God and Churchill HB

by Jonathan Sandys

  Finally, forced by circumstance, Chamberlain agreed to resign. As majority leader, however, he had the right to recommend his own successor to King George VI.

  Lord Halifax was an obvious possibility, with his experience in foreign affairs and his favour with the king, who had even given him a key to Buckingham Palace’s royal garden. But if Halifax refused or was rejected by his fellow Conservatives, then who would succeed Chamberlain? Winston Churchill? Impossible!

  Decades after the fact, it is difficult to grasp just how unlikely it was for Churchill to become Britain’s wartime prime minister and thus to fulfil the vision he’d had as a sixteen-year-old schoolboy. To fully appreciate what a stunning miracle it was for Churchill to be named the leader of Great Britain at the very moment when the nation was about to come under direct attack, we must consider how many in the British establishment and public disdained him.

  Consider Lord Hankey, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who provides a ripping example of how the aristocratic class viewed Churchill. On 10 May 1940, when word came of Churchill’s appointment as prime minister, Lord Hankey wrote the following to his son:

  The net result of it all is that today, when the greatest battle of the war and probably the greatest battle of our history has begun, when the fate of the whole Empire is at stake, we are to have a Government of politicians, … quite a number of whom are perfectly futile people.8

  There was no question that Lord Hankey placed Churchill at the head of the pack of ‘futile people’. In another letter, two days later, Hankey opined to the pro-appeasement politician Samuel Hoare, ‘God help the country … which commits its existence to the hands of a dictator [Churchill] whose past achievements … have never achieved success!’9 Hankey saw Britain’s ‘only hope’ in a coalition of Churchill, Chamberlain and Halifax, but he doubted ‘whether the wise old elephants [Chamberlain and Halifax] will ever be able to hold the Rogue Elephant [Churchill]’.10

  Lord Hankey was not the only highborn person who did not like Churchill. ‘Although he was an aristocrat by birth, Churchill was widely believed to be not really a gentleman at all,’ writes David Cannadine.11

  It was not just that Churchill was widely distrusted as a man of unstable temperament, unsound judgement, and rhetorical (and also alcoholic) excess… . It was also that for most of his career, there hung around him an unsavoury air of disreputability and unseemliness, as a particularly wayward, rootless and anachronistic product of a decaying and increasingly discredited aristocratic order… . During the inter-war years, he remained a shameless cadger and incorrigible scrounger.12

  Proper people didn’t think much of Churchill’s friends, either. He associated with people from ‘raffish worlds’, writes Cannadine.13 By the mid-1930s, as the world crisis deepened, Churchill had become, in the view of many Britons, ‘almost a parody of the paranoid aristocrat: intransigent, embittered, apocalyptic’.14

  Churchill’s parentage was often scorned in establishment opinion. He was a ‘half-breed’ and a ‘mongrel’ because he had an American mother, ‘a woman of more than one past’.15 Lord Randolph Churchill, despite holding high office, had been noted as a womanizer and gambler. And if denigrating his family wasn’t enough, when Churchill became prime minister in 1940 his newly formed government was characterized as a band of ‘crooks’, ‘gangsters’, and ‘wild men’ by important British opinion makers.16

  APPEASEMENT AND ASCENDANCE

  Churchill’s reputation hit the skids at the very time when acclaim for Adolf Hitler was soaring to its zenith. As Churchill continued his warnings about Hitler and the Nazis and spoke out against appeasement, his reputation in the public eye sank even lower.

  In that year [1938] Hitler’s Third Reich became the greatest power in Europe and perhaps in the world… . All over Europe, governments recognized that their existence depended on being on good terms with Germany… . At Munich everyone gave in to Hitler; and many people welcomed what they saw as [Neville] Chamberlain’s act of wise statesmanship. Churchill did not.17

  But by 1938, Churchill was battling to hold on to his seat in Parliament. His opposition to the Chamberlain–Hitler pact was viewed as another break with the Conservative Party. The voters of Epping believed that Churchill, as a duly elected Conservative member of the House of Commons, should have supported the Conservative prime minister, Neville Chamberlain. Following Churchill’s speech in Parliament criticizing the Munich accord, Sir Harry Goschen, a highly respected constituent, wrote to the local Conservative Party chairman:

  I cannot help thinking it was rather a pity that he broke up the harmony of the House by the speech he made. Of course he was not like a small ranting member, and his words were telegraphed all over the Continent and to America, and I think it would have been a great deal better if he had kept quiet and not made a speech at all.18

  On 4 November Churchill survived a no-confidence vote in his constituency, but as Martin Gilbert puts it, he ‘sensed a mood of restraint among many [members of Parliament] who might have been his allies’.19

  Thus, when we consider the whole of Churchill’s glum situation leading up to 10 May 1940, his appointment as prime minister must be ranked as one of the most unlikely political outcomes of modern times. To sum it up:

  Churchill was ‘widely distrusted’.

  He was regarded by most as an irrelevant old man, the leftover of a past generation.

  He was disdained by many in the public as a privileged aristocrat with whom they could not identify. At the same time, he was viewed by many in the aristocracy as not worthy of their class.

  He was called an ‘aristocratic adventurer’ who lacked good judgement and political skills.

  He was ‘unlucky’.

  Churchill, according to a popular view at that time, was the son of a dysfunctional father and a wayward mother.

  His friends were ‘raffish’, vulgar and crude.

  Churchill was considered to be ‘rootless … unstable … unsound … an undeniable cad’.

  He was an embarrassment to important people in his constituency and in the Conservative Party.

  He was thought to be a ‘real danger’ who was impetuous and tended not to count the cost of his endeavours.

  When Chamberlain decided to resign as prime minister, he called Churchill and Lord Halifax, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to No. 10 Downing Street. Seated opposite the two men in the Cabinet Room, Chamberlain informed them of his decision to step down and said that one of them would become the next prime minister.

  Chamberlain favoured Lord Halifax and made it clear that the viscount would be his choice if he wanted the job. Halifax was most certainly a very ambitious man but, like Chamberlain, he looked at the situation they were facing and saw eventual surrender as inevitable. Not relishing the thought of being remembered as the man who handed Hitler the keys to Britain, Halifax declined.

  When Churchill returned to his office at the Admiralty, he immediately entered a meeting with the Dutch minister, whose country had been attacked without provocation and was battling for its life. Churchill focused on the issue at hand, forcing the conversation at Downing Street to the back of his mind. He was interrupted by a message saying that Prime Minister Chamberlain had gone to see King George and resign as prime minister, in accordance with the requirements of the constitutional monarchy.

  Shortly before 6 p.m., Churchill received an invitation from Buckingham Palace to visit King George VI. Later he recalled:

  I was taken immediately to the King. His Majesty received me most graciously and bade me sit down. He looked at me searchingly and quizzically for some moments, and then said: ‘I suppose you don’t know why I have sent for you?’ Adopting his mood, I replied: ‘Sir, I simply couldn’t imagine why.’ He laughed and said, ‘I want to ask you to form a Government.’ I said I would certainly do so.20

  As Churchill left Buckingham Palace after his meeting with the king, his bodyguard, Walter Thompson, stated the truth that was on both of
their minds: ‘You have an enormous task.’ With tears welling in his eyes, Churchill replied, ‘God alone knows how great it is… . I hope that it is not too late. I am very much afraid that it is. We can only do our best.’21

  Churchill returned to the Admiralty and immediately began the task of forming a coalition government. He asked Neville Chamberlain to serve as Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons, and Chamberlain accepted; but it was to be a very short appointment. When Chamberlain died of cancer later that year, Churchill paid a beautiful, heartfelt tribute to him in the eulogy at his funeral.

  In his first book on the Second World War, The Gathering Storm, Churchill recalls his thoughts and feelings from the day when he was named prime minister.

  At last I had the authority to give directions over the whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial. Ten years in the political wilderness had freed me from ordinary party antagonisms. My warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed, and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me. I could not be reproached either for making the war or with want of preparation for it. I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail. Therefore, although impatient for the morning, I slept soundly and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams.22

  Throughout the Second World War, Churchill employed everything he had learned throughout his life to mastermind the victory the Allies would achieve on 8 May 1945. In humility he proceeded, and with humanity he led.

  The day after his appointment as prime minister, Churchill met with the Labour Party leader, Clement Attlee, inviting him to join the coalition government. Despite being from opposite sides of the political divide, the two men worked harmoniously throughout the crisis.

  Churchill asked Lord Halifax to remain as Foreign Secretary, against the wishes of those who sought retribution for the men responsible for leaving Britain unprepared for war, among whom they included Halifax. Churchill came to the defence of those who had formerly been his greatest opponents. ‘If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future,’ he told Parliament.23 Churchill had every right to cast aside those who had caused him such pain in the decade leading up to the war. Instead, he chose to put the country’s best interests before his own.

  Churchill’s magnanimous spirit towards his fellow leaders gave him the authority and credibility needed after the war to speak of forgiveness for the German people. Had those in authority after the First World War practised the forgiveness that Jesus taught and Churchill displayed, the Second World War might never have happened. Unforgiveness breeds resentment, and the Second World War was resentment in action. As Churchill assumed power, he united the parties politically, and his appointment united the people in the great and terrible cause that lay before them.

  BLOOD, TOIL, TEARS AND SWEAT

  On 13 May 1940, Churchill made his first speech to the House of Commons as prime minister. He was honest and realistic about the situation, but clear in the policy and aim of his government:

  We are in the preliminary stage of one of the greatest battles in history… . I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.’ We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival… . I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men.24

  Parliament gave a cautious endorsement, but the public at large were fired up in great support of Churchill and his determination. A crowd of well-wishers had gathered outside the Admiralty building to which Churchill had gone by foot from Downing Street. Lord Hastings Ismay recalled this walk in his memoirs:

  A number of people waiting outside the private entrance greeted him with cries of ‘Good luck, Winnie. God bless you.’ He was visibly moved, and as soon as we were inside the building, he dissolved into tears. ‘Poor people,’ he said, ‘poor people. They trust me, and I can give them nothing but disaster for quite a long time.’25

  Churchill’s humility and humanity – seeing himself as one of the people, no better or worse – was what electrified his supporters and made them love him. Those characteristics even turned the opinion of many of his severest critics. Among them was John Colville, who had served as Chamberlain’s secretary and would continue with Churchill. Colville’s snarky attitude appeared in his diary entry of 13 May: ‘Went down to the House to hear the new P. M… . He made a brilliant little speech… . I spent the day in a bright blue new suit from the Fifty-Shilling Tailors, cheap and sensational looking, which I felt was appropriate to the new Government.’26

  Within three days of working with Churchill, however, Colville’s tone had changed. By 18 May, respect seeped in as he comments on the great care and seriousness with which Churchill worked: ‘Such is the change that high office can work in a man’s inherent love of rash and spectacular action.’27

  Colville’s conversion earned him the rancour of his old friends. ‘I am really very sorry that you are no longer one of the [Chamberlain] team,’ wrote R. A. Butler, who was Halifax’s undersecretary at the Foreign Office, ‘and that you have been sacrificed for the Coalition.’28 Perhaps Colville’s former colleagues believed that leadership requires aloofness. Churchill, however, believed that his presence among his embattled countrymen was needed so that he could give them hope.

  It is ironic to think that if Churchill’s predecessors as prime minister, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, had listened to him, they might have been the ones hailed as heroes instead of Churchill. If Britain had rearmed in the early 1930s, the Second World War might well have been avoided. Hitler may have been compelled to negotiate with a militarily strong Britain. And if that had happened, God may never have had to use Winston Churchill.

  Without the war, Churchill’s unpopularity throughout the 1930s would most certainly have led to his slipping away into insignificance. History would have forgotten Winston Churchill, but Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain would be remembered as great leaders. If Hitler hadn’t introduced the Nuremberg Laws and hadn’t provoked the war, history might remember him as a great restorer of his nation.

  By openly acknowledging that only God could see Britain and Europe through the crisis of the war, Churchill honoured God through the words he spoke to the people of Britain:

  We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.29

  ‘BE YE MEN OF VALOUR’

  In his first nationwide broadcast as prime minister, on 19 May 1940, Churchill reached for words ‘written [centuries ago] to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice’.30 Then he paraphrased 1 Maccabees 3.58–60 from the Apocrypha, a section of the Bible held sacred by
many Christians:

  Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.

  Knowing the historical context for these words, Churchill did not choose them lightly. In 166 BC, the Maccabees were struggling against powerful Hellenistic rulers who wanted to impose their control and culture on the Jews. Mattathias, a rural Jewish priest, ignited a revolt and took his five sons into the rugged Judean wilderness rather than submit. Upon the death of Mattathias, Judas, one of his sons, picked up the banner to lead an army against the Greeks. Compared to the power of the Hellenistic forces, the Jewish warriors seemed no more than a tattered group of amateurs. But the Greeks did not fully comprehend what drove Judas and his fellow warriors: their very identity and freedom were at stake. They had to fight or else become slaves.

  No wonder this passage fired up Churchill’s resolve. It mirrored the situation that Britain now faced. Hitler underestimated the determination of the British people, and the world assumed that the British military, in the wake of the First World War, was nothing but a ragtag group of amateurs. And certainly the evacuation at Dunkirk at the end of May would do nothing to bolster the image of the British Expeditionary Force. Still, ‘it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation’.

  The passage in 1 Maccabees that Churchill drew upon bears a resemblance to another passage from the Old Testament book of Judges. In Judges 6, when God calls Gideon to lead the people of Israel against the Midianite invaders, he sends an angel to say to Gideon, ‘The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour… . Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hands of the Midianites: have I not sent thee?’31

  In the 1 Maccabees text, the phrase is, ‘Be ye men of valour,’ but Churchill’s wording evokes the passage in Judges, in which valour refers to bravery and courage in war.