September 15, 2008

{tab=1914}
{slide=Summer 1914 (Age 39)}
Following the assassination of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand of Austria, there seemed to be little immediate threat to European peace. Churchill continued with his plans to effect economics in the Naval Estimates and a test mobilization of the Third Fleet replaced the usual summer manoeuvres.

On July 24 the Austrian Government issued a stringent ultimatum to Serbia, as a result of which, Churchill wrote his wife, “Europe is trembling on the verge of a general war.”

On 26 July Churchill and the First Sea Lord, Prince Louis Battenberg, cancelled the demobilization of the Third Fleet. Churchill also signalled the Mediterranean Fleet: “European political situation makes war between Triple Alliance and Triple Entente Powers by no means impossible.”

When Germany declared war on Russia, Churchill implemented emergency measures throughout the country, even though these actions were forbidden by the Cabinet. Watchers were placed along the coastline, harbour were cleared, bridges were guarded and all boats were searched. The First Fleet was quietly moved from Portland Head and took up war stations in the North Sea.

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In the face of opposition from many admirals including Sir John Jellicoe, the First Lord named Jellicoe to replace Sir George Callaghan as Commander-in- Chief of the Home Fleet on the grounds that the 62-year old Callaghan was not up to the impending challenge. Despite the inopportune timing, Churchill had been thinking of this move for some time and was strongly pressured by Lord Fisher to make the change.

There was considerable division among Cabinet members over how Britain should respond to the crisis. Almost all were opposed to being involved in a Balkan way and 12 of 18 voted against providing aid to France and Russia. But Churchill did not subscribe to this. He believed fervently that Britain’s honour and interests required her to assist France, and Belgium if the latter’s neutrality was threatened.

He had little doubt about where the fault lay. He called Austria “Germany’s idiot ally” and later wrote in The World Crisis that “the Germans had resolved that if war came from any cause, they would take and break France forthwith as its first operation. The German military chiefs burned to give the signal. and were sure of the result. [France] would have begged for mercy in vain. She did not beg.”

His colleagues thought that he relished battle a little too much. Sir Maurice Hankey commented that “Winston Churchill is a man of a totally different type from all his colleagues. He had a real zest for war. If war there must needs be, he at least could enjoy it.” Even the Prime Minister thought that Churchill was a little too bellicose. But there were others who were thankful for his diligence and some of the praise came from rather strange quarters. Lytton Strachey, a member of the pacifist Bloomsbury group, said that “God put us on an island and Winston has given us a navy. It would be absurd to neglect these advantages.”

Churchill recognized his own strengths and weaknesses. He wrote to his wife: “Everything tends towards catastrophe and collapse. I am interested, geared up and happy. Is it not horrible to be built like that? The preparations have a hideous fascination for me. I pray to God to forgive me for such fearful moods of levity. Yet I wd do my best for peace, and nothing wd induce me wrongfully to strike the blow. I cannot feel that we in this island are in any serious degree responsible for the wave of madness wh has swept the mind of Christendom. No one can measure the consequences. I wondered whether those stupid Kings and Emperors cd not assemble together and revivify kingship by saving the nations from hell but we all drift on in a kind of dull cataleptic trance.”

After learning of Germany’s declaration of way against Russia, Britain informed France and Germany that Britain would not allow German ships through the English Channel or the North Sea in order to attack France. When Germany ignored Britain’s ultimatum demanding the honouring of Belgian neutrality, the British Government declared war against Germany and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

At 11:00 p.m. on 4 August, the Admiralty signalled all ships and naval establishments: “Commence hostilities against Germany. ” For further reading on this dramatic episode,  refer to The World Crisis,  Vol. I and the Official Biography Vol. III.
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{slide=Autumn, Fourth Quarter 1914}
Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, was now a cabinet colleague and fellow member, in the Other Club, of the War Minister, Lord Kitchener. In his early days as a subaltern he had been an ambitious critic of the famous general, but now his senior colleague told him: “Please do not address me as Lord as I am only yours, K.”

Kitchener assisted him in a reconciliation with his cousin, “Sonny,” the ninth Duke of Marlborough. Two years previous the Churchills had severed social relations with the Duke over his behaviour when Clementine had used Blenheim Palace paper to correspond with the hated enemy, Lloyd George. At Churchill’s request, Kitchener now gave the Duke a position in the War Office which was suitable to his title and age.

The Churchills were apart during the first month the war and they worried about each other. Clementine was at Cromer, a Norfolk coastal town. Winston, concerned about an invasion, suggested that she “strike your flag and come ashore.” She worried about his workload and made some suggestions on how he could avoid exhaustion: “Never missing your morning ride. Going to bed well before midnight and sleeping well and not allowing yourself to be woken up every time a Belgian kills a German. Not smoking too much and not having indigestion.”

One of his earliest accomplishments was to import 80,000 men, 30,000 horses, 315 field guns and 125 machine guns to the continent between 10 and 22 August. On 23 August British and German troops clashed for the first time since the eighteenth century and within a day British troops were in full retreat. Churchill noted: “Poor Kitchener! It was like seeing old John Bull on the rack!”

Ever on the lookout for allies, Churchill warmly welcomed Japan’s entry into the war. Biographer Martin Gilbert was later told that when asked what inducement Japan might need to get them into the war, Churchill replied: “They can have China.”

Very early in the war Churchill showed the kind of strategic thinking which would lead to Gallipoli. As German and Russian armies faced each other on the Eastern Front he proposed an attack on Germany from the Baltic Sea, west of Danzig, and then a march to Berlin. Although he offered to provide the transport for Russian troops, nothing came of his proposal.

In September the Royal Navy assumed responsibility for the aerial defence of Britain. On the western front the first Battle of the Marne was unfolding but, as Churchill had predicted, the German drive stalled short of Paris within forty days of the attack. On 10 September Churchill crossed the Channel to see for himself that the defences of Dunkirk were adequate, should the Germans turn their attack away from Paris and towards the sea.

Back home he made his famous speech in which he compared the Royal Navy to a bulldog: “The nose of the bulldog has been turned backwards so that he can breathe without letting go.” He also sent out the kind of call to arms for which he would become famous in a later war: “We did not enter upon this war with the hope of easy victory … the war will be long and sombre … we must derive from our cause and the strength that is in us, and from the traditions and history of our race, and from the support and aid of our Empire, the means to make our British plough go over obstacles of all kinds and continue to the end of the furrow, whatever the toil and suffering may be.” Later we wrote a friend that “the Navy has been thrilled by all their prowess and valour. Doom has fallen upon Prussian military arrogance. Time and determination are all that is needed.”

This confidence was badly shattered when 1400 men were drowned after their ships were torpedoed on the Dogger Bank. Although vindicated by a Court of Inquiry it was widely believed that Churchill was responsible.

Although Churchill was exhausted early in the war the exhilaration was almost too much for him to bear. After he toured the defences of Antwerp he cabled an offer to resign from the Cabinet so that he could take up a field command of the troops stationed there. The Cabinet received the request with much laughter but Kitchener immediately offered to make Churchill a lieutenant-general. Asquith declined the offer. Notwithstanding Churchill’s heroic efforts, Antwerp surrendered on 10 October and his political enemies, and many of the public, blamed him for the loss of Royal Marines in its defense.

The public was also losing confidence in the Royal Navy and its First Sea Lord, Prince Louis Battenberg, whose German birth was becoming a major issue. An embittered retired Admiral, Lord Charles Beresford spoke for many when he suggested that Prince Louis should have the good taste to resign because the public knew that he kept German servants and still owned property in Germany, and that he had entered the British navy for his own advantage, not Britain’s.

Churchill’s decision to replace Prince Louis with Sir John Fisher became another in a long list of disputes between the First Lord and King George V. The King had supported Lord Charles Beresford in his quarrels with Fisher many years before and he now believed that the Navy would never accept the 73-year old former First Sea Lord again. Furthermore, he thought that a clash between Fisher and Churchill was inevitable. But Churchill would have no one else so, under pressure from Asquith, the King approved the appointment.

Churchill wrote Prince Louis that “this is no ordinary war but a struggle between nations for life and death. It raises passions between races of the most terrible kind. If raises the old landmarks and frontiers of our civilization… The Navy of today, and still more the Navy of tomorrow, bears the imprint of your work.” Prince Louis responded that the letter would be treasured by his sons. His younger son changed his name to Mountbatten, later served Churchill as Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia, and rose to the rank of First Sea Lord himself.
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{tab=1915}
{slide=Winter, First Quarter 1915 (Age 40)}
Relations between Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Forces, and the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, were not harmonious. Churchill tried to mediate between them.

He planned to visit Dunkirk to observe operations firsthand but the Prime Minister agreed with Kitchener that the First Lord should not visit the Army Commander’s head-quarters. Kitchener charged that the First Lord was meddling in Army matters and exacerbating relations between French and himself. Asquith forbade any future Churchill visits to the continent. Churchill and Kitchener never again had a congenial relationship.

French and Churchill continued covert correspondence through Churchill’s relatives who were on the Field Marshal’s staff, his brother Jack and his cousin Freddie Guest. Perhaps the best advice for all was Churchill’s remark: “We are on the stage of history. Let us keep our anger for the common foe.”

In Parliament Churchill was criticized by Admiral of the Fleet Lord Charles Beresford for recent naval defeats and for his propensity for telling the admirals how they were to carry out policy. Churchill defended himself by stating that judgments could be made only from a close examination of the documents and that military security made it impossible to disclose the evidence. He did acknowledge “the acute discomfort under which our great newspapers are living at the present time” and asked that particular incidents not be given too much attention because they were merely part of a larger strategy all over the world.

What he could not share was the news that Britain had come into possession of the codes for German naval signals and that henceforth they would have advance warning of German naval movements in the North Sea.

Churchill and others were becoming very frustrated with the progress of the war, the deadlock on the western front and Asquith’s indecisiveness. WSC agreed with a friend who wrote that “it’s going to be a long long war in spite of the fact that on both sides every single man in it wants it stopped at once.”

Because he believed that Germany’s northern flank was the most vulnerable, he supported Fisher’s idea to attack Germany through the Baltic combined with a joint thrust to Berlin with the Russians. But when he realized that he had colleagues (Kitchener, Lloyd George, Hankey) who preferred an attack in the Balkans, he characteristically became the outspoken proponent for that course of action. Asquith wrote to Venetia Stanley: “His volatile mind is at present set on Turkey and Bulgaria, and he wants to organise a heroic adventure against Gallipoli and the Dardanelles: to which I am altogether opposed…”

When Kitchener argued that there were no troops available for the campaign Churchill, despite reluctance in his own staff officers, realized that the pressure on Russia was so great that an Admiralty initiative was imperative. On 13 January the War Council decided on an attack on the Dardanelles and authorized Churchill to develop plans.

Lord Fisher did not agree with plans for an all-naval attack, and felt that any redeployment of ships to the Mediterranean would weaken the navy in the North Sea. But he was always “out-argued” by Churchill. Despite their mutual affection Fisher and Churchill were constantly at odds. Admiral Beatty felt that an explosion was inevitable: ” . . . two very strong and clever men, one old, wily, and of vast experience, one young, self-assertive, with a great self-satisfaction but unstable. They cannot work together, they cannot both run the show. ” Fisher took his objections to the War Council but found that they were unanimous in support of Churchill’s plans for the Dardanelles.

The major issue regarding those plans was whether Army troops would support the naval action. Kitchener was concerned that Russia would collapse and all troops would be required to confront the additional German soldiers which would be sent westward. Nevertheless on March 18 British and French battleships began the naval attack in the Dardanelles.

It had been a trying winter for the First Lord. Not all his foes were external. Asquith thought him “far the most disliked man in my Cabinet by his colleagues. ” The Prime Minister felt that “he is intolerable! Noisy, longwinded and full of perorations. We don’t want suggestions – we want wisdom. ” Lord Fisher threatened to resign twice. Kitchener resented Churchill’s interference in Army matters. But it was also a most exhilarating time. At one point Churchill desperately wanted to be Viceroy of India. Now that the position was becoming vacant he clearly indicated his preference to Margot Asquith: “My God! this war is living History. Everything we are doing and saying is thrilling — it will be read by a thousand generations, think of that!! Why I would not be out of this glorious delicious war for anything the world could give me. I say, don’t repeat that I said the word “delicious”  — you know what I mean.”
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{slide=Spring, Second Quarter 1915 (Age 40)}
The season began with Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty in command of an expedition in the Dardanelles which might bring the war to a dramatic conclusion. It ended with him out of office at a rural retreat called Hoe Farm, looking for solace with family and a newly-discovered leisure activity of painting.

While Churchill was visiting the Belgian coast on 18 March the Anglo-French naval attack at the Dardanelles began. The costs were heavy with several ships sunk or grounded by unlocated mines and the attack was called off. It was unknown at the time that the German were expressing considerable concern and that their transmissions indicted that ammunition supplies in the forts were low.

Admiral de Robeck, who was so depressed by his losses, particularly the battleships Irresistible and Ocean, that he expected to be recalled, quickly lost his taste for battle.

The next day the War Council authorized de Robeck to continue the attack “if he saw fit” but Kitchener could not yet present plans for the landing of troops. Meeting with the field generals, de Robeck told them that he was quite certain that the naval ships could not get through unless the Army captured the defending forts.

In effect the initiative had now passed from Churchill to Kitchener. As the Army gathered at Alexandria the commanders were aware that they were planning the first amphibious landing against a defended beachhead in & history of the British Army. While weeks passed with little action Churchill continued to hope for success. He thought that this was one of the great campaigns of history and that Constantinople was more to the East than London, Pans and Berlin were together to the West.

In early April Lord Fisher began to lose his nerve because of worry at losing too many ships, particularly the Queen Elizabeth. The Dardanelles became a festering wedge between the First Lord and the First Sea Lord. On 25 April British and Empire troops landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula but none of the units reached their objective. They barely gained and held a foothold, despite the severe losses they suffered.

The support of Army units required naval control of the Aegean Sea. But Fisher was unwilling to agree to the commitment of the necessary ships. To placate Fisher, Churchill agreed to bring the Queen Elizabeth home, but Fisher now became obsessed with destroying Churchill. When he announced his resignation as First Sea Lord Churchill thought it was just another petulant act of an old man. Despite the best efforts of Asquith and Churchill to appease him, Fisher was determined to go and to deliver a mortal political blow to his chief and friend in doing so. Fisher even contacted the Leader of the Opposition, Andrew Bonar Law, to inform him of his resignation.

When Asquith declined to accept his own resignation, Churchill felt that he would survive his political crisis. But when Lloyd George explained to Asquith that the price of Conservative cooperation with the Government would be Churchill’s exclusion from any coalition, the Prime Minister showed a surprising willingness to sacrifice the First Lord. Any inclination of the Prime Minister to fight for his young colleague was lost when Asquith was devastated by the news that his young mistress, Venetia Stanley, intended to marry a much younger man.

On 17 May Churchill was stunned when Asquith told him that he had decided to form a National Government with the Unionists and then asked him: “What are we to do for you?” This question was a signal to him that he would cease to serve as First Lord of the Admiralty. Although, in Max Aitken’s words, “he was clinging to the desire of retaining the Admiralty as though the salvation of England depended on it”, there was little chance he would be retained in any significant position in a new government.

In the early stages of negotiations Churchill had rejected Lloyd George’s suggestion of the Colonial Office, He was finally offered the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, a minor office primarily concerned with the appointment of Justices of the Peace; “A bone on which there is little meat,” as his cousin, Sunny, commented. Given no alternative, Churchill accepted because it at least kept him on the fringe of power and allowed him some opportunity to influence events.

This was one of the low moments in Churchill’s life. His wife later told Martin Gilbert: “The Dardanelles haunted him for the rest of his life. He always believed in it. When he left the Admiralty he thought he was finished. I thought he would never get over the Dardanelles; I thought he would die of grief.”

They moved from Admiralty House into temporary residences with relatives until they rented Hoe Farm in Surrey. One day his sister-in-law Goonie noticed Churchill attentively watching him paint and suggested he try it. Clementine bought his supplies and he was ready. He now had an activity which revitalized his enormous energies when required throughout his battles for the next fifty years.
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{slide=Summer, Third Quarter 1915 (Age 40)}
After the Dardanelles campaign resulted in Churchill’s removal from the Admiralty, he became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a minister without portfolio. Not only was this a profound decrease in the substance of power but there was also a humiliating loss of the trappings of power. Initially his salary was cut, his office far removed from Whitehall and he was not even assigned a messenger. The real powerbrokers like Asquith and Lloyd George ostracized him. Clementine shared her husband’s hurt so much that she told a cousin that she hoped to dance on Asquith’s grave.

Most painful was the imposed inaction. As he later wrote: “Like a sea-beast fished up from the depths, or a diver too suddenly hoisted, my veins threatened to burst from the fall in pressure. . . . At the moment when every fibre of my being was inflamed to action, I was forced to remain a spectator of the tragedy, placed cruelly in a front seat.”

Lord Kitchener, with the approval of Asquith and Balfour, suggested that Churchill visit the Dardanelles and report back on the situation. Recognizing the personal danger, Churchill put his financial affairs in order and prepared the following note for Clementine in the event of his death, “. . . I am anxious that you shd get hold of all my papers, especially those wh refer to my Admiralty administration … some day I shd like the truth to be known. Randolph will carry on the lamp.” Much to Churchill’s disappointment the visit did not take place because of the belated opposition to it from the Conservative members of the Dardanelles Commission.

On 10 September he asked Asquith if he could leave the Government and command a Brigade in France. The Prime Minister was agreeable but they faced the opposition of Kitchener, who did not want Churchill’s presence in his armies – a reprise of the 1890’s.

Churchill thus seemed to be wanted by none. He had obviously become the scapegoat for the military failures in the Dardanelles and his ideas for “land battleships” – tanks – were being scrapped by his successor. His strategic judgement was questioned. Max Aitken said his theories of war were “so hare-brained that it would be humorous if the lives of men were things to joke, about or trifle with.”

As Churchill began what would be a very long defence of his actions he never lost his belief in the rightness of what he had done. He suggested that it was better to be irresponsible and right than responsible and wrong. And he knew that he had been successful. In a public speech about his tenure as First Lord he proudly declared that “on the whole surface of the seas of the world no hostile flag is flown.”
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{slide=Autumn, Fourth Quarter 1915 (Age 41)}
Although Churchill remained on the Dardanelles Committee as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he had no power to take action on any decisions. This, of course, in no way stifled his imagination nor his ardour to be involved, and he sent numerous reports and memos to his colleagues, including the Prime Minister. His main arguments were that the attacks on the Western Front were doomed to failure and that Britain must press forward in the Dardanelles.

One recommendation was that he and Lloyd George should form a special sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence to report on the whole operation in the Dardanelles but there was little sympathy for Churchill’s position. As Germany and Austria entered Belgrade and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, the Dardanelles Committee gave priority to the Western Front.

Churchill was not pleased when Sir lan Hamilton was replaced by Sir Charles Monro at Gallipoli. He later said of Monro: “He came, he saw, he capitulated.” Kitchener personally visited the Eastern Front and agreed with Monro: “It is an awful place and you will never get through.”

On 6 November the Dardanelles Committee became the War Cabinet, “time without Churchill, who asked to be appointed Govenor-General and Military Commander-in-Chief of British East Africa. But it was not to be and on 11 November he tendered his resignation and let it be known that he was prepared to go to France as an officer in the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars.

He wrote Asquith: “I have a clear conscience which enables me to bear any responsibility for past events with composure. Time will vindicate my administration of the Admiralty, and assign me my due share in the vast series of preparations and operations which have secured us the command of the seas.”

In his speech to the House of Commons, Churchill noted that many smaller powers were predicting a German victory and his comments presaged speeches he would make again in twenty-five years: “Some of these small States are hypnotised by German military pomp and precision. They see the glitter, they see the episode; but what they do not see or realise is the capacity of the ancient and mighty nations against whom Germany is warring to endure adversity, to put up with disappointment and mismanagement, to recreate and renew their strength, to toil on with boundless obstinacy through boundless suffering to the achievement of the greatest cause for which men have fought.”

The family shared Winston’s disappointment. When Max Aitken, later Lord Beaverbrook, arrived at their home he found Eddie Marsh in tears and Lady Randolph in a state of despair. Only Clementine was “calm, collected and efficient. ” She needed to be because “the whole household was upside down while the soldier-statesman was buckling on his sword.”

Churchill was certainly ” the average newly-appointed officer. He was invited to dine with the Commander- in-Chief, Sir John French, “in a fine chateau with hot baths, beds, Champagne and all the conveniences.”

Although he had trained professionally as a soldier he needed to learn the techniques of trench warfare, so he selected the Grenadier Guards for his training. He reported with what he considered “a very modest kit. ” He was told by the Adjutant: “I am afraid we have had to cut down your kit rather, Major … The men have little more than what they stand up in. We have found a servant for you, who is carrying a spare pair of socks and your shaving gear. We have had to leave the rest behind.” Churchill replied that he was sure that he would be very comfortable.

However, he immediately wrote his wife requesting: “a warm brown leather waistcoat; a pair of trench wading boots, Brown leather bottom, and water proof, canvas tops coming right up to the thigh; a periscope (most important); a sheepskin sleeping bag, that will either carry kit, or let me sleep in it; 2 pairs of khaki trousers;1 pair of my brown buttoned boots; 3 small face towels.” Later, he ordered two bottles of brandy and one bottle of peach brandy and requested that this consignment be repeated every ten days.

He enjoyed special mail delivery; he spoke to Clementine on Sir John French’s private line; and he received many important personages including Lord Curzon, General Seely and F.E. Smith. After a tour of the French lines he wrote his wife that the French had received him “with much attention, more so in fact than when I went as lst Lord.” Notwithstanding these privileges, he was popular with his fellow officers with whom he shared his cigars, brandy and special foods.

He was also popular with the troops. He would keep watch so that others could sleep. He was impervious to chances of death and injury. His quarters were destroyed a number of times while he was absent. One soldier told The Times that “a cooler and braver officer never wore the King’s uniform … His coolness is the subject of much discussion among us, and everybody admires him.”

Before he was removed as Commander-in-Chief, Sir John French intended to appoint Churchill to command a brigade, but Asquith felt the appointment would be inadvisable. On 18 December French told the new Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, about his failure to keep his promise to Churchill. Haig kept French’s commitment and, as a first step, on New Year’s Day, 1916, Winston Churchill was appointed a Lieutenant Colonel commanding an infantry battalion, the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers.
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{tab=1916}
{slide=Winter-Spring, First And Second Quarter 1916 (Age 41)}
Although disappointed at not being given command of a brigade, Churchill settled in as commander of a battalion, the 6th Royal Scots Fusilers. He blamed Asquith, whom he called a “weak and disloyal chief. “Clementine met the Asquiths socially and wrote her husband: “You know what the P.M. is – He loathes talking about the War or work of any sort.”

Initially Churchill was not popular with his men and his cavalry training did not prepare him for command of infantry, but he learned quickly. He cared for his troops but neither he nor his men expected him or his officers to forego their own physical pleasures. Among other suggestions to his officers were these gems: “Keep a special pair of boots to sleep in and only get them muddy in a real emergency and live well but do not flaunt it.”

In late January he led his troops into battle near the Belgian town of Ploegsteert, commonly called “Plug Street.”  His own bravery in battle won the respect of his men.

In March he returned to England and spoke in Parliament. Incredibly, he demanded that the First Lord of the Admiralty recall Lord Fisher to the post of First Sea Lord. His friends and family were aghast. Worse still, First Lord Arthur Balfour’s response in Parliament ridiculed Churchill. Upon returning to Ploegsteert Churchill wrote his wife that he intended to leave the army as soon as possible. The war he wanted to fight was at Westminster.

When his battalion was merged with another, General Haig offered him command of a brigade, but he still wanted to return to London to fight for conscription. On 7 May, he entertained his officers at a farewell luncheon at Armentieres. One later recalled: “I believe every man in the room felt Winston Churchill’s leaving us a real personal loss.

He returned to England believing that he actually had a chance of succeeding Asquith. More realistically he thought that Bonar Law or Lloyd George would lead a new Government and he might get the Admiralty again or perhaps the Air Ministry. However, when Lord Kitchener was killed enroute to northern Russia, Churchill was excluded in the Cabinet reorganization.

Although there was still great opposition to him – the Conservatives would not serve with him and even Lloyd George kept a discreet distance – he refused to lessen his support for the men in the trenches at the front. “The part of the army that really counts for ending the war is this killing, fighting, suffering part.”

On 1 July, the British army launched a full-scale attack north of the Somme River, despite Churchill’s warning that victory would not be gained “simply by throwing in masses of men on the western front.”
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{slide=Summer, Third Quarter 1916 (Age 41)}
On July 1 the tragic Allied off ensive began near the Somme River. On the first day the British suffered eighty thousand casualties, including twenty thousand dead. Although Churchill was an admirer and friend of the British commander, Sir Douglas Haig, he was sickened and revolted by the carnage. Later he compared Haig to a competent and confident, but distanced, surgeon who would not reproach himself if the patient died.

When Lloyd George was appointed to the War Office to replace the deceased Lord Kitchener, Churchill thought he might be brought back into the Government as Minister of Munitions but the position went to Edwin Montagu. Churchill’s disappointment was great but he had to reconcile himself to the implacable bitterness towards him exhibited by leading Tories. Lord Derby told Lloyd George that any party formed after the war must exclude Winston. “Our Party will not work with him … he is absolutely untrustworthy as was his father before him and he has got to learn that just as his father had to disappear from politics so must he, or at all events from official life.”

Churchill’s anguish appears in letters he wrote to Archie Sinclair:

“I do not want office, but only war direction . . I am profoundly unsettled: & cannot use my gift” and to his brother Jack: “Is it not damnable that I should be denied all real scope to serve this country, in this tremendous hour? … I writhe hourly not to be able to get my teeth effectively into the Boche… Jack my dear I am learning to hate.” He was greatly frustrated to think that if he had not gone to the front but “had stayed Chancellor of the Duchy and shut my mouth and drawn my salary, I should today be one of the principal personages in direction of affairs.”

Churchill believed that his reinstatement depended upon his vindication in the Dardanelles inquiry. To that end he requested the appropriate minutes of the War Council because they would show that Asquith, Grey, Kitchener and Balfour and others had supported the plan, but Asquith refused to let him have them. Even the establishment of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Dardanelles did not satisfy him.

The Commission began hearings on August 17. Churchill had hoped to be able to attend most of the sessions but was informed that they would be held in secret. Nevertheless he devoted most of his time to preparing his defense, but the terrain was slippery. Lord Kitchener was already entering the state of myth and his lack of competence could not be emphasized, nor would the military commissioners take kindly to criticisms of the officers at the front.

Churchill was not to return to the Government of Asquith who he called “supine, sodden and supreme,” but Asquith would not be supreme for longand Churchill’s fortunes would soon to be linked to those of Lloyd George.

Meanwhile he painted his canvasses and allowed himself to be painted by William Orpen. Many years later, John Colville wrote the following to Martin Gilbert about dining with Churchill in 1964:

“His memory had already faded and conversation was exceedingly difficult. During the first two or three courses at dinner I tried every subject in which I knew him to be interested, without success.”

Finally, over the savoury, I looked at the Orpen, which was hanging in the dining room behind his chair, and made the not very original remark that it was far and away the best portrait of him which had ever been painted. Suddenly his brain cleared. His voice became exactly as it had been years before. He replied, ‘I am glad you think so. I gave him eleven sittings, which is more than I have ever had time to give any other painter. It was in 1916, at a very unhappy time of my life when I had nothing whatever to do. Rothermere gave me the portrait, which was very generous of him, and almost my only occupation was to sit to the artist.’ His mind then clouded over again and we had no coherent conversation for the rest of the evening.”
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{slide=Autumn, Fourth Quarter 1916 (Age 42)}
Churchill received a letter of praise from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle regarding his ideas for caterpillars (tanks). Churchill compared them to the armoured ships called monitors. “The monitor was the beginning of the torpedo-proof fleet, the caterpillar of the bulletproof army.”

He spent most of this time preparing his defense of his actions for the Dardanelles Commission, which had begun its hearings in August. In one appearance before the Commission in September, he had made five points: “In regard to the operation, there was full authority, there was a reasonable prospect of success, greater interests were not compromised, all possible care and forethought were exercised in the preparation, and vigour and determination were shown in the execution.” He concluded that “the operation ought not to be condemned, even if it was not carried to its conclusion, simply on the grounds that it involved risk.”

But others did roundly condemn the operation, and Churchill’s role in it. He expressed frustration that he was unable to appear before the Commission to respond to attacks like that which appeared in the Daily Mail about “the contemptible fiasco of Antwerp and the ghastly blunder of Gallipoli.” He responded in print “on the course of the war by land and sea” and the Antwerp expedition in The London Magazine and The Sunday Pictonal.

But Asquith’s political crisis was now equal to Churchill’s. Lloyd George was setting out on what Churchill later called “his march as High Constable of the British Empire” by overthrowing the Prime Minister. Most Liberal Cabinet members went with Asquith, and the Lloyd George Government was sustained by the Tories, many of whom stated that they would not serve if the new Government included Winston Churchill.

Lloyd George still considered including his old friend, but when he asked the Tory leader, Andrew Bonar Law, “Is he more dangerous for you than when he is against you?” Bonar Law responded: “I would rather have him against us every time.”

Excluded from the Government, Churchill resolved not to join the Liberals in opposition. “I intend to sit in the corner seat in a kind of isolation.” He knew that he would have no opportunity to serve in the Government until the report of the Dardanelles Commission was published.
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