by Harry Elmer Barnes
No informed person could well
deny that Winston S. Churchill was probably the most spectacular showman in the
history of British politics, and he was surely one of Britain's great masters
of patriotic and honorific rhetoric. But when we go beyond this into any phase
of Churchill's career we enter debatable ground. Any careful study of his
personality and career raises serious questions as to his personal and
political integrity and the value of his public services to Great Britain.
His political career revealed
no firm political principles or ideology. He shifted in his party affiliations
from the Conservatives to the Liberals and back to the Conservatives. He
praised Mussolini and Hitler lavishly after their totalitarian programs had
been fully established and their operations were well known. He said that if he
had been an Italian he would have been a Fascist, and as late as 1938 he stated
that if England were ever in the same straits that Germany had been in 1933, he
hoped that England would find „her Hitler.“ The eminent Anglo-American
publicist, Francis Neilson, declared that Churchill's praise of Hitler was the
most extreme tribute ever paid by a prominent Englishman to the head of a
foreign state. When his „great and good friend“ of former days, Mussolini, was
murdered by Communist partisans and his corpse hung up head down in Milan,
Churchill rushed in to a dinner party with the news, exclaiming: „Ah, the
bloody beast is dead!“ In World War II he declared that it was his great life
purpose to destroy Hitler and National Socialism.
Churchill's shifts on
Communism were equally fantastic. He had been one of the most bitter critics of
Communism and its leaders, denouncing it as „foul baboonery,“ but during World
War II he extolled Stalin as generously as he previously had Mussolini and
Hitler, only to shift again as early as 1946 and demand a Cold War on
Communism.
There is no convincing
evidence whatever that Churchill ever proposed or supported any public measure
with a primary interest in its probable effect on the welfare of Britain or
humanity. He appeared to be exclusively concerned with its probable reaction on
his own political career. In this he differed from Roosevelt. Even John T.
Flynn admits that the latter, as a country squire, had a real sense of noblesse
oblige and was interested in the well-being of the common people when
helping them did not interfere with his own political ambitions. Churchill
never revealed any sense of noblesse oblige. To him rank only demanded
special privileges and rewards. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that
he was the most vain person in the whole history of prominent public figures, a
trait enduring until his death and after, when he had planned years or months
in advance even the details of a pompous and dramatic public funeral.
Churchill was completely
lacking in integrity with respect to his public career. He had no hesitation in
uttering the most flagrant misstatements when this appeared necessary to him to
promote his political ambitions or cover up his past mistakes. He did not turn
aside from deceiving the British people on matters of great public import if
this was required for his political self-protection. Perhaps the best of many
examples was his report to the House of Commons after his return from the
disastrous Yalta Conference, where he had witnessed Stalin's duplicity and
mendacious greed, having already observed this at Tehran and in the atrocious
violation of Stalin's promises in regard to the Soviet treatment of Poland.
Churchill assured the House: „The impression I brought back from the Crimea is
that Marshall Stalin and the other Soviet leaders wish to live in honourable
friendship and democracy with the Western democracies. I feel that no
government stands more on its obligations than the Russian Soviet Government.“
It is well to remember that
Churchill's great current reputation as a statesman rests entirely on events
between April 1940 and July 1945. He was so thoroughly discredited as a
politician by 1933 that both the Baldwin and Chamberlain governments considered
that to have him in the Cabinet would be a detriment to Conservative prestige
and prospects. When public issues returned again to domestic affairs in 1945,
Churchill was resoundingly defeated in the General Election of that summer. As
a wartime administrator he showed tremendous energy rather than organizing and
directive genius. He was more distinguished for his pugnacity than for his
statecraft, although there can be no doubt that he inspired the British to
unite and continue the war against Hitler, but it may be questioned if
unthinking resistance to Hitler after Dunkirk was the best policy for Britain.
The most effective indictment of Churchill's wartime statecraft is that after
gaining military victory he lost the peace to Soviet Russia.
There has been no greater
fallacy than to regard Churchill as a military genius, although it is probable
that no other important British leader has so loved war or worked harder to
insure it when it seemed within the range of possibility. Churchill was
responsible for the disastrous attempt to force the Dardanelles in 1915, which
was Britain's most spectacular defeat in the World War I (except for the futile
attempts to break through the German trenches). It has been said that it was a
good plan if it had worked, but a truly good military plan must work out in
practice and not merely be impressive on paper. Both Lord Fisher and Lord
Kitchener warned against the project. Churchill was compelled to resign as
responsible for the failure.
In regard to World War II both
English and American experts have indicated that Churchill's interference in
strategic decisions was often disastrous. General Albert C. Wedemeyer has
pointed out that Churchill and Roosevelt really ran military operations like a
pair of Indian chiefs conducting a scalping party, with little consideration of
the ultimate military or political outcome. Churchill's constant demand to
concentrate the Allied attack against the „soft underbelly of Europe“-a sort of
return to the Dardanelles fantasy - was properly discredited by the impressive
manner in which General Kesserling defended the Italian sector of the soft
underbelly under the greatest handicaps.
It is held even by restrained
admirers of Churchill that we must at least give him credit for saving Britain.
One might ask: saving Britain from whom and from what? The cornerstone of Hitler’s
foreign policy was to achieve a permanent understanding with Britain. Even
after Dunkirk, where he deliberately permitted the British to escape, he
offered Britain a generous peace and told his generals that he would put the
German Wehrmacht, air force and navy at the service of Britain to preserve the
British Empire. Real statesmanship would have dictated Churchill's agreeing to
a stalemate with Germany in June 1941, and letting Germany and Russia bleed
each other white and thus remove the threat of dictatorship from either the
Right or the Left. This was what wise Americans like Herbert Hoover, Robert A.
Taft, and Harry S. Truman recommended at the time. But Churchill was just
getting too much joy and thrill – “having too much fun,“ as Roosevelt put it - out
of being an active war leader to consider for a moment retiring to the role of
an observer, even if this was probably the only way to assure British safety
and the preservation of the Empire. He condemned England to four more years of
costly and brutal warfare, failed to protect eastern and central Europe from
Russia and Communism, and made inevitable the liquidation of the British
Empire.
Churchill led in the
denunciation of the alleged horrible atrocities and brutalities of the Nazis,
but his record is surely no better. He rejected Hitler's proposal at the outset
of the War to ban all bombardment of non-military objectives and launched this
barbarous form of bombing on 11 May 1940, with an attack on the helpless
university town of Freiburg. He announced that he would stop at no type or
extent of brutality and terrorism to crush Hitler and he made good his word. He
directed the terrible incendiary bombing of Hamburg, and was solely responsible
for ordering the needless destruction of the beautiful city of Dresden, the
most ruthless, despicable and indefensible major atrocity of World War II, in
which the losses of life and property were far greater than in the case of the
American bombing of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. He approved and ordered the
application of the Lindemann Plan for the saturation bombing of Germany which,
for stark brutality in both conception and operation, matched any of the
alleged Nazi „extermination“ measures. This plan ordered concentration of British
bombing on the homes of the poorer or working classes whose houses were huddled
close together so that more innocent civilians could be killed per bomb that
was dropped.
In his remarks at the funeral
of Mr. Churchill, former President Dwight Eisenhower laid main stress on
Churchill's achievements as a „friend of peace.“ It would be no exaggeration to
say that this was not unlike J. Edgar Hoover paying a special tribute to Al
Capone as a friend of law enforcement. Even his British admirers have conceded
Churchill's lifelong and inordinate love of war. No other British public figure
worked as hard to bring Britain into World War I as did Churchill. This has
been admitted in the recent book, Twelve Days, by the English writer
George Malcolm Thomson on the crisis of 1914. It is common knowledge that
Churchill was the leader of the British war party from 1936 onward, having told
General Robert E. Wood in that year that: „Germany is getting too strong; we
must smash her.“ He not only cooperated with the war party in Britain but also
worked closely with Bernard Baruch and the other powerful warminded Americans.
Perhaps the best summary
appraisal of Churchill's personality comes from the distinguished British
publicist, F.S. Oliver:
From his youth up Mr.
Churchill has loved with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul,
and with all his strength, three things: war, politics and himself. He has
loved war for its dangers, he loves politics for the same reason, and himself
he has always loved for the knowledge that his mind is dangerous -dangerous to
his enemies, dangerous to his friends, dangerous to himself. I can think of no
man I have ever met who would so quickly and so bitterly eat his heart out in
Paradise.
The significance of
Churchill's career for this and later generations was admirably summarized by
the British journal, The European:
In terms of personal success
there has been no career more fortunate than that of Winston Churchill. In
terms of human suffering to millions of people and destruction to the noble
edifice of mankind there has been no career more disastrous. In that sad
paradox lies the tragedy of our time.
Additional text about WC
Winston Churchill disclosed himself as a warmonger:
„We
will force this war upon Hitler, if he wants it - or not.” - Winston Churchill
(1936 broad cast)
„Germany
becomes too powerful, we have to crush it.” - Winston Churchill (November 1936
to US-General Robert E. Wood)
„Germany´s
unforgivable crime before World War 2, was its attempt to loosen its economy -
out of the world trade system and to build up an own exchange system from which
the world-finance couldn´t profit anymore, - We butchered the wrong pig.” -
Winston Churchill, the Second World War (Bern, 1960)
„The
war wasn´t only about abolishing fascism, but to conquer sales markets, We
could have, if we had intended so, prevented this war from breaking out without
doing one shot, but we didn´t want to.“ - Winston Churchill to Truman (Fulton, USA,
March 1946)
„Should
Germany merchandise again - in the next 50 years - we have led this war (World
War 1) in vain.“ - Winston Churchill in Times (1919)
„This
war is an English war and its goal is the destruction of Germany.“ - Winston Churchill
(Autumn - 1939 broadcast)
„The
Prime Minister [Winston Churchill] had been asked if the bombing of Germany
ought - not really to focus on military targets rather than civilian ones, In
the words of the French source, Churchill's reply was, Pleasure - before work,
and thus the bombs were directed at the residential quarters instead.“ - Wilhelm
Backhaus, quoted in: Hamburger Abendblatt (21st September 1963)
„Will
there be room for [the German refugees, fleeing before the Red army] in what is
left of Germany? We have killed six or seven million Germans and probably there
will be another million or so killed before the end of the war.“ - Churchill,
according to James F Byrnes' - shorthand note of Plenary Session at Yalta, Feb.
7, 1945 (H S Truman Library, Independence, Missouri).
„I
do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas, I am strongly in
favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes.“ - Churchill, writing
as president of the Air Council (1919)
„It
is alarming and nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer,
now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half naked up
the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organising and conducting
a campaign of civil disobedience, to parlay on equal terms with the
representative of the Emperor-King.“ - Churchill, commenting on Gandhi's
meeting with the Viceroy of India (1931)
„We
must rally against a poisoned Russia, an infected Russia of armed hordes not
only smiting with bayonet and cannon, but accompanied and preceded by swarms of
typhus-bearing vermin.“ - Churchill, quoted in the Boston Review (April/May
2001)
„So
far as Britain and Russia were concerned, how would it do for you to have 90%
of Romania, for us to have 90% of the say in Greece, and go 50 50 about
Yugoslavia?“ - Churchill, addressing Stalin in Moscow (October 1944)
„Perhaps
the next time round the way to do, it will be to kill women, children and the
civilian population.“ - Churchill, quoted during the First World War
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