Sir Winston Churchill – Swashbuckling Adventurer
Did the Great Statesman Have a Lifetime Obsession With War?
Jul 7, 2009
Winston Churchill is renowned as the war-time leader of Britain who won the adulation of the British people. It is not so well known that he played a key role in World War I. What places a particular man at the helm when war threatens or rages? Is it fate, breeding or ability? It can be argued that, in the case of Winston Churchill, it was his life-time obsession with war and his “Boy’s Own Comics” approach to it as a great adventure.
Churchill’s Fascination with War Started in Childhood
Never a strong scholar, the boy Winston rebelled against learning and refused to study what did not interest him. He was, Peter de Mendelsson (The Age of Churchill) reveals, at the bottom of his form at Harrow for four and a half years. Only one thing seemed to engage him – playing in his room with battalions of toy soldiers, manoeuvering them, and making cavalry charges. Lord Randolph asked his son if he would like to go into the army. Winston agreed without hesitation. In My Early Life Churchill himself admits: “The toy soldier turned the current of my life.” That he had made the right move was evident from his results at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy. According to Richard Armstrong (Finest Hour – 1962), he entered at the bottom of his class, yet finished eighth out of 150.
Churchill Chases After a War
Churchill emerged from Sandhurst as a lieutenant in the 4th Hussars. The empire was at peace – the only war in the world was a rebellion of native guerrilla fighters against the Spanish government in tiny Cuba. Churchill sought a commission from the Daily Graphic to be their war correspondent in Havana, despite the fact that, as Peter de Mendelsson writes, the British public had little interest. Churchill certainly did! He records in My Early Life that it was on his 21st birthday that he first heard a shot fired in anger and bullets whistle through the air.
Then Churchill got his chance at a real skirmish – the Pathan tribes had revolted against the British in India. Churchill, says Richard Armstrong, “wangled a spot with the field force” sent to deal with the problem. His romanticization of war is evident in the newspaper accounts he tendered, reproduced in his first book: The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War (1898).
“Yi! Yi! Yi! Bang! Bang! Bang! … The British officer was spinning round just beside me, his face a mass of blood, his right eye cut out. Yes, it was certainly an adventure.”
The Great Adventure Continues
Churchill’s adventure continued with the 21st Lancers in the Sudan. According to Geoffrey Bocca (The Adventurous Life of Winston Churchill) Lord Kitchener, leader of the expeditionary force, had refused point-blank to have him, as he had read the outspoken young soldier’s published criticism of British military tactics. Churchill’s mother used her influence with the Prince of Wales to override Kitchener. The excited Churchill became part of the last cavalry charge in British history, the Charge of Omdurman. According to Lewis Broad (Winston Churchill: the Years of Preparation), Churchill rode into the mass of tribesmen, firing off his Mauser automatic, killing several men.
Churchill and the Boer War
In 1899, Churchill left the army to try his luck in politics. He failed by a small margin, but, as luck would have it, war broke out in South Africa, Churchill was offered a job as war correspondent for the Morning Post, and jumped at the chance. Churchill was quickly in the thick of it. He was in a troop train when it was attacked and derailed. According to Richard Harrity and Ralph G. Martin (Man of the Century: Churchill) Churchill helped carry the wounded to the engine, and got the engine going while the soldiers provided covering fire. If this is not sufficiently “Boys Own Comics” material, consider Churchill’s reputed call: “Keep cool, men. This will be interesting for my paper.”
World War I and Churchill’s Role
Prime Minister Asquith invited Churchill to be the new First Lord of the Admiralty. Churchill was ready when war was declared in 1914. However, Churchill made a tactical error, causing the costly Galllipoli defeat. He was forced out of the Admiralty, so resigned and enlisted in the army. As Colonel Churchill with a battalion in the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, Churchill was again in his element. He made a point of visiting the trenches three times a day; one visit, according to Professor Dewer Gibb (Winston Churchill: the Years of Preparation) would often be at 1 am. Churchill was finally re-appointed to a government post – this time Minister of Munitions.
The Beloved Winnie in World War II
Churchill’s oratory and leadership throughout World War II need little elaboration. It seemed this was what he was born to do. Churchill’s sense of mission and self-confidence probably stemmed from the fact that he had immersed himself in warfare as a lifetime sport.
Churchill’s adventure-lust explains the D-Day fiasco, detailed by Gerald Pawle in The War and Colonel Warden, where Churchill, a 70-year-old politician, was determined to sail with the landing force, telling the outraged Eisenhower that he had no authority to prevent him. Only King George’s veto denied Churchill his bit of fun. To the last, he wanted to play ‘tin soldiers’.
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