Oblivion or Glory

by David Stafford

  TEN

  PEACEMAKER

  Churchill came home from the Middle East to find Britain in crisis. The post-war slump was deepening, wages were falling, and unemployment had rocketed from some 600,000 at the start of the year to almost 2 million, prompting mass demonstrations by the unemployed. While he was contentedly painting with Lavery at Cap d’Ail, the coalminers had gone on strike against a hefty cut in wages. The transport workers and railway men promised to follow suit. In response the Cabinet declared a state of emergency and mobilized the armed forces. Reservists were called up, vehicles were requisitioned for emergency food distribution, and a special volunteer Defence Force was created. Although the threatened work stoppage was abandoned, the miners remained defiantly out and the reservists were not released until June. To alarmists, there was a distinct whiff of civil war in the spring air. ‘The strike news is bad. Everyone discusses revolution,’ noted Duff Cooper the day that Churchill finally arrived back in London.1

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  Yet across the Irish Sea things were far worse. Since the partial imposition of martial law, violence on both sides had intensified and feelings polarized even further. Attacks by the IRA on the British Army and Royal Irish Constabulary were countered by ruthless official reprisals – the burning or blowing up of the houses of suspects along with their furniture and other possessions. These had a chilling effect on the civilian population and soon the IRA began to encounter silent but stubborn hostility to its campaign of attacks on British forces, even in areas of the south and south-west where nationalist sympathies ran deep. Those found guilty of murder in the courts continued to be executed. As victory for Sinn Fein proved elusive, paranoia amongst IRA units about spies and informers within the civilian population mounted. ‘Civilian spies were considered by us as the most dangerous of all,’ recalled one IRA intelligence officer from County Cork, the epicentre of its guerrilla campaign. Suspects received threatening letters, suffered economic boycotts, or were forced into exile. Women seen consorting with British soldiers had their hair forcibly cut. In the most serious cases, those deemed guilty were simply shot. By May, some seventy-three bodies had been discovered with placards attached announcing ‘Traitor. Shot by the IRA.’ County Cork saw the most killings – amounting to almost half of all those carried out in the whole of Ireland during the war of independence. One of them indirectly impinged on the Churchill family.2

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  At 9.30 on the night of Thursday 31 March a man named Frederick Stenning heard a knock on the front door of his house in the village of Innishannon in County Cork, where he lived with his wife and three adult children. Two armed men stood on the doorstep. He tried to slam the door shut. When he couldn’t, he fled back down the hallway followed by the men. Drawing a revolver, he turned and opened fire on his pursuers, who shot him dead. The assassins belonged to the West Cork Brigade Flying Column of the IRA, which had identified him as an important informer for the Royal Irish Constabulary. The Protestant Stenning was a well-known loyalist and the father of a British soldier killed in the First World War. He had been spotted watching the local IRA unit preparing an ambush before cycling off to the RIC barracks in the town. The fifty-seven-year-old was also the sub-agent for Clare Sheridan’s father, Moreton Frewen, the owner of the nearby Innishannon House and proprietor of most of the houses and shops in the village, as well as the local fishing and shooting rights. Originally hired to create a fish hatchery by the entrepreneurial but unreliable Frewen, Stenning collected the rents and served as his gamekeeper and wood ranger. Frewen had once been the nationalist MP for Cork North-East but now lived in his English family home in Sussex.3

  Things were to get much worse. Just a few weeks later the IRA launched a full-scale campaign of punitive counter-reprisals against the British by targeting ‘Big Houses’ belonging to the largely Protestant gentry. Again the heaviest hit area was County Cork, where a ‘devil’s competition’ of burnings erupted between the two sides. Here, in June, some eighteen grand mansions went up in flames along with their often priceless collections of furniture, paintings, and antiques.

  After Stenning’s murder his widow and her children left Innishannon for England. But in the last week of June the IRA returned to the town, attacked the post office, and sabotaged its telephonic and telegraphic equipment – a classic guerrilla technique designed to paralyze army and police communications. In addition, they burned down the Stennings’ empty home along with four local ‘Big Houses’ along the River Bandon including the historic Coy Castle. Innishannon House, which was now occupied by a retired British officer, was burned that same day. ‘On Friday the miscreants put the torch to my pretty home,’ wrote Frewen to his Irish-American friend Bourke Cochran, Churchill’s one-time American mentor. Clare quickly learned of its fate from her father in a letter he sent her in New York. She had loved playing in its grounds as a child and remembered it well – ‘a mere square shooting lodge, comfortable but plain’.4

  Churchill had stayed at Innishannon before the war. But there were other strong Irish links as well. His aunt Leonie spent much of her time across the Irish Sea, having married into the Anglo-Irish Leslie family of County Monaghan. As pre-war Home Secretary, Churchill had happily introduced her son Shane to John Redmond, the leader of the nationalist Irish parliamentary party for which he stood twice – unsuccessfully – as a Member of Parliament. During the war Shane sailed to the United States and linked up with Cochran, married the Irish-American’s sister-in-law, and worked with the British ambassador in Washington DC in a campaign to soften Irish-American hostility to Britain. Back in London, he provided Churchill with a useful conduit to Irish nationalist feeling, and it was after a discussion with him that Churchill warned Clare against simplistically equating the Irish with the Bolsheviks. ‘Don’t confuse [them],’ he told her, ‘The Irish all believe in God, uphold the family, and love their country.’ Clare admired and respected Shane and the two spent many happy hours together at Innishannon.5

  Then there were the Laverys, who in 1921 were playing a major part in the Churchills’ social life. Both had strong feelings about Ireland, and although the socially ambitious and successful Sir John was careful what he said in public, his paintings often carried a powerful message. His massive 1916 canvas recording Sir Roger Casement’s unsuccessful appeal against his death sentence for high treason in seeking German help for the Irish rebels, showed the full machinery of the state directed towards the hapless Casement’s extinction. More recently, he had painted Terence MacSwiney’s coffin leaving Southwark Cathedral, a shaft of sunlight dramatically highlighting the green, white and orange Irish tricolour draped over the Republican martyr’s coffin. One day, when Churchill visited Lavery in his studio, the artist placed the painting on his easel without comment. ‘Well,’ said Churchill after gazing at it for a few moments, ‘what could we do?’ Lavery stayed silent and Churchill continued to study it. ‘He was a brave man! They are fine people,’ he said finally. ‘We cannot afford to lose them. We shall be shaking hands together in months.’6 These strong personal links with Ireland and the Irish made Churchill more receptive to Irish national feelings than many of his colleagues.7

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  ‘If you were their leader you would not be cowed by severity and certainly not by reprisals which fall like the rain from Heaven upon the Just and upon the Unjust.’ So wrote Clementine from the French Riviera about the rebels to her husband, urging him to adopt a more moderate line over Ireland.8 This was a typically blunt piece of advice from his liberally inclined and politically savvy wife. But it only reinforced the view he had already reached himself. Since December he had been urging a truce, and the escalating violence over the winter and spring only strengthened his conviction. Four weeks after the murder at Innishannon, and with the IRA’s scorched-earth campaign against Ireland’s Big Houses fully ablaze, he also argued that the planned elections for the two new Irish parliaments should go ahead, even if this almost certainly meant a landslide victory for Sinn Fein i
n the south. ‘How are you worse off if all returned are Sinn Fein?’ he asked his Cabinet colleagues in April. ‘The election would be a new situation which might lead to negotiations.’ With the elections finally fixed for a month ahead, he again argued strongly in Cabinet for a truce, on the plausible grounds that British forces were finally getting the upper hand and that continuing the war could only worsen Britain’s reputation around the world. ‘We are getting an odious reputation,’ he declared, ‘[and] poisoning our relations with the United States.’

  1. A top-hatted Churchill strides forcefully ahead during the Anglo-Irish conference in Downing Street, October 1921. He had strong family connections with Ireland, was amongst the first to call for a truce during the war for independence, and played a principal role during the negotiations. The man at the very back on the right is his Special Branch bodyguard, Detective-Sergeant Walter Thompson, appointed because of assassination threats, and a constant presence at his side.

  2. ‘She shone for me like the Evening Star.’ Lady Randolph (‘Jennie’) Churchill, Winston’s beloved mother, was born in Brooklyn, the daughter of a wealthy Wall Street speculator. Her first husband and father to Winston, Lord Randolph Churchill, died at age forty-five, and she remarried twice. She had numerous lovers, was reckless with money, and died suddenly in June 1921 after tripping down stairs while staying with friends in Somerset. Her vast network of society contacts was invaluable in boosting Churchill’s early career.

  3. In the bosom of his family: the young Winston (right) with his mother and younger brother, John (‘Jack’). By profession a stockbroker, Jack is largely absent from most Churchill biographies, but the two were close and he campaigned for Winston, advised him on finances, and sorted out their parents’ complicated estates. He and his wife ‘Goonie’ (Lady Gwendeline Bertie, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Abingdon) regularly lived and holidayed with Winston and Clementine along with their children.

  4. Churchill (extreme left) heads the family procession at his mother’s funeral in July 1921 at St Martin’s church, Bladon, close to Blenheim Place, where she was buried alongside Lord Randolph. He is followed by his brother Jack and nephew Johnnie. Behind, other close members of the family include Clare Sheridan’s mother and brother, as well as Clementine and Goonie. Churchill himself was buried at Bladon in 1965, close to his parents and Jack who pre-deceased him.

  5. Clementine with daughter Marigold (‘the Duckadilly’), whose favourite song was ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’. Churchill took her to Chequers during his weekend stay there in February 1921. Her sudden death in August while on holiday in Kent caused her parents inconsolable grief. She was buried in Kensal Green cemetery in London, where they could easily visit her grave. All their other children are buried at Bladon, as is Clementine.

  6. Winston and his only son Randolph, whose headmaster complained that he was ‘combative’, seen here together at about this time. The father–son relationship was to be one of ‘storm and sunshine’, and Randolph’s personal and professional lives as husband, politician, and journalist proved turbulent. He became his father’s official biographer and wrote the first two volumes of the eight-volume set that was eventually completed by Sir Martin Gilbert.

  7. A casual Winston and Clementine enjoy a rare relaxing moment in the garden. Note the cigar, already a regular prop. With her cloche hat and drop-waist belt, Clementine has clearly embraced the brave new world of post-war fashion. Privately a sometimes severe critic of her husband, she was also the emotional anchor that moored him firmly to the home and family that provided the vital bedrock of his life and career.

  8. Married to a wealthy American heiress, the genial and sociable Member of Parliament and decorated army officer Captain Frederick (‘Freddie’) Guest was Churchill’s favourite cousin, and remained close to him politically and personally throughout his life. A son of Lord Randolph’s sister Cornelia (Lady Wimborne), he was also the Coalition Liberals’ Chief Whip, a cunning backroom fixer, and successful raiser of finances for Lloyd George’s political fund. In April 1921 he was appointed by Lloyd George as Secretary of State for Air in succession to his cousin.

  9. Another of Churchill’s close relatives, his ‘wild cousin’ Clare Sheridan, with whom he shared fond childhood memories of Ireland, was widowed during the First World War and left with two small children. Naïve and idealistic, she was also a serious sculptor who enraged him by heading for Moscow to sculpt Lenin, Trotsky, and other top Bolsheviks. On her return to London in 1921 she was briefly ‘exiled’ by the family to the United States, but she and Winston were eventually reconciled and she sculpted him as prime minister during the Second World War.

  10. The charismatic Boris Savinkov, former anti-Tsarist revolutionary and political assassin on whom Churchill pinned his hopes of toppling Lenin and the Bolsheviks. A bon-viveur who mixed with poets and artists and had a string of mistresses, he once authored a play about Napoleon’s escape from Elba in which he himself played a major role. A mesmerised Churchill described him as ‘an unusual personality of veiled power in strong restraint’. In December 1921 he personally took Savinkov to meet with Lloyd George at Chequers.

  11. The dashing and daredevil ‘Archie’ Sinclair, Churchill’s wartime comrade-in-arms, link with the secret intelligence service, and trusted handler of his confidential files on anti-Bolshevik affairs. Younger by some sixteen years, he too had an American mother, was a trained cavalry officer, and enjoyed flying and polo. Their intimate relationship resembled that of father and son, and during the aftermath of the Dardanelles disaster Churchill privately confessed to him that he was ‘profoundly unsettled’. During the Second World War Sinclair served as his Secretary of State for Air.

  12. A typically acerbic David Low cartoon entitled ‘Winston’s Bag’ with the caption ‘He hunts lions and brings home decayed cats’. Wearing plus- fours, Churchill is shown big game hunting but with only small dead cats lying at his feet, labelled with episodes held against him such as ‘Russia’ and ‘Antwerp’. Like the accompanying Strube cartoon, it illustrates the negative reputation enjoyed by Churchill at the start of the decade.

  13. A cartoon by Sidney Conrad Strube reflects the widespread contemporary view of Churchill as restless and ambitious. Captioned ‘A New Hat’, it mocks Churchill and his many career and political hats as journalist, painter, and Cabinet Minister, the latest being Colonial Secretary. His beaming ally and prime minister, David Lloyd George, rubs his hands in approval.

  14. Churchill takes a front row seat at the Cairo Conference in March 1921. On the second row, left, stands ‘The Queen of the Desert’, the archaeologist and wartime intelligence officer Gertrude Bell. She spoke Arabic, it was said, ‘like a nightingale’. Note the two lion cubs also in attendance. The ever-faithful Sinclair stands at the very back, wearing a bow tie. The conference established important contours of the post-war Middle East settlement, especially the creation of Iraq. ‘It has been wonderful,’ declared Bell at its close, ‘Mr. Churchill was admirable.’

  15. Churchill, escorted by Palestine High Commissioner and former Liberal Home Secretary Sir Herbert Samuel, greets Zionist youth during his visit to Jerusalem following the Cairo Conference. He was enthused by what he witnessed of the pioneering Jewish settlements and sympathized with the Zionist dream. But he found balancing Jewish and Arab interests increasingly frustrating.

  16. Churchill on a camel in front of the Sphinx in March 1921. On his right Clementine; on his left Gertrude Bell and T. E. Lawrence (‘Lawrence of Arabia’). With painting now his premier private passion, Churchill spent most afternoons during the Cairo Conference disappearing into the desert with his canvas and paints, while Clementine explored the principal tourist sites and went shopping with Bell in the bazaars of Cairo.

  17. Churchill with T.E. Lawrence during his Middle East trip. Seduced by the romantic ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ myth created by the enterprising American journalist Lowell Thomas, Churchill appointed him as his principal advisor on Arab
affairs. Along with Gertrude Bell, Lawrence strongly supported the cause of the Hashemite Sheikh Faisal as King of the newly created Iraq. On Lawrence’s death in 1935, Churchill declared that he had possessed the ‘full measure of the versatility of genius’.

  18. Abdullah of Transjordan, brother to Faisal of Iraq, shakes hands with Clementine on the steps of Government House in Jerusalem in March 1921. Churchill considered him ‘a very agreeable, intelligent, and civilized Arab prince’, and he was to rule over Transjordan until his assassination in 1951 by a Palestinian nationalist. While Clementine chose to visit some of the holy sites in the city, Churchill opted instead to go off once more with his canvas and paints.

  19. Hazel, Lady Lavery unlocked Churchill’s artistic inhibitions and played hostess to Michael Collins, the thirty-three-year-old director of intelligence for the IRA, during the Anglo-Irish treaty talks. This strikingly beautiful American-born model, fashion innovator, and socialite was unreliably rumoured to have had an affair with Collins, and her portrait later featured on banknotes of the Irish Free State.

  20. Michael Collins delivers a passionate speech in late 1921 or early 1922. During the Irish Treaty negotiations, he and Churchill accorded each other an important measure of respect. Sinn Fein was bitterly divided about the agreement, and Collins told a friend that in putting his signature to it he had signed his death warrant. Nine months later, during the civil war between pro- and anti-Treaty forces that followed, he was shot and killed by a Republican assassin.