Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill

by Gretchen Rubin

  —ELIZABETH NEL

  That he was a great representative of the nation in war:

  Winston embodied the soul of the nation. He succeeded in being the nation, for that is what he was. In the simplified conditions of war he could be that, whereas in the more complex days of peace he never was, never could be, that.

  —OLIVER FRANKS, IN 1957

  That he sought personal gain in war:

  When the war came he saw in it the chance of glory for himself, & has accordingly entered on a risky campaign without caring a straw for the misery and hardship it would bring to thousands, in the hope that he would prove to be the outstanding man in this war.

  —DAVID LLOYD GEORGE, IN 1915

  20

  CHURCHILL IN TEARS

  Telling Detail

  According to Plutarch, in writing lives, “a slight thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of character than battles where thousands fall.” Telling details can be deceptive, because they tell whatever the biographer wants them to tell—and yet we crave them. Churchill, surprisingly, often wept. Tears seem out of character with his bulldog nature, but it can be the aspects that seem most uncharacteristic that offer the greatest insights.

  Of the many deprecating adjectives lobbed at Churchill—egotistical, belligerent, stubborn, self-advertising—one of the most striking is sentimental. It’s plain why Churchill was accused of this. His rhetoric was often overblown and appealed to capitalized notions of Patriotism and Freedom. He was an indulgent, emotional friend and father. And most oddly—for an adult, a statesman, and an Englishman, given the English emphasis on imperturbability, understatement, and dislike of being conspicuous—he often dissolved in tears. But was he really “sentimental”?

  Sentimentality, or exaggerated tears, arises when an emotional reaction exceeds its cause. Churchill comprehended the world with tremendous scope and scale, and his emotions were pitched to match.

  He didn’t try to hide his tears. “I blub an awful lot, you know,” he confessed cheerfully to his new private secretary. “You’ll have to get used to it.” Everyone noticed it. “Then Lloyd George gets up and makes a moving speech telling Winston how fond he is of him. Winston cries slightly and mops his eyes.” “The grand finale ends in an ovation, with Winston sitting there with the tears pouring down his cheeks.” “We had two lovely films after dinner. . . . Winston managed to cry through all of them, including the comedy.” “Churchill was affected emotionally, as I knew he would be. His handkerchief stole from its pocket.” “[H]e quotes Kipling’s lines about the mine-sweepers, and is so moved by them that he chokes and cannot continue.” “We then find him adopting the attitude that he was the only one trying to win the war, that he was the only one who produced any ideas . . . he worked himself up into such a state from the woeful picture he had painted, that tears streamed down his face!” “Not for one moment did Winston stop crying . . . he could have filled buckets by the time he received the Freedom of Paris.”

  Another man might have felt these emotions but hidden his tears. Not Churchill. He hid nothing—certainly not for dignity’s sake. His peculiar sincerity, and his indifference to other people’s opinions, made it hard for him to conceal anything. There he was, Churchill, perfectly obvious. His courage, his manliness, his nerves were beyond question, and he felt no need to hide what he felt. Indeed, far from hiding his tears, Churchill recognized their value. Very early in his life, before he first entered Parliament, he wrote shrewdly, “Before [a speaker] can inspire [an audience] with any emotion he must be swayed by it himself. . . . Before he can move their tears his own must flow.”

  It’s notable that Churchill cried so visibly, but what’s more surprising is that he cried at all: adult Englishmen did not often weep. Churchill’s strenuous historical vision allowed him to feel passionately the pathos and grandeur of his times. It was the thought of sacrifice or courage that moved him most, as when he visited a very poor London neighborhood that had been devastated by the Blitz:

  Already little pathetic Union Jacks had been stuck up amid the ruins. When my car was recognised the people came running from all quarters, and a crowd of more than a thousand was soon gathered. All these folk were in a high state of enthusiasm. They crowded round us, cheering and manifesting every sign of lively affection, wanting to touch and stroke my clothes. One would have thought I had brought them some fine substantial benefit which would improve their lot in life. I was completely undermined, and wept. Ismay, who was with me, records that he heard an old woman say: “You see, he really cares. He’s crying.” They were tears not of sorrow but of wonder and admiration.

  Churchill didn’t hesitate to express his emotions in frank, even childish terms—such as his way of referring to Hitler as “that Bad Man.” In August 1940, Churchill visited the nerve center of the air battle over Britain, where young pilots were ready to fight and die at a moment’s readiness. Churchill’s colleague Ismay described the scene: “There had been heavy fighting throughout the afternoon; and at one moment every single squadron in the Group was engaged; there was nothing in reserve, and the map table showed new waves of attackers crossing the coast. I felt sick with fear.” After tremendous struggle the Royal Air Force repelled the attack. Later, as the two men sped away to Chequers, Churchill said to Ismay, “Don’t speak to me; I have never been so moved.” It’s hard to imagine another statesman sending the plaintive cable he sent to Roosevelt on April 12, 1942, to confide that a serious disagreement “would break my heart.” In March 1945, after telling the House of Commons that David Lloyd George had died, Churchill said, “I do not think we can do any more business today. I feel that should be the feeling of the House.”

  With his family, his emotions gushed even more. In 1909, he wrote to Clementine, whom he called Cat, Pussy-Cat, or Kat (she called him Mr. Pug or Pig, and he often decorated his letters with drawings of pigs), “Sweet cat—I kiss your vision as it rises before my mind. Your dear heart throbs often in my own. God bless you darling keep you safe & sound. Kiss the P.K. [Puppy Kitten] for me all over. With fondest love—W.”

  Churchill is identified with many things—his cigars, his V signs, his hats, his love for liquor, his fighting spirit. These emphasize the brave, optimistic side of his character. But Churchill, who promised, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat,” was unfraid to be seen in tears.

  21

  CHURCHILL THE DRINKER

  An Alcoholic?

  Winston Churchill Was an Alcoholic

  Churchill drank all day long, every day. He’d have his first whisky and soda—his signature drink—soon after breakfast and kept drinking until he went to sleep. Liquor of several sorts flowed at lunch and dinner.

  Churchill’s heavy drinking was no secret. When he became Prime Minister, President Roosevelt commented that he “supposed Churchill was the best man that England had, even if he was drunk half of his time.” Churchill was recorded to have had eleven whiskies and soda during a single meal. In the space of two weeks, soon after his 1945 ouster, Churchill with only a bit of help consumed ninety-six bottles of champagne while also drinking six or seven whiskies and soda and three brandies each day as well.

  Churchill’s associates worried about his prodigious consumption, which Churchill did nothing to hide. Offered tea one morning, Churchill asked instead for a glass of white wine. “A tumbler was brought which he drained in one go, and then licked his lips . . . and said, ‘Ah! That is good, but you know, I have already had two whiskies and soda and 2 cigars this morning.’!! It was then only shortly after 7:30 A.M.” Alan Brooke complained in his diary about alcohol’s effect on Churchill: “We had to consider this morning at the [Chiefs of Staff meeting] one of Winston’s worst minutes I have ever seen . . . he must have been quite tight when he dictated it.”

  Churchill made sure never to be far from alcohol. With the Grenadier Guards during World War I, he moved to a company in the line partly to escape the “dry” battalion
headquarters. Traveling in the United States during Prohibition, while recovering from having been hit by a car, he procured a doctor’s note: “This is to certify that the post-accident convalescence of the Hon. Winston S. Churchill necessitates the use of alcoholic spirits especially at meal times.”

  This behavior certainly demonstrates a marked and unhealthy dependence on alcohol.

  Winston Churchill Was Not an Alcoholic

  It’s undeniable that Churchill enjoyed liquor and that his consumption, especially by today’s far more abstemious standards, was substantial. However, much of his relish for drinking was for show.

  Churchill exaggerated his enjoyment of whisky and champagne to create one of his most distinctive characteristics—an idiosyncrasy that everyone recognized and smiled over and that helped make people feel closer to him. As one associate observed, “The glass of weak whisky, like the cigars, was more a symbol than anything else, and one glass lasted him for hours.” Each drink was weakened by soda and ice, and Churchill’s consumption didn’t have much effect. “He was never the worse for drink in my experience,” wrote Sir Ian Jacob, “and, as far as I could see, he never felt the slightest ill-effects in the morning.” His lisp gave his speech a slurred sound, which may have made him sound drunk to those who didn’t know his voice.

  Churchill also used his love for liquor as a handy subject for his wit. At a meeting with an Arab ruler, Churchill was told that neither smoking nor drinking of alcohol were customary before a Muslim king. Churchill explained through the interpreter, “My rule of life prescribed as an absolute sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.” “When I was younger,” he told King George VI in January 1952, “I made it a rule never to take strong drink before lunch. It is now my rule never to do so before breakfast.”

  Given Churchill’s extraordinary accomplishments—both in public office and in private life—and the positions of responsibility he held until he was in his eighties, it’s difficult to credit that dependence on alcohol in any way impaired his health or abilities.

  22

  CHURCHILL IN CONTEXT

  Facts at a Glance

  Colorless but useful, bare facts help us grasp the whole of Churchill’s life by placing him in context. Neatly ordered, seemingly without interpretation or bias, their precision is comforting. We read these facts; we assume these must be ones that matter.

  Churchill’s Sovereigns

  Queen Victoria—1837–1901; Diamond Jubilee, 1897

  King Edward VII—1901–1910

  King George V—1910–1936

  King Edward VIII—abdicated, December 1936

  King George VI—1936–1952

  Queen Elizabeth II—1952–present (Elizabeth is Victoria’s great-great-granddaughter.)

  Prime Ministers During Churchill’s Political Career

  1895 Salisbury

  1902 Balfour

  1905 Campbell-Bannerman (Churchill: Undersecretary for the Colonies)

  1908 Asquith (Churchill: President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, First Lord of the Admiralty)

  1916 Lloyd George (Churchill: Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War and Air, Colonial Secretary)

  1922 Bonar Law

  1923 Baldwin

  1924 MacDonald

  1924 Baldwin (Churchill: Chancellor of the Exchequer)

  1929 MacDonald

  1935 Baldwin

  1937 Chamberlain (Churchill: First Lord of the Admiralty)

  1940 Churchill

  1945 Attlee

  1951 Churchill

  1955 Eden

  1957 Macmillan

  1963 Douglas-Home

  1964 Wilson

  Churchill’s Changing Party Alliances

  • In 1900, he entered Parliament as a Conservative.

  • In 1904, he left the Conservatives over the issue of free trade and joined the Liberal Party.

  • In 1924, he rejoined the Conservative Party.

  The British Peerage

  The British hereditary peerage comprises five descending grades of nobility: duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron. Dukes rank significantly above the four lower grades, and only a duke is addressed as “Your Grace” instead of “My Lord.”

  A peer passes his title and estate to his eldest son, and his other children, who aren’t peers, must be content with courtesy titles. For example, the seventh Duke of Marlborough had two sons who survived to adulthood: the elder became the eighth Duke of Marlborough; the younger was “Lord Randolph,” but his children didn’t inherit a title. Therefore, Winston Churchill, though the grandson of a Duke, was Mr. Winston Churchill, a commoner. He became “Sir Winston Churchill” in 1953, when, after refusing the distinction for many years, he accepted the Order of the Garter in honor of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation.

  Churchill’s Executive Positions

  1905–1908 Colonial Undersecretary

  1908–1910 President of the Board of Trade

  1910–1911 Home Secretary

  1911–1915 First Lord of the Admiralty

  1917–1919 Minister of Munitions

  1919–1921 Secretary of State for War and Air

  1921–1922 Colonial Secretary

  1924–1929 Chancellor of the Exchequer

  1929–1939 “Wilderness years”

  1939–1940 First Lord of the Admiralty

  1940–1945 Prime Minister

  1951–1955 Prime Minister

  Churchill Statistics

  • Churchill’s height: five feet six inches.

  • Churchill’s hair color: red.

  • The period he described as the unhappiest of his life: his school days at Harrow.

  • His best subjects at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst: military topography, tactics, fortifications, horse-riding skills.

  • Churchill’s age when the first Winston Churchill biography was published: thirty-one.

  • Number of silver inkstands he received as wedding gifts: seventeen.

  • Months it took him to dictate the first volume of his World War I memoir: three.

  • Miles separating the coast of England from the coast of France: twenty-one.

  • Temperature constantly maintained in Churchill’s bedroom: seventy-four degrees Fahrenheit.

  • Temperature maintained in Churchill’s bath: ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

  • Code name for the preparations for Churchill’s state funeral: “Hope Not.”

  • Weight of Churchill papers, in tons: fifteen.

  • Number of times Churchill was on the cover of Time magazine: eight.

  • Number of canvases he painted during his life: nearly five hundred.

  • Whom he believed to be the greatest man who’d ever lived: Julius Caesar, “because he was the most magnanimous of all the conquerors.”

  • His mother’s birthplace: 426 Henry Street, Brooklyn, New York.

  • His attendance at church: infrequent.

  • Subject of the biography he wanted to write but never did: Napoleon.

  Churchill’s Regiments

  Fourth Hussars

  Thirty-first Punjabi Infantry

  Twenty-first Lancers

  South African Light Horse

  Oxfordshire Hussars

  Oxfordshire Yeomanry

  Grenadier Guards

  Royal Scots Fusiliers

  Oxfordshire Artillery

  Churchill’s Favorites

  • Favorite whisky: Johnnie Walker Red Label.

  • Favorite champagne: Pol Roger 1928. (Churchill named a racehorse Pol Roger.)

  • Favorite cheese: Stilton.

  • Favorite cigar: Romeo y Julieta.

  • Favorite movies: Lady Hamilton (Churchill saw it seventeen times), Olivier’s Henry V, Chaplin’s The Great Dictator.

  • Favorite painting site: Marrakech, in Morocco.

  • Favorite pets: his French poodles Rufus
I and Rufus II, his cats Whiskey and Marmalade, his bird Toby.

  • Favorite card games: bezique, gin rummy, Oklahoma.

  • Favorite gift to other people: an autographed, leather-bound copy of one of his own books.

  • Some favorite music: Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas; martial airs; Harrow school songs, particularly “Forty Years On”; Noël Coward tunes; “Rule, Britannia”; “Land of Hope and Glory”; “Tipperary.”

  • Some favorite hymns: “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord,” “Fight the Good Fight with All Thy Might,” “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”

  • Some favorite books: H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines (Churchill read it twelve times as a boy); T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom; Anthony Trollope’s political novels, especially (unsurprisingly, given the title) The Duke’s Children.

  • Favorite English poet: A. E. Housman.

  • Author most often quoted: Shakespeare, particularly King John, Richard III, Hamlet.

  • A favorite aphorism: “On ne règne sur les âmes que par le calme.”

  • A favorite Bible verse: “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.”

  • A favorite wartime poem: Arthur Hugh Clough’s “Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth.”

  For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

  Seem here no painful inch to gain,

  Far back through creeks and inlets making

  Came silent, flooding in, the main,

  And not by eastern windows only,

  When daylight comes, comes in the light,

  In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,

  But westward, look, the land is bright.

  Notes on the British Form of Government, in Comparison to That of the United States