Winston Churchill Essay, Research Paper

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace on Nov. 30,

1874. His father was Lord Randolph Churchill, who descended directly from the

1st duke of Marlborough, of whom Winston was to write a biography. His mother

was Jennie Jerosme, an American. Churchill’s childhood was unhappy. He spent

most of his time at school, something he didn’t really love. His teachers

caracterized him as bright, but stubborn and obstinate. He loved to read history

and poetry, however, and was fascinated by soldiers and battles. From childhood

he had an extraordinary memory. Winston Churchhill didn’t want to go to

university. Instead, he enrolled in the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He

graduated in 1894. After service in Cuba and India, he worked as a war-

correspondent in Northern India, Sudan and in South Africa, where he was

captured by the Boers. His daring escape made him an overnight celebrity.

Churchill always wanted to become a politician. His wish came true in 1900, when

he was elected to the Parliment as a Conservative, and he quickly made his mark.

His political sympathies began to change, however, and he “changed sides” in

1904, when he abandoned the Conservative party for the Liberals. When the

Liberals came to power in 1905, Churchill entered the government as secretary of

state for the colonies. In 1908, the year of his marriage to Clementine Hosier,

he became a member of the cabinet as president of the Board of Trade. Winston’s

political missions became more and more important, in 1910 he became a member of

the Admirality. In 1913-1914 Churchill completed British naval preparations for

war. During World War Churchhill made some fatal mistakes in war strategy. This

was one of the main reasons that he was removed from the Admirality when the

Conservatives (many of whom now detested him) joined the government in 1915.

After a period of active military service in France, he was re-elected in the

Parliment. He became minister of munitions under the prime minister David Lloyd

George. He subsequently served as secretary of state for war and air and for the

colonies and helped negotiate the treaty that created the Irish Free State. But

he lost both his office and his seat in Parliament when Lloyd George’s coalition

government fell in 1922.

Over the next year or two, Churchill gradually moved back into alliance with the

Conservatives. He used to remark with a mischievous twinkle, “Any fool can rat,

but I flatter myself that it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat.” Returning to

Parliament in 1924, he was offered the post of chancellor of the exchequer in

Stanley Baldwin’s Conservative government (1924-1929). It was in this position

Churchill maybe made his biggest mistake as a politician: He revalued the pound,

giving the currency a fixed value against other currencies, to better the rather

poor economic situation. Churchill took this step with many misgivings, and it

proved a mistake, worsening the poor economic situation. Afterward he made

efforts to heal the grand failure with labor, but he was never entirely

successful. Between 1929 and 1939 Churchill did not hold office. He disapproved

violently of Baldwin’s Indian policy, which pointed toward eventual self-

government. At the same time he warned against the ambitions of Nazi Germany

and urged that Britain should match Germany in air power. As World War II drew

nearer, his warnings were seen to be justified. When general war broke out in

September 1939, Churchill was offered his old post of first lord of the

Admiralty by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Following the unsuccessfull

allied attempt to “remove” the Germans from Norway (for which Churchill had

large responsibility) Chamberlain determined to resign. Churchill replaced him

as prime minister as Germany invaded the Low Countries on May 10, 1940.

The prime minister Winston Churchill was largely responsible for many aspects of

war policy. He established personal relations of the highest value with U.S.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt who began to supply arms and weapons to Britain

immediately after the British army lost most of its equipment at Dunkerque (June

1940). In the late summer of 1940, as the Battle of Britain raged and no one

knew whether Britain would be invaded, Churchill daringly diverted an armored

division, one of only two in Britain, to the Middle East. Although no one had

been a more convinced opponent of the USSR than Churchhill, he decided

immediately to give help to the Soviet Union when it was invaded by Germany in

the summer of 1941. The entry of the United States into the war at the end of

the same year gave the Allies the advantage in greater resources. But the new

shape of the alliance also meant that Britain’s influence was bound to decrease

as the USSR and the United States joined in with full power. Churchill was

determined that the slaughter that he had seen in World War I should not be

repeated. That is why he refused to attempt an invasion of mainland Europe

until North Africa and the Mediterranean had been cleared of the enemy. The

Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy, “the soft underbelly of the Axis,” finally

began in the summer of 1943, to be followed a year later by the Normandy

invasion, the “Operation Overlord”. By this time, however, Churchill carried

less weight at conferences and in the general formation of war strategy. For

example, Churchill did not then foresee the full Soviet threat. At the time of

the Yalta Conference (February 1945), Churchill had high confidence about

Soviet intentions. He soon came to a different opinion, and in 1946 he spoke

of the “iron curtain” that had descended across Europe. Although Churchill

wished to keep the wartime coalition government in power, a general election was

called in Britain in July 1945. Then, after the unconditional surrender of

Germany and just before the final collapse of Japan, the Conservatives lost the

election. When the first results were received, showing a substantial swing to

the Labour party, Churchill was taking a bath. He remarked: “There may well be

a landslide and they have a perfect right to kick us out. That is democracy.

That is what we have been fighting for. Hand me my towel.”

The Labour party took office with a large majority after World War II. Churchill

was somewhat hurt by this, he felt that the electors had rejected him as their

leader, and he determined to reverse it. By the end of 1951 he was back in

power, with a small majority. Although he never quite matched in this last

phase as prime minister the performance of his wartime days, his energy in the

first year or two remained astonishing. Churchill gave authority to the

administration, only his presence as prime minister helped to stop criticism.

People had great respect for Winston. In July 1953, soon after his knighthood,

when he could add “Sir” to his name, he suffered a stroke. Sir Anthony Eden,

whom Churchill had long wanted as his follower as prime minister, was himself

ill at the time, and part of Churchill’s motive in remaining in office was

doubtless to ensure that Eden was not cheated of his succession. Churchill

finally left office in April 1955, and Churchhill’s favourite follower Eden

became prime minister of Great Britain. Sir Winston’s last ten years, marked by

a worse and worse health, were occupied by occasional travel, a little painting,

and the publication of his “History of the English Speaking People” (1956-58).

This was the last of his many notable writings, which included “Lord Randolph

Churchill” (1906), “The World Crisis” (1923-29), “My Early Life” (1930),

“Marlborough” (1933-38), and “The Second World War” (1948-54), which was maybe

his greatest work ever. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1953.

Churchill occupied to the end the affections of the British people, symbolizing

the magnificent national performance in heroic days. Sir Winston Churchill was

maybe England’s greatest leader (and biggest sigar-smoker) ever, and as

Britain’s leader through most of World War II, he personified resistance to

tyranny. Sir Winston Churchill died on Jan. 24, 1965, 70 years to the day after

his father, at the age of 90

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