In his spare time, Churchill had been preparing his book The River War, reading scores of accounts and histories of the Sudan, and attempting in his writing “a combination of the styles of Macaulay and Gibbon, the staccato antithesis of the former and the rolling sentences and genitival endings of the latter; and I stuck in a bit of my own from time to time.” On his way home, he made friends with G. W. Steevens, a brilliant young journalist writing for the recently launched Daily Mail, a contact with the Harmsworth press that was to be of use. Steevens had just published the iconic With Kitchener to Khartoum and happily read Churchill’s proofs and offered advice. Steevens wrote him up in the Daily Mail as “The Youngest Man in Europe,” crediting him with almost superhuman powers that would sweep him into Parliament and high office. Stopping off in Cairo, Churchill was able to meet some of the leading actors in the recent Sudan war, and even had his manuscript commented upon by Lord Cromer, Britain’s consul general in Egypt.
Taking a leap in the dark, Churchill resigned from the army in spring 1899. He was playing for high stakes, and risk was therefore inevitable. Jennie Churchill, as usual, helped all she could, and “during this vivid summer my mother gathered constantly around her table politicians of both parties, and leading figures in literature and art, together with the most lovely beings on whom the eye could beam.” Churchill was selected to contest a parliamentary seat in a special election in Oldham in July 1899 and threw himself into traveling and speech making on the campaign trail. He realized that the old methods of electioneering would no longer do and that politicians needed to reach out to an audience and seek to make a distinctive impression on the public mind: Churchill remained into old age intensely interested in what people thought of him, his speeches and actions. He espoused the cause of “Tory Democracy,” claiming that the main aim of government should be to improve the lot of the British people. He also believed that MPs should be paid, that there should be a system of progressive income tax, and that the size of the army should be limited—the army, as it stood, was sufficient to protect the interests of a maritime power whose security rested on salt water and the world’s most powerful navy.
Despite a good campaign, he was in his own words “well beaten” at the polls, failing to hold what had been a Conservative seat. “Then came the recriminations which follow every kind of defeat. Everyone threw the blame on me. I have noticed that they nearly always do. I suppose it is because they think I shall be able to bear it best.”81 Thus wrote Churchill much later on, evincing a tendency to magnify the scale of the obstacles he had to overcome, and casting himself in the role of an outsider struggling to get on. The result was not a great surprise, because the government was then in the kind of midterm doldrums that make special elections ideal for those seeking to vent their displeasure toward an incumbent administration. While receiving congratulations from party grandees such as Balfour and Chamberlain, there was a flicker of his future defiance of the party whip as Churchill inveighed against the government’s Clerical Tithes Bill. But despite this sign of things to come, Churchill had impressed by his performance and his graciousness in defeat.
The experience was a political beginning, and meanwhile Churchill completed the manuscript of The River War. It was a much more ambitious book than The Story of the Malakand Field Force in its sweep of historical context, its reportage, and its pronouncements on the conduct of the war. It was published in the spring of 1899, only a year after his Malakand book had appeared, representing a truly prodigious literary turnover. It immediately became the standard work on the subject, running to 950 pages over two volumes. In it, Churchill showed a characteristic, though at the time uncommon, capacity for empathizing with the enemy. “Why should we regard as madness what we would find sublime in civilized men?” he wrote of the determination and spirit of the Dervishes. He openly censured the army commander, the famous Kitchener, despite his status as a national hero. Not everyone liked it, though the wind blew strongly in his favor. On the negative side, the Saturday Review considered both of Churchill’s military narratives “ponderous and pretentious” and wrote that “the annoying feature in the book is the irrepressible egoism of its author. . . . The airs of infallibility he assumes are irritating.” Read today, the book’s mature and assured style retains freshness and relevance. The Prince of Wales praised the book, and the prime minister, to whom it was dedicated, summoned the author to Downing Street. It was a notable triumph for a young man and greatly aided Churchill’s relentless campaign to get his name “before the public,” a public that, as he fully appreciated, carried votes in their pockets following the electoral reforms of the 1880s. As luck would have it, a situation now arose that not only returned Churchill to the colors and to Fleet Street, but made him famous throughout the world.
The South African War
“25 years old, about 5 ft 8 in tall, average build, walks with a slight stoop, pale appearance, red brown hair, almost invisible small moustache, speaks through the nose, cannot pronounce the letters, cannot speak Dutch.” This, according to Boer forces trying to capture him, was the fin de siècle Winston Churchill. The collision between the British government and the Boer Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal had been coming on for years, foreshadowed most dramatically by the First Anglo-Boer War of 1880–81 and the infamous Jameson Raid of 1895. The British claimed suzerainty across the whole of southern Africa; heedless of this, the Boer Republics proclaimed their independence and nursed a deep hostility to British encroachments. With inflexible attitudes and stony personalities presiding on all sides, “the atmosphere,” as Churchill put it, “gradually but steadily became tense, charged with electricity, laden with the presage of a storm.”82
As soon as the Boer ultimatum to the British to withdraw their forces from the frontiers of the republics had expired, Churchill was appointed principal war correspondent by the Morning Post. “£250 a month, all expenses paid, entire discretion as to movements and opinions, four months’ minimum guaranteed employment—such were the terms; higher, I think than any previously paid in British journalism to war correspondents, and certainly attractive to a young man of twenty-four with no responsibilities but to earn his own living.” Churchill, using his connections, sought and received an audience with the colonial secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, himself before heading off. The ship on which he sailed with his extensive gear and five dozen bottles of champagne and brandy, the Dunottar Castle, also carried the new commander in chief, General Sir Redvers Buller, and his headquarters staff. On board, the consensus was that it would all be over before they arrived, another colonial jolly against amateurs (albeit white ones this time) that couldn’t even wait until Christmas to be over. Though no longer in the army (but still a territorial soldier), Churchill became deeply involved in the conflict after his arrival on October 31, 1899. He obtained a commission in the Lancashire Hussars and sailed for Durban and the war’s most active front. Against an underestimated enemy that was motivated, well led, well organized, well armed, and that knew the country, the war went from bad to worse for the British in its opening stages. Churchill found it strange to be fighting against European settlers and, importantly, came to sympathize with the Boer desire for independence.
Churchill’s intention was to get to Ladysmith, where his old friend Sir Ian Hamilton was stationed. But the Boers had cut off the rail link on the Tugela River and laid siege to most of Natal’s defenders within the town. He therefore waited at Estcourt, from where cavalry patrols issued forth scouting for the enemy, sometimes riding almost within sight of besieged Ladysmith. The commanding officer decided to add the weight of an armored train to their operations along the sixteen miles of intact railway. Thus an armored train containing a company of the Dublin Fusiliers and a company of the Durban Light Infantry, together with a naval gun, set out on November 15, 1899, under Captain Aylmer Haldane, whom Churchill knew from the Tirah episode. Looking for newsworthy action, Churchill offered to join the column, and Haldane gladly
accepted.
The lumbering train presented a tempting target to the Boers. By the simple expedient of placing an obstacle on the track, it was ambushed. Churchill, though strictly a noncombatant, showed great endeavor, initiative, and bravery in trying to rescue the situation. The halted and partially derailed train acted as cover for the troops as they vainly returned the heavy fire of a large Boer force overlooking the railway cutting. Churchill took the leading role in attempting to remove the blockage on the line so as to enable the train to get moving. Altogether, an hour and ten minutes were spent under fire. Churchill was instrumental in seeing the damage partly righted, allowing the engine and some of the force, including forty wounded, to escape. But he was not so lucky. Encountering two Boers on the line who fired several shots at him, Churchill scrambled up out of the cutting, determined to make for the cover of a nearby river. But his luck ran out, and he was captured by a mounted Boer after losing his pistol. This was in some ways fortunate, and as he was marched off into captivity, Churchill managed to rid himself of two clips of ammunition, a vital precaution if he were to be taken seriously as a noncombatant, a status that, Churchill earnestly hoped, would secure his early release.
Thus began a celebrated interlude as a prisoner of war, spent at the State Model School in Pretoria. The news of his capture spread around the world, for he bore a famous name and was already well known for his military and literary exploits. The Boers were aware of the part played by Churchill in the action, and were disinclined to grant him noncombatant status. Besides, such a well-known figure might act as a useful bargaining counter. Boer intransigence might have been a considerable hindrance to the onward march of Winston Churchill. Indeed, it might have represented a history-changing full stop, for some of his captors wanted Churchill shot for bearing arms. As it was, the episode created another ladder up which his reputation could scramble, providing prominence far beyond his years and a taste of international celebrity.
An escape scheme was hatched by Churchill, Haldane, and another inmate. All did not go according to plan, however, and Churchill broke out on his own, garnering retrospective admiration on the one hand and a measure of lingering disapproval on the other. (Should he not have waited to escape with his brother officers? Did not his solitary escape make their subsequent attempts more difficult?) The reaction to Churchill’s solo flight illustrated the price he had to pay for his thrusting ways. It ruffled feathers, particularly of his elders and betters as he overtook them. Anything that could be used to label him “unreliable,” such as his father’s reputation or his failure to escape with his brother officers, was taken up by his detractors. (A cumulative mass of disapproval accompanied Churchill throughout his life, until his role in the Second World War cleaned the slate for all but his most ardent opponents.) The issue of his escape dogged him for decades to come, though it is difficult to sustain the view that Churchill did anything particularly wrong. When he went over the wire, he waited for a long time on the other side, at risk of discovery, for the others to follow him, even conversing through the wall with one of the inmates. In the end, he had little choice but to go on; he could hardly break back in. If anything, Churchill was “guilty” of getting on with it while others dithered, and of looking after number one, necessary qualities in war as in politics.
Anyway, escape he did, and Churchill was soon at large in the midst of the enemy’s capital city. He knew that the alarm would be raised by daybreak at the latest. His plan, therefore, was to stow away aboard a train to Delagoa Bay in neutral Portuguese East Africa and from there rejoin British forces. He climbed aboard a goods train, where he slept among empty coal sacks and trusted to his luck. Waking before daybreak, he jumped from the still-moving train and set out on foot for nearby hills. Sheltering among some trees to wait for night to fall, he was kept company by a gigantic vulture, “who manifested an extravagant interest in my condition, and made hideous and ominous gurglings from time to time.”83 By this time, the initial elation of escape had evaporated, and he was hungry and unsure of what to do. Resolving to approach an African village that was visible by firelight, it became apparent as he approached that it was in fact a group of stone houses. He was greeted, at first suspiciously, by an English mine manager, John Howard, who readily agreed to help him hide from the inevitable pursuit (a £25 dead-or-alive reward had been placed on his head, so anxious were the Boers to retrieve their famous captive) and then to make good his escape. This involved lying low in a mine shaft for a number of days in rat-infested darkness, fed and supported by English miners, including one from Oldham who assured him they’d all vote for him next time around (referring to his recent special-election defeat). Churchill whiled away the tedious and nerve-racking days reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped.
Churchill’s protectors soon smuggled him aboard a train loaded with wool and bound for Delagoa Bay. Meanwhile, as he awaited events that December 1899, newspapers around the world speculated about his whereabouts. When the train entered Portuguese territory, Churchill’s elation overflowed. He whooped aloud and fired shots into the air. By late afternoon, the train had reached Lourenço Marques. There one of the miners was waiting for him and led him surreptitiously to the British consulate, where Churchill noisily announced himself.
Soon word was out: the captive Churchill had made it through to friendly lines. His dramatic escape occurred at a time when the British public, reared on a rich diet of imperial heroes and easily defeated native foes, was being starved. The Boer War was producing little but defeats and casualties, so there was a vacancy for a hero. “The news of my arrival had spread like wildfire through the town,” and armed Englishmen arrived at the consulate to resist any recapture attempted by local Boers. He was marched through the streets and promptly put on the weekly steamer to Durban, where he arrived “to find myself a popular hero.”84 Bands, flags, and crowds lined the wharf. The mayor, an admiral, and a general waited to greet him, and he was carried shoulder-high to the town hall, where a speech was demanded and duly delivered. Yet even at this moment of euphoria, distaste and dislike continued to afflict him. As he later recalled, he received a cable from England that simply stated, “Best friends here hope you won’t go making further ass of yourself.”85
Churchill was never one to let the grass grow under his feet, and, deciding to remain in South Africa, he soon rejoined the army. As he put it, “Youth seeks Adventure, Journalism requires Advertisement. Certainly I had found both. I became for the time quite famous.”86 Interviewed by General Sir Redvers Buller himself, Churchill asked for a commission in one of the irregular corps. Buller was concerned about his status as a war correspondent, as his past elision of these roles in India and the Sudan had led to considerable criticism. Buller mulled over this thorny problem, pacing around the room. “Then at last he said: ‘All right. You can have a commission in Bungo’s regiment. You will have to do as much as you can for both jobs. But,’ he said, ‘you will get no pay for ours.’”87
Thus Churchill became a lieutenant in the South African Light Horse, a regiment of over seven hundred mounted men with a battery of galloping Colt machine guns, raised by Colonel “Bungo” Byng. “I stitched my badges of rank to my khaki coat and stuck the long plume feathers from the tail of the sakabula bird in my hat, and lived from day to day in perfect happiness.”88 With this unit, Churchill was present at the tragic defeat at Spion Kop, passing messages between the headquarters of Sir Charles Warren and Colonel Thorneycroft at the top of the hill. He also had the feathers in his hat trimmed by an enemy bullet. His regiment had frequent skirmishes with the Boers, and Churchill dispatched a continuous stream of letters and cables to the Morning Post “and learned from them that all I wrote commanded a wide and influential public.” His reports reflected not only the conduct of the war, but also the broader political and strategic aspects, such as how best to treat with vanquished foes in order to secure harmonious relations once victory had been won. His forthright views on the war were, on the who
le, well founded (as time would tell), though they attracted criticism from those who thought them “disloyal” or badly timed. But Churchill had the conviction to stick to his guns. As he was later to advocate in Ireland, and again during the General Strike, while enemies had to be conquered, their grievances had then to be met. This opinion became one of his several differences with the Conservative Party for whom he was soon to become a member of Parliament, presaging the manner in which his liberal, indeed Liberal, tendencies would eventually lead to a clash with the party of his father and his kin.
Churchill enjoyed this phase of the war, roaming where he chose, filing reports and joining in various actions. “One lived entirely in the present with something happening all the time. Care-free, no regrets for the past, no fears for the future; no expenses, no duns, no complications, and all the time my salary was safely piling up at home!”89 Adding to Churchill’s pleasure in these months was the presence of his brother, Jack,, and soon his mother serving aboard a hospital ship.
Churchill was present at the relief of Ladysmith, riding into the town as the siege was lifted. After this, and impatient to get to what was becoming the main crucible of war as Lord Roberts advanced from Cape Colony toward the Orange Free State, Churchill obtained leave from the South African Light Horse and attempted to join Roberts’s army. He spent a pleasant few days in Cape Town while he awaited the completion of the formalities, meeting the high commissioner, Sir Alfred Milner, and, with his aide-de-camp the Duke of Westminster, hunting jackal with foxhounds beneath Table Mountain. An obstacle had arisen, and it transpired that the block was the commander in chief himself; Roberts’s chief of staff, Lord Kitchener, had taken exception to a passage in The River War in which Churchill had openly criticized Britain’s most exalted military hero, and Roberts did not want to upset him by favoring its author (Churchill had roundly criticized Kitchener for callousness toward enemy wounded on the battlefield and had deplored the desecration of the mahdi’s tomb). Roberts had his own grievance to boot, following a Morning Post column in which Churchill criticized an eve-of-battle sermon preached by an army chaplain, touching a raw religious nerve. So, too, it later transpired, did General French, naturally disapproving of “the hybrid combination of a junior officer and widely followed war correspondent.” Nevertheless, Churchill’s friends carried the day, though he had to accept a ticking off from the commander in chief’s military secretary. In the end, Churchill was told, Roberts decided to take him “for your father’s sake.”90
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