Winston Churchill was wonderfully alive in so many ways and beguiles us still because of his communicable humanity as well as his achievements and extraordinary character. While many figures from the past remain black and white to all but their most intimate admirers, Churchill is cast in 3D Technicolor in the minds of millions, few of them experts. Phyllis Moir, Churchill’s secretary during his American tour of 1931, noticed his “exceptionally keen visual sense. . . . When he sees a beautiful woman, his face lights up with pleasure and admiration.” Scores of commentators have remarked upon the sheer fascination he attracted.
Churchill had a remarkably long life. In the year he was born, General Sir Garnet Wolseley defeated the Ashanti, and the Sultanate of Perak was added to the British Empire. In the year he died, the Beatles were introduced to LSD and given MBEs. His public life was also incredibly lengthy. By the time he retired from the premiership, it was fifty years since his first appointment to the Cabinet, and he had served under six sovereigns. As a young man, he met much older men in high positions whom he was later to work with on an equal footing or as their superior, such as French, Curzon, Milner, Kitchener, and Roberts. He overtook his seniors and outlasted juniors, such as Anthony Eden.
Because of his longevity, his social class, and the fact that—like the majority of people—he was something of a conservative, Churchill is far too often presented as a stick-in-the-mud, unable or unwilling to come to terms with the onward march of time. David Cannadine describes him as
a nineteenth-century personality living most of his life out of his own time. . . . [He] became disillusioned about a parliament elected on a mass franchise, he worried that the national will to rule was weakening . . . he looked back nostalgically to the settled social order and firmly grounded monarchies of his youth, and his elaborate, Victorian style of oratory seemed increasingly out of touch and out of date. In short, he did not adapt well to the changed circumstances of the twenties and thirties, and it pained him to see that there were others who did so much more easily. . . . [He] died a sad and disappointed man. . . . [D]espite his heroic efforts to prevent it, Britain ceased to be a great power or a great empire, crowns vanished and thrones tottered . . . and Chartwell was destined to go to the National Trust.15
This interpretation reflects a desperately ageist and teleological way of looking at things and focuses entirely on the negative. It appears to blame Churchill for getting old and conflates postwar British decline with Churchill’s. It also suggests that Churchill’s life was about nothing other than politics and national leadership, and fails to register his achievements in disparate other spheres, such as family, literature, and painting. Contrary to this image of Churchill as the disappointed, backward-looking conservative unable to adapt to the twentieth century, one could equally portray him as a modern man who embraced change and spurned the conventions of his time and his class. In contrast to the disappointed dinosaur tramping awkwardly through the mid-twentieth century, one might prefer to remember the irascible Churchill whooping it up on the Riviera in his sunset years, mixing with unconventional and racy people and the kind of “gangsters and crooks” that had led George VI and the establishment to so oppose his elevation to the premiership. One might further emphasize his fascination with new technology, with pioneering aviation, weapons systems, and nuclear energy. As opposed to disappointment, we might remember him as a pensioner painting in exotic locations and sucking pleasure out of life while still working as a mass-circulation pulp journalist and trendsetting historian.
What this common interpretation of Churchill’s “declining years” also fails to acknowledge is the fact that everyone who avoids an untimely death gets old and suffers physical and mental decline. It ignores the fact that most people become more conservative as they age and that the vast majority of people approaching ninety will inevitably spend time reflecting on the past and will probably not like contemporary pop music or the policies of the government of the day. In short, virtually everyone who survives beyond their three-score years and ten could be portrayed as backward looking and “unmodern”; to single Churchill out is unfair and unprofitable and ignores the surprising range of interests and activities he enjoyed in his sunset years. This view also insinuates that looking to the past or regretting some elements of change is inherently wrong. It is not. The bold fact is that even when approaching his eightieth birthday, Winston Churchill was Britain’s foremost politician, its leader by popular election. He was the most important international statesman seeking to prevent nuclear conflict and the most influential chronicler of twentieth-century history.
Some historians have found it necessary to attempt to moderate Churchill’s reputation and the high regard in which he is commonly held. This stems partly from the fact that too much praise has been heaped upon him because of his extraordinary role as a war leader and that he was the only British politician of the twentieth century to become an enduring national hero. But while Churchill did what he could to cement his reputation, it was not his fault that others made him into something superhuman. Acclaim for Churchill as a war leader “concealed the views of critics for whom he was at best a hero with feet of clay, and agnostics for whom he had never been a hero at all.”16 He had from childhood a powerful and unwavering belief in himself as a man of destiny. Throughout his career, his heroic self-image was “communicated to the world through a stupendous barrage of publicity in which oratory, journalism and history were all pressed into service.”17 But he was not a saint and cannot be judged as anything other than a man. It is also the case that anyone whose actions and words over many decades are subjected to forensic scrutiny will inevitably be found “guilty” on some accounts and that evidence will be found to support one disparaging case or another. But such endeavors have remarkably limited value, because they distort and decontextualize human affairs and often fail to spot the difference between things said in earnest and things said with a mischievous twinkle in the eye.
Balanced accounts, aided by the work of revisionists, have helped to remove some of the hagiography that surrounds Churchill’s life. Like an antique table stripped of its varnish, the natural material that this reveals is far more interesting. Balanced accounts remind us that Churchill’s reputation was more equivocal among contemporaries than the historical record has allowed, especially before the Second World War. “Churchill the racist, Churchill the social Darwinist, Churchill the glutton”—some biographers have been desperate to demythologize him, and this has led to “the revival, in fact, in different guise, of the unflattering portrait that was dominant before 1940.”18
Churchill possessed great abilities, including indestructible energy, remarkable eloquence, and a streak of genius, as well as some of the more amiable qualities of the mischievous schoolboy. But some people always preferred to dwell upon other aspects of his personality, portraying him as a shameless egotist, an opportunist without principles or convictions, an unreliable colleague, an erratic policy maker, and a reckless amateur strategist with a dangerous passion for war. But Churchill’s self-regarding, ruthless, and inconsiderate streaks were integral parts of his character, inseparable from any assessment of his performance as a national leader. His character also contained strong streaks of decency, patriotism, humanity, and courage, and these characteristics were better able to do their work because of the drive provided by his egotism. Andrew Roberts writes that Churchill “was a young man in a hurry who always broke the rules. It was the secret behind his greatness.” Geoffrey Best writes that “great men come in all kinds and colors, and are not the same thing as saints; a Gandhi or a Hammarskjöld would not have saved Britain (and more than Britain) in 1940.”19 In 1949, Isaiah Berlin described Churchill as “the savior of his country, a mythical hero who belongs to legend as much as to reality, the largest human being of our time. . . . Wherever he appeared, he cast fantastic shadows, a distorting effect that laid him open to myth-making of both a negative and a positive kind.”20 Paul Addison wrote that �
��Churchill himself changed little, but perceptions of him were transformed when late in life he overthrew a long-established critique of his strengths and weaknesses in favor of his own vision of himself as a man of destiny.”21 Capturing the manner in which Winston Churchill the sentient human being with blood coursing through his veins has differed from the historical image of Churchill “the greatest Briton,” Lord Moran wrote:
As one reads of these now-distant days, they seemed to be smoothed out, and as it were edited; the terrifically alive, pugnacious, impatient and impulsive Winston Churchill has been dressed up as a sagacious, tolerant elder statesman, pondering good-humouredly on the frailty of men and the part chance plays in their fluctuating fortunes. He himself once said that he was not designed by nature for that particular role.22
More than this, any final attempt to summarize Winston Churchill must capture how very different he was from other men. “This astonishing creature,” as Moran wrote, who “obeys no laws, recognizes no rules.”
Robert Rhodes James offers a brilliant summary of Churchill. He was
a genius, and such people are complicated, much larger than life, self-enfolded, hungry for power and fame, passionately ambitious, and often inconsiderate of others. In Churchill’s case these aspects were softened by his humanity, kindness and capacity as a conversationalist. . . . To de-humanize Churchill, to make him an all-wise automaton that poured out speeches, books, articles, and military decrees, does him no service at all. Indeed, it was his very humanity, his failures as well as his triumphs, his weaknesses as well as his strengths, that make him so fascinating.23
We can glimpse the great man in our mind’s eye, clambering over the rubble of a bombsite, brandishing a defiant “V” sign, or sitting up in bed with the contents of a dispatch box spilled around him, a parliamentary flourish forming in his mind and a lunchtime brandy in the offing. The memory of Winston Churchill has been attended by hundreds of accomplished servants, and his greatness has been resoundingly endorsed. Some commentators remain frustrated by the fact that Britons refuse to relinquish their memory of the Second World War, and with it their reverence for Churchill. But those interested in history need great men and momentous events to collide, and their stories need to be told. Churchill dominated British politics in an age shaped by industrial war and totalitarianism. Britain—now shorn of the power present when Churchill helmed the ship of state—is unlikely ever again to produce a statesman of such talent, controversy, longevity, and endless fascination.
Further Reading
When contemplating the preparation of a bibliography, it is often hard to resist the temptation to list all of the works that the author has consulted. But when the subject is the life of one of the world’s most famous people, a life that has inspired an enormous and ever-growing literature, there is little point in doing this. So here instead is a summary of the type of work available and some suggestions about extensive source lists.
First, there are of course the writings of Winston Churchill himself. They include books, some in multiple volumes, as well as collected essays and articles and collections of speeches. Authors such as Ronald Cohen, Charles Eade, Buckley Barrett, and Richard Langworth have produced extensive bibliographical guides, and it is to these that the reader should turn if he or she wants to make a systematic study of Churchill’s writings. Churchill’s own words are the natural place to start when studying the man. Many of his speeches were recorded and are readily available as audiobooks. Starting with the words of Churchill himself enables one to focus on what he said, as opposed to what others say he meant. Quotation books form a distinct category of published Churchill work, from tiny souvenir “wit and wisdom” volumes to exhaustive themed studies. In this vein, the Churchill Estate has launched a “famous quotes” application for mobile phones, and Richard Langworth has edited some definitive collections.
Moving on from Churchill’s own writings, there is the indispensable official biography, an unrivaled monument running to eight huge volumes and sixteen companion volumes. It is still not complete. Randolph Churchill was appointed his father’s official biographer but died after the first two volumes had been completed. Sir Martin Gilbert took over the job and produced the remaining volumes and the extensive companion volumes that accompany them. Another distinct area of Churchill material has been produced by members of his family, such as Mary Churchill, Minnie Churchill, Sarah Churchill, and Celia Sandys, or written about members of his family and shedding light upon his life, such as the biographies of Clementine Churchill, of his mother and father, Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill, and of Winston’s son, Randolph. There is also a study of the Churchill family en masse. Many books focus on Churchill’s relations with other people—Clementine, his brother (Jack), Lloyd George, Roosevelt, Hitler, Gandhi, Adenauer, de Gaulle, Beaverbrook, “the Prof” (Professor Frederick Lindemann), Stalin, Robert Menzies. Another distinct area of literature are the compilations written by Churchill’s contemporaries, produced during his life (such as the volume edited by Charles Eade) or upon his death (the Observer’s appreciation written by “his contemporaries”), or A. J. P. Taylor, Robert Rhodes James, J. H. Plumb, Basil Liddell Hart, and Anthony Storr’s appreciation of Churchill as statesman, politician, historian, military strategist, and as a psychiatric study.
There are then the general biographies that appear annually, written by the likes of Roy Jenkins, Richard Holmes, Michael Rose, William Manchester, John Charmley, Paul Addison, Henry Pelling, Geoffrey Best, Paul Johnson, and Piers Brendon. Added to these should be what one might call themed biographies, covering things such as Churchill’s life as a soldier, the “young Winston,” his time at the Colonial Office, his opposition to Bolshevism, and his attitudes toward and experiences of the British Empire. A particularly rewarding biographical approach is that which assembles in a single volume a host of Churchill experts writing about different aspects of his life (Lord Blake and William Roger Louis’s volume stands out).
Another distinct area of literature for those interested in the life of Winston Churchill is the books written about a particular topic upon which Churchill’s career impacted. Some of these books, while adopting the obvious marketing ploy of having “Churchill” in the title, actually have little to do with him, and the appearance of “Churchill and . . .” books is so common, one wouldn’t be surprised to come across Winston and the Argonauts or Winston Churchill and the Goblet of Fire. “Churchill and . . .” titles often relate to particular places—Blenheim, Chartwell, Harrow, Malta, Palestine, India, Finland, Spain, the Dardanelles, Ireland, America, Singapore. Or they relate to specific themes: Churchill and the Jews, and intelligence, and secret service, and the British constitution, and the admirals, and the generals, and appeasement, and the Royal Navy, and the bomb, and war. There are also books that relate to Churchill as a painter (such as those written by his daughter Mary) and Churchill as a historian (for example, those by Robin Prior, David Reynolds, and Maurice Ashley).
Naturally, Churchill’s role as a wartime leader is the area of his life that has attracted most attention. Books on this multifaceted topic are legion, featuring overall biographical studies of Churchill “at war” (Max Hastings, Carlo D’Este, Walter Reid) and books on particular features of Churchill’s war, such as his numerous journeys overseas, or aspects of the war with which he was associated, such as the construction and use of the Cabinet War Rooms (Churchill’s Bunker); military intelligence (Churchill’s Toyshop); deception (Churchill’s Wizards); British resistance (Churchill’s Underground Army); evacuee children (Churchill’s Children); his personal aircraft (Churchill’s Navigator); specially designed weapons (Churchill’s Secret Weapons); the Royal Navy patron service (Churchill’s Pirates); relations with Turkey (Churchill’s Secret War); or his impact on the Bengal famine (also Churchill’s Secret War). Diaries or memoirs written by people close to Churchill during the war are particularly illuminating (such as those by Oliver Harvey, General Sir Alan Brooke, Lord Moran, h
is bodyguard Walter Thompson, Churchill’s valet Norman McGowan, and wartime secretaries such as Elizabeth Nel). So, too, are those of renowned parliamentary diarists (such as Harold Nicolson). Other diaries and memoirs relate to Churchill’s life over a longer time span (such as those by Violet Bonham Carter and his longtime private secretary, Eddie Marsh).
Finest Hour: The Journal of Winston Churchill is published by the Churchill Centre, a treasure trove of information for the student of Churchill’s life. There are, then, of course, archival sources, such as the Churchill Papers at the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge. The most obvious places to visit for those interested in Churchill’s life are the Cabinet War Rooms in London (part of the Imperial War Museum); Chartwell, his home in Kent now run by the National Trust; and Blenheim Palace, near Woodstock in Oxfordshire, the home of the dukes of Marlborough and a World Heritage Site open to the public. Bletchley Park, home to Britain’s wartime code breakers, houses a “Churchill Collection.”
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