As a result of their work and the government’s attitude toward it, both Churchill and Professor Lindemann were co-opted onto a new committee looking at air defense. The air minister had asked for Lindemann’s views, and the committee was established under Sir Henry Tizard. Lindemann promptly exposed the more dislikable qualities for which he was known, demanding a body with direct access to the Committee of Imperial Defence. Churchill appealed to the prime minister along the same lines. The result was the creation of the Air Defence Research Committee. These committees were instrumental in providing Britain with radar cover against enemy aircraft by the time the Second World War commenced. Involvement also gave Churchill valuable knowledge that aided his understanding of the technicalities of aerial defense during the Battle of Britain.
In such ways, Churchill remained an important national figure in touch with official circles, not a spurned soothsayer wandering in the wilderness. He was a friend of important government ministers, and his advice was sought, though less frequently than it was offered. His continental holidays also afforded him access to ministers—in the south of France, for example, he saw a good deal of Anthony Eden (and formed what was to be a lasting impression about his limitations: when Eden was appointed foreign secretary in December 1935, Churchill wrote that the appointment “does not inspire me with confidence. I expect the greatness of his office will find him out”).28 He held countless meetings and lunches and engaged in voluminous correspondence with central government figures. Shortly before the First Lord of the Admiralty, Duff Cooper, resigned in protest over Chamberlain’s Czechoslovakia policy (October 1938), Churchill had visited him and denounced the prime minister’s actions. He suggested that Germany be told that war would follow should Hitler set foot in Czechoslovakia. To make such a threat credible, Churchill claimed, Britain would need close collaboration with Russia. He constantly returned to the point that Hitler would not be stopped by empty threats; military might had to be thrown into the balance.
Though critical of the government, Churchill supported its efforts to rearm, and his involvement with the Air Defence Research Committee led him to believe that his breach with Baldwin was healed, to such an extent that he was disappointed not to be brought back into government. There were growing calls for this to happen, coming from various quarters. All in all, as the decade developed, Churchill was immensely busy on numerous fronts. As he wrote in July 1937, “I am overwhelmed with work. Three days HofC last week: the new book in its final birth throes: articles, & always Marlborough: & now ahead on Tuesday next another debate on Inskip’s salary. I really don’t know how I find all that I need, but the well flows freely: only the time is needed to draw the water from it.”29 His energy and capacity for work were undiminished. As he recorded a few weeks later, “I am working night & day and the progress on M is enormous—I have done nearly 20,000 words this week alone.”
The most dramatic parliamentary action of the period surrounded the so-called appeasement policy pursued by Neville Chamberlain, who succeeded Baldwin as prime minister in May 1937 (Churchill seconding his nomination as party leader). Eden’s resignation from the government in February of the following year signaled a new offensive against the government’s policy. When Eden and Cranborne announced their resignations to the House of Commons, Churchill cheered so enthusiastically that a livid scar originating from his American motor accident blazed on his forehead. Churchill did not just blame Chamberlain and his government for the appeasement of Germany, but also their predecessors in the early 1930s. As he wrote on January 10, 1938, the problem took root in the years 1932 to 1935, “when Ramsay, Baldwin and Simon would never make friends with Germany, nor prevent her rearming. A thousand years hence it will be incredible to historians that the victorious Allies delivered themselves over to the vengeance of the foe they had overcome.”30
Having annexed Austria in March 1938, a year later Hitler invaded the rump of Czechoslovakia, sparking great revulsion in Britain. Churchill turned his attention to forming a European security alliance. He urged the creation of a Grand Alliance and the issuing of strong statements of condemnation and warning from Britain, France, and Russia. Such an alliance, resting “upon the Covenant of the League of Nations,” might “even now arrest this approaching war.”31 There were shouts in the Commons for his immediate return to Cabinet, the great warrior-statesman saluted once more as the prospect of war loomed. But within the Cabinet, the old fear that he would dominate remained. As prime minister, Chamberlain liked to exert much stronger control than had been the case under Baldwin. There were also those in the House who were unimpressed by Churchill’s parliamentary interventions during this period. George Lansbury complained of his habit of walking in, making his speech, and walking out, leaving “the whole place as if God Almighty had spoken.”32 He also received criticism from his constituency because of his views on the European situation and his criticism of the government. He voted with the Opposition on November 17, 1938, on a motion for the creation of a Ministry of Supply, the first time he had voted against the government (as opposed to abstaining) since the India Bill in 1935.
Showing how far removed from government policy his views were, Churchill advocated turning over sectors of the economy to war production. Chamberlain, with sound economic logic, believed this would be financially ruinous and that war could be prevented, and was desperate to avoid any suggestion that Britain was adopting a warlike, or defensive, mindset. Appeasement was the order of the day. But as events were to show, Churchill was right—Hitler was unstoppable, and the British would have to devote their lives to war in order to overcome him. As he said in the House in March 1938, “For five years I have talked to the House on these matters—not with very great success. I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which leads to the dark gulf.”33 There is no doubt that Churchill did all that he could to prepare the country for war, warning again and again, providing the most informed and detailed arguments to support his case, always seeking to get the British people and their leaders to face the facts. As he told the Commons in his lengthy and excellent speech damning the Munich Agreement, “We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude which has befallen Great Britain and France. Do not let us blind ourselves to that. . . . We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat. . . . Do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup that will be proffered to us year by year.”34 With his unique transatlantic sensors, at this moment of impending disaster Churchill reached out to the people of America. In a radio broadcast in October 1938, he praised their percipient view of the emerging European crisis but warned them that it would affect them, too: “We are left in no doubt where American conviction and sympathies lie: but will you wait until British freedom and independence have succumbed, and then take up the cause when it is three-quarters ruined, yourselves alone?”35
With hindsight, it is clear that Churchill’s most valuable asset over the crucial winter of 1938–39 was his isolation. The position of wise counselor spurned augmented his appeal to those opposed to the government’s policy. But at the time, Churchill rued his powerlessness. Despite this, and the fact that in the eyes of people such as Harold Nicolson he was “becoming an old man,” the fire remained. Churchill continued his frenetic activity, using the Focus group, public and private meetings, and personal letters. In the summer of 1938, his regular columns in the Daily Telegraph added power to his point of view. In that year, alarm mounted as the Czech crisis unfolded and the fleet was mobilized. Given the situation, Churchill canceled what would have been a lucrative American lecture tour because he believed the situation in Europe was so grave. Though there were calls for him to be readmitted to the Cabinet, this was by no means the overwhelming desire of the House. At the time of the Munich Agreement (September 29, 1938), most Tories still shunned him, as did the Opposition, and loyalty to Chamberlain remained so
lid. But Churchill and his growing band of supporters viewed the Munich Agreement as an act of shame. In the post-Munich vote on the Liberal motion calling for the creation of a Ministry of Supply, Churchill appealed to fifty Tories to join him; two did. He was criticized for attacking the prime minister, who made a memorable reference to Churchill’s lack of judgment. But Churchill paid Chamberlain out. Chamberlain said that Churchill had “many brilliant qualities,” but if anyone were to ask him if he had good judgment, “I should have to ask the House of Commons not to press me too far.”36 Churchill’s retort: “I will gladly submit my judgment about foreign affairs and national defense during the last five years, in comparison with his own.”
Churchill spent Christmas 1938 at Blenheim. Early in the new year, he wrote a series of letters advising Chamberlain, who did not welcome Churchill’s barrage. As he wrote to his sister, “Churchill the worst of the lot—telephoning almost every hour of the day. I suppose he has prepared a terrific oration which he wants to let off.”37 Mussolini added to the sense of impending crisis when he invaded Albania on April 7, 1939. Calls for Churchill’s return to government mounted. Still he kept up his criticism of the government’s handling of affairs. He ridiculed the fact that trenches dug in London’s parks had filled with water, requiring guards in order to prevent people from drowning in them. There was muddle in the air raid precautions and a complete absence of drive and leadership. Chamberlain, he wrote to Clementine, didn’t know “a tithe of the neglects for which he is responsible.”
At this time, Churchill was unique in his ability to communicate, not only to informed observers but also to the general public, that he knew what to do and had both the confidence and resolve to do it. His hope of returning to government was becoming increasingly realistic. He even felt that, given the extraordinary circumstances, he might have a chance of becoming prime minister. He was clear, however, that if he were to be offered the job, he would only accept if he were afforded powers “such as they have not dreamed of according.” Harold Macmillan recalled a visit to Chartwell at this time. He found Churchill thoroughly caught up in the momentous events that were unfolding. He bustled around searching for maps, demanding to know the dispositions of the fleet, and surrounded himself with phones and secretaries. “I shall always have a picture of that spring day and the sense of power and energy, the great flow of action, which came from Churchill, although he then held no public office. He alone seemed in command, when everyone else was dazed and hesitating.”38 Churchill was marshaling his toy soldiers again and sensing the return of war.
The mounting problem for Chamberlain was that after Munich, he depended on the agreement delivering tangible results and halting the march toward war. But it did not. Kristallnacht soon followed, and Hitler’s European ambitions remained undimmed, though in the spring of 1939, Chamberlain felt things were improving and his policies for dealing with the dictators yielding results. But if the government’s policies were to fail, it increasingly seemed as if Churchill was the only politician advocating an alternative approach. The German occupation of Prague in March 1939 buoyed Churchill’s stock as much as it diminished Chamberlain’s. Then Chamberlain guaranteed the integrity of Poland, drawing a line in the sand.
Halifax and the Foreign Office were moving away from Chamberlain’s policy, convinced now that Munich had only bought time and that war was coming. Events were working in Churchill’s favor, and with regular information coming from Halifax, the king was also moving toward acceptance of the position represented by Churchill and Eden. Churchill had become a beacon of resistance and reason. As General Ironside wrote after a visit to Chartwell, Churchill was “full of patriotism and ideas for saving the Empire. A man who knows you must act to win. You cannot remain supine and allow yourself to be hit indefinitely. Winston must be chafing at the inaction. I keep thinking of him walking up and down the room.”39 Chamberlain, who had some of Churchill’s telephones wiretapped, concluded that the best way of keeping him quiet was to dangle the prospect of a return to the Cabinet before him. In August 1939, while Chamberlain went fishing in Scotland, Churchill inspected the Maginot Line, voicing concern about the prospect of a German tank advance through the Ardennes, bypassing the defensive bulk of the line.
Beyond Politics
Churchill’s life in the 1930s appears less rarefied than popular mythology would have it if one considers his manifold activities beyond the political sphere. They provide vital background to his famous political endeavors. Even in the fateful year of 1938, he was absorbed in the construction of a cottage and the writing of his celebrated biography of the 1st Duke of Marlborough. Since August 1, he had been on a regime of two thousand words a day, only traveling to London for the occasional parliamentary debate (“200 bricks and 2,000 words a day” was a Churchill maxim when under full steam at Chartwell). He was living, he wrote, a life of “unbroken routine at Chartwell.” As well as writing, bricklaying, and pig breeding to occupy his time, there were honorific positions such as the chancellorship of Bristol University. With no official national political responsibilities, there was more time for painting, too, and about half of Churchill’s known works were produced during this decade. His writing was just as prolific, including numerous books and a massive output of articles. In 1930 alone, for instance, he wrote forty newspaper and magazine articles, over half of them for the Daily Telegraph. His press output for 1937 comprised sixty-four articles, thirty-three of them for the Evening Standard (a contractual arrangement terminated by Beaverbrook in 1938, when their political views diverged). With a seemingly limitless capacity for work and activity in disparate fields, Churchill even started converting classic novels and plays into newspaper articles. Authors abridged and repackaged include Shakespeare and Tolstoy. He was paid £300 per story; Eddie Marsh, his assistant, got £25 a piece for doing the donkey work. Churchill was never ashamed to write purely for money, subcontracting research assistance, as for his major historical works. His journalistic ventures included things like “Great Bible Stories Retold by the World’s Best Writers” for the Sunday Chronicle, and in early 1936, a series of articles for the News of the World on “Great Men of Our Time,” which became a book the following year entitled Great Contemporaries.
This was all remarkably lucrative work when added to the advances and transatlantic rights and royalties on his books, making him the most highly paid English author of his day. His major study of the origins and course of the First World War, The World Crisis, has been admired for its architectural power as well as its revelation of the thoughts and actions of a senior government minister intimately involved in the conflict. My Early Life appeared in 1930, a study in which the days of his youth were presented very much as a distant, dead epoch. It was written in order to pay the taxman, though it turned out to be one of his most admired works, with its endearing self-satirizing tone. In 1932, he accepted an advance for A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, another massive work, though one that was to be delayed by the war and not see publication until the 1950s (his history of the war taking priority when hostilities ended). In 1938, he published a series of speeches he’d given warning of the dangers of European and American unpreparedness in the face of the Nazi threat, called Arms and the Covenant in Britain and While England Slept in America.
To achieve all this, Churchill embarked on what became a lifelong practice—hiring help to write books. For Marlborough he recruited Maurice Ashley, a recent first-class graduate from Oxford, paid £300 a year for part-time research assistance. He also employed a colonel as military adviser. The contract for the biography of Marlborough, signed in 1929, was worth £10,000. In writing it, he was granted extensive access to the Marlborough papers at Blenheim by the 9th Duke. By the summer of 1933, he had produced 200,000 words and written 308 letters relating to the project. When Marlborough appeared in 1933, it was to critical acclaim. Importantly for Churchill’s reputation, it was generally well received among professional historians. Such a detailed study of
the life and times of the 1st Duke of Marlborough also helped develop Churchill’s education concerning grand alliances and the interactions of political leaders and military commanders.
Despite all of this revenue-generating activity, keeping the Churchill family in the manner to which it was accustomed was a very expensive business. Chartwell was Churchill’s aristocratic domain, and it cost money with its five reception rooms, nineteen bed and dressing rooms, nine indoor servants, nanny, two secretaries, chauffeur, three gardeners, bailiff, groom, and heated outdoor swimming pool. After a time without a London base, in 1936 Churchill also acquired a flat in Pimlico. For much of this period, he was badly in debt, adversely affected by vicissitudes such as the Wall Street Crash and the cancellation of Beaverbrook newspaper contracts. Capital losses caused by recession led to Chartwell being put up for sale, though Churchill was bailed out by Sir Henry Strakosch, who took over his American shares at the value he had paid for them (and upon his death in 1943 left Churchill £20,000).
In the 1930s, Chartwell was one of the most important houses in the world. As the meeting place of Churchill and his circle of friends, advisers, and clandestine informants, it became a major center of resistance to the Nazis. Here the group developed a viable alternative to the policy of the British government, supplied with intelligence from both inside and outside Parliament, and prepared the way for Churchill’s accession to the premiership. Approaching sixty-five, an age when most people retire and begin to lead quieter and more sedentary lives, Churchill was still in fifth gear, operating across a vast range of activities, from statesmanship to stockbreeding. His capacity to fit it all in, and to do so many things so very well, is what marked him out as unique.
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