Clementine Churchill's second front. Clementine Churchill - wife of the Prime Minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill's certificates of honor

Good sons who love and respect their mother become good husbands. So thought Lady Blanche, blessing her daughter Clementine to marry Winston Churchill. And she was not mistaken - this happy marriage, which became a model of fidelity and devotion, lasted more than half a century.

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Winston Churchill, a descendant of the eminent 16th-century sea pirate Sir Francis Drake and commander the Duke of Marlborough, was born into the family of a famous British politician. Having received a prestigious military education at that time, the young man became interested in journalism.

He took part in the Anglo-Boer War and, having escaped from captivity, returned to his homeland a national hero. Winston wrote a book about the heroism of the English soldiers, which became a bestseller. By the time he met his future wife, Churchill was already a rising politician.

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The refined taste of the representative of the "blue blood" raised her to the icon of the British style for many years. In addition, Clem was witty, had an excellent sense of humor, and was well versed in politics. Since her family was not rich, after graduating from the Sorbonne, she had to earn extra money - she gave French lessons.

At the age of 23, this lady was quite prudent and picky, refusing three gentlemen who proposed to her. Probably, fate was destined to meet that long-awaited and only ...

First meeting

Clem singled out this sweet and clumsy man from the crowd, but a sense of tact did not allow the girl to take the first step. Since that time, the memory of him settled in her soul. Their next meeting was destined to take place only after four long years.

Offer at the Temple of Diana

Churchill was also invited to another social event, but his uncle persuaded Winston to keep him company. This is how sometimes accidents give birth to a long and happy fate.

By that time, Churchill was already a deputy minister, learned to behave uninhibitedly and was known as an interesting interlocutor. This time, he not only invited Clem to dance, but also managed to interest her in an entertaining conversation. And the girl saw in him a kind, gentle, and most importantly, a promising contender for her hand and heart.

The young man invited Miss Hozier to stay at the family estate of the Dukes of Marlborough. Guessing that Winston was primarily concerned with a tete-a-tete conversation, and not a noisy ball at Blenheim Palace, Clementine agreed.

For several days, the lovers walked around the picturesque surroundings of Oxfordshire, admiring nature and philosophizing about politics, but they did not dare to confess the most important thing to each other. The girl was already thinking of returning back to London, but Winston Churchill made an extreme attempt, going with her lover to the temple of Diana, where the rose garden was located. According to contemporaries, at that moment a thunderstorm broke out. Nature itself contributed to the explanation: streams of water, lightning, the scent of flowers... As a token of the future marriage, Winston gave the future bride of incredible beauty a ring with a huge red ruby ​​and two diamonds.

The celebration, scheduled for mid-September, was kept secret for some time, but by some miracle, the whole of Blenheim became aware of the secret.

Closer to the night, Clemmy sent the first romantic message to the groom - a heart with the inscription "Winston" inside. When the couple was visiting the Duke of Marlborough, they, unable to contain their feelings, exchanged messages to each other, which the servants delivered every minute throughout the palace: " My dear, how are you? I send you my high feelings. I recently woke up, do not want to walk with me after breakfast in the rose garden. Forever yours,."

"My darling, I'm absolutely fine and would love to walk the rose garden with you. Yours forever, Clementine."

And the high society believed that the union would not last even six months. Many smirked: "Churchill was not born for married life. His only love is politics." But, fortunately, the forecast did not come true.

The story of eternal love

They married in the parish church of the House of Commons in Westminster. She was 24, he was 33. If in his youth Winston was fond of polo and fencing, now the words known to the whole world have become his motto: "Five or six cigars a day, three or four servings of whiskey and no sports!" Now he was building a career, writing books, putting things in order in the country, declaring himself with loud speeches. But bad habits also appeared: he spent his nights in the casino, losing and winning fortunes. Mornings started with cognac, the day ended with whiskey. There were legends about his weakness for Cuban cigars: Sir Churchill could fall asleep without a cigar, burning through his clothes and showering ashes all around. And he was known as a gourmet and never limited himself in his passion.

Clementine, oddly enough, never made any attempt to change her husband's bad temper. She was an ideal wife and a wise woman. She had a special approach to happiness. Later, speaking to Oxford students, the lady said: "You don't have to force your husbands to agree with you. You will gain more by forgoing your arguments, and after a while you will notice how your husband will understand that you are right."

Clem accepted her husband for who he was. And only next to such a woman did the obstinate and uncompromising politician turn into an obedient husband. His wife became Winston's support, first adviser and close friend. It was insanely difficult with him, but there was no need to be bored. Later, the great politician will write: "Clemmie, you gave me heavenly enjoyment of life."

In his free time, Churchill learned the trade of a bricklayer and raised piglets. He liked to study the press, but categorically did not recognize television, calling it a "lantern for fools." The wife of the greatest Briton coped with the upbringing of four children and was fond of the public. During the war, Mrs. Churchill founded and headed the "Red Cross Fund for Aid to Russia", and Stalin himself, as a token of special gratitude, presented her with a diamond ring. On May 9, 1945, Clementine spent in Moscow.

A distinguished orator of the century and an outstanding statesman died at ninety. His wife survived him by twelve years. These people were completely different, like “water and stone, ice and fire”, but they lived and breathed in unison, thanking life for every moment they lived together.

No wonder Sir Churchill called his marriage to Clementine the best gift of fate: “My beloved, in my whole life with you, I often thought that I madly adore you, so much that, perhaps, it is impossible to love more strongly”.

And another wonderful British couple -.

All about Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill KG OM CH TD PC DL FRS RA (listing of awards: Order of the Garter, Order of Merit, Order of the Companion of Honor, Territorial Forces BOS, Member of the Royal Privy Council of Canada, Deputy Chairman of the County Council for the Territorial Army F.R.S., F.R.A.) (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was also a British Army officer, non-academic historian, writer (under the pseudonym Winston S. Churchill) and artist. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for all of his work. In 1963, he was the first of eight people to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.

Churchill was born into the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the Spencer family. Churchill's father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his mother, Jenny Jerome, was an American-born socialite. As a young officer, he saw action in British India, the Anglo-Sudanese and the Second Boer War. Churchill gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns.

Being a politician in the highest echelons of power for fifty years, he held positions in state bodies and in the government. Prior to the First World War, Churchill was Secretary of Trade, Home Secretary and First Lord of the Admiralty under Asquith's Liberal government. During the war, he remained First Lord of the Admiralty until a failed Gallipoli campaign led to his resignation from government. He then briefly resumed active service on the Western Front as commander of the 6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers. Churchill returned to the government under Lloyd George as Secretary of Arms, Secretary of War, Secretary of the Air Force, and later became Secretary of State for the Colonies. Two years after leaving Parliament, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Baldwin Conservative government from 1924-1929, unsuccessfully returning the value of the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard, to pre-war levels - an action that was thought to lead to deflation and pressure on the UK economy.

Politically "isolated" in the 1930s due to his disagreements about strengthening Indian Home Rule and his opposition to the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936, Churchill took the lead in warning against Nazi Germany and in the rearmament campaign. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain on May 10, 1940, Churchill became prime minister. His speeches and broadcasts helped the British resistance, especially during the difficult days of 1940-41, when the British Commonwealth and Empire stood almost alone in active opposition to Adolf Hitler. As prime minister, he led Britain until victory over Nazi Germany was assured.

After the Conservative Party suffered a surprise defeat in the 1945 general election, he became leader of the opposition to the Labor government. Churchill openly warned of an "Iron Curtain" of Soviet influence in Europe and promoted European unity. After winning the 1951 election, Churchill again became prime minister. His second term was occupied with foreign affairs, including the Malayan Emergency, the Mau Mau Rebellion, the Korean War, and the Iranian coup d'état. Domestically, his government paid great attention to housing construction. Churchill suffered a serious seizure in 1953 and resigned as Prime Minister in 1955, although he remained an MP until 1964. After his death at the age of ninety in 1965, Elizabeth II honored him with a state funeral, which was the largest state funeral in British history.

Named the greatest Briton of all time in a 2002 poll, Churchill is widely regarded as one of the most influential people in british history, regularly topping the polls for prime ministers of the United Kingdom. His highly complex legacy continues to generate intense debate among writers and historians.

Biography of Winston Churchill

The early years of Winston Churchill

Born into the aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the noble Spencer family, Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, like his father, used the surname "Churchill" in public life.

His ancestor, George Spencer, changed his surname to Spencer-Churchill in 1817 when he received the title of Duke of Marlborough to emphasize his descent from John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Churchill's father, Lord Randolph Churchill, third son of John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, was a politician; and his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill (nee Jenny Jerome) was the daughter of American millionaire Leonard Jerome. Winston Churchill was born on 30 November 1874, two months premature, at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire.

From the age of two to six, he lived in Dublin, where his grandfather had been appointed viceroy and employed his father, Winston Churchill, as his private secretary. At this time, Churchill's brother, John Strand Spencer-Churchill, was born in Ireland. It is claimed that the young Churchill first developed an interest in military subjects while watching the many parades that took place near the residence of the Viceroy (now Áras a Uachtaráin, the official residence of the President of Ireland).

Churchill's early introduction to education was in Dublin, where a governess tried to teach him to read, write, and do arithmetic (his first reading book was called Reading Without Tears). Given the limited communication and contact with his parents, the closest person to Churchill was his nanny, Mrs. "Elizabeth Ann Everest", whom he called "Old Woom" (some sources indicate: "Woomany"). She was his confidant, nurse and mother They spent many happy hours playing in Phoenix Park.

Churchill had an independent and rebellious nature and poor school performance. He was educated in three independent schools: St. George's School, Ascot, Berkshire (St. George's School, Ascot, Berkshire - English); Brunswick School in Hove - English, near Brighton (school has since been renamed Stoke Brunswick School and moved to Ashurst Wood in West Sussex); and Harrow School since 17 April 1888. A few weeks after his arrival at Harrow, Churchill became a member of the Harrow Rifle Corps.

When young Winston began attending Harrow School, he was listed under the letter S, like Spencer Churchill. At that time, Winston was a stocky boy with red hair, he stuttered and lisped. His scores on the entrance exam in mathematics at Harrow were so high that he was ranked among the top students in the subject. During his first year at Harrow, he was recognized as the best in his class in history. However, Winston came to school as the boy with the lowest academic performance and over time the situation has not changed. Winston never made it to high school because he didn't study the classics. Despite the fact that Churchill did not study well at school, he loved English. Churchill hated Harrow. His mother rarely visited him, and he wrote letters to her, begging her to either come to school or let him come home. Winston's relationship with his father was not close; he once remarked that they barely spoke to each other. His father died on January 24, 1895, at the age of 45, leaving Churchill with the conviction that he, too, would die young, and so he must hurry to make his mark on history.

At the age of 18, while visiting his aunt, Lady Wimborne, in Bournemouth, Winston fell off a 29-foot bridge, after which he remained unconscious for 3 days and was bedridden for three months.

Winston Churchill was a Freemason and a member of the Loyal Waterloo Lodge of the National Independent Order of the Secret Brethren.

Winston Churchill's Speech Defect

Churchill had a lateral lisp that continued throughout his career, as reported by journalists of the day and beyond. Authors writing in the 1920s and 1930s, before sound recording became common, also mentioned that Churchill stuttered, using terms such as "heavy" or "torturous". The Churchill Center and Museum claims that most recordings demonstrate that his physical handicap was a lateral lisp and Churchill's stuttering is a myth. His prostheses were specially designed to improve his speech. After many years public speaking, which were carefully prepared not only to inspire, but also to avoid doubt, he could finally declare: "My handicap is not an obstacle."

Personal life of Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill love story

Churchill met his future wife, Clementine Hosier, in 1904 at a ball at Creve House, at the home of the Earl of Crewe and his wife, Margaret Primrose (daughter of Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery and Hannah Rothschild). In 1908 they met again at a reception hosted by Lady St. Helier. By coincidence, Churchill was sitting next to Clementine, and soon their romance began for life. He proposed to Clementine during a house party at Blenheim Palace on August 10, 1908 at the small Temple of Diana. On September 12, 1908, Winston and Clementine were married at St Margaret's, Westminster. The church was packed; the service was conducted by Bishop Saint Asaph. The couple honeymooned at Highgrove House in Eastcote. In March 1909, the Churchills moved into a house at 33rd Eccleston Square.

Winston Churchill's children

Their first child, Diana, was born in London on 11 July 1909. After the pregnancy, Clementine moved to Sussex to recover, while Diana stayed in London with her nanny. On May 28, 1911, their second child, Randolph, was born at 33rd Eccleston Square. The third child, Sarah, was born on October 7, 1914 at the Admiralty House. This was a period of unrest for Clementine, as the Cabinet sent Churchill to Antwerp to "strengthen the resistance of the beleaguered city" after the news that the Belgians intended to surrender the city.

Clementine gave birth to their fourth child, Marigold Francis Churchill, on November 15, 1918, four days after the official end of the First World War. In the early days of August 1921, the Churchill children were entrusted to a French children's governess in Kent, Mademoiselle Rose. Clementine went to Eton Hall to play tennis with Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster and his family. While under Mademoiselle Rosa's care, Marigold caught a cold but was reported to have recovered from her illness. However, later it turned out that the disease progressed with little or no symptoms and turned into sepsis. Rose sent for Clementine, but on August 23, 1921, the illness proved fatal, and three days later, Marigold was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. September 15, 1922 was born last child Churchill, Mary. Later that month, Churchill bought Chartwell, which remained their home until Winston's death in 1965.

Military career of Winston Churchill

After Churchill left Harrow School in 1893, he planned to attend the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He passed the entrance exam on his third attempt and entered cavalry training rather than infantry, as the required passing grade for cavalry was lower and he did not need to study mathematics, which he did not like. He graduated eighth out of 150 in December 1894, and although he could now be transferred to an infantry regiment, as his father wished, Winston decided to remain in the cavalry and was commissioned as a second lieutenant (second lieutenant) in the 4th King's Own Hussars. regiment on February 20, 1895.

In 1941, Churchill was honored to receive the appointment of Colonel of the 4th Hussars, and after the Second World War, he was promoted to honorary commander; this privilege is usually reserved for members of the royal family. His salary as a second lieutenant in the 4th Hussars was £300 a year. However, he believed that he needed at least another £500 (equivalent to £55,000 in 2012) to maintain a lifestyle equal to that of other officers in the regiment. His mother provided an allowance of £400 a year, but Churchill's expenses far exceeded this amount. According to biographer Roy Jenkins, this was one of the reasons Winston became a war correspondent. He did not intend to advance in his career through the army, but intended to look for opportunities and prospects in military operations, using the influence of his mother and family in high society to organize publications about active military operations. His work attracted public attention and provided Churchill with a significant additional income. He acted as a war correspondent for several London newspapers and wrote his own books on the war effort.

Churchill as war correspondent

In 1895, during the Cuban War of Independence, Churchill and his associate Reginald Barnes traveled to Cuba to oversee the Spanish fight against insurgent Cuban guerrillas; he received a commission from the Daily Graphic to write about the conflict. He came under fire on his twenty-first birthday, the first of about 50 times in his life, and the Spaniards awarded him his first medal. Churchill had fond memories of Cuba. While in Cuba, he soon tasted the taste of Havana cigars, which he later smoked for the rest of his life. In New York, Churchill stayed at the home of Burke Cochran, an admirer of his mother. Burke was a well-known American politician and member of the House of Representatives (the lower house of the US Congress - ed.). Cochran greatly influenced Churchill, both in his approach to oratory and in politics, and encouraged a love of America. Churchill soon received word that his nurse, Mrs. Everest, was dying; he returned to England and stayed with her for a week, until her last minute. He wrote in his diary: "She was my favorite friend." In "My Early Life" he wrote: "She was my dearest and closest friend in all the twenty years I lived."

In early October 1896, Churchill was transferred to Bombay, British India. On arrival, he twisted his shoulder badly while jumping from a boat; it was a trauma, the consequences of which haunted him throughout his life. Winston Churchill was considered one of the best polo players in his regiment, later, due to an injury, he had to play polo, fixing his shoulder with a bandage.

This year Churchill came to Bangalore as a young army officer. In My Early Life, he describes Bangalore as a city with great weather, and the house he was given as "a magnificent pink and white stucco palace in the middle of a large and beautiful garden" with servants, a dhobi (for washing clothes), a gardener, a watchman and a peddler. water. In Bangalore he met Pamela Ployden, the daughter of a civil servant; she became his first love. He tacitly called most British women in India "disgusting" and mocked their unshakable belief in their own attractiveness. Churchill's letters home show that he was obsessed with British politics, advocating a centrist coalition between Lord Rosebery and Joseph Chamberlain and criticizing Lord Lansdowne's proposal for increased spending on the army (opposition to which was one of the reasons for Lord Randolph's resignation in December 1886; Churchill preferred that Britain concentrated on maintaining a strong Royal Navy).

Partly at the urging of his mother, Churchill spent long afternoons reading. He read the multi-volume historical works of Gibbon (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) and Macaulay (History of England). ), as well as Plato's "Republic" and works on economics. He toyed with the idea of ​​studying for a degree in history, politics, and economics, but regretted that he lacked the knowledge of Latin and Greek that was necessary for university admission. He read Winwood Reed's The Martyrdom of Man, writing to his mother that the author's critique of religion confirmed what he reluctantly believed. Churchill believed that religion, although mostly not literally, was a useful "crutch" until people were willing to rely on reason alone. He wrote to his old director, James Welddon, now Bishop of Calcutta, who opposed Christian missions in India. Churchill argued that the state had every right to dictate his doctrines to the Main Church of England and championed non-denominational teaching by secular teachers in schools based on the Bible and hymns Ancient and Modern.

Keith Robbins writes that Churchill's views were predominantly shaped during this period and without the "thoroughness and scrutiny" they would have received at university, although he also suggests that Churchill's love of the English language might not have flourished to the same extent in the walls of the university. John Charmley agrees, noting that Churchill's self-teaching did not develop in him the skill of weighing arguments and analyzing other people's views. At the same time, he points out that in the 1940s, Lord Moran, Churchill's doctor, noted Churchill's rapport with adults, which he developed throughout his life.

His mother also sent him copies of the parliamentary debates of several latest generations. Churchill took notes of his opinion on each issue (for example, the Judicial Procedure Act of 1873 and 1875) before reading the debate, and then wrote down his opinion again. He was highly critical of Lord Salisbury's predominantly Conservative government from the autumn of 1895 onwards; he wrote about this in March 1897, in a letter to his mother, which clearly reflected the fact that he shared the position of his late father, that he was in practice a liberal in everything but name, remaining a "Tory Democrat" (Democrat from the Conservative Party - ed.) solely because of the problems that arose in connection with the Irish Home Rule movement (English Home Rule).

In 1897 Churchill attempted to go to battle in the Greco-Turkish War, but that conflict effectively ended before he could get there. Later, while preparing for a holiday in England, he learned that three brigades of the British army were going to fight against the Pashtun tribes on the northwestern border of India and Churchill asked his boss to second him to put down the uprising. Churchill took part in the Mohmand campaign in 1897-98 under the command of General Geoffrey, commander of the second brigade, operating at Malakand, in the border region of British India. Geoffrey sent Churchill along with fifteen scouts to explore the Mamund valley; during reconnaissance, they encountered an enemy tribe, dismounted and opened fire. After an hour of shooting, reinforcements arrived, the 35th Sikh detachment, the shooting gradually stopped, and the detachment, along with the Sikhs, moved on. But later, a hundred tribesmen surrounded them and opened fire, forcing them to retreat. During the retreat, four men carried a wounded officer, but because of the fierce battle, they had to leave the officer behind. The man who had to be left behind was brutally murdered right in front of Churchill; he later wrote of the killer: "At that moment I forgot everything in the world except the desire to kill this man." However, the number of Sikhs was dwindling, so the commanding officer gave the order to Churchill to ensure the safety of the remaining people.

Before leaving, he asked for notice so that he would not be accused of desertion. Churchill received the notice, hastily signing it, went up the hill and gave the signal to another detachment, whereupon they engaged the army. The fighting in the region dragged on for another two weeks until the bodies of all the dead were taken away. He then wrote in his diary: "I can't say if it was worth it." During the campaign, he also wrote articles for The Pioneer and The Daily Telegraph. Churchill drew on his experience in writing his first book, The Tale of the Malakand field army"(The Story of the Malakand Field Force - English) (1898), for which he received about 600 pounds.

Churchill was transferred to Egypt in 1898. He visited Luxor before being assigned to the 21st Lancers serving in the Sudan under General Herbert Kitchener. During this time, he met two military officers with whom he would later serve during the First World War: Douglas Haig, then a captain, and David Beatty, a future lieutenant on a military boat. While in the Sudan, Churchill took part in what is described as the last significant British cavalry charge, during the Battle of Omdurman in September 1898. He worked as a war correspondent for the Morning Post. By October 1898, Churchill had returned to Britain and began his two-volume work, The River War, a story about the conquest of the Sudan, which was published the following year. Churchill resigned from the British Army and was discharged on 5 May 1899.

After unsuccessfully contesting the results of the parliamentary elections in Oldham in July, Churchill looked for some other opportunity to advance his career. On October 12, 1899, the Second Boer War broke out between England and the Boer Republics, and Churchill was appointed war correspondent for The Morning Post, with a salary of £250 a month. He hastened to sail on the same ship as the newly appointed British commander, Sir Redvers Buller. After a few weeks in open areas, he accompanied a reconnaissance expedition on an armored train, which led to his capture and imprisonment in the Pretoria POW camp (the converted school building of the Pretoria Girls' High School). His actions during the train hijacking gave him the idea that he would be awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award to members of the armed forces for bravery in the face of the enemy, but this was impossible because he acted as a civilian.

Churchill escaped from the camp and, assisted by the English mine manager, traveled almost 300 miles (480 km) to safety in Portuguese East Africa. His escape for a time diminished his importance as a national hero in Britain, although instead of returning home, Churchill returned to General Buller's army to relieve the British at the siege of Ladysmith and take Pretoria. This time, although he continued to act as a war correspondent, he received a rank in the South African light cavalry. He was one of the first British troops in Ladysmith and Pretoria. Churchill, along with his cousin, the Duke of Marlborough, were able to get ahead of the rest of the troops at Pretoria, where they demanded and received the surrender of 52 Boer camp guards.

In 1900, Churchill returned to England on the RMS Dunottar Castle, which had taken him to South Africa eight months earlier. In the same year he published From London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and the second volume of Boer combat events, Ian Hamilton's March.

Churchill's quick promotion

In 1900, Churchill retired from the regular army and in 1902 joined the Imperial Yeomanry Cavalry Regiment, where on 4 January he was appointed captain of Her Majesty's Oxfordshire Hussars. In the same year he was initiated as a Freemason at Studholme Lodge # 1591, London, and was raised to the third degree on March 25, 1902.

In April 1905, Churchill was promoted to Major and assigned to command Henley Squadron of Her Majesty's Oxfordshire Hussars. In September 1916, Churchill was transferred to the Territorial Officer Reserves, where he remained until his retirement in 1924.

After Churchill's resignation from the government in 1915, he joined the British Army in an attempt to secure an appointment as a brigade commander, but content himself with command of a battalion. After spending some time as a major in the 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards, he was appointed lieutenant colonel in command of the 6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers (part of the 9th (Scottish) Division) on 1 January 1916. Correspondence with his wife shows that the reason for entering active service was his desire to rehabilitate his reputation, but this was balanced by the serious risk of being killed. During the period of Churchill's command, his battalion was in Pelogstet, but did not take part in any battle. Although he strongly disapproved of mass murder in many actions on the Western Front, Churchill put himself in harm's way by crossing the front line, or "No Man's Land".

Political career of Winston Churchill

Early years in parliament

In the 1900 general election, Churchill again ran for Oldham. After winning, he went on a campaign tour of the UK and the US, raising £10,000 for himself (about £980,000 to date). From 1903 to 1905 Churchill also wrote Lord Randolph Churchill, a two-volume biography of his father, which was published in 1906 to critical acclaim. In Parliament he was associated with the faction of the Conservative Party led by Lord Hugh Cecil; "the Hughligans". During his first parliamentary session, Churchill opposed the government's military spending and Joseph Chamberlain's proposals for higher tariffs, which were intended to maintain Britain's economic dominance. His own constituency effectively expelled him, although he continued to run for Oldham until the next election. In the months before the final change of party from the Conservatives to the Liberals, Churchill made a series of memorable speeches against the principles of Protectionism; “Thinking that you can make a man rich by taxing him is like a man with his feet in a bucket thinking he can lift himself up by the handle of that same bucket.” (Winston Churchill, speech to the Free Trade League, February 19, 1904). Because of his disagreement with the leading members of the Conservative Party on tariff reform, Churchill made the decision to defect to another party. After the end of the Trinity recess in 1904, he became a member of the Liberal Party.

As a liberal, he continued to campaign for free trade. When the Liberals took over, with Henry Campbell-Bannerman as prime minister, in December 1905, Churchill became Under-Secretary of State for the British Colonies, mainly working with South Africa after the Boer War. As Under Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1905 to 1990, Churchill's main task was to regulate the Transvaal Constitution, which was passed by Parliament in 1907. This was necessary to ensure stability in South Africa. Churchill campaigned in line with Liberal government to establish responsible rather than representative government. This would ease pressure from the British government to control internal affairs in the Transvaal, including racial issues, by delegating much of the power to the Boers themselves.

After being expelled from the Oldham constituency, Churchill was invited to speak for Manchester North West. He won the 1906 general election with a majority of 1214 votes and held office for two years. When Herbert Henry Asquith took over from Campbell-Bannerman in 1908, the Cabinet promoted Churchill to Secretary of Trade. In accordance with the law of that time, the newly appointed minister of the Cabinet of Ministers was forced to seek re-election to a by-election; Churchill lost his seat, but soon returned as a member of the Dundee constituency. As Secretary of Commerce, he joined the newly appointed Chancellor Lloyd George in opposing the First Lord of the Admiralty, Reginald McCain, who was proposing huge costs for the construction of dreadnought-type naval ships, as well as in support of liberal reforms. In 1908, Churchill introduced a bill to the Wage Commission, establishing the first minimum wages In Great Britain.

In 1909, Churchill created labor exchanges to help the unemployed find work. He helped draft the first unemployment pension bill, the National Insurance Act of 1911. As a supporter of eugenics, he participated in the development of the 1913 Law on Mental Disability; however, in the end the Act passed rejected his preferred method of sterilizing the feebleminded in favor of keeping them in institutions.

Churchill also helped promote the People's Budget by becoming president of the Budget League, an organization created in response to the opposition Budget Protest League. The budget included the introduction of new taxes on wealth, in order to ensure the creation of new welfare programs. After the draft budget was passed by the House of Commons in 1909, the House of Lords vetoed the draft. The Liberals then fought and won two rounds of the general elections in January and December 1910 to gain a mandate to carry out their reforms. The budget was adopted after the first election, and after the second election, the Act of Parliament of 1911 was passed, in support of which Churchill campaigned. In 1910 he was appointed Minister of the Interior. His position was controversial after his comments about the Cambrian mine strikers, the unsuccessful siege on Sydney Street and the suppression of the suffragist movement. Inspired by the economist and philosopher Henry George, the People's Budget Party attempted to impose a large tax on land values.

In 1909, Churchill made several tangible rhetoric in the style of Georgism (philosophical and economic ideology named after Henry George - ed.), stating that the basis of all monopoly is land ownership. In addition, Churchill emphasizes the difference between productive investment in capital (which he supports) and land speculation, which generates passive income and has only negative consequences for society as a whole ("evil").

In 1910, a few coal miners in the Rhondda Valley started what would go down in history as the Tawnypandy Riot. The chief constable of Glamorgan requested that troops be sent in reinforcements to help the police quell the unrest. Churchill, having learned that the troops were on their way, allowed them to reach Swindon and Cardiff, but blocked their deployment. On November 9, The Times criticized the decision. Despite this, there are rumors that Churchill ordered the troops to attack, and his reputation in Wales and in Labor circles never recovered.

In early January 1911, Churchill did an act that caused much controversy: he personally arrived at the siege of Sydney Street in London. There is some uncertainty as to whether his visit was due to his wanting to issue operational orders, but his presence has attracted a lot of criticism. After the inquest, Arthur Balfour remarked: “He [Churchill] and the photographer both risked their lives. I understand what the photographer was doing there, but what was the honorable gentleman doing there?” Biographer Roy Jenkins suggests that Churchill was there simply because "he could not deny himself the pleasure of seeing everything with his own eyes", and that he did not give orders. The events described by the London police, however, describe that it was "a very rare case where the Home Secretary personally makes operational decisions and gives instructions to the police." The police surrounded the house where the intruders were - Latvian anarchists who were wanted for murder; The Scots Guards were called from the Tower of London. The house caught fire and Churchill did not allow the fire brigade to douse the flames so that the criminals burned out. "I decided it was better to let the house burn down than to waste good British lives saving these ruthless rascals." Churchill's proposed solution to the suffragette issue was the cause of a referendum on the issue, but did not find support from Asquith, and the issue of women's suffrage remained unresolved until the end of the First World War.

First Lord of the Admiralty

In October 1911, Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and continued in this position during the First World War. While in this position, he paid great attention to modernization, and also advocated the use of aircraft in battles. He took flying lessons himself. Churchill launched a program to replace coal energy with oil energy. When he took office, oil was already being used in submarines and destroyers, but most ships still ran on coal, although the oil was sprayed onto the coals to increase top speed. Churchill began this program by ordering new Queen Elizabeth-class warships using oil-powered engines. He set up a Royal Commission, chaired by Admiral Sir John Fisher, which confirmed the superiority of oil over coal in three classified reports, and determined that there were sufficient reserves of oil, but it was recommended that oil reserves be kept in case of war. The delegation then went to Persian Gulf and the government, largely on Churchill's recommendation, ended up investing in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, buying most of the reserves and negotiating a secret supply contract for 20 years.

Churchill in World War I

On October 5, 1914, Churchill arrived in Antwerp, the Belgian government offered to evacuate the city. The Royal Naval Brigade was already there, and the 1st and 2nd Naval Brigades were also sent on behalf of Churchill. Antwerp fell on October 10, killing 2,500 soldiers. Churchill was accused of wasting resources. Churchill claimed that his actions extended the resistance for a week (Belgium offered to hand over Antwerp on 3 October) and that these actions helped the Allies to keep Calais and Dunkirk.

Churchill took part in the development of tanks, which was financed from the budget of the Navy. In February 1915, he took over the Landships Committee, which oversaw the design and production of the first British tanks. At the same time, he was one of the political and military engineers of the disastrous operations of Gallipoli in the Dardanelles. He assumed primary responsibility for the fiasco, and when Prime Minister Asquith formed an all-party coalition government, the Conservatives demanded his demotion as entry into the new government.

For several months Churchill served in the sinecure of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. However, on November 15, 1915, he resigned from the government, feeling that his energies were not being used. Although he remained a Member of Parliament, on 5 January 1916 he was given the temporary rank of Colonel in the British Army and commanded the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scottish Fusiliers for several months. During his command at Pelogeret, Churchill personally made 36 forays into no man's land.

In March 1916, Churchill returned to England because he felt out of place in France and wanted to return to speaking in the House of Commons. Future Prime Minister David Lloyd George quipped: “One day you will find that the mindset that is revealed in (your) letter is the reason why you fail to win trust even where you are admired. In every line you write, the national interest is completely overshadowed by your personal concern.”

In July 1917 Churchill was appointed Secretary of Arms and in January 1919 Secretary of War and Air Minister. He was the chief architect of the Ten Year Rule, a doctrine that allowed the Treasury to manage and control strategic, foreign and financial policy, on the assumption that "there will be no great European war". The main concern of his tenure in the War Department was the intervention of the Allies in the Russian Civil War. Churchill was a vocal supporter of foreign intervention in Russia, stating that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle".

From a fragmented and loosely organized Cabinet, Churchill received a revitalization and renewal of British involvement despite the wishes of groups in Parliament or the nation - and in the face of fierce Labor hostility. In 1920, after the last British troops were withdrawn, Churchill was instrumental in ensuring that arms were sent to the Poles when they invaded Ukraine. He also significantly influenced the intervention of the military forces (Black and Tan (or Black and Brown) and Provisional Cadets) in the Irish War of Independence. In 1921, Churchill was appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies and was one of the signatories of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which created the Irish Free State. Churchill was involved in lengthy treaty negotiations and, in order to protect the interests of the British shipping companies, he worked out part of the Irish Free State agreement, including three Treaty ports - Queenstown (Cobh), Berinven and Loch Swilly, which could be used as Atlantic bases by the Royal Navy. In 1938, however, in accordance with the Anglo-Irish trade agreement, the bases were returned to Ireland.

In 1919, Churchill authorized the use of tear gas against the Kurdish tribes in Iraq. Although the British considered the use of non-lethal poison gas in quelling the Kurdish insurgencies, it was not used as conventional bombing proved effective.

In 1919, Britain and the United States signed a treaty of alliance with France, but the United States Senate later failed to ratify it, burying the proposed Anglo-French-American alliance. In July 1921, Churchill argued at the Imperial Dominion Prime Ministers' Conference that despite the US Senate's rejection of an alliance with France, Britain should still sign a military alliance with France to ensure post-war security. Churchill also claimed that at the peace conference in Paris, the Americans and the British were successful in pressuring the French to abandon their plans to annex the Rhineland in exchange for a military alliance; this created a moral obligation for an alliance with France, since the French refused to annex the Rhineland in exchange for an Anglo-American security guarantee, which they never received. Churchill's idea of ​​an Anglo-French alliance was rejected at the conference as British public opinion, and more so Dominion public opinion was against the idea of ​​a "continental allegiance". On May 4, 1923, Churchill spoke out in favor of the French occupation of the Ruhr, which was extremely unpopular in Britain, saying: "We must not allow any particular phrase belonging to French policy to turn us away from the great French nation." We shouldn't turn our backs on our friends from the past." In 1923, Churchill acted as a paid consultant for the oil company Burmah Oil (now BP plc), lobbying the British government to allow Burma to obtain exclusive rights to Persian (Iranian) oil resources, which were eventually successfully granted.

In September, the Conservative Party withdrew from the government coalition after a meeting of backbenchers unhappy with the outcome of the Chanak crisis, a move that hastened the impending general election of 1922. Churchill fell ill during the campaign and was forced to undergo an appendectomy. This hampered his campaign, and contributed to a string of subsequent setbacks that followed the Liberal Party. He finished fourth in Dundee, losing to prohibitionist Edwin Scrimmoor. Churchill later quipped that he left Dundee "without an office, without an armchair, without a party and without an appendix". He ran for the Liberals again in the 1923 general election, losing in Leicester.

In January 1924, the first Labor government took office amid fears of a threat to the Constitution. At the time, Churchill was considered particularly hostile to socialism. He believed that the Labor Party, as a socialist party, did not fully support the existing British Constitution. In March 1924, at the age of 49, he was awaiting election in Westminster Abbey. Initially, Churchill sought the support of a local Unionist association, which was known as the Westminster Abbey Constitutional Association. He adopted the term "constitutionalist" to describe his campaign activities.

After the by-election, Churchill continued to use the term and spoke of the creation of a constitutionalist party. All possible plans of Churchill to create a constitutionalist party were put on hold due to the appointment of the next general election. Churchill and 11 others decided to use the label "Constitutionalist" rather than "Liberal" or "Unionist". He returned to Epping against the Liberals and with the support of the Allies. After the election, the seven Constitutionalist candidates, including Churchill, who were elected did not act or vote collectively. When Churchill received the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Unionist government of Stanley Baldwin, the term "constitutionalist" was no longer used.

Churchill's return to the Conservative Party

He officially rejoined the Conservative Party, commenting critically that "anyone can run like a rat (change party - ed.), but it takes a certain ingenuity for a rat to get back."

As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Churchill oversaw Britain's unsuccessful return to the gold standard, which resulted in deflation, unemployment and miners' strikes, which later led to the 1926 general strike.

His decision, announced in the 1924 Budget of the Year, came after lengthy consultations with various economists, including John Maynard Keynes, Permanent Secretary of the Treasury, Sir Otto Niemeyer and the Board of the Bank of England. This decision prompted Keynes to write " Economic consequences The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill, arguing that a return to the gold standard at pre-war parity in 1925 (1 pound = 4.86 dollars) would lead to a world depression. However, the decision was generally popular and was perceived as "a sound economy", although it was opposed by Lord Beaverbrook and the Federation of British Industry.

Churchill later regarded this as the greatest mistake of his life; in discussions with former Chancellor Reginald McKenna, Churchill acknowledged that a return to the gold standard and the resulting "dear money" policy was not economically viable. In these discussions, he supported a fundamentally political solution - a return to pre-war conditions, in which he believed. In his speech on the bill, he said: "I'll tell you that this [return to the Gold Standard] will shackle us, it will bring us back to reality."

The return to the pre-war exchange rate and to the gold standard weakened industries. The coal industry has been the hardest hit, already suffering from cutbacks in production as lower deliveries and shipments hit the oil market. As major British industries such as cotton were subjected to more competition in export markets, the return to pre-war exchange was estimated to be up to 10 percent of the industry's costs. In July 1925, the Commission of Inquiry published data generally in favor of the position of the miners rather than the owners of the mines.

Baldwin, with the support of Churchill, offered to subsidize the industry while the Royal Commission prepared another report. The commission did not solve the problem, and the miners' dispute led to a general strike in 1926. Churchill edited the government newspaper The British Gazette. Churchill was one of the most bellicose members of the cabinet and recommended that food caravans be escorted from the docks to London with tanks, armored vehicles and concealed machine guns. His proposal was rejected by the Cabinet. Exaggerated accounts of Churchill's belligerence during the strike soon began to circulate. Immediately afterwards, the New Statesman claimed that Churchill was the leader of the "war party" in the Cabinet and wanted to use military force against the strikers. He consulted with Attorney General Sir Douglas Hogg, who said that while he had a good case for criminal defamation, it would be inappropriate to have confidential discussions in Cabinet and then take them to public hearing. Churchill agreed to leave the case.

Later economists, like simple people of that time, also criticized the measures taken by Churchill to regulate the budget. They were seen as bailing out the generally prosperous banking and staffing classes (to which Churchill and his associates belonged) at the expense of manufacturers and exporters who were then known to suffer too much from imports and competition in traditional export markets, and Armed forces, and especially the Royal Navy.

The conservative government was defeated in the 1929 general election. Churchill did not seek election to the Conservative Business Committee, the official leadership of Conservative MPs. Over the next two years, Churchill became estranged from the conservative leadership on issues of tariff protection and Indian independence by his political views and friendships with newspaper magnates, financiers and people whose characteristics were considered dubious. When Ramsay MacDonald formed the National Government in 1931, Churchill was not invited to the cabinet. During a period known as the Desert Years, Churchill was at a difficult juncture in his career.

He spent much of the next few years focusing on writing, notably Marlborough: His Life and Times, a biography of his ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, and A History of the English-speaking Peoples (although the latter was published much later, after the completion of World War II), "My Great Contemporaries" and many newspaper articles and collections of speeches. Churchill was one of the highest paid writers of his time. His political views, set forth in his "Romanes Lecture" of 1930 and published as "Parliamentary Government" and " Economic Problems” (reprinted in 1932 in his collection of essays Thoughts and Adventures) included the abandonment of universal suffrage, a return to the property franchise, proportional representation for large cities, and an economic “sub-parliament.”

Independence of India

Churchill opposed Gandhi's rebellion of peaceful defiance and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s and 30s, arguing that the Round Table Conference "was a terrible prospect". In response to Gandhi's campaign of civil disobedience, Churchill stated in 1920 that Gandhi "should be bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi and then trampled by a huge elephant with the new viceroy sitting on his back". Later reports indicate that Churchill would have preferred to let Gandhi die if he went on a hunger strike.

In the first half of the 1930s, Churchill openly opposed the granting of Dominion status to India. He was one of the founders of the Indian Defense League, a group dedicated to maintaining British power in India. Churchill did not allow softness and restraint. "The truth is," he declared in 1930, "that Gandhism and everything connected with it must be captured and crushed."

In his speeches and articles of that period, he predicted mass unemployment in Britain and civil strife in India in connection with the demand for independence. The Viceroy, Lord Irwin, who had been appointed by the previous Conservative government, attended the Round Table Conference in early 1931, after which he announced the Government's decision that India should be granted Dominion status. This government supported the Liberal Party and at least officially the Conservative Party. Churchill condemned the Round Table Conference.

At a meeting of the West Essex Conservative Association, which was convened specifically to allow Churchill to take his stand, he said: “It is disturbing, as well as nauseating, to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious middle-level lawyer, now himself a famous fakir in the east, marching up the steps of the vice-royal palace ... on an equal footing with representatives of the king-emperor. He called the leaders of the Indian National Congress "Brahmins who babble and deceive the principles of Western liberalism".

Two incidents greatly affected the reputation of Churchill, at that time a member of the Conservative Party. Both were seen as attacks on the Conservative government. The first was his speech on the eve of the St. George election in April 1931. Sitting in the safe chair of a conservative official candidate to the Conservatives, Duff Cooper was opposed by an independent conservative. The Independent was supported by Lord Rothermere, Lord Beaverbrook and their supporting publications. Churchill's speech was delivered before the election, but was nevertheless seen as supporting an independent candidate and was part of the newspaper magnate's campaign against Baldwin. Baldwin's position was strengthened by the victory of Duff Cooper and the end of the campaign of civil disobedience in India, which ended with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.

The second incident was Churchill's allegation that Sir Samuel Hoare and Lord Derby had pressured the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and Industry to change the evidence they had given to the Joint Electoral Committee in light of the Government of India's bill, thereby violating parliamentary privileges. He referred the matter to the Committee of Privileges of the House of Commons, which, after an inquiry in which Churchill also testified, informed the House that there had been no wrongdoing. The report was submitted on 13 June. Churchill was unable to find a single supporter in the House and the debate ended unanimously.

Churchill broke definitively with Stanley Baldwin over disputes over Indian independence and never again held any office in government while Baldwin was prime minister. Some historians believe that Churchill's book My Early Life (1930) is a key attitude towards India. It describes the debate over Churchill's alleged culpability in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Indians during the famine in Bengal in 1943. While some commentators point to the violation of the traditional marketing system and the incompetence of the administration at the provincial level.

Arthur Herman, author of Churchill and Gandhi, states: Special influence the fall of Burma had a toll on the Japanese by cutting off the main supply of rice when domestic sources collapsed... [although] it is true that Churchill opposed the diversion of supplies of food supplies and transport from other countries to India to cover the shortage: it was war time". In response to an urgent request from the Secretary of State of India (Leo Emery) and the Viceroy of India (Wavell) to provide food supplies for India, Churchill responded by telegram to Wawel asking: if there is such a shortage of food, "why Gandhi has not died yet." In July 1940, having recently taken office, he reportedly welcomed reports of the growing conflict between the Muslim League and the Indian Congress, hoping "it would be bitter and bloody".

Rearmament of Germany

In the 1920s, Churchill supported the idea of ​​"reconciliation" between Germany and France, while Britain would act as an "honest broker" for reconciliation. Starting in 1931, he opposed the supporters of granting Germany the right to military parity with France, then Churchill often spoke about the dangers of German rearmament.

In 1931, Churchill said: "The weakening of the French army is not the immediate goal European world. It is not in the interests of Britain to oppose France." Later, notably in "The Gathering Storm", he portrayed himself for a time as a lone voice calling on Britain to strengthen itself to counter Germany's belligerence. However, Lord Lloyd was the first to carry out such agitation.

In 1932, Churchill accepted the post of leader of the newly formed New Commonwealth Society, peace organization, which he described in 1937 as "one of the few peaceful communities that favors the use of force, if possible overwhelming force, in support of public international law".

Churchill's attitude towards the fascist dictators was ambiguous. After the defeat of Germany in the First World War, a new danger occupied the political consciousness of the conservatives - the spread of communism. In a newspaper article written by Churchill and published on February 4, 1920, he warned that the Bolsheviks were threatening "civilization," a movement that he associated by historical priority with the Jewish conspiracy. He wrote in particular:

Such a movement among the Jews is not new ... it is "a worldwide conspiracy to overthrow civilization and restore society on the basis of 'slow development', envious malice and impossible equality."

In 1931, he warned about the League of Nations opposing the Japanese in Manchuria: “I hope, being in England, we will try to understand the position of Japan, the ancient state ... On the one hand, the dark threat of Soviet Russia hangs over them. On the other hand, the chaos of China, four or five provinces of which are being tortured under communist rule.” In contemporary newspaper articles, he referred to the Spanish Republican government as the "Communist Front" and Franco's army as the "Anti-Red Movement". Churchill supported the Hoare Laval Pact and continued to praise Benito Mussolini until 1937. He regarded Mussolini's regime as a bulwark against the threat of communist revolution, and in 1933 called Mussolini "the Roman genius... the greatest legislator among men." However, he stressed that the UK should stick to its tradition of parliamentary democracy and not embrace fascism.

Speaking in the House of Commons in 1937, Churchill said: "I will not pretend that if I had to choose between Communism and Nazism, I would choose Communism." In the 1935 essay "Hitler and His Choice", republished in his 1937 book Great Contemporaries, Churchill expressed the hope that Hitler, if he so chose, and despite his rise to power through dictatorial acts, hatred and cruelty, perhaps even "will go down in history as a man who restored the honor and tranquility of the great German nation and returned it to the forefront of the European family circle serene, sympathetic and strong." The first major defense speech on 7 February 1934 stressed the need to modernize the Royal Air Force and create a Ministry of Defence; Churchill's second speech, on 13 July, called for a renewed role for the League of Nations. These three themes remained his themes until early 1936. In 1935, he was one of the founders of The Focus, which brought together people from different political backgrounds and professions who came together in search of "the defense of freedom and peace." The focus led to the formation of the broader Arms and Charter movement in 1936.

Churchill was vacationing in Spain when the Germans occupied the Rhineland in February 1936 and returned to a divided Britain. The Labor opposition was adamant in opposing the sanctions, and the National Government was divided between those who advocated economic sanctions and those who said that even this would lead to a humiliating retreat from the UK as France would not support any intervention. Neville Chamberlain praised and called Churchill's March 9 speech constructive. A few weeks later, Churchill was appointed Minister for Defense Coordination by Attorney General Sir Thomas Inskip. A. J. P. Taylor later called this "an appointment extraordinary, since Caligula appointed his horse consul." At the time, insiders were of little concern: Duff Cooper opposed Churchill's appointment, while General Ellison wrote that he "had only one comment, and that was 'Thank God we got rid of Winston Churchill'."

On May 22, 1936, Churchill attended a meeting of the Old Guard Conservatives (the group, not all of whom were present on this occasion, included Austin Chamberlain, Geoffrey Lloyd, Leopold Emery and Robert Horne) at Lord Winterton's house in Schillingle Park to push for more rearmament. This encounter prompted Baldwin to comment that it was "the time of year when midges come out of muddy ditches". Neville Chamberlain also showed an increasing interest in foreign affairs, and in June, as part of a power bid at the expense of the young and pro-League of Nations secretary of foreign affairs Anthony Eden, he demanded an end to sanctions against Italy ("in the midst of madness").

In June 1936 Churchill organized a deputation of senior Conservatives to meet with Baldwin, Inskip and Halifax. At the same time, the House was in secret session, and the senior ministers agreed to meet by deputation instead of listening to Churchill's four-hour speech. He tried to bring delegates from the other two parties into the discussion, then Churchill wrote: "Had the leaders of the Labor and Liberal oppositions come, perhaps there would have been a political situation which would have been sufficient to ensure the implementation of remedial measures." Rhodes James writes that he is "not overly impressed" by the documented record of the July 28-29 and November meetings. Churchill's data on the size of the Luftwaffe, given to him by Ralph Wigram of the Foreign Office, were less accurate than those of the Air Ministry, and he believed that the Germans were preparing to send "orange-sized" heat bombs on London. The ministers emphasized that Hitler's intentions were unclear and that Britain's long-term economic power should be strengthened through exports, while Churchill wanted 25-30% of British industry to be under state control for the purpose of rearmament. Baldwin argued that it was important to win the election so that he would have "a free hand" to rearm. The meeting ended with Baldwin agreeing with Churchill that rearmament was vital to further containing Germany.

On November 12, Churchill returned to this topic. Speaking at the Address in Reply debate, after providing some specific examples of Germany's readiness for war, he said: "The government simply can't decide, or they can't make the prime minister decide. Therefore, the government presents this strange paradox - it is resolute in its indecision, it is unshakable in its vacillation, it is firm in its desire to be unstable, it wants to remain strong in its vagueness, it is powerful in its helplessness. And so we continue for several more months, years, precious, perhaps vital to the greatness of Britain, to prepare food for the locusts. Robert Rhodes James called this speech by Churchill the best of the period, Baldwin's response sounded weak and worried the government. The exchange gave new impetus to the Arms and the Covenant movement.

Abdication of Edward VIII

In June 1936, Walter Monckton informed Churchill that rumors that King Edward VIII intended to marry Mrs Wallis Simpson had been confirmed. Churchill opposed the marriage and said that he regarded Mrs. Simpson's current marriage as a "guarantee".

In November he turned down Lord Salisbury's invitation to meet with Baldwin as part of a delegation of senior Conservative backbenchers to discuss the matter. On November 25, Churchill, Attlee, and the leader of the Liberal Party, Archibald Sinclair, met with Baldwin, were formally informed of the king's intention, and clarified whether they planned to create an administration if Baldwin and the National Government resigned if the king did not heed the advice of the ministry. Both Attlee and Sinclair stated that they would not take office if they were invited. Churchill's response was that his position was somewhat different, but he supported the government.

The resignation became public knowledge, culminating in the first two weeks of December 1936. During this time, Churchill publicly gave his support to the king. The first public meeting of the Arms and Charter movement took place on December 3. Churchill was the keynote speaker, and later wrote that in replying to the Expression of Thanks, he made a statement "in response", asking for a slowdown before any decision was made either by the king or his cabinet. Later in the evening, Churchill saw the draft of the King's proposed broadcasting, spoke with Beaverbrook and the King's attorney about it. On December 4, he met with the king and again urged to wait with the decision to abdicate. On 5 December, he drafted a lengthy statement saying that the ministry was exerting unconstitutional pressure on the king to force him to make a hasty decision. On 7 December, Churchill attempted to petition the Commons for a delay. He was drowned out by a scream. Seemingly overwhelmed by the unanimous hostility of all involved, he left.

Churchill's reputation in Parliament and in England as a whole suffered greatly. Some, such as Alistair Cooke, saw in his actions a desire to build a royal party. Others, such as Harold Macmillan, were dismayed at the damage Churchill had done to the Arms and Charter movement by supporting the king. Churchill himself later wrote: "I was so astounded by public opinion, that it was almost a universal point of view, that my political life was finally over." Historians are divided on Churchill's motives in his support of Edward VIII. Some, such as A. J. P. Taylor, saw this as an attempt to "overthrow the government of weak men." Others, such as R. R. James, see Churchill's motives as honorable and disinterested, as he had a deep sense of the king.

"Churchill Group"

Churchill later attempted to portray himself as an isolated voice warning of the need to rearm against Germany. At that time, in fact, during most of the 1930s, he had a small following in the House of Commons. Churchill received privileged information from certain representatives of the government, mainly from disgruntled civil servants in the War Office and the Foreign Office. The "Churchill Group" in the second half of the decade consisted only of Churchill, Duncan Sandys and Brendan Bracken. She was isolated from other major factions in the Conservative Party, seeking faster rearmament and a stronger foreign policy; at one of the meetings of the anti-Chamberlain forces, it was decided that Churchill would be a good Minister of Supply.

Even while Churchill was campaigning against Indian independence, he was receiving official and otherwise classified information. From 1932, Churchill's neighbor, Major Desmond Morton, with the approval of Ramsay MacDonald, passed on information about German aviation to Churchill. From 1930, Morton headed a department of the Committee of Imperial Defense, which was charged with investigating the state of defensive readiness of other countries. Lord Swinton, in his capacity as Secretary of the Air Force, and with Baldwin's approval, gave Churchill access to official and otherwise classified information in 1934.

Swinton did this knowing that Churchill would continue to criticize the government, but believing that an informed critic is better than one who relies on hearsay and gossip. Churchill was an outspoken critic of Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasing Adolf Hitler and in personal letters to Lloyd George (August 13) and Lord Moyne (September 11) just before the Munich Agreement, he wrote that the government was faced with a choice between "war and disgrace", and that, having chosen shame, he will later receive a war, being in less favorable conditions.

Churchill in World War II

Return of Churchill to the Admiralty

On September 3, 1939, when Britain declared war on Germany after the outbreak of World War II, Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty he occupied at the start of the First World War. Thus, he was a member of Chamberlain's small military cabinet.

In this post, he was one of the most senior ministers during the so-called "Fictitious War", when the only significant action took place at sea and the USSR attacked Finland. Churchill planned to penetrate the Baltics through the naval forces. The strategy soon changed to plans involving mining in Norwegian waters to stop the supply of iron ore from Narvik and provoke Germany into attacking Norway where it could be overwhelmed by the Royal Navy. However, Chamberlain and the rest of the War Cabinet disagreed, and the start of the mining plan, Operation Wilfred, was delayed until 8 April 1940, the day before the successful German invasion of Norway.

On May 10, 1940, a few hours before the German invasion of France, it became clear that after the failure in Norway, the country did not trust in Chamberlain was prosecuted, and so Chamberlain resigned.The generally accepted version of events is that Lord Halifax resigned the office of Prime Minister because he believed he was unable to govern effectively as a member of the House of Lords instead of the House of Commons.Although the Prime Minister traditionally not advising the king on a successor, Chamberlain needed someone to exercise support for all three major parties in the House of Commons A meeting between Chamberlain, Halifax, Churchill and David Margesson, the chief parliamentary party organizer, led to Churchill's recommendation, and, as a constitutional monarch, George VI asked Churchill to become prime minister. Churchill's suggestion was to write to Chamberlain and thank him for his support.

In June 1940, to encourage a neutral Irish state to join the Allies, Churchill indicated to Prime Minister the Taoiseach Éamon de Valera - Irl. that the United Kingdom would strive for Irish unity, but, apparently believing that Churchill was unable to realize this, de Valera turned down the offer. The British did not tell the Northern Ireland government that they had made an offer to the Dublin government, and Valera's refusal was not made public until 1970.

Churchill was still unpopular with the many Conservatives and leaders of the country, who opposed him taking office to replace Chamberlain; the former prime minister remained party leader until his death in November. Churchill probably could not win a majority in any of the political parties in the House of Commons, and the House of Lords was silent when they learned of his appointment. In late 1940, an American visitor reported, “Everywhere I went in London, people admired [Churchill's] energy, his courage, his determination. People said they didn't know what Britain would do without him. Obviously, he was respected. But no one foresaw that he would become prime minister after the war. He was just the right person for correct work in right time. Time of desperate war with British enemies.

An element of British public and political sentiment favored a negotiated peace with Germany, including with Halifax as Foreign Secretary, but Churchill refused to consider an armistice. Although at times pessimistic about Britain's chances of victory, Churchill told Hastings Ismay on 12 June 1940 that "you and I will be dead in three months" - this use of rhetoric forced public opinion to abandon a peace settlement and prepared the British for a long war.

Churchill coined a generic term for the upcoming battle and stated during his "finest hour" speech in the House of Commons on June 18: "I expect the battle for Britain is about to begin." By refusing a truce with Germany, Churchill supported the resistance of the British Empire and set the stage for the subsequent Allied counterattacks of 1942-45, when Britain acted as a platform to supply the Soviet Union and liberate Western Europe.

In response to previous criticism that there was no single designated minister responsible for prosecuting the war, Churchill created and assumed the additional office of Secretary of Defense, becoming the most powerful wartime prime minister in British history. He immediately put his friend and confidant, industrialist and newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook in charge of aircraft production. Thanks to Beaverbrook's business acumen, Britain was able to quickly expand the development and production of aircraft, which ultimately influenced the war.

The war inspired Churchill, who was 65 years old when he became prime minister. An American journalist wrote in 1941: “The responsibility now placed on him far exceeds the responsibility placed on any other person on earth. It might be assumed that such a load would have a crushing effect on him. Not at all. The last time I saw Churchill, while the Battle of Britain was still raging, he looked twenty years younger than before the start of the war ... His high spirits are transmitted to people. Churchill's speeches were a great inspiration to the fighting British. His first famous line as prime minister was the famous "I have nothing to offer but my blood, toil, tears and sweat." One historian called his influence on Parliament "terrific". The House of Commons, which had ignored him in the 1930s, "now listened and cheered". Churchill continued in this vein, adding two other equally well-known quotations just before the Battle of Britain. One of them included the following words:

We will fight in France, we will fight on the seas and oceans, we will fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we will defend our Island, whatever the cost, we will fight on the beaches, we will fight on the coasts, we will fight in the fields and in the streets, we will fight in the mountains; we will never give up. So let's adapt to our responsibilities and believe in ourselves so much that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last a thousand years, people will still say, "That was their finest hour."

In the midst of the Battle of Britain, his detailed review of the situation included the unforgettable line "Never in the history of human conflict were so many owed to so few", after which the nickname "The Few" was firmly attached to the military pilots (RAF - English Royal Air Force of Great Britain) who won battle. He first uttered those famous words after leaving the underground RAF Group 11 bunker at Uxbridge, now known as the Battle of Britain Bunker, on 16 August 1940. One of his most memorable military performances took place on November 10, 1942, during the official breakfast at the Lord Mayor's mansion in London, in honor of the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein. Churchill stated:

This is not the end. It's not even the beginning of the end. But this may be the end of the beginning.

Lacking the means to provide food or good news to offer the British people, he instead consciously ventured to emphasize the risks. "Oratory," wrote Churchill, "is in no way bestowed, it cannot be acquired, but only developed." Not everyone was impressed with his oratory. Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia, said of Churchill during the Second World War: "There is a real tyrant in him - these are his vivid phrases, so attractive to his mind that inconvenient facts are ignored." Another associate wrote: "He... is a slave to the words his mind forms about ideas... And he can bring himself to believe almost any truth, if one day he is allowed to launch his wild career with his oratorical mechanism."

Churchill's Mental Health

In 1966, Lord Moran's memoirs were published, about his life as Churchill's personal physician. In his memoirs, he described the "Black Dog", as Churchill called his "prolonged depression from which he suffered." Many authors have suggested that Churchill was at risk of, or a victim of, clinical depression throughout his life. Thus formulated, Churchill's history of mental health contains unmistakable echoes of Dr. Anthony Storr's semantic interpretation of Lord Moran's "Black Dog" revelations.

Based entirely on Moran's words and the efforts he made to have his information considered credible, using first-hand clinical evidence of Churchill's continuous struggle with "prolonged and recurring depression" and the "despair" associated with this, Storr created a seemingly authoritative and a compelling diagnostic essay which, according to John Ramsden, "greatly influenced all subsequent events".

However, Storr did not know that Moran, as his biographer and professor Richard Lovell later reported, and contrary to the impression created in Moran's book, did not literally keep a diary during the period when he was Churchill's doctor. Nor was Storr aware that Moran's published book was largely a transcription of notes that mixed Moran's period stories with later material from other sources.

As Wilfred Attenborough has shown, the key entry in The Black Dog's diary for 14 August 1944 was a conditionally obsolete substitution in which the explicit reference to "The Black Dog" - the first of the few in the book (with the appropriate designation of the term) was made not from the words of Churchill to Moran , but from much later statements made by Moran Bracken in 1958. This went unnoticed by Dr. Storr, and yet had an impact - Moran later in his book reversed his earlier suggestion, also from Brendan Bracken, that by the end of World War II Churchill had succumbed to "an inborn melancholy of blood"; also Storr et al. Moran did not notice that in final chapter it is said that Churchill, before the outbreak of the First World War, "succeeded in eradicating bouts of depression."

Despite the difficulties with Moran's book, many of the book's illustrations convey Churchill's state of mind, in which he is understandably depressed for a time due to military defeats and other significant adverse events. All of these illustrations present a compelling image of a great man who reacts without it getting in his way, he doesn't worry or overexert himself, a compelling portrait that fits perfectly with those of others who worked closely with Churchill. Churchill did not receive medication for depression - amphetamine, which Moran prescribed for special occasions, in particular for the big performances in the autumn of 1953, was intended to deal with the aftermath of Churchill's attack that year.

Churchill himself seems to have written about the "Black Dog" only once in his long life: referring to a private handwritten letter dated July 1911 to Clementine Churchill, in which he reports the successful treatment of moderate depression by a doctor in Germany. His ministerial duties to this day, the very limited treatment available for major depression prior to 1911, the fact that the disease is "completely cured" and, not least, Churchill's apparent interest in achieving a full recovery, can be seen as a fact that prior to 1911 Churchill's "Black Dog" depression took the form of mild (i.e. non-psychotic) anxiety depression, as the term was coined by Professor Edward Shorter.

Moran himself insisted that his patient was "by nature very anxious"; Churchill's close associates dispute the idea that anxiety was a defining feature of Churchill's temperament, although they readily admit that he was very uptight and troubled about certain matters, especially those involving important speeches in the House of Commons and elsewhere. Churchill himself almost openly admitted in his book "Painting as a Pastime" that he was the victim of "restlessness and mental strain" [experienced] by people who for a long time must bear the sole responsibility and perform duties on a very large scale." The fact that he found a cure in painting and brickwork is a strong indicator that the state he is in was not " clinical depression", and certainly not how the term was interpreted during the lifetime of Churchill himself and Lord Moran.

According to Lord Moran, during the war years Churchill sought consolation in a glass of whiskey and soda and a cigar. Churchill was also a very emotional person, not shy about shedding a tear if necessary. During some of his on-air appearances, he was seen trying to hold back his tears. However, although the fall of Tobruk was, in Churchill's words, "one of the heaviest blows" he had ever received during the war, there did not seem to be any tears. Of course, the next day Moran met him lively and energetic. Field Marshal Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, who was present when President Roosevelt brought the news of Churchill's tragedy, later noted in his diary the magnificent manner in which the President made his proposal for immediate military assistance, despite the fact that Alanbrooke is always ready to emphasize the fact that he considered Churchill's motives controversial due to his vicious nature during the war. For example, in his diary on September 10, 1944:

And the remarkable thing is that 3/4 of the world's population consider Churchill one of the Strategists of History, the second Marlborough, and the other 1/4 have no idea what a threat to society he is throughout this war! It is much better that the world never knew and never suspected the weak point of this superhuman being. Without him, England would certainly be lost, with him England was on the brink of natural disasters again and again ... I have never admired and despised a man at the same time to the same extent. Never have such opposite qualities been united in one person.

Churchill's physical health became more fragile during the war, as evidenced by the mild heart attack he suffered in December 1941 at the White House, and again in December 1943 when he contracted pneumonia. Despite this, he traveled over 100,000 miles (160,000 km) throughout the war to meet other national leaders. For security reasons, he usually traveled under the pseudonym of Colonel Warden.

Churchill's relations with the USA

Churchill's good relations with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt - between 1939 and 1945 they exchanged approximately 1,700 letters and telegrams, and met 11 times; They had 120 days of close personal contact, Churchill said, helping to secure vital food, oil and munitions along North Atlantic shipping routes.

It was for this reason that Churchill calmed down when Roosevelt was re-elected in 1940. After being re-elected, Roosevelt immediately set about implementing a new procedure for providing military equipment and delivering it to the UK without the need for cash payment. Roosevelt convinced Congress that the price for this extremely costly service would be a form of U.S. protection; and so the Lend-Lease was born. Churchill had 12 strategic conferences with Roosevelt that covered the Atlantic Charter, the first European strategy, the United Nations Declaration and more military policy. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, Churchill's first thought while waiting for US aid was, "We've won the war!"

On December 26, 1941, Churchill addressed a joint meeting of the US Congress with a request about Germany and Japan, "What do they take us for?" Churchill initiated the Special Operations Executive (SOE-Special Operations Executive) under the Ministry of Economic Warfare, Hugh Dalton, who introduced, conducted and supported covert, subversive and guerrilla operations in the occupied territories with notable success; and the commandos, who set the template for most of the world's special forces. The Russians called him the "British Bulldog".

Churchill was a party to the treaties that would change European and Asian frontiers after World War II. They were discussed as early as 1943. At the second conference in Quebec in 1944, he developed and, together with Roosevelt, signed a less harsh version of the original Morgenthau Plan, in which they pledged to turn Germany after her unconditional surrender "into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral according to its purpose." Proposals for European borders and settlements were formally agreed upon by President Harry S. Truman, Churchill and Joseph Stalin in Potsdam. Churchill's close relationship with Harry Truman was of great importance to both countries. Although he clearly regretted the loss of his close friend and colleague Roosevelt, Churchill was extremely supportive of Truman in his early days in office, calling him "just the kind of leader the world needs when it needs it most."

When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Winston Churchill, an ardent anti-communist, famously declared, "If Hitler invaded hell, I would at least put in a good word for the devil in the House of Commons" about his policy toward Stalin. Soon British supplies and tanks were being sent to help the Soviet Union.

The Casablanca Conference, a meeting of the Allied powers held in Casablanca, Morocco, from January 14 to January 23, 1943, resulted in what is now known as the "Casablanca Declaration". Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Charles de Gaulle were present. Joseph Stalin took his leave, citing the need for his presence in the Soviet Union to participate in the Stalingrad crisis. It was at Casablanca that the Allies committed themselves to continue the war until the "unconditional surrender" of the Axis powers. Privately, however, Churchill did not fully agree with the doctrine of "unconditional surrender" and was surprised when Franklin Roosevelt announced publicly what he called "allied consensus".

The settlement regarding the borders of Poland, i.e. the border between Poland and the Soviet Union, between Germany and Poland, was considered by Poland as a betrayal during the post-war years, because it was contrary to the views of the Polish government in exile. It was Winston Churchill who tried to persuade Mikolajczyk (Mikołajczyk in Polish), the Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile, to accept Stalin's wishes, but Mikolajczyk refused. Churchill was convinced that the only way to alleviate tensions between the two populations was through the transfer of people conforming to national borders.

As he explained in the House of Commons on December 15, 1944, “Expulsion is the method which, as far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and durable. There won't be a mix of populations that cause endless problems... A cleanup will be done. I'm not concerned about these transfers, which are possible in today's conditions. However, as a result, the expulsions of Germans were carried out in such a way that it resulted in great hardships, and according to a 1966 report by the Ministry of Refugees and Displaced Persons of the West German Peninsula, more than 2.1 million Germans died or went missing. Churchill opposed Soviet domination in Poland and wrote about it bitterly in his books, but was unable to prevent it at conferences.

In October 1944 he and Eden were in Moscow to meet with the Russian leadership. For this moment Russian troops began to move into the countries of Eastern Europe. Churchill believed that until all matters were formally and properly formed at the Yalta conference, there should be a temporary war working agreement tied to who would win. The most significant of these meetings took place on 9 October 1944 in the Kremlin between Churchill and Stalin. During the meeting, Poland and Balkan issues were discussed. Churchill told Stalin:

Let's settle our affairs in the Balkans. Your armies are in Romania and Bulgaria. We have interests, missions and agents there. You don't have to go the other way. As for the UK and Russia, what would it mean to you if you had a ninety percent majority in Romania and we had a ninety percent majority in Greece and fifty-fifty in Yugoslavia?

Stalin agreed to this Interest Agreement by making a note on a piece of paper when he heard the translation. In 1958, five years after the publication of this meeting (during World War II), the authorities of the Soviet Union denied that Stalin had accepted the "imperialist proposal".

One of the decisions of the Yalta Conference was that the Allies would return all Soviet citizens who found themselves in the union zone to the Soviet Union. This immediately affected the Soviet prisoners of war released by the Allies, but also spread to all the refugees of Eastern Europe. Alexander Solzhenitsyn called Operation Keelhaul the "last secret" of World War II. The operation sealed the fate of two million post-war refugees who fled Eastern Europe.

Bombing of Dresden

Between February 13-15, 1945, British and American bombers attacked the German city of Dresden, which was overflowing with German wounded and refugees. Dresden had an unknown number of refugees, so historians Matthias Nützner, Götz Bergander and Frederick Taylor used historical sources and deductive reasoning to estimate that the number of refugees in the city and suburbs was around 200,000 or less on the first night of the bombing. Due to the cultural significance of the city and the number of civilian casualties near the end of the war, it remains one of the most controversial Western allied actions of the war. After the bombing, Churchill stated in a top-secret telegram:

It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing terror, and under other pretexts, should be reconsidered... I feel the need to focus more precisely on military objectives, such as oil and communications beyond the immediate war zone, not just terrorist and senseless destruction, no matter how spectacular.

After deliberation, under pressure from the Chiefs of Staff, and in response to opinions expressed by Sir Charles Portal (Chief of the Air Staff) and Sir Arthur Harris (Chief Commander of the Air Unit (AOC-in-C) RAF Bomber Command), among others , Churchill took his note and issued a new one. This final version of the note, written on April 1, 1945, read:

It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so-called "bombing zone" of German cities must be considered from the point of view of our own interests. If we take control of completely destroyed lands, there will be a large shortage of housing for ourselves and our allies ... We must ensure that our attacks in the long run do not harm themselves more than they do the enemy.

Ultimately, the responsibility for the British part of the attack was placed on Churchill, so he was criticized for allowing the bombing. The German historian Jörg Friedrich argues that Churchill's decision was a "war crime" and, writing in 2006, philosopher A.S. it was a moral crime that undermined the Allied claim that they were fighting a just war.

On the other hand, it has also been argued that Churchill's participation in the bombing of Dresden was based on the strategic and tactical aspects of winning the war. The destruction of Dresden, although enormous, was intended to hasten the defeat of Germany. As the historian and journalist Max Hastings wrote in an article titled "The Allied Bombing of Dresden": "I think it's a mistake to describe the strategic bombing as a war crime, as it may imply some moral equivalence of the acts of the Nazis. The bombing was a sincere, if misguided, attempt to bring about a military defeat for Germany." British historian Frederick Taylor states that “during the war, all sides bombed each other's cities. Half a million Soviet citizens, for example, died from German bombing during the invasion and occupation of Russia. This is roughly equal to the number of German citizens who died from the Allied raids.

End of World War II

In June 1944, Allied forces invaded Normandy and the very next year drove Nazi troops into Germany on a wide front. After the Allied attack on three fronts, and despite their setbacks such as Operation Market Garden and German counterattacks, including the Battle of the Balga, Germany was ultimately defeated. On May 7, 1945, at the headquarters of the SHAEF (Allied Expeditionary Forces - lane) in Reims, the Allies accepted the surrender of Germany. On the same day, on BBC news, John Snaig announced that 8 May would be "Victory in Europe" day. On VE Day, Churchill informed the people that Germany had surrendered and that there was a ceasefire on all fronts in Europe that night, this would take effect a minute after midnight that night.

Subsequently, Churchill told the huge crowd that had gathered in Whitehall: "This is your victory." People shouted back, "No, yours," and then Churchill continued, singing "Lands of Hope and Glory." On the evening of the same day, he had another broadcast in which he predicted the defeat of Japan in the coming months. The Japanese surrendered on August 15, 1945. Shortly after VE Day, a conflict arose with Britain over the French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon, known as the "Levant", which quickly turned into a major diplomatic incident. In May, de Gaulle sent more French troops to re-establish his presence, provoking an outbreak of nationalism.

On May 20, French troops opened fire on demonstrators in Damascus with artillery and dropped bombs from the air. Finally, on 31 May, with the death toll of Syrians in the thousands, Churchill decided to act and sent de Gaulle an ultimatum warning: “In order to avoid a clash between British and French troops, we ask you to immediately order the French troops to cease fire and retire to their barracks. ". The ultimatum was ignored by both de Gaulle and the French forces, and so Churchill ordered British troops and armored vehicles under General Bernard Paget to invade Syria from nearby Transjordan. The invasion took place and the British quickly cut off French General Fernand Oliva-Rogé's telephone line from his base in Beirut. Eventually, Oliva-Rogay ordered his heavily outnumbered men back to their bases off the coast, escorted by the British. Later, a scandal erupted between Britain and France.

At the time, Churchill's relations with de Gaulle were at their worst, despite his attempts to preserve French interests during his visits to Yalta and Paris the previous year. In January, he told a colleague that he believed that de Gaulle was "a great danger to the world and to Great Britain". Having five years of experience, I am convinced that he is the worst enemy of France, guilty of her problems ... he is one of the greatest dangers to the European world ... I am sure that, in the end, with General de Gaulle, no understanding." In France, accusations were leveled that Britain had armed the demonstrators, and De Gaulle raged against "Churchill's ultimatum," saying that "the whole thing reeks of oil."

While Europe was celebrating peace after six years of war, Churchill was worried that the celebrations would soon be brutally cut short. He concluded that Britain and the United States should confront the Red Army, ignoring previously agreed borders and agreements in Europe, and prepare to "impose the will of the United States and the British Empire on Russia." According to the plan for Operation Unthinkable Plan, ordered by Churchill and developed by the British armed forces, World War III could begin on July 1, 1945 with a surprise attack on allied Soviet forces. The plan was rejected by the British Chiefs of Staff as not militarily feasible.

Defeat of Winston Churchill

With a general election approaching (there hadn't been for a decade) and the Labor Ministers refusing to continue the wartime coalition, Churchill resigned as prime minister on 23 May. Later that day, he accepted the King's invitation to form a new government, known officially as the National Government, like the Conservative dominant coalition of the 1930s, but known in practice as Churchill's Provisional Service. The government included Conservatives, National Liberals and a few non-partisan figures such as Sir John Anderson and Lord Woolton, but not Labor or Archibald Sinclair's official Liberals. Although Churchill continued to serve as prime minister, including communicating with the US administration about the upcoming Potsdam Conference, he was not formally reappointed until 28 May.

Although the vote was scheduled for 5 July, the results of the 1945 elections were not announced until 26 July due to the need to collect the votes of those serving abroad. Clementine, who was with her daughter Mary in the county in Churchill's constituency in Essex (without the support of major parties, Churchill was returned with a greatly reduced majority against an independent candidate) returned to meet her husband for lunch. To her suggestion that electoral defeat might be a "bliss in disguise", he countered that "at the moment it seems very effectively hidden". On that day, Churchill's doctor Lord Moran (as he later wrote in his book The Struggle for Survival) sympathized with him in connection with the "ungratefulness" of the British people, to which Churchill replied: "I would not call it that. They have been through a very difficult time." After losing the election despite strong support among the British population, he resigned as prime minister that evening, this time handing over the reins to a Labor government. Many reasons were given for his defeat, key among them being that the desire for post-war reform was widespread among the population and that the man who led Britain during the war was not seen as the man who would guide her in the world. Although the Conservative Party was unpopular, many voters seem to have wanted Churchill to remain as prime minister regardless of the outcome, or mistakenly believed that this would be possible.

On the morning of July 27, Churchill said goodbye to the Cabinet. On the way out of the Cabinet room he said to Eden: “Thirty years of my life have passed in this room, I will never sit in it again. You will, but I won't." However, contrary to expectations, Churchill did not hand over the Conservative leadership to Anthony Eden, who became his deputy but who was not inclined to surpass his leadership. Another ten years passed before Churchill finally handed over the reins of power.

opposition leader

For six years he was to serve as leader of the opposition. During these years, Churchill continued to influence the situation in the world. During his trip to the United States in 1946, Churchill famously made a lot of money playing poker with Harry Truman and his advisers. During this trip, he gave his Iron Curtain speech about the USSR and the creation of the Eastern Bloc. Speaking on March 5, 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, he stated:

From Stettin in the Baltics to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain descended across the continent. Behind this line are all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and their populations are in what I call the "Soviet sphere".

Churchill's physician, Lord Moran, later (in his book Fight for Survival) recalled Churchill's suggestion in 1946, before he voiced the idea (unsuccessful) in a memorandum to President Truman that the United States launch a preventive atomic attack on Moscow, at that time how the Soviet Union did not yet possess nuclear weapons.

On June 5, 1946, in Parliament, three days before the Victory Day parade in London, Churchill declared that he "deeply" regretted that:

None of the Polish troops, and I must say this, among those who fought with us on several battlefields, shed their blood for a common cause, should not go to the Victory Parade ... The fate of Poland seems to be an endless tragedy and we, those who went to war, all are not ready on her behalf to look with sadness at the strange result of our efforts.

Churchill told the Irish ambassador in London in 1946: “I said a few words in Parliament the other day about your country because I still hope for a united Ireland. You must get these comrades in the north, although you cannot do this by force. In my heart there is not and never has been bitterness towards your country.” He later said: “You know, I had many invitations to visit Ulster, but I turned them all down. I don't want to go there at all, I'd rather go to the south of Ireland. Maybe I'll buy another horse with an Irish Derby membership."

He continued to lead his party after losing the 1950 general election.

European unity

In the summer of 1930, inspired by the ideas of Aristide Briand and his recent trip to the USA in the autumn of 1929, Churchill wrote an article in which he said that he regretted the instability that had been caused by the independence of Poland and the disintegration of Austria-Hungary into small states, and called for " United States of Europe", although he wrote that Britain was "with Europe, not part of it".

Ideas for a closer European commonwealth continued to circulate, promoted by Paul-Henri Spaak as early as 1942. As early as March 1943, Churchill's speech on post-war reconstruction annoyed the US administration not only by not mentioning China as a great power, but also by the proposal of a purely European "Council of Europe." Harry Hopkins conveyed President Roosevelt's concern, warning Eden that he would "give free ammunition to the isolationists (USA)" that the American "Regional Council" might offer. Churchill urged Eden, who was in the US at the time, to "listen politely" but not voice "any view" on Roosevelt's proposals for the US, Britain, USSR and China, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, to act together to enforce "Global Collective Security". "" with the Japanese and French empires taken under international guardianship.

This time out of office, Churchill gave a speech in Zurich on 19 September 1946 in which he called for "a kind of United States of Europe" to focus on a Franco-German partnership with Britain and the Commonwealth and possibly the US as a "friend and sponsor of a new Europe." The Times writes that Chechill "frightened the world" with his "outrageous proposal" and warned that the countries were not yet ready for such unity, and that he must take into account the permanent division between Eastern and Western Europe, and insisted on "more ordinary" economic agreements. Churchill's performance was praised by Leo Emery and Count Cowdenhove-Kalergi, the latter writing that it would lead to more government action.

Churchill expressed similar sentiments at the Primrose League meeting at the Albert Hall on May 18, 1947. He stated "Let Europe revive", but it was "quite clear" that "we will not allow a wedge between Britain and the United States". Churchill's speeches contributed to the strengthening of the Council of Europe.

In June 1950, Churchill strongly criticized the refusal of the Atlee government to send British representatives to Paris (to discuss Schuman's plan to create the European Coal and Steel Community), stating that "it is always wrong who absent" and called it "a wretched attitude" that "disturbs the balance of Europe", saying that there was a risk that Germany would dominate the new union. Through the UN, Churchill called for world unity (against the backdrop of the communist invasion of South Korea), while emphasizing that Britain was uniquely positioned to influence ties with the Commonwealth, the US and Europe. However, Churchill did not want Britain to actually join any federal union. In September 1951, a declaration by the foreign ministers of the United States, France, and Great Britain welcomed the Schuman plan, emphasizing that it would revive economic growth and promote the development of a democratic Germany, part of the Atlantic community.

Returning as prime minister, Churchill published a note to the Cabinet on 29 November 1951. He listed the UK's foreign policy priorities as the unity and consolidation of the Commonwealth, the "fraternal association" of the English-speaking world (i.e. the Commonwealth and the US), then thirdly, "A united Europe with which we are intimately connected to each other... (it is) only when the plans for the unification of Europe take on a federal form, which we cannot accept because we cannot afford to be subjugated or to give control of British politics to the federal authorities.”

In 1956, after leaving the post of Prime Minister, Churchill went to Aachen to receive the Charlemagne Prize for his contribution to European unity. Today, Churchill is one of the "Founding Fathers of the European Union," a statement that Boris Johnson says contains "a very large amount of truth."

In July 1962, Field Marshal Montgomery told the press that the elderly Churchill, whom he had just visited in the hospital where he had been treated for a broken hip, objected to Macmillan's negotiations for Britain to join the EEC (European Economic Community - approx. trans.) vetoed by the President of France, General de Gaulle, in January of the following year). Churchill told his granddaughter, Edwina, that Montgomery's behavior in private was "monstrous".

Churchill's domestic policy

After the general election in October 1951, Churchill again became prime minister, and his second government lasted until his resignation in April 1955. He also served as Minister of Defense from October 1951 until 1 March 1952, when he handed over the portfolio to Field Marshal Alexander.

In domestic politics various reforms were passed, such as the Mines and Quarries Act of 1954 and the Housing Repair and Tenancy Act of 1955. Consolidated legislation concerning the employment of young people and women in mines and quarries, their health and well-being, remains as it was. The latter expanded on previous housing laws and laid out the details in defining housing units as "unfit for human habitation".

Tax credits have been increased, construction of public housing has accelerated, and pensions and public assistance benefits have been increased. However, fees for prescription drugs have also been introduced.

Housing was a problem that the Conservatives were widely recognized for tackling. The Churchill government of the early 1950s, together with Harold Macmillan as Minister of Housing, gave housing construction a much higher political priority than it had during the Uttley administration (when housing was attached to the portfolio of Health Minister Aneurin Bevanom, whose focus was on its responsibilities to the National Health Service). Macmillan accepted Churchill's challenge to meet the latter's ambitious public commitment to build 300,000 new homes a year and meet targets a year ahead of schedule.

Churchill's national priorities in his last government were overshadowed by a series of foreign policy crises that were partly the result of the continuing decline in British military and imperial prestige and power. As a strong proponent of Great Britain as an international power, at such moments Churchill often took active steps. One example is when he sent British troops to Kenya to fight the Mau Mau rebellion. In an attempt to preserve the remnants of the Empire, he once declared that "I will not preside over the dismemberment of the state."

This was followed by the events that became known as the Malayan catastrophe. Malaya has been in revolt against British rule since 1948. Once again the Churchill government inherited a crisis and Churchill preferred to use direct military action against the rebels while trying to build an alliance with those who had not taken part in the rebellion. Over time, the uprising was slowly extinguished, but it became clear that British colonial rule was no longer sustainable.

Anglo-American relations

In the early 1950s, Britain was still trying to be the third major power on the world stage. It was "a time when Great Britain opposed the United States as strongly as it had in the post-war world." However, Churchill devoted most of his tenure to Anglo-American relations and attempted to maintain a special relationship. He made four official transatlantic visits to America during his second term as prime minister.

Churchill and Eden visited Washington in January 1952. The Truman administration supported the plans of the European Defense Community (EDC), hoping that it would control Western European rearmament and help reduce US troop levels. Churchill believed that the proposed EOC would not work, ridiculing the supposed difficulties of the language. Churchill asked in vain for a US military commitment to support Britain's position in Egypt and the Middle East (where the Truman administration had recently pressured Attlee to suspend intervention against Mossadeq in Iran); this was not what the Americans expected - the US expected British support to fight communism in Korea, but saw that any US commitment to the Middle East supported British imperialism and they were convinced that this would help prevent the Soviet regime from coming to power.

By early 1953, the foreign policy priority of the Cabinet was Egypt and the nationalist, anti-imperialist Egyptian Revolution.

After Stalin's death, Churchill, the last of the wartime Great Three, wrote to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had just assumed the presidency of the United States on March 11, offering a summit meeting with Soviet officials; Eisenhower wrote back, cooling off the offer, because the Soviet government could use it for propaganda.

Some of Churchill's colleagues hoped that he would retire after the Queen's coronation in May 1953. Eden wrote to his son on April 10: "W. getting older every day and tends to... procrastinate and waste more time... there is hardly any understanding in the outside world how difficult it is. Please make me retire before I turn 80!” However, Eden's serious illness (he almost died after a series of unsuccessful bile duct surgeries) allowed Churchill to take control of foreign affairs from April 1953.

After being disappointed by President Eisenhower (this was the McCarthy era in the US in which Secretary of State Dulles took a Manichaean view of the Cold War), Churchill announced his plans in the House of Commons on 11 May. The US Embassy in London noted that it was a rare occasion when Churchill did not mention Anglo-American solidarity in his speech. Ministers such as Lord Salisbury (acting Foreign Secretary) and Notting were concerned about irritating the Americans and the French, although Selwyn Lloyd supported Churchill's initiative, as did most Conservatives. A year later, Eden wrote in his diary about Churchill's actions with fury.

End of Churchill's political career

In the summer of 1949, while on vacation in the south of France, Churchill suffered a mild attack. By the time he formed his next government, he had become rather slow, as George (George) VI could not fail to notice as early as December 1951, after which he considered suggesting that Churchill retire the following year in favor of Anthony Eden , but the documents do not record whether the king made such a declaration before his own death in February 1952.

The shock associated with the premiership and the Foreign Office was caused by a second seizure at 10 Downing Street after dinner on the evening of June 23, 1953. Despite the fact that Churchill was partially paralyzed on one side, he presided over the Cabinet meeting the next morning and no one noticed his condition. After that, his condition worsened and it was believed that he would not survive the weekend. If Eden had been in good shape, Churchill's premiership would most likely have ended. The news of Churchill's health was kept secret from the public and from Parliament, who were told that Churchill was suffering from exhaustion. He went to his home, Chartwell, to recuperate, and by the end of June, he surprised his doctors by rising from his chair, sweating. He joked that the news of his illness moved news of serial killer John Christie off the front page of the news.

Churchill was still eager to meet with the representatives of the Soviet government and was open to the idea of ​​a reunified Germany. He declined to condemn the Soviet crushing of East Germany, commenting on 10 July 1953 that "the Russians have been surprisingly patient with the East German unrest". He thought that this could be the reason for Beria's departure. Churchill returned to public life in October 1953 to speak at the Conservative Party Conference in Margate. In December 1953, Churchill met with Eisenhower in Bermuda.

Churchill became angry at the friction between Eden and Dulles (June 1954). On a trip home from another Anglo-American conference, diplomat Pierson Dixon compared US actions in Guatemala to Soviet policy in Korea and Greece, leading Churchill to retort that Guatemala was a "bloody place" he had "never heard of". Churchill was still planning his trip to Moscow and threatened to resign, thus provoking a crisis in the Cabinet when Lord Salisbury threatened to resign if Churchill carried out the threat. Finally, Soviet Union proposed five energy conferences, which did not take place until after Churchill had retired. By autumn, Churchill again postponed his resignation.

Eden, now partially recovered from his operations, became a major figure on the world stage in 1954, helping to negotiate peace in Indochina, an agreement with Egypt, and an agreement between the countries of Western Europe after France's refusal to join the EOC. Realizing that he had become slow both physically and mentally, Churchill finally retired as prime minister in 1955 and was succeeded by Anthony Eden. At the time of his departure, he is believed to have had the longest ministerial career in British politics at the time. In December 1956, Churchill suffered another minor seizure.

Death of Winston Churchill

Elizabeth II offered Churchill the title of British duke, but the offer was rejected as a result of the objections of his son Randolph, who would have inherited the title on his father's death. However, he accepted a knighthood as a Knight of the Garter. In retirement, Churchill spent less time in Parliament until he vacated his seat in the 1964 general election. After retiring, Churchill spent most of his time at Chartwell and at his home in Hyde Park, London, and became a regular in high society on the French Riviera.

Despite his public support, Churchill was privately scathing about Eden's Suez invasion. His wife believed that he made several visits to the US in later years in an attempt to help restore Anglo-American relations.

By the time of the 1959 general election, Churchill rarely visited the House of Commons. Despite the Conservatives winning the election by a landslide, his own majority fell by more than a thousand. It is widely believed that as his mental and physical abilities declined, he began to lose the battle in which he allegedly fought for so long against the so-called "black dog" - depression. However, as discussed in the previous section of this article, the nature and seriousness of Churchill's "black dog" is problematic. Anthony Montague Brown, Churchill's private secretary during the last ten years of the latter's life, wrote that he never heard Churchill refer to a "black dog" and he strongly disputed the suggestion that the former prime minister's declining health, multiple strokes and other serious illnesses, regardless of the circumstances, have also been caused by depression.

It has been suggested that Churchill may have had Alzheimer's in later years, although others argue that his mental decline was the result of ten seizures and an increase in the deafness from which he suffered between 1949-1963. In 1963, US President John F. Kennedy, acting under the permission of Congress, proclaimed Churchill an honorary citizen of the United States, but he was unable to attend the ceremony at the White House.

Despite failing health, Churchill still tried to maintain an active social life, and on St. George's Day 1964 sent congratulatory messages to the surviving veterans of the 1918 Zeebrugge raid who had taken part in a memorial service in Deal, Kent, where two men of the raid had died. and were buried in the Hamilton Road Cemetery. On January 15, 1965, Churchill suffered a severe attack and died at his London home nine days later, at the age of 90, on the morning of Sunday, January 24, 1965, 70 years after his father's death.

Funeral of Winston Churchill

Planning for Churchill's funeral, called Operation Hope Not, began in 1953 after he suffered a severe stroke. The aim was to honor Churchill's memory "on a scale appropriate to his position in history", as Queen Elizabeth II stated.

Churchill's funeral was the largest state funeral in world history at the time, attended by representatives from 112 countries; only China did not send an emissary. In Europe, 350 million people, including 25 million in the UK, watched the funeral on television, and only Ireland did not broadcast it live.

By order of the Queen, his body was in Westminster Hall for three days, and on January 30, 1965, a state funeral was held at St. Paul's Cathedral. One of the largest gatherings of statesmen in the world was called to the service. Contrary to tradition, the Queen attended the funeral because Churchill was the first non-nobleman, since William Gladstone, whose coffin was put on display for a solemn farewell. When Churchill's lead coffin floated down the River Thames from Tower Pier to Festival Pier on the sea-going ship Havengor, the dockers lowered their cranes in a gesture of respect.

The Royal Artillery fired a 19-gun salute on behalf of the head of government, and the RAF organized a flyby of sixteen Lightning fighters. The coffin was then taken to Waterloo Station, where it was loaded onto a specially prepared and painted cart as part of the funeral train for the journey to Hanborough, seven miles northwest of Oxford.

The Pullman funeral train, carrying a grieving family, was taken at the Battle of Great Britain by Winston Churchill as engine number 34051. In the fields along the route and at the stations through which the train passed, thousands remained silent to pay their respects. At Churchill's request, he was buried in the family vault of St Martin's Church, Blendon, near Woodstock, next to his birthplace at Blenheim Palace. Churchill's funeral van - formerly the S2464S Southern Railway Van - is now part of a conservation project with the Swanjay Railway which was repatriated to the UK in 2007 from the US where it was exported in 1965.

Later, in 1965, a monument to Churchill was erected in Westminster Abbey, created by the engraver Reynolds Stone.

Winston Churchill's legacy

Churchill's legacy continues to fuel debate among writers and historians. According to Allen Packwood, director of the Churchill Archives Centre, even during his lifetime Churchill was "an incredibly complex, contradictory and grandiose man" who often struggled with these contradictions. Notably, his strong and outspoken views on race, Judaism, and Islam were often highlighted, quoted, and heavily criticized. However, historian Richard Toy noted that in the context of the era, Churchill was not "particularly unique" in that he had strong views on white race and superiority, even if many of his contemporaries disagreed with them. Despite the fact that Churchill was a supporter of the Zionist movement, he was casual about anti-Semitic views, as were many of the British upper class. While he was a staunch opponent of trade unions and communist agitation responsible for the Labor movement in the 1920s, he supported social reforms, more in the spirit of Victorian paternalism.

Churchill as an artist

Churchill was an accomplished artist and drew with great pleasure, especially after his resignation as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915. He took refuge in art to overcome periods of depression from which he suffered throughout his life. As William Reese-Mogg stated: “In his life he had to suffer from a“ black dog ”- depression. There are no signs of depression in his landscapes and still lifes.” Churchill was brought into the arts and taught to draw by his artist friend Paul Maz, whom he met during the First World War. Maz had a great influence on Churchill's painting and became a lifelong companion in art.

Churchill's most famous paintings are impressionist landscapes, many of which were painted while on holiday in the south of France, Egypt or Morocco. Using the pseudonym "Charles Morin", he continued his hobby throughout his life and produced hundreds of paintings, many of which are on display at the studio in Chartwell as well as in private collections. Most of his paintings are in oils, mostly landscapes, but he also painted a number of interior paintings and portraits. In 1925 Lord Duven, Kenneth Clark and Oswald Birley chose him " Winter sun”as a laureate in a competition for anonymous amateur artists. Due to apparent time constraints, Churchill painted only one painting during World War II. He completed the painting from the tower of Villa Taylor in Marrakesh.

Some of his paintings can be seen today in the collection of Wendy and Emery Reves at the Dallas Museum of Art. Emery Reves was Churchill's American publisher as well as a close friend, and Churchill often visited Emery and his wife at their villa, La Pausa, in the south of France. The villa was originally built in 1927 for Coco Chanel by her lover, the second Duke of Westminster. The villa was rebuilt as part of a museum in 1985 with a gallery of Churchill's paintings and memorabilia.

Despite fame and noble birth, Churchill always tried his best to keep his income at a level that would finance his extravagant lifestyle. Deputies received only a nominal salary until 1946 (and actually received nothing until the Parliament Act of 1911), many of them had additional professions through which they could earn a living. According to information from his first book in 1898, prior to his second term as prime minister, Churchill's income when he was out of office consisted almost entirely of writing books and opinion pieces for newspapers and magazines. The most famous of his newspaper articles are those that have appeared in the Evening Standard since 1936, warning of the rise of Hitler and the dangers of appeasement.

Churchill as a writer

Churchill was also a prolific writer of books under the pseudonym "Winston S. Churchill", which he used by agreement with an American writer of the same name to avoid confusion between their works. His publications included a novel, two biographies, three volumes of memoirs, and several stories. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 "for his skill in writing works of a historical and biographical nature, and for his brilliant oratory in defending the lofty human values." The two most famous works published since his first premiership have raised Churchill's international fame to new heights, his six-volume memoirs The Second World War and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples; a four-volume history covering the period from Caesar's invasions of Britain (55 BC) to the outbreak of the First World War (1914). Several volumes of Churchill's speeches were also published, the first of which, "In Battle", was published in the United States under the title "Blood, Sugar and Tears" and was included in Life Magazine's list of 100 outstanding books 1924-1944.

Churchill was an amateur bricklayer, building buildings and garden walls in his country house at Chartwell, where he also raised butterflies. As part of this infatuation, Churchill joined the United Builders, but was expelled after regaining membership in the Conservative Party.

Winston Churchill awards

In addition to the state funeral honor, Churchill received a wide range of awards and other honors, including the following, in chronological order:

Churchill was appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1907.

He was awarded the Order of the Knights of Honor in 1922.

He received the Territorial Distinguished Service Commendation for his long service in the Territorial Army in 1924.

Churchill was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (CHS) in 1941

In 1945, when Halvdan Koch mentioned Churchill as one of seven eligible candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize, the nomination was sent to Cordell Hull.

He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1946.

In 1947 he was appointed to the Privy Council of Canada.

In 1953, Churchill received the title of Knight of the Garter (became Sir Winston Churchill) and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his many published works, especially his six-volume World War II.

In a BBC 100 Greatest Briton poll in 2002, he was voted "The Greatest of Them All" based on approximately one million votes from BBC television viewers. Churchill has also been ranked as one of the most influential leaders in history by TIME. Churchill College, Cambridge was founded in 1958 in his honor.

In 1963, Churchill was named an honorary citizen of the United States under Public Law 88-6/H.R. 4374 (approved / adopted April 9, 1963).

On November 29, 1995, during a visit to the United Kingdom, United States President Bill Clinton announced to both Houses of Parliament that the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer had been named USS Winston S. Churchill. It was the first United States warship to be named after an Englishman since the end of the American Revolution.

Honorary military appointments by Churchill

Churchill held significant ranks in the British and Territorial Armies from the time he was appointed as a cornet in the 4th Royal Hussars to his retirement from the Territorial Army in 1924 as a lieutenant colonel.

In addition, he held many honorary military appointments. In 1939 Churchill was appointed an honorary Air Commodore in the Auxiliary Air Force and was awarded the Wings of Honor in 1943. In 1941 he was appointed colonel of the 4th Hussars. During World War II, he often wore his air commodore and colonel uniform. After the war, he was appointed colonel in command of the 4th Hussars, the Royal Irish Hussars and Her Majesty's Oxfordshire Hussars.

In 1913, he was appointed Elder Brother of Trinity House as a result of his appointment as First Lord of the Admiralty. He served as Lord Warden of the Chingke Ports from 1941 until his death, and in 1949 was appointed Deputy Lieutenant in Kent.

Letters of Appreciation from Winston Churchill

University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA (LL.D.) in 1941

Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (LL.D.) in 1943

McGill University in Montreal, Canada (LL.D.) in 1944

Leiden University in Leiden, Netherlands, honorary doctorate in 1946

University of Miami in Miami, Florida, USA in 1947

University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark (PhD) in 1950

According to Mary Soames herself, from her father she inherited a deep sense of social duty and love for cigars. Lady Soams became a kind of "last of the Magicans" who had to answer questions about her father until her death.

According to her, a typical example of such questions was "Did Winston Churchill like spinach?". To him, Mary always answered the same way: "Well, once my father threw a bowl of spinach at my mother."

Although Lady Soames claimed to have inherited her father's sense of social duty, she received the greatest public appreciation for writing a biography of her mother, Clementine Churchill, with whom she had a less than simple relationship as a child.

Churchill's children were expected to have a "noble, valiant outlook on life", and they, in turn, never expected any of their parents to come to school for prizes and certificates or sports competitions. As Mary Soames said, "history constantly interferes with our family life."

Mary Soames always spoke of her childhood as exceptionally happy. Much of the positive atmosphere came from Chartwell, bought in the year she was born.

Together with numerous politicians and statesmen, such special characters as Charlie Chaplin were invited to the table in the Churchill house, for the sake of whose arrival the then 9-year-old Mary was allowed to stay up late.

Dinner parties and dinners were fondly remembered by Lady Soames, in particular because of the conversations at the table and the monologues of her father. Lunch or dinner often turned into a three-hour discussion with Shakespeare's poetry, songs and language.

“Being his child was an enrichment for me beyond compare,” said Lady Soames.

As for Clementine's mother, Mary spoke of her as "wife first, mother second." However, in her children, Clementine always evoked a feeling of admiration and respect. Churchill's wife treated children with a mixture of tenderness and severity.

Lady Soames wrote a biography of her mother over a long period. Started in the mid-1960s, it was not published until 1979, two years after Clementine's death. The work of Mary Soams was appreciated. The author was awarded two literary prizes, and the book itself became a bestseller.

This success was followed by a series of memoirs: The Churchill Family Album (1982), a biography of the 5th Duke of Marlborough, The Dissolute Duke (1987), Winston Churchill, His Life as an Artist (1990), and a self-explanatory personal correspondence Winston with Clementine Churchill (1998).

Mary Soames was born in London. She attended Limpsfield School near Chartwell. She left school at 17 and worked for the Red Cross during the first two years of the war. In 1941, she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women's branch of the British Army, and rose to the rank of junior commander (similar to the rank of captain).

As an adjutant, Mary accompanied her father on many foreign trips, including to Potsdam for a conference of the heads of the three great powers.

She met her future husband, Christopher Soames, while staying at the British Embassy in Paris. "I think he fell in love with me right away and I quickly did the same," Mary recalled. Within the next month, the couple became engaged.

When asked by the press whether she would pursue a career or take care of her family, Mary replied "Family, of course", adding that this work requires full dedication.

Mary's husband later became British Ambassador and British President of the European Community in Brussels. Lady Soames herself visited schools, hospitals, boarding schools and refugee camps. She has received great recognition around the world.

She was made a Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter in 2005.

Lord and Lady Soams have three sons and two daughters.

After five months of courtship, in early August 1908, Churchill invited his beloved Clementine to the family estate of the Dukes of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace. Oddly enough, Clemmie did not share the Cavalier's enthusiasm. She assumed that there would be many guests in the castle, besides, as always, she had nothing to wear. Trying to convince Clementine, Churchill will write to her: “If you only knew how much I want to see you this Monday. I really want to show you this amazing place. In its beautiful gardens we will find many places where we can retire and discuss everything in the world. The first letter will immediately be followed by a second, in which Winston will tell his beloved about her "strange and mysterious look", the secret of which he "cannot figure out."

In the end, realizing that Winston was more interested in talking in private than in a lavish ball at Blenheim Palace, Clementine agreed. Even as the train pulled out of Paddington Station and, picking up speed, rushed under full steam towards Oxford, she took out a sheet of paper, a pen and an inkwell to write a couple of lines to her mother: "I feel terribly timid and very tired." In fact, she had nothing to be ashamed of. Churchill, who was waiting for his beloved near the railway station in Oxford, driving his new car with driver's glasses on his forehead, was even more nervous.

(Winston Churchill in 1908)

For two days he would drive Clementine through the beautiful countryside of Oxfordshire, without daring to tell her the main thing. On the third day, Winston is so desperate in himself that he does not even want to get out of bed. Clementine, on the other hand, will patiently wait for him downstairs at the table, drink tea and seriously consider whether she should return to London. Noticing the slightly distant look of his guest, the Duke of Marlborough immediately went up to his cousin's bedroom. "Winston! he said sternly. - Get up immediately and confess your feelings to Clementine today. I'm afraid you won't get that chance again." Yielding to his arguments, Churchill made one last attempt, leading his beloved to the rose garden.

(Rose garden)

As they wandered at a slow pace through the alleys of the rose garden, a thunderstorm broke out in the sky, and a heavy downpour began, forcing them to take refuge in the temple of Diana - a small stone gazebo located on a hill near the lake. They sat in silence for half an hour. The atmosphere heated up. Clementine glanced down and saw a slowly crawling beetle. It flashed through her head: “If this beetle crawls to the crack, and Winston never proposes to me, then he will never do it.” Judging by the further development of events, Churchill turned out to be more agile. In token of upcoming wedding, Winston presented his bride-to-be with "the most wonderful ring" with a huge red ruby ​​and two diamonds.

(Temple of Diana, where Winston proposed to Clementine)

The upcoming wedding was scheduled for mid-September. While the solemn event was decided to be kept a secret, however, upon returning to the palace, Winston could not restrain himself and told his close friend F.E. Smith. So soon the whole of Blenheim knew about the upcoming engagement. In the evening, before going to bed, Clemmy wrote a love letter to the groom - a big heart with the inscription "Winston" inside. For several days, while the future newlyweds were visiting the Duke of Marlborough, all the servants were only engaged in carrying countless letters along the long corridors of Blenheim Palace, which the lovers exchanged with each other:

My dear, how are you? I send you my best love. I just got up, would you like to take a walk with me after breakfast in the rose garden. Always yours, W.

My dear, I am perfectly fine and it will be my great pleasure to walk with you in the rose garden. Always yours, Clementine.

Due to the fact that Clementine's father, Sir Henry Hosier, died a year before the events, the daughter had to ask for her daughter's hand from Clementine's mother, Lady Blanch. Addressing his future mother-in-law, Churchill said: “I am not rich, and not very influential, but I love your daughter and consider this feeling strong enough to take on the great and sacred responsibility of caring for her. I believe that I can make her happy by giving her the necessary status and position worthy of her beauty and virtues.

(Winston and Clementine on vacation)

Mrs. Hozier will approve of Clementine's choice. Sharing the news with her sister-in-law Mabel Airlie, Lady Blanch told her: “Clementine is engaged to Winston Churchill, they are going to be married. It's hard to say which one is more in love. Knowing the character of Winston, I think that he is. The whole world has heard about his magnificent mental abilities, but how charming and loving he is in privacy". “Winston is so much like his father,” she tells the poet Wilfrid Blunt. - He inherited some of his vices and all the virtues. He is gentle, kind, and very gentle with those he loves.” Lady Blanch will agree with her mother. Upon learning of her granddaughter's engagement, she exclaims: “Winston loves his mother so much, it seems to me that good sons always become good husbands. Clementine was wise. Let her follow him, I won't mind."

(U .Churchill and Violet Asquith. The latter did not believe in the success of the upcoming marriage)

The upper world was much less sure of the cloudless happiness of the upcoming marriage. "This union will last six months, no more," the former Prime Minister Earl Rosebery predicted, "the marriage will fall apart, because Churchill is completely not created for family life." Winston's girlfriend Violet Asquith will be even more outspoken. Referring to Clementine's first cousin Veneta Stanley, she admits: “For Winston, a wife is nothing more than an ornament. I fully agree with my father (Prime Minister G. Asquith) that this is a disaster for both of them. Winston does not particularly want - although he needs - a critical wife who can restrain his escapades and stop him from another miss in time. As will show further development event, the negative predictions turned out to be wrong.

Volumes have been written about him, and he himself told a lot about himself. But today it is not about him, or rather not only about him. There was a woman in the world who had been by his side for fifty-seven years. This is his wife Clementine Churchill, née Heuser, from the noble Scottish family of Airlie.

She was born on April 01, 1885 and was 11 years younger than Winston. Clementine was fluent in German and French, had a sharp mind and a subtle sense of humor, and was interested in politics. The family was not rich, and Clementine gave French lessons. But at 23, the girl was also picky, she ruined as many as three engagements.

And Churchill at this time, already a little settled down, apparently decided that it was time to get married. But Winston was one of those people whose shortcomings were immediately visible, and whose virtues were discovered a little later. And although he already had rich life experience, Winston was a bear with women: neither you beautiful courtship, nor you compliments.

He was above all a warrior, and too straightforward to be considered a gentleman. And for two recent years he has already received three rejections. In addition, the brides understood that the main woman for this applicant would always be Her Majesty Politics.

Let's not stir up the past of those unfortunates who could not discern such a wonderful party in this wayward and conceited gentleman.

And once again, Churchill almost blundered. The fact is that he was invited to an appointment with a lady who ten years ago helped the young lieutenant join the Sudanese expedition. Winston did not want to go, but thanks to the fact that the secretary shamed his boss, he still got an appointment with Lady St. Helier, who turned out to be Clementine's aunt.

The niece, they write, also did not want to attend the reception, since she did not have a fashionable dress then. But the sky ordered - and they met! This happened in March 1908. It turns out that fate had already brought them together four years ago at the same ball, but since Churchill still did not know how to dance, then a certain nimble gentleman took the beauty away from him.

Already in August of the same year, he proposed to Clementine. The groom for that time was very extravagant and peculiar, and therefore Clementine again almost refused! But it did happen: on August 15, 1908, then Deputy Minister Churchill announced his wedding.

The high society issued a summary: this marriage will last six months, no more, and the marriage will fall apart simply because Churchill was completely uncreated for family life.

But it turned out differently: they lived 57 years in love and fidelity!

Roy Jenkins wrote: "It is simply phenomenal that Winston and Clementine - these offspring of windy ladies - created one of the most famous marriage unions in world history, known both for their happiness and their fidelity."

Churchill's biographers write that he was often lucky, but most of all he was lucky with his wife!

And family life began. What he just did not get up: wrote books, learned to fly an airplane, spent nights in a casino, losing and winning back fortunes, led the political life of the country, drank an exorbitant amount of whiskey, smoked Havana cigars endlessly, ate kilogram dishes!

But Clementine did not try to curb her husband, correct his shortcomings and remake his character, as a less intelligent woman would try to do. She accepted him for who he was.

An uncompromising and stubborn politician near his wife became a meek youth. And she became for him an ally, the first adviser and true friend. Yes, she was not easy with him, but she was never bored with him.

Churchill talked a lot, never listening to anyone and sometimes not even hearing. So she found a wonderful way to communicate with him. The wife wrote letters to her husband. In total, about 1700 letters and postcards were written. And then their youngest daughter Marie published these lines of love.

I must also say that the wife was a lark, and her husband was an owl. This is partly why they never had breakfast together. Churchill once said that joint breakfasts are a test that no family union can withstand. They rested most often apart: she loved the tropics, and he preferred extreme sports.

One gets the impression that a wise wife did not flicker before her husband's eyes, did not reshape him in her own way, but was always there when he wanted it.

And in the house, for the sake of justice, it must be said, his calling was very often heard: “Clemmy!”. By the way, they also slept in different bedrooms.

Once, speaking to Oxford students, Clementine said: “Never force your husbands to agree with you. You will achieve much more by continuing to calmly adhere to your beliefs, and after a while you will see how your spouse will quietly come to the conclusion that you are right.

They plunged into crises, became poor and became rich again, but their union was never questioned, and their spiritual closeness only grew stronger over the years.

In September 1941, Clementine appealed to the British to support the USSR: "We are amazed at the power of Russian resistance!" From 1941 to 1946, she, as president of the Red Cross Fund for Aid to Russia, made the first contribution, and then members of her husband's government did so.

At first, the Russian Relief Fund planned to raise 1 million, but managed to raise many times more: about 8 million pounds. No “non-liquid” or second-hand, everything is only of high quality and the most necessary: ​​equipment for hospitals, food, clothes, prostheses for the disabled.

Before the very victory, Clementine spent a whole month and a half, from April 2 to mid-May, in the Soviet Union. She visited many cities - in particular, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Odessa, Rostov-on-Don. She was also in the house-museum of A.P. Chekhov in Yalta.

Having met Victory Day in Moscow, Clementine spoke on Moscow radio with an open message from Winston Churchill. For her work in helping our country, Clementine was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. She also met with Stalin, who gave her a gold ring with a diamond.

Until now, historians are perplexed why Clementine was in the Soviet Union for so long. After the war, Winston Churchill published a six-volume work on World War II, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1953.

I admit that Churchill, in order not to sin against the truth, instructed his wife to look at the consequences of the war with her own eyes, for Winston trusted no one in his life more than her. She, of course, did not collect facts: others did, but her opinion for the prime minister was always decisive.

After her husband's death, Clementine became a member of the House of Lords and a life peer as Baroness Spencer-Churchill-Chartwell. This amazing woman died on December 12, 1977, having lived for 92 years.