Churchill

I've just finished reading a book called 'Churchill' by Roy Jenkins. Unsurprisingly, given the rather simple title, its all about Winston Churchill. And it was excellent, if not ridiculously long for a single work. Somewhere in the region of 900 extremely informative pages, with the text laid out in a very small typeset, it has taken me the better part of three months to work through the volume (although I have given my attention to various other books and projects in that time).

Still, as I said it was a great book to read if only for the fact that Winston Churchill was such a facsinating - nay remarkable - man. Almost 45 years after his death we probably think of him soley as the great wartime leader, the man who saved Britain from the tyranny of Hitler ( or, in death, as the subject of rather petty bickering over Barack Obama's decision to remove a bust of Churchill from the Oval Office in the White House). The War of course figures quite significantly in Roy Jenkin's book and its facisinating in its own way (for instance Churchill meeting frequent disapproval and hostility during the War and even calls for him to be replaced as Prime Minister). However for the most part the book sheds far more light on the long and feverish life of Churchill before and after the events of 1939-1945.

I can try and sum that life up a little here but Jenkins struggles to do so in 900 pages (and he certainly doesen't waffle) so bare with me if it seems a little scant on detail. The defining characteristic of Churchill seems to have been a defiant stubborn, self-centered belief in the cause he believed in. This seems to have changed from time to time, but whatever had Churchill's attention at the time, he sought to drive it through whatever opposition there was with all his strength and capability. At times this seems to have driven his contemporaries and peers mad and ensured that Churchill was frequently at odds with the held values of the day. It also produced occasions of great hypocrasy in which one year Churchill would demand that virtually all of the national wealth should be given over to purchasing new battleships (when he was First Lord of the Admiralty) and the next year he would decry the waste and folly of buying 'ruiness' and 'pointless' ships (as Chancellor of the Exchequer) even though he had fought so hard for them in the first place. Not unsurprisingly this made him few friends.

And yet this stubborness, this self belief, this determation to fulfill his given task to the fullest was the singularly most important 'virtue' when he led Britain during the Second World War. Then all that unmovable drive and energy set the country firmly on a path, and once on that path Churchill would not be moved. Its curious that an aspect of his character that caused so much difficulty and frustration not just to his peers but also to Churchill (because he would be rejected by those peers and effectively punished) should for a short, five year period be one of the most crucial character traits of one of the key leaders of the War.

Churchill was also remarkably perceptive. Don't me wrong, he wasn't perfect and did make errors (some considerable, some minor) but on many issues he saw situations as they turned out to be, often far before others who at the time though he was the fool. His warnings of the dangers of Fascism and Stalinist Russia are relatively well known, but in truth he was ahead of the game (so to speak) before the First World War and even forsaw the creation of the European Union. At the same time he had the ability to discern a threat and place blame or emphasise danger whilst also urging compassion. The best example of this was in his passionate opposition of Hitler and the Nazi's, whilst expressing the need to be loving to the German people who had been taken hostage by their own government.

On top of all that he was remarkably involved with so many of the defining events of the late Nineteenth Century and early Twentieth Century (for example, he was a senior Cabinet minister in the First World War, managed to be in New York on the day of the Wall Street Crash, oversaw the creation of the Jordanian Royal family etc etc), as well as mixing with so many remarkble figures of the day (Lawrence of Arabia, the German Kaiser, various Kings, many Presidents etc etc, many of whom courted his opinion and presence rather than the other way around - Harry Trueman in particular looked on in awe at Churchill apparently). He also held virtually every Cabinet postion in government, sometimes twice, before he became Prime Minister. This gave him a level of experience that makes some of our current and past Prime Ministers look like complete novices.

He was also very much a 'hands on' figure. Forced to resign from his Cabinet position in the First World War he chose to go and fight in the trenches. He had previously served in the army in India and later South Africa. And in the Second World War he had to be restrained from joining the Allied Invasion on D-Day (by a combination of the King, President Roosevelt and General Eisenhower and then it only just worked), though he did get his own way in being allowed to climb on to the roof of 10 Downing Street during air raids, much to the consternation of his staff. Away from war he passionately set out into the country during elections and strongly disliked leaving himself hidden away in the political world of London.

Finally, Churchill seemed to be surprise, certainly me. This great bastion of Empire and the military (being the great war leader of course) laid the foundations for unemployment benefit and the European Union, as well as being the man who effectively urged governments to earn considerable sums of money from petrol tax. He had a strange affinity to Mussolini and Stalin for a considerable period of time before opposing them both vehemently.

In summing him up he reminds me a little of John Adams, the second President of the United States (and someone I've written about before on my blog). Adams was rather blunt, very strong in his opinion and not well liked by his contemporaries. And yet in that he made decisions, stood for causes that few others would. Churchill exemplified those characteristics to an even greater extent. They were both also clearly flawed and yet both remarkable. I'd recommend the book but only if you have a huge passion to learn about Churchill.