Churchill.
by Paul Johnson.
Chapter One.
Young Thruster
Of all the towering figures of the twentieth century, both good and evil, Winston Churchill was the most valuable to humanity, and also the most likable. It is a joy to write his life, and to read about it. None holds more lessons, especially for youth: How to use a difficult childhood. How to seize eagerly on all opportunities, physical, moral, and intellectual. How to dare greatly, to reinforce success, and to put the inevitable failures behind you. And how, while pursuing vaulting ambition with energy and relish, to cultivate also friendship, generosity, compa.s.sion, and decency.
No man did more to preserve freedom and democracy and the values we hold dear in the West. None provided more public entertainment with his dramatic ups and downs, his n.o.ble oratory, his powerful writings and sayings, his flashes of rage, and his sunbeams of wit. He took a prominent place on the public stage of his country and the world for over sixty years, and it seemed empty with his departure. Nor has anyone since combined so felicitously such a powerful variety of roles. How did one man do so much, for so long, and so effectively? As a young politician, he found himself sitting at dinner next to Violet Asquith, daughter of the then chancellor of the exchequer. Responding to her question, he announced: "We are all worms. But I really think I am a glow worm." Why did he glow so ardently? Let us inquire.
Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born on November 30, 1874. His parents were Lord Randolph Churchill, younger son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, and Jennie, second of the four daughters of Leonard Jerome, financier, of Chicago and New York. The birth was due to take place in London, in a Mayfair mansion the young couple had taken, where all was prepared. But during a visit to Blenheim Palace, Lord Randolph"s home, Jennie had a fall, and her child was born two months prematurely in a ground-floor bedroom at the palace, hastily got ready. Thus the characteristic note was struck: the unexpected, haste, risk, danger, and drama. The birth pangs were eight hours long and exhausting, but the child was "very healthy," also "wonderfully pretty." He had red hair, described as "the colour of a bronze putter," fair, pink skin, and strong lungs. He later boasted that his skin was exceptionally delicate and forced him always to wear silk next to it. He claimed he had never owned or worn a pair of pajamas in his life. Like his mother, he was active and impulsive and so accident p.r.o.ne, but of organic disease he was little troubled for most of a long life. Though he suffered from deafness in old age, he had no disabilities other than a slight lisp (almost undetectable on recordings). For this reason he took great care of his teeth. He went to the best dentist of his time, Sir Wilfred Fish, who designed his dentures, which were made by the outstanding technician Derek Cudlipp. (They are preserved in London"s Royal College of Surgeons Museum.) He also took care of his health, appointing, as soon as he was able, a personal physician, Charles McMoran Wilson, whom he made Lord Moran (Fish was rewarded with a knighthood). Churchill also ate heartily, especially steak, sole, and oysters. He daily sipped large quant.i.ties of whiskey or brandy, heavily diluted with water or soda. Despite this, his liver, inspected after his death, was found to be as perfect as a young child"s. Churchill was capable of tremendous physical and intellectual efforts, of high intensity over long periods, often with little sleep. But he had corresponding powers of relaxation, filled with a variety of pleasurable occupations, and he also had the gift of taking short naps when time permitted. Again, when possible, he spent his mornings in bed, telephoning, dictating, and receiving visitors. In 1946, when I was seventeen, I had the good fortune to ask him a question: "Mr. Churchill, sir, to what do you attribute your success in life?" Without pause or hesitation, he replied: "Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down." He then got into his limo.
This vivacious and healthy child was the elder of two sons born to remarkable parents. The father, Lord Randolph Churchill (1849-95), was educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford. He was MP for the family borough of Woodstock, just outside Blenheim Palace, for the decade 1874-85, and then for South Padding-ton in London until his death. His political life was meteoric, turbulent, and punctuated by spectacular rows. With a few discontented colleagues, he founded a pressure group advocating more vigorous opposition to the Liberal majority (1880-84) and espousing what he called "Tory Democracy." But, asked what it stood for, he privately replied: "Oh, opportunism, mostly." He also opposed Gladstone"s Irish Home Rule policy, which would have made Protestant Ulster submit to an all-Ireland Catholic majority, with the inflammatory slogan "Ulster will fight-and Ulster will be right." He was an impressive speaker, and by the mid-1880s he was one of only four politicians whose speeches the Central News Agency correspondents had orders to repeat in full, the other three being Glad-stone himself, Lord Salisbury, the Tory leader, and the dynamic radical-imperialist Joseph Chamberlain. The years 1885-86 marked the apex of Lord Randolph"s career. He was first secretary of state for India, and then for six months chancellor of the exchequer. But while preparing his first budget he had a deadly row over spending with the prime minister. Salisbury was supported by the rest of the cabinet, and Lord Randolph resigned, discovering in the process that he had grotesquely overplayed his hand. It was a case of the dog barking but the caravan moving on. He never recovered from this mistake. At the same time, a mysterious and progressive illness began to affect him. Some believed it was syphilis, others a form of mental corrosion inherited from his mother"s branch of the family, the Londonderrys. Gradually his speeches became confused and halting and painful to listen to, until death in 1895 drew a merciful curtain over his shattered career. Winston was only twenty when his father died, and was haunted by this tragic final phase until he exorcised the ghost by writing a magnificent two-volume biography, transforming his father into one of the great tragic figures of English political history. It was a further source of unhappiness for Winston that he had seen so little of his father, first so busy, then so stricken. He remembered every word of the few personal conversations he had had with him.
How much Winston inherited from his father, good or bad, is a matter of opinion. Mine is: not much. Indeed there was little of the Churchills in him. They were, on the whole, an unremarkable lot. Even the founder, John, 1st Duke of Marlborough, might, in the view of King Charles II, a shrewd judge of men, have remained a quiet country gentleman had he not been stirred into activity by his astounding and ambitious wife, Sarah Jennings. Of his successors, none achieved distinction. Five of the first seven dukes were victims of pathological depression. Winston, it is true, complained of periodic dark moods, which he called "the Black Dog." But these were occasioned by actual reverses, and were soon dispersed by vigorous activity. His father"s extremism and his judgments were often quoted against him during his own career, and there were a few occasions when he went too far and was severely punished for it. But in general, he learned from Lord Randolph"s mistakes and pulled back from the brink. Nor was there ever any sign of the mental breakdown which slowly took possession of his father. Until his late eighties, Winston remained in full possession of his faculties despite a general physical decline.
It was, rather, from his mother that Winston derived his salient characteristics: energy, a love of adventure, ambition, a sinuous intellect, warm feelings, courage and resilience, and a huge pa.s.sion for life in all its aspects. His aim to be the most important politician in Westminster was a male projection of her intense desire to be the desirable lady in Mayfair. She kept and held this t.i.tle for a decade or more, not just because of the sheer physical allure of face and figure but because she looked, moved, talked, laughed, and danced with almost diabolical magic. She said later: "I shall never get used to not being the most beautiful woman in the room." It was an intoxication to sweep in and know every man had turned his head. She was also very much an American. She believed the sky was the limit, that everything was possible, that tradition, precedents, the "right" way of doing things could always be ignored when ambition demanded. She loved high risks and did not weep-for long, anyway-if they did not come off. All this she transmitted to her firstborn son (Winston"s younger brother, Jack, brought up from infancy playing second fiddle, was much more of a routine Churchill). She also accustomed him to be the center of conversation. In the mid-1870s the Churchills went into exile in Dublin after Lord Randolph, characteristically, took violent sides with his elder brother over a woman and antagonized the Prince of Wales. The Duke of Marlborough had hastily to be appointed viceroy of Ireland, and thither the Churchills went, to electrify Dublin Castle, until the storm blew over. Winston"s earliest memory was of his grandfather, then viceroy, haranguing the elite in the courtyard of their castle. The subject: war. Winston saw little of his parents, then and later. The princ.i.p.al figure of his childhood was Mrs. Elizabeth Anne Everest (1833-95), his nurse, a Kentish woman of humble background who loved him pa.s.sionately and whom he knew as "Woomany" or "Woom." Her letters to him are touching period pieces. He returned her affection and memorialized her in his novel, Savrola, Savrola, which contains a powerful pa.s.sage praising the virtues and loyalty of family servants. Her existence and love ensured that Winston"s childhood, which might have been disastrous and destructive of him, was reasonably happy. which contains a powerful pa.s.sage praising the virtues and loyalty of family servants. Her existence and love ensured that Winston"s childhood, which might have been disastrous and destructive of him, was reasonably happy.
The Everest-Winston relationship was one of the best episodes in Churchill"s entire life. She encouraged and comforted him throughout his school days in ways his mother could not or would not, detecting in him both his genius and his loving nature. He responded by cherishing her as his closest confidante in all his anxieties. He believed his parents treated her meanly, dismissing her after her services were no longer needed and leaving her to a life of poverty. Though still a schoolboy, he did his best to alleviate her privations, and later he sent her money when he could afford it. He attended her deathbed, and took Jack with him to the funeral. He had inscribed and set up her headstone and paid a local florist annually to ensure that her grave was kept up.
Winston loved both his parents with the limitless, irrational love of a pa.s.sionate child and adolescent. But they continually disappointed him, by absence, indifference, and reproaches. He was not a boy who did naturally well at school and his reports were mediocre. His father soon wrote him off as an academic failure. After his poor performance at private school Lord Randolph decided not to send him to Eton: not clever enough. Instead he was put down for Harrow. One day he visited Winston"s playroom, where the boy"s collection of lead soldiers was set out. There were over a thousand of them, organized as an infantry division with a cavalry brigade. (Jack had an "enemy" army, but its soldiers were all black men, and it was not permitted to possess artillery.) Lord Randolph inspected Winston"s troops and asked if he would like an army career, thinking "that is all he is fit for." Winston, believing his father"s question meant he foresaw for his son a life of glory and victory in the Marlborough tradition, answered enthusiastically, "Yes." So it was settled.
Winston"s performance at Harrow confirmed his father"s belief he would come to no good. He never got out of the bottom form, spending three years there, until he was transferred to the Army Cla.s.s, to prepare him for the Cadet School at Sandhurst. Some of Lord Randolph"s letters to him are crushing, indeed brutal. His mother"s are more loving but they too often reflect his father"s discontent. Few schoolboys can ever have received such discouraging letters from their parents. His father, too, was determined Winston should go into the infantry, while Winston preferred the cavalry. The infantry required higher marks but it was cheaper. His parents, especially Lord Randolph, were worried about money. He had an income from the Blenheim estates, and his wife brought with her another from her father. But together they scarcely covered the expenses of a fashionable couple in high society; they had no savings and debts acc.u.mulated. Winston contrived, just, to get into Sandhurst on his third attempt, and he did reasonably well, true. But he went into the cavalry-the Fourth Hussars-to his father"s fury. But by this time Lord Randolph was nearing the end. He went to South Africa in an attempt to make a fortune for his family in the gold and diamond fields. In fact he was guided into shrewd investments, which would eventually have proved very valuable. But when he died in 1895, all had to be sold to pay his debts. It was clear by then that Winston would have to earn his own living.
As it happened, Harrow proved invaluable in enabling him to do so. He did not acquire fluency in the Latin and Greek it provided so plentifully. He learned a few trusty Latin quotations and skill at putting them to use. But he noticed that his headmaster, the Reverend J. E. C. Welldon (later his friend as bishop of Calcutta), winced as he p.r.o.nounced them, and he perceived, later, the same expression cross the face of Prime Minister Asquith, a noted cla.s.sical scholar, when he p.r.o.nounced a Latin quote in cabinet. But if he never became a cla.s.sicist, he achieved something much more worthwhile and valuable: fluency in the English language, written and spoken. Three years in the bottom form, under the eager tuition of the English master, Robert Somervell, made this possible. Winston became not merely adept but masterly in his use of words. And he loved them. They became the verbal current coursing through his veins as he shaped his political manhood. No English statesman has ever loved them more or made more persistent use of them to forward his career and redeem it in time of trouble. Words were also his main source of income throughout his life, from the age of twenty-one. Almost from the start he was unusually well paid, and his books eventually made prodigious sums for himself and his descendants. He wrote thousands of articles for newspapers and magazines and over forty books. Some were very long. His account of the Second World War is over 2,050,000 words. Gibbon"s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by comparison is 1,100,000 words. I calculate his total of words in print, including published speeches, to be between 8 and 10 million. There can have been few boys who made such profitable use of something learned at school. In that sense, Winston"s education, contrary to the traditional view, was a notable success. by comparison is 1,100,000 words. I calculate his total of words in print, including published speeches, to be between 8 and 10 million. There can have been few boys who made such profitable use of something learned at school. In that sense, Winston"s education, contrary to the traditional view, was a notable success.
In the process of turning words into cash, Lady Randolph played a key part, particularly in getting her son commissions. She had done all she could to alleviate Lord Randolph"s suffering in his slow and dreadful decline. But after his death in 1895, she was free to devote herself to furthering her elder son"s career, and this became the object of all her exertions. In begging for help for Winston she was fearless, shameless, persistent, and almost always successful. Her position in London society, her beauty and charm, and her cunning enabled her to worm her way into the good books of newspaper proprietors and editors, publishers and politicians-anyone in a position to help. "This is a pushing age," Winston wrote to her, "and we must push with the best." They became the pushiest couple in London, indeed in the empire, which then spread over nearly a quarter of the earth"s surface.
No sooner commissioned into the army, Churchill (as we may now call him) began his plan of campaign to make himself famous, or at least conspicuous. A soldier needs war, and Churchill needed it more than most, for he could turn war into words, and so into cash. But if you sat still, expecting wars to come to you, you might be starved of action. You had to go to the wars. That became Churchill"s policy. The Fourth Hussars, under Colonel Brabazon, a family friend, was ordered to India. But there was a handsome war going on in Cuba, where America had sympathy for the insurgents. Brabazon"s agreement was reluctantly secured, and Churchill and his mother pulled strings to get him to the front and arranged a contract with the Daily Graphic Daily Graphic to publish his dispatches. By November 1895 he was already under fire as well as braving outbreaks of yellow fever and smallpox. "For the first time," he wrote, "I heard shots fired in anger and heard bullets strike flesh or whistle through the air." This recalls the famous description by George Washington of first hearing bullets whistle in 1757. But unlike Washington, Churchill did not find "something pleasant in the sound." On the contrary, he learned to take cover. He was under fire, I calculate, about fifty times in the course of his life, and never once hit by a bullet. He was not the only outsider who came to Cuba for experience. Theodore Roosevelt, his older contemporary, led a force of freeboo ters there. The two men had a great deal in common but did not get on. Roosevelt said: "That young man Churchill is not a gentleman. He does not rise to his feet when a lady enters the room." That may be true. Once Churchill was comfortably ensconced in a chair, he was reluctant to rise, part of his conservation-of-energy principle. to publish his dispatches. By November 1895 he was already under fire as well as braving outbreaks of yellow fever and smallpox. "For the first time," he wrote, "I heard shots fired in anger and heard bullets strike flesh or whistle through the air." This recalls the famous description by George Washington of first hearing bullets whistle in 1757. But unlike Washington, Churchill did not find "something pleasant in the sound." On the contrary, he learned to take cover. He was under fire, I calculate, about fifty times in the course of his life, and never once hit by a bullet. He was not the only outsider who came to Cuba for experience. Theodore Roosevelt, his older contemporary, led a force of freeboo ters there. The two men had a great deal in common but did not get on. Roosevelt said: "That young man Churchill is not a gentleman. He does not rise to his feet when a lady enters the room." That may be true. Once Churchill was comfortably ensconced in a chair, he was reluctant to rise, part of his conservation-of-energy principle.
The Spaniards awarded Churchill their standard medal for officers, the Red Cross, which he gratefully received-his first medal-along with twenty-five guineas paid by the Graphic Graphic for five articles. Thus the pattern of his life for the next five years was set. Finding wars. Getting special permission to visit or partic.i.p.ate in them. Reporting them for newspapers and in book form. And collecting medals. Once in India, he looked about him for action. But he was not idle while waiting for opportunities. He was conscious of his ignorance and begged his mother to send him big, important books. She did. The Indian army day began early but there was a big gap in the middle when the sun was hottest. Most spent it in siesta. Churchill read. He thus devoured Macaulay"s for five articles. Thus the pattern of his life for the next five years was set. Finding wars. Getting special permission to visit or partic.i.p.ate in them. Reporting them for newspapers and in book form. And collecting medals. Once in India, he looked about him for action. But he was not idle while waiting for opportunities. He was conscious of his ignorance and begged his mother to send him big, important books. She did. The Indian army day began early but there was a big gap in the middle when the sun was hottest. Most spent it in siesta. Churchill read. He thus devoured Macaulay"s History of England History of England and Gibbon. He also read Winwood Reade"s atheistic tract, and Gibbon. He also read Winwood Reade"s atheistic tract, The Martyrdom of Man, The Martyrdom of Man, which turned him into a lifelong freethinker and a critic of organized religion (though he always conformed outwardly enough to avoid the label "atheist," which might have been politically damaging). He read everything of value he could get his hands on, and forgot nothing he read. But there were always gaps, he felt, in his knowledge, which he eagerly filled when vital books were recommended to him. which turned him into a lifelong freethinker and a critic of organized religion (though he always conformed outwardly enough to avoid the label "atheist," which might have been politically damaging). He read everything of value he could get his hands on, and forgot nothing he read. But there were always gaps, he felt, in his knowledge, which he eagerly filled when vital books were recommended to him.
In August 1897 he took part in his first British campaign, as a member of the Malakand Field Force raised by Sir Bindon Blood to punish the Pathans for incursion. Blood was a glamorous figure, a descendant of the Colonel Blood who tried to steal the Crown Jewels under Charles II. The expedition was a notable success, and Churchill saw action, was under fire, and learned a good deal about punitive expeditions and guerrilla warfare. His mother arranged for him to write for the Daily Telegraph Daily Telegraph a series of "letters." He was annoyed with her for not first stipulating they be signed-for he was hot on the scent of fame-and he demanded 100 for the series. He also wrote for the Indian paper a series of "letters." He was annoyed with her for not first stipulating they be signed-for he was hot on the scent of fame-and he demanded 100 for the series. He also wrote for the Indian paper The Allahabad Pioneer The Allahabad Pioneer and eventually a book, and eventually a book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force. The Story of the Malakand Field Force. This was his first book, and he sent a copy to the Prince of Wales, who wrote him a delightful letter of thanks, praised it to the skies, and recommended it to all his friends. Blood was also pleased with him and reported favorably to his superiors. He lived to a great age, dying in 1940, two days after he received the glorious news that his former subaltern had become prime minister. Churchill followed up this success with attachment to the Tirah Expeditionary Force: more experience, another medal. This was his first book, and he sent a copy to the Prince of Wales, who wrote him a delightful letter of thanks, praised it to the skies, and recommended it to all his friends. Blood was also pleased with him and reported favorably to his superiors. He lived to a great age, dying in 1940, two days after he received the glorious news that his former subaltern had become prime minister. Churchill followed up this success with attachment to the Tirah Expeditionary Force: more experience, another medal.
Churchill was already looking to Africa, which in 1897 was alive with wars, actual and threatened. He wrote to his mother, which tersely and crudely exposed his aim to use fame in war to get himself into Parliament: "A few months in South Africa would earn me the SA medal and in all probability the Company"s Star. Thence hot-foot to Egypt-to return with two more decorations in a year or two-and beat my sword into an iron dispatch box." Actually, it was Egypt which came first. With tremendous efforts, Lady Randolph got him attached to a cavalry regiment taking part in the expedition to avenge Gordon"s murder at Khartoum. This involved an appeal to the prime minister, over the head of the local commander in chief, Lord Kitchener, who had already heard of Churchill"s growing reputation as a pushy medal chaser and did not want him. Nevertheless the young man arrived in time to take part in one of the last cavalry charges in the history of the British army, during the famous battle of Omdurman (1899), which destroyed the Dervish army. Churchill reported this campaign, too, for the London press, for handsome payment, and also produced one of his best books, The River War, The River War, in two volumes, a magnificent account of the splendors and horrors of imperialism at its zenith. in two volumes, a magnificent account of the splendors and horrors of imperialism at its zenith.
Next came South Africa, where he reported the Boer War for the Morning Post. Morning Post. Strictly speaking he was a noncombatant, but during a Boer ambush of an armored train, he took an active part, characteristically directing operations to free the engine. He was captured, made a prisoner of war, escaped, had a hazardous journey through the Boer lines, with posters advertising a large reward for his recapture, and had a rapturous welcome in Durban, where he found himself a hero. He then went back to the war in earnest, showing an extraordinary amount of physical energy. Before the Boers surrendered Johannesburg, Churchill contrived to tour the city on bicycle, speeding up when he saw armed parties of the enemy. We tend to epitomize Churchill by his later sedentary existence. In youth he was hyperactive. He was the Harrow and Public Schools Fencing Champion-and fencing is one of the most energetic of sports. In India he played polo enthusiastically, being part of his regimental team, which won the All-India Calcutta Cup, the supreme prize in those days. Much of his time in South Africa was spent on his tramping feet, wearing out a pair of boots in the process. He was among thirty thousand men who marched in triumph to Pretoria, the Boer capital, led by a war balloon which he compared in his Strictly speaking he was a noncombatant, but during a Boer ambush of an armored train, he took an active part, characteristically directing operations to free the engine. He was captured, made a prisoner of war, escaped, had a hazardous journey through the Boer lines, with posters advertising a large reward for his recapture, and had a rapturous welcome in Durban, where he found himself a hero. He then went back to the war in earnest, showing an extraordinary amount of physical energy. Before the Boers surrendered Johannesburg, Churchill contrived to tour the city on bicycle, speeding up when he saw armed parties of the enemy. We tend to epitomize Churchill by his later sedentary existence. In youth he was hyperactive. He was the Harrow and Public Schools Fencing Champion-and fencing is one of the most energetic of sports. In India he played polo enthusiastically, being part of his regimental team, which won the All-India Calcutta Cup, the supreme prize in those days. Much of his time in South Africa was spent on his tramping feet, wearing out a pair of boots in the process. He was among thirty thousand men who marched in triumph to Pretoria, the Boer capital, led by a war balloon which he compared in his Morning Post Morning Post report to "the pillar of cloud which led the hosts of Israel." report to "the pillar of cloud which led the hosts of Israel."
All his exploits figured largely in his newspaper articles. But by 1900 he felt he had exhausted the opportunities of South Africa, where the war had settled into an exacting but dull guerrilla campaign. He hurried home. He had achieved the fame he sought, made himself conspicuous (his photograph appeared over a hundred times in newspapers in the year 1900), and returned to London a hero. He quickly published two books, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and and Ian Hamilton"s March. Ian Hamilton"s March. Cashing in further on his fame, he gave a series of public lectures in Britain, Canada, and the United States. These efforts left him with a capital of 10,000, which was invested for him by his father"s financial adviser, Sir Ernest Ca.s.sel. In addition, he had a row of medals: the Spanish Cross of the Order of Military Merit, First Cla.s.s; the India Medal 1895, with clasp; the Queen"s Sudan Medal 1896-98, no clasp; the Khedive"s Sudan Medal, with clasp; and the Queen"s South Africa Medal, with six clasps. He also earned the Cuban Campaign Medal 1895-98 from Spain. He had meanwhile taken his first steps in politics. He contested Oldham for the Tories in 1899, and won it in the "khaki election" the following year. In all these rapid developments, he had acc.u.mulated a number of critics and even enemies, and a reputation for being brash, arrogant, presumptuous, disobedient, boastful, and a bounder. He was accused of abusing his position as a British officer and his civilian status as a journalist, and of breaking his word of honor as a war prisoner. Among the orthodox and "right thinking," the mention of his name raised hackles. On the other hand he was the best-known young man of his generation. When he took the corner seat above the gangway in the House of Commons to make his maiden speech in February 1901-it was the seat occupied by his father for his resignation speech in 1886-he was barely twenty-six. It was not bad going. Cashing in further on his fame, he gave a series of public lectures in Britain, Canada, and the United States. These efforts left him with a capital of 10,000, which was invested for him by his father"s financial adviser, Sir Ernest Ca.s.sel. In addition, he had a row of medals: the Spanish Cross of the Order of Military Merit, First Cla.s.s; the India Medal 1895, with clasp; the Queen"s Sudan Medal 1896-98, no clasp; the Khedive"s Sudan Medal, with clasp; and the Queen"s South Africa Medal, with six clasps. He also earned the Cuban Campaign Medal 1895-98 from Spain. He had meanwhile taken his first steps in politics. He contested Oldham for the Tories in 1899, and won it in the "khaki election" the following year. In all these rapid developments, he had acc.u.mulated a number of critics and even enemies, and a reputation for being brash, arrogant, presumptuous, disobedient, boastful, and a bounder. He was accused of abusing his position as a British officer and his civilian status as a journalist, and of breaking his word of honor as a war prisoner. Among the orthodox and "right thinking," the mention of his name raised hackles. On the other hand he was the best-known young man of his generation. When he took the corner seat above the gangway in the House of Commons to make his maiden speech in February 1901-it was the seat occupied by his father for his resignation speech in 1886-he was barely twenty-six. It was not bad going.
Chapter Two.
Liberal Statesman
Churchill was now in the House of Commons. But what for? Personal advancement, certainly. He thirsted for office, power, and the chance to make history. Personal vindication, too: to avenge his father"s failure by becoming prime minister himself. But were there not higher motives? Did not altruistic elements coexist with his ambition, vanity, and l.u.s.t for success? Did he have a political philosophy? A book has been written on the subject but leaves one little wiser. Churchill, then and always, was a ma.s.s of contradictions.
Churchill"s experiences as a young warrior confirmed and intensified his imperialism. The empire was a splendid thing: enormous, world-embracing, seemingly all-powerful, certainly gorgeously colorful, exciting, offering dazzling opportunities for the progress and fulfillment of all races, provided the white elite who ran it kept their nerve and self-confidence. Churchill never lacked either and was anxious to display them in ruling an empire whose outward show stood for everything he loved and enjoyed. He also had certain gut instincts which fitted in well at a time when the great-power "scramble for Africa" was at its height. From the Sudan in 1899 he wrote to his mother: "I have a keen aboriginal desire to kill some of these odious dervishes . . . I antic.i.p.ate enjoying the exercise very much."
At the same time Churchill had a warm and tender heart and a perceptive insight into the darker side of power. He saw the horror of empire as well as its splendor. He loved to be top dog. But he felt for the underdog. The River War, The River War, for instance, was an accurate and unflinching account of what he saw. He told his cousin Ivor Guest: "I do not think the book will bring me many friends, [but] in writing the great thing is to be honest." It angered Kitchener and many others, another item in the growing dossier of "Churchill"s unreliability." The official reports after Omdurman said the wounded Dervishes "received every attention." In fact, he told his mother, their treatment was disgraceful and most were just slaughtered. Kitchener, he told her, was "a vulgar, common man-without much of the non-brutal elements in his composition." This was toned down in the book. Even so, he dealt with the question of the wounded Dervishes honestly, and he added: "The stern and un-pitying spirit of the commander was communicated to his troops." In a sense, he disapproved of the whole expedition insofar as it was a gigantic reprisal for the murder of Gordon. He wrote: "It may be that the G.o.ds forbad vengeance to man because they reserved for themselves so intoxicating a drink. But the cup should not be drained to the bottom. The dregs are often filthy tasting." for instance, was an accurate and unflinching account of what he saw. He told his cousin Ivor Guest: "I do not think the book will bring me many friends, [but] in writing the great thing is to be honest." It angered Kitchener and many others, another item in the growing dossier of "Churchill"s unreliability." The official reports after Omdurman said the wounded Dervishes "received every attention." In fact, he told his mother, their treatment was disgraceful and most were just slaughtered. Kitchener, he told her, was "a vulgar, common man-without much of the non-brutal elements in his composition." This was toned down in the book. Even so, he dealt with the question of the wounded Dervishes honestly, and he added: "The stern and un-pitying spirit of the commander was communicated to his troops." In a sense, he disapproved of the whole expedition insofar as it was a gigantic reprisal for the murder of Gordon. He wrote: "It may be that the G.o.ds forbad vengeance to man because they reserved for themselves so intoxicating a drink. But the cup should not be drained to the bottom. The dregs are often filthy tasting."
It would be untrue to say that Churchill, as a young politician and junior minister at the Colonial Office, kept an eagle eye open for the blemishes of empire. But when they attracted his attention he spoke out. He expressed his concern for the six hundred Tibetans killed by the machine guns of the Younghusband expedition to Lhasa, and for the twenty-five Zulu rebels deported to Saint Helena and who, he said, were starving there. He was quick to speak out for the Boers in giving a generous peace and reconciliation. In his maiden speech in the Commons, made immediately after taking the oath, his opening words were: "If I were a Boer, I hope I should be fighting in the field." This was not the least courageous of the five hundred major speeches he was to make in the Commons over the next sixty years. Nor did his eagerness to see war, and the relish he took in it and in medal collecting, blind him to its inescapable horrors, or prevent him from taking every opportunity to warn fellow MPs about its nature. In another speech in his first year in Parliament, he said that colonial wars were beastly, marked by atrocities and senseless slaughters. But a European war would be infinitely worse. He was "alarmed," he said, by the "composure," even "glibness," with which MPs and, worse, ministers talked of a possible European war: "A European war cannot be anything but a cruel, heart-rending struggle, which, if we are ever to enjoy the bitter fruits of victory, must demand, perhaps for several years, the whole manhood of the nation, the entire suspension of peaceful industries, and the concentration, to one end, of every vital energy in the community." He added: "Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets. The wars of peoples will be more terrible than the wars of kings." These prophetic words were spoken more than a dozen years before the catastrophe occurred in 1914. Churchill was never a warmonger as his enemies claimed. On the contrary: he warned against it just as urgently as he warned against unpreparedness for it-the two were indivisible. But Churchill was sufficient of a realist to grasp that wars will come, and that a victorious one, however dreadful, is preferable to a lost one.
In a broader sense, it is not easy to cla.s.sify Churchill. He had a historian"s mind, eager to grapple with facts, actualities, to answer the who, how, where, when questions, rather than a philosopher"s, mesmerized by abstractions with their whys and wherefores. He was born a Tory and entered Parliament as one. But he was unhappy on the Tories" benches. Salisbury, the man who had destroyed his father, ceased to be leader in 1902 but, on retiring, handed over to his nephew, A. J. Balfour, cool, aloof, calculating rather than impulsive. Now, he he had a philosopher"s mind, and Churchill found it uncongenial, although they moved in similar circles and remained nominally friends until Balfour"s death in 1930. Churchill had no desire to serve under him. Moreover, Balfour had got himself and his party into a muddle over free trade; Joe Chamberlain, having split the old Liberal Party over Ireland in 1886, now split the Tories over his plan to reimpose protective tariffs. Churchill"s const.i.tuency, Oldham, was a free trade town and he was, too, both by interest and by choice. Moreover, it was really a Liberal seat which he had won by a fluke in the "khaki" landslide of 1900, and he was more likely to hold it as a Liberal. The Tories had been predominant for twenty years but the wind of change was now blowing and the young man, sniffing it, wanted it to fill his sails. So he "crossed over" in 1904 and fought and won Oldham as a Liberal in the 1906 election, which returned a huge Liberal majority. This caused fury among the right-thinking, and they added a hefty item to Churchill"s dossier of unreliability. had a philosopher"s mind, and Churchill found it uncongenial, although they moved in similar circles and remained nominally friends until Balfour"s death in 1930. Churchill had no desire to serve under him. Moreover, Balfour had got himself and his party into a muddle over free trade; Joe Chamberlain, having split the old Liberal Party over Ireland in 1886, now split the Tories over his plan to reimpose protective tariffs. Churchill"s const.i.tuency, Oldham, was a free trade town and he was, too, both by interest and by choice. Moreover, it was really a Liberal seat which he had won by a fluke in the "khaki" landslide of 1900, and he was more likely to hold it as a Liberal. The Tories had been predominant for twenty years but the wind of change was now blowing and the young man, sniffing it, wanted it to fill his sails. So he "crossed over" in 1904 and fought and won Oldham as a Liberal in the 1906 election, which returned a huge Liberal majority. This caused fury among the right-thinking, and they added a hefty item to Churchill"s dossier of unreliability.
He was not a party man. That was the truth. His loyalty belonged to the national interest, and his own. At one time or another he stood for Parliament under six labels: Conservative, Liberal, Coalition, Const.i.tutionalist, Unionist, and National Conservative. This was partly due to his failure to find a safe seat, or one he could hold. For his first quarter century in the Commons he moved between Oldham (1900-1906), North-West Manchester (1906-8), and Dundee, which he scrambled into in 1908 and finally lost in 1922, being then outside the Commons for over a year. This dictated his return to the Conservatives. He said: "Anyone can rat. It takes real skill to re-rat." His reward was that he at last got a safe seat he could hold in all seasons, Epping in Ess.e.x (later called Wood-ford), which he retained for thirty-five years, once as a Const.i.tutionalist, twice as a Unionist, once as a National Conservative, and five times as a simple Conservative, usually with enormous majorities. This safe seat, near London, was of enormous benefit to his career. He never had to worry about it.
All the same, if Churchill was ever anything, he was a Liberal (as well as a traditionalist and a small-c conservative). There is a curious story about this, told to me by the Labour MP "Curly" Mallalieu in 1962, when Churchill was in his eighties, though still an MP. There is, or was, a curious contraption called the "House of Lords Lift" in which peers were elevated to the upper floor of Parliament, mere MPs being allowed to use it only if injured or decrepit. Churchill had permanent permission, and Curly had hurt himself playing football. One day when he got in he found Churchill there. The old man glared and said: "Who are you? " "I"m Bill Mallalieu, sir, MP for Huddersfield." "What party?" "Labour, sir." "Ah. I"m a Liberal. Always have been. Always have been." The fiendish glee with which he made this remark was memorable.
Churchill"s courage in crossing the floor made him a marked man, and it was no surprise when the prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, made him undersecretary to the colonies in 1905. He was only thirty-one, and the office was important, for his boss, Lord Elgin, was in the Lords, and Churchill had to do all the Commons business covering the entire world himself, and stand up to the Tory heavyweights, including Joe Chamberlain, the first to make the colonies a fashionable, key job, the road to the top. But standing up to this opposition from the front bench was precisely what Churchill was good at, then and always. He was fluent, resourceful, witty, and always well briefed. He enjoyed himself on his feet and did his best to interest, even enthrall, and always to entertain the House with his sallies and jokes, his moments of indignation, real or simulated, his obvious love of words and the relish with which he brought them out, not least his huge pleasure in the rituals of the Commons and his reverence for its traditions. Members always love those who love the House, and Churchill plainly did.
He also loved his job, with its telegrams, king"s messengers in uniform, red leather dispatch boxes, and important visitors, black, yellow, and white, from all over the world. He was certainly conspicuous. His name came up in a conversation between Rudyard Kipling, the Orpheus of the empire, and one of its greatest builders, Cecil Rhodes-how one wishes a transcript had survived. Churchill paid an official visit to the East African colonies in 1907, traveling with his devoted secretary "Eddie" Marsh, a fixture in his official life for the next twenty-five years. Going up from the coast to the Ugandan plateau by the new railway, Churchill described it as "like travelling up the beanstalk into fairyland." He made the most of the trip uphill by standing on the cowcatcher of the engine as it puffed its way through the jungle, a typical Churchill touch of vainglory which duly made its way into the newspapers and caused tut-tut-ting. In Uganda and Kenya he went on safari with Marsh and 350 porters. In India he had stuck wild pig but could not afford big game. Now he shot rhino, zebra, wildebeest, and gazelle, sending his trophies back to London to be stuffed and mounted by the leading taxidermist, Rowland Ward of Piccadilly. Oddly enough, through a characteristic piece of Churchillian expediency, to avoid criticism of misuse of public funds the trip had been paid for by the Strand Magazine, Strand Magazine, and in return he wrote articles which, extended to book form, became and in return he wrote articles which, extended to book form, became My African Journey. My African Journey. Like so many of his activities, this combination of office with journalism would be impossible now. Indeed, it raised eyebrows at the time. Like so many of his activities, this combination of office with journalism would be impossible now. Indeed, it raised eyebrows at the time.
Churchill had become a Privy Counsellor that year; and the next, when H. H. Asquith succeeded "C-B" as prime minister, he was brought into the cabinet. Going to the Colonial Office had been Churchill"s idea. He had originally been offered the plum job of financial secretary to the treasury, but he had preferred to work off his global ideas for the colonies (his book is full of schemes for industrializing Africa and harnessing the Nile). Now, however, he wanted to get his teeth into home politics and eagerly accepted Asquith"s invitation to succeed Lloyd George, who was promoted to chancellor of the exchequer, as president of the Board of Trade. It was dazzling to reach cabinet rank when only thirty-four, and the post also brought the opportunity to work with LG, with whom he forged a precarious friendship and a more solid policy alliance to bring about an English version of the "welfare state" Bismarck had introduced in Germany.
Churchill realized he was about to embark on his first major adventure in politics, and he wanted to put his private life in order. He had already (January 2, 1906) paid his debt to his family by publishing his magnificent Lord Randolph Churchill. Lord Randolph Churchill. As his cousin Ivor Guest put it, "Few fathers had done less for their sons. Few sons have done more for their fathers." Now he wanted a family of his own. An eligible bachelor, he had dutifully fallen in love with various girls, or thought he had, and waltzed around Mayfair ballrooms. But he made little effort to dance in step: not his line. "I trod on the Prince of Wales"s toe," he recorded complacently, "and heard him yelp." In August 1908 he proposed to Clementine Hozier, daughter of the late Colonel Sir Henry Hozier, secretary of Lloyd"s. Other girls had set their caps at him, including Asquith"s daughter Violet, and some of them had substantial As his cousin Ivor Guest put it, "Few fathers had done less for their sons. Few sons have done more for their fathers." Now he wanted a family of his own. An eligible bachelor, he had dutifully fallen in love with various girls, or thought he had, and waltzed around Mayfair ballrooms. But he made little effort to dance in step: not his line. "I trod on the Prince of Wales"s toe," he recorded complacently, "and heard him yelp." In August 1908 he proposed to Clementine Hozier, daughter of the late Colonel Sir Henry Hozier, secretary of Lloyd"s. Other girls had set their caps at him, including Asquith"s daughter Violet, and some of them had substantial dots dots. But Clemmie suited him, and he loved her. He always put happiness before money. Anyway, he never had any doubt he could earn anything required. As he laid down, "Income should be expanded to meet expenditure." They were quickly married, at St. Margaret"s, Westminster, Parliament"s parish church, in September, and the event was not allowed to crowd out political activities. His best man was the fiercest of England"s political tribe, Lord Hugh Cecil, head of the Tory "ultra" pressure group known as the Hughligans, and in the vestry, while the registers were being signed, Churchill had time to have a plotting whisper with LG. He used the honeymoon to complete and dispatch to the printers his African book.
Among all the twentieth-century ruling elites, the Churchills must be judged to have had the most successful marriage. It can be said with reasonable cert.i.tude that each was totally faithful to the other. She devoted herself completely to her remarkable husband, gave him much good (usually liberal) advice, which was not always taken, comforted him in his many career mishaps, and calmed him down when he was triumphant. "He always insists I am by him," she said, "and then promptly forgets my existence." True, but he never looked at another woman. They had one son, Randolph, and four daughters, Diana, Sarah, Marigold (who died in infancy), and Mary.
The marital fidelity of the Churchills was a remarkable fact, for the way the Commons works tends to erode vows on both sides. Then, too, both parties had promiscuous mothers. Lady Blanche Hozier, daughter of the Earl of Airlie, had many lovers while her husband was still alive, nine at one time, it was said. Clemmie was not Hozier"s daughter but there is no certainty who her father was. The most likely candidate was a flirtatious cavalry officer, "Bay" Middleton, but another possibility was Bertram Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale, Nancy Mitford"s grandfather. If so, it is curious to think that Mrs. Churchill was her aunt. Jennie Churchill also had a number of lovers while Lord Randolph was still alive, and they may even have included Middleton. After Lord Randolph"s death she had more, and then made two marriages to younger men, before having one of her falls, through wearing ultrahigh heels, which led to mortification, amputation of her leg, and death (in 1921). There is no doubt Churchill was the son of Lord Randolph. But it is a remarkable fact that the children of such persistent adulteresses should have made such a faithful couple. Given Churchill"s adventurous and reckless nature, and his appet.i.te for sensation, his fidelity is notable. It may be that he put all his energy into his political life. Certainly, the marriage was spared many of the irritating rubs of close proximity, for Churchill"s hours-up late arguing with colleagues, rising at lunchtime after working in bed-meant that they led separate existences under the same roof: they each had their own bedroom, right from the start. Whatever the reason, fidelity was a G.o.dsend and an important contributing factor to Churchill"s success, for he was saved all the worry and emotional storm which adultery provokes.
Churchill delighted in his marriage. He was a happy man. Against this background, the years from 1908 proved the most fruitful of his life in terms of the legislation, on the whole highly successful, which he pushed through Parliament. These had the overriding aim of helping the poor, the unemployed, and the lower-paid working cla.s.s. They included the Trade Boards Act (1909), ending "sweated labour"; the establishment of labor exchanges, to enable employees to fill jobs more quickly; the first National Insurance Act (1911), to provide unemployment pay; allowances for children to set against income tax; the Mines Act (1911), which transformed conditions in the chronically unhappy coal trade; and the Shops Act, which eventually helped shop a.s.sistants by requiring a tea break and imposing early closing. For the first time millions of lower-paid workers got a weekly half holiday. Churchill supervised every detail of this extremely complex program, defending it clause by clause in the Commons. He was impelled by a genuine pa.s.sion for the least fortunate members of society, by a strong belief that society could be made both humane and more efficient, and by his feeling that revolution, of which there were rumblings all over the world at this time, could only be averted by judicious reforms. Other countries were introducing changes, but for a comparable achievement one has to look to the domestic program of Woodrow Wilson in the United States. Churchill"s reforms were not his work alone. For the first time he demonstrated his wonderful ability to galvanize civil servants into furious activity and dramatic innovations, and his equal skill in bringing to Whitehall brilliant outsiders, such as William Beveridge, who ran the new labor exchanges and who was later to produce the famous Beveridge Report (1943), the plan on which Britain"s welfare state was completed.
Of course, the political giant behind the reforms was the chancellor of the exchequer, Lloyd George, who provided the money. The introduction of old-age pensions in particular-which struck people at the time as the most sensational of the novelties-was his achievement. But Churchill supported him pa.s.sionately, having the case of Mrs. Everest in his mind: he was always most strongly motivated by personal experience and individual cases. The two worked together to bring the great fleet of measures into harbor, wafted by the winds of their oratory. As speakers they were very different. Churchill had always prepared his set speeches carefully but not word for word. In 1904, however, he had the horrible experience of "drying up" in the Commons, when apparently in full flow. Thereafter he learned everything by heart, rehea.r.s.ed and timed himself, and left nothing to chance. The Commons was, as a rule, a rapt audience. Lloyd George was an inspirational leader on the Welsh preacher model. He thought and spoke on his feet, and expected the House to interrupt, to partic.i.p.ate, and so to inspire sallies, jokes, splashes of venom, and apothegms. He created dramatic pauses and raised hubbubs. So his speaking rate was slower measured in words delivered per minute-85 to Churchill"s 111, with Gladstone"s 100 as the standard. But the excitement of a Lloyd George speech was intense: you did not know what he would say, and often it came as a surprise, even to the speaker. Later in his life Churchill had to compete for the t.i.tle of best Commons orator with another Welshman, Aneurin Bevan, who like LG often thought on his feet and was capable of devastating impromptus, especially to interrupters. When I heard both men in the 1950s, I rated Bevan more highly; and Sir Robert Boothby, who was Churchill"s parliamentary private secretary in the twenties, close to Lloyd George, and a friend and drinking companion of Bevan"s, told me that LG was the best of the three at actually moving the House and changing opinions. However, Churchill"s method was right for him and proved invaluable when, in due course, he addressed vast audiences, worldwide, in solemn settings. Moreover, while LG"s speeches do not read particularly well (nor do Bevan"s), Churchill"s orations, in print, usually carry all the resonance of his voice with them: they are magnificent prose, too.
If Churchill and LG carried through a peaceful revolution together, they were not equals. To LG, the radical by birth, upbringing, race, emotional instinct, and voracious appet.i.te for change, to thrust down the mighty from their seats and exalt the poor was his religion and his delight. Both he and Churchill opposed the over-ambitious race with Germany to build the most battleships. But only LG could, and did, say, "Dukes are more expensive than Dreadnoughts, and often more dangerous! "
Churchill was carried forward by intellectual conviction, but his reverence for tradition acted as a brake, and LG delighted in taunting him about his burden of "strawberry leaves and Blenheim." Inverting the usual hierarchy, he had a superior social position to Churchill, which reinforced his seniority in years, parliamentary experience, and honed political skills. So he was by far the senior partner. Churchill saw it in even more ignominious terms, especially in retrospect. In the mid-1920s, when Churchill was riding high as chancellor of the exchequer, and LG was out of office, for good as it turned out, Boothby sought to heal the breach between the two men-they had scarcely spoken since LG"s government broke up in 1922-by bringing the Welshman to Churchill"s private room at the Commons for a private chat. After LG slipped away, Boothby went in and found Churchill slumped in somber thought. "Well, how did it go?" "Oh, very well. Within five minutes we were right back in our old relationship." "What was that?" "Master and servant." "Master and servant."
At the time Churchill was too busy and excited to worry about his subservience, for his horizons continued to expand. In 1910 he was promoted to home secretary. This gave added weight to his role in the reform program but also allowed him to take direct action. All his life he refused to be bound to a desk. He insisted on seeing for himself. His imprisonment by the Boers had given him a horror of confinement, so he visited prisons, conferred with wardens, talked to prisoners alone-probably the first home secretary to do so-and introduced administrative changes, such as regular supplies of books and entertainment. He began the process whereby the incarceration of children was ended. His approach aroused irritation among the possessing cla.s.ses. Among his duties as home secretary was to send a daily written report to the king when Parliament was sitting. Edward VII had always enjoyed Churchill"s jokes and often irreverent approach to politics. George V, who succeeded him in 1910, was less sure of himself, had a much cruder sense of humor, and never could quite see the point of Churchill. His racy letters often appeared improper to the new king. In November 1911 the home secretary wrote that his office was considering labor colonies to deal with "tramps and wastrels." He added: "It must not, however, be forgotten that there are idlers and wastrels at both ends of the social scale." This produced an explosion of anger in the king, who accused the author of "very socialistic views." But Churchill, who was never content to be silent or inactive when the opportunity to say or do something interesting presented itself, got into trouble with the Socialists and their trade union allies, too. A miners" strike at Tonypandy in the Rhondda Valley of South Wales threatened to be beyond the powers of the local police to control. Churchill ordered troops to the area as a deterrent. This was a bold thing to do, bound to arouse resentment among both militant trade unionists and Tory armchair critics who disliked Churchillian "theatricals" as they called them-two excellent reasons, in his view, why he should do it. In fact it succeeded. The police were able to disperse the miners by using their rolled-up mackintoshes-they did not even need to draw their truncheons. The general on the spot, Neville Macready, testified: "It was entirely due to Mr. Churchill"s forethought that bloodshed was avoided." But the accusation was made and persisted-it still does among trade unionists-that Churchill ordered the army to fire on the miners. "Remember Tonypandy" was a bitter hustings cry used against Churchill at every election thereafter.
A more sensational episode followed. The British were used to Irish "outrages" but in the years before the wars they had to put up with a new menace, international terrorists termed anarchists. The phenomenon is well treated in Conrad"s novel Under Western Eyes Under Western Eyes. Among those ranked as anarchists were a gang of Latvian immi grants under a man called Peter the Painter. They had already killed three policemen while tunneling into a jeweler"s shop, and in January 1911 they were holed up in a house in Sidney Street in London"s East End. Churchill was advised to send a party of Scots Guards from the Tower of London to help the police. He was delighted to agree, and went also in person to see the "siege," dragging with him Eddie Marsh, the poetry lover and art collector out of office hours, who was terrified. Photographers were present and the newspapers showed the home secretary, apparently directing police and soldiers, wearing a top hat and a beautiful coat with fur lining and astrakhan collar. When a fire broke out in the besieged house he certainly gave orders to the fire brigade: "Let it burn." Two charred bodies were later found in the ruins. Balfour, who never did anything active if he could help it (except to play golf), asked maliciously in the Commons, "I understand what the photographer was doing. But what was the Right Honourable Gentleman doing?" This episode became another weighty item in the anti-Churchill dossier, and the photo of Churchill at the siege was reproduced thousands of times, and still is. Hard to see, today, what he did wrong. A minister with direct experience of how violent crime is handled is of more use than one who merely reads reports. Besides, Churchill enjoyed it: he a.s.sured his colleague Charles Masterman, "It was such fun." When a fuss was made about corporal punishment of criminals, and various specially designed rods and birches were produced, Churchill and Eddie Marsh flogged themselves with them in the home secretary"s office. That was fun, too. As such it was in contrast to his general experience as home secretary, which he found grim: "Of all the offices I have held," he told a newspaper in the midthirties, "this was the one I liked least." He particularly disliked exercising the power of the home secretary to confirm death sentences or commute them to life imprisonment. Of the forty-three cases that came before him, he commuted twenty-one. Churchill was never a supporter of abolition of capital punishment. He thought long incarceration much more horrible. But the night before a hanging he brooded on the condemned man"s fate: it was one of the very few worries which ever robbed him of his sleep.
All the same, Churchill later admitted that he relished the years before the First World War more than any other period of his career. We tend to think of them as a halcyon age of peace, prosperity, and pleasure, the last in English history. In fact it was an age of turbulence, and that is one reason Churchill enjoyed it so much. It was not the world war which ended the ancien regime but the years before it: the war was merely one of the symptoms of the change. There is a remarkable book, The Strange Death of Liberal England, The Strange Death of Liberal England, in which George Dangerfield presents the epoch in this light, a time of frenzy, extremism, and incipient violence, banishing the old Liberal slogan of "Peace, Prosperity and Reform," and with it all tranquillity in public life. The unions were active as never before, taking full advantage of their virtual immunity to actions for damages caused by strikes, which the Liberals had unwisely conferred on them in 1906. The suffragettes were turning from protest to direct action, were being brutally arrested, sent to prison, and forcibly fed when they resorted to hunger strikes. In 1909, to pay for the welfare state, Lloyd George introduced a budget which taxed land values, so hitting hard the aristocracy, and increased taxation generally. Breaking a long tradition under which the House of Lords automatically pa.s.sed finance bills agreed by the Commons, the Lords rejected it, the Tories using their overwhelming built-in majority there. Asquith had either to withdraw or tone down the budget, to create peers to enable it to be pa.s.sed-which King George initially declined to do-or to go to the country. But two elections in 1910 failed to decide the matter, though they robbed the Liberals of their huge majority over all parties, forcing Asquith to rely on Irish support in order to go on governing. That in turn forced him to buy the Irish MPs by giving them a Home Rule bill, which further angered the Tories and their Ulster Protestant allies, who threatened violence and began to arm themselves. in which George Dangerfield presents the epoch in this light, a time of frenzy, extremism, and incipient violence, banishing the old Liberal slogan of "Peace, Prosperity and Reform," and with it all tranquillity in public life. The unions were active as never before, taking full advantage of their virtual immunity to actions for damages caused by strikes, which the Liberals had unwisely conferred on them in 1906. The suffragettes were turning from protest to direct action, were being brutally arrested, sent to prison, and forcibly fed when they resorted to hunger strikes. In 1909, to pay for the welfare state, Lloyd George introduced a budget which taxed land values, so hitting hard the aristocracy, and increased taxation generally. Breaking a long tradition under which the House of Lords automatically pa.s.sed finance bills agreed by the Commons, the Lor