Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill

by Gretchen Rubin

  On the Continent, the Nazis had swept through Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Belgium, and on May 16, German troops pierced France’s Maginot line. The French were fighting badly and losing hope; surrender would follow within weeks.

  By the end of May, the British and French armies were trapped along the French coast at Dunkirk. Even the optimistic Churchill feared that perhaps only thirty thousand of more than three hundred thousand men could be saved. On May 26, the evacuation began. Some twenty miles of ocean, the narrow moat that protected the island from invasion, must be crossed by the British to bring their men to safety. Many—including American ambassador Joseph Kennedy—insisted that Britain couldn’t survive.

  While battle raged across the Channel, Churchill was fighting a fierce action within his War Cabinet. Although it had been Chamberlain whom Churchill had opposed for years, and whom he’d replaced, it was Halifax who proved his main adversary during his first days in office. Although no one then could have realized it, the decisive moment came on May 28, 1940.

  In the days before, Halifax had argued that Britain would be “foolish” not to make peace, if terms could be reached that preserved its independence. His aim was to find a “decent” way for Britain to keep its Empire and fleet; he dismissed Churchill’s hyperbolic resistance to exploring peace terms as “the most frightful rot.” (Some historians, too, would later condemn Churchill for refusing to consider a compromise peace; the war’s crippling cost, they argue, assured the Empire’s collapse. Such critics don’t explain why Churchill should have trusted Hitler, who could have returned to crush Britain once he’d dispatched Russia; or why Churchill should have viewed with composure a Nazi-controlled Continent; or how, in any event, Britain could have managed to continue its grasp on its vast, rebellious possessions.)

  To keep Halifax, Churchill never flatly ruled out a compromise peace, but he didn’t hide his own view that the only safety for Britain and France stood in endurance. He believed that any hint of British willingness to elicit a settlement proposal would wreck public morale and that the possibility of negotiation, once opened, couldn’t be closed. The two men argued for several days, until their conflict reached its crisis on May 28.

  Churchill was in a dangerous position. Across the Channel, prospects looked dire for British forces awaiting evacuation from Dunkirk. If these men couldn’t be saved, Britain’s hope of withstanding invasion was bleak. As for Churchill, the security of his political position depended on his former opponents. If Halifax resigned to protest Churchill’s policy, he would trigger a national crisis that would shake—and perhaps topple—Churchill’s government.

  At four o’clock, the War Cabinet met, and again, two visions of Britain’s future confronted each other. Halifax urged consideration of a peace settlement. He feared—quite rightly, time would show—that without some limit to the conflict, Britain couldn’t survive as a great power. Churchill believed that talks about peace terms were a “slippery slope” to capitulation. “Nations which went down fighting rose again,” he declared, “but those who surrendered tamely were finished.” With this crucial issue unresolved, the War Cabinet recessed for one hour.

  What could Churchill do? He refused to countenance any compromise, but he couldn’t risk an outright break with Halifax. So Churchill did what any embattled executive would do: he stacked a meeting.

  During a break from the five-member War-Cabinet meeting, Churchill met with the twenty-five members of the full Cabinet. He explained the imminent troop evacuation, then he said “quite casually, and not treating it as a point of special significance: ‘Of course, whatever happens at Dunkirk, we shall fight on.’ ” Churchill concluded:

  I am convinced that every man of you would rise up and tear me down from my place if I were for one moment to contemplate parley or surrender. If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.

  He pretended to read, in these men’s hearts, the determination that surged in his own, and the reaction was electric. The ministers—by no means all Churchill admirers—crowded around and cheered him. His vow—whatever happens, we shall fight on—and the Cabinet’s support turned the weight of opinion. Halifax stopped his opposition. That day, Churchill issued a “strictly confidential” memo to remind his colleagues there was no place in his government for doubt or half measures.

  In these dark days the Prime Minister would be grateful if all his colleagues . . . would maintain a high morale in their circles; not minimising the gravity of events, but showing confidence in our ability and inflexible resolve to continue the war . . . whatever may happen on the Continent, we cannot doubt our duty, and we shall certainly use all our power to defend the Island, the Empire, and our Cause.

  This was Churchill’s hour to lead. His two predecessors—Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain—had had their virtues; but as with all qualities, these virtues took their color from circumstances. The very attributes that Baldwin and Chamberlain disliked in Churchill—his rashness, his simplicity, his buccaneer spirit—fitted him far better to events than did all their cool reasonableness. Churchill’s vivid historical imagination allowed him to understand Hitler, while they clung to the illusion that Hitler was a statesman who operated by conventional rules.

  Within a week Churchill would give his greatest speech. On June 4, he spoke in the House of Commons, for little more than thirty minutes, about the extraordinarily successful evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk and concluded:

  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 apparatus 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 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 liberation of the Old.

  Several Members of Parliament cried. So did Churchill.

  Churchill’s eloquence persuaded the British that their cause was worth every sacrifice, even death. “You can always take one with you” was one of his invasion slogans. The great theme of Churchill’s life was never surrender, and he vowed he would lead his country to victory. So he did, but with what consequence, he never imagined.

  5

  CHURCHILL AS LEADER

  Suited to High Office?

  Winston Churchill Was Well Suited to High Office

  Churchill’s qualities made him an outstanding, inspiring leader, as demonstrated by his tremendous accomplishments in office.

  One key to his success was his overwhelming energy. Abnormal energy coupled with power is a formidable force. Even detractors admitted he revitalized every office—First Lord, trench commander, Prime Minister—by the intensity of his personality. He drove others as hard as he drove himself.

  Churchill was also able to grasp key facts without labored analysis. One aide observed that he “would read a long Cabinet Paper and pick out one or two aspects of the case, frequently those which did not seem the most important. . . . It was strange how often they turned out in the end to be the principal points at issue.”

  Churchill recognized the value of accountability and opposed efforts to add layers of advisers who lacked actual responsibility. “Lots of people can make good plans for winning the war if they have not got to carry them out,” Churchill pointedly noted when he addressed a Joint Session of Congress in 1943. “I dare say if I had not been in a responsible position I should have made a lot of
excellent plans.”

  Churchill saw things clearly, and he wanted others to share his vision: nothing in halftones or muted colors. During the confusion of war, he refused to allow muddle and drift to obscure what he saw: the tragic simplicity and grandeur of the times and issues at stake. Against the agonized compromises of the past, his certainty and his energy stood out in bright, bold relief. “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory.” More than anything, his absolute conviction that Britain would triumph, and his ability to inspire his people to share his confidence, lifted the nation out of one of its darkest periods.

  It was for these qualities that Churchill was hailed as the savior of his country.

  Winston Churchill Was Ill Suited to High Office

  Churchill was impulsive, disloyal, overbearing, eccentric, and as Dwight Eisenhower delicately admitted, he “rarely failed to inject into most conferences some element of emotion.” He refused to respect priorities or lines of command, he interfered with commanders in the field, and he rarely listened to anyone. “All I wanted,” he explained, only half joking, “was compliance with my wishes after reasonable discussion.” He exhausted everyone around him with his late hours, cigar smoke, and endless monologues. He telephoned his staff at any hour of day or night, for any trivial reason. He usually worked on critical matters, especially important speeches, until the very last moment, which further strained those around him. At times, he could be extraordinarily persuasive, and he used this gift to win arguments he shouldn’t have.

  Churchill acted on impulse, not analysis. “Winston was never good at looking at all the implications of any course of action which he favoured,” admitted General Sir Alan Brooke. “In fact, he frequently refused to look at them.” He insisted on one-page answers to complex questions and showed no appreciation for practical difficulties. Churchill’s lack of focus meant that, for one leading a world war, he spent an astonishing amount of time on trivialities. He found time in 1942 to write the First Lord to suggest that, in order to save the time of signalmen, cipher staff, and typists, signals should shorten the name of the ship the Admiral von Tirpitz to Tirpitz.

  Churchill’s inability to size up the public mood often undercut his effectiveness. For instance, he damaged his reputation by defending Edward VIII’s extremely unpopular proposal to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson. Churchill’s support of Edward also shows his inability to take the measure of others; later, the Duke of Windsor’s sympathy for the Nazis led Hitler to comment, “His abdication was a severe loss for us,” and in fact, the Duke once hailed Hitler with the stiff-armed Nazi salute.

  Churchill’s zeal for the offensive distorted his judgment. He admired daredevils and undervalued those he considered too cautious, and this, along with his heedless combativeness, was a serious hazard during his whole career.

  Because of these qualities, Churchill was an irresponsible and erratic leader.

  6

  CHURCHILL’S GENIUS WITH WORDS

  His Greatest Strength

  Biographies of great figures must tackle the essential question: what was the foundation of their genius? In Churchill’s case, it was his extraordinary gift of expression. Perhaps it is possible for a leader to conceive large ideas without the ability to express them, but a leader unable to articulate such thoughts cannot inspire others to share them. Churchill was able to describe his timeless, heroic Britain so clearly that the entire nation rose to the level of his vision.

  As soldier and statesman, Churchill had thrust himself into world events from age twenty-one, but, he pointed out, “Words are the only things which last for ever.” Of all his accomplishments, it was his superb command of language that lifted him into triumph.

  His words’ power flowed from the fact that, without sounding insincere or affected, he could speak in both an arcane, heroic style and a plain, everyday style. Together these penetrated deeply into the public mind. During the Second World War, Churchill’s words over the radio—whether in his own voice or read by someone else—were an essential source of the people’s courage. Churchill recognized the significance of the new medium of radio, and he didn’t grudge the massive effort needed to prepare his speeches.

  The grand style was his hallmark. This wasn’t bombast adopted for debate or broadcast, but how he naturally thought and spoke. His vocabulary had an anachronistic flavor, with words like wickedness, parley, hardy tars, nay, and thrice. He liked to use the bygone expression “pray,” as in “Pray let me have a report”; this useful phrase was more commanding than “please” but less peremptory than “give me.” He had his favorite words: solid, squalid, unflinching, courageous, sultry, bleak, vast, grim, immense. He enjoyed heaping adjectives together: Czechoslovakia was “silent, mournful, abandoned, broken”; Anglo-American relations would roll like the Mississippi, “inexorable, irresistible, benignant.” But even with his ornate vocabulary, he had a gift for expressing himself so anyone could understand him.

  During the war, Churchill’s high style linked the present danger to Britain’s noble history. He spoke the lordly language of heroes, of King Alfred, Queen Elizabeth, and Lord Nelson, returned from the past to encourage the people. After all, mixed in with their patriotic zeal, Britons worried about the mundane issues that dogged wartime existence: the blackout, the sugar shortage, the long line at the bus stop. Churchill inspired them to see their discomfort and fear as part of a glorious pageant.

  Unsurprisingly, this grandiloquence irritated the more exact military or bureaucratic types. Churchill never shrank from introducing ideas that would usually have no place in the official world. In 1940, the King of Sweden sent George VI a message suggesting that peace possibilities be examined. On the Foreign Office’s draft reply, Churchill admonished, “The ideas set forth . . . appear to me to err in trying to be too clever, and to enter into refinements of policy unsuited to the tragic simplicity and grandeur of the times and the issues at stake.” His elaborate declaration of war on Japan struck some people as unnecessary flummery:

  Sir,

  On the evening of December 7th His Majesty’s Government . . . learned that Japanese forces without previous warning . . . had attempted a landing on the coast of Malaya and bombed Singapore and Hong Kong.

  In view of these wanton acts of unprovoked aggression . . . His Majesty’s Ambassador at Tokyo has been instructed to inform the Imperial Japanese Government in the name of His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom that a state of war exists between our two countries.

  I have the honour to be, with high consideration,

  Sir,

  Your obedient servant,

  Winston S. Churchill

  In response to critics, Churchill remarked, “Some people did not like this ceremonial style. But after all when you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.”

  Churchill also made use of homely, everyday speech. “Short words are best,” he said, “and the old words when short are best of all.” His blunt sentences, with their colorful phrases, were as effective as his magniloquence. “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” “London can take it.” “Never was so much owed by so many to so few.” Often his most stirring lines were in simple language, as in his February 9, 1941, broadcast addressed to the United States:

  Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing, and, under Providence, all will be well. We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

  Churchill used words to bolster morale; he emphasized, for example, the importance of names. He intervened to improve the government’s choices of names—an undertaking considered by many, no doubt, not to be the most effective use of his energies. It is easy to read his purpose: to make battles more glorious, weapons more menacing. He suggested the name “Mosquito Fleet” for a fleet of fast, small craft, then be
ttered it to “Hornet Fleet” or “Shark Fleet”—“ ‘Sharks’ for short,” he added. During the war’s desperate first year, as volunteer defense forces mustered, he noted to the organizer, “I don’t think much of the name ‘Local Defence Volunteers’ for your very large new force. The word ‘local’ is uninspiring. Mr. Herbert Morrison suggested to me to-day the title ‘Civic Guard,’ but I think ‘Home Guard’ would be better.” Churchill prevailed.

  Churchill also exploited the force of simile and metaphor. Of his opposition to socialism, he said, “We are for the ladder. Let all try their best to climb. They are for the queue.” He wrote of a meeting with Roosevelt and Stalin, “There I sat with the great Russian bear on one side of me, with paws outstretched, and, on the other side the great American buffalo, and between the two sat the poor little English donkey who was the only one of the three, who knew the right way home.”

  Perhaps his most popular tool, whether in the House of Commons, in conversation, or with his wide readership, was humor, and one of his favorite techniques was anticlimax. Upon hearing that a captured German general was to eat dinner with the pompous Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, Churchill confided, “I sympathize with General von Thoma. Defeated, humiliated, in captivity, and . . . dinner with General Montgomery.” (He once characterized Montgomery: “Indomitable in retreat; invincible in advance; insufferable in victory.”) Churchill was also master of the most British of comic devices, the understatement. Ringing church bells had been banned in June 1940, except to warn of imminent attack. In support of arguments that bell ringing should resume, Churchill admitted, “I cannot help feeling that anything like a serious invasion would be bound to leak out.” He made hilarious, and devastating, use of sarcasm. Of the “courage” of one of his fellow MPs, he said, “First, it is that kind of courage which enables men to stand up unflinchingly and do a foolish thing, although they know it is popular. Second it is that kind of courage which cannot only be maintained in the face of danger, but can even shine brightly in its total absence.” Even his talk of war could be funny. Of the June 1940 meeting at which the embattled French asked how Britain would resist invasion, Churchill wrote: “I said . . . my technical advisers were of opinion that the best method of dealing with German invasion of the island of Britain was to drown as many as possible on the way over and knock the others on the head as they crawled ashore.”