May 13, 2013

ACTION THIS DAY: FINEST HOUR 142, SPRING 2009

BY MICHAEL MCMENAMIN

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125 YEARS AGO:
Spring 1884 • Age 9
“Cannot be trusted to behave…”

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Winston was in what was to be his last term at St. George’s school and his record was not improving. His report for March shows the low regard in which he was held by the Headmaster: “Diligence. Conduct has been exceedingly bad. He is not to be trusted to do any one thing. He has however notwithstanding made decided progress. General Conduct. Very bad—is a constant trouble to everybody and is always in some scrape or other. Headmaster’s Remarks. He cannot be trusted to behave himself anywhere.”

By 20 June the Headmaster’s review was only slightly improved. “General Conduct. Better—but still troublesome. Headmaster’s Remarks. He has no ambition—if he were really to exert himself he might yet be first at the end of the Term.” Churchill left St. George’s at the end of the Summer Term in 1884, never to return.

100 YEARS AGO:
Spring 1909 • Age 34
“A mind that has influenced…”

In early April 1909, Churchill had a sharp exchange of letters with the Conservative MP Alfred Lyttelton, who he believed had publicly accused him of leaking Cabinet secrets. Lyttelton denied the accusation and claimed in a letter to Churchill that newspaper reports improperly juxtaposed his comments to give an inaccurate impression. Churchill replied that Lyttelton’s comments “might, without the sacrifice of any argumentative advantage, have been couched in a more gracious style. Still since it clearly & specifically repudiates any intention to make a personal charge against the Ministers whose names you mentioned, I express my thanks for it, & my regrets to have put you to any trouble.” Churchill, however, couldn’t resist a final jab at his former Conservative Party colleagues: “Had it not been for the sentence to which I have referred, I should certainly not have written to you about your speech. I know how hard it is sometimes to find things to say….”

During this period, Churchill’s letters kept his wife informed in some detail about parliamentary proceedings. On 27 April 1909, when the bill to raise his salary as President of the Board of Trade was under consideration, he wrote to her that “the debate last night was poisonous.” The next night went better: “I write this line from the Bench. The Trade Boards Bill has been beautifully received & will be passed without division.

A[rthur] Balfour & Alfred Lyttelton were most friendly to it, & all opposition has faded away.” Then Churchill turned to domestic matters—the library in their new home: “You certainly have made a most judicious selection of carpets & I entirely approve it. I am not quite convinced upon the stained boards in the Library—but it does not press. The work is going on vy well. The bookshelves are being put in the cases & the colour is being most attractively polished.”

On 30 May 1909, Churchill attended Army maneuvers with his regiment and, to Clementine, was critical of what he had observed, noting how much better he could have done: 

I daresay you read in the papers about the Field day. My poor face was roasted like a chestnut and burns dreadfully. We had an amusing day. There were lots of soldiers & pseudo soldiers galloping about, & the 8 regiments of yeomanry made a brave show. But the field day was not in my judgment well carried out – for on one side the infantry force was so widely extended that it could not have been used with any real effect, & on the other the mounted men failed to profit by this dangerous error. These military men vy often fail altogether to see the simple truths underlying the relationships of all armed forces, & how the levers of power can be used upon them. Do you know I would greatly like to have some practice in the handling of large forces.

Later in the same letter, he invited her to meet his mentor:

Bourke Cockran—a great friend of mine—has just arrived in England from U.S.A. He is a remarkable fellow—perhaps the finest orator in America, with a gigantic C. J. Fox head—& a mind that has influenced my thought in more than one important direction. I have asked him to lunch on Friday at H of C & shall go to London that day to get my Money Resolution on the Trade Boards Bill. But what do you say to coming up too & giving us both (& his pretty young wife) lunch at Eccleston?

75 YEARS AGO:
Spring 1934 • Age 59
“We might learn something from our German friends.”

Churchill was preoccupied almost exclusively during the spring of 1934 with the Committee of Privileges investigation into the question he had raised against the Secretary of State for India, Samuel Hoare, and Lord Derby, for improperly pressuring the Manchester Chamber of Commerce to revise evidence it had submitted to the Joint Select Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform. The bulk of the correspondence for this period in Winston S. Churchill, Companion Volume V, Part 2, the official biography by Sir Martin Gilbert, is concerned with this subject.

Notwithstanding this preoccupation, Churchill gave a speech in the Commons on 14 March, highly critical of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s failed policy of disarmament: 

False ideas have been spread about the country that disarmament means peace. The Disarmament Conference has brought us steadily nearer—I will not say to war because I share the repulsion from using that word, but nearer to a pronounced state of ill-will than anything that could be imagined. So in the end what have we got? We have not got disarmament. We have the rearmament of Germany.

Churchill then went on to explain how an alliance with a France that had disarmed, as the British government had urged, would have made it more likely to involve Britain in a European conflict:

Suppose France had taken the advice which we have tendered during the last four or five years, and had yielded to the pressure of the two great English-speaking nations to set an example of disarmament….what would be the position today? Where should we be?

I honour the French for their resolute determination to preserve the freedom and security of their country from invasion of any kind; I earnestly hope that we, in arranging our forces, shall not fall below their example….The Romans had a maxim, “Shorten your weapons and lengthen your frontiers.” But our maxim seems to be, “Diminish your weapons and increase your obligations.” Aye, and diminish the weapons of your friends.

On 21 March, Churchill addressed the necessity of creating a Ministry of Defense over the three services of the Army, Navy and the Air Force. Ironically, in doing so, he held up the new Nazi regime in Germany as a model to follow:

In organizing industry, not only actually but prospectively, surely we might learn something from our German friends, who are building up an entirely new army and other fighting Services, and who have the advantage of building them up from what is called a clean-swept table—starting fair in the respect, unhampered indeed. I have been told that they have created what is called a ‘weapon office,’ or Waffenamt, which makes for all the three arms of the Service which they are so busily developing. It seems to me that this expression, ‘weapon office,’ is pregnant, and that it might well enter into and be incorporated in our thought at the present time.

During this period, Churchill was also adding to his reputation as one of England’s most prolific and well-paid journalists. A list of his published articles during the spring of 1934 demonstrates the range of his interests:

“Singapore—Key to the Pacific,” Pictorial Weekly, 24 March 1934.

“Penny-in-the-Slot Politics,” Answers, 31 March 1934.

“The Greatest Half-Hour in Our History,” Daily Mail, 13 April 1934.

“Fill Up the Empire!” Pictorial Weekly, 14 April 1934.

“Have You a Hobby?” Answers, 21 April 1934.

“Let’s Boost Britain,” Answers, 28 April 1934.

“A Silent Toast to William Willet,” Pictorial Weekly, 28 April 1934. (See Finest Hour 114 or our website.)

“What’s Wrong with Parliament?” Answers, 5 May 1934.

“This Year’s Royal Academy Is Exhilarating,” Daily Mail, 16 May 1934.

“Great Deeds That Gave Us the Empire,” Daily Mail, 24 May 1934.

50 YEARS AGO:
Spring 1959 • Age 84
“The President is a real friend”

Churchill, Montague Browne and President Eisenhower, May 1959. Churchill made plans to visit America. His private secretary, Anthony Montague Browne, wrote to Bernard Baruch: “I should tell you for your strictly private information that Sir Winston has not been very well, and we were in doubt as to whether he should go. However, he is determined to visit America again, so that is that! I know that you will safeguard him from fatigue as much as possible.”

From Washington, Churchill wrote to his wife on 5 May:

Here I am. All goes well & the President is a real friend. We had a most pleasant dinner last night, & I caught up my arrears of sleep in eleven hours. I am invited to stay in bed all the morning & am going to see Mr. Dulles after luncheon. Anthony will send you more news. I send my fondest love darling.

The visit went well and, in a report to the Foreign Office, Montague Browne wrote that during the three days spent in the White House Eisenhower showed an affectionate care and consideration for Sir Winston and spent a great deal of time with him: “He looked well and seemed alert. He said that he is troubled by deafness, but this was not apparent.”

Montague Brown continued:

His working day seems to be from about half-past eight in the morning until luncheon. In the afternoon, when he was not with Sir Winston, he seemed either to be resting or taking light exercise.

The President spoke with what seemed relief of the approach of the end of his tenure. I do not think that this was assumed. In general he seemed rather less than optimistic….At one point he concluded his remarks about the future of NATO with approximately these words: ‘The big question is, will the West have the endurance and the tenacity and the courage to keep up the struggle long enough?’ (Mr. McElroy spoke in rather similar terms to Sir Winston and hinted to him that Great Britain was not pulling its weight in defence matters. I did not hear this conversation, but Sir Winston said that the sense of it was quite clear.)

To sum up, the President seemed relaxed, healthy and following a régime that was light enough to keep him so. His outlook seemed on the melancholy side, and it did not appear that his mind was receptive to ideas differing from those he already held.