June 19, 2013

Finest Hour 139, Summer 2008

Page 26

By Michael McMenamin

125 YEARS AGO:
Spring 1883 • Age 8
“Only 18 more days…”

Winston was counting the days until the school term ended and he regained his freedom. On 2 July he wrote his mother: “It was so kind of you to let Everest come down here. I think she enjoyed herself very much. Only 18 more days. Now I will say goodbye. With love & Kisses I remain, Your affect. Winston”

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When school was out, Jennie took both her sons for a visit to Blenheim Palace. Lord Randolph’s father had died in July 1883 and Randolph and his brother Blandford, the new Duke of Marlborough, were touring Europe at the time. Jennie left Winston and Jack there alone with their twelve-year-old cousin Sunny. Randolph wrote to express concern: “I think it is rather rash of you letting him be at Blenheim without you. I don’t know who will look after him & Sunny & keep them in order.”

Winston appears to have kept in order. On 15 September he wrote his mother: “I hope you are quite well. I went out fishing today & caught my first fish by my self. Jack & I are quite well. With love & kisses. I am your loving Winston.”

100 YEARS AGO:
Spring 1908 • Age 33
“I want so much to see you…”

Sir Martin Gilbert’s official biography tracks the politics and romance as Churchill pursued his courtship of Clementine Hozier. On 4 August he spoke to the International Free Trade Congress at Caxton Hall, Westminster, attacking those who looked upon trade as a kind of warfare:

How absurd it is continuously to employ the language of war and the metaphors of war in relation to the peaceful transactions of mankind! Whereas in war both parties lose, whoever wins, in commerce out of every peaceful transaction there is an advantage for both parties… Every exchange that takes place between nations renders another exchange possible in consequence of it. Multiply exchanges and you multiply good will. Increase good will and you increase national security.

But Churchill was less than prescient in predicting “the peaceful development of European politics in the next twenty years” because of “the prosaic bonds of commerce,” which “impose an effective caution and restraint even upon the most reckless and the most intemperate of statesmen.”

On 7 August, Winston’s brother Jack was married and WSC wrote two long letters to Clementine, betraying both his eagerness to see her (“I shall go over to Blenheim quite early on Monday, & mind you come by the first possible train.”) as well as his disappointment at not hearing from her. The catastrophe to which he referred was a fire which destroyed the country house where he had been a guest:

You have not distinguished yourself very much as a correspondent….But I suppose you were waiting for me—& I was hampered & Hindered by Cruel Catastrophe. Alack!… you will be amused at Blenheim. It has many glories in the fullness of summer. Pools of water, gardens of roses, a noble lake shrouded by giant trees; tapestries, pictures & monuments within…. Till Monday then & may the Fates play fair.

Clementine replied the same day:

I was so glad to get your delightful letter this morning—I retired with it into the garden, but for a long time before opening it I amused myself by wondering what would be inside. I have been able to think of nothing but the fire & the terrible danger you have been in—The first news I heard was a rumour that the house was burnt down—That was all—My dear, my heart stood still with terror.

Winston proposed on 11 August. Gilbert’s volumes tell of how, the next morning, the newly engaged couple sent love notes down the hall to each other’s rooms. Winston wrote:

How are you? I send you my best love to salute you: & I am getting up at once in order if you like to walk to the rose garden after breakfast & pick a bunch before you start. You will have to leave here about 10:30 & I will come with you to Oxford. Shall I not give you a letter for your Mother?

Clementine replied: “My dearest, I am very well….I should love to go to the rose garden.” Their notes, prim and proper, continued the next day:

My dearest—I hope you have slept like a stone…. from 1 onwards I slept the sleep of the just & this morning am fresh & fit. Tell me how you feel & whether you mean to get up for breakfast. The purpose of this letter is also to send you heaps of love and four kisses. XXXX. from Your always devoted Winston.

Clementine promptly replied:

My darling, I never slept so well & I had the most heavenly dreams. I am coming down presently—Mother is quite worn out as we have been talking for the last two hours. Je taime passionnément—I feel less shy in French.”

Moving on to Salisbury Hall to visit Churchill’s mother did not stop their exchange of notes:

My beloved—Get up! I want so much to see you. Let us go for a walk before lunch. I slept till 10.30! Several interesting letters have arrived wh I will show you. The sun shines bright, & my heart throbs to see you again—sweet— precious. Your devoted W.

Clementine’s reply: “Darling—I am surrounded by millions of letters which I am trying to answer. I will be down in about an hour or a little more. I love you. Clementine”

A day later, at Albert Hall in Swansea, Churchill gave a speech on foreign policy in which he deprecated belief that war

between Grear Britain and Germany is inevitable. It is all nonsense….People say, “Oh, it would be worth our while to fight for the sake of the trade.” Gentlemen, it is not worth fighting for the sake of trade. One month of fighting would destroy more wealth than successful trading of five years could produce, even if everybody worked twelve hours a day….that far and wide throughout the masses of the British democracy there is no feeling of ill-will whatever towards Germany…. We wish them well from the bottom of our hearts…

Winston and Clementine were married on 12 September 1908 at 2pm and, as WSC would write in his autobiography thirty-two years later, he “lived happily ever afterwards.” That Churchill fell in love with a woman as beautiful and brilliant as Clementine is no surprise. That he was able to win her love after an inauspicious debut is a testament to the observation of his first love, Pamela Plowden: “The first time you meet Winston you see all his faults, and the rest of your life you spend in discovering his virtues.”

75 YEARS AGO:
Spring 1933 • Age 58
“Britain’s hour of weakness is Europe’s hour of danger…”

The Nazi Party’s consolidation was as swift as it was astonishing. On 15 July, it was established as the sole legal political party in Germany, and evidence was already emerging that the German government had begun to build military aircraft, in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Churchill addressed these ominous developments on 12 August, 1933:

Nobody can watch the events which are taking place in Germany without increasing anxiety about what their outcome will be…. Already her smaller neighbours, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, and Denmark, feel a deep disquietude. There is a grave reason to believe that Germany is arming herself, or seeking to arm herself, contrary to the solemn treaties exacted from her in her hour of defeat…. I trust [we] will be strong enough to enable us to count for something when we work for peace, and strong enough if war should come in Europe to maintain our effective neutrality, unless we should decide of our own free will to the contrary. Always remember that Britain’s hour of weakness is Europe’s hour of danger.

Churchill’s warnings were confirmed in a letter in early September from Duff Cooper, on holiday in Austria:

We are living here on the frontier of Austria and the inhabitants are nervous of invasion. We motored through the centre of Germany and it was a remarkable sight. Everywhere and at all times of the day and night there were troops marching, drilling and singing. Hitlerite uniform is an exceptionally unpleasant shade of khaki and one sees as much of it in Germany now as one did of khaki in England, in 1918. This is not an exaggeration. They are preparing for war with more general enthusiasm than a whole nation has ever before put into such preparation. Meanwhile I read in the “Times” that a special meeting of our Cabinet has been discussing disarmament.

During the summer, Churchill also was putting the final touches on the initial volume of Marlborough, an endeavor far better received than his controversial political views. His friend Lady Violet Bonham Carter thanked him in June for the hours

of absorbed interest & tense excitement your “Marlborough” has brought me. From start to finish it was a draught of pure delight. The current is throughout swift & strong. Never for one moment was I becalmed in sluggish waters.

Duff Cooper passed on similar praise:

I have read every word of your first volume with great delight. It is a remarkable performance. You make the man live—and the period. The reader is caught up in the passions of the times and feels that the author has almost played his part in them.

On 25 July, five days after signing a Concordat with the Pope in which the Catholic Church agreed to refrain from any political activity in Germany, the Nazis passed a law providing for the compulsory sterilization of all people who were blind, deaf, deformed or mentally deficient. It was a law taken virtually word for word from model state legislation provided by U.S. eugenics lobbyists on which laws in twenty-six American states were already based, and gave new meaning to the phrase “Made in USA.”