Visions of Glory, 1874-1932

by William Manchester

  In the Dardanelles Committee the ex–first lord was less effective, but he had lost none of his persuasive powers, and in the beginning most of his recommendations were adopted. On June 1 he circulated a paper among the other members, arguing that while a decision in France had proved impossible, a relatively small expansion of Hamilton’s army could bring victory. “It seems most urgent,” he wrote, “to try to obtain a decision here and wind up the enterprise in a satisfactory manner as soon as possible.” Bonar Law and Sir Edward Carson, another old Churchill adversary, disagreed, but the committee voted to send five more divisions to Gallipoli. In France, Sir Henry Wilson raged: “That makes 9 there and 22 here, and not a single Boche facing the 9. How they will laugh in Berlin.” In any event there was no doubt that Britain was betting heavily on Gallipoli. Hamilton’s army now numbered 120,000 troops. Surely he could break through.140

  He didn’t. An old military maxim runs: “Never reinforce failure.” That is how Hamilton used his fresh troops. Churchill telegraphed him, urging a landing on the Bulair Isthmus. Hamilton, obsessed with logistics and matériel, replied that he doubted his troops were capable of the effort, or that it could succeed under the best of conditions. His troops, bogged down, fought, not only Turks, but also summer flies. Discipline grew lax; the men grumbled that they were victims of “the politicians.” Hamilton wired the War Office that he needed ninety-five thousand more men to provide “the necessary superiority.”141 Kitchener told him that Gallipoli had had its chance, and the Dardanelles Committee, to Winston’s alarm, began to consider evacuating the peninsula. Whatever the problems in the east, Churchill said, the west was not the answer. In September the first troops of Kitchener’s army went over the top in France to capture the village of Loos and the high ground a mile beyond. After two days fifteen thousand English and Scottish soldiers had been killed and the German wire was intact. Churchill searched the map again, and, the following month, when Bulgaria entered the war as a German ally, drew up a four-point plan of attack to open a broad Balkan front from the Aegean, offering opportunities for movement and thrusts.

  It was rejected. Churchill’s theories of war, Aitken concluded, were “so hare-brained that it would be humorous if the lives of men were things to joke about, or, I might add, to trifle with.” Even Violet Asquith, who defended him passionately, rated him “a guided gambler.” In fact, his military thought was on a plane so extraordinary that others simply could not grasp it. In his multivolume history of the Great War he dwelt upon the significance of maneuver, which, he wrote, may assume many forms, “in time, in diplomacy, in mechanics, in psychology.” Only when military and political thought were joined could leaders discover “easier ways, other than sheer slaughter, of achieving the main purpose.” As he conceived of it, the “distinction between politics and strategy diminishes as the point of view is raised. At the summit true politics and strategy are one.”142 Thus the internal political complexes of the Balkan states, in his mind, were linked to events on all European battlefields. Because these states were politically weak, the opportunities were there and should be seized. Others, lacking his imaginative grasp, dismissed him as superficial. Actually, he was plumbing depths whose very existence was unsuspected by them.

  And so the achievements his genius might have wrought were irrevocably lost. His credibility had shrunk as Hamilton’s prospects for victory faded. Once more he was being blamed for a plan that had not been his. Accustomed to respect and even deference, he now had to endure slights which, less than a year ago, would have been unthinkable. Balfour recalled Fisher from Scotland and appointed him chairman of the Admiralty’s Committee on Inventions and Research. Churchill angrily wrote Asquith: “Fisher resigned his office without warning or parley…. You ordered Fisher to return to his post in the name of the King. He paid no attention to yr order. You declared that he had deserted his post in time of war; & the facts are not open to any other construction. For ten days or more the country was without a First Sea Lord as Fisher did not even do his duty till his successor was appointed.” To Balfour he added: “All this must be viewed in relation to a very old man.” He decided not to send the letter, but made his views known to the prime minister through a mutual friend. It didn’t matter. His protest was ignored. The next week Kitchener suggested that he make an official trip to the Dardanelles and Gallipoli. Winston was delighted. Since all British positions on the peninsula were within range of Turkish artillery, he took out a new insurance policy, giving him £10,300 coverage. In addition he held £1,000 in Witbank Collieries stock. He explained all this in a letter to Clementine, to be delivered in the event of his death, and told her where she could find the “complete” Admiralty papers documenting his record. “There is no hurry,” he wrote, “but some day I shd like the truth to be known. Randolph will carry on the lamp. Do not grieve for me too much. I am a spirit confident of my rights. Death is only an incident, & not the most important wh happens to us in this state of being. On the whole, especially since I met you my darling one I have been happy, & you have taught me how noble a woman’s heart can be. If there is anywhere else I shall be on the look out for you. Meanwhile, look forward, feel free, rejoice in life, cherish the children, guard my memory. God bless you. Good bye. W.”143

  Kitchener suggested that Hankey accompany him, and it was agreed. The King sent word to him that he was “glad to hear” of his mission. A warm note arrived from Grey. Winston spent a final Sunday with the family at Hoe Farm. Then, after the cabinet meeting had broken up Monday morning, Asquith, Kitchener, and Grey gathered around to wish him a fond farewell. At that point a Tory minister unexpectedly returned and asked where Churchill was going. Told, he made a beeline for Bonar Law. The upshot was that the Conservatives opposed the trip. Asquith again caved in rather than, as he told Churchill, face “any serious division of opinion.” Lord Curzon, one of the Tories who had protested, wrote Winston that “we shared a doubt as to the reception that public opinion might give to such an act, for which the Govt would be held collectively responsible.” The unkindest cut came from Kitchener. The reason he had asked Hankey to go along, he said, was that he thought someone should watch Churchill. After discussing the Tory veto with K of K, Lord Esher wrote in his diary: “He laughed over it a good deal and admitted that he would not have been sorry to get rid of Winston for a while.” News of this reached Churchill. The message to him was clear. He wasn’t wanted. He wasn’t even trusted.144

  If others had doubts about forcing the Narrows, British submarine commanders didn’t. They slipped in and out, roaming the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea and sinking Turkish ships within sight of Constantinople. Because of them, enemy troops were chronically short of ammunition. Nevertheless, the British learned from prisoners, aerial reconnaissance, and agents in Constantinople that Turkish reinforcements were pouring into Gallipoli. Hamilton wrung his hands. On October 16 he was sacked and General Sir Charles Monro, who had been fighting in France, replaced him. One of Monro’s first duties, the War Office told him, would be to determine whether or not the peninsula should be abandoned. Since he was an ardent Westerner, scornful of this theater, there could be little doubt about his decision. Churchill later called him “an officer of quick decision. He came, he saw, he capitulated.” Before he could take over, however, Roger Keyes made a last plea for a naval assault on the Narrows. He arrived in London on October 28 and converted Balfour and the sea lords. Churchill saw a sparkle of hope. “I believe,” he wrote, “we have been all these months in the position of the Spanish prisoner who languished for twenty years in a dungeon until one morning the idea struck him to push the door which had been open all the time.”145

  When Kitchener joined his proselytes, Keyes seemed to have won. Asquith, Balfour, and Kitchener gathered to plan “an abrupt naval coup de main upon the Straits.” But Balfour, hedging his bet, said the navy would act only if the army also attacked—which would require Monro’s approval—and Law threatened to resign unless the whole Turkish theat
er was shut down. After a communications breakdown between London and the Aegean, Kitchener personally visited the peninsula. He met Keyes aboard the Dartmouth. “Well, I have seen the place,” he said. “It is an awful place, and you will never get through.” Keyes asked what had changed his mind. K of K was vague, but it is a fair guess that Monro had decided him. Hamilton’s successor was on the scene now, spreading defeatism. Kitchener wired London that the Suvla and Anzac beachheads should be evacuated. Cape Helles would be held “for the time being.”146

  On November 6 the Dardanelles Committee was renamed the War Cabinet and Winston was excluded from it. It was time for him to go; past time. He had known it for weeks. Early in September he had asked Asquith for a field command, suggesting that a major general’s commission and the command of an army corps would be appropriate for someone with his knowledge and experience. The prime minister approached Kitchener, who said that he “would like to get rid of Churchill, but could not offend the Army.” Winston then proposed that he be appointed “Governor-General and Military Commander-in-Chief of British East Africa.” He felt sure he could raise an army of Africans. Balfour told Hankey and James Masterton-Smith, a veteran civil servant at the Admiralty, a version of this. Hankey entered it in his diary. Churchill, according to Balfour, had given Asquith “a scheme for attacking the Germans” in their African colonies “with armoured cars.” He added that perhaps if he succeeded in this, the “military objections to his [assuming] a high post of command would disappear. All this tickled Mr. Balfour so much that he positively pirouetted on one foot, looking very odd in his long frock coat, so that Masterton-Smith and I fairly roared with laughter.”147

  The laughingstock of the cabinet submitted his resignation on November 11. Asquith accepted it the next day. Not many mourned his departure. The Manchester Guardian was one; an editorial described it as “a great national loss, for in our opinion—though we dare say there are few who now share it—he had the best strategic sense in the Government…. There have been two opportunities of winning the war. One was last October before the fall of Antwerp, the other was this spring when a great effort by land and sea would have won through to Constantinople and saved us all of our troubles in the East now. Mr Churchill saw them both at the time and though his ideas were adopted, neither in Flanders nor in the East did they have anything like a fair chance.”148

  Churchill was without political office for the first time in ten years, and as was customary when ministers stepped down, he made a personal statement in the House of Commons—a privilege which had been withheld from him when he left the Admiralty. Later he expanded his remarks before the commission investigating the Turkish campaign. He denied that he had “foisted” a civilian plan upon “reluctant officers and experts.” He said: “You may condemn the men who tried to force the Dardanelles, but your children will keep their condemnation for those who did not rally to their aid.” In his peroration he cried: “Undertake no operation in the West which is more costly to us in life than to the enemy. In the East, take Constantinople. Take it by ships if you can. Take it by soldiers if you must. Take it by whichever plan, military or naval, commends itself to your military experts. But take it; take it soon; take it while time remains.” Asquith rose from the Treasury Bench to acknowledge his departure briefly. He praised him as “a wise counsellor, a brilliant colleague, and a faithful friend,” but did not mention his own role in the Dardanelles decisions. His daughter, who had watched from the gallery, wrote Winston “one line to say I thought your speech quite flawless—I have seldom been more moved…. Is there anything you haven’t got for the Front? Compass? Luminous wristwatch? Muffler & Tinderlighter? If there is any lacuna in your equipment let me fill it.”149

  There was one, but she could do nothing about it. He needed a command. At the very least, he thought, he should be given a brigade, preferably in a division fighting Turks. He didn’t get one. It was fashionable that fall, in Parliament and the War Office, to deride him as an attitudinarian who had been a “mere subaltern.” In fact, his military qualifications were more substantial than that. He was a reserve major who had commanded the defense of Antwerp. As a young officer he had seen fighting in Cuba, India, the Sudan, and South Africa. Twice he had witnessed German war maneuvers, an advantage no one on the general staff shared. He had made a thorough study of the arts of war and had published five books on military subjects. His years as first lord ought to have counted for a great deal. “Instead,” as Max Aitken wrote afterward, “he was extruded from the centre of action by men of lesser ability and initiative, and his knowledge and his inventiveness of mind—all were wasted.”150 Asquith and Kitchener ignored his every appeal. In the end he had only his commission in the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars—that and his acquaintances among the redtabs in France, which, because of his genteel birth and public career, were several. He decided to join his regiment in France. There, at least, he would be among friends. He would see what else he could manage along the way.

  On Tuesday, November 16, he held a farewell luncheon at 41 Cromwell Road, inviting Goonie, Nellie Hozier, Eddie Marsh, and Margot and Violet Asquith. Violet would later remember that “Clemmie was admirably calm and brave, the rest of us trying to ‘play up’ and hide our leaden hearts. Winston alone was at his gayest and his best and he and Margot held the table between them. They had always been an uneasy combination, as neither of them really enjoyed the other’s society and she could not forbear from rubbing in the evils which had followed in the wake of the coalition and reminding him that he had always wanted one. He made his stock reply, that we should have sought one, not in our hour of weakness but at a time of strength.” For the rest of the group, Violet thought, the lunch “was a kind of wake.”151

  Wednesday, Aitken arrived, bursting with energy, as always, and found “the whole household was upside down while the soldier-statesman was buckling on his sword.” He was also supervising the packing of cigars, port, vermouth, whiskey, camping equipment, and assorted creature comforts. “Downstairs,” Aitken saw, “Mr ‘Eddie’ Marsh, his faithful secretary, was in tears…. Upstairs, Lady Randolph was in a state of despair at the idea of her brilliant son being relegated to the trenches. Mrs Churchill seemed to be the only person who remained calm, collected and efficient.” On Thursday, Major Churchill crossed the Channel aboard a regular steamer to Boulogne, where, to his surprise, a car had been sent by Sir John French to meet him. After reporting to his regiment, he joined the BEF’s commander in chief for dinner at Saint-Omer “in a fine château,” he wrote home, “with hot baths, beds, champagne & all the conveniences.” French received him warmly; his own position had become highly precarious, and he could empathize with the fallen Churchill. More generous than Asquith or the War Office, he offered him a choice between serving here as an ADC or commanding a brigade. “The brigade,” Winston instantly replied. It was settled that he would first spend a training period with the Grenadier Guards. He wrote home: “Midnight. My dearest soul—(this is what the gt d of Marlborough used to write from the low countries to his cat) All is vy well arranged… but as I do not know to wh battalion I am to be sent, I cannot tell the rota in wh we shall go into the trenches.”152

  Approaching the front in that war was a shocking experience. Winston hadn’t been in the field in fifteen years, and he had never seen anything like this. He was a middle-aged man, accustomed to indulgence, whose skin felt unchafed only when caressed by silk. There would be none of that here. On Saturday he lunched at La Gorgue and learned that he had been attached to the grenadiers’ Second Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George “Ma” Jeffreys, the only surviving officer of the original battalion which had gone into action here in 1914. They would be reentering the line that night in front of Merville, near Neuve Chappelle, one of the many villages, like Ypres, Bullecourt, and Messines, whose very names had become symbols for the suffering here. He was driven part of the way toward the thundering artillery and then proceeded on foot with Jeffreys�
�s sweating, heavy-laden, sleepy-eyed headquarters staff. “It was a dull November afternoon,” he would write in the March 1924 issue of Nash’s Pall Mall. “An icy drizzle fell over the darkening plain. As we approached the line, the red flashes of the guns stabbed the sombre landscape on either side of the road, to the sound of an intermittent cannonade.” After nearly four hours they reached battalion headquarters, “a pulverized ruin called Ebenezer Farm,” where they were provided with rations and “strong tea with condensed milk”—not his idea of liquid refreshment.153

  Jeffreys greeted him coldly: “I think I ought to tell you that we were not at all consulted in the matter of your coming to us.” Winston respectfully replied that the decision had not been his; he ventured to say it would work; in any case they must make the best of it. After a long, hostile silence, the adjutant said: “I am afraid we have had to cut down your kit rather, Major. There are no communication trenches here. We are doing all our reliefs over the top. The men have little more than what they stand up in. We have found a servant for you, who is carrying a spare pair of socks and your shaving gear. We have had to leave the rest behind.” Churchill said that was “quite all right”; he was sure he would be “very comfortable.”154

  No one spoke to him again as they moved up. He felt, he said afterward, “like a new boy at school in charge of the Headmaster, the monitors, and the senior scholars.” He knew why; every British soldier in France was bitter about the reinforcements which had been sent to Gallipoli, and he, of course, was to blame for that. At length they leapt over a parapet and rushed into the front-line trenches. There he was given his choice of sleeping quarters for the night, a signal office eight feet square, stiflingly hot, and occupied by four busy Morse signalers, and a dugout two hundred yards away. Having “surveyed” the signal room, he asked for directions to the dugout and was led there. It turned out, he later recalled, to be “a sort of pit four feet deep containing about one foot of water.” It was there, in the mud of Flanders, trapped in a deadlock he had tried so hard to break, that he learned the outcome of his hopes in the east. It came in a scrawled postscript to a letter from Clementine: “Large posters just out:—TROOPS WITHDRAWN FROM DARDANELLES—OFFICIAL.” After 213,980 British casualties, the evacuation of Gallipoli had begun. It would continue through December into January. Not a man fell in winding down the operation. Virtually all future losses would be here on the western front, where no end was in sight.155