Churchill / Early

 

    

A political career of consequence in early

20th Century England began with a path

that led through either Cambridge or Oxford.

However, Winston was an indifferent student and

his parents felt it wise to send young Churchill

to Sandhurst, Britain's West Point.

It was here he found something of interest.

His education took hold. 

Winston was mostly ignored by his parents, 

the politically prominent Lord Randolph and his

American wife, Lady Randolph.  They were each

wrapped up in a whirlwind of self-importance

and could find little time for their dull boy, Winston.

He was someone easy to forget.

Churchill Elected to Parliament.

Mark it on your calendar.  1904.

The Conservatives had a rising star among

their new members in Parliament - the MPs.

Churchill was both a popular writer and

a celebrated hero of the Boer War.

He also had the attitude of an ambitious,

self-absorbed young man.  His friendships

mostly had some underlying motive.

People felt used.

 This young man wasn't afraid to lose.

It didn't take long before Churchill

picked a fight with his leadership

over party policy.  He wasn't about to be 

anyone's silent, attentive junior member. 

Continued disputes and insubordination would

inevitably lead to Winston switching from 

the Conservative to the Liberal Party.

Churchill fought for measures that would raise

people's quality of life beyond that of someone

living in a Charles Dickens novel.   

Political accusations flew.  Winston was an enemy

to his class.  Dinner invitations from friends

dried up.

Controversy was such a hassle.

The Great War ground up lives daily at a sickening rate.

As Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill proposed a plan

he believed would shorten the war.  His idea to

attack Turkey at Gallipoli was bold, brilliant and

a disaster.

Gallipoli was a humiliating military defeat.

Churchill was handed the blame.

His star dropped below the horizon.

He was put out to pasture.

Depression set in.

This is where most political careers end.

Promising talent fades before making history.

This wasn't Winston's story.

There was too much he had yet to do.

 

 Churchill saw himself as a man of destiny.

He felt himself born to make a difference.

Winston must be at the center of action.

He was too brilliant to be anywhere else.

He would settle for nothing less than

being leader of a great cause.

World War Two would give Winston his chance.

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Cold War

  

Distrust.

Stalin's allies, Britain and the U.S., couldn't give him

a straight answer on when they would open up a

second front by invading France.  They didn't know 

themselves.  Stalin wasn't buying it.  Russia's friends

were content to let the Soviets take the brunt of the war.

Stalin's story.  What else would you expect from 

the capitalists? 

  

The alliance of Britain, the Soviet Union and the

United States no longer made sense once Hitler

was gone.  National interests overrode cooperation.

Suspicions rose with the mounting tension.

Germany's collapse enabled Stalin to fill the power

vacuum in Eastern Europe.  The new rule for these

countries would be Kremlin friendly.  These satellites

would provide a strong buffer to prevent future

invasions of the Soviet Union.

Roosevelt's death early in his fourth term gave

Truman the reigns of government.  Up until

this moment the Vice President got his news

 about the White House from the newspapers,

like everyone else.

Suddenly it's 'welcome to the White House'.

What do we to do with this atomic bomb?

For starts, the U.S. had its hands on 'the Bomb'.

Churchill and Roosevelt felt it best Stalin didn't know.

But he did.  That's what  spies are for.

Stalin's response - we need that bomb.

Make it happen.

The alliance wasn't based on friendship.

 France belonged among the great global powers.

With the war over it was time Southeast Asia

be returned to France as its colony.  Despite U.S.

aid, the French colony was lost to the backers of 

the communist leader, Ho Chi Minh.  

The war left much of western Europe with devastated

economies atop the destroyed infrastructure of entire

nations.  Millions of people were displaced, clogging

the roads as refugees, looking for a place to call home.

Germany was crushed.  Their enemies occupied the

land and called the shots.  Konrad Adenauer became

a rallying point for those wanting Germany rebuilt

into a strong democracy. 

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Milestones

  

Churchill pulled the best of the 8th Army from North Africa

to defend the Greeks from Hitler.  The summoned

British force proved to be an expensive gesture that

was easily swept aside.  The Germans captured

seven thousand Brits.  The remainder of Churchill's

force fled to Crete.

The thirty thousand British troops were just getting 

acquainted with their new surroundings when a sky

filled with German paratroopers assaulted them on 

the island of Crete.   Having recently abandoned their

tanks back in Greece, Britain once again ceded the

battlefield to Germany.  Twelve thousand of 

Churchill's men became POW's.  The rest sailed

through submarine infested waters in order to 

reach the Egyptian port of Alexandria.

For Churchill the news of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor

undoubtedly sounded to him like the bugle call signaling

Uncle Sam was on his way.  Too bad Roosevelt would be 

chasing after the Japanese.  Germany was the real threat.

Four days following Pearl Harbor, Hitler solved Roosevelt's

dilemma and declared war on the U.S.  

Washington quickly embraced the European war

as the nation's first priority.

Shocking word came from the tip of the Malay peninsula

where the British island fortress there had surrendered.

With its imposing 15 inch guns pointed out to sea, this

symbol of Britain's rule was considered impregnable.

London's colonial army of 80,000 surrendered to a modest

Japanese force of 30,000.  Turns out English troops were

no match for men trained in jungle fighting.  

Singapore's defenders assumed the threat 

would come by sea and chose to ignore the

possibility of an invasion over land.

 

Japan called the shots in the Pacific until Midway.

The US Navy took advantage of breaking Japan's

military code to ambush Tokyo's national pride -

their world class carrier fleet.  All four Japanese

carriers sank into the ocean's depth while

the Yorktown was America's only loss.

With Japan's defeat, Churchill no longer saw Tokyo

as a serious threat to his Commonwealth members  

of India and Australia.

The loss of Tobruk was too much.

So here we were.  The 8th Army, with its

back to the wall, fighting for all the marbles

near this small railway depot isolated in the

Sahara desert.

A no confidence vote against Churchill was the 

talk among members of the House of Commons.

All this erupted as the Prime Minister plotted

global strategy with his most important ally,

President Roosevelt.

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Dunkirk

  

The miracle of Dunkirk was that Hitler passed

on the opportunity to destroy the British army.

He wanted Britain off the continent but he didn't 

need Yankee imperialists and Japanese warlords

inheriting for free the sprawling British Empire.

The dagger at Britain's throat.

After the humiliating drubbing Nazi forces delivered 

to the Brits, Hitler believed London would quickly

agree to his offer for peace demands.

First, he'd take control of the western Mediterranean

with England giving him Gibraltar.  A present of

British oilfields in Iran and Iraq would give Germany

much needed energy independence.

This, too, would be part of any deal guaranteeing

Britain's safety.

Churchill calls Hitler's bluff.

With his troops from Dunkirk home safely

Churchill drew his line in the sand:

There will be no negotiations with Hitler.

If he wants anything from us he's going

to have to come and get it himself.

The Few.

An invasion of Britain requires the German 

Luftwaffe to have control of the air.  

Transporting ten German divisions across 

the channel to England's shores requires

an air force that can hold off the mighty 

Royal Navy.  The Royal Air Force, though,

must first be destroyed.

Air Minister Dowding

Churchill wants more fighters sent to France.

Dowding say, No.  It's a losing cause.

The Royal Navy wants the RAF to defend 

shipping in the English Channel.

Once again, Dowding says no.  

Take the train.

 

Luftwaffe bombers headed for England.

England's survival depends upon fighters fending off

an overwhelming number of Nazi warplanes

with precious few pilots of their own.

This is the challenge that takes up all of 

Air Minister Hugh Dowding's time.

And he thinks he has it figured out.

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War Lord

  

 

N A T I O N A L     S U R V I V A L

Blitzkrieg has vulnerable flanks.

It's a long neck.  Cut off the head.

Very quickly your tank attack runs out of gas

and ammo.  Without supply your armored punch

becomes state of the art junk.  Useless.

British and French forces had the chance

for such a successful counterattack but their

lack of organization squandered the opportunity. 

Germans are believers in big surprises.

They head fake the Royal Navy outside Norway

and now French forces feel like they are shooting

at targets in a fun house mirror.  The threat

in front of you has suddenly become the threat

 to your rear.  The result is catastrophic.

 

  Party over.

 

   

Arsenal of Democracy

How does Britain defeat Hitler?

"I shall drag the United States in"  says Churchill.

The US Army is minuscule in size but Uncle Sam 

is truly the industrial giant Daddy Warbucks.

Already across the Atlantic shipyards are awakening

and factories expanding.  Soon the workers used

to assembling Chevys will instead build tanks,

planes, trucks and other implements of war.

Marx provides Stalin his strategy.

 "A war is on between two groups of capitalist countries.

Hitler, without understanding it or desiring it, is shaking

and undermining the capitalist system.  We can 

maneuver, pit one side against the other to set them

fighting with each other as fiercely as possible."

Stalin to his aids prior to Poland.

FDR runs for third term.

   

Roosevelt knows war will one day come to America.

The voters want nothing to do with the war in Europe.

The war to end all wars ended just twenty year ago

and now... here we are again.  Foolishness.

I can't get ahead of the voters, Franklin says.

You'll just have to wait, Winston.

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©  Tom Taylor

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