THESIS

The subject of Sir Winston Churchill has resonated in twentieth century history for many reasons. His profound sense of foresight and hindsight were often what separated him from similar politicians and men of action. Tributes to this great statesman during World War II are much deserved, but these accolades often discount the years he endured being a political outcast in British Parliament. From 1929 through 1937, after nearly 50 years in reputable public service, Churchill fell off the influential roadmap causing many of his peers to believe his career was all but finished.


1928 - 1929

Until the election of 1924 when he became a parliamentary conservative, Winston Churchill had spent his adult lifetime bouncing between the Conservative and Liberal parties.1 Leading parliamentarians began to suggest that he had “every view on every question.” Some even branded him a “blimpish reactionary” who “thought with his mouth and had genius without judgment.” 2

Churchill had reached a point of “personal contentment” that certainly could not predict these accusations would push him into isolation.3 Great comfort came in the peace of his Chartwell country home where he could write and study.4 Over the holidays of 1928 on into the early months of 1929, Churchill completed a multi-volume history of World War I entitled, The World Crisis: The Aftermath. At least one hundred copies were sent out to both friends and political opponents who praised his authorship as a historian.5 Eventual biographers would say that Churchill “wrote history in order to mold it and, so we sometimes suspect, he made history in order to write it.” 6

With the election of 1929 nearing, American media was hailing this provocative Chancellor of the Exchequer “the empire’s most amazing statesman.” 7 However, when Ramsay McDonald was elected with his Labour Party that May, Churchill was not offered any cabinet post in service to the new Prime Minister. What he failed to realize was that the more strongly he spoke about political issues, the more enemies he acquired. From this election on through most of the 1930s, Churchill would no longer have a voice beyond parliament. 8

Regardless of any practical disappointment, the ex-Chancellor had every reason to believe he had laid “solid foundations for the building of an international community.” On his way out, he warned that another great conflict would mean “either the end of European civilization or the extermination of mankind.” 9 Though he would soon be labeled as a war-hungry politician, Winston Churchill firmly believed that enmity was avoidable. He would later use hindsight to suggest that efforts must be pragmatic. “Sentiment by itself is no good; fine speeches are worse than useless; shortsighted optimism is a mischief; smooth, soothing platitudes are a crime.” 10 Perhaps adding to his bold and often controversial style, the famed statesman “lived to act, not to theorize, to participate on the world stage, not to publish academic treatises.” 11

Taking time to build financial prosperity across the sea where his popularity was much stronger, Churchill traveled to the United States and paused briefly in New York City on October 24, 1929 when the market crashed.12 The following day, he visited with investors on the stock exchange and held a faith that amidst their pacing fears, America would soon find this to be a “passing episode in the march of a valiant and serviceable people.” When he returned to his temporary apartment that evening, he witnessed a man “casting himself down fifteen stories, being dashed to pieces, and causing great commotion with the arrival of the fire brigade.” Few could fault such an optimist for returning home to his Chartwell house on November 30, but the year had provided little reason to celebrate his fifty-fifth birthday without a heavy heart.13


1930 – 1931

Observing his own downgraded political position, Churchill announced in July of 1930 that he was writing three books.14 My Early Life was published as a “lighthearted and delightfully readable memoir of his youth.” 15 He was able to find solace through extended research for a sixth volume on World War I called The Eastern Front along with a massive biography of family ancestor John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough. With each new book came a restoration of his financial status.16

While taking time to study, he held no illusions about the rising and potential consequences of Nazism in Europe. Ignored warnings even reached the German Embassy of London saying, “Hitler or his followers would seize the first available opportunity to resort to armed force.” 17 It wasn’t long before Churchill became a “needling thorn in the side of successive weak Governments in his call for rearmament in the face of rising Nazi militarism.” 18

Much of parliamentary discussion in 1930 revolved around a lesser known issue regarding India. MacDonald and his cabinet were suggesting that the nation could govern itself if the British Empire relinquished its control. Churchill held quite the opposite view. “There is no single group in India capable of taking responsibility for the whole. The control of all-India, the linking together of the wider needs, the safeguarding of minority interests, these could only be done fairly and effectively by a British controlled central government in Delhi.” 19

Though the topic of Germany and India was absorbed into his political concern, old Winston was being considered “yesterday’s man.” By early 1931, a short book was published called, The Tragedy of Winston Churchill.20 Few stood by his side at this time and most were coming to believe his career was drained of value. Concerned that these attacks were mere distraction, Churchill wrote to his son in January saying, “It is a great comfort when one minds the questions one cares about far more than office, or party, or even friendships.” 21

Stanley Baldwin became the most significant casualty of friendship when he turned his support to the government’s India policy on February 12 and began arranging meetings between parliament and the recently released Mahatma Ghandi. This dialogue led to a demand for India’s right to secede from the empire.22 While present day historians recognize Churchill was in error, the immediate civil wars that rose from this secession made his perspective appear noteworthy at the time.

The summer of 1931 provided a French “motoring holiday” and an opportunity for him to become convinced that the danger of Hitler was “imminent.” Before truly relaxing in the comforts of his vacation home to prepare arguments for rearmament, he learned that the Labour Government had been confronted with the “worst British economic crisis of the decade.” 23 America’s Great Depression had crossed the Atlantic and hit England between the eyes. In the “third largest economy” of the world and a potential workforce of twenty million, unemployment would quickly reach near fifteen percent.24 Making every effort to quench the fires of industrial spending, Neville Chamberlain, Churchill’s replacement as Chancellor of the Exchequer, cut military spending until defense reached an almost “archaic state.” 25

Unable to take any productive action beyond words, Churchill traveled back to New York City, arriving on December 12, 1931 to begin a series of lectures that would earn him a minimum of ten thousand pounds. On the evening of his arrival, he had been invited to dine with his friend and stock market guru, Bernard Baruch. As the taxi-driver drove away, Churchill looked to his right in preparation to cross the road, but failed to look left before crossing. The future prime minister and hero of World War II was “crushed by the impact, dragged along by the car for some yards, and then thrown into the road, badly injured both in the head and the thighs.” 26 The crowds that gathered to call for an ambulance recognized his name, but modern historians have to wonder, “Would the next two decades have been the same had the automobile killed Winston Churchill? Would the 20th century have looked the same?” 27 Perhaps his legacy would not be as known today, but his survival meant enduring an incredibly understandable depression.


1932 – 1933

In the early weeks of January 1932, the Bahamas became home to a cautious doctor, a concerned wife, and a despondent Churchill. Dr. Otto Pickhardt warned him against returning to the lecture tour too quickly citing that this “forceful impact” involved “shock and shaking of brain cells.” He continued by saying that “real rest, mental as well as physical” were imperative to his patient’s future. Clementine Churchill wrote to her husband’s press agent that if he “were to resume lecturing prematurely, his health might be permanently impaired.” The real summary of January’s first weeks came from the victim himself when he expressed suffering three major blows in the past three years “The loss of money in the crash, the loss of political position in the Conservative Party, and now terrible physical injury” led Churchill to feel “he would never recover completely.” 28

Amazingly, on January 17, his spirit was improving from continued rest and by January 28, he was already in New York City at the Brooklyn Academy of Music speaking to an audience of two thousand.29 American radio stations managed a few minutes of his time on March 10 asking whether he foresaw another world war. A man so often noted for his accuracy was now saying, “I do not believe that we shall see another great war in our time.” 30

After full recovery from the accident, Churchill soon published his 1932 book, Thoughts and Adventures. In it, he claimed to be “lacking in the religious sense” but with almost a “pagan belief in Fate and Destiny rather reminiscent of Napoleon.” 31 He tended to idolize Napoleon in ways that didn’t assist the success of his political career.32 Still, survival in a collision that he believed should have “broken [him] like an eggshell” only further enhanced a self-perception that he was alive for magnificent reasons he could not yet understand.33

By May 26, Churchill began to toy with media propaganda when an article surfaced in the London Daily Mail speaking firmly about his views on German disarmament.34 An essential September trip led him into a near encounter with Adolf Hitler, who had not yet seized control of Germany. Gathering more reasonable thoughts, Churchill expressed “distaste for Hitler’s anti-Semitism” and chose to cancel the meeting.35 Though their ideologies were in absolute contrast, fair historians have made note that both Hitler and Churchill were comparably equal. “Both were ruthless men, obsessed with military power and a driving sense of private destiny, self-educated, intensely nationalistic, and powerfully aggressive in the face of opposition.” 36

On February 22, 1933, Churchill’s losing battle against India’s independence took a final strike when the House of Commons gave them Dominion Status during a wide margin of votes in the their favor.37 This victory for Baldwin and the key players in power freed Churchill to focus on a much more problematic situation that had risen just weeks before on January 30. With Hitler now chancellor of Germany, the ignored statesman was to spend the greater part of 1932 evaluating and studying both the actions of England and the movements of Germany. Now at “an age when most politicians enter into decline, he espoused a new cause, opposition to appeasement, that was to carry him to political greatness.” 38

The anxiety of Winston Churchill began to steadily increase in March when it appeared Britain and its leaders cared little for their own security. His speeches in parliament would always “fill the chamber,” but the messages were still too uncomfortable to be supported.39 Alfred Duff Cooper, a friend of Churchill, wrote him in September that “everywhere and at all times of the day and night there were troops marching, drilling, singing.” Everything that Cooper saw convinced him that Germany was making every preparation for war.40 Another friend, Desmond Morton, indicated that Germany was using the finances that had been “let off” in reparation payments so that they could purchase weapons and military equipment on the international market.41 Points were stacking up in Churchill’s accuracy record, but his method for convincing parliament of these legitimate concerns would need to stretch into the public eye before any representative would feel pressure enough to believe there was considerable danger.


1934 – 1935

Until early 1934, one might have argued that Winston Churchill’s opposition to Germany was more personal than legitimate. Yet, on January 16, he presented his most logical suggestion to date. “The least Britain ought to do is have an air force as strong as that of the nearest power that can get at us. If we had that, I do not believe we should be attacked. And if we were I do not think it would last long, or do us mortal injury. Till we have that, we are no longer the same kind of independent country that we used to be, that any of you were born into. We lie, with all our wealth and civilization, exposed to the ferocious hatreds which tear the continent of Europe, and we have nothing to trust to for our life, and for our right to judge freely what course we will take, except our diplomacy and our good intentions.” 42

While the great statesman began formulating his voice on the matter, leading government officials had crossed a line of public trust. Behind closed doors, a Cabinet decision on February 28 sold more than one hundred aeroplane engines to Germany that were intended for “civilian use,” but engines that could easily be used in “small fighter planes.” 43

Tough as it was to continue regarding Churchill as an “irresponsible warmonger,” he focused his attention on developing a case for the public eye.44 By November 28, 1934, an incredibly difficult debate in the House of Commons began on the issue of rearmament. Baldwin, the former Prime Minister, was in favor of legalizing German rearmament. He was “viciously attacked” in the deliberation by his old friend for “allowing Hitler to rearm while Britain did not.” 45 Churchill continued, “To urge preparation of defense is not to assert the imminence of war. If we do not begin forthwith to put ourselves in a position of security, it will soon be beyond our power to do so.” 46

Although it was clear Churchill was finding his voice, he was having trouble holding allies when younger ministers of parliament called out his excessive drinking habits.47 Andrew Roberts points out that “the question of Churchill’s drinking is an important one. He used to say that he had taken more out of alcohol than it had taken out of him.” In reality, “he liked his brandies and whiskies heavily diluted with water and soda.” 48 “His consumption of cigars and brandy alone would probably keep him out of polite society today.” 49 Between his political straightforwardness and personal image, the public had to decide whether they could agree with his national perspective while dealing with the hard, self-indulgent exterior he portrayed.

Late 1933 into 1934 provided a catapulting series of reasons why Hitler’s intentions should have been brought under scrutiny. Concealing his sources on May 31, 1935, Churchill warned of “a German threat to Czechoslovakia, where a Nazi Party had been created among the Sudeten German minority.” In fact, he noted that all throughout Europe, Nazi ideology was being propagated with a powerful impact. With all facts in place to make key proactive decisions, Baldwin returned to the seat of Prime Minister on June 7 and continued Britain’s policy of appeasement. On the first day Baldwin took office, Churchill declared the new premier to be a “small person” with a “large part” to play. He also referred to British defense as a “slow-motion picture.” 50

Only in a position to watch and comment, Churchill returned to his vacation home in the south of France on September 1 for a two-week holiday. Here he invested in painting, swimming, and “the contentment engendered by old Brandy.” 51 After receiving a private offer by Lord Rothermere to give up both spirits and wine for the entire next year, he refused saying, “Life would not be worth living.” 52


1936 – 1937

Fearing the worst of Hitler, Churchill wrote a letter to his wife on January 17, 1936 expressing concerns that the Rhineland may soon be remilitarized by Germany. He was now uneasy about the likely chain of events that would occur if indeed the Versailles Treaty were to be disregarded. More than anything, it would involve France having every reason to demand Britain’s aid in enforcement sanctions. The future leader knew Britain was far from prepared for such assistance.53

All anxiety came to a head on March 7 when Hitler marched his thirty-five thousand troops into the Rhineland and “shocked all Europe.” 54 With parliament opting to avoid any reinforcement to France, British citizens who had long been sitting on the fence were now forced to choose sides. Was it wise to appease Hitler? Would it be wise to consider Winston Churchill’s view on at least forming a strong defense in case things became worse? One side or the other, public opinion would now become pivotal in shaping the direction of British policy.

Bearing this in mind, Churchill wrote a memorable article for the Evening Standard on April 3 which ended:

“Surely it is worth a supreme effort – the laying aside of every impediment, the clear-eyed facing of fundamental facts, the noble acceptance of risks inseparable from heroic endeavor – to control the hideous drift of events and arrest calamity upon the threshold. Stop it! Stop it!! Stop it now!!! NOW is the appointed time.”

Political power was being handed back to the people in what became known as the “stop it now” publication. Eventually, the paper was syndicated throughout the world in fourteen different nations. Just three weeks later on April 24, a man named Rex Leeper, head of the Foreign Office News Department, began working with Churchill to combine all available media resources in a manner that would be aggressively successful. More than any other “propaganda sheet” in distribution, the British Gazette tended to reach the most widespread audience.55 Even the highly respected BBC was being dealt as a card of influence under J.C.C. Davidson, who resisted shady news reporting that might skew the truth and scar their solid reputation. 56

Paris, with their need for aid against Germany, had long been praising the speeches, words and writings of Churchill. Their adoration was no less noteworthy as he visited with them on September 24 to advocate democratic ideals and stronger defense. The same conversation was introduced in Berlin that next month, but to a much more abusive audience who needed to realize that there was “one English statesman who, instead of apologizing for democracy stands up for it.” 57

Having gained a mixed response from the people and a moderate following in parliament by the early months of 1937, a final blow to Churchill’s campaign struck on May 26 when his longtime political opponent, Neville Chamberlain, took his seat as Prime Minister.58 The new head of state viewed his colleague as “unstable and amoral” while Churchill himself referred to his enemy as “narrow-minded, cold-hearted, and dusty-souled.” Many years later, Prime Minister Tony Blair would quote Chamberlain from the view of Churchill’s historian eyes: “Poor Neville, he will come poorly out of history. And I shall write the history.” 59 The election of 1937 would be the last vote for tranquil and mild leadership before World War II.


CONCLUSION

Between 1937 and 1940, power began to shift hands as the public recognized what was necessary for their security. Winston Churchill, a man with life experience hardly measurable, was to be Britain’s restoration and shield. These years spent as a sidelined politician can, at times, appear lacking in the action and drama that is associated with other areas of his life. Fortunately it was during these years that he found reason to consider his destiny and press forward for a cause that others might have disregarded to their national demise.