March 13, 2016

Finest Hour 171, Winter 2016

Page 18

By Douglas Russell

“On the Brink  of the Abyss” Winston Churchill in the Great War


“Plugstreet” under shellfire, early 1916 (painted by Winston S. Churchill) Winston Churchill in the Great War
“Plugstreet” under shellfire, early 1916 (painted by Winston S. Churchill)

When the Great War began for Winston Churchill on 4 August 1914, he was at his war station, the Admiralty in London, where he had served as First Lord since 1911. After several signal successes in that office at the outset of the conflict, the mounting casualties and looming failure of the Dardanelles campaign in Turkey led to his forced resignation from the cabinet on 21 May 1915. He was then appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, which was a cabinet office but one with no duties related to management of the war. His cousin, the Duke of Marlborough, wrote to him, “I gather you have been thrown a bone on which there is little meat.”1 Try as he might to be heard in cabinet meetings, Churchill’s influence on war policy was at an end.

When the Cabinet War Committee was reorganized in October 1915, Churchill was not included, and he resigned as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster the same day. Being excluded from an effective political role in the direction of the war was a humiliating blow to Churchill, who feared his political career was over. As his wife Clementine later told Martin Gilbert, “When he left the Admiralty he thought he was finished. He did not believe he would ever be asked back into the government. I thought he would never get over the Dardanelles. I thought he would die of grief.”2

Although he was out of office, Churchill’s strong sense of duty would not allow him to be idle. As his daughter, Mary Soames, aptly noted, “He was a major in the Oxfordshire Yeomanry, and an honourable door was open to him: he could join his regiment in France.”3 Having served as an officer in the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars since 1902 and ready for a break from Parliament, Churchill later wrote, “I thought it necessary to quit their counsels and betook myself to the Armies.”4 The grand flanking movement at Gallipoli having failed as an alternative to “chewing barbed wire in Flanders,” he now faced the prospect of that unhealthy diet himself.

Escaped Scapegoat

Describing himself as the “escaped scapegoat,” Churchill arrived in France on 18 November 1915 expecting to join his Oxfordshire regiment. Instead, he was ordered to report to the headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force where General Sir John French offered him command of a brigade, which would make Churchill a general in command of 5,000 men.

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The first step was a period of training for Churchill to become familiar with the situation on the front and the details of trench warfare. For this purpose he was attached to the second battalion of the Grenadier Guards, which Churchill later called “the best school of all.”5 Churchill thought a battalion command would be a suitable role and later wrote, “Having been trained professionally for about five years as a soldier, and having prior to the Great War seen as much actual fighting as almost any of the Colonels or Generals in the British Army, I had certain credentials which were accepted in military circles. I was not a Regular, but neither was I a civilian volunteer.”6

On 20 November Churchill was driven to the Grenadier Guards sector between Merville and Neuve Chapelle in France. The battalion diary of that date recorded, “The brigade took over a line of Trenches opposite PIETRE. All in very bad state, communications Trenches flooded and the Front line breastworks crumbling and were not bullet-proof. Major Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill, who has just resigned from the government, arrived to be attached to the Battalion for instruction, and accompanied the Battalion to the Trenches.”7

The headquarters of the battalion was only 1,000 yards from the front line. In one of his first letters to his wife Clementine, Churchill wrote, “Filth & rubbish everywhere, graves built into the defences & scattered about promiscuously, feet and clothing breaking through the soil, water & muck on all sides; & about this scene in the dazzling moonlight troops of enormous bats creep & glide, to the unceasing accompaniment of rifle & machine guns & the venomous whining & whirring of the bullets wh pass over head. Amid these surroundings, aided by wet & cold & every minor discomfort, I have found happiness & content such as I have not known for many months.”8

Churchill had no death wish and was no lover of war, but his new station reduced life to its simple necessities and focused the mind. In these conditions Churchill and the Grenadier Guards kept to a rotation of forty-eight hours in the front line, then forty-eight hours in support for a period of twelve days, then six days in divisional reserve.

During his stay with the Guards, Churchill received his education in the construction and maintenance of trenches and bunkers, the sounds and effects of bullets and shells, the prevention of trenchfoot, and all the details of the administration of an infantry battalion. He spent much time in the front-line trenches and accompanied the commander on twice-daily inspections of the sector. During November and December 1915 the battalion was not involved in any battles, but danger was ever present, with men killed or wounded every day. On 25 November Churchill himself had a narrow escape from harm. He was called away to a meeting at the corps headquarters at Merville. While he was away, the dugout where he had been seated before his departure was hit by a shell, which destroyed the structure and killed a mess orderly. In a letter to his wife describing the episode Churchill wrote: “Now see from this how vain it is to worry about things. It is all chance and our wayward footsteps are best planted without too much calculation. One must yield oneself simply & naturally to the mood of the game and trust in God wh is another way of saying the same thing. These are commonplace experiences out here wh do not excite wonder or even interest.”9

Churchill completed his last rotation in the Guards’ trenches on 15 December. That month he also visited the French sector and was given a blue steel poilu helmet, which he wore throughout his active service. He wrote to his wife, “My steel helmet is the cause of much envy. I look most martial in it—like a Cromwellian. I always intend to wear it under fire—but chiefly for appearance.”10 He later posed for photographs and a remarkable oil portrait by Sir John Lavery wearing the helmet, which is now on display at Chartwell.

Into Battle

Lt. Col. Winston S. Churchill with the officers of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, 1916
Lt. Col. Winston S. Churchill with the officers of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, 1916

General French’s offer of a brigade command was vetoed by Prime Minister Asquith in December, and Churchill was offered a battalion instead, with the promise of a brigade later. He swallowed his pride and accepted. After a few days in London for Christmas, Churchill returned to France on 28 December. On New Year’s Day 1916 he learned he would be appointed to command the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers in the IXth (Scottish) Division. The next day he received his commission as a temporary lieutenant-colonel, the highest rank he would reach in the army.11

On 5 January 1916 Churchill took command of the battalion and called a meeting of its officers. As Lieutenant Edmund Hakewill Smith reported the event, Churchill invited them to lunch and then made a brief speech: “Gentlemen, I am now your Commanding Officer. Those who support me I will look after. Those who are against me I will break. Good afternoon gentlemen.”12 After this stern introduction, Churchill set out to win over his officers and men with the force of his personality, by the care he showed for them, and by the seriousness with which he did his duty.

The battalion was out of the line about ten miles from the front for the first three weeks of January, replacing worn-out equipment, training, and assimilating replacements. Of these there were many, for the battalion had suffered severe losses in the battle of Loos in October and November 1915, in which three quarters of the officers and over half of the other ranks were casualties. Upon Churchill’s arrival the battalion strength was about 700 men, although the authorised strength was 1,050.13

On 24 January the battalion marched toward the front in stages. On the night of 26–27 January it took over a thousand-yard-wide sector of the front line trenches in Belgium near the town of Ploegsteert, known by the British as “Plugstreet.” Churchill briefed the officers as follows: “Don’t be careless about yourselves—on the other hand not too careful….Laugh a little, & teach your men to laugh—gt good humour under fire—war is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.”14

For the next three months the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers followed a rotation of six days in the front line, six days in the support line, six additional days in the front line, then six days’ rest in reserve. The front line was about eighty yards from the German trenches. The entire area was subject to rifle, machine gun, and artillery fire. Churchill was constantly in the trenches, sharing the discomfort of winter weather and the danger of enemy fire with his men. He paid close attention to the details of the fortifications and inspected the entire sector three times a day on average, each inspection taking two hours.

While at the front Churchill had several near-misses. The battalion headquarters at Laurence Farm, which was about 900 yards from the front line, was hit by shell fire on 3 February and again on 16 February, with much damage incurred and some splinter wound casualties. On 12 February Churchill was caught up in German artillery fire and showered with dirt and debris from exploding shells. On 26 March a shell exploded only twenty yards from him without harming him. He took it all with resignation, trusting as ever in his own star. In a letter home he wrote, “One lives calmly on the brink of the abyss. But I can understand how tired people get of it if it goes on month after month. All the excitement dies away and there is only a dull resentment.”15

Although he was not required to go on combat patrols in no man’s land between the opposing front lines, which he called “the frontier between right and wrong,” Churchill did so on many occasions. As Lieutenant Hakewill Smith recalled, “It was a nerve wracking experience to go with him…. He was like a baby elephant out in no man’s land at night. He never fell when a shell went off; he never ducked when a bullet went by with its loud crack. He used to say after watching me duck: ‘It’s no damn use ducking; the bullet has gone a long way past you by now.’”16 As always, Churchill showed an amused disregard for physical danger and was unshaken by the sounds of gunfire and bursting shells.

Although Churchill’s battalion did not engage in any offensives or face any major German attacks during his more than 100 days in command, there was a steady toll of casualties from raids, shelling, and sniping. The 700-man unit lost fifteen men killed and 123 wounded in that period, a casualty rate of almost twenty percent. Churchill’s traditional soldier’s luck held, and he was never wounded.

Return to Westminster

Throughout the early months of 1916 Churchill debated whether and when to return to what he considered his “true war station,” the House of Commons.17 The timing of his decision was partly the result of events in Flanders. By 19 March he knew the promised brigade command had been given to another. By the end of April he learned that his 6th Battalion would be consolidated with the 7th and the command given to a more senior officer. The decision to leave the army did not prick his conscience. He wrote on 22 March, “I do not think any reason is needed beyond the general reason—wh is the true one—that I think it right to resume political & Parlt. Duties wh are incompatible with holding a military command…. I shall have served for nearly five months at the front, almost always in the front line, certainly without discredit—discharging arduous & difficult duties to the satisfaction of my superiors & to the advantage of my officers and men.”18

He was, in fact, well regarded by his men. Captain Andrew Dewar Gibb wrote in his 1924 memoir of the war, “I am firmly convinced that no more popular officer ever commanded troops. As a soldier he was hard-working, persevering, and thorough…. And moreover, he loved soldiering: it lay very near his heart and I think he could have been a very great soldier. We came to realise, to realise at first hand, his transcendent ability.” He left behind him in the battalion “men who will always be his partisans and admirers, and who are proud of having served in the Great War under the leadership of one who is beyond question a great man.”19

Churchill served honourably and well, demonstrating again his courage, his natural leadership, his mastery of the details of command, and, at the same time, the broader issues of strategy and military policy. He had spent more time in action in the Great War than he had in Cuba, India, and Sudan combined and almost as long as he had served in South Africa. Churchill came out of the line with his men for the last time on 3 May 1916. He handed over his command four days later and returned to England. He formally relinquished his Lieutenant-Colonelcy on 16 May and returned to the Territorial Reserve Force as a major of the Oxford Yeomanry.

After his return to London Churchill spoke in the House of Commons, often in support of the soldiers at the front who bore the burden of the conflict. Over time his political position improved, and on 18 July 1917 Prime Minster Lloyd George brought him back into the government as Minister of Munitions, the position he held until the armistice. In December 1918 Churchill was appointed Secretary of State for War and on 15 January 1919 Minister of Air. Having begun the war as the civilian head of the Royal Navy, and following honourable front line service in the war, he was soon after its conclusion the civilian head of the British Army and the Royal Air Force. All of this would be excellent preparation for a future prime minister should another world war break out in the future.


Douglas S. Russell is the author of Winston S. Churchill: Soldier, The Military Life of a Gentleman at War, published by Brassey’s, 2005.

Endnotes

1. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Companion Volume III, Part 2, May 1915–December 1916 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973), p. 940. Hereafter cited as WSC III, C (2).

2. Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1994), p. 64.

3. Mary Soames, Winston Churchill: His Life as a Painter (London: William Collins Sons and Co., 1990), p. 24.

4. Winston S. Churchill, Thoughts and Adventures (London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1932), p. 99.

5. Ibid., p. 100.

6. Ibid.

7. WSC III, C (2), p. 1282.

8. Ibid., p. 1286.

9. Ibid., p. 1289.

10. Ibid., pp. 1326–27.

11. Supplement to the London Gazette, 25 March 1916, p. 3260.

12.  Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Volume III, The Challenge of War 1914–1916 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1971), p. 632. Hereafter cited as  WSC III.

13. WSC III, C (2), pp. 1376, 1379.

14. Ibid., p. 1399.

15. Ibid., p. 1433.

16. WSC III, p. 658.

17. WSC III, C (2), p. 1453.

18. Ibid., p. 1460.

19. Andrew Dewar Gibb, With Churchill at the Front (London and Glasgow: Cowans & Gray, Ltd., 1924),  pp. 109–10.

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