Lionizing Winston

Working Hypothesis

The elite work through government to achieve their control.  The Anglo-elite purposefully chose to transition (as their primary tool of control) from the government of Great Britain to that of the United States.  This transition began toward the end of the nineteenth century and was complete by the end of World War Two.  Besides the evidence presented with the benefit of hindsight (it happened), there is much evidence that something to this effect was intended. 

At least that’s my story.

Background

Perhaps the most significant work that I have come across that demonstrates this purposeful intention is a book by W.T. Stead: The Americanization of the World.  I cover this book in several posts, to be found here.  I also find the assassination of McKinley quite curious, for reasons explained here.

If this version of history is correct, one man should be considered as perhaps the most important political figure throughout this time – an on-again-off-again leader during most of the transition period of fifty years: Winston Churchill.  Certainly there were others: Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson come to mind – yet, while they could build-up American expansionism, they couldn’t directly control British actions.  Churchill’s presence on the global stage spanned this time period, playing a key role in many of the events that contributed to this transition and the downfall of Great Britain as empire.

Therefore I wonder – was Churchill selected to play this part, to ensure the transition that was desired by the Anglo-elite?  Did Churchill know he was playing this part?  Did he need to know?  To try to find some clues, I decided to read a biography of the man: The Last Lion, by William Manchester.  This volume covers the years 1874 to 1932.  These years would be the critical years in my chase – if he was chosen, it happened early on, and for reasons that were visible early on.

An American is struck by the facility with which so many British intellectuals slight the man who saved their country. (P. 16)

Perhaps, being British, they have a different view.  For the British, it could be concluded that Churchill was a key figure in the demise of Empire; of even a more direct and personal impact, consider the fate of the British economy in the several decades after World War II (something to consider if / when the US empire follows this same course).

Churchill certainly had a vision early on in the Second World War:

…by combining the might of the English-speaking peoples in so strong a defense of the United States and the Commonwealth that the rest of the world would be held at bay, as it had been held by the British Empire in the relatively quiescent nineteenth century. (P. 16)

For my hypothesis to hold water, it would be helpful to find evidence that some hint of this was known to the elite early on – perhaps even forty or fifty years earlier.  If the characteristics that allowed Churchill to make this statement were known to those who walk in important circles early on, perhaps my wild goose chase will have a happy ending. 

Wow, what am I thinking?

Manchester’s book is thick.  I never thought I would read a biography of Churchill; such is the world of tin foil.  I will cover the book in some detail (it will take several posts), but I am only concerned with tidbits that touch on my quest – who did Churchill know, who knew of Churchill, where might he have crossed paths with important people, what characteristics of his were visible early on that might have provided an insight into his win-at-any-cost attitude to the war (even when a fight was not necessary) – thereby ensuring that the cost would be the British Empire in favor of an American Empire – a good outcome for the Anglo-elite, not so good for too many others.

For now, an overview.

Young Winston

Churchill apparently was the man Teddy Roosevelt pretended to be.  Both were sickly and relatively weak as youth.  Churchill, sent to a “brutal boarding school” as a boy, was caned by the “sadistic headmaster until his back was a mass of welts.”  His treatment by his fellow students was worse:

Sickly, an uncoordinated weakling with the pale fragile hands of a girl, speaking with a lisp and a slight stutter, he had been at the mercy of bullies.  They beat him, ridiculed him, and pelted him with cricket balls. (P. 17)

Churchill set out to change his image, much as Teddy Roosevelt was doing (but with not nearly the same danger, and for not nearly as many years) – and at around the same time.  He was commissioned in the cavalry, Fourth Hussars, in 1894.  He saw heavy fighting in the Khyber Pass in 1897. He was in the last cavalry charge at Omdurman in 1898.  He was captured in the Boer War in 1899; he subsequently escaped from capture.

In 1913 he learned to fly and apparently founded the Royal Navy Flying Corps.  At the outbreak of the Great War, he spent three days in the trenches, inspecting the defense of Antwerp.  In 1915, after his dismissal from the Admiralty, was commissioned and sent to the front; “As a commander he continued to exhibit the reckless daring which had been a hallmark of all his military actions….”  He remained in the war throughout. (P: Chronology)

Teddy pretended to be a man of the Wild West; most of it was for show.  For now, I will leave it as curious that these two – Winston and Teddy – shared common traits and shared common war-like desires; both were moved into power at around the same time – with Winston continuing to play a role through Teddy’s cousin’s reign.  Perhaps just coincidence.

Early Connections

Winston’s career path benefited from preferential treatment.  His father was named Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1886; his American born mother apparently had connections of a different sort:

His name, not academic competence, got him through Harrow and Sandhurst.  Then his mother, finally taking an interest in his affairs, began pulling strings for him.  There were a great many available to her.  She had been intimate with many influential men in America, on the Continent, in the British establishment; even in the royal family. (P. 27)

These connections afforded him privilege:

There is a stunning line in [Churchill’s] book The River War: “With the design of thereafter writing this account, I moved to a point on the ridge which afforded a view of both armies.”  Here are two mighty forces preparing to do battle, and here is a lowly subaltern riding off to get the best perspective…. In 1900 other Englishwomen yearned to see their sons, off fighting the Boers.  Jennie Churchill simply outfitted a hospital ship and sailed down to Cape Town to see how Winston was doing. (P. 27)

Churchill was often broke – reduced to writing articles for Collier’s, and asking for payment “if possible, by Monday morning.”  Shortly before Munich, he was so deep in the red that he contemplated resigning from Parliament – only to be saved when a wealthy friend settled his debts. (P. 28)

Early on, it was clear Winston had a remarkable memory.  For example, he could recite, without a slip, the twelve hundred lines of Macauley’s Lays of Rome.  (P. 28)

What’s Inside?

The author describes the psychology of Churchill, using Jung’s description of the “extroverted intuitive”:

“Thinking and feeling, the indispensable components of conviction, are, with him, inferior functions, possessing no decisive weight; hence they lack the power to offer any lasting resistance to the force of intuition.”

As Jung pointed out, the extroverted intuitive lacks judgment. (P. 19)

From the beginning of his political life, Churchill’s character was known:

His brilliance was recognized from the first, but he was regard as erratic, unreliable, shallow, impetuous, a hatcher of “wildcat schemes.” (P. 20)

By the 1930s it was generally felt that the people were wise to him at last, that he was a figure from the past, out of touch with reality.  A newspaper editorial described him as a “genius without judgment.”  Harold Begbie wrote: “Mr. Churchill carries great guns, but his navigation is uncertain.” (P. 20)

Manchester describes Churchill’s great depressions (“Black Dog” as Churchill himself named it) during the interwar years,

Then Churchill’s prospects were dramatically altered.  Adolf Hitler entered his life…. His basic weakness became his basic strength.  Here, at last, was pure evil, a monster who deserved no pity, a tyrant he could claw and maim without admonishment from his scruples…. “This cannot be accident, it must be design.  I was kept for this job.” (P. 25)

Bernard Shaw describes Churchill: “The moment we got a good fright, and had to find a man who could and would do something, we were on our knees to Winston Churchill.” (P. 35)

Re-enters the Stage

At the time of Dunkirk, Halifax, speaking on behalf of the Conservative leadership, was urging a negotiated settlement with Germany.  Hitler also held the same view, telling Göring: “The war is finished. I’ll come to an understanding with England.” (P. 5)

It was Churchill – this erratic and impetuous man without judgment, a hatcher of wild schemes, a man who would claw and maim without admonishment from his scruple – who was summoned by King George and asked to form a government.

[Halifax] was quite right.  But Winston Churchill was not a reasonable man.  He was about as sound as the Maid of Orleans, a comparison he himself once made – “It’s when I am Joan of Arc that I get excited.” (P. 6)

  Why was Churchill chosen?  It certainly wasn’t for stability and reasoned, considered thinking.

Of course, Churchill was the right man if the only choice was a fight.  But was this the only choice?  Halifax didn’t think so.  It seems Hitler didn’t believe so, either.  At Dunkirk, it was believed at most only a few thousand Tommies could be rescued, yet – in what is called a miracle – not only were 220,000 British rescued, but an additional 100,000 French support troops.  And these, not by the Royal Navy, but by tugs and barges.  It was no miracle; Hitler stood aside. (P. 3)

What was Churchill to do?

“I have thought carefully in these last days whether it was part of my duty to consider entering into negotiations with that man [Hitler]…. If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.” (P. 6)

[Churchill] knew that peace hath not her heroes, and he meant to be heroic…. In his last days he said that 1940 and 1941 had been the best years of his life, despite the fact that for other Englishmen they had been incomparably the worst. (P. 13)

Churchill chose war and not peace in a time when war was not inevitable or even necessary.  (For a thorough yet easy-to-read exposition of this, see Buchanan’s Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War.) 

Perhaps those who put him in place knew this would be Churchill’s choice.  And they knew that this war would, inevitably and finally exhaust Britain and raise up America; and Churchill, playing the role he was chosen to play, was the key political figure in this planned transfer.

We will see.