‘Let’s fight on’
Churchill could be an unorthodox and fallible leader, but his one crucial decision was absolutely right.
Winston Churchill is remembered as a rock of certainty in frightening times, but in his early career he looked suspiciously like a thrill seeker, wild card and bon vivant. “He was a man who had great luck. The one job that he was superbly fitted for came up, as a war leader,” says Gerald Hensley, author of Beyond the Battlefield: New Zealand and Its Allies 1939-45.
Born in 1874, Churchill served in the British Cavalry in India, Sudan and in the second Boer War. He found early fame as a war correspondent and had written five books by the time he was 26. He became an MP after a celebrated escape from a Boer prison camp in 1899.
But although he rose to high office, it all came crashing down. As First Lord of the Admiralty during World War I, Churchill was involved in the disastrous Gallipoli invasion, whose failure forced him to resign from the Government.
He spent from 1929 to 1939 in the political wilderness. The day Britain declared war on Germany, Churchill was brought in from the cold to his old post as First Lord of the Admiralty. A signal went out to the fleet: “Winston is back.”
He became Prime Minister the
following year. His gifts as an orator strengthened British resolve in times when it seemed the odds were insurmountable.
Hensley says Churchill and New Zealand Prime Minister Peter Fraser were unlikely partners in war. “Churchill was a romantic, self-indulgent, a liker of talk and writing and so on. Peter was not much of a drinker, cautious rather than dour, no charm of manner.”
After the fall of France in June 1940 – dark days for Britain – Fraser wrote a personal telegram to Churchill: “We hope now that you will fight on, and if you do we’ll back you to the end. But if you feel you must negotiate, which we rather hope you don’t, we’ll back you on that too. Either way, we’ll back you.”
Says Hensley, “I think the telegram endeared him to Churchill for the rest of their partnership.”
Churchill’s unorthodox leadership style was not always popular with those closest to him. “He drove his armed forces chiefs nuts,” says Hensley. “He was a chronic interferer, and his mode of operating was very trying to good methodical soldiers.
“Churchill’s signatures were enthusiasm and ideas. He also had a tendency to work late, sleep in late the next morning, and then work from bed. That was not what the generals were used to.”
But though he was trying to his generals, Churchill grasped from the earliest point in the war that the US would be the key to victory, says Hensley.
“And he said this to Dominion representatives in Washington in 1943 – basically, we must keep with the Americans. Where our interests might clash, theirs will have precedence. And when the row broke over the colonies and the future of the British Empire, he backed down. He said the great imperialist was an even greater Atlanticist – we have to go with them. That was a very important insight.”
Churchill made many mistakes during the war. But Hensley says none of them matter, because of what he got right.
“By the fall of France, Britain could no longer win the war, but it could have lost it. By surrendering, it could have lost it.
“There were those days in May when several members of Churchill’s Cabinet were advocating opening negotiations with Hitler. It was Churchill who drew up on a sheet of paper the pros and cons. He firmly said we can’t do a deal with this man ever. We can’t rely on his word. Let’s fight on.
“He could have lost the war for all of us. And he didn’t. You can forgive a lot of his eccentricities, idiosyncrasies or wrong decisions on where to fight or how to fight. A lot can be forgiven for getting that big one right.”
“He was a chronic interferer, and his mode of operating was very trying to good methodical soldiers.”