Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (Blenheim Palace, November 30, 1874 – London, January 24, 1965) was a politician, British historian and journalist.

Known primarily for his leadership of Britain during the Second World War, he was the first minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and then from 1951 to 1955. Known as statesman, orator and strategist, Churchill was also a British army officer. As a prolific author, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 for his historical writings.

During his army career, Churchill fought with the expedition called the Malakand Field Force in the Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan and during the Second Boer War in South Africa. In this period, he also managed to achieve fame as a war correspondent.

On the political scene for almost sixty years, he held numerous political offices and government. In the early twentieth century, during the Liberal governments, he headed the Ministry for Trade and Industry (Board of Trade) and Secretary of State for Home Affairs (Home Secretary).

During the First World War, he was First Lord of the Admiralty and Minister of Munitions (the prosecutor who oversaw the production of war). He also fought with the army on the Western Front and commanded the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. In the period between the wars, he was Minister of War and Aviazione, Colonial Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister of Britain).

With the outbreak of World War II, Churchill was appointed as First Lord of the Admiralty. Then following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain on May 10, 1940, he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and led Britain to victory against the Axis Powers. His speeches were a great inspiration to the Allied forces engaged in combat. After the defeat in the elections of 1945, Churchill became leader of the opposition. In 1951, he again became Prime Minister until the final withdrawal from the political scene in 1955. At his death, the Queen granted him the honors of the state funeral, which was attended by a large number of statesmen.

Biography

Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace at Woodstock (Oxfordshire), on November 30, 1874. His mother is an American Jennie Jerome, daughter of the owner of the New York Times. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill was third son of John Spencer-Churchill, seventh Duke of Marlborough and was a leading figure of the British Conservative Party (Tory), in 1885 led the Secretary of State for India and in 1886 was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister).

In this capacity, Sir Randolph Churchill strived to reduce military spending and, when the Prime Minister Salisbury rejected his requests, he decided to submit his resignation hoping, wrongly, to be rejected. Lord Randolph never recovered from this injury, and political, accomplice the onset of a serious illness, failed prematurely. The tragedy experienced by his father’s early influence in the political life of Churchill, who would seek to avenge him.

Winston studied at Harrow and, in 1893, was admitted to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. His father wanted him to start a military career, Churchill instead showed remarkable talent for writing.

Winston decided to spend some years as a correspondent in Cuba, India and South Africa, where it was first captured by the Boers and confined in the penitentiary space from which to escape fails spectacularly. At that time, the continents outside Europe were much sought after because the reputation and career depended exclusively from border posts.

His correspondence from the Afghan war of 1897 would be published in a book (The Story of the Malakand Field Force, 1898), but the real fame would come from his participation as a Hussar, the Battle of Omdurman (in September 1898) on the lower reaches of the Nile, in which the British defeated the Dervishes and gained control of Sudan.

Churchill feeled ready to begin a political career. After a first failure, he was unable to enter parliament in 26 years, in 1900, when he was elected Member for the Conservative Party at the second attempt in the constituency of Oldham. Although he had modeled his character on the father figure, he did not take long to show a different sensitivity in the social and political. On 24 May, 1901, he was initiated into Freemasonry in London Studholme Lodge No. 1591.

The long curly liberal

At that time, the leader of the conservative Liberal Unionists, led by Joseph Chamberlain, was characterized by implementing a political strategy, economic, so-called Imperial Preference, which aimed at maintaining the British imperialist strategy through a strong protectionism. This policy had been criticized in several parts, so that then bring the party to defeat in the elections of 1906 by the Liberals, Churchill was completely disagreed.

Eventually, therefore, the latter decided to leave the party for the Liberals in the ranks of which he won the election in that same year, 1906. Elected Member of the College of Manchester, Churchill began to make a career within the Liberal Party: First Deputy to the colonies between 1906 and 1908, then minister, the first trade (1908-1910) and finally the Interior (1910 – 1911). Moreover, its presence in the daily discussions in the classroom allowed him to rise further, thanks to his outstanding gifts as an orator – despite a speech impediment (he can not pronounce the “S”) that never failed to correct – and the meticulousness with which prepares speeches.

During the period when he served as Minister of Trade, Churchill introduced several reforms in the social field that, even if deemed too revolutionary by many (minimum wage, maximum working time of eight hours of work, help for unemployed ), making it a very popular character. Its growing popularity meant that the same leaders of the Liberal Party decided to entrust more and more prestigious positions.

His social awareness seemed to be less when he became minister of the interior, he sent bodies of police overtime to deal with striking workers in the mines of Wales, ports and railways.

In 1911, when the incident of Agadir become clear the expansionist aims of Germany, Churchill was appointed as First Lord of the Admiralty – corresponding role as Minister of the Navy – for the express purpose of maintaining the superiority of the Royal Navy on Marine Kaiserliche (The German Navy) in all possible theaters of a future conflict. It gave great impetus to innovation, particularly the development of naval aviation, and he decided to modernize the British fleet through the use of diesel engines. From that decision, he would depend on the strategic importance of the oil fields in Mesopotamia (then controlled by the Ottoman Empire) and Persia (nominally independent but located in the Russian sphere of influence was both British) and the subsequent military campaign in Britain Persian Gulf area during the First World War.

On August 4, 1914 and the First World War broke out in October of that year, Churchill ordered the dispatch of three thousand soldiers to the aid of a naval siege of Antwerp. This move would not save the capitulation of Antwerp, but would allow the British fleet to recruit and retain control of the seas. Churchill was one of the promoters of the Allied landings in January 1915 in the peninsula of Gallipoli on the Dardanelles, an ambitious military operation that was intended to open a sea link with the Russians through the conquest of Istanbul. The military campaign, however, proved much more difficult than expected for the effective defense of the Ottomans and the Allies, after suffering heavy losses, decided to withdraw from Gallipoli.

In consideratin of sole responsibility for the disaster, Churchill, also under pressure from conservatives who had recently joined a national unity government, was ousted by the government and was fighting the war in France as the largest of the British Army. It would require a commission of inquiry, which acquitted him in 1917 from the role of sole responsibility for the disaster of the Dardanelles, to allow the new Prime Minister Lloyd George to appoint military supplies. As being responsible for the mass production of tanks, Churchill played a focal role in the British victory of the First World War.

From 1919 to 1921, he was Secretary of State for War and Air, this time looking in every way, even against the negative opinion of many in the Liberal Party, to convince the government to operate a military intervention to crush the Revolution Russian Bolshevism. Between 1921 and 1922, he was appointed minister of colonies, among its provisions was the establishment of a British mandate over Palestine, an issue in the coming years would cause many problems.

In this period, his greatest achievement was the agreement with the Irish independence movement that would lead to the establishment of the Irish Free State first and then the Republic of Ireland. The elections of 1922 marked the defeat of the Liberals of Churchill, who also lost his seat in Parliament, and the Conservatives returned to government. The subsequent election of 1923 attested to overtake the Liberals, who became the third British party, by the Labour Party.

Return to the Conservative Party

The structure of the British system ensured that only the two major parties played an important role in national political life, and therefore if Churchill aspired to a leading role must abandon the Liberal Party, which the rest in 1924 decided to support the creation of a Labour government, making a political choice that is strongly against Churchill. In 1924, after nearly twenty years, he fell into the ranks of the Conservative Party.

In 1924, he became Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Conservative government of Stanley Baldwin: the political economy of this period was highly deflationary and the decision was made to restore the gold standard of the pound due to a strong popular discontent towards him and the government, culminating in the great strike in 1926.

In the elections of 1929, partly because of the unpopular economic policies of Churchill, Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour won a relative majority. Conservatives, in the opposition, gave Churchill the sole responsibility of the electoral defeat and decided to marginalize them politically. The controversy about India would play an important role in the margins of Churchill, which was contrary to the Government’s proposal (as do the conservatives) to grant India dominion status, or a more autonomous form of government, similar to that already adopted in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa. Churchill saw India not yet ready for autonomy, and also believed that the proposal would produce a different result than expected, prompting the Indians to demand complete independence with more force. On the controversial Indian, Churchill would be in strong isolation even among conservatives. It must be said that Churchill’s prediction proved correct: the Congress Party (the largest political force Hindus) would reject a proposal to transform India into Dominion with greater determination and reclaim independence.

A few years before Churchill expressed interest and admiration for the new head of the Italian government, Benito Mussolini, whom he called “the greatest living legislator” (1926), while acknowledging, after the Ethiopian war (1936), the danger consisted of the fascination with Nazism on him and the personal figure of Adolf Hitler.

When the government climb Arthur Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, too conservative, foreign policy espoused in the so-called strategy of appeasement towards Hitler, Churchill had no qualms about showing his strong disagreement with this attitude. He fears, in fact, that excessive concessions to the German Nazi regime (the Sudeten question, the conference in Monaco in 1938, the Anschluss) and were likely to underestimate the danger of Hitler’s plan to support a further expansion of “living space” (Lebensraum) which Hitler considered necessary to Germany in Europe.

The two governments Churchill

The thirties saw a decline in the prestige of Churchill, who quickly rose when the outbreak of World War II, his warnings about the dangers of Nazism sound prophetic. When Chamberlain in 1939, noted the failure of his policy of appeasement, declares war on Germany, Churchill was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty.

Improper conduct of war, together with the pressure of public opinion pushing Chamberlain to submit his resignation (May 1940) Churchill and the Conservatives to pray to accept the post of prime minister. Formed a national unity government, his firm standed against Germany and Italy greatly increased his popularity inside. Although he had promised “tears, sweat and blood”, and despite the many defeats suffered by Great Britain in the early years of war, the population supports him unconditionally to victory in 1945.

In foreign policy, Churchill showed more suspicious and apprehensive of Stalin than it was the U.S. President Roosevelt.

Despite the historic military victory, the reputation of great leaders and great popular support, Churchill lost, surprisingly, the general election of 1945 and must give way to Clement Attlee, leader of the Labour Party.

Perhaps weighed, the election outcome, the fact that it had always been unpopular with unions. Among other things, the promises in the economy of the Labour Party included nationalization, a progressive tax system, a development plan for employment, a new health system, pensions and education. It was, therefore, a plan for implementation of what is now called welfare state, a modernization project as innovative as beneficial to the eyes of the electorate, the Conservative Party could not and would propose and be among the reasons for the surprising electoral choice of 1945.

Another determinant factor in the outcome of the elections was the speech given by Churchill on the radio a few days before the election. On that occasion he showed all his contempt for the Labour Party, arguing that they would impose socialism in England and, with their victory, they would set up a form of Gestapo (Nazi political police). Finally, according to Churchill, also the vote of the military was opposed.

Churchill, however, continued to play a prominent politician: his voice was heard all over the world. Among the topics dear to the statesman was the incentive policy of detachment from the USSR, a position which made it one of the supporters of what was later named after the Cold War (during the speech of Fulton, Missouri, held at Westminster College , in the presence of President Truman, in 1946, it was he who coined the famous phrase Iron Curtain), consistent with the anticommunism that had always distinguished him. In 1950, with other dignitaries, was committed to no avail for the salvation of Milada Horáková, sentenced to death by the Czechoslovak communist regime.

After winning the elections in 1951, Churchill received again the task of forming a government, at the age – not youth – seventy-seven years. During the second government of Churchill, Britain repressed the Marxist guerrillas in Malaya and the Mau-Mau bloody revolt in Kenya. In 1952, he sought to overthrow the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq, following his decision to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (of which the British Government is the majority shareholder), but when the first coup attempts were discovered and British Embassy was expelled from Iran, the Churchill government was forced to ask the CIA and the Eisenhower administration to carry out the coup. The most prominent feature of world politics of Churchill during those years would be the commitment to promote détente between USA and USSR. After participating in previous years, the need to tackle vigorously the USSR, now, without the least put into question the alliance of iron with the U.S. which was the first bishop, Churchill currency needed to lessen the tension between the blocks opposing attributes and this lead to Great Britain.

George VI died in 1952, by Winston Churchill’s first prime minister of Queen Elizabeth II.

In 1955, Churchill resigned as prime minister by passing his hand to his protégé Anthony Eden.

His contribution to the service of the country would be rewarded with a harvest of awards and accolades, even from abroad. In 1953, he obtained the Nobel Prize for literature, mainly for his book The Second World War (The Second World War), 1948-1954. In 1955, he retired permanently to private life.

He died on January 24, 1965: his funeral at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London attended by some 300,000 people, and his body was exhibited at Westminster Hall.

After the state funrnal, January 30, 1965, to fulfill his last wish, the body of the great statesman was transported by train to Bladon, where he was buried in the churchyard of St Martin’s Church, during a private ceremony, officiated by the rector of church, attended by only relatives and close friends.

The figure of Churchill in the UK has always enjoyed and still enjoys great prestige, the statesman is considered among the greatest national figures of the twentieth century.

Marriage and children

Churchill met his future wife, Clementine Hozier, in 1904 at a dance at Crewe House, home of Robert Crewe-Milnes, Earl of Crewe and his wife Margaret Primrose. Four years later they met again at a dinner, hosted by Baroness St Helier. The two found themselves sitting next to each other and soon began the report of their lives. On 12 September, 1908, the couple married in the church of Saint Margaret in City of Westminster, and moved in March 1909 in the house of Eccleston Square, at 33.

Clementine and Winston were born:

Diana (July 11, 1909 – October 20, 1963), married on Dec. 12, 1932 at baronet Sir John Milner Bailey, from whom he had children and divorced in 1935 and 16 September of that year she married the Conservative politician Duncan Sandys (1908-1987) , whom she had three daughters:

Julia (1936 – 1997),

Edwina (1938 – present)

Celia (1943 – present).

Even this failed marriage and the two divorced in 1960. Diana committed suicide by ingesting an overdose of barbiturates.

Randolph (28 May 1911-6 June 1968), of no great military and political success; married first (1939) Pamela Digby (1920-1997), who bore him a son, Winston, (1940-2010), and from whom he divorced in 1945. Later married June Osborn, who bore him a daughter, Arabella (1949-2007).

Sarah Churchill (October 7, 1914 – September 24, 1982). He was a dancer and actress. Who married Victor Oliver von Samek in 1936, divorced in 1945, then married Anthony Beauchamp (1949) but was widowed in 1957 and then married her third wedding in 1962 in Henry Tuchet-Jesson, 23 º Baron Audley, but the following year was again a widow.

Marigold Frances (November 15, 1918 – August 23, 1921), died from septicemia.

Mary (September 15, 1922 – present), married in 1947 the Baron Christopher Soames (1920-1987), whom she had five children:

Nicholas (February 12, 1948, living),

Emma (September 9, 1949, living),

Jeremy,

Charlotte,

Rupert (May 18, 1959, alive).

Filmography

The character of Winston Churchill appeared in several films and some of his writings have been taken of the scripts:

Screenplays

The Inside of the Cup, director of Albert Capellani – Romance (1921)

Young Winston (Young Winston), directed by Richard Attenborough – autobiography My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1972)

Films or documentaries where it appears Churchill

The Four Just Men, directed by Walter Forde (1939)

Young Winston (Young Winston), directed by Richard Attenborough – autobiography My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1972)

Titanic – Birth of a Legend (Titanic: Blood and Steel), directed by Ciaran Donnelly – (2012)

Curiosity

On 26 August 1944 the Italian partisan Iacchini At Churchill saved the lives of capturing a German sniper ready to strike.

Not many know that his quote reflects another side of Churchill

“I do not admit for instance, That a great wrong has-been done to the Red Indians of America or to the black people of Australia”

“I do not recognize, for example, that a great damage was done to the Red Indians of America or the Australian Aborigines’

Churchill was a great lover of Cuban cigars, and in particular of those products by the brand Romeo y Julieta. His preference was for a particular format (Parejo), which came to be so associated with the British politician to be acquired its name: the Churchill.

It is cited in the text of Genesis from “Supper’s Ready”, contained suites on the album “Foxtrot”. The quote is contained in section “V. Willow Farm” of the text.

An extract from a famous speech (We shall fight on the beaches) was used by heavy metal band Iron Maiden in London opening concert of the “World Slavery Tour” as an introduction to the song “Aces High”. The track is titled “Intro: Churchill’s Speech” and is the first track on the double live album “Live After Death”.

A statue that portrays him is on display in Parliament Square, opposite the famous Big Ben.

He had a tattoo on his arm depicting an anchor.

He was suffering from a severe form of alcohol addiction that led him to at least the last twenty years of his life.

When Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty in 1910 English understood what advantages would make the diesel engine than the steam engine.

He is a dedicated nuclear submarine Churchill’s English class, as well as a U.S. destroyer Arleigh Burke class, the DDG-81 entered service in 2001.

He was suffering from overt rupofobia, much to spend many hours a day in the bath.

Its special dentures – which allowed him a special condition for which he was famous – went up for auction in July 2010.

During a session of Parliament, a resounding block mnemonic, as well as cause him great embarrassment prevented him from completing his prayer. This event was to make him abandon the habit of writing speeches to the tiniest details and send them completely from memory (modus operandi practiced from an early age).

The History of the Second World War VI, p. 447, writes:

“In wartime, truth is so precious that we must always protect it with a curtain of lies.

From his writings and his personal biography can be deduced that most likely suffering from specific learning disorders

It is said that a child fell into a ditch and was rescued by a farmer. Churchill’s father, to thank the farmer, would fund the studies of his son. The child in question was Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin.