My Early Life

by Winston Churchill

  This was an error destined to cost us dear. There were still many thousands of wild, fierce, dauntless men under leaders like Botha, Smuts, De Wet, De la Rey and Hertzog who now fought on in their vast country not for victory, but for honour. The flames of partisan warfare broke out again and again far behind the armies in regions completely pacified. Even the Cape Colony was rekindled by Smuts into a fire which smouldered or blazed for two destructive years and was extinguished only by formal negotiation. This long-drawn struggle bred shocking evils. The roving enemy wore no uniforms of their own; they mingled with the population, lodged and were succoured in farmhouses whose owners had taken the oath of neutrality, and sprang into being, now here now there, to make some formidable and bloody attack upon an unwary column or isolated post. To cope with all this the British military authorities found it necessary to clear whole districts of their inhabitants and gather the population into concentration camps. As the railways were continually cut, it was difficult to supply these camps with all the necessaries of life. Disease broke out and several thousands of women and children died. The policy of burning farms whose owners had broken their oath, far from quelling the fighting Boers, only rendered them desperate. The British on their side were incensed against the rebels, oath-breakers, and Boers who wore captured British uniforms (mainly because they had no other clothes, but sometimes as a treacherous stratagem). However, very few persons were executed. Kitchener shot with impartial rigour a British officer and some colonial troopers convicted long after their offence of having killed some Boer prisoners; and to the very end the Boer commandos did not hesitate to send their wounded into the British field hospitals. Thus humanity and civilisation were never wholly banished, and both sides preserved amid frightful reciprocal injuries some mutual respect during two harsh years of waste and devastation. All this, however, lay in the future.

  I received the warmest of welcomes on returning home. Oldham almost without distinction of party accorded me a triumph. I entered the town in state in a procession of ten landaus, and drove through streets crowded with enthusiastic operatives and mill-girls. I described my escape to a tremendous meeting in the Theatre Royal. As our forces had now occupied the Witbank Colliery district, and those who had aided me were safe under British protection, I was free for the first time to tell the whole story. When I mentioned the name of Mr Dewsnap, the Oldham engineer who had wound me down the mine, the audience shouted: ‘His wife’s in the gallery.’ There was general jubilation.

  This harmony was inevitably to be marred. The Conservative leaders determined to appeal to the country before the enthusiasm of victory died down. They had already been in office for five years. A general election must come in eighteen months, and the opportunity was too good to be thrown away. Indeed they could not have carried out the policy of annexing the Boer Republics and of suppressing all opposition by force of arms without parley, except in a new Parliament and with a new majority. Early in September therefore Parliament was dissolved. We had the same kind of election as occurred in a far more violent form after the Great War in December 1918. All the Liberals, even those who had most loyally supported the war measures, including some who had lost their sons, were lapped in a general condemnation as ‘Pro-Boers’. Mr Chamberlain uttered the slogan, ‘Every seat lost to the Government is a seat gained to the Boers’ and Conservatives generally followed in his wake. The Liberal and Radical masses, however, believing in the lull of the war that the fighting was over, rallied stubbornly to their party organisations. The election was well contested all over the country. The Conservatives in those days had a large permanent majority of the English electorate. The prevailing wave of opinion was with them, and Lord Salisbury and his colleagues were returned with a scarcely diminished majority of 134 over all opponents, including the 80 Irish Nationalists. His majority in the main island was overwhelming.

  I stood in the van of this victory. In those days our wise and prudent law spread a general election over nearly six weeks. Instead of all the electors voting blindly on one day, and only learning next morning what they had done, national issues were really fought out. A rough but earnest and searching national discussion took place in which leading men on both sides played a part. The electorate of a constituency was not unmanageable in numbers. A candidate could address all his supporters who wished to hear him. A great speech by an eminent personage would often turn a constituency or even a city. Speeches of well-known and experienced statesmen were fully reported in all the newspapers and studied by wide political classes. Thus by a process of rugged argument the national decision was reached in measured steps.

  In those days of hammer and anvil politics, the earliest election results were awaited with intense interest. Oldham was almost the first constituency to poll. I fought on the platform that the war was just and necessary, that the Liberals had been wrong to oppose it, and in many ways had hampered its conduct; that it must be fought to an indisputable conclusion, and that thereafter there should be a generous settlement. I had a new colleague at my side, Mr C. B. Crisp, a City of London merchant. Mr Mawdsley was no more. He was a very heavy man. He had taken a bath in a china vessel which had broken under his weight, inflicting injuries to which he eventually succumbed. My opponents, Mr Emmott and Mr Runciman, had both adopted in the main Lord Rosebery’s attitude towards the war; that is to say, they supported the country in the conflict, but alleged gross incompetence in its conduct by the Conservative Party. The Liberals, it appeared, would have made quite a different set of mistakes. As a second string, they suggested that the Liberals would have shown such tact in their diplomacy that war might possibly have been avoided altogether, and all its objects—like making President Kruger give way—have been achieved without shedding blood. All this of course rested on mere assertion. I rejoined that however the negotiations had been conducted, they had broken down because the Boers invaded British territory; and that however ill the war had been waged, we had now repulsed the invaders and taken both their capitals. The Conservative Party throughout the country also argued that this was a special election on the sole national issue of the justice of the war and to win a complete victory; and that ordinary class, sectarian, and party differences ought to be set aside by patriotic men. This at the time was my sincere belief.

  Mr Chamberlain himself came to speak for me. There was more enthusiasm over him at this moment than after the Great War for Mr Lloyd George and Sir Douglas Haig combined. There was at the same time a tremendous opposition; but antagonism had not wholly excluded admiration from their breasts. We drove to our great meeting together in an open carriage. Our friends had filled the theatre; our opponents thronged its approaches. At the door of the theatre our carriage was jammed tight for some minutes in an immense hostile crowd, all groaning and booing at the tops of their voices, and grinning with the excitement of seeing a famous fellow-citizen whom it was their right and duty to oppose. I watched my honoured guest with close attention. He loved the roar of the multitude, and with my father could always say ‘I have never feared the English democracy’. The blood mantled in his cheek, and his eye as it caught mine twinkled with pure enjoyment. I must explain that in those days we had a real political democracy led by a hierarchy of statesmen, and not a fluid mass distracted by newspapers. There was a structure in which statesmen, electors and the Press all played their part. Inside the meeting we were all surprised at Mr Chamberlain’s restraint. His soft purring voice and reasoned incisive sentences, for most of which he had a careful note, made a remarkable impression. He spoke for over an hour; but what pleased the audience most was that, having made a mistake in some fact or figure to the prejudice of his opponents, he went back and corrected it, observing that he must not be unfair. All this was before the liquefaction of the British political system had set in.

  When we came to count the votes, of which there were nearly 30,000, it was evident that the Liberals and Labourists formed the stronger party in Oldham. Mr Emmott headed the poll. However,
it appeared that about 200 Liberals who had voted for him had given their second votes to me out of personal goodwill and war feeling. So I turned Mr Runciman out of the second place and was elected to the House of Commons by the modest margin of 230 votes. I walked with my friends through the tumult to the Conservative Club. There I found already awaiting me the glowing congratulations of Lord Salisbury. The old Prime Minister must have been listening at the telephone, or very near it, for the result. Then from every part of the country flowed in a stream of joyous and laudatory messages. Henceforward I became a ‘star turn’ at the election. I was sought for from every part of the country. I had to speak in London the next night, and Mr Chamberlain demanded the two following nights in the Birmingham area. I was on my way to fulfil these engagements, when my train was boarded by a messenger from Mr Balfour informing me that he wished me to cancel my London engagement, to come back at once to Manchester and speak with him that afternoon, and to wind up the campaign in Stockport that night. I obeyed.

  Mr Balfour was addressing a considerable gathering when I arrived. The whole meeting rose and shouted at my entry. With his great air the Leader of the House of Commons presented me to the audience. After this I never addressed any but the greatest meetings. Five or six thousand electors—all men—brimming with interest, thoroughly acquainted with the main objects, crowded into the finest halls, with venerated pillars of the party and many-a-year members of Parliament sitting as supporters on the platform! Such henceforward in that election and indeed for nearly a generation were my experiences. I spent two days with Mr Chamberlain at Highbury. He passed the whole of one of them in bed resting; but after I had been carried around in a special train to three meetings in the Midland area, he received me at supper in his most gleaming mood with a bottle of ’34 port. For three weeks I had what seemed to me a triumphal progress through the country. The party managers selected the critical seats, and quite a lot of victories followed in my train. I was twenty-six. Was it wonderful that I should have thought I had arrived? But luckily life is not so easy as all that: otherwise we should get to the end too quickly.

  There seemed, however, to be still two important steps to be taken. The first was to gather sufficient money to enable me to concentrate my attention upon politics without having to do any other work. The sales of The River War and of my two books of war correspondence from South Africa, together with the ten months’ salary amounting to £2,500 from the Morning Post, had left me in possession of more than £4,000. An opportunity of increasing this reserve was now at hand. I had planned to lecture all the autumn and winter at home and in America. The English tour began as soon as the election was over. Having already spoken every night for five weeks, I had now to undergo two and a half months of similar labours interrupted only by the week’s voyage across the ocean. The lectures in England were successful. Lord Wolseley presided over the first, and the greatest personages in the three kingdoms on both sides of politics took the chair as I moved from one city to another. All the largest halls were crowded with friendly audiences to whom, aided by a magic lantern, I unfolded my adventures and escape, all set in the general framework of the war. I hardly ever earned less than £100 a night, and often much more. At the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool I gathered over £300. Altogether in the month of November I banked safely over £4,500, having toured little more than half of Great Britain.

  Parliament was to meet in the opening days of December, and I longed to take my seat in the House of Commons. I had, however, instead to cross the Atlantic to fulfil my engagements. A different atmosphere prevailed in the United States. I was surprised to find that many of these amiable and hospitable Americans who spoke the same language and seemed in essentials very like ourselves, were not nearly so excited about the South African War as we were at home. Moreover a great many of them thought the Boers were in the right; and the Irish everywhere showed themselves actively hostile. The audiences varied from place to place. At Baltimore only a few hundreds assembled in a hall which would have held 5,000. At Boston, on the other hand, an enormous pro-British demonstration was staged, and even the approaches to the Fremont Hall were thronged. The platform here was composed of 300 Americans in red uniforms belonging to an Anglo-American Society, and the aspect of the meeting was magnificent. In Chicago I encountered vociferous opposition. However, when I made a few jokes against myself, and paid a sincere tribute to the courage and humanity of the Boers, they were placated. On the whole I found it easy to make friends with American audiences. They were cool and critical, but also urbane and good-natured.

  Throughout my journeyings I received the help of eminent Americans. Mr Bourke Cockran, Mr Chauncey Depew, and other leading politicians presided, and my opening lecture in New York was under the auspices of no less a personage than ‘Mark Twain’ himself. I was thrilled by this famous companion of my youth. He was now very old and snow-white, and combined with a noble air a most delightful style of conversation. Of course we argued about the war. After some interchanges I found myself beaten back to the citadel ‘My country right or wrong’. ‘Ah,’ said the old gentleman, ‘When the poor country is fighting for its life, I agree. But this was not your case.’ I think, however, I did not displease him; for he was good enough at my request to sign every one of the thirty volumes of his works for my benefit; and in the first volume he inscribed the following maxim intended, I daresay, to convey a gentle admonition: ‘To do good is noble; to teach others to do good is nobler, and no trouble.’

  All this quiet tolerance changed when we crossed the Canadian border. Here again were present the enthusiastic throngs to which I had so easily accustomed myself at home. Alas, I could only spend ten days in these inspiring scenes. In the middle of January I returned home and resumed my tour of our cities. I visited every one of them. When I spoke in the Ulster Hall, the venerable Lord Dufferin introduced me. No one could turn a compliment so well as he. I can hear him now saying with his old-fashioned pronunciation, ‘And this young man – at an age when many of his contemporaries have hardly left their studies – has seen more active service than half the general orficers in Europe.’ I had not thought of this before. It was good.

  When my tour came to an end in the middle of February, I was exhausted. For more than five months I had spoken for an hour or more almost every night except Sundays, and often twice a day, and had travelled without ceasing, usually by night, rarely sleeping twice in the same bed. And this had followed a year of marching and fighting with rarely a roof or a bed at all. But the results were substantial. I had in my possession nearly £10,000. I was entirely independent and had no need to worry about the future, or for many years to work at anything but politics. I sent my £10,000 to my father’s old friend, Sir Ernest Cassel, with the instruction ‘Feed my sheep’. He fed the sheep with great prudence. They did not multiply fast, but they fattened steadily, and none of them ever died. Indeed from year to year they had a few lambs; but these were not numerous enough for me to live upon. I had every year to eat a sheep or two as well, so gradually my flock grew smaller, until in a few years it was almost entirely devoured. Nevertheless, while it lasted, I had no care.

  Chapter XXIX

  The House of Commons

  PARLIAMENT reassembled late in February and plunged immediately into fierce debates. In those days the proceedings in the House of Commons were fully reported in the Press and closely followed by the electors. Crucial questions were often argued with sustained animation in three-day debates. During their course all the principal orators contended, and at their close the parties took decisive trials of strength. The House used to sit till midnight, and from 9.30 onwards was nearly always crowded. It was Mr Balfour’s practice as Leader to wind up almost every important debate, and the chiefs of the Opposition, having summed up in massive form their case from ten to eleven, heard a comprehensive reply from eleven to twelve. Anyone who tried to speak after the leaders had finished was invariably silenced by clamour.

  It was an honour
to take part in the deliberations of this famous assembly which for centuries had guided England through numberless perils forward on the path of Empire. Though I had done nothing else for many months but address large audiences, it was with awe as well as eagerness that I braced myself for what I regarded as the supreme ordeal. As I had not been present at the short winter session, I had only taken my seat for four days before I rose to address the House. I need not recount the pains I had taken to prepare, nor the efforts I had made to hide the work of preparation. The question in debate, which raised the main issue of the war, was one upon which I felt myself competent to argue or advise. I listened to counsel from many friendly quarters. Some said, ‘It is too soon; wait for a few months till you know the House.’ Others said, ‘It is your subject: do not miss the chance.’ I was warned against offending the House by being too controversial on an occasion when everyone wished to show goodwill. I was warned against mere colourless platitude. But the best advice I got was from Mr Henry Chaplin, who said to me in his rotund manner, ‘Don’t be hurried; unfold your case. If you have anything to say, the House will listen.’