When Winston Churchill (1874-1965) entered 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister for the first time on 10 May 1940, it was the culmination one the greatest (if not the greatest) comebacks in political history. Until Britain's very survival was in question, he was resolutely ignored, derided and considered a dinosaur..
Churchill's largest endeavor in the twentieth century until 1940 had been his plan and orchestration of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign during the First World War in 1915-16. That failure to capture Constantinople came a cost of more than 100,000 Allied casualties. After spending a quarter of a century in the political wilderness since the end of WWI, the dinosaur was transformed overnight into a lion in the eyes of his countrymen. But why?
.
Throughout the 1930s, the British government had proven to be quite adept at ignoring the gathering threats in Berlin and Rome. Not Churchill. In 1934, he wrote a critical newspaper column stating,
.
"I marvel at the complacency of the Ministers in the face of frightful experiences through which we have so newly passed. I look with wonder upon our thoughtless crowds disporting themselves in the summer sunshine, (and all the while across the North Sea), a terrible process is astir. Germany is arming."
.
Churchill was the only significant figure who understood the dangerous nexus of Germany's 'secret' re-militarization and the nature of the Nazism and the Nazi leader. In modern terms, he had 'connected the dots.' Meanwhile, Britain was foolishly allowing the Bank of England to loan money to Hitler's regime - thus saving the Nazi state from financial crisis.
.
How could the British people and the Bank of England have been so blind? There were three very powerful reasons. First, the idea of another war after the horrific conflict of 1914-1918 was simply unthinkable. The entire world had undergone a deep, collective psychological reaction to WWI. As many believed the war to have been pointless and unnecessary, another one was simply out of the question in the minds of the masses. Secondly, a significant number of Europeans thought the Versailles Treaty of 1919 was overly harsh on Germany. If Berlin now wanted an army and a bit of territory to offset the unfair agreement fifteen years later, it was only understandable. Finally, Britain and the world were already fighting a war - an economic war - in trying to come out of the Great Depression. Hence, defense spending was to be limited or cut in times of financial distress - even as Hitler increased his war budget.
.
From the beginning of his three-year tenure as prime minister in 1937, Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), embodied all three components of this outlook - one which resulted in a policy of appeasement. Despite the fact that Hitler had 1) withdrawn from the League of Nations in 1933, 2) initiated a large-scale rearmament program and 3) forward-deployed military units in the Rhineland (1936), Prime Minister Chamberlain told the Soviet ambassador, "If we could only sit down at a table with the Germans and run through all their complaints and claims with a pencil, this would greatly relieve all tensions." Chamberlain, who had previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was clearly ill-suited for his new position.
.
In 1938, Chamberlain met Hitler in Munich and gave away part of Czechoslovakia to keep the peace. When he came home, he famously proclaimed (on 30 September), "My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British prime minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time. Go home and get a nice, quiet sleep."
.
The British public cheered and went to bed. Churchill, however, probably did not sleep well that night. He understood Hitler's intentions all too well. Hitler had just humiliated the British Empire with a diplomatic sleight of hand, and he was not finished yet. Six weeks later, Hitler unleashed pogroms on his defenseless Jewish population. Due to the smashing of Jewish shop and synagogue windows, the infamous event became known as 'Kristallnacht' or 'Night of broken glass.' As ninety-one Jews were murdered and approximately 30,000 were rounded up and sent to concentration camps that night, it was a dark harbinger of an even greater evil to come.
.
On 15 March 1939, Hitler's armies absorbed the rest of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain and his government, including the arch-appeaser, Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax (1881-1959), had no answer. As a result, German tanks rolled through Poland less than six months later, and both the Polish government and Chamberlain's government collapsed thereafter.
.
What had been politically incomprehensible became reality when Churchill became prime minister on 10 May 1940. The response to his rise to the office was mixed at best. Three days later in the House of Commons, the Chamberlain Conservatives greeted him with silence. Upon stating "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat," Churchill's audience got the message. The time for diplomacy and appeasement was over.
.
In his first speech as prime minister, which was made as the German army was marching through France, Churchill galvanized the country. His words marked a complete transformation of British policy and mindset, and they are as remarkable today as they were in 1940.
.
"You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.
.
You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be."
.
After years of being regarded as a dinosaur - a political 'has-been' - Churchill took the helm of the British Empire and fought for the freedom of the world alone until the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. This sixty-five year old man, who wore a bow tie, smoked large cigars and used a walking stick, had been right about Hitler all along.
.
In the eyes of the British public, the dinosaur had become a lion. And for his courageous and unyielding stance against despotism, that lion is rightly considered a 'great man' in history.
.
(Photo: Churchill outside 10 Downing Street on 10 May 1940 with Kingsley Wood (left) and future PM Anthony Eden (right). Click on picture to enlarge)
.
J Roquen