Benjamin Hett on Leadership during the “Gathering Storm”

This excellent commentary notes how Gallipoli, the great millstone of failure, was hung round Churchill’s neck, while the Norway campaign, first great failure of the Second World War, was blamed almost entirely upon Chamberlain. Churchill loyally defended the Prime Minister and, in a display of character, tried to take responsibility. But Chamberlain was wrongheaded and arrogant, while Churchill displayed wit and respect for democracy.

“King George’s reign has seen moral, social, political and scientific changes in the life of all countries and of all classes so decisive that we, borne along upon the still hurrying torrent, cannot even attempt to measure them. The means of locomotion, the art of flying, the position of women, the map of Europe, the aims and ideals of all nations—East and West, white and black, brown and yellow—have undergone a prodigious transformation.” —WSC

Clement Attlee once quipped that Churchill’s History should have been entitled, “Things in History Which Interested Me.” Unconsciously Attlee identified the value of history written by one who made it. Churchill writes from his own experience. He understood defending human freedom, and fighting with one’s back to the wall.

“Every one of us leading politicians has to ask ourselves whether we have the right, whether we can in all conscience force our country into war….[But] Masaryk was right. Death is better than slavery. [If war does come] “we’ll smash them to smithereens so they don’t trouble us for a century or more.” —WSC to Hubert Ripka, 22 June 1938

“It is an experience I shall never forget,” said filmscript editor Lajos Biró. “He wrote a story that was the perfect basis for a film... I had to add nothing…. I tell you, a tremendous film writer is lost in Churchill. He has absolutely no vanity. He wants to learn and to tell. I came away dazed.”

On the 1916 Western Front, English claims Churchill was miles away from the “real war,” never in any real danger, and an inept officer. But Martin Gilbert—whose books English cites—offered numerous instances of Churchill surviving German artillery or machine gun fire, and of leading soldiers into No Man’s Land. Soldiers who served with him had every reason to regard him as an aristocratic interloper. In the end they praised him to a man.

Churchill challenged Wells’s prediction of a future world government run by experts: “Human nature is a much more intractable and masterful thing than your speculations admit,” he told HGW. “We shall not change so quickly as you think.” Churchill’s views hadn’t changed 30 years later when he wrote: “It is at once the safeguard and the glory of mankind that they are easy to lead and hard to drive.”

From Cromwell’s example, Churchill learned the inefficacy of appeasement when dealing with despotism. Cromwell also reified the beauty and fragility of free government: Should one adopt a wrong policy or allow civil war and division to rule the day, a Cromwellian demagogue may be the necessary—and simultaneously evil—solution.

Britain was truly overstretched trying to deter Far East attacks with inexperienced troops and second-rate weaponry. That was because all the best soldiers and materials were sorely needed in war against Germany and Italy. And they were spread throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Churchill was very well aware of this. Yet he sent the battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse to Singapore hoping to cow the Japanese. They would act, he said, as “a vague menace.” It is hard to consider such actions—however doomed—efforts to signal British weakness.

Churchill began his History of the English Speaking Peoples in the 1930s, but finished after World War II, the experience of all-powerful dictators etched in his mind. Thus he is careful not to describe Charles I as a tyrant. Tyrants need large militaries and a whole nation’s resources. These were things Charles did not have.

Churchill is not here to recall in his thoughts. There is no doubt he was faced with one of the statesman’s painful decisions. There was, after all, a World War going on, but the Allies were closing on Berlin. The end might come any day. Yet there is no doubt about his bereavement.

"Churchill, himself experienced in the petty struggles of factions within the context of state governance, understood how particular interests create obstacles or opportunities for those quick enough to recognize them. He is particularly gifted, then, not only in recounting past events, but also in effectively portraying their causes."