A bath, booze, and bravado
What Winston took with him to the trenches... and gave him back his morale
When Major Churchill reported for duty in northern France in January 1916, he was very different to the Winston Churchill we know today.
Having resigned in disgrace as First Lord of the Admiralty after the disastrous Gallipoli campaign — which he had personally masterminded — Churchill’s political career looked dead in the water.
As his wife Clementine said later: ‘I thought he would die of grief.’
Any thought Churchill may have had that he would be given a warm welcome swiftly evaporated when his commanding officer told him frostily: ‘I think I ought to tell you that we were not at all consulted in the matter of your coming to join us.’
But however tempting it is to see Churchill’s decision to join the Army as a form of self-punishment, an attempt to atone for his former blunders, even perhaps to embrace death, this scenario conveniently ignores one crucial fact.
Churchill loved being in the Army — he felt far more at home among soldiers than he ever did among politicians. And, as he’d proved before, both on the north West Frontier and in Sudan, he was almost eerily coolheaded under fire — something that puzzled Churchill himself as much as it did everyone else.
His morale may have been at rockbottom when he arrived in France, but it soon picked up.
AMID the squalor and horror of the trenches, Churchill found a contentment that had eluded him in england. Within a few days he was writing to Clementine: ‘I am very happy here. how I ever could have wasted so many months in impotent misery, which might have been spent in war, I cannot tell.’
At first, he was told that he could stay in the relative safety of battalion headquarters. Churchill, however, was having none of it.
Again, it’s tempting to see this as evidence of his courage and zest for the fray. But here, too, there is another explanation.
It turns out that no alcohol was permitted at battalion headquarters, whereas it was allowed, even encouraged, nearer the front line. As far as Churchill was concerned, this was the clincher. ‘I have always believed in moderate and regular use of alcohol,’ he wrote, ‘ especially under conditions of winter war.’
Within a few weeks he had been promoted to Lieutenant- Colonel and given command of the 30 officers and 700 enlisted men of the 6th (Service) Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers. It seems safe to say that the Royal Scots Fusiliers had little idea of what was in store for them when Churchill arrived mounted on a black charger, followed by a gun carriage laden with his belongings — among them a full-sized bath and a boiler to heat the water. An extremely awkward lunch followed at which Churchill didn’t say a word, but went round the table, staring intently at each of his fellow officers. At the end of the meal he made a short speech.
‘Gentlemen, I am your new Commanding Officer. Those who support me, I shall look after. Those who go against me, I will break.’
As one of the officers present, Major Andrew dewar Gibb was ideally placed to observe Churchill at close hand. First published in 1924 under the pseudonym Captain X — for some unexplained reason dewar Gibb did not wish to be identified as its author — these
£15,000 How much Churchill’s dentures sold for at auction in 2010
You’re in the Army now: Churchill (pictured in 1916) fought back to glory fascinating recollections have been given a timely reissue.
On taking charge of the battalion, Churchill’s first task was to declare war — on the lice. Within ten days of his arrival, there had been a noticeable improvement in the living conditions of his men.
Despite his warnings of what would happen to anyone who crossed him, Churchill proved to be a surprisingly lenient and unstuffy CO. He allowed fellow officers to use his bath, and once refused to discipline a sentry who had been found asleep at his post — an offence, in theory, punishable by firing squad — saying simply: ‘He was only a lad.’
When the Royal Scots Fusiliers were moved up to the front line, Churchill was happier than ever. He made an almost unprecedented 36 forays into No Man’s Land where, according to Dewar Gibb, he was ‘ like a baby elephant . . . He never flinched when a shell went off; he never ducked when a bullet went by with its loud crack.’
As Churchill noted: ‘I found my nerves in excellent shape and I do not think my pulse quickened at any time.’
Was he really as nerveless as he claimed, or was he constantly testing his own mettle, forcing himself to confront his own fears? We’ll never know, but what is clear is that Churchill’s men found him an inspirational figure.
BY THIS point Dewar Gibb, who started off even more sceptical than most about Churchill, has become a fullyfledged convert.
In tones of awed disbelief he recalls how Churchill, wallowing in his portable bath, would fire off demands to Clementine for yet more supplies — she was expected to send him three bottles of brandy every ten days and a generous allocation of cigars, as well as assorted hams, Stilton and steak pies.
At times reading these accounts of life in the battalion mess, I found myself losing sight of where Churchill was, imagining instead that I was learning about some incredibly lavish house party. ‘Nobody who was entertained there ever forgot it!’ noted one man excitedly. ‘And who was not entertained!’
But gradually even Churchill’s mood darkened. His letters home become increasingly solemn. In one he writes that he wouldn’t mind ‘very much’ if he stopped living, before going on to say in a rare moment of bleak honesty: ‘I am so devoured by egotism.’
In the end egotism, or ambition, got the better of him. After six months, Churchill decided to leave the Front and go back to Westminster to resume his political career. there he was given an even frostier reception than in France — many of his old colleagues still hadn’t forgiven him for Gallipoli.
Unlike them, though, Churchill had seen for himself what life was like in the trenches. In the firestorm of battle, his own flame had been rekindled, his morale restored and his destiny set back on track.