial denouncing
the institution. After a three-year interval in
which he was American Consul in Trieste, he re
turned to America, became a Wall Street operator
and made a fortune. When the Civil War broke
out, he was the largest stockholder in the New
York Times. The paper was one of the best in New
York, but it had nothing of the circulation, news
coverage and prestige that Adolph Ochs secured
for it when, in later years, he became its owner.
Under Jerome's guidance the paper came out
strongly for the Union cause. It denounced the
Copperheads, who sympathized with the Southern
Confederacy. It supported the Lincoln government
when conscription was introduced. In 1863 oc
curred the draft riots in New York City. Jerome
was certain that the rioters would come to sack
his offices. Therefore he armed his employees with
rifles and he himself remained in the building to
take command in case trouble started. The rioters
gave the New York Times a wide berth. He was an
ardent admirer of General Grant, and when the
latter made his bid for a third Republican nomina
tion for the presidency and a third election to that
office, Jerome supported him.

The Early Years S3

There was a time when Jerome was considered
one of the "swells" of New York City. He was
rich. He was on the inside of the town's most ex
clusive society. He was the proud owner of the
first four-in-hand driven around town. He was
deeply interested in racing, that sport of kings,
royal and financial. He was one of the organizers
of the American Jockey Club* Jerome Park was
named after him. And he helped establish two
other famous race courses Sheepshead Bay and
Morris Park. He lost a fortune and went right
back in Wall Street to make another. He lost most
of that, too, but he never lost the Jerome swagger
and the Jerome popularity in that smaller New
York City which now seems so distant in time.

Winston Churchill was born in London, No
vember 30, 1874, and his early infant years
were divided between Blenheim Palace and the
Viceregal Lodge in Phoenix Park, Dublin, where
for some time his grandfather, the seventh Duke of
Marlborough, presided as Lord Lieutenant of Ire
land. For a child who had the great park of Blen
heim Palace as his playground there was every
opportunity to soak up English history at one of its
fountain heads. In this park had once stood a royal
palace long since destroyed. Rumor said that the

84 Mr. England's First Period

great King Alfred once dwelt there. It was cer
tainly the favorite residence of King Henry II and
his mistress, Rosamond Clifford, the "fair Rosa
mond" of the poets of that time. Here, too, lived
King Edward III and here was bom his famous
son, the Black Prince. King Richard II once kept
his court here* In the Civil War, the estate was
held for King Charles the First until the cavaliers
were routed by Cromwell's men, who sacked
the place.

Blenheim Palace itself is rather an overwhelm
ing home to have been bom in. There it stands
today unless the Germans have bombed it a
splendid two-hundred-year-old stone and marble
structure, 348 feet wide, surrounded by formal
gardens and park lands as far as the eye can see.
In front towers a column 130 feet high, surmount
ed by a statue of the first Duke, whose deeds are
emblazoned on tablets surrounding the pedestal*
Inside are portraits of the Duke and his Sarah and
of many of their descendants. On the walls are tap
estries depicting the Duke's greatest battles. Here
was everything to intrigue the mind of a growing
child, to make him proud of his ancestry, to in
terest him in the history of the country in which
Ms family had played such important roles.

The Early Years 35

So far as the boy Winston was concerned, he saw
little of Ms father and mother, From that stand
point his was a lonely life. His father was soon
deep in politics. His lovely mother was soon one
of the greatest favorites in the innermost social
circles of London. The greatest came to her recep
tions and dinners and were proud to call her
friend. Her famous son years later said of her:
u She shone for me like the evening star. I loved
her dearly but at a distance."

However, Churchill has written that the greatest
single influence on Ms life in its earlier stages was
Ms father. He says he never talked with him on
equal terms, but nevertheless conceived an intense
admiration and affection for him. Out of that grew
Ms habit, after Lord Randolph Churchill's death,
of reading every word he had ever spoken and
committing parts of Ms speeches to memory. Mod
eling his life on that of his father, he determined,
when he went into politics, never to be a slavish
hack, but to do Ms own thinking and voting. Just
as Ms father achieved the great post of Chancellor
of the Exchequer, so he dreamed of the same goal.
In later years, when he had lived a full life and
when he knew the social and political world of
Great Britain inside out, Churchill carried out a

86 Mr. England's First Period

long unmentioned dream that of writing a biog
raphy which would be a true and lasting monument
to Ms father's memory.

On the rare occasions when the boy was allowed
to remain up a little later than usual, he saw in
his parents' house all the fixed and all the rising
stars of society, politics and wealth in an England
that was at the height of its power and prosperity.
In later years Churchill confessed his pride in be
ing a member of one of the few hundred great fami
lies that had governed England for generations and
that had helped bring her to the glittering and
powerful position she then held in world affairs*

But if he did not see very much of his parents,
he could easily amuse himself. His mind filled with
stories about the great Duke, he assiduously col
lected an army of fifteen hundred toy soldiers, rep
resenting all branches of the British armed serv
ices. With these he spent endless happy, busy hours
fighting old battles over again. But this halcyon
occupation came to an unhappy end when it was
decided he should go to school He was unhappy at
a private institution in Ascot and not much better
off in another school in Brighton.

Now, for one of his class, it was customary to
go to Eton or Harrow, preferably the former, and

The Early Years 37

then on to Oxford or Cambridge. This? plus family
influence at home and the spirit of noblesse oblige,
made the finished perfect English gentleman.
Winston's parents chose Harrow because they
thought it would be better for his none too robust
health, speaking from the standpoint of climate.
Both at Harrow and later at Sandhurst he was a
failure in so far as Latin, Greek, and mathematics
were concerned.

For anyone whose aim was Parliament, Latin
and Greek were considered almost indispensable.
Many of the members loved to toss Latin and
Greek quotations at each other. The increasing
democratization of the House of Commons, espe
cially due to the influx of members of the Labor
party, has rather killed this stilted habit and given
plain English more chance. Loss of Greek and
Latin never hampered Winston Churchill. The
joke about mathematics is that for many years he
was Chancellor of the Exchequer, like his father
before him, and had to juggle gigantic figures.

The boy's poor showing in Latin, Greek and
mathematics upon which such stress is still laid
in English schools led his father to the conclu
sion that his son would never shine in politics or
at the bar. The next best thing was to put him

38 Mr. England's First Period

into the army. Martial deeds were in the blood.
Lead soldiers had been Ms passionately loved play
things. Stories of war had been his favorite read
ing. So off the lad went to Sandhurst, the West
Point of England, He did not dazzle meteorically
in Ms entrance examinations^ but affer several
abortive attempts, he finally succeeded in being
accepted as a cadet. Once in, he studied with great
perseverance, because military subjects were to Ms
liking. He ranked well in Ms classes. He became an
expert horseman. In later years, he looked back
to his time at Sandhurst with deep pleasure. He
looked back to his earlier school days with deep
aversion. He wrote that it would have been far
better had he been employed running errands or
helping dress the windows of a grocery shop.

Without conscious purpose while at Sandhurst,
he was also laying the foundations of the grand
style he was later to display both in his orations
and in his books. To the Bible and Shakespeare
were added a perfect knowledge of the swelling
periods of Gibbon and Hacaulay. From them he
learned the art wMch often gives to his sentences
the very roll of the drams and the belligerent call
of the trumpets.

The Early Years 39

In Ms twenty-first year, Winston Churchill's

life was saddened by the death of Ms father on
January 24, 1895. Lord Randolph Churchill had
been in bad health for a long time. His death from
paralysis was foreseen, but he lived long enough
to take delight in his eldest son's successful gradu
ation from Sandhurst and Ms induction into the
armed service of the country. The boy was at Ms
bedside when the end came to a life cut tragically
short*

Chapter Three
THE YOUNG WARRIOR

On leaving Sandhurst in the spring of 1895,
Winston Churchill was assigned to the Fourth
Queen's Own Hussars as a subaltern. For eight
months he lived the semi-idle life of a gentleman
officer in peace time. That is, he passed part of
each day drilling his men, inspecting them and
their horses and taking part in maneuvers. In his
leisure hours he ran up to London to eat good din
ners, to go to the theatre, and to dance in great
houses. This was the era of British splendor, with
nothing but occasional little wars somewhere in
the Empire, with no foreboding of the black war
clouds that were nearly to engulf these tight isles
some twenty years later. Churchill's name was the
open sesame to all the desirable houses he wished
to enter.

But very shortly this life palled. He was rap
idly getting nowhere. He wanted action. He wanted
to see the outside world. He wanted to line his
purse with money. For years this desire for money

40

The Young Warrior 41

was an obsession with him, the result not of avarice
but of cruel necessity. He had a noble lineage but
no patrimony. As a soldier he needed far more
than his slender pay allowed. As a politician and,
later, as a king's minister, he needed money even
more badly. As a matter of fact, it was not until
comparatively late in life that he became indepen
dent. A legacy from a relative helped, but it was
his writing and Ms lectures that made him a free
man.

As young Churchill looked around the world, the
only "show" that promised action and glory was
on in full swing in Cuba. That rich island was hav
ing one of its periodic revolutions against the
rather stringent and unintelligent Spanish rule.
Marshal Martinez de Campos was getting ready to
lead an expedition to suppress the rebels. In the
days of ChurchilFs ancestor Marlborough it was
often necessary for a young officer with no money
and few court connections to prove himself on the
battlefields of the Continent in order to obtain rec
ognition in the English Army. Perhaps it was an
unconscious recollection of the foolhardy deeds of
the young Marlborough to obtain recognition, as
in his acceptance of Turenne's bet, that led young
Churchill to go off seeking adventure. At any rate

42 Mr. England's First Period

Ms family connections and friendships enabled Mm
to pull the right strings, and in the winter of 1895
he landed in Havana. In Ms pocket he had an extra
weapon a contract to act as Cuban war corre
spondent for a London newspaper. They had taken
him on chance, but it was a very inexpensive
chance, since the contract called for a very limited
number of articles and the pay for these was to
be twenty-five dollars apiece.

When Churchill rode with the Spanish forces
into the semi- jungle of the Cuban hinterland, he
found the real war much different than he had
imagined. Instead of long lines of soldiers drawn
up in battle array, the fighting consisted of guerilla
warfare, with small detachments ambushing and
being ambushed, and with danger lurking behind
every tree and clump of grass. However, this was
valuable experience for the young soldier; here he
had his baptism of fire and here he proved to him
self that he could take it The campaign netted him
Ms first medal the Spanish Order of Military
Merit, first-class. Furthermore, Ms experiences as
a war correspondent inspired in him the belief that
he had the makings of a writer. For many years
he considered himself, no matter whether he was
soldiering or governing, as a newspaperman too.

Wide World

After escaping from the Boers, Churchill returns to visit the scene

of his capture

Churchill in court dress shortly after the Boer War

The Young Warrior 43

Not long after Churchill returned from Cuba,
Ms regiment was ordered to India. Never a good
linguist, he made no attempt to learn any of the
commonly used languages of the country. Instead,
he threw his energies into the everyday grind of a
soldier and discovered a new game polo, which
he played very well. He was in England on fur
lough when he learned that the crafty and warlike
Pathans on the Northwest Frontier were stirring
up trouble again. The government was getting
ready to send an expedition against them. Its lead
er was to be a veteran with the very appropriate
name of Bindon Blood.

Churchill decided that this little war was too
good a thing to miss, so early in 1897 he got him
self attached to the 31st Punjab Infantry. This ex
pedition promised to be much more satisfactory
than the one in Cuba. The Pathans were brave and
cunning mountain men who valued their rifles
above everything else. They knew every pass and
every turning in the lofty foothills of the Hima
layas. They were experts in the art of taking cover.
It was said that the only time a Pathan was not a
dead shot was when he was shot dead. Before sail
ing for India, however, Churchill got a contract to
write for the London Daily Telegraph, and in India

44 Mr. England's First Period

he was named war correspondent for the famed
Allahabad Pioneer. The "little" war turned out to
be quite a sanguinary conflict for all its size, and
as usual Churchill managed to get into the thick of
it, as his mention in despatches and another medal
would indicate. Although his life was in danger a
number of times, fortune favored him and he lived
to write his first book. The Story of the Malakand
Field Force, which appeared in 1898.

This book was hardly finished when another lit
tle war broke out this time an uprising of the
Afridis beyond the Khyber pass. Churchill was
attached as an orderly officer to the staff of Sir
William Lockhart, commander of the Tirah Expe
ditionary Force, and for his services under fire re
ceived a clasp to the medal he had already won.

No sooner had Churchill reported back to his
regiment in Bangalore than he heard of another
military expedition. This time In the Sudan. The
Sudan territory to the south of Egypt had at one
time been under the control of Egypt, but an Arab
fanatic claiming to have the divine protection of
Allah, one called the Mahdi, had collected an army
and proceeded to carry his will over the Sudan by
fire and sword. The British, who at the time were
in actual but politely concealed control of Egypt,

The Young Warrior 45

ordered the Sudan evacuated and the famous "Chi
nese" Gordon was sent to Khartoum to see that this
was done. But the Mahdi overran the country sur
rounding Khartoum and for many months General
Gordon and his pitifully small garrison stood siege.
Finally, in 1885, the walls of the town were weak
ened by a flood, the Arabs entered, and Gordon was
cruelly murdered. For many years the Sudan
seethed with unrest. The Mahdi died and was suc
ceeded by a leader called the Khalifa, who also
claimed divine protection. It was the Khalifa's
purpose to conquer the whole of Egypt, but he
found himself too busy suppressing insurrections
in his own territory. In 1896 it was decided that
the Sudan must be wrested from the control of the
Khalifa and his militant Arabs, and the job of re
conquering it was given to General Kitchener,
later creator of the "new" British Armies who
fought so bravely in France.

Churchill moved heaven and earth, and even
budged a few of the mighty ministers in White
hall, in his desire to take part in the Kitchener ex
pedition. But the cold, hard-faced Sirdar (Com
mander) of the Egyptian Armies turned a deaf
ear to every appeal made on Churchill's behalf. He
did not care overly much for subalterns who car-

46 Mr. England's First Period

ried a sword in one hand and a pen in the other.
Besides, this young man was too impossible; he
broke all the rules. He did not hesitate to criticize
his august superiors. He called a spade a spade and
a mistake a mistake. The last refusal Kitchener
made to the Prime Minister Lord Salisbury
himself. He regretted it very much, but every
place 5 even the smallest, was filled, and he had a
long waiting list of ambitious young officers.

Not to be put off so easily, Churchill discovered
that there was more than one way to kill a cat in
this case, to get to Egypt. He found out that the
Egyptian troops were to be stiffened by several
seasoned British regiments* And best of all, the
War Office, not Kitchener, had control over the
British contingent. Churchill got himself named
supernumerary lieutenant in the 21st Lancers,
This meant that he would have to go to Egypt at
his own expense. But there were always newspa
pers ! He got, as usual, a commission to act as war
correspondent. This time he was to be paid seven
ty-five dollars a column and from the London
Morning Post at that. That ultra-Tory paper had
not yet fallen onto the evil days that were to mark
its demise. It was well financed by wealthy men
and had a power that far exceeded its circulation.

The Young Warrior 47

To write for it was to be assured of a very select
and influential audience.

In Egypt Churchill found that Ms reputation
had preceded him, and he was hardly given a
rousing cheer from the British officers who were
Ms superiors in rank. They made it clear to him
that he was a greenhorn as far as desert warfare
was concerned. They gave him the toughest jobs.

Kitchener had taken his time in the Sudan. His
supply ships traveled on the Nile, guarded by gun
boats. On land he often constructed railway lines.
Always he pushed south, but always he first made
sure of his communications. And always he
marched toward Khartoum, the tragic city where
Gordon met his death and where the Khalifa made
his headquarters. There were plenty of skirmishes
on the way. The nights were often broken by at
tacks and alarms. But Kitchener bided his time
till he could confront the main body of the Khalifa's
army. That opportunity came at last at Omdur-
man, some miles to the north of Khartoum. On
September 2, 1898, the final clash occurred. It was
marked by the courageous stand of the British
square, invincible in this type of warfare, and the
famous cavalry charge, a charge like many of those
classic ones in the American Civil War. The 21st

48 Mr. England's First Period

Lancers made the cavalry charge and Churchill
was with the Lancers. As in his other battles, he
had many narrow escapes but came out whole. His
part in the scrimmage won him another medal
with a clasp. And his memories of the campaign
gave him the material for a new book, The River
War, which was published in 1899.

While he liked the military life and fighting,
Churchill realized that he was no leader like his
great ancestor. Looking around for something else
to do, he naturally turned to politics as his father
had before him. Naturally, he was a Conservative.
And naturally he wanted to be elected to the
House of Commons. The Conservative party ma
chine tried him out on the stump. Sometimes he
stuttered. He also lisped because of a defective
palate. But he had something to say and a fresh
way of saying it. He managed to get his audiences
interested. These were the freshman years for the
future resplendent orator.

The Conservative party machine gave him one
of the nominations for a by-election in the Oldham
district in industrial Lancashire in the summer of
1899. It was no generous gift on the machine's
part. Oldham was a debatable constituency. The
labor element was strong there and working people

The Young Warrior 49

were not particularly fond of the Conservative
party. The machine reserved its safe seats for cabi
net members and rich party hacks who could al
ways be relied upon to contribute liberally to the
party funds and to vote as their leader in Parlia
ment indicated. Churchill was not only a beginner,
but a novice who had no money. He made a vigor
ous campaign, but was beaten by thirteen hundred
votes.

He did not have much time to brood over his
lack of success. In the offing was a new war. Down
in the southern half of Africa Great Britain had
two colonies, the Cape Colony and Natal The tip
of the continent had originally been colonized by
the Boers, a sturdy people mainly of Dutch descent
with a slight admixture of French. To get away
from the English, they moved further north, just
as the Mormons in the nineteenth century tried to
get away from the United States by trekking west
and settling and developing the desert that was
Utah. The Boers had two little republics Trans
vaal, presided over by the formidable "Oom" Paul
Kruger, and the Orange Free State. The Transvaal
especially whetted the appetites of Britons with
colonial dreams and adventurers with an eye on
the rich gold and diamond mines. Doctor Jameson,

50 Mr. England's First Period

with the connivance of men in high places, had not
so many years before led an abortive raid on the
Transvaal. After that, the two Boer republics,
with an eye to future eventualities, began procur
ing arms, mainly from Germany. President Kru-
ger brought matters to a head when he sent Brit
ain an ultimatum demanding that it withdraw its
armed forces from the frontiers of the republic.
Within a very few days, the ultimatum having
expired, the two little republics were at war with
mighty Britain.

The moment the ultimatum was made public,
Churchill got in touch with the publishers of the
Morning Post of London and obtained a contract '
which emphasized the reputation his fights and his
books about them had made. He was to go to South
Africa as a war correspondent with a salary of
$1250 per month and a guarantee of at least four
months. This clause was instructive. Britons in
general thought it would be a very short and very
inexpensive war. They were quickly undeceived;
the Boers were stubborn enemies and the war cost
Britain heavily In dead and wounded and in
money.

Churchill sailed for Africa on October 11, 1899,
In the ship that carried Sir Redvers Buller and his

The Young Warrior 51

staff . Buller, who had quite a reputation, was to be
commander-in-chief and father of victory. As a
matter of fact, he fumbled and for months the war
was a lost war. By the time Churchill got to South
Africa, the British forces had already suffered a
disastrous defeat and considerable numbers were
being besieged by the Boers in the little town of
Ladysmith.

Churchill went forward to Eastcourt, some forty
miles from Ladysmith. Here he met an old army
friend, who was about to take an armored train of
six cars to reconnoiter. Churchill was given the
opportunity to go along. When the train had gone
about fourteen miles, an "accident" happened on
the track The engineer endeavored to back, but
could not. The Boers had evidently laid a trap for
the British forces. A sharp fight took place, during
which many of the British were killed or wounded.
It was impossible to get the train away. Many of
the little force were captured, among them being
Churchill. He had drawn Ms pistol and was going
to fire it at the first Boer who came his way, but he
gave up. A horseman had him covered with his
rifle.

Years later, when he was a prominent member
of the British cabinet, he sat next to General

52 Mr. England's First Period

Louis Botha, one of the best of the Boer leaders in
the field, who later became the first premier of the
great self-governing Dominion of South Africa
and who, in World War I, led the British forces in
capturing German Southwest Africa. Churchill
was telling him about his Boer War adventure. "I
was the man you tried to kill/' said the famous
fellow-guest.

Together with other prisoners, Churchill was
locked up in the State Model School in the Boer
Capital of Pretoria. To a man of ChurchilFs tem
perament, imprisonment seemed worse than death.
Big things were going on and here he was locked
up. He and two officers planned to make their es
cape by means of a window in the lavatory.
Churchill got out. The others failed. By great good
luck he escaped being seen by the sentries, crawled
through some bushes and stepped out into wide
Africa. He had some hundreds of dollars' worth of
pounds sterling, a few bars of chocolate and a
couple of biscuits. He was without any knowledge
of Boer Dutch or Kaffir, the language of the native
tribes. He knew the nearest Portuguese colony was
about three hundred miles away. He was also sure
that when his escape was known parties would
start in search for Mm and that rewards would be

The Young Warrior 53

offered for his arrest. His surmise was correct, for
the Boers offered $125 for his capture dead or
alive. Their posters asked people to look for: "An
Englishman of indifferent build, walking with a
forward stoop, pale appearance, red brownish hair,
small and hardly noticeable moustache, talks
through his nose and cannot pronounce the letter
s properly."

With the exception that his hair has gone very
thin and that the moustache was cut off long ago,
the picture the Boers drew of him holds good to
this day.

After walking for some time, Churchill came
to a railway track. He did not know whether it led
to the Portuguese colony or right smack into more
Boer territory. He followed it for two hours,
dodged around a solitary station and hid in a
ditch. After a long wait, a train came along. It
carried freight. He managed to scramble aboard
one of the cars, which was filled with empty sacks
in which coal had been carried. The sacks were
now being taken back to the colliery. Churchill bur
ied himself beneath some of these and had a good
sleep. When he awoke it was still dark. He thought
he had better get off the train to have a look
around. He jumped and, with Churchill luck,

54 Mr. England's First Period

escaped injury. He hid all day. He had a bite of Ms
precious chocolate and a long drink from a pool.
At night he waited for another train. But none
came* His plan to travel like an American tramp
stealing rides failed. In the distance he saw some
lights burning. His guess was that they were
Kaffir kraals. He had heard that the Kaffirs were
favorable to the British, because the Boer farmers
treated them harshly. Churchill resolved to take
a chance. The distance was greater than he
thought. It took him nearly two hours to reach the
lights and then he found he was in a mining vil
lage. If the people were Boers, he was lost. He
knocked at a door. The owner opened it and asked
what he wanted this late in the night. Churchill
told a cock and bull story about being a Boer who
had lost his way from his regiment. The man asked
Mm to come inside and tell him more. Churchill
took a bold chance. He revealed who he was. His
host got up and locked the door, telling him he was
lucky to have bumped into a British house. The
Boers had allowed a few Britons to continue at
their work in running the colliery. Churchill's host
was John Howard, manager of the colliery. He
lived to see Churchill attain greatness. In fact, he
died early in 1941 back in his native England.

The Young Warrior 55

Howard fed the hungry man, concealed him for
six days down in one of the mines until the hue
and cry for Churchill's arrest died down, and ar
ranged to send Mm to Delagoa Bay in a freight car
loaded with bales of wool. The British Consul in
Lourenco Marques at once arranged for Ms pas
sage on a steamer back to Durban. Resuming his
status as a subaltern in the Queen's Own, Church
ill took part in the concluding and victorious bat
tles of the Boer War.

The story of his escape had made him celebrated
back home. It was one of the great escape stories of
all time. But his fate was to find brickbats as well
as bouquets. Just as, after the Spanish- American
War, when F. P. Dunne had his Mr. Dooley say
Theodore Roosevelt's account of the Rough Riders
should have been entitled "Alone in Cuba," so one
hostile London paper practically asked whether
Churchill had been alone in South Africa. But that
was a minor thorn. Upon his return from the war,
he found his stock rated high. He left the army
in July, 1900 and decided to make another con
test for a seat in the House of Commons. Many
seats were offered the new celebrity, but he de
lighted Oldham by saying he preferred to run there
once again. The voters rallied to him with enthu-

56 Mr. England's First Period

siasm and sang right lustily a campaign song
which proclaimed :

"You've heard of Winston Churchill;
This is all I need to say
He's the latest and the greatest
Correspondent of the day."

It was probably the first and only time in Eng
lish-speaking countries that a candidate for office
was heroized because he was a good newspaper
man. He was easily elected.

Churchill now turned his attention to his
finances. The Boer War gave him the opportunity
to write two successful books, both published in
1900 Ian Hamilton's March and London to Lady-
smith via Pretoria. He made a lecture tour in
Great Britain and then set sail for the United
States, where he lectured in many big cities. Peo
ple were keen to see this young hero and hear his
own narrative of his remarkable escape. He had
the additional attraction of being half American.
But he bewildered them. In Cincinnati, for in
stance, he spoke to a packed house. The middle
westerners could not detect a trace of Americanism
in this red, moon-faced young man with the promi-

The Young Warrior 57

nent blue eyes, the scarcely concealed lisp and the
all-British pronunciation. But once they got over
their puzzlement about this ? they listened to him
with enthralled attention because the lecturer
gave a masterly presentation of his lonely adven
ture under the African stars. His lecture tours in
Britain and America netted Mm about $30,000.
His books gained Mm another $20,000. Young and
unmarried and footloose, he thought his fortune
was made.

Chapter Four
RISING POLITICIAN

On January 23, 1901, Churchill made Ms first
appearance in the hallowed precincts of the House
of Commons. Four days later he broke a number
of precedents. New members are expected to make
their maiden speech, but they are also expected to
wait for a suitable interval until they know the
ropes. Churchill spoke after four days as an active
M.P. Cynical oldsters dubbed him "young-man-in-
a-hurry." It was a remarkable house he addressed.
Arthur Balfour, the philosopher-statesman and
aristocrat, was the leader of the house. Second in
command for the Conservative party was the re
doubtable Joseph Chamberlain, whose son Austen
was likewise some day to hold high posts and whose
other son, Neville, was to be a prime minister of
evil omen. A little raven-haired Welsh lawyer led
a small fraction of the opposition. He was des
tined to be Britain's man of the hour in World
War I, just as Churchill was destined for the same
role in the present world conflict. The Welshman

58

The Rising Politician 59

was David Lloyd George. Many figures who are
now prominent in British politics were not even
members of Parliament at that time,

The government was being bitterly attacked for
its management of the Boer War, which was still
dragging on. Churchill based Ms first speech on
this subject. He defended the army, saying it would
readily accord a brave foe the honors of war. He
was so much in deadly earnest that he stammered
more than usual, but on the whole his speech was
well received. Parliament is always generous to
young men who make their first speech. Not so
long afterwards the War Secretary presented
army estimates which called for the organization
of six new army corps. Again Churchill spoke, this
time in opposition to his own party's cabinet The
speech contained two main lines :

First: there was grave apprehension in the
country over the continual growth of purely mili
tary expenditure.

Second : there was an insistent call from the tax
payers for retrenchment and economy.

These pronouncements from the young M.P.
sound strange today when we knowthat later he was
called a militarist and, as Chancellor of the Excheq
uer, was denounced for "reckless extravagance. 9 *

60 Mr. England's First Period

He voted against his party. He spoke against it.
He continued his agitation against the army bill.
The future indomitable defender of Britain said :
"The professional soldier is an artificial luxury,
very expensive to keep, withdrawn both from the
family and industrial life of the nation. Conse
quently, we should have as few of him as possible/ 9

The youngster, most of whose life had been
spent in soldiering, was indignant that the govern
ment should propose to have an army of 150,000
in Britain.

Churchill became a marked man, but not in the
way he had hoped. When Arthur Balf our succeeded
Lord Salisbury as prime minister and recon
structed the cabinet, not even as much as a crumb
from the top table fell to Churchill. It was a snub
which rankled.

In 1903 the Conservative party was split wide
open. Joseph Chamberlain made a famous speech
in Birmingham, talking about free trade within
the Empire. He really meant imperial preference
in tariff s within the Empire and some measure of
protective tariff against the rest of the world.
Churchill made speeches stating that free trade
was the historic policy of the nation and the real
basis of its world trade. At one time angry Con-

The Rising Politician 61

servatives stalked out while he was talking. The
Conservatives at Oldhain said he had lost their
confidence. His reply to all this was a speech in
which he denounced his party as one belonging to
the vested interests, whose policies were dear food
for the million, cheap labor for the millionaire.
On May 31, 1903, he finally made up his mind. He
walked away from the Conservative benches and
took a seat beside Lloyd George. It was something
of a nine days' wonder. A young and brilliant aris
tocrat of the ancient family of Churchill had gone
over to the party of the masses. He had spoken bit
ter words demanding a cabinet that would think
more about toilers in the bottom of a mine than
about fat speculators watching the stock ticker.

Many of the top drawer in British society gave
him the cold shoulder. But Churchill was busy with
a project that had been close to his heart from his
days of adolescence. He wrote a biography of his
father, which appeared in 1906 and had a very
large sale in Britain. It was more than a biogra
phy. It was a loyal fighting vindication of his
father.

The leaders of the Liberal party welcomed their
new convert. They recognized in him, young as he
was, a good two-fisted fighter. He was made their

62 Mr. England's First Period

candidate in one of the districts in the great indus
trial city of Manchester in 1906. His opponent was
Joynson-HIcks, a great church layman, who in
later years was to be a cabinet colleague of
Churchill's and labeled by the cartoonists as
"Jix," a convenient shortening of his two-barreled
name. The biggest reproach Churchill encountered
in Ms campaign was that he was a renegade^ that
he had ratted from his party. His constant reply
was an epigram : "Some men change their party
for the sake of their principles, some change their
principles for the sake of their party. I stick to
principles."

He won the election by a majority of 1,241. The
Liberals won all over the country. In fact, it was a
landslide. Prime Minister Balfour himself was
defeated. Most of his colleagues also lost. The new
House of Commons had 377 Liberals, 53 Laborites,
157 Conservatives and 83 Irish Nationalists. Sir
Henry Campbell-Bannerman, as Premier, gave
the new recruit the post of Under-Secretary of
State for the Colonies. As the Secretary was In the
House of Lords, It fell to Churchill to defend the
department's interests in the House of Commons.
He helped put through the liberal constitution by
which Cape Colony, Natal and conquered Trans-

The Rising Politician 68

vaal and Orange Free State were all to be combined
in the Dominion of the Union of South Africa-
Churchill made reasoned speeches setting forth the
wisdom of a plan which really gave the Boers a
chance for home rule. They are in the majority in
the dominion and from the beginning Boers
Botha, Smuts and Hertzog have been the prime
ministers of the Dominion. In this post Churchill
also had to handle matters in connection with two
trouble points India and Ireland. In later years
they were subjects of some of his greatest exer
tions in Parliament, He was made a member of the
Privy Council in 1907 and in the same year visited
the African colonies, the better to understand the
job of governing them. Once more his activities
gave rise to a book My African Journey, pub
lished in 1908.

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman died in 1908
and was succeeded by H. H. Asquith, who promptly
named Churchill to his cabinet as President of the
Board of Trade. At that period unwritten law re
quired that when a man was named to the cabinet,
he should resign from the House of Commons and
run for election, so that his constituents could pass
upon him. He ran in Manchester, was savagely
heckled by the women suffragists and was beaten

64 Mr. England's First Period

by Ms old rival, "Jix/ ? the vote being 5517 to 4988.
A seat was vacant in Dundee and the Scottish Lib
erals promptly asked him to run there. He beat all
his opponents by nearly 7000 votes. The women
suffragists did not accomplish much in that Liberal
stronghold.

A much bigger event for Churchill occurred in
1908. Following in his father's footsteps, he fell in
love at first sight. The lady of his heart was the
lovely Clementine Hozier, daughter of Colonel H.
M. Hozier and granddaughter of the Countess of
Airlie. They were married in ultra-fashionable St.
Margaret's Church, the little structure which
stands at the side of Westminster Abbey. The
tiappy husband penned the loveliest of tributes to
his wife: "In September, 1908, I married and I
lived happily ever after."

In the course of this biography it will be neces
sary to show how frequently Churchill was a
prophet whose prophecies came true. But here is a
remarkable thing: the man who was destined to
be the most formidable foe of Germany wrote in
1908, after two visits to that country in the days
of Kaiser Wilhelm II, that it was a fundamental
error to assume that a profound antagonism ex
isted between Germany and England.

The Rising Politician 65

Those cabinet days marked the beginning of a
close friendship with Lloyd George^ then Chancel
lor of the Exchequer. In Germany, to steal the
thunder of the powerful Socialist party, the Kaiser
had secured passage of social legislation which
tackled the problem of caring for the unemployed
and the aged,

Lloyd George and Churchill decided that those
laws were good things. They proceeded to give
Britain an even better and more extensive "new
deal" than Germany had. As President of the
Board of Trade, Churchill introduced an old age
pension bill, one limiting the hours miners would
have to work and one providing for labor ex
changes in the battle against unemployment. He
also established a court of industrial conciliation
in the endeavor to prevent strikes.

In 1909 began one of the most memorable bat
tles in the history of British politics. Lloyd George,
as Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced his first
budget. It laid heavy taxes on the rich. It was called
a revolutionary bill The word "Bolshevik" was not
known to the world at that time, but the aristoc
racy and the capitalists looked upon "L.G." as one.
He replied in a savage and famous speech in the
Limehouse district of London. The House of Com-

66 Mr. England's First Period

mons passed the budget by a huge majority,, The
House of Lords, as expected, rejected it by 350 to
75* Then the Liberals began a campaign to curtail
the powers of the House of Lords. If "L.G." led in
this, he had an able and equally eloquent and bitter
lieutenant in Churchill British audiences thronged
to hear the grandson of a duke denounce the
House of Lords as an effete relic which defied the
rights of the Commons elected by the plain people.
The Lords, he said, were responsible to no one and
represented no one but themselves.

He and Lloyd George set the pace for all meet
ings by calling the contest one of "Lords versus
the People." Great play was made about wealthy
dukes* Churchill assured the dukes that in future,
when the tax collectors came around, they would
not ask, "What have you got?" but would say,
"Where did you get it?"

The Duke of Rutland wrathf ully exclaimed that
the proponents of the budget were "pirates."
Churchill expected an explosion from that source and
was ready for him. He gleefully quoted the asinine
verses written by an earlier Duke of Rutland :

"Let wealth and commerce, law and learning die
But leave us still our old nobility."

The Rising Politician 67

In the election of 1910 the voters of Dundee sent
Churchill back to Parliament. But the party as a
whole lost so many seats to the Conservatives that
it had to depend for a majority upon the votes of
Labor and Irish Nationalist deputies. Churchill
was made Home Secretary a post roughly equiv
alent to that of Secretary of the Interior in the
United States.

In April, 1910, a partially tamed House of
Lords passed the much hated budget. The govern
ment at once began to push a bill for the reforma
tion of the House of Lords. It was really a bill to
shear the Lords of practically all their power. The
Die-Hards, a term invented during this political
battle, prepared to beat the bill in the House of
Lords over and over again. Fighting stopped mo
mentarily when King Edward VII died, but was
resumed as soon as King George V had been on
the throne for a short period. It was resolved by
the government to dissolve Parliament and go to
the country once more in an election. The voters
chose 272 Liberals, 272 Conservatives, 42 Labor-
ites and 76 Irish Nationalists. Labor and the
Irish voted with the Liberals in passing a bill
which deprived the House of Lords of power to
hold up money bills, and which further provided

68 Mr- England's First Period

that If a bill was passed in three successive sessions
in the House of Commons, it became law, despite
an adverse vote by the Lords. All the fight was
taken out of the Die-Hard Lords when it became
known that Premier Asquith had a promise from
the King that, if necessary to pass the bill, he
would create enough new peers to give the govern
ment a majority. On August 10, therefore, the
Lords passed a measure which was the death war
rant of their long-held power.

In times of peace, London, like all great cities,
gets worked up only by local sensations and in
the period 1910-11 it had a big one in the Russian
scare. It was said the underworld of London was
infested by dangerous Russian anarchists and ni
hilists, led by a Lett called Peter the Painter. Their
particular dwelling quarter was the crowded East
End of the city. Many crimes of assault and rob
bery were laid at their door. Whitechapel was ter
rorized, just as some years before it had been
scared by the mysterious murderer known as Jack
the Ripper. Things culminated when a policeman
was shot in Houndsditch. The crime was at once
attributed to Peter the Painter's gang. A hot
search was made for the criminals and, at last, on
January 3, 1911, the police thought they had them

The Rising Politician 69

surrounded in a house at 100 Sidney Street. The
Home Office telephoned Churchill that the despera
does had barricaded themselves and were firing at
the police. He hurried to the scene himself and thus
began the celebrated "siege of Sidney Street."
Churchill walked down the street through a hail of
bullets from the besieged men. He called out some
troops to assist the police. The house caught fire.

Churchill directed a police inspector to break
down the entrance door to the building. He and a
police sergeant went in with the inspector. They
found two dead men. One had been hit by a police
man's bullet. The other man had been suffocated
by smoke from the blaze. No other men were found.
Churchill did not escape without criticism. Arthur
Balfour, leader of the Tory opposition to the Lib
eral government, acidly said he could understand
police, firemen and troops and even newspaper
photographers being present, but what on earth
was the Home Secretary doing there?

In the meantime, relations between England and
Germany were steadily getting worse. A German
firm had complained that the French authorities in
Morocco made difficulties for them. All Europe
was shaken when the Kaiser on July 1, 1911, sent
the warship Panther to the Moroccan port of Aga-

70 Mr. England's First Period

dir. Nothing serious happened, but it aroused the
quiet Asquith into action. In October, 1911, he
made Churchill First Lord of the Admiralty. He
wanted in that key job a man of boundless energy
and initiative. Churchill gave the Admiralty a
much-needed shaking up. He put younger men in
the important jobs, he had bigger guns placed
upon battleships and, far in advance of most of his
naval advisers, proceeded to develop a stronger air
arm for the navy. When the Kaiser made a speech
indicating that Germany was going to greatly in
crease its navy with big ships, Churchill was on a
visit to Glasgow shipyards. He at once replied to
the German ruler in a speech in which he said that
to Germany a big navy was a luxury, whereas to
Britain, with its far-flung trade and empire, it was
a necessity. Naval building went on actively in
both nations. In February, 1913, and again in Oc
tober Churchill spoke in the House of Commons
advocating a naval holiday between Germany and
Britain. Such a holiday would have left Britain the
stronger in ships in active service. The Germans
did not reply. The result was that the First Lord,
in his naval estimates presented to Parliament,
called for the building of a whole division of big
fast battleships with 15-inch guns.

The Rising Politician 71

While he was fighting to strengthen Britain at
sea for the war he was sure would come, the coun
try was being weakened at home by serious dis
turbances. The Irish Republican Army was busy in
Ireland. The people of southern Ireland were de
manding home rule. They wanted Ulster included,
The majority in Ulster objected. Churchill was for
treating with the Irish. He did this in the first
place because the government majority depended
upon the support of the Irish in the House of Com
mons. In the second place, he felt it was necessary
in this dangerous period to have a pacified Ireland.
The cabinet got him to introduce an Irish home rule
bill. The friends of Ulster were infuriated at him.
They cast into his teeth his own father's famous
slogaif^ !"Ulster will fight and Ulster will be
right. " JtrbJJlster they really began gathering arms
ap^^illing a volunteer corps. In the meantime, at
the sight of Ulstermen arming, the southern Irish
also began gathering arms. On May 15, 1914, a
Home Rule Bill, satisfactory to nobody in Ireland,
was passed and became law without assent of the
House of Lords, as it had been passed by three suc
cessive sessions of the Commons. The King signed
the bill September 17, but subsequent legislation
postponed its operation until after the war.

Chapter Five
WORLD WAR AND AFTERMATH

On July 18, 1914, under the proud eye of Win
ston Churchill and for the delectation of King
George V, the main part of the British Navy in
all its panoply and power passed before a given
point. It took the some two hundred naval vessels,
steaming rapidly, a full six hours to parade. Ordi
narily at this time of year ships would be called
from various stations for maneuvers and then
once more be dispersed to their given posts. But
this time Churchill kept them all together. A few
days after the review, he sent secret warning tele
grams ordering the main war vessels to go to their
war stations in the North Sea. Churchill now had
them where they would be ready to do battle in
stantly with the German fleet if war came and the
enemy fleet ventured out.

On August 4, 1914, sober-faced cabinet officers
gathered in the Prime Minister's house at 10
Downing Street. Britain had given Germany an
ultimatum expiring at 11 P. M., Greenwich time.

72

World War and Aftermath 73

Famous Big Ben in the Parliament house slowly
"boomed out eleven strokes. Germany had not re
plied to Britain. The two countries were now at
war. Churchill briskly walked down Whitehall to
the Admiralty. The message he had already writ
ten was now flashed to the navy all over the world :
"Commence hostilities at once against Germany/'

The watch dogs of the sea were ready.

During the long weary course of the war
Churchill was responsible in part for two expedi
tions which failed, but which might have been
successful had the government given whole
hearted and prompt support.

In the first weeks of the war the huge German
armies came crashing through Belgium. Late in
September, 1914, detachments began the bombard
ment of the great port of Antwerp. That city's
troops threatened the flank of the German army.
If Antwerp fell, there was nothing for the Belgian
forces to do but retreat westward, leaving the
main Belgian ports in German hands. The Belgian
government appealed to Britain for help. All Lord
Kitchener could find for the occasion was the
Eoyal Naval Division, in part made up of un
trained young men. Churchill not only urged that
they be sent, but went along with them as their

74 Mr. England's First Period

commander in the post of danger. The British had
promised reinforcements of troops, but they never
came. Antwerp, with its gallant defenders, held
out long enough for a considerable number of the
regular Belgian army to get away* On October 10
the city surrendered* Churchill got the blame for
the whole affair, although the cabinet had ap
proved it and had acquiesced in his going to Bel
gium to lead the desperate effort.

The Gallipoli campaign was also largely of
Churchill's making. Russia was pressing the Allies
for action which would open the Dardanelles, so
they could supply her with much-needed arms and
munitions. In the west, the lives of men were being
frittered away in fruitless battles. Churchill's
keen mind grasped the idea that if the Dardanelles
could be forced and held, Constantinople would be
at the mercy of the Allies and they would have a
strong chance of putting Turkey out of the war
completely. If this were done, the Allies could then
attack the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the flank.
Such a move would also keep Bulgaria out of the
war.

Early in 1915 the British sent a fleet of war
ships, mainly made up of older battleships. The
French also sent some war vessels. In February

World War and Aftermath 75

the naval forces bombarded the shore batteries on
Gallipoli peninsula several times. On March 3
Admiral de Robeck reported that the Straits could
not be forced unless one shore of the peninsula or
the other was occupied and that no progress would
be possible without the help of an army. Neverthe
less, he was ordered to continue the attempt and
on March 18 a big action occurred, during which
a number of naval vessels were hit by Turkish
shore batteries. The British ships Irresistible, In
flexible and Ocean and the French battleship
Bouvet were hit and were later sunk by enemy
mines. Belatedly troops in numbers were sent,
many of them being the famous Anzacs soldiers
from Australia and New Zealand. As Kitchener
claimed he needed all his spare troops on the
western front and as little visible progress had
been made in Gallipoli, the troops were withdrawn
in December, 1915 and January, 1916. Churchill
got the main blame for the vain loss of men and
ships. The truth is that the cabinet never fully
supported the campaign. And the irony Is that
twice, if the Allies had only known it, the enemy
was nearly at the end of his resources and had the
attack been pressed victory would have resulted.
In a number of political campaigns after that,

76 Mr. England's First Period

when Churchill appeared on the stump, hostile
hecklers yelled "Antwerp" and "Gallipoli" at him.

In 1915 Prime Minister Asqnith handed to
Churchill a bitter cup. Asqnith had arranged with
the leader of the Conservative party for a coalition
government to carry on the war. The Conserva
tives insisted that the Admiralty post must be
given to Arthur Balfour. Churchill was given the
sinecure of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
To soften the blow, Asquith. retained Mm as a
member of the War Council. But the blow hurt
Here was a war in which England's fate was in
volved and Churchill, conscious of his powers,
could only be a spectator. In later years he spoke
bitterly of having to watch the feeble execution of
plans he himself had launched and of his long
hours of utterly unwanted leisure.

He did not endure this leisure for long. If he
could not serve in the government at home, he
would serve as a soldier at the front So he went
to the House of Commons for a farewell speech,
trained for a time with the Grenadier Guards in
their trenches in France and was named Lieuten
ant Colonel of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers. After
some fighting at the front, he returned to Ms seat
in the House of Commons. It had been conveyed

War and Aftermath 77

to Mm that influential forces were becoming deeply
dissatisfied with Asquith's conduct of the war.
More vigorous action was required. Churchill
spoke in the Commons on the need for a more ac
tive campaign against the submarines.

Better times were coming for him. In December,
1916 Asquith fell and Lloyd George became the
head of the coalition government. Scorning all the
opposition to Ms move, he named Churchill Min
ister of Munitions July 16, 1917, It was a job that
would absorb all his enormous energy. He must
provide the army and navy of Great Britain with
their ever-increasing needs. The Italians also
looked to Mm for some supplies. And the United
States wanted a half -billion dollars worth of artil
lery for the big army it was beginning to send to
France. He got the production that was required.
Only once did he have trouble. In some factories
the munition workers threatened to strike.
Churchill's answer was terse. If they struck, he
would see to it that they were conscripted and sent
to the fighting in France. There was no strike.

On Nov. 11, 1918, all the leaders in the Allied
countries had their glorious day of triumph. The
war was over and well won. The astute politician,
Lloyd George, saw a chance to assure a long lease

78 Mr. England's First Period

of power to the government. So, In 1918, the
"khaki 59 elections were held. Production of muni
tions was now no longer needed, and Lloyd
George astounded the country and angered some
of the envious by giving Churchill two posts in the
cabinet. He made him Minister of War and of the
Air. The new minister had the big task of demo
bilizing armies containing millions of men and
bringing them back to peacetime pursuits. But he
also busied himself with something which brought
down on his head much criticism. He loathed the
Bolshevism which had taken Eussia out of the
war, increased the burden of the Allies, and made
the war tasks of the Germans much easier. When
the Big Four Lloyd George, Wilson, Clemenceau
and Orlando decided to give support to the White
Russians in their endeavors to overthrow the Bol
sheviks, Churchill threw himself into the job with
all his nervous intensity. But the war- weary people
of Great Britain did not care for any further ad
ventures. Churchill prepared, therefore, to evacu
ate the Allied troops from Archangel and Mur
mansk, but sent volunteers to take their places. He
sent supplies and money to Admiral Kolchak, Gen
eral Denikin and the other White adventurers who
promised so much and eventually did so little. This

World War and Aftermath 79

assistance cost England about two hundred million
dollars and gave the opponents of the government
another campaign cry.

In the spring of 1921 Churchill was transferred
to the Colonial office. One of the first things he
tackled was the troublesome situation in the Mid
dle East. The Arabs, who had helped Britain dur
ing the war, were disappointed because their
dream of a big Arabian kingdom had not been
realized. In Iraq, then called Mesopotamia, the
natives had rebelled against the British. It had
required the sending of a considerable body of
troops and had cost a good deal of money to bring
peace so much so that the soldiers called the
country "Mess-Pot" instead of the official abbre
viation "Mespot" Churchill took swift action. The
Emir Feisal was made king of Iraq as an inde
pendent state, Britain agreeing to defend it with
part of the Royal Air Force- The territory to the
east of the Jordan river was split off from Pales
tine proper, named Transjordania, and Emir Ab
dullah, FeisaFs brother, was named king.

Not less pressing and closer to home was the
question of Ireland. During the war, on Easter
Day, 1916, the Sinn Fein seized the post office and
other important points in Dublin and gave battle

80 Mr. England's First Period

for some days. In the general election of 1918 the
Sinn Feiners captured 73 out of the 106 seats in
Ireland. The newly elected members refused to go
to London to attend Parliament. Instead, they con
stituted themselves as a Bail ( assembly ), declared
Ireland's independence, and named ministers. This
took place January 21, 1919, and almost at once
a ruinous and savage war started. The Sinn Fein
ers killed sympathizers with the British Govern
ment and destroyed much property. The British
Government finally sent a force of nearly six
thousand men, mainly ex-soldiers, to do battle*
From their uniforms, they were called Black and
Tans. This force fought terror with terror, killing
with killing. Premier Lloyd George got in touch
with Eamon de Valera, a truce was called, and a
conference was held in London, beginning on Oc
tober 10, 1921. The main representatives of the
government were Lloyd George, Lord Birkenhead
and Winston Churchill. The main Irish represent
atives were Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins,
who had become an almost legendary hero during
the fighting in Ireland. The conference began in
an atmosphere of mutual distrust Lord Birken
head, as F. E. Srtiith, a rising and brilliant lawyer,
although not an Ulsterman, had sympathized with

World War and Aftermath 81

their cause some years before, and because of Ms
then belligerent attitude had been known as "Gal
loper Smith." Churchill, as Minister for the Col
onies^ was held largely responsible for the ruthless
Black and Tans. Arthur Griffith, small and dark
and dour, not very talkative, eyed them with sus
picion. Michael Collins, the gay-hearted daredevil,
dearly loved a fight and came with a chip on his
shoulder* One of his complaints was that Church-
ilFs men had hunted him day and night and put a
price upon Ms head*

Churchill retorted that at least it was a good
price, a far better price than the Boers had of
fered for Mm. The British government was sup
posed to have promised $25,000 for the appre
hension of Collins. The Minister showed the Irish
leader a faded copy of the reward the Boers had
offered for Churchill when he escaped from Pre
toria. It was a mere $125. That struck the Irish
man's sense of humor. There was a general laugh
all around wMch cleared the air. Not so long
after, Collins would come bounding like an agile
panther up the stairs in his Sloane Street quarters
saying to all and sundry that Winston and Freddy
and "L. G." were not such bad fellows. The Brit
ish Government leaders were saying the same

82 Mr. England's First Period

thing about Mm. When they finally parted,
Churchill was conscious that the government
would come in for some serious criticism because
of the terms they had agreed upon. But Collins,
sombre for the moment, said that he probably had
written his death warrant. It was a prophecy thai
came true. He was assassinated by Irish irrecon-
cilables. The agreement the conference came to
created an Irish Free State, giving Ulster the
right to opt out. The country was to have the
status of a self-governing Dominion. The treaty
was finally signed on December 6, 1921, the Brit
ish Parliament ratified it on December 16 and the
Irish Dail did so on January ?, 1922.

In 1922 the Conservatives refused to support
Lloyd George as Prime Minister any longer. Bonar
Law succeeded him and in the general election
Churchill, who again ran in Dundee, was badly
beaten. In a succeeding election he ran in West
Leicester and again was beaten. Asquith helped
put into the premiership Ramsay MacDonald,
leader of the Labor party. Churchill formally re
signed from the Liberal party because of this. In
1924 there was a vacancy in the Abbey division of
Westminster, London. Churchill ran as an inde
pendent. It was an intensely exciting: contest,

World War and Aftermath 83

watched all the more because it was Churchill's
attempt to come back to Parliament as an oppo
nent of the remains of the Liberal party. The reg
ular Conservative candidate beat him by forty-
three votes.

During his year or so of enforced absence from
Parliament, Churchill worked on a plan he had
long had in mind a history of the great war. The
first volume of The World Crisis appeared in 1923'.
The fourth and last was issued in 1929. It was
acknowledged a masterpiece. It became a best
seller. Incidentally, each volume as it appeared
stirred up great controversies because the author
did not scruple to attack men in high places who
had held star roles in the great conflict.

Eamsay MacDonald could only remain Prime
Minister so long as the Liberals in the House of
Commons added their votes to those of the Labor
party. Late in 1924 the Liberals withdrew their
support and MacDonald's first taste of the high
office came to an abrupt end. The Conservative
party, in the meantime, had welcomed the prodigal
son, Churchill, back to the fold, giving him the safe
constituency of Epping which has remained con
stantly true to Mm, even when he was actively
fighting some of the very things the Conservatives

84 Mr. England's First Period

were supporting. No sooner was he elected to his
seat than Stanley Baldwin, whose party had had a
thumping victory in the nation, gave him the post
of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Churchill came to
the place with high hopes and great ambition. It
was the goal Ms father had reached.

Unfortunately for his peace of mind, Churchill
had often preached retrenchment and economy
when attacking the budgets of other Chancellors.
These things were remembered and quoted. Be-
sides* the man who levies the taxes is never a
popular hero* Churchill in Ms long incumbency
fathered five budgets. He ran the gauntlet in the
House of Commons five times. He restored the gold
standard. His 1926 budget underwent only mod
erate fire. But in 1927 his troubles began. He said
the country now had to pay for the damage done
by the nation-wide strike in 1926. He claimed the
treasury had lost $87,000,000 in taxes directly
traceable to the strike and had incurred $72,000,-
000 extra expenses because of the strike. In a
period of exceptional difficulty he had tried his
best to guide the country around a difficult corner.
He had tried his best to find a way to balance the
budget without at the same time checking the long-
hoped for business revival. ChurcMlI, in taking the

World War and 86

office, had expressed the hope of saving $50,000,-

000 a year. He had utterly failed- According to
Ms old friend, Lloyd George, he was the merriest
tax collector since Robin Hood, One of Ms dead
liest critics was a shrunken, ill, pale-faced, crip
pled, little man with ice-blue eyes and rasping
voice. He was Philip Snowden, who had been the
first Labor Chancellor of the Exchequer in Mstory.
Snowden had not reduced the income tax, but lie
took the burden off the Briton's breakfast table.
He cut the duties on tea, coffee and cocoa by half;
he took three cents a pound off the sugar duty;
he abolished all duties on dried fruits. And at the
end of the year he showed a surplus* ChurcMl
took six pence off the income tax.

"Ours was a housewives' budget," growled
Snowden- 'Tours is a rich man's budget"

It was the first of dozens of encounters between
Churchill and Snowden. They delighted in crossing
swords.

Churchill had a very bad press. The London
Daily News, a Liberal party paper, called him a
clever conjuror with figures. The London Nation
accused Mm of tenderness to the supertax payer.
An American correspondent said he was ruining
Ms chances ever to be prime minister and that he

86 Mr. England's First Period

was "a balloon that has been pricked, a kite with
out a tail, a Tin Lizzie whose engine has blown

In his budgets for 1928 and 1929 Churchill was
accused of raiding every nest egg that the Treas
ury held in reserve for emergencies. Snowden
called his last budgets "briber's budgets/' saying
they were obviously framed with an eye to a gen
eral election that could not long be delayed. The
country was burdened with $1,500,000,000 of
fresh debt. Of course, in mitigation, it was said
by his friends that the general strike, bad business
and necessary increased expenditures by the gov
ernment made it impossible for the Chancellor to
have made a better showing. Nevertheless, the bad
budgets played their part in the defeat of the Bald
win government on May 12, 1929.

In 1926 Churchill played a big role on another
stage. There had been increasing labor unrest for
some years, particularly among the coal miners.
They had several times been out on strike. For a
period the government had tried to avoid this by
subsidizing the coal industry. Now the miners
were again on strike. The leaders of all the trades
unions in Britain were talking of proclaiming a
nation-wide strike in sympathy for the miners. In

World War and Aftermath 87

the past Baldwin had displayed a velvet hand in
side a velvet glove. It suited his easy-going, rather
lazy temperament. But this time Baldwin deter
mined to display the iron hand, naked and threat
ening. He decided it was time for a show-down.
The biggest strike in Britain's history was called
on May 3. The object was to tie up completely
all the nation's life. But the government had been
forehanded. Forces of volunteers had been en
rolled. Men from the middle and upper classes
flocked to the Baldwin banner. They operated the
railways, street cars, and buses. They drove lorries
which brought milk and fruit and vegetables from
the farms. They hauled fish from the docks and
meat from the markets. They ran electric light and
gas plants. Police were everywhere to see that no
body interfered with the volunteers. It gave Lon
doners a good laugh when a volunteer bus con
ductor with a rich Oxford accent asked passengers,
"Pahss down the aisle, please !' ? Just in case there
might be trouble, troops were unobtrusively kept
in their barracks in London and other big cities.
Even light naval vessels anchored in the Thames
at London. The only newspaper that appeared
daily in its usual form was the Daily Herald, the
London organ of the Labor party and the trades

88 Mr, England's First Period

union movement. The Times printed one small
sheet. The other London newspapers^ to hold con
tinuity of issue, got out little mimeograph sheets.
In this emergency Churchill published the British
Gazette. He also edited it. He put all the news and
all the government proclamations in it. He made
of it a militant newspaper that told the strikers
they didn't stand a chance. Its circulation ran
over 2 ? OOO y GG0. It is a tribute to the British charac
ter that no lives were lost. There were no angry
clashes between strikers and troops or police. The
national strike ended peacefully on May 12 with
a complete victory for the government. The miners^
however, continued out on strike for some time.
What had appealed to the mass of the citizens was
the government's plea that if the nation-wide
strike had succeeded, it would have meant an
overthrow of constitutional government.

In 1929 the country had another national elec
tion. Churchill was returned for Epping, but Bald
win went out of power and Ramsay MacDonald
came in. It was to be the end of office for Churchill
for many long years. He was to be a lone wolf in
the political wilderness.

But for him there was neither repining nor idle
ness. He began writing many books My Early

World War and Aftermath 89

Life in 1930; The Eastern Front in 1981;

Thoughts and Adventures in 1932. In 1933 he be
gan the many-volumed masterpiece. The Life of
the Duke of Marlborough. Here,, taking advantage
of papers opened to Mm by Ms kinsmen^ he rushed
to the defense of his great ancestor and in many
cases proved that the first Duke had been maligned.
In December > 1981, Churchill went to the United
States for a lecture tour. It was postponed for a
time because on December 13, while crossing the
street to spend the evening at the home of Ms
friend Bernard M. Baruch, Americans wartime
Chairman of the War Industries Board, he was
run into and badly injured by a taxi. When the
lecture tour was resumed it was a popular and
financial success.

Part m - IN THE

Chapter Six
THE LONE WOLF

With Ramsay MacDonald in power as Prime
Minister once more and with Stanley Baldwin and
Churchill often differing widely on matters of
policy, all the I-told-you-so's in Britain said the
former Chancellor of the Exchequer was a spent
force. They called him erratic. They said he lacked
judgment. They predicted he never would be prime
minister.

Churchill did not bother. His attitude was very
much the classic, "They say, let them say."

He himself said it first. In talking to his con
stituents at Epping he told them :

"I am now getting to be a very old man. Having
held great offices of state for nearly a quarter of
a century, I can assure you I am quite indifferent
as to whether I hold public office again or not."

This was more than mere talk. Year after year
from that time on, although he never left the Con
servative party, he acted independently of it. He
took orders from no one. He spoke as he pleased

90

The Lone Wolf 91

and in the House of Commons voted as he pleased.
With an ordinary member demeaning himself in
that f ashion, the Conservative machine, especially
the Conservative whips, would have taken stern
action. But the stature of Churchill had grown in
the country to such a height that he was left un
disturbed.

One of the biggest problems tackled in these
years when he was a lone wolf was the future gov
ernment of India. The myriad millions of that
great sub-continent, stirred by men like Mahatma
Gandhi, were demanding something better than
rule from London. But the problem was one of the
most complicated it is possible for man to con
ceive. The population is about 350,000,000, most
of the people being illiterate, hopelessly poor and
deeply indebted to native usurers. Some 63,000,000
dwell in the native states ruled over by native In
dian princes. In India as a whole there is a mighty
minority of some 80,000,000 Moslems, mainly
fighting races who have stood by the English in
their wars and are unwilling to be submerged in
and ruled by a Hindu world. Among the Hindus
are at least 30,000,000 so-called "untouchables,"
the depressed classes who are outside of the caste
system.

92 In the Wilderness

In 1929 a commission, under Sir John
went to India, studied the problem, and favored
some measure of autonomy for the provinces of
British India. Later, Sir John and Lord Irwin,
then Viceroy of India, suggested a three-cornered
conference between representatives of the British
government, the native princes, and delegates
from British India. Lord Irwin, by the way, is the
present Lord Halifax, now British Ambassador to
the United States. A round-table conference on the
subject of India was held in London in 1931. Prime
Minister Ramsay MacDonald presided over it,
King George V opened it. The princes, who rule
the native states, surprised everyone by declaring
they were willing to come into some kind of fed
erated state. The conference was a gorgeous show
while it lasted. The diamonds, rubies, and emer
alds of the princes made society women turn green
with envy. But the conference ended without a
specific agreement having been reached.

In Parliament MacDonald reported that the
round table really made marked progress in the
future solution of the great problem. Then Church
ill attacked. A hostile American correspondent
in his report of the session said of the episode :

"Churchill is not a shy violet. He is a sunflower

The Lone Wolf 93

In the sunlight; a movie star in the calcium light.
He proceeded to charge oratorically like a mad bull
in the Indian china shop, breaking crockery all
over the place. He poked fun at the conference.
He filing out at Lord Irwin. Solemnly, almost tear
fully, he warned Parliament they were heading a
way which would lose India."

A member of the Simon commission, replying,
said it was a pity Churchill had not gone with the
commission. He might have gotten more in touch
with realities* Oliver Stanley, son of Lord Derby,
the Conservative demi-god of Lancashire, who sat
at the conference as a British delegate, warned
Churchill that the movement in India could not be
stopped by flamboyant speeches nor by opinions
of armchair critics*

"About 150 years ago," said Stanley, "the same
Mnd of people were denying that we would lose
America if we did not give the colonists self-gov
ernment. But we did."

Stanley Baldwin wound up that part of the de
bate by giving Ms blessing to the round-table con
ference. There was a quick sequel. Churchill sent
Baldwin a letter resigning from Ms so-called
"shadow cabinet" This was Baldwin's brain trust.
It was well-known that from its members he would

94 In the Wilderness

choose his cabinet when and if he became prime
minister once more.

In 1933 the government issued its famous White
Paper which gave an extended sketch of the gov
ernment's proposal for a new law for the rule of
India. A joint select committee of both houses of
Parliament was named for the purpose of drawing
up a bill embodying the proposals in the White
Paper. Before they did so, they were asked to hear
all interested parties both in Britain and India*
Many delegations came before it. Churchill and his
friend Lord Lloyd, an expert on the Near East,
were offered places on the committee, but declined.
Later Churchill, still fighting, created a sensation
when he charged at one of the committee's hear
ings that the Secretary of State for India and the
great Lord Derby himself had tampered with the
evidence prepared for the committee by the India
section of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce
in other words, evidence by Lancashire men, who
were leaders in the cotton textile industry. A com
mittee investigation decided there was no basis for
the charge. When the India bill was finally sub
mitted to Parliament, Churchill and his friends in
the House of Commons fought it section by section
and almost line by line as they had promised. Be-

The Lone Wolf 95

fore that fight started on December 4, 1934,
Churchill tried to put the Conservative Association
on record as to drastic amendments to the bill he
and Ms friends proposed. The association repre
sents all the party constituencies. Churchill's move
was defeated by 1102 to 390. Baldwin, once more
opposing Mm, said to his fellow Conservative
party members:

"Today yon have a good chance of keeping India
in the empire forever. If you refuse her this oppor
tunity you will inevitably lose India before two
generations have passed/' This was in reply to
Churchill's prediction that if the bill passed Par
liament and became law, it might reduce India to
the anarchy and misery of China.

When the sections of the bill were considered in
the House of Commons, Churchill laid stress on
the necessity of leaving the proper defense of India
in British hands. He also hammered away at a
section which gave India complete tariff autonomy.
In the future, if India finally became an all-India
federation, an Indian home-rule government,
through its finance minister, he said, could lay
heavy import duties on cotton goods from Lan
cashire and ruin the textile business of that section
of England. He warned that the native mill owners

96 In the Wilderness

of India, with their cheap labor, would certainly
make use of that law*

The first big voting test on February 11,

1935, when the bill was up for its second reading
in the House of Commons* MacDonald was Prime
Minister, but Baldwin, as Lord President in the
cabinet and as leader of the huge Conservative
forces, rallied his men for the measure. Churchill,
the Conservatives who were of his way of think
ing, and members of the Labor party, who also
opposed the bill, could only muster 133 votes. The
government rallied 404. It was one of the most re
sounding defeats Churchill has ever had in his
long career*

The lengthy battle, which had really started
some seven years before, ended on August 2, 1935,
when words were pronounced in the old French
form in Parliament: a Le Roy le Veult."

It meant the King had affixed Ms signature to
the India bill which had passed both houses of Par
liament. The bill looked forward ultimately to a
federated India. In the meantime, it provided for
complete autonomy in the various provinces of
British India* In each there was to be a governor
named by the crown, but limited voting lists pro
vided for popular election to provincial parlia-

The Wolf 97

ments. As in Britain^ the leaders of the majority
party were to form a cabinet responsible to the
local parliament In the elections which were held
under this law, the majority of the provinces were
captured by the followers of Gandhi^ and Ms men
proceeded to govern.

Churchill had been one of those who had nego
tiated with Irish leaders and put through Parlia
ment the bill which gave birth to the Irish Free
State. Twice after that highly important matters
connected with the Irish Free State came up in
Parliament Twice Churchill fought the proposals
of the government Twice he was defeated. Twice
as a prophet he pointed out the evil consequences
that would ensue if the government persisted.
Twice Ms prophecies came true. The background of
the first battle was as follows. In 1926 an imperial
conference was held in London, attended by repre
sentatives of the British Government and of the
self-governing dominions. The British representa
tives soon perceived that a new spirit was stirring
in the people of the dominions. Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand had performed magnificent serv
ices in the World War. That conflict had given
them a new sense of their nationhood. They were
no longer willing to be kept in tutelage of any Mnd

98 In The Wilderness

whatsoever. It was then that Lord Balfour made
his celebrated statement that the dominions were
now equal states with Great Britain and with each
other. The conference agreed that the points of law
arising out of this declaration should be settled by
a commission of experts. The British delegates
who took part in this imperial conference were,
besides Lord Balfour, Sir Austen Chamberlain,
Stanley Baldwin, L. S. Amery and Churchill

At the imperial conferences of 1929 and 1930 it
was agreed that the Balfour declaration should be
formally enacted into law by the British Parlia
ment, so that there could be no possible question
as to the future status of the dominions. It was
recognized that under this law the British Empire
would practically cease to exist and that, in its
place, would come a British Commonwealth of Na
tions, tied together by common interests and linked
together by common allegiance to the same king.
Thus the sovereign of Great Britain would also
be King of Canada, King of Australia, and so on.

In conformity with this, a law was duly intro
duced in the British parliament in 1931 by the na
tional Government. In its preamble, the bill set
forth that any alteration of the law touching suc
cession to the throne or of the royal style and titles

The Lone Wolf 99

would hereafter require the assent of the parlia
ments of all the dominions as well as of the British
parliament. The main points of the bill were as
follows:

1. The parliament of Britain ceased to have
any power of revision over the legislation of do
minion parliaments. In f act, this had been the case
for some time, but had never been recognized by
the actual passage of legislation confirming it.

2. The statute recognized that a dominion had
full powers to make laws having extra-territorial
operation. This also had previously been the case,
but without formal legislation confirming it. For
instance, a number of the dominions had already
sent their own diplomatic ministers to the United
States and had negotiated various agreements
with foreign powers, including the United States*

3. The statute laid it down that, if there was
any repugnance between a law of the United
Kingdom and of any one of the dominions, that
should not make the dominion law void or in
operative.

It was upon this last point that Churchill made
Ms fight. He said if it was adopted, it would surely
enable the Irish Bail to abrogate the law by which
the Irish Free State was created, cut all connection

100 In the Wilderness

with the Empire and forego the oath of allegiance
to the Mng to which Eamon de Valera had always
taken exception. Therefore, he proposed an amend
ment binding the Irish Free State from doing any
of the things he outlined,

W. T. Cosgrave, then head of the government of
the Irish Free State, quickly replied to this in a
speech he made at Limerick. He said his govern
ment would continue to defend the treaty made be
tween Ireland and Britain. However, he warned
Churchill that he and Ms friends must not change
the treaty from a pledge of freedom to a symbol
of Irish inf eriority, by establishing this new pro
posed legal restraint

Churchill's proposal was vigorously opposed in
the House of Commons. His old friend, Lu S.
Amery, said the only way to carry on was to show
complete trust and faith in the Irish Free State
No distrust must be written into law. It would be
a very grave error to single out the Irish Free
State for such treatment Stanley Baldwin wound
up the debate, saying the only way for co-opera
tion between Britain and the dominions was really
to cooperate. They could not show trust in some
dominions and distrust in others. If the Irish chose
to cut the painter and drift away, no amendment,

The Lone 101

as Churchill had proposed, would prevent
them from doing so. He gravely warned Parlia
ment that in passing on this matter, they were not
only dealing with the people of the Irish Free
State. They must also consider the very real and
deep feeling of the large population of Irish blood
in Canada and Australia, to say nothing of the
effect upon Americans of Irish extraction.

The Churchill proposal was defeated 350 to 50.

Some years later Churchill saw every one of Ms
predictions come true. Cosgrave was succeeded at
the head of the government of the Irish Free State
by Eamon de Valera The latter, step by step,
broke almost every connection with the United
Kingdom. The post of Governor General was no
longer recognized. The oath of allegiance to the
Mng was abolished. In 1937 a new constitution
became law. By it the Irish Free State became Eire*
It also became a republic with a president and a
bicameral legislature. In the new war between
Britain and Germany declared on September 3,
1939, Eire, unlike Canada, Australia, New Zea
land, and South Africa, took no part On the other
hand, it proclaimed its neutrality.

After de Valera had been at the head of the
government of Southern Ireland for some years, it

102 In The Wilderness

was decided that the Irish should no longer pay
to Britain large sums of money due on the so-
called land annuities. These annuities arose out of
a scheme by which Irish peasants were enabled to
purchase land virtually on the installment plan.
When the de Valera government persisted in this
matter, the British government retaliated by plac
ing a heavy protective duty on Irish exports to
Great Britain. De Valera answered by placing
heavy duties on British exports. Thus the quarrel
simmered along to the disadvantage of both. Brit
ain needed Irish butter, eggs, and bacon for its
breakfast table. Southern Ireland needed British
coal and manufactured goods. In January 12, 1938,
de Valera and two colleagues came to London to
explore the situation with British Government rep
resentatives. The final result was a mutual agree
ment to drop the fight in which each levied tariffs
against the other. In addition a bill was to be
passed by which for $50,000,000, to be paid by
the Irish all outstanding financial obligations
were to be settled. Furthermore, Britain was to
turn over to Eire the ports of Queenstown, Bere-
haven and Lough Swilly. Under the treaty of 1922
Britain kept these Irish ports and maintained some
forces there as a matter of Empire protection.

The Lone Wolf 103

On May 5, 1938, Churchill made a very powerful
speech attacking the surrender of those ports. He
revealed an important piece of inside history. In
1922, when he was one of the negotiators of the
Irish treaty, he was advised by Admiral Beatty
and the staff of the Admiralty, all of whom had
served in the World War and could draw import
ant lessons from their experiences in that conflict.
The highlight of the Churchill speech was this :

"The Admiralty of those days assured me that
without the use of these ports it would be very diffi
cult, perhaps almost impossible, to feed this Island
In time of war. Queenstown and Berehaven shelter
the flotillas which keep clear the approaches to the
Bristol and English Channels, and Lough Swilly is
the base from which access to the Mersey and the
Clyde is covered. In a war against an enemy pos
sessing a numerous and powerful fleet of subma
rines these are the essential bases from which the
whole operation of hunting submarines and pro
tecting incoming convoys is conducted."

In grave words, he warned that they now pro
posed to give up those ports for good. They were
giving to the Irish Government the right, as well
as the power, to forbid British re-entry. Some
might say, if the emergency arose, Britain might

104 In The Wilderness

retake the ports for use In a desperate emergency*
He replied Britain would have no right to do so. To
violate Irish neutrality would put Britain out of
court In world opinion and especially at a moment
when Great Britain might greatly need the good
will of the United States in the matters of blockade
and supplies. Once more he fought a vain fight
The bill, as proposed by the government, became
law April 25, 1938.

Everything Churchill predicted came true. Eng
land found herself in 1939 in a war with Germany
In which Eire proclaimed neutrality. In 1941 espe
cially, the combined menace of airplane, submarine
and raider attacks upon British shipping made
the Admiralty wish the Irish ports had never been
given up. All hints to Eire that Britain would like
to have the use of them In combating the menace
to British shipping met with unfavorable response^
this despite the fact that a successful blockade of
Britain would also seriously interfere with sup
plies of food and raw materials for Eire.

In 1936 Churchill played an almost lone hand In
one of the most dramatic episodes in the history
of England* For quite a long time In the early
autumn the American newspapers regaled their

Tiie Lone 105

readers with gossip about the growing friendship
between Mrs. Ernest Simpson and King Edward
VIII. Not only were the stories printed, but also
many pictures showing them together on holiday
trips. In Great Britain, although the royal family
has no real power, nevertheless in many ways
it is sacrosanct The British press played the
game. It refrained from any mention of the Simp
son affair. It printed no pictures. But all the time
the editors were straining at the leash as it were.
Here was one of the great news stories of all time
and they did not feel free to use it. Then on De
cember 2, 1936, the Bishop of Bradford gave them
their chance. He said things which were construed
as a direct attack upon the King, his way of life,
and the companions with whom he associated. At
once the London press, quickly followed by the
provincial papers, began printing columns about
the King's love affair.

The matter of the King's desire to marry Mrs.
Simpson constituted a first class crisis in British
and Empire affairs and a world sensation. Prime
Minister Baldwin was conferring daily with the
King. Other important persons also saw him. The
King, in turn, conferred with his mother and
brothers. The subject of all these talks was kept

106 In the Wilderness

more or less secret. But suddenly the public became
aware of the fact that the King had been con
fronted with this alternative: either give up the
idea of marrying Mrs. Simpson or give lip the
throne.

The hounds of publicity and gossip were on the
King's tracks. A case was rapidly being built up"
against him. The bulk of the Conservative mem
bers of Parliament prepared to follow the lead of
Prime Minister Baldwin. The Labor party also
prepared to do so. Most of the clergy were against
the marriage. The bulk of the press was against It.
The opinion of the dominions was sought and was
reported to be thumbs down against the King. One
must have lived those days In London to appre
ciate the character of the crisis. Life seemed to
be all centered about what the King would do. Peo
ple grabbed editions of the papers as fast as they
were Issued. Nothing else was talked about in the
hotels, restaurants, and clubs. There was the same
buzz-buzz on the buses and in the underground
trains. The belief grew that the very substance of
the Empire was involved. It was said to be a con
stitutional crisis of the gravest character.

Winston Churchill did not follow the huge ma
jority. He was a friend of the King, and he does not

Wide World

Leaving Westminster Abbey after the services marking the first
anniversary of the war during which there was an air-raid.
Behind Churchill is his parliamentary secretary, Rt. Hon. Brendan

Bracken.

The Lone Wolf 107

desert his friends. He believed that the King was
being rushed or bluffed into a decision. On De
cember 5, 1936, Churchill addressed the public in
words which began :

"I plead for time and patience. The nation must
realize the character of the constitutional issue.
There is no question of any conflict between the
King and Parliament. Parliament has not been
consulted in any way or allowed to express any
opinion. The question is whether the King is to
abdicate upon the advice of the ministry of the day.
No such advice had ever before been tendered a
sovereign in past time. ... No ministry has au
thority to advise the abdication of the sovereign.
The cabinet has no right to prejudice the ques
tion without having previously ascertained, at the
very least, the will of Parliament. ... If an abdica
tion were to be hastily extorted, the outrage so com
mitted would cast its shadow forward across many
chapters of the history of the British Empire/ 5

Lords Beaverbrook and Rothermere in their
papers also opposed any attempt to rush the King
into a hasty decision. Then some wild and silly talk
went around the clubs. People reverted to the
Cromwellian wars when the nation took sides,
many remaining faithful to King Charles I and

108 In the Wilderness

being known as the "King's men/' It was gos
siped that Churchill was making himself the
leader of the King's men now and was aiming to
overthrow the Baldwin cabinet by means of the
crisis and to succeed him as prime minister. It was
a time when minds were excited, prejudices were
strong, and tempers were hot. This was evidenced
when Churchill tried to ask a question regarding
the affair in the House of Commons on December
? and was shouted down, the shouts coming from
all sides of the chamber. As a matter of fact,
Churchill never had any idea of using the crisis to
unseat Baldwin. His whole purpose was to shield
Ms royal friend from rush tactics.

On December 10, the King himself settled the
matter by deciding to give up the throne. His
abdication message was sent to Parliament and
the necessary legislation was adopted the next day.
In some of Ms last anxious hours Churchill was
one of the few persons the King saw. It has always
been believed that Churchill helped him write the
message that he broadcast on the night of De
cember 11 before he quickly and secretly left Eng
land for temporary exile in France. The language
of the broadcast had in it the kind of noble clean-
cut English that marks Churchill's prose at its

The Lone Wolf 109

highest and "best. On that same December 11
Churchill had his say in the House of Commons.
Now that the King had abdicated, they were will
ing to listen. There were no menacing howls. There
were no loud objections. There was absolute silence
during the entire speech, which was also one of his
shortest. Churchill said there had never been any
constitutional issue between the King and his min
isters nor between the King and Parliament. No
sovereign, he asserted, had ever conformed more
faithfully to the letter and spirit of the constitu
tion than King Edward. Then

"What is done is done. What has been done or
left undone belongs to history and as history, as
far as I am concerned, it shall be left."

Thus, so far as he was concerned, the chapter
was closed on a note of dignity with no apology
and without regrets.

Chapter Seven
IN ROLE

In the course of the years, when Churchill held
no office and was merely a backbencher in the
House of Commons, it was usual to call him a Cas
sandra when he vainly tried to arouse his country
men to the dangers that beset Europe. It would be
more fitting to call him a modern British Jeremiah.
Time and again, both in the House of Commons
and outside, he wrapped Ms prophetic robes about
him and proceeded to read the troubled future.
His prophecies in many cases had an uncanny habit
of coming true. His son, Randolph, aside from his
filial pride in his celebrated father, was fully jus
tified in collecting in book form many of the
speeches made in the troubled years before Hitler
plunged Europe into another vast and destructive
war. Hansard that British equivalent of the
American Congressional Record is the tomb of
many speeches. Most of them deserve to remain
there. But Churchill's were well worth resurrec
tion. They were eloquent. They were always in-

110

In Jeremiah's Role 111

teresting. They foretold In straight words what
was to come.

The years in which those speeches were delivered
have been called "the years the locust hath eaten."
They were the years in which Germany began
steadily arming. They were the years in which
England failed to arm. England believed the Ver
sailles Treaty had assured an era of peace. Eng
land wanted "business as usual" England was
beguiled by the dreams of Ramsay MacDonald,
who believed in the League of Nations and in dis
armament conferences. England ate the lotus with
the somewhat lazy and easily satisfied Stanley
Baldwin. Later England was to be paralyzed by
Neville Chamberlain and his vain efforts at ap
peasement. The "best people" believed in appease
ment. They also had a sneaking admiration for
Hitler. He put the working men and the socialists
and the fellows who talked democracy into their
proper places.

Early in the thirties of the present century the
dangers in the world became manifest and Church
ill tried to arouse his countrymen. In the Far East
Japan seized Mukden in 1931 and in February,
1932 proclaimed the establishment of the puppet
state of Manchukuo. Secretary of State Stimson

112 In The Wilderness

tried to get some joint action by Britain and Amer
ica, but received no encouragement- It was the be
ginning of Japan's ruthless campaign to achieve
hegemony in Asia. It was the birthday of "Asia
for the Asiatics' 9 meaning the Japanese and of
the Asiatic Monroe Doctrine.

Those were the days when Ramsay MacDonald,
as Prime Minister, returned empty-handed from
League of Nations sessions at Geneva and dis
armament conferences at Lausanne, but satisfied
that he had made resounding good speeches to the
assembled statesmen of Europe. German repara
tions were practically abandoned and German
claims to rearm were being heard. In the mean
time, almost every one of the frequent national
elections in Germany showed the rising of the tide
for National Socialism, a dangerous element whose
menace Churchill was quick to recognize.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Novem
ber 23, 1932, he said: "The demand is that Ger
many should be allowed to rearm. Do not let His
Majesty's Government believe that all that Ger
many is asking for is equal status. I believe the
refined term now is equal qualitative status, or, as
an alternative, equal quantitative status by indefi
nitely deferred stages. That is not what Ger-

In Jeremiah's Role 113

many is seeking. All these bands of sturdy Teu
tonic youths, marching through the streets and
roads of Germany, with the light of desire in their
eyes to suffer for their Fatherland, are not looking
for status. They are looking for weapons, and,
when they have the weapons, believe me they will
then ask for the return of lost territories and lost
colonies, and when that demand is made it cannot
fail to shake and possibly shatter to their founda
tions every one of the countries I have mentioned."

Events marched steadily on to catastrophe. In
February, 1933, the League of Nations had
adopted a report on the Manchurian situation de~
"claring Japan the aggressor. The Japanese went
ahead with their conquest. On January 30, 1933,
Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. In
March, 1933 Ramsay MacDonald had another sat
isfying hour, submitting draft proposals to another
disarmament conference at Geneva. At home in
the House of Commons Churchill said the Prime
Minister's intervention in foreign policies had
made Britain weaker, poorer, and more defense
less. Referring to MacDonald and Sir John
Simon, Churchill had the house laughing when
he said:

"We have got our modern Don Quixote home

114 In the Wilderness

again, with Sancho Panza at his tail, bearing with
them these somewhat dubious trophies which they
have collected amid the nervous titterings of
Europe/'

In March, 1983, Japan resigned from the
League of Nations and Hitler gave the first sign
of his permanent anti-Semitic fury and policy by
decreeing April 1 as Jewish boycott day. In June
there was begun in London a world economic con
ference which was virtually dead before it began.
On July 27 it wound up, having accomplished noth
ing. In October Germany left the disarmament con
ference Britain's government so dearly loved and
also resigned from the League of Nations.

Churchill's old friend, Lloyd George, had made
a speech in the House of Commons in which he
sought to allay the fears people entertained re
garding Nazi Germany,

Up spoke Churchill :

"He represented that Germany might have a
few thousand more rifles than was allowed by
Treaty, a few more Boy Scouts, and then he pic
tured the enormous armies of Czechoslovakia and
Poland and France, with their thousands of can
non, and so forth. If I could believe that picture I
should feel much comforted, but I cannot. I find

In Jeremiah's Eole 115

it difficult to believe it in view of the obvious fear
which holds all the nations who are neighbors of
Germany and the obvious lack of fear which ap
pears in the behavior of the German people. The
great dominant fact is that Germany has already
begun to rearm. We read of importations quite out
of the ordinary of scrap iron and nickel and war
metals. We read of the military spirit which is rife
throughout the country; we see the philosophy of
blood lust that is being inculcated into their youth
in a manner unparalleled since the days of bar
barism."

Those words were spoken in November, 1933,
long before Hitler publicly challenged the pow
ers by admitting that Germany was rearming. Jer
emiah Churchill told his country what was coming.

November 12, 1933, Hitler held one of Ms fa
mous "elections," in which only his list of Reich
stag candidates could be voted on. It was an
nounced the Nazi candidates polled 95 per cent of
the votes cast. Churchill did not fail to see what it
meant. When he urged that Britain should also
begin arming, he said :

"Germany is ruled by a handful of autocrats
who are the absolute masters of that gifted nation.
They are men who have neither the long interests

116 In the Wilderness

of a dynasty to consider, nor those very important
restraints which a democratic Parliament and con
stitutional system impose upon any executive Gov
ernment. Nor have they the restraint of public
opinion, which public opinion, indeed, they control
by every means which modern apparatus renders
possible. ... I am not going to speak about their
personalities, because there is no one in the House
who is not thoroughly aware of them and cannot
form his own opinion after having read the ac
counts of what has been happening there, of the
spirit which is alive there and of the language,
methods and outlook of the leading men of that
tremendous community, much the most powerful
in the whole world. The German power is in their
hands, and they can direct it this way or that by a
stroke of a pen, by a single gesture/ 1

On June 80, 1934, occurred the famous purge,
dozens of Hitler's old associates being murdered in
cold blood by Ms orders. In August President Hin-
denburg died and Hitler named himself "Leader"
and Chancellor of the Third Reich. On January 13,
1935, a plebiscite was held in the Saar and nine-
tenths of those taking part voted to return to Ger
many. It was Hitler's first big territorial gain. He
had persuaded the Allies to allow the plebiscite

In Jeremiah's Role 117

some years before the Versailles Treaty had fixed
it. On March 16 he defied England and France by
proclaiming that he was going to introduce con
scription and by announcing a big army. Both
these things were violations of the Versailles
Treaty. Sir John Simon, then Foreign Minister of
Great Britain, went to Berlin to see Hitler. He
came back empty-handed. Hitler refused to with
draw the conscription order and would not give
a guarantee to keep hands off Austria. Already
Churchill was sounding the note, which was to toll
the knell for the democracies "Too late ! Too late !"

On May 2, 1935, commenting in the House of
Commons upon Hitler's definite declarations to Sir
John Simon, Churchill said :

"When the situation was manageable, it was
neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of
hand we apply too late the remedies which might
have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the
story. It is as old as the Sybilline Books. It falls
into that long, dismal catalogue of the f ruitlessness
of experience and the confirmed unteachability of
mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act
when action would be simple and effective, lack
of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the
emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes

118 In the Wilderness

its jarring gong these are the features which con
stitute the endless repetion of history."

On May 21, 1935, Hitler made a speech to the
Reichstag. This speech deserves, a place in history
because it puts on record the Hitler promises then
made which were later callously broken at his own
convenience. He began by announcing that Ger
many would not return to the League of Nations
until it could have real equality of status. His
country had broken away from those articles of the
Versailles Treaty that discriminated against it.
As to other articles, Germany would rely upon
peaceful understandings. It was ready to accept
limitation of armaments if equally accepted by
other powers. He went further, saying the prohi
bition of bombing outside the battle zone could be
extended to the outlawry of all bombing. He as
serted Germany neither intended nor wished to in
terfere in the affairs of Austria, to annex that
country nor to conclude an Anschluss. He reiter
ated Germany's desire for peace. But he dropped
one sinister remark. He said Germany could not
easily observe the sanctity of the demilitarized
Rhine zone when, on the other side of the frontier,
France was constantly strengthening its defense.

In Jeremiah's Kole 119

The very next day Churchill warned the gov
ernment that, while Hitler talked of having an
army of "only" 550,000 men, that only meant men
retained in barracks. It took no account of the big
numbers of new recruits trained each year, which
would enable Germany to mobilize 8,000,000 men
with ease.

On June 2, 1935, that bird of evil omen, Herr
Joachim von BIbbentrop, arrived in London as Hit
ler's special commissioner to discuss disarmament
matters. He had a bill of goods to sell to the cab
inet for his master. It was nothing less than an
agreement between Germany and Britain regard
ing naval strength. In the meantime, on June 8,
there occurred an exchange of places in the recon
struction of the government. Baldwin, who had
been Lord President, became Prime Minister. Mac-
Donald, who had been Prime Minister, became
Lord President. Sir Samuel Hoare, a well-known
appeaser, became Secretary for Foreign Affairs
in place of Sir John Simon. On June 18 this ex
traordinary government, which had spoken so
much about the sanctity of treaties, signed a naval
agreement with Germany which broke the provi
sions of the Treaty of Versailles. It was a bilateral
change, in which England's ally, France, was not

120 In the Wilderness

consulted and France's interests in the matter were
apparently not considered. The Treaty of Ver
sailles had limited the navy Germany could have.
She was to have no submarines. She was to have
no war vessels with a tonnage above ten thousand.
But what Ribbentrop got for Ms country was an
agreement that Germany should have a tonnage
equal to 35 percent of Britain's except for sub
marines* As to these, Germany was to have 45
percent of what Britain possessed. In certain cir
cumstances Germany might have 100 percent,
but was to consult Britain first Germany's vio
lations of the Treaty of Versailles, which were
known to naval experts, were thus accepted and
regularized. This queer cabinet thus gave to Brit
ain's potential enemy and naval rival a possibility
of equalling her in submarines, the craft which
nearly brought England to her knees in the World
War and whose abolition British statesmen had
been advocating* The agreement created a sensa
tion in France. The French government looked
upon it as an affront to them and as an error on
Britain's part that it would live to regret.

In the House of Commons on July 22 Churchill
had Ms say on the matter. He ridiculed a previous

In Jeremiah's Role 121

offer Germany had made to abolish the submarine
providing all other countries did. The Germans,
he said, well knew such unanimity was in no dan
ger of being attained. He also expressed his sur
prise that anyone in the government should be
naive enough to believe that Germany really meant
to subscribe to any agreement to restrict the use
of the submarine against commerce so as to strip
it of inhumanity. He came right to the heart of
the matter in these words :

"If we are to assume, as we must for the pur
pose of this discussion, the ugly hypothesis of a
war in which Britain and Germany would be on
opposite sides and the British blockade would be
enforced on the coast of Germany, as it was in the
last War, who in Ms senses would believe that the
Germans, possessed of a great fleet of submarines
and watching their women and children being
starved by the British blockade, would abstain
from the fullest use of that arm? Such a view
seems to be the acme of gullibility."

What backbencher Churchill foresaw in 1936,
Prime Minister Churchill saw take place in the
spring of 1941, when submarines, aided by dive
bombers and surface raiders, were sinking British
ships faster than Britain could build or buy ships*

122 In the Wilderness

In 1935 he expressed Ms fear of what Germany
might do in the way of building up a great fleet.
People had thought Germany was merely build
ing 10,000-ton pocket-battleships. It was now re
vealed that she had laid the keels for 26,000-ton
ships and the British Navy's intelligence depart
ment seemingly knew nothing about it until after
the Anglo-German naval treaty was signed. After
the World War the British fleet, he said, had great
mobility, but that would pass away if the Germans
built up a formidable fleet. The great naval base
at Singapore, upon which a battle fleet could be
based, had for its purpose the protection of Aus
tralia, New Zealand and the Indian Ocean. A
strong German fleet would mean the greater part
of the British Navy would have to be kept near
Britain. What backbencher Churchill said then,
Prime Minister Churchill saw come to pass in
1940-41. The British fleet, in the main, had to stay
in the North Sea, the English Channel, and the
Mediterranean. It had to be ready to fight off an
invasion of Great Britain. It had to try to convoy
merchant vessels. It had to protect troopships and
supply ships in the Mediterranean. The Pacific
Ocean was left poorly defended. Japan, now a

In Jeremiah's Bole 123

member of the Axis, was In a position to make
trouble for England and the Dutch East Indies.
In 1935, encouraged by what Hitler had ob
tained from Britain, Mussolini began to dream of
empire in North Africa. On the pretext that the
Abyssinians had taken wells that really belonged
to Italy, he began making demands upon Abyssinia
to which no self-respecting government could ac
cede. On June 25, 1935, the British Government
offered a strip of British Somaliland to Miissolinl
In return he was to modify his demands for Abys
sinian territory. This offer was rejected. But the
appeasement plan thus started was not dropped.
At least, not by Sir Samuel Hoare, the Foreign
Secretary. On the evening of October 3 Mussolini
delivered one of his thumping speeches to a care
fully shepherded mass of shouting Fascists in the
Piazza Venezia in Rome. The next day Italy
started war on Abyssinia. Mild sanctions were
adopted against Italy by the League of Nations,
largely under the lead of England's delegates. But,
in the meantime Hoare had agreed with Musso
lini's French friend, Pierre Laval, then Premier
of France, upon another appeasement plan. It was
a scheme to partition Abyssinia between Italy and
the Abyssinian government. The British cabinet

124 In the Wilderness

approved the plan, but on December 9 such a storm
of disapproval arose all over the country that
Prime Minister Baldwin beat a hasty retreat.
Hoare became the sacrificial goat and lost his post,
which was given to Anthony Eden.

On October 24, 1935, Churchill gave the country
a warning about something more dangerous than
the Ethiopian wan Speaking in the House of Com
mons, he said Mussolini would not have embarked
upon this war but for the knowledge that France
was profoundly preoccupied by Germany's enor
mous armament progress and the real or supposed
military and naval weakness of Great Britain.
Reverting now to Germany, he said:

"The incredible figure of 800,000,000 sterling
[about four billion dollars] is being spent in the
currency of the present year on direct and indi
rect military preparations by Germany. The whole
of Germany is an armed camp. The industries of
Germany are mobilized for war to an extent to
which ours were not mobilized even a year after
the Great War had begun. The whole population
is being trained from childhood up to war. A
mighty army is coming into being. Many subma
rines are exercising in the Baltic. Great cannon,
tanks, machine-guns and poison gas are fast accu-

In Jeremiah's Role 125

mulating. The German air force is developing at
great speed"

On March 7, 1936, Hitler again presented him
self as the arch breaker of treaties. He sent troops
into the Rhineland in defiance of the Treaty of
Versailles and of England and France. He de
nounced the Treaty of Versailles. With tongue in
cheek, he assured the British and French the occu
pation of the Rhineland was "merely symbolic." At
the same time his ambassador to Britain handed
Foreign Secretary Eden another one of Ms fair
sounding proposals papers which never came to
fruition and probably were not expected to. This
one talked of a twenty-five year non-aggression
pact between Germany, France, Belgium and pos
sibly, Holland, with Great Britain and Italy as
guarantors, an air pact, and Germany's return to
the League of Nations.

On March 10, 193'6, England's Jeremiah
wrapped his prophetic robes about him and told a
skeptical House of Commons or, at least, one that
was doing a powerful lot of wishful thinking:

"The fact that Germany is spending at this
enormous rate upon armaments warns us not only
of the magnitude of the danger, but possibly of its
imminence. Expenditure on armaments means

126 In the Wilderness

wages. The weekly livelihood for a very large pro
portion of the German people has now become de
pendent upon military preparations. Several mil
lions of people in Germany who were unemployed
have found employment in munitions manufacture
or in the armed forces. On the other hand, the
whole is supported by borrowed money on a large
scale, and the financial situation has become such
that this cannot go on indefinitely. It cannot go
on, but how can it stop? A terrible dilemma lies
ahead of the Government in Germany. If they go
on, there is bankruptcy; if they stop, there Is tre
mendous unemployment. There is no chance of
Germany finding additional substitute employ
ment by trading with tropical colonies, or by peace
ful conquest of our markets or those of other
nations, which would In the Immediate future in
the slightest degree compensate for the curtail
ment of the vast munitions program on which the
whole of Germany is now engaged. The German
Government will have to choose at no distant date
between an Internal and an external catastrophe.
Can we doubt what course the man at the head of
Germany would be likely to choose?"

It must not be supposed that Churchill was a
Jeremiah crying in a real wilderness. Whenever

In Jeremiah's Role 127

the word went forth In the lobbies "Winston Is
up" the benches of the House of Commons rap
idly filled. He had their ears, but not their votes,
They listened closely to what he said and then
voted the way the whips told them to. The vain
dreamer MacDonald, the indolent Baldwin, the
timorous Chamberlain, these were the leaders the
House of Commons followed In the fatal years
when the so-called National Governments were
functioning. There was a sort of sleeping sickness
assailing the government, the Parliament, and
most of the press. This naturally communicated
Itself to the voting public. There was an unwill
ingness to believe In very real danger. There was
a vexation at facing facts. But Churchill kept on
Indef atigably. He begged the government to pre
pare against eventualities. In Ms graphic way he
gave a description of a situation which tells what
America has experienced in the spring of 1941
and that this own country was to experience In
the summer of 1939 :

"Here in a nutshell Is the history of munitions
production : first year, very little; second year, not,
much, but something; third year, almost all you
want; fourth year, more than you need. We are
only at the beginning of the second year, whereas

128 In the Wilderness

Germany is already, in many respects, at the end
of the third."

On March 18, 1936, Ribbentrop came to London
to attend a meeting of the League Council. The
mountain labored and on March 20 brought forth
a mighty small mouse merely a white paper in
viting Germany, among other things, to submit her
arguments showing that the Franco-Soviet pact
was a danger to her and asking her not to increase
her troops in the reoccupied Rhineland. Things
got to such a state that on April 15 the general
staffs of Britain, France, and Belgium mfet in
London to draw up plans for co-operation in case
Germany made an unprovoked attack upon France
or Belgium.

And what did Churchill think of all these things?
He told the nation through his speeches in March
and April of 1936. Almost alone among those who
spoke, he told the people that Hitler's appetite grew
upon what it fed. He was not deceived by specious
and lying pledges nor by pacts that Hitler signed
and that he called irrevocable. Said Jeremiah:

"One year it is the Saar, another month the
right to have conscription, another month to gain
from Britain the right to build submarines, an
other month the Rhineland. What will it be next?

In Jeremiah's Role 129

Austria, Memel, other territories and disturbed
areas, are already in view*"

The opinion of the optimists was that with Brit
ain's mighty navy and France's great army, plus
the far-famed Maginot line, Hitler would hesi
tate before starting any war in the West
Churchill, ever-gloomy in those critical years, told
them:

"Do not doubt that the whole of the German
frontier opposite to Prance is to be fortified as
strongly and as speedily as possible. Three, four
or six months will certainly see a barrier of enor
mous strength. What will be the diplomatic and
strategical consequence of that? I am not dealing
with the technical aspect, but with the diplomatic
reactions. The creation of a line of forts opposite to
the French frontier will enable the German troops
to be economized on that line, and will enable the
main forces to swing round through Belgium and
Holland. ... I thought that Prime Minister Bald
win^ remark which he made some years ago about
our frontier being on the Rhine was liable at the
time to be misunderstood; but if he meant that it
was a mortal danger to Britain to have the Low
Countries in the fortified grip of the strongest
military power upon the Continent, and now, in

ISO In the Wilderness

these days, to have all the German aviation bases
established there, he was only repeating the lesson
taught in four centuries of history. That danger
will be brought definitely and sensibly nearer from
the moment that this new line of German fortifi
cations is completed. But then, look East There
the consequences of the Rhineland fortification
may be more immediate. That is to us a less direct
danger, but is a more imminent danger. The mo
ment these fortifications are completed, and in
proportion as they are completed, the whole aspect
of middle Europe is changed* The Baltic States,
Poland and Czechoslovakia, with which must be
associated Yugoslavia, Eoumania, Austria and
some other countries, are all affected very de
cisively."

It is worth noting that the date of this prophecy
was April 6, 1936. Nearly two years later in
March, 1938, Hitler grabbed Austria. In Septem
ber, 1938, began the first stages of the grab which
was ultimately to take all of Czechoslovakia. In
September, 1939, began Hitler's war on Poland,
which resulted in that country being divided be
tween Germany and Russia, and Russia's over-
lordship of the Baltic States. In May, 1940, as
Churchill had predicted, the German armies swung

In Jeremiah's Role 131

around through Belgium and Holland, decisively
defeating the French, who sued for peace on June
21. On July 1, 1940, the Roumanian government
renounced the British guarantee of its territorial
integrity and in November, a puppet state, signed
a pact which added her to the Axis, opened her
territory to German troops and guaranteed all
Roumanian oil for the Axis. In the spring of 1941
Bulgaria also become a puppet state, allowing
German troops passage and German armies
smashed Yugoslavia and Greece.

Thus in full and bitter measure were the proph
ecies of Churchill made realities.

Perhaps one of the bravest acts of Churchill's
entire career was his attitude on the shameful
business of the partition of Czechoslovakia. In the
summer of 1938 Hitler's muzzled press began an
intensive campaign against the neighbor country.
Lying reports were printed in the Nazi papers, tell
ing how the German residents of the Sudetenland
were being persecuted by the Czech authorities.
It was another case in which Hitler charged that
the lamb was viciously attacking the wolf. In
August the appeasing Chamberlain government
sent Lord Runciman to Prague to "explore" the
situation and as mediator to try to bring about

182 In the Wilderness

some agreement that would satisfy Hitler. In the
meantime, the latter called forth his armies and
held maneuvers with unprecedented numbers of
soldiers. He showed all the panoply of the vast
war machine he had built, including tanks and
squadron after squadron of airplanes. President
Benes of Czechoslovakia said he was willing to give
the Sudetenland a large measure of autonomy.
This offer was contemptuously rejected by Hitler.
In a violent speech at Nuremberg he declared he
was going to end the "oppression" of Germans in
the Sudetenland once and for all

On September 15, Prime Minister Chamber-
Iain, for the first time in Ms life, flew in an air
plane. He was in haste to get to Berchtesgaden to
see Hitler about the Czech crisis. Upon his re
turn, he conferred with Premier Daladier of
France. They agreed the best way to save Euro
pean peace was for Czechoslovakia to cede the
Sudetenland to Germany, This decision was con
veyed to President Benes. The Czech cabinet, find
ing that Britain and France were unwilling to
take a strong stand against Hitler, accepted the
terms, virtually under duress. Once more Cham
berlain flew on a pilgrimage to Germany, this time
to Godesberg. September 24 he returned to London

In Jeremiah's Role 133

a deeply disappointed man. Hitler, seeing he was
winning, had increased his demands. He not only
wanted the Sndetenland districts he had previously
demanded, but had produced a map showing some
doubtful outlying portions of territory that he
wanted, too. Instead of delaying German occupa
tion, he wanted his troops to march in on October 1.
After the Germans occupied territory that was not
certainly German in its majority, Hitler said he
would agree to a plebiscite to be held not later than
November. He also demanded the liberation of all
German prisoners held by Czechoslovakia and
the release of Sudeten Germans from the Czech
army.

On September 26 event followed on the heels of
event. President Roosevelt sent an appeal to Hit
ler and Benes, asking them to settle their affairs
by negotiation. It had been announced that Hitler
would speak. He had the whole world for an audi
ence, because it was believed this speech would be
one of his most warlike utterances. Instead, it was
comparatively mild. He demanded the immediate
occupation of the Sudetenland by his troops. Then
he largely abated world fears of war by saying
that when he got the Sudetenland it would be the
last territorial demand he would make as far as

134 IB the Wilderness

Europe was concerned. Of course events since then
have shown him to be the greatest liar since An
anias, but at the time all the world was anxious
to believe him. If he was sincere, it meant a pros
pect of peace for troubled Europe. On the same
day Chamberlain spoke, pledging aid to Czecho
slovakia if attacked, but at the same time guar
anteeing the Sudetenland to Germany. On Sep
tember 27 President Roosevelt sent a cable to
Hitler. The President termed a resort to force in
the Sudeten matter as "unjustifiable." In the
meantime, Chamberlain and Roosevelt both ap
pealed to Mussolini to use his good offices with Hit
ler, for things looked bad again. The Czech army
had mobilized. On September 28 the British fleet
was ordered to mobilize. All hope for peace seemed
vain. In London people grabbed the newspapers
from the vendors as edition after edition came
out. Millions listened in on the radio for the latest
bulletins. Chamberlain arose in the House of Com
mons to explain the situation. He had been watched
by a big crowd when he left Ms house at 10 Down
ing Street. He was watched by another throng
in front of the Parliament buildings. Then came
a stroke of real melodrama. As he was speaking,
all hope of peace seemingly gone, Sir John Simon

In Jeremiah's Bole 135

nudged Mm and handed him a telegram. The tele
gram was an invitation from Hitler to visit
Munich. Daladier and Mussolini were also to be
present. On September 30 it was announced that
the four negotiators had reached a four-power
accord. The Czechs were to evacuate their army
and their officers from Sudetenland on October 1.
Britain, France and Italy guaranteed that the
evacuation would be completed by October 10. The
occupation of territory predominantly German
would be started by German troops in four stages,
beginning October 1. An international commis
sion named by Britain, France, Italy and Czecho
slovakia would decide when a plebiscite was to be
held in the doubtful territory and would also pre
side over the fixing of the final frontiers between
Germany and Czechoslovakia. France and Britain
would guarantee the new frontiers. The Czech gov
ernment sorrowfully bowed to what was practi
cally an ultimatum agreed upon by its presumed
friends and the news was broadcast to the nation
at five in the afternoon.

On October 1 Chamberlain returned to England,
landing at Heston Airport in the suburbs of Lon
don. A vast throng was there to greet him. In the
immense relief from the threat of immediate war,

136 In the Wilderness

the British people deeply rejoiced. For the first
time in Ms political career, the man with the um
brella, the man with the cold, flat voice, hard dark
eyes, prominent teeth, sagging moustache and un-
engaging speech, found himself a popular hero.
Even the umbrella seemed an object of the crowd's
affection. Moved by their cheers, Chamberlain
broke into an icy smile and waved a piece of paper,
saying to them he had brought them "peace in our
time" and "peace with honor/' The paper he so
proudly displayed had been signed the night before
by Hitler and himself. Chamberlain had requested
it. Hitler willingly consented. He had gotten what
he wanted. He was not averse to signing a scrap
of paper if the old gentleman wanted It. It really
pledged Hitler to nothing. Here is what it said:

"We regard the agreement signed last night and
the Anglo-German naval agreement as symbolic
of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war
with one another again."

Chamberlain went his triumphant way to Buck
ingham Palace to give the King a firsthand nar
rative of what had occurred at Munich. In all great
national crises it is a habit of loyal Londoners to
flock to the space before the palace. They did so
this time. In response to loud calls, King George

In Jeremiah's Bole 137

and Queen Elizabeth, accompanied by the now
beaming Chamberlain and his wife, appeared
on the balcony several times and waved to
the crowd.

For the Prime Minister there was only one jar
ring note to mar the day's triumph. Alfred Duff
Cooper, First Lord of the Admiralty, resigned his
cabinet post. In Ms letter of resignation Cooper
said he knew he was striking a discordant note, but
he felt he must resign an office he loved as a pro
test against the settlement at Munich. "I pro
foundly distrust the foreign policy which this gov
ernment is pursuing and seems likely to continue
to pursue/' he wrote.

But the Prime Minister got consolation from
his King and from the head of the Church. On
October 2, King George did the unprecedented
thing of issuing a message praising the work of a
prime minister. Said he:

"The time for anxiety is past and we have been
able today to offer our thanks to the Almighty for
His mercy in sparing us the horrors of war. . . .
After the magnificent efforts of the Prime Minister
in the cause of peace, it is my personal hope that
a new era of friendship and prosperity may be
dawning among the peoples of the world."

138 In the Wilderness

The Archbishop of Canterbury In a radio ad
dress to the nation said, "Whatever our politics
may be, the hearts of all of us are full of grati
tude to Mr. Chamberlain/ 9

But by October 3 the nation, and particularly
some of its representatives in the House of Com
mons, were beginning to have second and cooler
thoughts. Chamberlain made a speech about the
settlement. He paid tribute to the restraint and
dignity of the Czech government and people.

"Shame!" cried the Labor members in chorus.

"I have nothing to be ashamed of/ 9 snapped the
Prime Minister. "Let those who have, hang their
heads."

Duff Cooper said he had tried hard to swallow
the Munich terms, but they stuck in his throat. He
revealed inside information when he said they
were always being told they must not irritate Hit
ler, particularly when he was about to make a
speech, because then he was apt to say terrible
things, from which there would be no means of
retreating afterwards.

On October 5 the benches at the House of Com-
mons were filled. The great backbencher,
Churchill himself, was to speak. He began by say
ing this was not a time when it was worth anyone's

In Jeremiah's Role 139

wMle to court political popularity. The members
leaned forward in their seats. They expected high
explosives. They were not disappointed. Said
Churchill slowly and measuredly :

"I will begin by saying the most unpopular and
most unwelcome thing. I will begin by saying what
everybody would like to Ignore or forget but which
must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have
sustained a total and unmitigated def eat, and that
France has suffered even more than we have. The
utmost the Prime Minister has been able to secure
by all his Immense exertions, by all the great ef
forts and mobilization which took place In this
country, and by all the anguish and strain through
which we have passed in this country the utmost
he has been able to gain for Czechoslovakia In the
matters which were In dispute has been that the
German dictator, Instead of snatching the victuals
from the table, has been content to have them
served to him course by course.

"The Chancellor of the Exchequer said it was
the first time Herr Hitler had been made to re
tract in any degree. We really must not waste
time after all this long debate upon the difference
between the positions reached at Berchtesgaden,
at Godesberg and at Munich. They can be very sim-

140 In the Wilderness

ply epitomized, if the House will permit me to
vary the metaphor. One pound was demanded at
the pistol's point When it was given, two pounds
were demanded at the pistol's point. Finally the
dictator consented to take one pound, seventeen
shillings and six pence, and the rest in promises
of good will for the future. 7 *

He shook his massive head as if puzzled and
confessed he could not understand why there
should have been so much fuss and so much talk
about crisis if the representatives of Britain and
France were ready all along to sacrifice Czechoslo
vakia. The Czechs could probably, by acting alone,
have gotten much better terms.

Then the old Jeremiah in him moved the speaker
once again. The prophet spoke:

"At any moment there may be an order for
Herr Goebbels to start again his propaganda of
calumny and lies ; at any moment an incident may
be provoked, and now that the fortress line is
turned, what is there to stop the will of the con
queror. ... I venture to think that in the future
the Czechoslovak State cannot be maintained as an
independent entity. I think you will find that
in a period of time which may be measured
by years, but may be measured only by months,

In Jeremiah's Role 141

Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi
regime."

As a matter of fact in the following March Hit
ler sent his troops into the rest of Czechoslovakia.
He "protected" Bohemia and Moravia.

Churchill put the blame where it belonged:

"It is the most grievous consequence of what we
have done and what we have left undone in the
last five years five years of futile good inten
tions, five years of eager search for the line of
least resistance, five years of uninterrupted retreat
of British power. . . . When I think of the fair
hopes of a long peace which still lay before Europe
at the beginning of 1933 when Herr Hitler first
obtained power, and of all the opportunities of ar
resting the growth of Nazi power which have been
thrown away, when I think of the immense com
binations and resources which have been squan
dered or neglected, I cannot believe that a parallel
exists in the whole course if history. So far as this
country is concerned, the responsibility must rest
with those who have had the undisputed control
of our political affairs."

He compared Britain's position to the difference
between the strong power England had long ago
under King Alfred and the weakness it suffered

142 In the Wilderness

under King Ethelred the Unready. And he quoted
to the crowded benches the rugged words of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle so apposite to the day in
which he was speaking :

" 'All these calamities fell upon us because of
evil counsel, because tribute was not offered to
them at the right time nor yet were they resisted;
but when they had done the most evil, then was
peace made with them/ "

There were in his audience many who optimisti
cally believed Chamberlain had really obtained
peace in our time. To them the old prophet said :

"We are in the presence of a disaster of the first
magnitude which has befallen Great Britain and
France. Do not let us blind ourselves to that. It
must now be accepted that all the countries of Cen
tral and Eastern Europe will make the best terms
they can with the triumphant Nazi power. The
system of alliances in Central Europe upon which
France has relied for her safety has been swept
away, and I can see no means by which it can be
reconstituted. The road down the Danube Valley,
to the Black Sea, the road which leads as far as
Turkey, has been opened/*

A little over two years after that was said, Hit
ler's troops had occupied most of that road.

In Jeremiah's Role 148

Jeremiahs are not popular. Their words are not
soothing syrup. They have a bitter savor. Hence
it is not surprising that Churchill did not carry the
House with him. On October 6 there was a vote
on a resolution "that this House approves the
policy of His Majesty's Government by which the
war was averted and supports their efforts to se
cure a lasting peace." It was adopted by 366 to
144. Among those who voted in the negative with
Churchill were Anthony Eden, L. S. Amery, and
Duff Cooper, good Tories all. They were destined
to have places in the cabinet when Churchill be
came Prime Minister.

For a period after that, Churchill spent more
time at home. His attendance at the House of Com
mons was infrequent. But when in March 19, 1939,
the estimates for the navy were introduced he was
back in his place. He made a fervent plea for many
new destroyers, especially as they had been offici
ally informed that Germany was going to build up
to one hundred percent parity with Britain in sub
marine tonnage. He said a very shrewd guess
could be made that much of this new tonnage had
already been built in sections and all that was nec
essary now was to put them together. The prophet,
usually so accurate in his predictions, made one

144 In the Wilderness

bad mistake* He said they had the measure of sub
marines. At that time he did not foresee what the
Germans were to practice in the spring of 1941
a deadly combination of submarines working with
bombers, each signaling the prey to the other.

Ominous events were occurring on the Conti
nent. Roumania signed a trade agreement with
Germany which gave the latter much Roumanian
grain and oil. Franco was well on the way to com
plete victory in Spain and felt he owed much of
his success to German and Italian help in men,
munitions, and airplanes. Italy invaded Albania
and conquered the country in a few days. Poland
was alarmed by a sudden German press campaign
along the well-known Hitler model that is, that
Germans were being persecuted by the Poles. The
German press also demanded the annexation of
Danzig. Britain gave Poland a guarantee against
aggression. This was followed up a little later by
similar guarantees to Roumania and Greece. Presi
dent Roosevelt appealed to Mussolini and Hitler
to pledge themselves to keep the peace for ten
years. Two weeks later, on April 28, Hitler did
not reply by message to the President, but, ad
dressing Ms puppet Reichstag, treated the Presi
dent's missive lightly and alarmed the world by

In Jeremiah's Role 145

Ms unilateral denunciation of the Anglo-German
naval treaty and the non-aggression ten-year pact
he had signed several years before with Poland.
Still further trying to guard against eventuali
ties, an Anglo-Turkish pact was signed.

Brooding in his country home, Churchill spelled
out the dangers to peace that the Italian grab of
Albania indicated. So, in his next speech in the
House of Commons, on April 13, 1939, he made
an exact diagnosis of the peril to the Balkan
nations :

"The four Balkan States and Turkey are an im
mense combination. If they stand together, they
are safe. They have only to stand together to be
safe. They will save their populations from the hor
rors of another war and, by their massive stabiliz
ing force, they may well play a decisive part in
averting a general catastrophe. If they allow them
selves to be divided, if they depart at all from the
simple principle of "the Balkans for the Balkan
peoples/* they will renew the horrible experiences
which tore and devastated every one of them in the
Great War and the Balkan wars which preceded
the Great War."

Once again history and events have shown how
clear-sighted the speaker was. The Balkan coun-

146 In the Wilderness

tries did allow themselves to be divided, partly by
old jealousies, partly by fears, partly by the expert
machinations of Hitler's spies, fifth columnists and
traitors. The Balkans today are Hitler's footstool.

As the year 1939 advanced and the omens of
danger became ever more clear, Prime Minister
Chamberlain on April 26 announced the govern
ment's determination to introduce a bill for con
scription. By May 18 the measure had passed its
third reading in the House of Commons and was
well on its way to become law. Churchill, of course,
supported the bill. One of his strongest speeches
on the subject was made at Cambridge on May 19,
1939. Picturing reasons for the bill, he said:

"Two remarkable men rose to dictatorial author
ity. Both, in the early stages, rendered great serv
ice to their countries. But both were carried away
by the habit of despotism and lust of conquest, and
both at the present time seem ready to array them
selves against the progress and freedom of the
modern age. They cannot pursue their course of
aggression without bringing about a general war
of measureless devastation To submit to their en
croachments would be to condemn a large portion
of mankind to their rule; to resist them, either in
peace or in war, will be dangerous, painful and

In Jeremiah's Role 147

hard. There Is no use at this stage in concealing
these blunt facts from anyone. No one should go
forward in this business without realizing plainly
both what the cost may be and what are the issues
at stake.

"Let us therefore make it clear at the very
outset that a number of nations are now being
formed into a Grand Alliance which will in no
circumstances attack the Dictator Powers. Nor
will we hamper or obstruct their natural and
lawful desires; nor will we invade their internal
jurisdiction ; nor will we seek to deprive them of
their legitimate share in the expanding future of
the world. Nor will we shed blood except in self-
defense or common defense. . . . There is no ele
ment of imperial ambition in our policy; no taunts,
no wordy provocation, no affront to mere pride,
no diplomatic entanglements will tempt us to ag
gressive action. We stand together against vio
lence and tyranny, and we seek nothing but to
make a strong effort with the people of other coun
tries to defend the reign of law and freedom."

On July 27 certain opposition members in the
House of Commons revolted against the great sum
mer holiday so customary for Parliament, a holi
day one of whose chief purposes was that cer-

148 In the Wilderness

tarn rich men could go away to Scotland for fish
ing and hunting. It was proposed, theref ore, that
when the House adjourned on August 4, it should
meet again two weeks later for a statement by
the government on the European situation. As
usual, Chamberlain proposed adjournment to Octo
ber 3. This was attacked by men on all sides of the
House. Churchill on August 2, seeing the danger
ahead, sought some sort of unanimity. He urged
the Prime Minister to yield, to conciliate other
opinion now so estranged and to make himself the
true leader of the nation as a whole. The demand
for a shorter holiday period, he said, was due to
anxiety over what might happen.
.. "This is not an occasion when the House should
part with reproaches and with difference of
opinion. On the contrary, we ought to part as
friends who are facing common problems and
resolved to aid each other as far as it is possible. "

But neither this calm, but moving appeal nor
the more heated denunciations of Liberal and La
bor members could move Chamberlain. The stub
born, self-centered old man had his way and was
backed up by his Tory yes men.

On August 3, the day before adjournment, one
of Chamberlain's fuglemen, Sir Thomas Inskip,

In Jeremiah's Role 149

made the fatuous statement: "War today is not
only not inevitable but is unlikely. The govern
ment have good authority for saying that/ 9

Churchill felt he could not let that go unchal
lenged. On August 8 he broadcast to the United
States. He spoke of a queer hush that was hang
ing over Europe. In graphic words he then ex
plained:

"What kind of hush is it? Alas! it is the hush
of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of
fear. Listen! No, listen carefully; I think I hear
something yes, there it was quite clear. Don't
you hear it? It is the tramp of armies crunching
the gravel of the parade grounds, splashing
through the rain-soaked fields, the tramp of the
two million German soldiers and more than a mil
lion Italians 'going on maneuvers' yes, only on
maneuvers! Of course it's only maneuvers just
like last year. After all the Dictators must train
their soldiers. They could scarcely do less in com
mon prudence, when the Danes, the Dutch, the
Swiss, the Albanians and of course the Jews
may leap out upon them at any moment and rob
them of their living space, and make them sign
another paper to say who began it. Besides, these
German and Italian armies may have another

150 In the Wilderness

work of Liberation to perform. It was only last
year they liberated Austria from the horrors of
self-government. It was only in March they freed
the Czechoslovak Republic from the misery of
independent existence. It is only two years ago
that Signor Mussolini gave the ancient kingdom
of Abyssinia its Magna Charta. It is only two
months ago that little Albania got its writ of
Habeas Corpus, and Mussolini sent in his Bill of
Rights for King Zog to pay, ... No wonder the
armies are tramping when there is so much lib
eration to be done, and no wonder there is a hush
among all the neighbors of Germany and Italy
while they are wondering which one is going to
be liber ated* next/ 7

Dropping this bitter irony, the speaker then
got down to brass tacks :

"If Herr Hitler does not make war, there will
be no war. No one else is going to make war. Brit
ain and France are determined to shed no blood ex
cept in self-defense or in defense of their Allies.
No one has ever dreamed of attacking Germany.
If Germany desires to be reassured against attacks
by her neighbors, she has only to say the word and
we will give her the fullest guarantees in accord
ance with the principles of the Covenant of the

In Jeremiah's Role 151

League of Nations. We have said repeatedly we
ask nothing for ourselves in the way of security
that we are not willing freely to share with the
German people. Therefore, if war should come
there can be no doubt upon whose head the blood-
guiltiness will fall. Thus lies the great issue at this
moment and none can tell how it will be settled/'

Chapter Eight
PLEADING FOR AIRPLANES

No story of the life of Mr. England would be
complete or even faintly adequate if it did not de
tail in some degree his long seven-year fight to
arouse public opinion and compel the various cab
inets to take adequate measures to build up a pow
erful air force and to provide factories where air
planes could be turned out in huge quantities* The
fight was a vain fight. Churchill was like one who
tolls a fire-bell in the night and fails to awaken
the sleepers. Or like one whose alarms were heard
but not heeded because no one believed in the
dangers to which he would arouse them. It is one
of the gigantic and cruel ironies of history that
he, who so valiantly tried over and over again to
prepare his country against danger from the air,
should have been called upon at long last to head
his country's government when the air attack was
a deadly reality against which Britain was not ade
quately defended.

In the years before World War I, Churchill at

152

Pleading for Airplanes 158

the Admiralty saw the Germans building great
warships and saw, too, that to defend her existence,
Britain must outbuild the possible enemy. With
the same prescience, seven years ago he saw that
the airplane was going to be one of the decisive
weapons of the future. So he began the unremit
ting campaign often a one-man campaign
which wearied his fellow members in the House
of Commons. But even in his case, for once Ms
gift of prophecy and foresight partially foresook
him. On March 14, 1933, he discussed the small
estimates for a year's building of airplanes. He re
ferred to a rather celebrated speech Stanley Bald
win as Lord President of the Council had made
some time before. Baldwin had spoken of the pos
sible bombing of open towns and the murdering of
women and children as probably an orthodox and
legitimate means of warfare. Baldwin assumed
that such warfare would certainly be waged in the
next great conflict. He also assumed there was no
adequate defense likely to be devised against such
bombing.

Churchill said it would not pay an enemy to
waste his strength upon open towns and the non-
combatants dwelling there. "If," said he, "we were
completely defenseless in the air, if we were re-

154 In the Wilderness

duced to a condition where we could not deal with
this form of warf are, I doubt very much whether
even then the victorious Power would be well ad
vised to come and kill the women and children. By
intercepting all the trade passing through the nar
row seas and on the approaches to this island, they
could employ the weapon of starvation which would
probably lead to a peace on terms which they
thought were desirable."

He was to live to see German airplanes not only
attack British shipping in an endeavor to starve
the island into submission, but to behold the ter
rible picture of London and many other British
cities and towns ruthlessly bombed, with a result
ing harvest of killed and wounded men, women and
children who had no part in the war save to en
dure. He also had the mistaken notion that, if Brit-
tain had an adequate air force, it would be almost
a complete protection for the civilian population,
not indeed against injury and annoyance, but
against destruction. The only defense for Britain
that he saw was a big air force. Such a force would
protect the people from danger until it was vic
torious or was beaten. He apparently did not fore
see night bombing, against which neither side in
the present war has so far found adequate de-

Pleading for Airplanes 155

f ense. Even the overwhelming superiority in num
bers that the German air force possesses has not
prevented British bombers from taking the long
journey to Germany and blasting away at German
cities.

In that opening speech in March, 1933, in which
he began Ms fight for airplanes, Churchill called
attention to the fact that while appropriations for
the army and navy had been increased, those for
the air force, the most vital of all, were actually
$1,700,000 less than for 1932 and $5,000,000 less
than for 1931. This would have been understand
able if the country had a huge air force, but it had
a mere skeleton force,

A year later Churchill was singing a different
tune as to the danger to civilians. He was now con
vinced that, if a new war broke out in Europe, the
civilians would be in as much peril as the men at
the front. The government, bringing in its esti
mates for the air force, provided money for an in
crease in first-line air strength from 850 to 890 a
puny forty new planes. Churchill warned the gov
ernment that Germany was arming and prepar
ing to arm more heavily. He now drew a totally
different picture of possibilities than he had a year
before. On March 8, 1934, he said:

156 In the Wilderness

"Now that Mdeous air war has cast the shadow
of its wings over harassed civilization, no one can
pretend that by any measures which we could take
it would be possible to give absolute protection
against an aggressor dropping bombs in this island
and killing a great many unarmed men, women
and children. No Government can be asked to guar
antee absolute immunity to the nation if we were
attacked in this way by this new arm. It is cer
tainly in our power, however, if we act in time, to
guard ourselves, first of all, from a mortal blow
which would compel us to capitulate; and, sec
ondly, it is in our power, I firmly believe, to make
it extremely unlikely that we should be attacked
by this particular method of terrorizing the civil
population by the slaughter of non-combatants,
which, to the shame of the twentieth century, we
are now forced to discuss as a practical issue."

Seven years before the grim reality was faced
by myriads of cities and towns in Great Britain,
Churchill said : "I dread the day when the means
of threatening the heart of the British Empire
should pass into the hands of the present rulers
of Germany. I think we should then be in a posi
tion which would be odious to every man who
values freedom of action and independence and

Pleading for Airplanes 157

also in a position of the utmost peril for our
crowded, peaceful population engaged in their
daily toil I dread that day. But it is not, perhaps,
far distant. Not come yet at least so I believe, or
I hope and pray. But it is not far distant"

To this speech Baldwin made one of his sooth
ing syrup speeches containing promises which
were never fully made good :

"If all our efforts for an agreement fail, and
if it is not possible to obtain equality in such mat
ters, then any Government of this country a Na
tional Government more than any will see to it
that in air strength and air power this country
shall no longer be in a position inferior to any
country within striking distance of our shores."

It was in 1934 that Prime Minister Ramsay
MacDonald, dreaming sweet dreams of peace and
amity in the world, went traveling about Europe,
talking about universal disarmament. The French
rejected flatly one of his proposals. They thought
they had a fine army and they were going to keep
it. Churchill thoroughly sympathized with them,
Dryly and epigrammatically he told the House
of Commons :

"The Romans had a maxim, 'Shorten your wea
pons and lengthen your frontiers/ But our maxim

158 In the Wilderness

seems to be, 'Diminish your weapons and increase
your obligations/ ??

A self-satisfied government, through Churchill's
kinsman, Lord Londonderry, Secretary for Air,
stated in the latter part of Jiine, 1934, that it was
making preparations in ample time to secure
parity in the air, to which Churchill replied :

"Germany is arming, particularly in the air.
They have already a civil aviation, which is called
'Air Sport' and which is, I believe, on a gigantic
scale, with airdromes, trained pilots and so forth.
All they have to do is to give that vast plant a
military character. It may take some time, but it
will not take anything like as long as it would
take us, with our very limited aviation, to develop
our air armaments. I have no special knowledge
of these matters, but it may well be that by this
time next year German aviation will be definitely
stronger than ours whatever we do."

For this and other similar warnings, he was
taken to task by Sir Herbert Samuel, one of the
leaders of what was left of the once-great Liberal
party and no particular friend of the government
in power. He said :

"Utterly regardless of any question of what
parity really means in terms of airplanes and other

Pleading for Airplanes 159

equipment, utterly regardless of any needs of the
situation, Mr. Churchill comes forward and tells
the nation that we ought straightway to double
and redouble our Air Force, that we ought to have
an Air Force four times as big as we have now,
without giving the smallest reasons why this colos
sal expenditure should immediately be undertaken.
That is rather the language of a Malay running
amok than of a responsible British statesman. It is
rather the language of blind and causeless panic."

When a trained statesman, administrator and
public servant like Samuel, a student and philoso
pher, could go so far astray and be so smugly com
placent about the condition of affairs in Europe,
it is no wonder the lesser men in Parliament failed
to give heed to the warnings Churchill uttered.

The sleeper was partially, but only partially,
awakened in July, 1934 Baldwin announced a
new five-year program by which the Royal Air
Force would be increased by 41 squadrons, or 860
machines. Thirty-three of these squadrons were to
be added to the home defense force, which would
bring this force up to 880 machines. On July 30
Baldwin made his famous utterance:

"Let us never forget this; since the day of the
air, the old frontiers are gone. When you think of

160 In the Wilderness

the defense of England, you no longer think of
the chalk cliffs of Dover; you think of the Rhine.
That is where our frontier lies."

Some of the faithful not only applauded the
sentiment, but were pleased with the govern
ment's announced Air Force program. Not so
Churchill Boiled down, he said, it meant the cab
inet proposed to spend a mere $100,000,000 on the
air force, spread over five years. Before the end
of that parliament, they would spend about $20,-
000,000 of this. This probably meant that dur
ing the life of that parliament, perhaps,
fifty new machines would be obtained. The home
defense air strength would be raised from 550
to 600 by the end of the financial year 1935-36.
Having regard to the increases being made by
other countries, Britain, as a result of the an
nounced program, would be worse off relatively in
1939 than it was in 1934. Cabinet members
squirmed uncomfortably on their benches.

"We are a rich and easy prey. No country is so
vulnerable and no country would better repay pil
lage than our own. With our enormous Metropolis
here, the greatest target in the world, a kind of
tremendous, fat valuable cow tied up to attract
the beast of prey, we are in a position in which

Pleading for Airplanes 161

we have never been bef ore, and in which no other
country in the world is at the present time."

Once again he returned to the charge : Make air
plane for airplane with Germany; make more air
planes than Germany. That way lay less, not more,
danger of conflict. He took a leaf out of the book
of the history of the recent past:

"Before the last world war, the Liberal Gov
ernment of those days did not hesitate to specify
the quarter from which they expected danger, and
they did not hesitate to specify the navy against
which we were determined to maintain an ample
superiority. We measured ourselves before the
War publicly and precisely against Germany. We
laid down a ratio of sixteen to ten against existing
programs and of two to one against any additions
to those programs. Such calculations are perfectly
understood abroad. They were stated publicly and
they bred no ill-will and caused no offense,"

In November, 1934, Churchill and five support
ers in this matter proposed the following amend
ment to the address to the throne :

"We humbly represent to Your Majesty that,
in the present circumstances of the world, the
strength of our national defense, and especially of
our air defenses, is no longer adequate to secure

162 In the Wilderness

the peace, safety and freedom of Your Majesty's
faithful subjects."

Reading the speech Churchill made on the sub
ject over six years ago, one is once more struck
by the wonderful accuracy with which he depicted
what would happen if England was unprepared.
He said no one could doubt that a week or ten
days' intensive bombing of London would be a very
serious matter. Thousands would be killed or
maimed. One of the most dangerous forms of at
tack would be by incendiary bombs. Under the
pressure of air attacks, perhaps millions would be
driven out of London. Then there would be the at
tack on the docks of London and on the estuary of
the Thames. Nor would London alone be the sub
ject of attack. Birmingham and Sheffield and the
great manufacturing towns would not be immune.

"The danger," said he, "which might confront
us would expose us not only to hideous suffering,
but even to mortal peril, by which I mean peril of
actual conquest and subjugation. It is just as well
to confront those facts while time remains to take
proper measures to cope with them. I may say that
all these possibilities are perfectly well known
abroad, and no doubt every one of them has been
made the subject of technical study."

Pleading for Airplanes 163

That they were known in Germany and made
the subject of technical study has been made mani
fest, even beyond Churchill's vision, by the man
ner in which docks, oil-storage tanks, and other
military objectives have been bombed not to
speak of the indiscriminate bombing of cities and
towns, destroying homes and killing non-combat
ants.

Baldwin was unshaken and unconvinced. In his
reply, he said: "If we continue to carry out at the
present approved rate the expansion announced
to Parliament, so far from the German military
air force being at least as strong as, and prob
ably stronger than, our own, we estimate that we
shall still have a margin in Europe of nearly 50
percent. I cannot look farther forward than the
next two years. Mr. Churchill speaks of what may
happen in 1937. Such investigations as I have
been able to make lead me to believe that his figures
are considerably exaggerated."

That was a statement Churchill never allowed
the Conservative leader to forget. On May 2, 1935,
he reminded Baldwin that the German air in
dustry was turning out ten times as many air
planes as Great Britain. Germany also had ardent
long-trained pilots ready to step into those ma-

164 In the Wilderness

chines and ample airdromes from which to fly.
Therefore, instead of Britain being 50 percent
stronger in the air than Germany, as Baldwin had
said she would be, the contrary was the case. At
the end of the year, Germany would be two or
three times stronger than Britain, The matter of
the air force was never allowed to die for long in
the House of Commons. Churchill and the few who
believed as he did kept the subject alive.

On May 27, 1935, speaking in the great Albert
Hall in London, Baldwin made the astounding
statement: "No Government in this country could
live a day that was content to have an Air Force
of any inferiority to any within striking distance
of our shores/'

But there was such an inferior air force in Brit
ain and the government kept on "living" until
Baldwin retired, accepted a peerage and went to
the more somnolent and less disturbing atmosphere
of the House of Lords, leaving his heir in the
leadership, Neville Chamberlain, to face the music.
Baldwin's last premiership began on June 8, 1935,
when he and Ramsay MacDonald exchanged
places, the latter becoming Lord President of the
Council. The National Government went to the
country in a general election on November 14 and

Pleading for Airplanes 165

was returned with the huge majority of 247. Even
with this tremendous backing, Baldwin did not
have an easy time. The assertions Churchill made
concerning Germany's immense rearmament, re
garded the army and navy and especially and
above all, as regarded the air force, kept coming
up to plague Baldwin. In his own defense, Bald
win said he had been misled as to figures. Lord
Londonderry, who had been Secretary for Air and
was now replaced, sharply contradicted the Prime
Minister in a speech he made on June 26, 1936, at
Newcastle-upon-Tyne. "I was one of the Defense
Ministers, and I can say on my own behalf and I
have no doubt my late colleagues will endorse all
I S ay that I continually kept the Government in
formed of our deficiencies and of our weakness and
also of the increasing armaments of other coun
tries. It was surprising, therefore, when Mr. Bald
win announced to the House of Commons that he
had been misled in relation to German rearma
ment Mr. Baldwin never was misled."

On November 12, 1936, occurred one of the most
extraordinary debates in the history of Parlia
ment, because it was the day of Prime Minister
Baldwin's amazing confession. The afternoon be
gan with Churchill and a few friends putting be-

166 In the Wilderness

fore the House of Commons an amendment which
was in the exact wording of the one they had
submitted two years previously. Once more they
expressed their fear that the national defenses
and, particularly, the air defenses were not ade
quate for the safety of the nation. Pressing Ms
amendment once more, Churchill reminded the
House that on the similar occasion two years be
fore, he had been censured by the leading Conser
vative papers as a mere alarmist and that Lloyd
George had congratulated Baldwin on having so
completely demolished the extravagant fears of
the speaker.

Churchill then proceeded to do a little demolish
ing on his own : "What would have been said, I
wonder, if I could two years ago have forecast to
the House the actual course of events. Suppose we
had then been told that Germany would spend for
two years four billion dollars a year upon warlike
preparations; that her industries would be organ
ized for war, as the industries of no country have
ever been; that by breaking all Treaty engage
ments she would create a gigantic air force and an
army based on universal compulsory service,
which by the present time, in 1936, amounts to
upwards of thirty-nine divisions of highly equipped

Pleading for Airplanes 167

troops, including mechanized divisions of almost
unmeasured strength, and that behind all
this there lay millions of armed and trained men ?
for whom the formations and equipment are rap
idly being prepared to form another eighty divi
sions Suppose all that had been forecast why,

no one would have believed in the truth of such a
nightmare tale. Yet just two years have gone by
and we see it all in broad daylight. Where shall we
be this time two years hence? I hesitate now to
predict."

Going further, Churchill pinned responsibility
for the failure to rearm adequately mainly on
Prime Minister Baldwin, who, since 1923, had
alternated with Ramsay MacDonald in being
either Prime Minister or Lord President of the
Council. But, whether in the one post or the other,
Baldwin had the power as he was the Conservative
leader and the Conservatives furnished the big
bulk of the National Government's supporters in
the House of Commons. The government, he said,
had not given the House of Commons the facts
about German rearmament if it knew them.
Churchill said he was astounded that the House
had never reacted effectively against the dangers
that threatened the country.

168 In the Wilderness

"I never would have believed that we should
have been allowed to go on getting into this plight,
month by month and year by year, and that even
the Government's own confession of error would
have produced no concentration of Parliamentary
opinion and force capable of lifting our efforts to
the level of emergency. I say now that unless this
House resolves to find out the truth for itself, it
will have committed an act of abdication of duty
without parallel in its long history/ 5

Baldwin's speech winding up the debate was one
long lame defense. One of his excuses was that a
democracy is always two years behind a dictator.
Then he made one of the most astonishing confes
sions ever uttered by a statesman and politician of
his long career in office. It was designed to explain
why he had not vigorously gone ahead with a re
armament program :

"You will remember at that time the Disarma
ment Conference was sitting at Geneva. You will
remember at that time there was probably a
stronger pacifist feeling running through this
country than at any time since the last war. You
will remember the election at Fulham in the au
tumn of 1933, when a seat which the National Gov
ernment held was lost by about 7000 votes on no

Pleading for Airplanes 169

issue but the pacifist. . . . My position as the leader
of a great party was not altogether a comfortable
one. I asked myself what chance was there when
that feeling that was given expression to in Ful-
ham was common throughout the country what
chance was there within the next year or two of
that feeling being so changed that the country
would give a mandate for rearmament? Supposing
I had gone to the country and said that Germany
was rearming and that we must rearm,, does any
body think that this pacific democracy would have
rallied to that cry at that moment? I cannot think
of anything that would have made the loss of the
election from my point of view more certain/'

The confession of "party first" was to haunt him
for a long time thereafter. But while most of the
members of the House of Commons gasped in as
tonishment, their vote did not follow the path of
their gasp. As usual, the Conservative whips saw
their duty and did it. The amendment proposed by
Churchill was beaten by 337 to 131. The old party
game still worked. Prophets need not apply.

Part IV * AT

Chapter Nine
66 WMSTON IS BACK"

As the skies darkened and the rumble of distant
thunder could be heard, and as the storm came ever
nearer, Churchill adopted a mellower tone towards
the government. He still retained his indepen
dence. He still criticized when he thought criticism
wise and necessary. But some of the old acid qual
ity was gone, because the patriot in Mm sensed to
the full that soon all loyal Britons would have their
testing time and would have to rally around the
flag to fight for king and country and the ancient
liberties and freedom of the land. This new tone
was not hard for him to adopt. Sometimes using a
bludgeon, sometimes a rapier in the heat of debate,
Churchill was never one to entertain personal ha
treds. He was more interested in fighting for
causes than in fighting men. No one fought the
trades unionists harder than he in the great abor
tive national strike of 1926, but no one had a
higher regard for labor leaders like Ernest Bevin

170

** '<^.i;J,v* ^ -i >T$rS
^M

t x r i nr > .r^ zd ^orW

Air Marshal A. V CBIliy) Bishop, Canada's great ace in World

V\ar I, visits England to Inspect airfields and to confer with the

Prime Minister

"Winston Is Back" 171

than he. He was soon to prove it by gathering
about Mm all the best brains and ability in the La
bor party when he became prime minister.

In this new charitable mood he is found speak
ing on April 20, 1939, to the Canada Club in Lon
don at a meeting in honor of the Rt. Hon. R. B,
Bennett. Among other things he said:

"The policy pursued by His Majesty's Govern
ment may have been open to criticism for want of
thoroughness and vigor. But no one can say that
it has not been animated by patience and good
faith, by a persistent desire to avoid war, and by
an increased willingness to run risks with other
nations to prevent war. I have sometimes differed
from the Prime Minister; but anyhow the fact
remains that if, on some fateful day, Mr. Chamber
lain is compelled by outrage and aggression to
give the dread signal, there is no Party in Great
Britain, there is no part of the British Empire,
there is no free country, which would not feel able
to share in the struggle the hard struggle with
out the slightest self-reproach of blood-guiltiness.
. . . Some foreigners mock at the British Empire
because there are no parchment bonds or hard steel
shackles which compel its united action. But there
are other forces, far more subtle and far more

172 Climax at Sixty-six

compulsive, to which the whole fabric spontane
ously responds. These deep tides are flowing now.
They sweep away in their flow differences of class
and Party. They override the vast ocean spaces
which separate the Dominions of the King/'

Once again, he recited the proud story of how
the British people f oiind their way to liberty :

"In the British Empire we not only look out
across the sea towards each other, but backwards
to our own history, to Magna Charta, to Habeas
Corpus, to the Petition of Right, to Trial by Jury,
to the English Common Law, and to Parliamentary
Democracy, These are the milestones and monu
ments that mark the path along which the British
race has marched to leadership and freedom."

While the conscription bill was pending in the
House of Commons, he spoke at Cambridge on May
19, 1939. Once more he plead that political ani
mosities be dropped :

"I submit that these matters of national defense
and foreign policy ought to be considered upon a
plane above Party, and apart from natural antag
onisms which separate a Government and an Oppo
sition. They affect the life of the nation. They
influence the fortunes of the world. I say to any
Liberals and Socialists who are here tonight that

"Winston Is Back" 173

it would not be right for them to allow any preju
dice they may have against the present Govern
ment, or against its head, to prevent their giving
a clear, plain vote upon an issue of national safety
and of national duty. It is not within the power of
any one of us to control or manage events. They
may be well managed, or ill managed. It is our
duty, so far as lies in each one of us, to do our best
for the main purpose and the common cause."

While many of the more well-to-do members of
Parliament were spending their summer holiday
up in Scotland hunting and fishing, Churchill, at
the invitation of the French Army chiefs, went in
mid- August to visit the Maginot Line. For a long
time in fact until the utter debacle of the French
fighting forces and the earlier turning of the fa
mous line Churchill, usually so keen a judge,
spoke of the French Army as the finest in the world
and also spoke of the strength of the Maginot Line,
It will only be known, if some day he writes
further memoirs, whether these praises were to be
taken at their full face value. There is one obser
vation to be made about this : no man of Churchill's
stature could have afforded to stress unbelief in the
efficacy of the Line or distrust of the fighting quali
ties of the French Army. In a time when the Allies

174 Climax at Sixty-six

were about to face Germany and, later, when they
were fighting desperately, there was no place for
public criticism by one of the Allied leaders as to
the military capabilities of France. One does not
wound and discourage a friend and give high hope
to an enemy in that fashion.

When Churchill returned to his own country to
potter about his home, paint a little, write a little,
read a little, events rushed ominously toward the
tragedy all feared. August 23 King Leopold of
Belgium broadcast an appeal for peace* August 24
came very bad news for Britain and France. They
had hoped to have Soviet Russia with them in case
of a war with Germany. Germany then would be
compelled to fight on two fronts as in the last war.
But all the time Soviet ministers were discussing
matters with the Allies, they were drawing to con
clusions with Germany. On August 24 they bla
zoned their treacherous play to all the world. In
Moscow was signed the Russo-German Pact where
by Russia agreed to remain neutral in the conflict
everybody saw was to come. On that same day
President Roosevelt appealed to the King of Italy
to help in preserving peace and the Pope broadcast
an appeal for peace to all the world. All this time
the German press was bitterly attacking Poland

"Winston Is Back" 175

and publishing lying statements about the way
Germans were being persecuted by the Poles. On
August 25 an Anglo-Polish pact was signed in
London. Britain pledged assistance to Poland If
it was attacked. President Roosevelt sent two
peace appeals to Hitler. Two days later Hitler
curtly rejected Premier Daladier's appeal to him
to make another attempt to settle the questions be
tween Germany and Poland by negotiation. He
further categorically said Danzig and the Polish
Corridor must be given back to the Reich at once.
On September the first, just as Japan had invaded
China and Italy had invaded Abyssinia and Al
bania without troubling to declare war, so Hitler
ordered his forces to march into Poland. Britain
prepared to stand by its pledges to Poland. The
Government on September 3 sent a two-hour ulti
matum to Germany, asking that the German
forces withdraw from the invaded territory. This
ultimatum expired at 11 A.M. Fifteen minutes
later Britain declared war on Germany to be fol
lowed by a similar French declaration at 5 P.M.
Unlike the scenes when Britain went to war with
Germany in 1914, there were no wild, cheering
demonstrations. The crowds which thronged
around Whitehall to be near the Prime Minister's

176 Climax at Sixty-six

Downing Street residence and the other crowds
around Buckingham Palace were almost silent.
There were too many with memories of what war
entailed to do any wild cheering or indulge in
exultation.

War made Prime Minister Chamberlain do what
he had obstinately refused to do while the country
was at peace. He gave office to the strongest man
in his party. Winston Churchill was made First
Lord of the Admiralty. The message was flashed
to the British war vessels on the seven seas
"Winston is back." It was a message that was
heartily cheered by officers and men. Chamberlain
might be timorous, might still dream appeasing
dreams, but the men who sailed the ships knew
that the Admiralty would be directed by a states
man with a courageous heart and a firm hand.

There were cheers when he made his first ap
pearance as a member of the War Cabinet and ad
dressed the House of Commons. There were cheers
when he rose to speak. It was a very grave Church
ill they heard. It was no time for braggadocio or
heroics. The hour was a serious one and Churchill
rose to it. Said he :

"In this solemn hour it is a consolation to recall
and to dwell upon our repeated efforts for peace.

"Winston Is Back" 177

All have been ill-starred, but all have been faithful
and sincere. This is of the highest moral value
and not only moral value, but practical value at
the present time, because the wholehearted con
currence of scores of millions of men and women,
whose co-operation is indispensable and whose
comradeship and brotherhood are indispensable, is
the only foundation upon which the trial and trib
ulation of modern war can be endured and sur
mounted. This moral conviction alone affords that
ever-fresh resilience which renews the strength
and energy of people in long, doubtful and dark
days. Outside, the storms of war may blow and
the lands may be lashed with the fury of its gales,
but in our own hearts this Sunday morning there
is peace. Our hands may be active, but our con
sciences are at rest."

War was declared at eleven-fifteen that Sunday
morning and thousands of people in London were
out enjoying the unusually warm sunshine. The
parks were thronged with pleasure seekers. The
roads were jammed with cars. Long before, gas
masks had been distributed free of charge to the
millions who inhabit the island kingdom. A large
percentage of them carried those gas masks on that
first war Sunday. About one o'clock in the after-

178 Climax at Sixty-six

noon London had a false air raid alarm. Thou
sands took shelter but nothing happened. Soon the
"all clear" signal^was given.

Americans living in London for the first few
months following found it hard to believe the coun
try was engaged in a war with the most formid
able military machine ever created. "Business as
usual" seemed to be the slogan. Also "amusement
as usual." One occasionally saw squads of young
men who were being trained for military duty
marching through the streets. Silvery barrage bal
loons often floated in the sky. Anti-aircraft guns
began to appear in the public parks. Everybody,
natives and foreigners alike, had to register and
receive an identity card, A slight, but not very-
troublesome food-rationing system was introduced.
But in the restaurants and hotels, where one could
buy a meal without giving up ration coupons, the
courses seemed to be almost as usual. Theatres and
movie houses ran full blast. The dance floors in the
big hotels and restaurants and the night clubs did
a flourishing business. The favorite tune to which
people danced was the mocking "We'll hang out
our washing on the Siegfried Line." On Septem
ber 11 it was announced that a British Expedi
tionary Force, with the highest fire power such a

"Winston Is Back'' 179

British Army had ever had, was in France. The
French and British behind their lines and the Ger
mans behind their Siegfried Line were compara
tively quiescent, save for occasional interchanges
of artillery fire or activities of raiding parties. In
America people were calling it a "phony" war and
the bulk of British citizens were almost inclined to
agree with them. So far, on the whole, it had not
been an unpleasant war. In the meantime, France
and Britain were unable to bring any kind of real
help to the Poles, who were smashed by Hitler's
armies, Warsaw surrendering on September 27.
Almost the first serious jolt the British got was
when a few German planes dropped bombs on the
Shetland Islands on November 7. It was the first
occurrence of the kind. The newspapers ironized
about the deaths that resulted, some chickens hav
ing been killed. November 30 people almost forgot
their own war when Russian troops invaded little
Finland and the gallant soldiers of that country
began a heroic resistance which was to last until
the bigger legions won and peace was signed on
March 13, 1940. British complacency was badly
shaken when, on April 9, 1940, Germany's legions,
not only disregarded Denmark's neutrality and in
vaded that little country, but other troops suddenly

180 Climax at Sixty-six

invaded Norway, capturing every important city
on the long coast line. British people angrily asked
why the intelligence services of their country had
not known of the daring Hitler plan and further
more asked why the British Navy had not been
able to overhaul and destroy the German trans
port ships which carried the troops to the various
ports assigned to them. The anger of the people
was mollified by a number of daring exploits of
the Navy, whose vessels went up dangerous fjords
and destroyed enemy ships. But there was once
more anger and dismay when it was announced
that on May 3, a British Expeditionary Force,
which landed in Norway April 15, had been with
drawn, the German forces having a secure hold
on the whole of Norway.

Churchill did not often speak in the first months
of the war. He was throwing himself with Ms
usual energy into the work of making the British
Navy a very important part of the country's war
effort. On October 1, 1939, he broadcast to the
nation about the first month of the war. Poland
was gone, but he optimistically reported that the
Navy was taking care of the German submarines.
At that time he did not see in them the extra
serious menace they later became. He realized that

"Winston Is Back" 181

thus far there had not been much to stir the en
thusiasm of the people, so he said to them:

"Meanwhile, patriotic men and women, espe
cially those who understand the high causes in hu
man fortunes which are now at stake, must not
only rise above fear; they must also rise above in
convenience and, perhaps most difficult of all,
above boredom."

On November 8 it was his painful duty to give
the House of Commons a cautious and veiled ex
planation of the sinking of the warship Royal Oak
at Scapa Flow by a daring and brilliant maneu
ver of a German submarine. Seapa Flow was
one of the main harbors of the British Navy. In
World War I it had been one of the safest of rest
ing places and was so considered this time until
the Royal Oak was sunk. Churchill promised meas
ures that would prevent similar happenings.

On November 12 he broadcast a report on the
first ten weeks of the war* But first he paid a
tribute to the Prime Minister:

"You know I have not always agreed with Mr.
Chamberlain; though we have always been per
sonal friends. But he is a man of very tough fiber,
and I can tell you that he is going to fight as ob
stinately for victory as he did for peace/*

182 Climax at Sixty-six

He then proceeded to tell his unseen audience
how "well" the war had turned out for the allies in
the first ten weeks. The Navy was stronger than
in September when war was declared. The anti
submarine forces were three times as numerous.
The air force was much stronger. The army was
growing in numbers and improving in training
every day. The air raid precautions were far bet
ter than they were at the beginning of the war.
The attack of the submarines had been controlled
and they were paying a heavy toll. Nearly all Ger
many's ocean-going vessels were in hiding or rust
ing in neutral harbors, while Britain's world
trade proceeded steadily in 4000 vessels, of which
2500 were constantly at sea. But the prophet in
him was badly at fault. He used the old catch
phrase "time is on our side." He believed Italy and
Japan would stay out of the war. He asserted the
Nazis had not chosen to molest the British fleet
and "recoiled" from the "steel front" of the French
Army along the Maginot Line. But he was right
when he predicted an assault upon Belgium and
Holland, despite the assurances Hitler had given
those little neutral countries. On December 6 he
found it necessary to reassure the House of Com
mons and, through it, the country. The Germans

"Winston Is Back" 188

had been playing havoc with British war and mer
cantile vessels by sowing magnetic mines.
Churchill told them a defense against these mines
was being found. This did come to pass and
that method of destruction of shipping lost its
value.

December 18 was one of the days of great tri
umph for the chief of the Admiralty. To a de
lighted House of Commons, he could recite with
Churchillian relish the great story of the wonder
ful fight three small British vessels, the Ajax,
Achilles, and Essex, had made upon the speedier,
heavier, more powerfully gunned pocket battle
ship, the Graf Spee. The fight started on Decem
ber 13 in the South Atlantic, the Graf Spee run
ning away badly hit and taking refuge in the
harbor of Montevideo. On December 15 she be
gan repairs and took on fuel. The three small
British ships and probably some bigger ones by
this time were waiting outside the mouth of the
river Plate. Hitler took no chances. On December
17 the Graf Spee, one of the prides of the German
Navy, was scuttled by orders of the Fuehrer.

On January 20, 1940, Churchill broadcast to
most of the civilized world. Once more he was in
his prophetic mood and once more he made predic-

184 Climax at Sixty-six

tions which in the ensuing eighteen months were
to come only too true. He mentioned the various
little neutral states of Europe. "They bow humbly
and in fear to German threats of violence/ 5 he
said, "comforting themselves meanwhile with the
thought that the Allies will win, that Britain and
France will strictly observe all the laws and con
ventions, and that breaches of these laws are only
to be expected from the German side. Each one
hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the
crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that
the storm will pass before their turn comes to be
devoured. But I fear I fear greatly the storm
will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, ever
more loudly, ever more widely. It will spread to
the South; it will spread to the North. There is no
chance of a speedy end except through united ac
tion; and if at any time Britain and France,
wearying of the struggle, were to make a shame
ful peace, nothing would remain for the smaller
States of Europe, with their shipping and their
possessions, but to be divided between the oppo
site, though similar, barbarisms of Nazidom and
Bolshevism."

The Baltic states of Latvia, Esthonia, and Lith
uania swallowed up by Soviet Russia and Norway,

"Winston Is Back" 185

Denmark, Holland and Belgium, under the heels
of Hitler now know how truthfully Churchill was
speaking. So do the people of Hungary, Roumania,
and Bulgaria, puppet states under Hitler's orders
and Yugoslavia and Greece, crashed by his over
whelming armed forces.

January 27, 1940, Churchill addressed a big
audience in the great manufacturing city of Man
chester. The speech was notable because it con
tained one of those marvellous passages of prose
that seem destined to last as long as the English
language is spoken. This prose has the splendor
of poetry at its best. There is a sort of Shakespear
ean glow about it and the fervor of the Bible in
it. The simple, Anglo-Saxon monosyllables catch
fire from the spirit of the man who pours his heart
into what he is saying:

"Come then: let us to the task, to the battle, to
the toil each to our part, each to our station. Fill
the armies, rule the air, pour out the munitions,
strangle the U-boats, sweep the mines, plow the
land, build the ships, guard the streets, succor the
wounded, uplift the downcast, and honor the brave*
Let us go forward together in all parts of the
Empire, in all parts of the island. There is not a
week, nor a day, nor an hour to lose."

186 Climax at Sixty-six

On April 11, 1940, Churchill had to drink of a
bitter cup. He explained to the House of Com
mons the German invasion of Norway and the
series of naval fights between the British and Ger
man warships that ensued. On the day he spoke
the government authorities were still hopeful that
the Navy would wreak destructive damage on Ger
man warships, that they would bottle up the Ger
man troops in Norway and prevent their being
supplied with food and munitions, and finally that
a joint British and French Expeditionary Force,
acting with the Norwegian Army in the North,
would maintain a foothold there, providing a
spring-board for future offensives against the
enemy. Chamberlain was later bitterly castigated,
it being claimed he had said that, by invading
Norway, Hitler had "missed the bus." On this occa
sion in Ms speech to the Commons, ChurcMll like
wise ran completely off the rails :

"In my view, which is shared by my skilled ad
visers, Herr Hitler has committed a grave strate
gic error in spreading the war so far north and in
forcing the Scandinavian people, or peoples, out of
their neutrality. . . . We shall take all we want
of this Norwegian coast now, with an enormous
increase in the facility and in the efficiency of our

"Winston Is Back" 187

blockade of Germany. ... In the upshot, it is the
considered view of the Admiralty that we have
greatly gained by what has occurred in Scandi
navia and in northern waters in a strategic and
military sense. For myself, I consider that Hit
ler's action in invading Scandinavia is as great a
strategic and political error as that by Napoleon .in
1807, when he invaded Spain/'

Churchill was duped in his calculations. He vis
ualized a Norwegian Army, aided by British and
French Armies, fighting the Germans every inch
of the way, consuming some of the best troops Hit
ler had at his disposal. In Spain in 1807 Napoleon's
army had to fight, not only the Spaniards, but
crack troops under .Wellington. Some of his best
marshals were beaten and many of his finest troops
were destroyed. No such similar luck or fortune
blessed the arms of Norway, Britain, and France.
After many deeds of heroism on the part of the
Allied Army and the British Navy, their forces
had to leave Norway entirely in the hands of the
enemy. The disaster brought about the storm
which caused the downfall of Prime Minister
Chamberlain.

On May 3 it was announced the British forces
were withdrawn from Namsos and that the Nor-

188 Climax at Sixty-six

wegian Commander-in-chief had left with them.
Members of all political parties demanded a full
dress debate in the House of Commons and this
was held on the two fateful days, May 7 and 8,
1940. During those two days excitement was at
top pitch. The limited public gallery space in the
House of Commons and the galleries for distin
guished visitors and for the diplomatic corps were
jammed from early afternoon until the adjourn
ment late in the night. There was a fever in the
atmosphere that could literally be felt Prime Min
ister Chamberlain made a long and labored ex
planation of the events in Norway and the causes
that had impelled the government to send an
expedition there. At one point in his speech he
said:

"A minister who shows any sign of confidence
is always called complacent. If he fails to do so, he
is labeled defeatist. For my part, I try to steer a
middle course, neither raising undue expectations
which are unlikely to be fulfilled nor making the
people's flesh creep by painting pictures of un
mitigated gloom."

Almost every word of this passage was inter
rupted by members from various parts of the
House shouting, "Hitler missed the bus."

"Winston Is Back" 189

"Yes I said it," said the Prime Minister angrily,
"and will now explain the circumstances in which
I said it, because this is an extraordinarily good
example of the way in which prejudiced people
can twist words out of their meaning/'

He explained that he had used the phrase in a
speech three days before the Germans invaded
Norway. Therefore, it had no connection with the
Norwegian expedition. When he used the phrase ?
he was explaining that when the war began Ger
many had a great superiority in strength over
Britain and France, but had not then used it. Thus
he missed the bus.

Major Clement Atlee, leader of the Labor party
and so of His Majesty's Opposition the Labor
party representation being larger than that of the
Liberals attacked the government, saying al
ways the fatal note was "Too late !"

Sir Archibald Sinclair, leader of the Liberals,
likewise attacked the government, and then some
thing unusual happened. Members of the Prime
Minister's own party who were serving in the
Army, the Navy or the Air Force, attended the ses
sion in their service uniforms and joined in the
general criticism of the conduct of the war. But
on that first day the most deadly bombardment was

190 Climax at Sixty-six

by L. S. Ainery, a Conservative who had often
held cabinet posts. He was bitter and said :

"This afternoon, as a few days ago, the Prime
Minister gave us a reasoned argumentative case
for our failure. It is always possible to do that
after every failure. Making a case and winning a
war are not the same thing. Wars are won, not by
explanations after the event, but by foresight, by
clear decision and by swift action. . . , The Prime
Minister expressed himself as satisfied that the
balance of advantage lay on our side. He laid great
stress on the heaviness of the German losses and
the lightness of ours. What did the Germans lose?
A few thousand men, nothing to them, a score of
transports, and part of the Navy, which anyway
will not match ours. What did they gain? They
gained Norway, with the strategical advantages
which in their opinion at least outweigh the whole
of their naval losses. They have gained the whole
of Scandinavia."

At the end of his speech, gazing directly at
Chamberlain and pointing an accusing finger at
Mm, Amery quoted what Oliver Cromwell said to
the Long Parliament when he thought it was no
longer fit to conduct the affairs of the nation:
"You have sat too long here for any good you

"Winston Is Back 55 191

have been doing. Depart I say, and let us have
done with you. In the name of God, go r

It was the most sensational ending to a speech
that had been heard in the House of Commons
in many a long year. The next afternoon came a
procession of speakers inveighing against the gov
ernment. Herbert Morrison, one of the most bril
liant of the Labor party members, led off, followed
by Lloyd George. In one point of his excoriation
of the Norwegian fiasco, Churchill interrupted
him to say: "I take complete responsibility for
everything that has been done by the Admiralty
and I take my full share of the burden/ 5

The old Welsh wizard, always quick in repartee,
cause the House to laugh and applaud, when he
replied: "The right honorable gentleman must
not allow himself to be converted into an air-raid
shelter to keep the splinters from hitting his col
leagues. . . . The Prime Minister is not in a posi
tion to make his personality in this respect insep
arable from the interest of the country/ 5

The badly badgered Prime Minister here in
terrupted with a defensive remark, only to be bat
tered by Lloyd George with the searing words:
"The Prime Minister said, 'I have got my friends/
It is not a question of who are the Prime Min-

192 Climax at Sixty-six

ister's friends. It is a far bigger issue. The Prime
Minister must remember that lie has met this for
midable foe of ours in peace and in war. He has
always been worsted."

Commander Bower, a Tory and a naval man,
thrust* at the Prime Minister; "He has said that
this is a queer war, but I say it is not being waged
in any queer way by the Germans. The German
waging of this war is not in the least queer. It is
ruthless, swift, brilliant in conception and execu
tion, and it has been courageous to the point of
temerity."

The afternoon wore on. The lights were lit.
Chamberlain shifted uneasily in Ms seat. More
speakers attacked Mm. At long last, Churchill
arose for the defense. He gave a reasoned account
of the steps taken after Norway was invaded. He
told of the Navy's part But it was not one of his
best speeches. It was not even one of his second
best. ChurcMll has a very acute sense of the temper
of the House of Commons and he felt that the
House was bitterly against the continuance of
the Chamberlain government. Nothing he could
say could save it. Dropping the story of Norway,
he made one last loyal desperate effort to help
Chamberlain. He said that as late as five o'clock

^Winston Is Back 31 193

that afternoon they had been told a vote of censure
on the government would be taken in the form of
a vote on the motion for adjournment. To Ameri
can readers it is necessary to explain that the votes
for the adjournment would be votes for Chamber
lain. The votes against adjournment would be
votes of censure. Churchill appealed:

"Let me say that I am not advocating contro
versy. We have stood it for the last two days
and if I have broken out, it is not because I mean
to seek a quarrel. On the contrary, I say, let pre
war feuds die, let personal quarrels be forgotten,
and let us keep our hatreds for the common enemy.
Let Party interest be ignored, let all our energies
be harnessed, let the whole ability and forces of
the nation be hurled into the struggle, and let all
the strong horses be pulling on the collar. At no
time in the last war were we in greater peril
than we are now and I urge the House strongly to
deal with these matters, not in a precipitate vote,
ill debated and on a widely discursive field, but in
grave time and due time in accordance with the
dignity of parliament."

The vote was insisted upon. The members
trooped out to be counted. The result was ayes,
281; noes, 200.

194 Climax at Sixty-six

Now the National Government ordinarily
counted 431 supporters against 184 in opposition,
or a majority of 247. The Conservatives alone had
387 seats and, if all the rest in the House of Com
mons voted against them, they would still have a
majority of 159, Therefore, the majority of 81
for the Government showed that not only so-
called National Liberals and National Labor
members had voted against the Government, but
a very large number of the Prime Minister's own
party. Such a vote would not and could not affect
a president of the United States, but in Britain it
is tantamount to the political death warrant of a
prime minister. At least Chamberlain took it as
such. He did not cling to the fact that he still had
a majority of 81.

There was high political tragedy in the House
of Commons that evening. Chamberlain's usually
sallow face had turned white as the debate pro
ceeded. Now, as he almost literally stumbled out
of the chamber, his countenance was the gray of
a man from whom the life had been drained. The
triumphant cheers of Ms political enemies were in
Ms ears as he vanished.

After due deliberation with Ms advisers, he re
signed as Prime Minister.

Chapter Ten

CAPTAIN IN THE STORM

Winston Churchill must have as many political
lives as the cat of tradition has actual ones. No
man in Britain's public life has been the subject
of so many political obituaries. Time and again,
when he has attacked the policies of the party to
which he happened to belong at the moment, his
stand has been said to have written "finis" to any
hopes he might have of some day being prime min
ister of his country. Prominent statesmen and cel
ebrated publicists united in denigrating certain
of his qualities, the main result of which was to
impress the public with the belief that, though
Churchill had filled cabinet post after post with
high efficiency, with credit to himself and bene
fit to the state, the man was not of the sound
timber out of which prime ministers are made.

So in 1931, when he was fighting the proposed
new deal for India, the Manchester Guardian, bible
of the liberal thought of the country, said of the
one-time darling of the Liberal party, that he was

195

196 Climax at Sixty-six

a mountebank. The late Lord Asquith and Oxford
who had had him in various cabinets, said of
him, "Winston has genius without judgment." In
1921, E. T* Raymond did not say he was a young
man with a great future behind him, but he came
near it, writing, "At 3? men looked on Mr. Church
ill as a statesman of some achievement. At 47 he is
discussed as a politician of some importance."

A* G. Gardiner, a famous editor of a famous
Liberal paper of London, wrote of him in 1926:
"He is never a demagogue nor a sycophant, and
if he changes his party with the facility of part
ners at a dance, he has always been true to the
only party he really believes in that which is as
sembled under the hat of Mr. Winston Churchill."

EL G. Wells, the celebrated novelist, wrote of
him : "There are times when the evil spirit comes
upon him and then I can think of him only as
an intractable little boy, a mischevious little boy,
a knee-worthy little boy."

Wickham Steed, once editor of London's Thun
derer, The Times, said of him: "At school Mr.
Churchill confesses he was 'backward and preco
cious/ In these and in other respects he has never
ceased to be a school boy. He is still backward
and still precocious."

Captain in the Storm 197

Now the net result of sayings like these was
that the British public was pretty well convinced
Churchill would never attain what was generally
considered to be his life ambition. They were con
firmed in this by his long period as a backbencher,
as a man of cabinet material who was given no
office. The years were passing. The one-time em
bodiment of youthful audacity, brilliance and en
terprise, was visibly ageing. Time carved its lines
in his face and stole away his 'once red hair. The
years lay heavily on his shoulders and his big head
stooped forward more prominently.

And then came May 10, 1940, and the fall of Ne
ville Chamberlain as Prime Minister in the midst
of the most dreadful war of modern times. But
now there was no thought of promotion to the top
position of any of the old school-tie cliques. Men re
membered now that one man and one man alone for
seven years had begged and pleaded with nerve
less cabinets to prepare Britain for the war he was
sure was going to come. Bya virtual but unspoken
demand of the people who were to do the paying
and the dying, King George VI summoned Wins
ton Churchill to Buckingham Palace and charged
him with the duty of forming a cabinet and carry
ing on the government. In such a crisis as con-

198 Climax at Sixty-six

fronted the nation, the need was not only for a
man of courage and drive, but also for a leader
around whom all the forces of the country would
rally. Churchill stood out as probably the only
man in the Conservative party, the only man from
the old ruling class, under whom Labor party lead
ers like Ernest Bevin and Herbert Morrison would
consent to serve.

It was in no mood of exultation that Churchill
took up the heavy burden. Perhaps he thought of
an incident in the last World War which con
cerned two men he knew well Marshal Foch
and Premier Clemenceau. As a result of the in
sistence of the venerable French Prime Minister,
Foch was made generalissimo of all the Allied
armies.

"Are you satisfied now?" queried Clemenceau.

"I am given a lost campaign/' replied Foch, "and
you ask me whether I am satisfied."

In like manner, Churchill might have replied
to friends who congratulated Mm. He who had
been scorned and mocked, he whose ambition to
be prime minister had been so often derided, was
made captain in the storm, captain when the ship
of state, thanks to the neglect of his predecessors,
had been left ill prepared to weather the giant

Captain in the Storm 199

waves and the howling winds which threatened
to overthrow it.

When he announced his cabinet, there was gen
eral pleasure that he had given posts to some
of the younger men in the Conservative party and
that so many of the able men in the Labor party
had consented to serve Herbert Morrison as
Home Secretary; A. V. Alexander as First Lord
of the Admiralty, a post he had occupied before ;
Major Atlee, leader of the Labor party, as Lord
Privy Seal; Ernest Bevin as Minister of Labor;
Doctor Hugh Dalton as Minister of Economic War
fare. The main disappointment was that he had
not made a clear sweep of all the men who had
comprised Chamberlain's last cabinet. The public
wanted a new deal, not a partial new deal. But
Churchill softened the blow for the late Prime Min
ister by making him Lord President of the Coun
cil, and retained Lord Halifax as Foreign Secre
tary.

On May 13, 1940, he faced the House of Com
mons for the first time as head of the Govern
ment. He made one of the shortest speeches in Ms
entire career. But it contained a passage that has
already been quoted repeatedly as a classic. When
the aged Clemenceau was called to the Premier-

200 Climax at Sixty-six

ship of France in the last world war^ at a time
when things looked so critical for the Allied cause
and when the defeatists were so loud and so vocal
he was challenged as to Ms policy. He said: "I
make war, I make war before Paris; I make war
in Paris ; I make war behind Paris/ 7

It had the rugged, indomitable sound of a hero
out of the pages of Plutarch. In like manner, in Ms
first speech, Churchill said magnificently:

"I would say to the House, as I have said to those
who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing
to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.' We have
before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We
have before us many, many long months of strug
gle and of suffering. You ask, What is our policy?
I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and
air, with all our might and with all the strength
that God can give us: to wage war against a
monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark
lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our
policy. You ask, What is our aim? I can answer
in one word : Victory victory at all costs, victory
in spite of all terror, victory, however long and
hard the road may be; for without victory there is
no survival. Let that be realized; no survival for
the British Empire ; no survival of all that the Brit-

Captain In the Storm 201

ish Empire lias stood for; no survival for the urge
and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move
forward towards its goal But I take up my task
with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause
will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time
I feel entitled to claim the aid of all and I say,
'Come, then, let us go forward together with our
united strength/ "

It was a trumpet call to the nation. It heralded
the arrival of a new set of men inspired with a
new purpose. The era of dawdling with the war
was over. Now the people would be asked to work
as they had never worked before. And it was high
time. Here is just one little anecdote that will
illustrate the deadly spirit of complacency that
was still prevalent among so many who should
have known better. In the late spring of 1940 a
famous nobleman in Yorkshire threw open his ex
tensive grounds to visitors, the fees paid going
to a charitable enterprise. From the main gateway
to his miniature palace was a distance of about
half a mile and to the left and right of the road
way, as far as the eye could see, was land on which
nothing grew but wild grass. Scattered here and
there were hutches in which pheasants could hatch
their brood. The idea was to have plenty of the

202 Climax at Sixty-six

birds by the time the hunting season arrived, so
that the nobleman and his guests could have good
shooting. An American woman expressed her sur
prise that this land was not plowed up and put to
good use.

"Whatever for? M disdainfully asked an English
woman of the upper middle class, one of the kind
that simply dote on a nobleman and still think he
is made of superior clay.

"Plow the land so you can grow food for your
army and your people generally in case you have
war/' replied the American.

"Huh! We have plenty of food/' snorted the
Englishwoman. This was that kind of thing
Churchill and his ministers had to beat down. They
had to make people realize that they were all in
the same boat and that all must do their part.

Looking around the war zone, the new Prime
Minister saw nothing but defeat for those who
were resisting the Germans. They had marched
through Holland and the Dutch Army formally
capitulated on May 15, the Teutons occupying
Amsterdam and The Hague and what they had
left of Rotterdam after bombing it practically to
pieces. On May 16 the Germans crashed past
Sedan, despite the best the French could do. May

Captain in the Storm 208

17 success was crowning their arms in Belgium
Brussels, Malines, and Louvain all being occupied.
May 18 they took Antwerp, The French cabinet
was reshuffled in panic haste by Premier Reynaud,
who recalled the aged Marshal Petain from Ms
ambassadorship to Spain and made Mm vice pre
mier.

On May 19 Churchill broadcast to the nation.
His text was, "Be ye men of valor/' It was his first
broadcast as Prime Minister. He had nothing but
bad news to impart, but he still clung to his faith
in the fighting qualities of the French Army.

"For myself, I have invincible confidence in the
French Army and its leaders. Only a small part of
that splendid Army has yet been heavily engaged;
and only a very small part of France has yet been
invaded .1 have received from the chiefs of the
French Republic, and in particular, from its in
domitable Prime Minister, M. Reynaud, the most
sacred pledges that whatever happens they win
fight to the end, be it bitter or be it glorious. Nay,
if we fight to the end, it can only be glorious."

Having thus held out hope, though the day was
black, he ended : "Centuries ago words were writ
ten to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants
of Truth and Justice: 'Arm yourselves, and be ye

204 Climax at Sixty-six

men of valor, and be in readiness for the conflict;
for it is better for us to perish in battle than to
look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar.
As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be/ n
The Prime Minister and the nation had need for
all the valor they could summon up. The Germans
had cut off the Belgian, French and British
Armies in the north of France and Belgium from
contact with the Armies to the south. The Allied
forces were being crowded towards the English
Channel. What Hitler's generals were striving for
was nothing less than another huge capture, such
as the Germans had made at Sedan in the Franco-
Prussian war of 1870. Every day the danger of
this became more manifest. Motorized German
troops reached the outskirts of Boulogne and Ca
lais, two of the best French ports. May 26 Boulogne
was fully taken. Two days later King Leopold of
Belgium suddenly surrendered Ms army of half
a million to the Germans. This army had been
guarding the left flank of the Allies. This flank
was now left wide open and necessitated a mad
race to the sea, a race for Dunkirk, the only port
open to them on the English Channel, for Leopold's
action had enabled the Germans to capture Zee-
jbrugge and Ostend without firing a shot.

Captain in the Storm 205

Now began one of the greatest agonies of sus
pense that Great Britain had known since its peo
ple a century ago awaited breathlessly the news
as to whether Wellington or Napoleon had won at
Waterloo. It was known the British troops were
seeking to embark at Dunkirk. It was known that
the Germans were closing in, seeking to encircle
the town, meanwhile keeping up a sharp artillery
bombardment of the beaches and attacking with a
big force of bombers. The prize the Germans were
after was a big one. The material their enemy had
would be big booty, but the men of the British
Army were far more important. They formed
very largely the cream of all the regular soldiers
of the island kingdom. They were the men who
would have to train future and bigger armies. If
they were made prisoners, the result would be a
blow to England's military power from which it
would be very hard and certainly take a very long
time to recover. It seemed that nothing but a mir
acle could save them. People prayed for that mir
acle. And it came to pass. The English Channel,
which can be one of the stormiest pieces of water
in the world, was abnormally calm, so that even
little, low-powered motor boats could cross and
recross. For two days and nights there was an un-

206 Climax at Sixty-six

usual fog for that time of year. This interfered
with the accuracy of Germany artillery fire and
helped hide boats from the German aircraft.
Everything that could take to the water was
pressed into service by the British, not only 222
naval vessels, but old ferry boats from Brighton,
niotorboats and sailing vessels, 650 in all All day
and all night the rescuers worked. All day and all
night there were marvellous reunions as the tired,
unshaven, famished, mud-caked men were met at
British seaport towns or in London by parents and
relatives, who looked upon them as if they had
been resurrected from the dead. Fathers and moth
ers patted their sons* shoulders, wives caressed
their husbands' dirty hands to reassure themselves
the reunion was not a dream. By June 4 it was all
over. The vast bulk of the British Expeditionary ,
Force and considerable numbers of French soldiers
had been saved. On that same date Churchill told
the House of Commons the retreat had cost about
30,000 men. It had been his great fear that not
more than 20,000 or 30,000 could be saved. But
335,000 came back Their loss in material had been
immense nearly 1,000 guns hard to replace, all
their transport and all their armored vehicles.
Here Churchill began the first of his speeches in

Captain In the Storm 207

which he did not scruple to tell the British people
the truth, secure in the knowledge that they would
stand up to it. He told them they must be very
careful not to assign to the deliverance of their
troops the attributes of a victory. Wars, he re
minded them, are not won by evacuations. They
must not be blinded to the fact that what had hap
pened in Belgium and France was a colossal mili
tary disaster. The French Army was greatly
weakened. The Belgian Army was lost. A large
part of the fortified lines, upon which so much
reliance had been placed, was lost. The enemy had
possession of many valuable Belgian and French
mining and factory districts. All of the French
and Belgian English Channel ports were in Ger
man hands, with all that this implied in the way
of attacks by air and by submarine. Then he girded
himself for his peroration and his perorations
have become famous. He felt the people needed a
trumpet call and he gave it :

"Even though large tracts of Europe and many
old and famous States have fallen or may fall into
the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious appa
ratus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We
shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we
shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight

208 Climax at Sixty-six

with growing confidence and growing strength in
the air, 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, and even if, which I do
not for a moment believe, this Island or a large
part of it were subjugated and starving, then our
Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by
the British Fleet would carry on the struggle,
until, in God's good time, the New World, with all
its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and
the liberation of the Old."

The tide of ill fortune still continued. On June
10 Count Ciano, Italian Foreign Minister^ in
formed diplomatic representatives of France and
Great Britain that on June 11 Italy would consider
itself at war with their respective countries. The
hope that Churchill had cherished that Italy would
maintain its non-belligerent attitude was thus bit
terly disappointed. That same day President
Roosevelt, addressing the graduating class at the
University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia,
spoke a sentence that was flashed all over the world
and that angered the Dictators of Italy and Ger-

Captain In the Storm 209

many: "The hand that held the dagger has struck
it into the back of its neighbor."

The position of France, whose Armies were al
ready fighting a losing fight and whose soldiers
were rapidly losing hope, was made precarious by
the advance of this new enemy. It seemed now only
a matter of days before the end would come. The
Germans were advancing at will, taking thou
sands of prisoners. Premier Reynaud made a futile
plea to the United States to send "clouds of air
planes" to France. President Roosevelt expressed
the will, but the planes were not in existence. On
June 14 the Germans entered Paris unopposed and
marched down the splendid Champs Elysees just
as German troops did after they conquered France
in the war of 1870. June 16 Premier Reynaud re
signed, and General Petain succeeded him. June
17 his cabinet rejected a desperate move on the
part of the British cabinet, that is, that they merge,
the British and French Empires in a Franco-
British Union. At the same time Petain asked
Germany for an armistice. June 18 Churchill, who
had braved the dangers of bombing or capture
in France in order to get in touch personally with
Reynaud, returned from France and announced
sadly that the "Battle of France" was lost. June

210 Climax at Sixty-six

20 Petain also asked Italy for an armistice* On
June 21 Hitler set the stage for drama. He
and his leading men went to the Forest of Com-
piegne, where stood the railway car in which
Marshal Foch received the envoys of beaten Ger
many on November 11, 1918, and watched them
sign the armistice that ended the World War. This
time French delegates accepted the armistice terms
the Germans had dictated. Hitler said the terms
cast no aspersions on an enemy so brave as the
French had been. The French said that the terms
were hard, but honorable. Under them the German
troops occupied more than half of continental
France, including Paris. The papers were signed
the next day, and on June 24 an armistice was
signed with Italy.

Great Britain now stood alone to fight the most
powerful military machine the world had ever
seen. June 18 Churchill told the House of Commons
how serious the situation was, winding up with :

"What General Weygand has called the Bat
tle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of
Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle de
pends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon
it depends our own British life, and the long con
tinuity of our institutions and our empire. The

Captain in the Storm 211

whole fury and might of the enemy must very
soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will
have to break us in this Island or lose the war.
If we can stand up to Mm, all Europe may be
free and the life of the world may move forward
into broad, sunlight uplands. But if we fail, then
the whole world, including the United States, in
cluding all that we have known and cared for, will
sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more
sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the
lights of perverted science. 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/ "

Men who heard him in Parliament and others

who heard him later broadcast the speech, agreed
that it was one of Churchill's finest hours. Un
bowed, unbroken, he gave of Ms courage and his
faith to the people of the bulldog breed.

On July 4, he reported with sincere sorrow one
of the most remarkable episodes in the war an
attack by British war vessels upon the Navy of
their ally France.

Lest this be charged up to Britain as some
thing reprehensible, the Prime Minister was at

212 Climax at Sixty-six

pains to deliver quite an apologia. England he
told the House of Commons, had offered to release
France from all her treaty obligations; provided
the French fleet was sailed to British harbors be
fore the separate armistice negotiations with Ger
many were completed. Despite personal assur
ances, given by Admiral Darlan, a strong part of
the French fleet sailed for North African ports.
The Prime Minister did not have to stress the dan
gers to Britain if these fine ships were turned over
to the enemy. The British cabinet debated all of one
afternoon the question of what they should do
about the French fleet. The decision was reached
that by any means in their power they must place
the French ships beyond any chance of Hitler be
ing able to use them. In British ports the Navy
seized two old French battleships, two light cruis
ers, some submarines, including the very large one
called the Surcouf, eight destroyers, and about two
hundred mine sweepers and anti-submarine craft.
At Alexandria, Egypt, the British battle fleet there
notified the officers of a French battleship, four
cruisers and some smaller ships that they would
not be permitted to leave.

But the real trouble came at Oran, a port in
Morocco. Two of the finest vessels in the French

Captain in the Storm 213

fleet the Dunkerque and the Strasbourg were
there, besides two other battleships, some cruisers
and destroyers. A British battle squadron was sent
to Oran. The French fleet was given the option of
continuing to fight against the German and Ital
ians, sailing under British control to a British
port, going to Martinique where they could be de
militarized, or scuttling them within six hours.
The French Government, after consultation with
the German Government, rejected all these alter
natives. Thereupon the British opened fire and the
fire was returned. The Dunkerque was hit and
beached, a battleship of the Bretagne class was
sunk, as were also two destroyers and an air
plane carrier.

Having thus detailed the operation, the Prime
Minister defiantly closed: "I leave the judgment
of our action, with confidence, to Parliament. I
leave it to the nation, and I leave it to the United
States. I leave it to the world and history/'

The Petain government then broke off diplomatic
relations with Great Britain. On July 14 Bastille
day the great French national holiday when
France was a free and powerful republic
Churchill, in a world-wide broadcast, sought to
bring some comfort to the French people by prom-

214 Climax at Sixty-six

ising them that a British victory over Hitler would
also be a French victory and wonld mean their
freedom from the German thrall Once more he
reverted to the possibility of Hitler attempting an
invasion of Britain and once more he uttered his
defiance :

"Should the invader come to Britain, there will
no placid lying down of the people in submission
before him, as we have seen, alas, in other coun
tries. We shall defend every village, every town,
and every city. The vast mass of London itself,
fought street by street, could easily devour an en
tire hostile army; and we would rather see Lon
don laid in ruin and ashes than that it should be
tamely and abjectly enslaved.' '

On August 20, 1940, the Prime Minister made
one of his periodical reviews of the war situation.
Paying tribute to the Royal Air Force, he dis
played his power to pack a world of meaning into
just one sentence: "Never in the field of human
conflict was so much owed by so many to so few/ 5

The tribute was well earned. During July and
August, Great Britain had been subjected to many
attacks by German bombing squadrons. Much
property was destroyed and many people were
killed or wounded. But the Royal Air Force,

Captain in the Storm 215

largely outnumbered, had taken its toll in bring
ing down German airplanes and had also made
retaliatory attacks upon German cities, hampered
though they were by having to fly a far greater
distance than Hitler's airmen.

But the speech was notable because of two
big subjects touched upon for the first time. Her
bert Hoover and others were advocating that the
United States should send food to many of the
states that had fallen under German domination
and whose people were reputed to be near starva
tion. Churchill rejected the plan of letting down
the British blockade, in the first place because the
various countries named had had ample food sup
plies, and if Hitler took them away responsibility
was his for the plight of the conquered. In the next
place, he pointed out that many valuable foods were
also essential to the manufacture of vital war ma
terial. Fats could be used to make explosives, pota
toes make alcohol for motor spirit, plastics, now
used in making aircraft, are made of milk.

Then he gave an astonishing piece of news. He
said they had come to the conclusion that the in
terests of the United States and the British Empire
required that the f ormer should have facilities for
the naval and air defense of the Western Hern!-

216 Climax at Sixty-six

sphere against attack by a Nazi power* Sponta
neously, therefore, and without being offered any
inducement, they had informed the American Gov
ernment they would be glad to place such defense
facilities at their disposal, by leasing suitable sites
in the British Transatlantic possession. There was
no question of transferring sovereignty. But Brit
ain would give 99-year leases in Newfoundland
and the West Indies. He concluded :

"Undoubtedly this process means that these two
great organizations of the English-speaking de
mocracies, the British Empire and the United
States, will have to be somewhat mixed up together
in some of their affairs for mutual and general
advantage. For my own part, looking out upon the
future, I do not view the process with any misgiv
ings. I could not stop it if I wished; no one can
stop it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling
along. Let it roll. Let it roll on full flood, inexor
able, irresistible, benignant, to broader lands and
better days/'

About two weeks later, on September 3, came
to the British the heartening announcement that
the United States had transferred to the British
Navy fifty old destroyers which were being re
conditioned and which would be of vital help in

Captain in the Storm 217

convoying British merchant vessels and fighting
submarines. Concerning this, Churchill told the
House of Commons on Sept 5 :

"I have no doubt that Herr Hitler will not like
this transference of destroyers, and I have no
doubt that he will pay the United States out, if
he ever gets the chance. That is why I am very
glad that the army, air, and naval frontiers of the
United States have been advanced along a wide
arc into the Atlantic Ocean, and that this will en
able them to take danger by the throat while it is
still hundreds of miles away from their home
land."

The days passed and still there was no good
news for the British amid the encircling gloom of
the war. General de Gaulle arrived off Dakar in
French West Africa with a "Free French" force,
accompanied by a British naval squadron. The ob
ject was to capture that all-important port which
is a jumping-off place for the nearest voyage or
airplane flight to South America. French cruisers
had forestalled the expedition. When armed re
sistance began and British ships were hit, the
action was broken off and the expedition sailed
away. On September 27 Japan formally joined
the Axis, signing a military pact with Germany

218 Climax at Sixty-six

and Italy which practically bound the Asiatic
power to attack the United States in case that
country entered the war between Britain and the
European Axis powers. Churchill made no attempt
in Ms war review on October 8 to the House of
Commons to minimize the nature of the news. But
once more he wound up with memorable words :

"Long, dark months of trials and tribulations lie
before us. Not only great dangers, but many more
misf ortunes, many shortcomings, many mistakes,
many disappointments will surely be our lot. Death
and sorrow will be the companions of our journey;
hardship our garment; constancy and valor our
only shield. We must be united, we must be un
daunted, we must be inflexible. Our qualities and
deeds must burn and glow through the gloom of
Europe until they become the veritable beacon
of its salvation."

One of the things that has been constantly in
Churchill's mind is that the Petain Government,
under pressure from Hitler, may be dragooned
into lining up with the Axis against Great Britain.
This might take the form of allowing German
troops to pass through unoccupied France into
Spain for an attack on Gibraltar or for German
pressure upon Portugal, or both. It might take the

Captain In the Storm 219

form of turning the French Navy over to German
use. The French people have had little access to
the truth about world events since their govern
ment signed an armistice with Germany. In Paris
the Nazified French press prints what the Ger
man masters want published. In unoccupied
France also the press is muzzled. The news is col
ored or deleted according to the wishes of the Pe-
tain-Darlan Government, which always has a
weather eye on Hitler and fears to let anything
be published which would offend or irritate him.
Under these circumstances, Churchill thought it
wise to make a special broadcast to the French
people. This he did in both English and French on
October 21, 1940. It was one of the most moving
and adroit of his recent compositions. It was espe
cially apropos because Churchill had always been
a stout defender of the cooperation between Brit
ain and France and, perhaps, an over-fervent be
liever in the potency of the French Army and its
leaders. So he could say with truth and not mere
rhetoric:

"Frenchmen! For more than thirty years in
peace and war I have marched with you, and I
am marching still along the same road. Tonight I
speak to you at your firesides wherever you may

220 Climax at Sixty-six

be, or whatever your fortunes are: I repeat the
prayer around the louis d'or, 'Dieu protege la
France.' Here at home in England, under the fire
of the Boche, we do not forget the ties and links
that unite us to France."

He promised them that when the British won
their victory over Hitler, they would not forget
France and would share their victory with the
French people, removing the German yoke from
their shoulders. But he warned them against al
lowing the Nazis to disintegrate their nation.
Said he:

"By all kinds of sly and savage means, Hitler
is plotting and working to quench for ever the
fountain of characteristic French culture and of
French inspiration to the world. All Europe, if he
has his way, will be reduced to one uniform Boche-
land, to be exploited, pillaged and bullied by his
Nazi gangsters. ... It is not defeat that France
will now be made to suffer at German hands, but
the doom of complete obliteration."

He closed with a few words that are more like
a prose counterpart of old French lullabies in their
poetry, their beauty, and their simplicity:

"Good night then : sleep to gather strength for
the morning. For the morning will come. Brightly

Captain In the Storm 221

will it shine on the brave and true, kindly upon all
who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tombs
of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn. Vive la
France! Long live also the forward march of the
common people in all the lands towards their just
and true inheritance, and towards the broader and
fuller age."

On December 23 he followed this up with a
broadcast to the Italian people. It was an attempt
to speak over the head of Mussolini and to help
undermine the Italian people's will to war. It was
apropos at that time, because the Greeks were beat
ing the Italians and the British were making a
mess of the Italians in Africa. Churchill began
more in sorrow than in anger :

"We are at war that is a very strange and ter
rible thought. Whoever imagined until the last
few melancholy years that the British and Ital
ian nations would be trying to destroy one another?
We have always been such friends. ... In the last
war against the barbarous Huns we were your
comrades. For fifteen years after that war we
were your friends. ... We liked each other; we
got on well together. There were reciprocal serv
ices; there was amity; there was esteem. And now
we are at war; now we are condemned to work

222 Climax at Sixty-six

each other's ruin. Your aviators have tried to cast
their bombs upon London; our armies are tear
ing and will tear your African Empire to shreds
and tatters."

He queried how this had come about and he
answered that it was the work of one man, their
Duce. Churchill said he had appealed to Mussolini
to keep the peace and had merely received from
him a "dusty answer/ 5 Now Attilla, with his
hordes of ravenous soldiery and his gangs of
Gestapo policemen, was coming Into Italy to occupy,
hold down, and "protect" the Italian people. It was
only one of many messages to the Italian people.
Time after time, when the British Fleet in the Med
iterranean had carried out daring exploits in that
sea, which Mussolini liked to call "Mare nostrum,"
Churchill would embody In his speeches taunting
references to the fact that the much-vaunted
Italian Fleet had either run away or remained dis
creetly In an Italian port, not daring to venture
out. But, perhaps, Ms most biting reference of all
came on April 27, 1941, when he broadcast to all
the world. The Italian armies, beaten by the
Greeks when they were fighting alone, had driven
back from Albania their valiant enemy when little
Greece had to face also the terrific Impact of mas-

Captain in the Storm 228

sive German armies coming down from the North.
In North Africa, also, the Italians had seen most
of the terrain they lost to the British early in the
year regained, largely due to German troops.
Heartened by these things, Mussolini, who had
been silent in defeat, once more became voluble.
And this led Churchill to the following :

"I dare say you read in the newspapers that by
special proclamation the Italian dictator has con
gratulated the Italian army in Albania on the
glorious laurels they gained by their victory over
the Greeks. Here surely is the world's record in
the domain of the ridiculous and contemptible.
This whipped jackal Mussolini, who to save his
own skin made all Italy a vassal State to Hitler,
comes frisking up to the side of the German tiger
with yelps not only of appetite that could be
understood but even of triumph. Different things
strike different people different ways, but I am
sure there are a great many millions in the British
Empire and the United States who will find a new
object in life in making sure that when we come to
the final reckoning, this absurd impostor shall be
abandoned to public justice and universal scorn."
In an earlier broadcast, Churchill found another
epithet. Mussolini was the "Italian Quisling."

224 Climax at Sixty-six

His broadcast on February 9, 1941, was notable
because many phases of it were written with an
eye to happenings in the United States. The lend-
lease bill was under discussion in Congress. Iso
lationist senators and orators for various
keep-out-of-the-war societies were telling the
American people their fear that President Roose
velt would take the country into war with Ger
many and that their boys would soon be overseas.

Churchill's reply to that was :

"This is not a war of vast armies, firing im
mense masses of shells at one another. We do not
need the gallant armies which are forming
throughout the American Union. We do not need
them this year, nor next year; nor any year that
I can foresee. But we do need most urgently an
immense and continuous supply of war materials
and technical apparatus of all kinds. We need
them here and we need to bring them here. We
shall need a great mass of shipping in 1942.

Wendell Willkie had come to England with a
message from President Roosevelt, which con
tained verses by Longfellow. Churchill now
broadcast what he said was his answer:

'Tut your confidence in us. Give us your faith
and your blessing, and, under Providence, all will

Captain in the Storm 225

be well. We shall not fail or falter; we shall not
weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of bat
tle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and
exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools, and
we will finish the job."

On April 9, 1941, in Ms regular review of the
war, addressing the House of Commons, Churchill
not only spoke of vital matters connected with
France, but made an outright bid for American
convoy of ships carrying food and munitions.

Turning first to France, he said he welcomed
the recent declaration of Marshal Petain that
France would never act against England or go to
war with her. The Prime Minister said any
course of action against England would be so mon
strous that it might well alienate from France for
long years to come any sympathy and support from
the great American Democracy. He was sure the
French nation, if allowed free expression, would
repudiate any such shameful course. However,
the British people must realize that the Vichy
Government was in great measure dependent in
many matters, though happily not in all, upon
Hitler's desires. Hitler had seized much French
food and had hundreds of thousands of French
prisoners. He could dole out food and prisoners

226 Climax at Sixty-six

in return for French hostile propaganda or un
friendly acts against Britain.

He thrust at Admiral Darlan, head of the
French Navy, a power in the Vichy Government
and, apparently, a bitter enemy of the British:

"Admiral Darlan tells us that the Germans have
been generous in their treatment of France. All
the information which we have, both from occu
pied and unoccupied France, makes me very doubt
ful whether the mass of the French people would
endorse that strange and sinister tribute. "

He said the British government had permitted
considerable quantities of ocean-borne food to go
to France. However, when it came to thousands
of tons of rubber and other vital war materials
going directly to the German Armies, the govern
ment was bound to enforce its blockade more
tightly, even at the risk of collision with French
warships at sea. This was Ms reply to Darlan's
threat of naval action. Churchill also pointed out
that some attempt might be made to move French
warships from North African ports to ports in
France now under German control or which might
fall into German control. He hoped the French
people would understand the consequences which
might follow such an attempt.

Captain In the Storm 227

Then he spoke of the Battle of the Atlantic, with
the grievous increased losses of British merchant
shipping that was due to German attacks. It had
been impossible to make good the losses. The only
way to accomplish gains over losses, without sensi
ble contraction of Britain's war effort in 1941-42,
was for another gigantic building of merchant ves
sels in the United States, similar to the prodigy
of output accomplished in America in 1918.

Then he made his outright bid for convoys:
"The defeat of the U-boats and of surface raiders
has been proved to be entirely a question of ade
quate escorts for our convoys. It will, indeed, be
disastrous if great masses of weapons, munitions
and instruments of war of all kinds, made with the
toil and skill of American hands at the cost of the
United States and loaned to us under the aid-to-
Britain bill, were to sink into the depths of the
ocean and never reach the hard-pressed fighting
line. That would be lamentable and I cannot be
lieve it would be found acceptable to the proud and
resolute people of the United States."

As the German air squadrons have more and
more often flown over Great Britain, bringing vast
destruction to the cities and adding immensely to
the lists of the dead and wounded, Churchill, like

228 Climax at Sixty-six

King George, has made frequent visits to the
stricken places, mingling with the people, cheering
them by his presence and being in turn cheered
by them. The great aristocrat has become the
great commoner. More than ever before, he has
understood the character of the people he leads. Af
ter Bristol had been badly blasted by the Germans,
he went there on April 12, 1941. He went there as
prime minister to view the damage. He went there
as Chancellor of Bristol University to confer an
honorary degree upon John G. Winant, American
Ambassador to Great Britain. People came from
the ruins of their humble homes to cheer him and
all he could say for the moment in a voice choking
with emotion was : "God bless you all."
But, later, speaking at the university, he said:
"I see the spirit of an unconquerable people. I
see the spirit bred in freedom and nursed in tra
ditions which have come down to us throughout
the centuries and which will enable us most surely
at this moment, this turning point in the history
of the world, to bear our part in such a way that
none of our race who come after us will have any
reason to cast reproach upon their sires."

Once again, on April 27, 1941, in his world wide
broadcast, he spoke of the common people and

Captain in the Storm 22&

their fortitude. He had had a hard two weeks.
The Axis powers had smashed Yugoslavia and
Greece and the small British Expeditionary Force
in Greece had been severely mauled. In North
Africa the Axis armies had advanced into Egypt.
Some of the newspapers, for the first time in
months, were criticizing the government and were
referring to discontent among the people.

Here was Churchill's reply: "I was asked
whether I was aware of some uneasiness which it
was said existed in the country on account of the
gravity, as it was described, of the war situation.
So I thought it would be a good thing to go and
see for myself what this uneasiness amounted to,
and I went to some of our great cities and seaports
which have been most heavily bombed and to some
of the places where the poorest people have got
it worst. Fve come back, not only reassured, but
refreshed.

"To leave the offices in Whitehall with their
ceaseless hum of activities and stress and to go
up to the front, by which I mean the streets and
wharves of London or Liverpool, Manchester, Car
diff, Swansea, or Bristol, is like going out of a
hothouse onto the bridge of a fighting ship. It is a
tonic, which I recommend to any who are suffering

230 Climax at Sixty-six

from fretfulness to take in strong doses when

they have need of it In the very places where

the malice of the savage enemy has done its worst
and where the ordeal of the men, women and chil
dren has been most severe^ I found their morale
most high and splendid. ... Of their kindness to
me I cannot speak, because I have never sought it
or dreamed of it and can never deserve it. I can
only assure you that 1 and my colleagues, or com
rades rather, for that is what they are, will toil
with every scrap of life and strength, according
to the lights that are granted us, not to fail these
people or be wholly unworthy of their faithful and
generous regard/'

In this same broadcast, he explained that Eng
land had been in honor bound compelled to send
an expeditionary force to help the Greeks, even
though they knew the risks of failure they were
taking. Turning to the future, he painted in dull
colors the tremendous task they had in hand
fighting the "Battle of the Atlantic/' the contest
in which merchant vessels bearing food and muni
tions to Britain were being attacked by surface
raiders, submarines and Stuka bombers. For that
reason he voiced his thanks that President Roose
velt had announced that the American Navy was

Captain in the Storm 231

going to patrol the seas far out from the American
coast. This showed how closely bound up with
Britain was the United States, Churchill re
marked. The resources of the United States and
the British Empire would prevail. So even in that
dark week, he once more stressed the hopeful
sound :

"No prudent and far-seeing man can doubt that
the eventual and total defeat of Hitler and Mus
solini is certain in view of the respective declared
resolves of the British and American democracies.

On May 7, 1941, Churchill boldly challenged the
House of Commons to give him a vote of confi
dence. His government had come in for some criti
cism following British defeats in Libya and the
forced withdrawal of British troops from Greece
which the Germans fully occupied following their
brief, successful crushing of Yugoslavia. He made
no apologies. He said if he had to do it over again,
once more he would have sent troops to try to help
Greece. He also reviewed the untoward events in
Iraq where by a coup a pro-Nazi government was
set up. He did not minimize the dangers Britain
faced. The Battle of the Atlantic was far from
won. The loss of the Nile Valley, Suez Canal and
Malta and the naval position in the Mediterranean,

232 Climax at Sixty-six

if the Germans were successful, would be heavy
blows to the British cause. The army and navy
intended to fight with all their strength to avoid
these blows. Every member of the House of Com
mons, who voted, favored the vote of confidence in
the government, with the exception of three lone
men Alfred Salter and D. N. Pritt, left wing
Laborites and William Gailacher, the only Com
munist in the House.

On May 20 Churchill had a mixed bag of good
and bad news to give to the House of Commons,
The good was the surrender of the Duke of Aosta
and a considerable Italian army back in the moun
tains of Ethiopia. The bad was the intensive Ger
man attack upon British' and Greek troops in the
island of Crete, the enemy being brought to the
scene of the fighting by troop-carrying airplanes
and by gliders. In many quarters this was thought
to be a rehearsal for the expected invasion of
Britain.

In the last week of May Churchill had further

bad news to impart. The battle cruiser Hood, the

biggest war vessel in the world, had met the Ger
man battleship Bismarck in a fight in the waters
between Greenland and Iceland and had been
blown up by a lucky shot the Germans aimed at her

Captain in the Storm 233

powder magazines. Britain was stunned by this
loss, and British morale suffered a heavy blow. On
May 27 Churchill told the House of Commons the
Bismarck had been pursued in her flight from
British warships, had been caught up with, and
had been hit. Said he : "We do not know what were
the results of our bombardment. However, it ap
pears that the Bismarck was not sunk by gunfire
and will be dispatched by torpedo."

A few minutes later, as an ordinary House of
Commons debate was proceeding, a message was
sent in to Churchill sitting on the government
bench. He glanced at the paper and then rose,
saying:

"I don't know whether I might venture with
great respect to intervene, but I have just received
news that the Bismarck has been sunk/'

The old master with his instinct for the dramatic
once more electrified the House. All semblance of
parliamentary proceeding stopped. Members on all
sides of the House vied in cheering the message
which brought reassurance that the British navy
was still on the job. Germany's last word in war
vessels was no more.

Late in May the government proposed conscrip
tion in Northern Ireland. Loyal Ulstermen favored

234 Climax at Sixty-six

it, but almost immediately Premier Eamon de Val-
era of Eire protested violently. The reason for
this, of course, was the large number of Irish
Nationalists in the six counties which comprise
Ulster. Churchill several days later on May 27 told
the House of Commons the conscription plan had
been dropped* He said he believed it should be en
forced in Northern Ireland, but that it would be
more trouble than it was worth.

But the war effort of the other parts of the
dominion brought forth the Prime Minister's wel
come praise. In a broadcast on June 1 to Canada,
he said :

"Canada is playing her just part in the laying
of the foundation of a wider and better world
... To Nazi tyrants and gangsters it must seem
strange that Canada, free from compulsion, pres
sure, so many thousands of miles away, should
hasten forward into the field of battle against the
evil forces of the world . . . Canadians are the
heirs of another tradition the tradition of valor
and faith which they keep alive in these dark days
* . . When the test comes and if the test comes, and
come it may, I know the Canadian troops will
prove that they are the worthy sons of those who
stormed Vimy Ridge twenty-four years ago."

Chapter Eleven
PERSONALIA

In the days before he entered the Government
once more and long before he became Prime Min
ister, Winston Churchill, eminently a home-lover,
spent much of his time, when not in the House of
Commons, at his residence, Chartwell Manor, three
miles from Westerham in Kent, It is an old red
brick Elizabethan house that Churchill bought
with the money one of his famous books earned
for him. It was the fulfillment of a long dream.
Here the Admirable Crichton of England's latter
days wrote his later books. Here he polished his
speeches and sharpened his epigrams. Here he
painted pictures. Here he built brick walls, hold
ing a card from the brick-layers' union. Here
he watched his black swans sail proudly on the
miniature lake in his grounds.

He chose Kent, not because any of Ms family
had ever had any particular connection with that
famous county. No, Kent was selected out of
tribute to a woman who played a large part in Ms

235

236 Climax at Sixty-six

infant years. When his father and mother were
busy with their own political or social aff airs, the
infant Winston was left largely to the care of Ms
nurse, a Mrs. Everest In memoirs of his early
years, Churchill calls her his confidante. It was
she who looked after him and attended to all his
wants. It was she who taught him to be fond of
Kent. She called it the true garden of England.
She said no county could compare with Kent any
more than any country could compare with Eng
land. The capital of Kent was Maidstone. She
drew pictures of Kent that made the child's mouth
water, for it was the blessed land where grew in
abundance the most luscious strawberries, cher
ries, raspberries and plums.

In his sixties he found the small fruits of Kent
just as delicious as his old nurse had represented
them to be. They were quite up to the Churchill
standard of what they should be. It is well to
remember what Ms friend, the late Lord Birken-
head, said of him : "Winston's tastes are very sim
ple. All he wants is the best."

His wife once put it in another way : "If you want
to make Winston happy, the first and most impor
tant thing is to feed him well. He must have a good
dinner. It is very important in his daily routine/*

Personalia 237

Of course that was in the days before the war,
when there was no such thing as rationing. Now
adays his menu is far simpler. Churchill not only
appreciates good food, but he is not averse to pot
tering around the kitchen himself. In the main,
his tastes in food are thoroughly British. His
observations on American menus are rather amus
ing. Some years ago he wrote a special article
for Collier's Weekly in which he discussed food.
Lest he be thought greedy, he said he fortified
himself with a dictum of Doctor Johnson : "I look
upon it that he who does not mind his belly will
hardly mind anything else."

One of the things about America that intrigued
the famous statesman was the omnipresence of ice
water before, during and after meals. To this
lover of Scotch whiskey, brandy, and vintage
wines, mere water seemed a "bleak beverage/'
He found that Americans of every class ate much
lighter foods than the British. Fruit, vegetables
and cereals played a large part. He confessed
in himself the old John Bull came out that he was
a beef -eater. He expected his wife to have beef
for him at least once a day. He thought American
chickens were smaller than the British breed. And
here he made a curious mistake. He thought when

238 Climax at Sixty-six

Americans talked about squabs, they t meant
chicken. For this Briton, with his education in
eating the coppery-tasting English oyster, the
American bluepoint was found to be a "serious
undertaking. " Shad roe and terrapin he found
"entertaining." He agreed that soft shell crabs
and corn on the cob were not by any means unpala
table, but should not be eaten too often. The
one food that seemed to arouse his enthusiasm was
the American lobster,, which he found unrivalled
anywhere for flavor and succulence.

Although celebrated and often laughed at for
Ms collection of all kinds of hats and canes, it is
the black cigar clenched in his teeth that is best
known to all Britons. The press photographers
are partly responsible for this, but even more so
are the cartoonists. They always pictured Stanley
Baldwin by exaggerating his bulbous nose and
showing him with his ever-present pipe. Neville
Chamberlain, of course, was never drawn without
Ms umbrella. But in all sketches Churchill and
Ms cigar are inseparable. Moreover, it is the
truth, just as are cartoons of President Roosevelt
and his cigarette in its long holder.

Churchill does not find time nowadays to write
the books he had planned just before the war broke

Personalia 239

out. His literary efforts now are mainly confined to
dictating his speeches to the House of Commons,
the very few orations he delivers nowadays, and
the broadcasts which are eagerly listened to
all over the world. He permits himself in those
some epithets that the more polite English speak
ers shun as being too rude. Churchill has no such
squeamish scruples. To Mm the leaders of the
Nazi and Fascist outfits are "gangsters" and
"criminals" and he calls them so. He does not
hesitate to refer to England's greatest foes as
"Huns" and "Boches-" Things are too grim for
him to fight with rose water. They are likewise
too serious now for the display of his famous gift
of repartee, of which so many samples are to be
gathered from his sayings throughout happier
years. Here are just a few:

"Have you read my book?" queried a man.
"Not at all. I only read for pleasure or profit."
During the last war for a time Churchill was
an officer at the front in France. Front meant
exactly that with Mm. He lived near it He spent
Ms hours up where the firing was. When some
very highly placed brass hats inspected his regi
ment, he led them to a spot where shells were fall
ing close.

240 Climax at Sixty-six

"This is very dangerous/ 1 said one of the
generals.

"Yes sir/' said Churchill, "you know,, this is a
very dangerous war."

When he was a young subaltern in the British
army, he grew a reddish moustache. A young
society miss could not fancy Mm, said: "I like
your politics as little as I like your moustache. 75

"Don't worry/' replied Churchill silkily, "You
won't come in contact with either."

In the days when almost alone he fought in Par
liament for British armament, particularly in the
air, he took the wind out of the sails of a tire
some Tory orator by saying: "I am always be
ing told it is about time the British lion showed
Ms teeth. I reply: *Not before he has gone to the
dentist/ "

About the only time since he became prime min
ister that he allowed himself a quip was recently
when he said : "We are waiting for the long-prom
ised German invasion. So are the fishes."

More bitter was his reply when somebody asked
him why he did not order the Royal Air Force to
blast German cities and Mil Germans, just as the
Germans were killing British civilians, instead of
making his airmen confine their efforts to bombing

Personalia 241

military objectives. Churchill answered in three
words: "Business before pleasure/'

In red-hot debate one day in the House of Com
mons he said of one of the members that he had
sat on the fence so long the iron had entered his
soul. In the same speech he defined a politician
as "a man who is asked to stand, wants to sit and
is expected to lie/ 5

Once in debate with his old chief and long-time
friend Lloyd George, the Welsh wizard of the last
war, Churchill twisted an old quotation and made
it fit : "Heaven knows no rage like love to hatred
turned; nor hell a fury like a wizard scorned."

In the days when Ramsay MacDonald was head
of the second Labor government, Churchill con
vulsed the House by calling him a "boneless
wonder/'

He once blasted the cabinet of Arthur Balfour
by saying: "They are a class of right honorable
gentlemen all good men, all honest men who
are ready to make great sacrifices for their opin
ions, but they have no opinions. They are ready
to die for the truth, if they only knew what truth
was/'

Churchill had often prodded Stanley Baldwin
when prime minister because he did not devote

242 Climax at Sixty-six

more time and money to rearmament One day
Baldwin got "tough" and said, squinting at the
Hitler regime: "Our frontier is now on the Rhine."

That was too much for Churchill, who knew
England's weakness in the air. So he shot back
instantly : "Can we he sure the Germans will not
reply, 'Our targets are on the Thames'?"

Even when some of Ms remarks are not humor
ous, they have the brevity that is wit Referring
to the fact that civilians are in just as much
danger as the soldiers, sailors and airmen and
have to endure just as much, Churchill said : "This
is a war of the Unknown Warriors."

Here are a few recent examples of his ability
to put a world of meaning into one sentence:

"A little mouse of thought appears in the room
and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into
a panic."

"If we open a quarrel between the past and the
present, we shall find that we have lost the future."

"I deprecate any comparison between Hitler
and Napoleon; I do not wish to insult the dead."

"The whole history of the world is summed up
in the fact that when nations are strong, they are
not always just, and when they wish to be just,
they are often no longer strong."

Personalia 243

For a man who has been in public life for so
long there are comparatively few Churchill inter
views. Most of the times when he did consent to
talk to reporters for publication, it was in the
United States. It is a fact that statesmen of
Europe, who maintain an almost sphynxlike silence
when meeting journalists in the Old World, talk
in the New. One reason is that they are told
interviewing is an old and accepted custom in the
United States and that any one who wants to put
his best foot forward in America had better sub
mit to the ordeal. For a large part of his adult
life Churchill has been a cabinet officer and British
cabinet officers do not give interviews. In fact
they very, very seldom have press conferences,
When they have something to say, they say it in
Parliament, or in a speech at some banquet or
political meeting. Aside from that, Churchill has
always had a very keen idea of the value of his
thoughts and, putting them into writing, has been
able to sell the product at good prices. He would,
doubtless, approve what George Bernard Shaw
once said to one of the authors of this book: "Why
should I let you pick my brains? What I tell you,
I can write down in a few minutes and sell to
Blank in the United States for $500."

244 Climax at Sixty-six

One of the few times Churchill met American
newspapermen stationed in London was in the
spring of 1940 when he was still First Lord of the
Admiralty. In the British capitol at that period
there dwelled a woman of means who liked the
American journalistic colony and who used to have
them to luncheons where they could meet inti
mately the men who were prominent in British
political life. On this particular spring day the
guest of honor was Churchill There was another
distinguished guest A. V. Alexander. He was
there at Churchill's request. In 1929, when
Ramsay MacDonald formed Ms second Labor
party government, Alexander was named First
Lord of the Admiralty, Now Alexander had been
one of the prominent men in the great cooperative
movement which has retail and wholesale stores
all over Britain, One of the Tory papers sneered :
"At least Alexander will be the first cooperator
and the first Baptist lay preacher to be ruler of the
King's Navy."

He proved to be an excellent First Lord, one
who became very popular, not only with the sea
men, but with the brass hats. When war broke
out in September, 1939, it was arranged that the
Labor party should establish liaison officers be-

Personalia 245

tween themselves and each of the great armed
service departments. Under this arrangement,
Alexander was opposite number to Churchill So
it was natural that Churchill should ask that Alex
ander be present at the luncheon with the re
porters. It was more than a mere piece of courtesy
on Churchill's part. The new First Lord had a
genuine admiration and friendship for the former
First Lord. This was evidenced by the fact that
as soon as he became prime minister, Churchill
promptly made Alexander head of the navy one
of the key positions in England's war making
effort. At the luncheon, during which Churchill
sipped champagne and then lit one of his famous,
long, black, potent cigars, the hostess announced
that he did not intend to make any kind of set
talk. What he would like would be to have an off-
the-record session, during which the Americans
could ask him any questions they desired. It was
a most satisfying experience. The newspapermen
could, of course, not quote him directly, but they
got more background information that afternoon
than they had ever had before. The First Lord
was never at a loss for an answer, and he replied
very fully to every query, often bringing Alex
ander into the discussion. Not only that, he

246 Climax at Sixty-six

ranged farther afield and even gave Ms opinion
about matters connected with the Army and the
Air Force, This reminded some of the veteran
correspondents that dining World War I, when
he represented the constituency of Dundee and
was, at first, head of the Admiralty, there was
current a set of doggerel lines which ran some
thing like this:

There was a young man of Dundee

Whom they gave command of the sea*

He also had command

Of the air and the land

Just to make it quite fair for all three*

At a later period in 1940-41 the newspapermen
were not quite so pleased with Mm. Their com
plaint was that important pieces of war news
were kept from them and the public so that
ChurcMH could dramatically reveal the facts in
speeches to the House of Commons. "Dramati
cally" was the right word* With his genius, there
is also an actor in Churchill He dramatizes him
self and the situation in which he finds himself.
It is perhaps one of the attributes of genius. Napo
leon had it His famous addresses to his army,
beginning "Soldiers!" read like lines from a

Personalia 247

French play, only they lacked the Alexandrine
verse. As for Churchill, he said it of himself
many years ago, in the days when he was at the
front as a newspaper correspondent: "I can never
doubt which is the right end of the wire to be at.
It is better to be making news than taking it; to
be an actor rather than a critic."

Churchill is making news all the time now.
After seven years as a backbencher, a critic, he is
today the actor in the stellar role in the great
drama that is playing out Britain's fate.

Thirty-five years ago, when Churchill was a
comparative stripling of thirty-one, McCallum
Scott, a fellow member of the House of Commons,
felt that fate reserved tremendous things for
Churchill. Feeling so, he wrote accordingly and
was laughed at for his pains. But today the words
seem pregnant with true prophecy :

"Churchill is a fatalist. He feels upon himself
the hand of destiny. He is the instrument of some
great purpose of Nature, only half disclosed as
yet, a soul charged with a tremendous voltage of
elementary energy. In the miraculous nature of
some of his escapes, in the strange sequence of
chances and accidents, he seemed to trace a design
that was conscious-"

EPILOG

Perhaps it is a misnomer. Epilog is usually
the closing address to an audience at the end of
a play. Happily the drama that is Winston
Churchill's life has not come to an end. Here we
have, rather, an intermission, and we must per
force wait the entr'acte that will introduce the
next scene. The biography of a living man must
stop somewhere. This one stops with Churchill
and his people facing their gravest crisis. But
whether Britain wins or loses, whether Churchill
remains the captain of the ship of state or turns
responsibility over to someone else, his place in
history is secure. He is not just a descendant of
the Marlboroughs. By his own right of genius,
by his calm yet daring leadership, by his unshaken
faith in the soul of his people, he will be looked on
by future generations of Britons as one most
worthy of a place in that long gallery of their noble
ancestors. He will be remembered as the man
"out in front" when Britain had to take it.

INDEX

Abyssinia, 123-124
Albania, 223; falls to Italy, 144
Alexander, A.V., 244, 245
Amery, L. S., 100, 143, 190
Anglo-Polish Pact, 175-176
Anne Queen of England, 19. 20, 22-25
Asquith, Lord, 76, 77, 196
Atlee, Major Clement, 189, 199
Baldwin, Stanley, 11, 84, 87, 88, 90,
93, 96, 100, 105, 106, 111, 119,
153, 157, 159, 160, 163-69, 238
Balfour, Arthur, 58, 60, 76, 98
Balkans, 145, 146

Battle of the Atlantic, 227, 231, 232
Battle of the Eiver Plate, 183
Beaverbrook, Lord, 9, 107
Bismarck, 233
Bevin, Ernest, 170, 198, 199
Blenheim Palace, 24, 33, 34
Boer War, 49-55
British Expeditionary Force, 178,

180, 206

British Gazette, 88
Buller, Sir Redvers, 50, 51
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry,

62, 63

Canada, war effort, 234
Chamberlain, Joseph, 58, 60
Chamberlain, Neville, 10, 58, 111,
131, 132, 134-136, 146, 148, 164,
171, 176, 181, 186-192, 194, 197,
199
Churchill, John, 19, 20 (see Duke of

Marlboroitgh)

Churchill, Randolph, 15, 110
Churchill, Lord Eandolph, 28-30,

39; biography of, 61
Churchill, Winston Spencer: family,
14, 15, 235-236; visit to United
States, 17; ancestors, 19-33;
birth, 33; boyhood, 33-37; at
Sandhurst, 38, 39; serves in
Cuba, 41, 42; The Story of the
Malahand Field Force, 44; in

Egypt, 44-48; Reporter London
Morning Post, 46, 47, 50; The
River War, 48; the Boer War, 49-
55; in Africa, 50-55; in Parlia
ment, 58-62; London to Lady-
smith via Pretoria, 56; in Amer
ica, 56, 57; Ian Hamilton's
March, 56; candidate of the
Liberals, 61, 62; My African
Journey, 63; member of the
Privy Council, 63; marriage, 64;

visits Germany, 64; made Home
Secretary, 67-69; First Lord of
the Admiralty, 70-79; Minister
of Munitions, 77; Minister of
War and of the Air, 78; on Ire
land, 71, 79-82, 100, 104; The
World Crisis, 83; Chancellor of
the Exchequer, 84-86; National
Strike, 1926, 86, 88, 170; pub
lishes the British Gazette, 88;
preparation against war, 124-130;
on the Czech crisis, 138-142;
pleas for preparedness, 141, 142;
on the Balkan situation, 145, 146;
on air war, 154-158; speech,
March 14, 1933, 155, 156; on
Air Force Appropriations, 155;
speech, March 8, 1934, 155-156;
Canada Club, April 20, 1939, 171,
172; visits Maginot Line, 173;
First Lord of Admiralty, 176; in
War Cabinet, 176; on peace
efforts, 176, 177; report on the
war, November 12, 1939, 181, 182;
magnetic mines, 183; defense of
Chamberlain, 191, 192; on Nor
way, 186, 187, 191, 192; becomes
Prime Minister, 197; War Cab
inet, 199; first speech as Prime
Minister, 199-201; on Policy,
200,201; first broadcast as Prime
Minister, 203, 204; speech, May
19, 1940, 203, 204; on Dunkirk,
206-208; visits France, 209; pro
poses France-British Union, 209;
speech, June 18, 1940, 210, 211;
speech, July 14, 1940, 213, 214;
on British blockade, 215 ; toFrench,
October 21, 1940, 219-221; to
Italians, December 23, 1940, 221,
223; on American aid, 224, 225,
227; on English morale, 230;
tastes, 236-237; idiosyncrasies,
235, 237, 238; on food, 237-238;
on America, 237, 238; method of
working, 238; epigrams, 239-242,
interviews, 243-247; as actor, 247

Churchill, Mrs. Winston Spencer,
1, 6, 8, 9, 14-16, 236

Clemencau, Georges, 198, 199, 200

Collins, Michael, 80, 81

Cooper, Duff, 143

Cosgrave, W. T., 100, 101

Czechoslovakia, falls, 130-133; oc
cupation, 131-134

(249)

250

Index

Dakar, 217

Daladier, Edouard, 175

Dalton, Dr. Hugh, 199

Danzig, 175

Darlan, Admiral, 212, 226
De Gaulle, General, 217
Denmark, 185; invasion of, 179
De Valera, Eamen, 80, 101, 102
Dominions BUI, 98-100, 101
Dunkirk, 205-207

Edward VIII, 105-109

Eden, Anthony, 143
Essex, 183

Ethiopian War, 123-124
Everest, Mrs., 236

France: asks for Armistice, 209,

210; breaks with Britain, 213
Franco-British Union, 209

Gallipoli Campaign, 74, 75
George VI, 136-137, 197
Germany: Churchill visits, 64; war
with, 73, 101, 104, 112, 113; re
armament, 112-114, 116, 117-
119, 127, 128, 158, 166, 167; war
preparations, 12-23; Naval
Agreement, 120-121; Navy, 121-
122; superiority in planes, 163-
164; second war, 175
Gladstone, William E., 28
Gordon, General ("Chinese"), 45
GrafSpee, 183
Greece, invasion of, 229
Halifax, Lord, 1, 2, 92, 199
Hindenburg, Field Marshal von, 116
Hitler, Adolf, 113, 114, 116-118,
125, 131, 175, 183, 186-188, 210,
211, 220, 231

Hoare, Sir Samuel, 119, 123, 124
Holland: English war against, 21;

German invasion 185; fall, 202
Hood, 232
Hopkins, Harry, 1, 2

India, 91-94; India Bffl, 95-97
Irish Free State, 100-104; Marl-
boroogh in, 21; Churchill on, 60,
80-82; naval ports, 103, 104

James II, 20, 21

Japan: Asiatic domination, 111,

112; and the League, 113, 114;

relations with England, 122-123
Jerome, Jennie, 30-31, 35
Jerome, Leonard W., 31-33

Kitchener, 46-48, 73, 75

Lend-Lease Bill, 225, 226
Lloyd George, David, 58, 59, 65-67,
77, 78, 80, 85, 114, 191, 241

MacDonald, Ramsay, 10, 82, 83, 88,
90, 96, 111-113, 119, 157, 164,
167, 241

Maginot Line, 173, 182
Marin, Charles, 14
Marlborough, Duke of, 4, 5, 7, 18-27
Marlborough, Duchess of, 20, 21,

22,25

Morrison, Herbert, 191, 198, 199
Mussolini, Benito, 123, 124, 150,

221-224, 231

Norway, invasion of, 180, 184, 186,
187, 188, 192

Oldham, 48, 49, 55
Oran, battle of, 212, 213

Petain, Marshal, 203, 209, 213, 224
Poland, invasion of ? 175

Reform Bill, House of Lords, 66-68
Reynaud, Paul, 203, 209
Roosevelt, F. D., 143, 174, 175, 208,

209, 231

Royal Air Force, 153-169, 214
Royal Oak, 181
Russo-Finnish War, 179
Russo-Gennan Pact, 174

Salisbury Lord, 30, 60
Samuel,"Sir Herbert, 158, 159
Sedan, battle of, 202, 204
Siege of Sidney Street, 69
Simon, Sir John, 92, 119
Simpson, Mrs. Ernest, 105, 106
Sinclair, Sir Archibald, 189
Snowden, Philip, 85, 86
Sudetenland, 131-134

Trade strike of 1926, 86-88
Transfer of destroyers, 216
Transfer of British bases, 216
Treaty of Versailles, 118-120, 125

Ulster, 17; union with England, 29
Victor Emmanuel, 174

Weygand, General, 210
Wfflkfe, Wendell, 225

York, Duke of, 18, 19
Yugoslavia, invasion of, 229

>

@ ^
> m

D^

CD

108369