Is Winny Churchill all he was cracked up to be?

By Rex Davids

Winston Churchill achieved many great things in his life. He had a huge bow with many strings, when he shot his golden arrow; it usually hit the target and turned to platinum. It is not a secret that Churchill was a successful war time prime minister, but he was also a writer, historian, artist, Nobel Prize winner and officer in the British Army. Churchill was also made an honorary citizen of the United States of America, an honour only given to one other person. Many people gasp in awe at the achievements gained by one man in a life time, Average Joe would settle for half of Churchill’s success. This positive picture painted of Churchill is shared by the majority of people from different cultures and backgrounds, it is also probably the reason that he was voted Britain’s Greatest Citizen of all time in a poll taken in 2005. But is Churchill all that he was ‘cracked’ up to be? What if I was to suggest that Churchill was a military failure, a disloyal politician, an abusive drunk and a warmonger?

During the First World War a young Winny Churchill proposed an attack on the ‘Sick man of Europe’. Churchill believed an attack on the already weak Ottoman Empire would prove fruitful to the war effort in the East and boost overall troop morale, as there was a stalemate occurring in the West. Russia put a lot of pressure on the British government to provide support on this particular front and Prime Minister Atlee asked Churchill to implement the ‘Dardanelles Campaign’. Churchill believed that the operation should take place completely by sea – after all Britain had the strongest navy in the world. The British navy could not possibly be defeated by such a weakened enemy? The Ottoman’s where a dying breed, definitely no match for a strong superior navy that protected the biggest Empire the world had even seen? These questions, or even perceived facts, were completely wrong. The Turkish army, under the command of Liman Von Sanders - a German, had mined the sea around the Mediterranean forts that the British navy were to attack. Churchill did not have a Plan B, and when the minesweepers failed he was forced to retreat. British casualties were few but Australian and New Zealand’s were high. To this day both nations celebrate Anzac day on the 25th April to commemorate the men that lost their lives. This tragedy would not have occurred if Churchill had planned properly, not underestimated the enemy and communicated better with allied officers.

After the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign, Churchill needed to get back into the political lime light; he did this in the inter war years by swopping back and forth between political parties, showing less loyalty than Otto Von Bismarck! Between 1937- 1939, Churchill condemned Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement. Churchill argued that Britain should attack Germany as soon as possible and defeat the Nazi’s before they could achieve their objectives of a unified powerful German controlled Europe. What army would Britain use to attack Germany? Britain, like most other European countries, was in severe debt and had a very small army, navy and air force, following the First World War. The German army was perceived to be a lot bigger than Britain’s; Germany also used a different method of attack against their enemies that made use of a small number of troops to maximum effect – Blitzkrieg warfare. Churchill knew these facts, but used political propaganda to anger the British public into thinking Chamberlain had pursued the wrong policy and hence war had broken out. In reality Chamberlain knew war was imminent, he was ‘buying time’ to rebuild the British army and prepare them for the war when it actually did break out. If Churchill had managed to go to war, as he had wanted, it would have been a disaster bigger than Gallipoli. Many of us would have grown up shouting ‘Sieg Heil’ while Nazi saluting a portrait of Adolf Hitler. Some of you would be in Eastern Europe, fighting the Communist Enemy and denouncing anyone who is ‘racially inferior.’ Some of you would literally be in hell – a concentration camp.

It is surprising Churchill lived to the age of ninety. He was an alcoholic who was increasingly in bad health towards the end of his life. Once a woman denounced Churchill for being drunk, he responded with “madam, you are ugly, at least in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly.” Does this sound like Britain’s greatest citizen? I beg to differ.