Despite his daring and acclaim, Winston’s standing in the army was not enhanced by all this. Generals were not alone in their disapproval. In the Fourth Hussars his brother officers were civil but cool. There was a vague feeling that what he had done was, by Victorian standards, “ungentlemanly.” Regimental messes elsewhere put him down as a “medal-hunter,” “self-advertiser,” and “thruster.” One officer would note in his memoirs that Churchill “was widely regarded in the Army as super-precocious, indeed by some as insufferably bumptious.” Why, it was asked, should a subaltern praise or deprecate his seniors? Why should he write for newspapers while wearing the uniform? How did he get so much leave? Who was indulging him? The resentment was real, and became an obstacle to his plans. Sir Bindon asked that he be made his orderly officer. The adjutant general in Simla refused. Surely, Churchill thought, Lord Roberts could clear this up. The omnipotent Roberts, now in Ireland, had been a friend of his father’s, and now Jennie, at his urging, wrote the field marshal, reminding him of past favors. But the old man declined to intervene. Churchill wrote bitterly: “I don’t understand Lord Roberts’ refusal. A good instance of ingratitude in a fortunate and much overrated man.” Spurred by his mother, the Daily Telegraph appointed him a permanent correspondent, but the high command continued to deny him access to all battlefields. He complained to her: “The Simla authorities have been very disagreeable to me. They did all they could to get me sent down to my regiment…. I… invite you to consider what a contemptible position it is for high military officers to assume—to devote so much time and energy to harrying an insignificant subaltern. It is indeed a vivid object lesson in the petty social intrigue that makes or prevents appointments in this country.” He added: “Talk to the prince about it.” She did. Ian Hamilton also got busy, and finally, the morning after a polo match in Meerut, Churchill was gazetted to the staff of Sir William Lockhart. Sir William was organizing a punitive expedition into the Tirah, where the Afridi and Orzkzai tribes had risen. “Red tabs sprouted on the lapels of my coat,” Winston wrote. For once, “I behaved and was treated as befitted my youth and subordinate station. I sat silent at meals or only rarely asked a tactful question.” It was all for nothing. The tribesmen begged for peace; the expedition was abandoned; he boarded a train for the long ride back to Bangalore.64
Calling him a “publicity hound”—another epithet heard in the messes—seemed cruel. It was not, however, inaccurate. His correspondence admits of no other explanation. He had no interest in a military career, and meant to use the service to advance his prospects in public life. Peace having broken out on the frontier, he returned to his pen. He had several projects in mind: finishing his novel, writing a biography of Garibaldi, a “short & dramatic” history of the American Civil War, and a volume of short stories to be called, obscurely, “The Correspondent of the New York Examiner.” He wanted recognition, but he also expected to be paid. The Telegraph had sent him five pounds an article, and he felt that wasn’t enough. “The pinch of the whole matter is we are damned poor,” he wrote his mother. He sent her a short story “wh I want you to sell, signed, to one of the magazines. I think the Pall Mall wd like it & would pay my price. You should not get less than £20 for it, as it is a very good story—in my opinion. So don’t sell it without a good offer.” Financial relief was on its way, however. His first major effort to reach the British public was, in fact, ready: an account of his frontier adventures with Sir Bindon Blood, largely a paste-up of his frontier dispatches. This has become a common journalistic practice today, but he became one of its pioneers with The Story of the Malakand Field Force. Working five hours a day, he had dashed off a draft in two months before his posting to Sir William in Peshawar, where, he confessed, it had occupied his thoughts “more than… anything else.” He had “affected the style of Macaulay and Gibbon, the staccato antitheses of the former and the rolling sentences and genitival endings of the latter; and I stuck in a bit of my own from time to time.” Later he would say that writing a book “is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.” This monster was almost ready to be flung on December 22, 1897, when he wrote his mother: “I hope you will like it. I am pleased with it chiefly because I have discovered a great power of application which I did not think I possessed.” Nine days later he mailed her the manuscript—“Herewith the book”—accompanied by maps and, for the frontispiece, a photograph of Sir Bindon Blood.65
There were details, as there always are, to be cleared up before publication. Quotations had to be verified; some sentences were awkward; here and there he had repeated himself. But “I don’t want anything modified or toned down in any way. I will stand or fall by what I have written.” Revisions and proofreading, he decided, would be entrusted to his uncle Moreton, who, on the frail strength of a monograph on bimetallism, was the only member of the family with literary pretensions. Churchill told his mother that he thought he ought to get at least £300 for the first edition, with royalties, “but if the book hits the mark I might get much more.” There was one problem. Another author was writing a book on the same subject. That called for haste: “Do not I beg you lose one single day in taking the MS to some publisher. [Lord] Fincastle’s book may for all I know be ready now.” On reflection he decided to “recommend Moreton’s treating with the publishers, it is so much easier for a man.” Here he misjudged both uncle and mother. The first edition, to Winston’s horror, would contain some two hundred misprints. “A mad printer’s reader,” one reviewer would write, and Winston would add sadly, “As far as Moreton is concerned, I now understand why his life has been a failure in the city and elsewhere.” Jennie, on the other hand, had very sensibly gone to Arthur Balfour, who had referred her to A. P. Watt, the literary agent. Watt negotiated the terms with Longmans. Malakand, appearing in March 1898, sold eighty-five hundred copies in nine months. It was priced at six shillings; the royalty was 15 percent. Winston had earned more in a few weeks (£382) than he could in four years as a subaltern.66
But far more welcome was the book’s enthusiastic reception. Moreton’s disgraceful performance did not pass unnoticed: the Athenaeum observed that “one word is printed for another, words are defaced by shameful blunders, and sentence after sentence ruined by the punctuation of an idiot or of a school-boy in the lowest form.” But the same reviewer predicted that the author might become as great a soldier as the first Marlborough and “a straighter politician.” The Pioneer found “a wisdom and comprehension far beyond his years.” The Spectator agreed. It was hailed as a minor classic, the debut of an exciting new talent, and, in the Times of India, the Madras Mail, and Delhi’s Morning Post, a penetrating study of Raj policy. Churchill’s response to all this is curiously moving. He was “filled with pride and pleasure…. I had never been praised before. The only comments which had ever been made upon my work at school had been ‘Indifferent,’ ‘Slovenly,’ ‘Bad,’ ‘Very bad,’ etc. Now here was the great world with its leading literary newspapers and vigilant erudite critics, writing whole columns of praise!”67
The Prince of Wales read Malakand, sent a copy to his sister, the Empress Dowager Victoria of Germany, and wrote “My dear Winston” on April 22: “I cannot resist writing a few lines to congratulate you on the success of your book! I have read it with the greatest possible interest and I think the descriptions and the language generally excellent. Everybody is reading it, and I only hear it spoken of with praise.” HRH thought Churchill probably wanted to see more combat, and he approved: “You have plenty of time before you, and should certainly stick to the Army before adding MP to your name.” He had, of course, misread the author. Winston wanted to be where the fighting was thickest, but as a correspondent, not as a junior officer. He had vowed to “free myself from all discipline and authority, and set up in perfect independ
ence in England with nobody to give me orders or arouse me by bell or trumpet.” Besides, the struggle on the Indian frontier was over. Everyone knew that the next excitement would be in Africa. Sir Herbert Kitchener’s campaign to reconquer the Sudan had begun two years earlier; he had been moving slowly, building a railroad as he went, but now in April 1898 his major victory over sixteen thousand dervishes on the Atbara River signaled the beginning of the end. Churchill longed to be at his side. Once more he implored his mother to yank strings. “You must work Egypt for me,” he told her. “You have so many lines of attack…. Now I beg you—have no scruples but worry right and left and take no refusal.” He wanted her to “stimulate the Prince into writing to Kitchener.” Two months later he wrote: “Oh how I wish I could work you up over Egypt! I know you could do it with all your influence—and all the people you know. It is a pushing age and we must shove with the best.”68
Unfortunately Kitchener, at that time, detested Churchill. He had been outraged by his book; it was bad for discipline, he believed, for subalterns to chide their superiors. In any event, he felt that Winston already had had a good run for his money in India; the Nile was out of bounds for him. “It was,” Churchill later said, “a case of dislike before first sight.” Jennie and her influential friend Mary, Lady Jeune, were wining and cajoling everyone in the War Office—Winston later said that they “left no wire unpulled, no stone unturned, no cutlet uncooked”—but while guests were susceptible to petticoat diplomacy, Kitchener, as Egyptian commander in chief, or Sirdar, had the final say, and in Winston’s case he said it over and over. It was no. Lady Jeune wired him: “Hope you will take Churchill. Guarantee he wont write.” She couldn’t guarantee it, and the Sirdar knew it. Sir Evelyn Wood, the adjutant general and an admirer of Lady Jeune’s, was recruited to the Churchill cause. Lady Jeune and Jennie lunched with Wood and the Prince of Wales, and Wood then cabled the Sirdar: “Personage asked me personally desires you take Churchill.” Kitchener was adamant: “Do not want Churchill as no room.” Jennie knew Kitchener, of course; she knew everyone. Winston asked her to write him directly: “Strike while the iron is hot and the ink wet.” She did, and he replied with elaborate courtesy. He had too many officers as it was, he was overwhelmed with applications from men more qualified than her son, but if at some future time an opportunity arose he would be pleased, et cetera, et cetera. Really challenged now, she decided to go to Egypt herself. Winston wrote: “I hope you may be successful. I feel almost certain you will. Your wit & tact & beauty—should overcome all obstacles.” They didn’t. Setting up headquarters in Cairo’s Continental Hotel with her current lover, Major Caryl John Ramsden, she bombarded the Sirdar with letters. The best reply she got was: “I have noted your son’s name and I hope I may be able to employ him later in the Sudan.” All Jennie had to show for her pains was humiliation, from Kitchener and then, unexpectedly, from Major Ramsden, who jilted her; returning to her hotel room on an impulse after she had left it for Port Said, she found Ramsden in bed with Lady Robert Maxwell, the wife of another army officer. HRH sent her a teasing note: “You had better have stuck to your old friends than gone on your Expedition to the Nile! Old friends are the best!”69
Jennie in her prime
On June 18 Churchill sailed from Bombay, taking leave to plead his cause in person. But at the War Office he found several hundred officers on similar errands. He ran up against one blank wall after another. Kitchener’s general advance on Khartoum was scheduled for early August. Time was short, and Winston seemed beaten when, out of the blue, he received a note from the prime minister’s private secretary. Lord Salisbury had read Malakand with great pleasure and wanted to discuss it. An appointment was set for the following Tuesday, July 12. Salisbury received him at the Foreign Office with elaborate old-world courtesy and led him to a small sofa. He praised the book, “not only for its manner but for its style,” told him that it had provided him with greater insight into the frontier fighting than any parliamentary debate, and said, as he saw him to the door, “If there is anything at any time that I can do which would be of assistance to you, pray do not fail to let me know.”70
Back at Great Cumberland Place, Churchill seized the opportunity. He wrote Salisbury: “I am vy anxious to go to Egypt and to proceed to Khartoum with the Expedition. It is not my intention, under any circumstances to stay in the army long.” He wanted to cover the Sirdar’s battles as he had covered Sir Bindon’s. Sir Evelyn had written a letter approving his plan. Churchill enclosed it, explaining that Sir Evelyn had “tried his best—so he assures me—on my behalf. My mother has exerted what influence she can for two years. Even HRH has allowed his name to be used as a recommendation. All have failed.” One hope remained: Lord Cromer, British agent and consul general in Egypt. Winston was “convinced,” he told the prime minister, “that if you will write a letter to Lord Cromer and say that on personal grounds you wish me to go—the affair will be immediately arranged.” He was “loth to afflict you with this matter. Yet the choice lies between doing so, and abandoning a project which I have set my heart on for a long time…. The affair is after all of extreme insignificance to any but me.”71
Salisbury saw nothing wrong in this brazen manipulation; it was common among “young men with suitable introductions,” to use Churchill’s delicate phrase. The prime minister wrote Cromer, suggesting that he approach Kitchener, but as he told Winston in his reply, “I cannot advise you to rely too confidently on the result of his letter.” Wheels were turning in the bureaucracy. Salisbury’s role, here as in so much else, is unclear. All we know is that nothing happened before Churchill’s visit to the Foreign Office and that something happened soon afterward. Sir Evelyn told Lady Jeune that the Sirdar was going too far in picking his officers and ignoring recommendations from London. He could do as he liked with his Egyptian troops, but British regiments remained under the control of the War Office. Lady Jeune repeated this to Winston, who asked: “Have you told him that the Prime Minister has telegraphed personally on my behalf?” She hadn’t. “Do so,” he said, “and let us see whether he will stand up for his prerogatives.” Conveniently, a young officer in the Twenty-first Lancers, a regiment of English cavalry, died in Cairo that day. The Sirdar routinely informed the War Office of the vacancy, and the War Office routinely replied that another officer would be on his way. It was left to Cromer to suggest Churchill as the replacement. Kitchener, we are told, “simply shrugged his shoulders and passed on to what were after all matters of greater concern.” Meanwhile, fresh orders had been delivered to Winston by courier at 35A Great Cumberland Place. He had been “attached as a supernumerary Lieutenant to the 21st Lancers for the Soudan Campaign” and would report to the Abbasiya barracks, Cairo. It was understood that he would pay his own expenses and that the government would not be liable if he were killed or wounded. He immediately took a hansom to his solicitors, Lumley and Lumley, and then, with their approval, borrowed £3,500 at 4½ percent interest from the Norwich Union Society, using as collateral an insurance policy bequeathed him by his grandfather. Then he called on Oliver Borthwick of the Morning Post. Borthwick agreed to pay him £15 apiece—his value was rising—for a series of Nile dispatches which, to avoid ruffling Kitchener further, would be disguised as letters to “Dear Oliver.” Winston told Aylmer Haldane, a friend, “If you look at the Morning Post it is possible that you will see that one of my friends has committed and continues to commit an unpardonable breach of confidence by publishing letters of mine. Don’t give away the pious fraud as I do not want to be recalled.”72
He was not yet in the clear. He needed official permission from the Fourth Hussars. But that didn’t trouble him; his future didn’t lie there. It lay in public life, and so, while packing, he decided to deliver a political address. He spoke at Bradford and wrote afterward: “The meeting was a complete success. The hall was not a vy large one—but it was closely packed. I was listened to with the greatest attention for 55 minutes at the end of which time there were lou
d & general cries of ‘Go on.’… All of which was vy gratifying…. The conclusions I form are these—with practice I shall obtain great power on a public platform. My impediment is no hindrance. My voice sufficiently powerful, and—this is vital—my ideas & modes of thought are pleasing to men.” R. B. (later Lord) Haldane, a leading Liberal MP, read the speech in the Morning Post the next day and wrote Jennie: “I thought it very good—broad in tone—fresh & vigorous. I hope he will soon be in the House.”73
After Bradford, Churchill vanished. Once in Cairo, he reasoned, he would be beyond reach of the Fourth Hussars. Indeed, unless the War Office proved uncharacteristically helpful, Bangalore wouldn’t even know where he was. Ignoring the swift, comfortable steamers of the P & O and Australian Lloyd, he took the train to Marseilles and boarded the freighter Sindh, “a filthy tramp,” he wrote in a note on July 30, manned by “detestable French sailors.” On August 2 he reached Cairo and took a carriage to the cavalry barracks. “All was hustle and bustle” there. “Two squadrons of the 21st Lancers had already started up the Nile.” He paid forty pounds for a charger and paraded that evening with “A” Squadron, to which he was attached, in the uniform of the day: khakis, topee, Sam Browne belt, field glasses, revolver—he had forgotten his regular one, with its lucky silk lanyard, and had to buy a new Mauser pistol—and Stohwasser gaiters. The band struck up “Auld Lang Syne,” and they were off. That was on a Tuesday. On Friday he was “toiling slowly up the rising river—against a 6 knot current with only a balance of speed of 4 miles an hour,” pausing briefly in Luxor, on the east bank of the Nile, where he paid “a flying visit” to the ancient temple and was reminded of Rider Haggard’s Cleopatra. He felt like a fugitive from the Fourth Hussars, which he was. He had “heard nothing definite about my leave being sanctioned by India—but as there has been no canceling order & a fortnight has already passed I think I may now conclude… that ‘silence has given consent.’ ” The trip was proving “delightful,” though the boat was a strange troop transport, one of Cook’s, painted alabaster white, with chintz curtains in the saloon windows and flowered toiletries in every cabin. Winston, interested in everything, noted that it was powered by steam-driven pistons which turned “a great paddle-wheel which protrudes from the stern. The appearance is peculiar.” He had found “many old friends in the regiment.” He had also learned that never, in its entire history, had the Twenty-first Lancers seen action. Indeed, other regiments gibed that its motto was “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” The taunt was of long standing, but in a month it would be forgotten.74
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