Young Titan

by Michael Shelden

  But the barbs hit home. Chamberlain felt betrayed. In view of the friendly relationship they had enjoyed earlier, he thought Churchill’s personal attacks were especially unfair. Loyalty meant everything to Joe, and he made his disappointment clear. Meeting Winston in a corridor on his way to the debating chamber of the House, Joe paused long enough to give his erstwhile friend a look he would never forget. Writing afterward to Jennie, Winston described it as “an extraordinary look of reproach as much as to say ‘how could you desert me.’ ”8

  As he confessed to his mother, Churchill was sorry that he and Chamberlain had parted ways. He still found much to admire in the older man, but he didn’t doubt what the future held. Joe was on a downward path. All the same, Churchill wrote a note to him saying he regretted that political differences had come between them, and he made a point of questioning the look Joe had given him.

  A reply came almost immediately. It was full of excuses and veiled recriminations. It began with an unconvincing explanation of that look in the corridor. “I am afraid my shortsightedness is in fault,” Chamberlain said. “I bear no malice for political opposition.”

  He went on to argue that he never expected absolute loyalty, but he seemed convinced now that Winston had gone too far in attacking the party’s leadership. He suspected that the young man would soon “drift” to the Liberal side. He gave no sign that he would regret losing him, but only that he hated to be on the receiving end of Winston’s stinging rhetoric.

  “Is it really necessary,” he wrote, “to be quite as personal in your speeches? You can attack a policy without imputing all sorts of crimes to its author.”9

  Winston might have taken this admonition more to heart if Chamberlain had not violated the spirit of it only a few days earlier by mocking him in the House. He had portrayed him as a shallow youth who was incapable of keeping to a steady course, and whose words couldn’t be trusted. He cautioned his fellow Cabinet ministers “not to place too much faith in the valued and continued confidence of my hon. friend,” and he recalled his own bitter lesson as one whose hand of friendship Churchill had rejected. “I remember my hon. friend at the time he came into Parliament, and I did the best I could then to secure his entrance into this Assembly—I remember how, in the heyday of his enthusiasm, he was going to give his ready and cordial support to his own Party, and to his own Government.”

  Chamberlain was just about to land his heaviest blow against Churchill as a political opportunist when a member of the opposition shouted, “What about yourself? Who has changed most?” This was a reminder that Joe, having years ago abandoned the Liberals over Irish Home Rule, was guilty of a similar charge. It set off a shouting match, sending the House into an uproar that ended only after repeated cries for order.

  When Chamberlain was able to resume his attack, he dared Churchill to take his campaign against imperial preference into the industrial towns that favored it. A friendly backbencher suggested that Birmingham be included on the tour. “Oh! Birmingham,” Joe said, as if the idea of Winston speaking there had just occurred to him. It was Chamberlain’s favorite challenge. Criticizing him in the House was easy, but would one of his opponents have the courage to try it in Birmingham? Whether Chamberlain meant it as a dare or not, Churchill seems to have taken it that way. If Lloyd George was willing to risk speaking there, so could he. From that moment, it was inevitable that Birmingham would appear on his autumn itinerary.10

  * * *

  In the middle of his heated disagreements over protection Churchill had a curious encounter with a woman who had once been romantically involved with Joe Chamberlain. On July 8 Winston dined in London with the prominent Fabian thinkers and activists Sidney and Beatrice Webb. To advance their plans for social reform, the Webbs were seeking allies wherever they could find them, and they wanted to know if Churchill might be useful to their work. Beatrice was then in middle age, but in her twenties she had been desperately in love with Joe, who was two decades her senior.

  They met in the 1880s, when he was still in his Radical phase, and she fell deeply in love with his forceful personality until she discovered just how forceful it was. Twice widowed (his wives died in childbirth), he was taking his time looking for another wife and had a few requirements in mind. One of them, as he informed Beatrice, was absolute adherence to his views. “It pains me to hear my views controverted,” he explained.

  Unwilling to bend to his will, she ended their relationship. She had looked closely into his personality and didn’t like what she found. “By temperament,” she concluded, “he is an enthusiast and a despot. . . . Running alongside this genuine enthusiasm is a passionate desire to crush opposition to his will, a longing to feel his foot on the neck of others.”11

  Her dinner conversation with Churchill included some discussion of his ongoing battle with Chamberlain, but it is doubtful that she made any mention of her old romance with his adversary. It had ended too painfully for her, and she had married Sidney Webb on the rebound, apparently attracted to him as Joe’s opposite—a small, unkempt intellectual with “a tiny tadpole body,” as she described him. When Sidney gave her his portrait during their courtship, she responded, “No, dear, I do not even look at your photograph. It is too hideous . . . it is the head only that I am marrying.”12

  Life with Sidney had turned her into such a detached, cerebral character that she scrutinized Winston at dinner as though he represented some new specimen for dissection. He emerged from her analysis much better than Chamberlain, but the pen portrait of him in her diary is generally negative. From her dry, middle-aged perspective, he was too emotional, too full of himself, and too immature. She also thought there was too much of the “American speculator” in his character, overshadowing that of the English aristocrat. But successful Americans often annoyed her. (Instead of Beatrice, Joe had chosen as his third wife the daughter of the secretary of war in President Grover Cleveland’s administration. She was Mary Endicott of Salem, Massachusetts, and Joe liked to call her his “Puritan maiden.” Beatrice wasn’t impressed but admitted that Mary was “warm-hearted within the limits of her somewhat narrow nature.”)

  A few days after their dinner, Mrs. Webb wrote Churchill a friendly letter and recommended some reading material on the free trade question. She gave no hint of her private feeling that he lacked the mental focus to benefit from the worthy books she was suggesting, including one of her own with an appendix she urged him to study on “The Bearing of Industrial Parasitism and the Policy of a National Minimum on the Free Trade Controversy.” Devoted to statistics and abstract theories, she was willing to tolerate Churchill if he could promote one of her favorite welfare schemes, but she was dubious of his intellectual potential except in a few of his unquantifiable personal characteristics.

  “First impression,” she wrote of him in her diary: “Restless, almost intolerably so, without capacity for sustained and unexcited labour, egotistical, bumptious, shallow-minded and reactionary, but with a certain personal magnetism, great pluck and some originality, not of intellect but of character. . . . Talked exclusively about himself. . . . No notion of scientific research. . . . But his pluck, courage, resourcefulness and great tradition may carry him far.”13

  * * *

  In September, Churchill felt that the tide had turned against Chamberlain. There were rumors at the beginning of the month that the Cabinet was hopelessly divided and that some upheaval was imminent. In the party leadership few shared Joe’s zeal for imperial preference, but even fewer wanted to criticize him publicly. Wherever he looked, Joe saw party leaders sitting on their hands. “The time is very close when we must all take sides,” he pleaded. “I want to know on whom I can depend.” But, try as he might, he couldn’t win the full support of the Cabinet, and his options were running out.

  On September 11 Winston wrote his mother that “JC is plainly beaten.” Exactly one week later, Chamberlain resigned from the Cabinet, ending his eight years of service as secretary of state for the colonies. Th
e announcement was all the more unsettling because it followed so closely the news in August that Lord Salisbury had died, only a year after stepping down as prime minister. Both Salisbury and Chamberlain had been fixtures in government for so long that it was difficult for many to accept that one was now dead and the other had stepped down.

  Joe had been plotting his move for several days and didn’t see it as the act of a beaten politician. In fact, he thought it would be the beginning of a great comeback through the realization of his dream of an imperial union, and he believed he could rally support for it more effectively “from outside” the government.14

  Churchill was convinced from the start that Joe’s one-man crusade would fail, but he was ready to fight it at every turn until it collapsed. To hasten the end, he knew that he had to take the fight to Chamberlain’s home territory. Bravely, one of the Hooligans agreed to accompany him to Birmingham in November. It was Lord Hugh Cecil, who loved lost causes and seems to have assumed that opposing Joe in Birmingham was sure to go wrong. Winston understood that his friend found “a melancholy satisfaction” in defeat. Still, he couldn’t resist making light of it, employing a touch of gallows humor with Hugh’s brother. “You had better bid Linky farewell before Birmingham,” wrote Winston. “You may never see him again.”15

  The local sponsors of the talk expected trouble. Their spokesman told the press, “We are anticipating a disturbance, and it is quite possible the meeting will be broken up.” On the day before the talk a number of paid thugs suddenly appeared in the streets wearing sandwich boards that called for workingmen to turn out “in thousands” to show Churchill what they thought of anyone who dared “to oppose our Joe.” Hoping to avoid a repeat of the riot over Lloyd George’s speech, the chief constable made sure that hundreds of policemen were on hand to keep order.

  Churchill asked one of Chamberlain’s oldest friends, John Morley, whether another mob assault was being planned. The reply was not reassuring. Though Morley thought that such a disturbance was “most unlikely,” he “was perfectly sure nothing would be done unless [Joe] wished it to be done.”

  The political world held its breath, wondering how Joe’s followers would respond. It was one thing to rough up Lloyd George, who was still a relatively minor politician. But what would be the consequences if any harm came to Churchill, the hero of the Boer War, or to Lord Hugh, the son of the recently deceased prime minister? The stakes were raised even higher when a last-minute guest joined the two parliamentary Hooligans. Unwilling to let her son face the crowds without her, Jennie came to Birmingham to take the stage with Winston and Hugh. It is little wonder that one national newspaper remarked on the day of the event, “Exciting times are expected tonight.”16

  At seven on the evening of November 11 the expected crowd of protestors surrounded the Town Hall. Estimates of their number were as high as forty thousand. Policemen were lined up behind heavy barricades to prevent anyone entering without a ticket. The crowd made repeated attempts to break through but were held back. Frustrated, some threw stones and broke a few panes. Most, however, seemed content to stand back and make as much noise as possible, chanting slogans and singing patriotic songs.

  A largely sympathetic audience of four thousand packed the hall, and when Winston, Hugh, and Jennie were ushered to the stage, the great majority responded jubilantly, roaring their approval as they waved hats and handkerchiefs. In the early part of his speech, Winston was often interrupted by a scattering of hecklers—“ironical gentlemen,” the press called them—but he made a point of speaking respectfully of Chamberlain, and his moderate tone had a calming effect on the audience. Though the noise of the crowd outside was a constant reminder of the danger presented by Joe’s supporters, Churchill showed no sign of unease.17

  “I have not come here tonight to say anything bitter or unkind about anybody,” he told the audience. “I have come to uphold, as far as I can, two great causes, in both of which Birmingham is most profoundly interested, the cause of Free Trade, and a greater cause than that, the cause of free speech.”

  Instead of encouraging discontent with Joe’s specific plans for protectionism, Winston looked beyond the technical points of the dispute to sketch for his audience a broader vision of an empire held together by a strong moral bond rather than by merely economic or military interests. He gave this view a personal slant, recalling his own experiences as both soldier and correspondent in far-flung parts of the world, and taking a romantic view of imperialism as a force for uniting people in the service of a common good. Whatever the reality was, Churchill preferred this exalted notion of the empire to the more calculating plans of Chamberlain, and he expressed it in a sonorous conclusion that thrilled his audience.

  “I have seen enough in peace and war [on] the frontiers of our Empire,” he said, “to know that the British dominion all over the world could not endure for a year, perhaps not for a month, if it was founded upon a material basis. The strength and splendour of our authority is derived not from physical forces, but from moral ascendency, liberty, justice, English tolerance, and English honesty. . . . It is by these alone that [in] the future, as in the past, we shall remain, under an inviolable circle, the proud possessions of the King.”18

  David Lloyd George had received rough treatment in Birmingham not only for opposing Chamberlain but also for opposing the Boer War in a way that was seen as unpatriotic. By contrast, Churchill—as his speech made clear—wasn’t suffering from a deficiency of patriotism. And for that reason alone it was harder for Joe’s supporters to demonize him. To be sure, the crowd outside remained restless and angry to the end of the night, but by the time he finished speaking, Winston had effectively silenced those in the hall who had come to protest his visit. The press reported that the applause was “deafening” when he sat down.

  It was also noted that there were tears in Jennie’s eyes. Her son had done a brave thing, and had done it well, and she was proud to share the moment with him. His exploits on real battlefields had been experiences she could only read about, but the political battlefield allowed her to be a spectator, and to show, by her mere presence on the stage, that courage did indeed run in the family. Moreover, thanks to the superior force of the police and the relative restraint of the protestors, Jennie, Winston, and Hugh were able to leave the hall safely and return to London without having to don any police disguises. It was a humbling moment for Chamberlain, but Winston had outmaneuvered him and survived this incursion into the heart of Joe’s personal empire.19

  Not known for his bravery, Hugh was later singled out in one newspaper as showing remarkable composure in the face of danger. He had spoken at the Town Hall immediately after Winston, and the Daily Mirror marveled at his show of “political valour.” The paper didn’t doubt that the risks to his safety were real. “He cannot have forgotten the perilous adventures of Mr. Lloyd George in the capital of the Midlands,” the Mirror noted. “But he had something to say in Birmingham, and no consideration of personal discomfort deterred him.”20

  * * *

  Churchill was keenly aware that he was at war with Joe. He had been thinking of their clash in that way for some months. Earlier in the summer, while sitting on the terrace of the House of Commons one sunny day, he had given a revealing glimpse of his thinking on this question in an interview with the journalist and social reformer Harold Begbie.

  “Politics are everything to you?” asked Begbie.

  “Politics,” Churchill replied, “are almost as exciting as war, and—quite as dangerous.”

  Thinking the point was overstated in a time of deadly new weapons that could pick off unsuspecting soldiers at a great distance, Begbie asked, “Even with the new rifle?”

  “Well, in war,” answered Churchill, “you can only be killed once. But in politics many times.”21

  In the course of their interview, Begbie soon realized that Churchill was fashioning his career to endure the heat of many deadly battles, and to risk losing certain fights that might
seem catastrophic defeats to others, since he was confident he would rise again. In fact, Winston was already willing to admit that if he stayed in the Tory party—and he was then insisting that he would not leave it—the free trade cause would prevail, but at a terrible cost to the party. He predicted “a collapse . . . worse than anything since 1832.”

  Then why stay in a party that wouldn’t heed such a dire warning? asked Begbie.

  This question stirred the young MP’s fighting spirit and revealed that he saw his struggle with Chamberlain as not merely a contest over economic or imperial policy, but also as a war for the future of the party.

  “I am a Tory,” said Winston, “and I have as much right in the party as anybody else, certainly as much right as certain people from Birmingham. They can’t turn me out of the party.”

  Sounding very much like the prime minister he would become in his sixties, Winston vowed to fight his adversaries to the last defensive position in the field. “I shall stick to the party, and fight the reactionaries to the last hedge. There is no doubt about that—not a shadow.”

  Churchill was so convincing in his arguments that Begbie came away from their interview believing that he had just spoken to one of the most promising young men in Europe. “It seems to me that, given health, it is safe to prophesy that he may become one of the great figures in political history. As one of his friends remarked to me on this subject, ‘If you measure his future by his past, you find yourself on the steps of the throne.’ ”

  The one obstacle that Begbie could see blocking Winston’s path was the growing number of enemies he was making in his short life. A habit of picking fights with powerful people had left him vulnerable to attack from all directions. “It must be admitted,” wrote Begbie, “that Mr. Churchill is a very well-hated man in certain circles of Society.”22