Churchill was not an idealistic visionary, soothing the British people with empty platitudes. He wasn’t like the prophets described in Jeremiah 6.14 who offered ‘superficial treatments’ for the nation’s ‘mortal wound’ and gave ‘assurances of peace when there is no peace’. Rather, he was like the leaders of the tribe of Issachar mentioned in the book of 1 Chronicles, who ‘understood the signs of the times and knew the best course … to take’.19
Churchill’s oratorical gifts were put to use casting a vision for the British people and their allies and encouraging them to practise the disciplines necessary for victory. He spoke of the long, hard, bloody road ahead, but the dark elements of that vision were always tinted with hope. Because he had not concealed the difficulties, his words had integrity when he spoke of his vision for victory.
Churchill scholar John Lukacs connects ‘Churchill’s vision with a suggestion about his place in history’:
He knew that … perhaps an entire era in the world that had begun about four hundred years before his birth was moving toward its end. In sum, he was the defender of civilization at the end of the Modern Age… . At a dramatic moment in the twentieth century God allowed Churchill the task of being [civilization’s] principal defender.20
Honesty
Churchill had a realistic understanding of human nature. In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953, he said, ‘The power of man has grown in every sphere except over himself.’21 While Churchill eschewed religious labels, he believed that honesty about human nature and his own personality and capacities hinged on a spiritual understanding. ‘Man is spirit,’ he said.22
Churchill’s honest self-appraisal also reflected his awareness that, despite the acclaim that accompanied his leadership skills, he still needed help. People called him their hope, the embodiment of strength and courage, the man who could win the war. Yet he knew he could not go it alone – in contrast to Hitler’s megalomania. ‘There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies,’ he said, ‘and that is fighting without them.’23
He was also brutally honest about his nation’s policies. On 2 May 1935, he spoke of ‘inertia’ regarding the British response to the expanding Nazi threat, a view that was later reinforced after Britain and its allies failed in their commitment to help Austria maintain its independence in 1938.
When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure.
There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the Sibylline Books. It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong – these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.24
Churchill’s assessment was disturbing, yet it demonstrated that someone in leadership understood the situation and had the boldness to address it.
Courage
‘Courage’, said Churchill, ‘is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because, as has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others.’25 Churchill expected those closest to him to embrace and display such courage and toughness. In 1940, as bombs rained on London, Churchill added a ‘wry remark’ in a secret speech: ‘Learn to get used to it. Eels get used to skinning.’26
Churchill’s visits to bombed areas took great courage because there was always the danger of assassination when he was in public. However, as he walked among the ruins and talked to people who had lost loved ones, homes, businesses, and much more, his courage was passed on to them. He lifted his fingers in the V-for-victory sign and modelled for the nation how to be courageous under fire.
Determination
In the minds of many Britons, Winston Churchill was the personification of the ‘British Bulldog’. Churchill himself admired the feisty animal. ‘The nose of the bulldog has been slanted backwards so that he can breathe without letting go’, he said.27 Indeed, Churchill’s determination was relentless when others were pushing for appeasement and even surrender. That character quality also inspired the nation not to turn Hitler loose until he was defeated.
In his biography of Churchill, Lewis Broad describes the situation that Churchill faced when he assumed leadership of the British government:
Never did a PM assume office in such an hour. The blitzkrieg had opened as a tornado. Every message gave tidings of disaster from Holland, from Belgium, and from France. The Germans were sweeping all before them. They had broken out at the Ardennes gap. It was on the shortest route to Paris.28
‘If you are going through hell, keep going’ is a quote often attributed to Churchill, though there is no indication that he ever actually said it. Still, it reflects his dogged determination to get his nation to the other side of the hellish road it now travelled. ‘For defeat there is only one answer – victory,’ he proclaimed.29
Churchill rallied the nation to carry on by drawing inspiration from their long history: ‘Persevere towards those objectives which are lighted for us by all the wisdom and inspiration of the past.’30 In fact, one of his mottoes was ‘We must just KBO.’ KBO stood for ‘Keep Buggering On’ – that is, keep on plodding even when you are too tired to run.31
Churchill once asked one of his hardworking secretaries, Elizabeth Nel, if she was tired. When she said that she wasn’t, Churchill replied, ‘We must go on and on like the gun-horses, till we drop.’32
Churchill drew inspiration from Moses in the Old Testament. Very broadly interpreting Exodus 3—4, he writes:
God spoke to Moses from the Burning Bush. He said to him in effect: ‘You cannot leave your fellow-countrymen in bondage. Death or freedom! Better the wilderness than slavery. You must go back and bring them out… . No more let them be chained in the house of bondage… . I will endow you with superhuman power. There is nothing that man cannot do, if he wills it with enough resolution. Man is the epitome of the universe. All moves and exists as a result of his invincible will, which is My Will.’33
Churchill says of the burning bush that it was ‘now surely inside the frame of Moses’.34 Such a spirit of fire was clearly inside Churchill’s ‘frame’ as well, and it contributed greatly to his ability to ‘keep calm and carry on’.
Moral balance
‘From his earliest days, Churchill was absorbed with a moral vision for his life,’ writes Steven Hayward.35 He did not exclude personal behaviour from his consideration of morality, though he was not a romantic idealist like the utopians who denied the fallen nature of humanity.
He knew that maintaining moral equilibrium was essential for individuals and their societies. ‘Civilization’, he said, ‘is the state of society when moral forces begin to escape the tyranny of physical forces.’36 In this, Churchill reflected the Bible’s view of the law, which the apostle Paul says serves as a ‘guardian’ to keep things in check until the principles can be internalized.37 The law places necessary restraints on our behaviour for the safety and well-being of society. To Churchill, the necessity of moral balance was clear-cut: ‘Human life is presented to us as a simple choice between right and wrong.’38
In his essay on Moses, Churchill reflects on Pharaoh’s seesawing promises, which reveal the Egyptian leader’s lack of moral balance. Each day when Moses appeared before him, Pharaoh ‘hardened his heart and took back in the morning what he had promised the night before’.39 Churchill knew he could not equivocate; that he had to maintain the balance of integrity. He could be wily, which had contributed to the perception by some that he could not be trusted. But now the nation’s resolve to press on depended on his trustworthiness.
Realistic optimism
Sir Charles Wilson was Churchill’s personal physician, and he knew Churchill’s disposition well. He attributed Churchill’s resilience to his ‘buoya
nt temperament’.40
That ‘buoyancy’ lifted many in Britain and beyond. Churchill’s optimism could be trusted because it was couched in reality. For example, as war loomed in January 1940, he said, ‘Certainly, it is true that we are facing numerical odds; but that is no new thing in our history.’41 As he said at another time, ‘The threat of adversity is a necessary factor in stimulating self-reliance.’42
Foresight
Churchill gave people the sense that he could look at the past through the lessons of history, had a clear view of the present and could peer far ahead into the future. He calculated present situations based on historical precedents and future impacts.
Churchill’s foresight arose from his personal philosophy: ‘Plant a garden in which you can sit when digging days are done.’43 He was preparing his nation not only to defeat the enemy in the present but also to preserve their long-term quality of life. Victory was incomplete unless people could enjoy its fruits. Churchill intended to take his people all the way, sowing the garden, as it were, for their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Perspective
Churchill learned much from painting. As he studied perspective in art, he saw the application of those principles to life in general: ‘The glory of light cannot exist without its shadows.’44 That was the attitude that helped Britain and the Allies carry on with hope.
His perspective was also sharpened by his sense of the historic: ‘The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope.’45 His passion for this type of perspective was revealed in an admonition he gave to a young student: ‘Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.’46
Churchill dealt with large-scale issues, but he had high regard for the little things as well. In the words of the Old Testament prophet Zechariah, he did not ‘despise the day of small things’.47 He was a calming influence because his staff and the British people knew there was little that escaped his attention. They had also learned that he could read between the lines and discern the actual meanings behind pompous diplomatic statements, warlike threats and inflated statistics.
Churchill was the rare leader in whom all three leadership essentials combined: vision, strategy and tactics. There was much he missed and wrongly estimated, but there was a great deal he properly discerned. In 1933, when Churchill was still out of favour with many in the British establishment, the former Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader David Lloyd George referred to him as one of ‘the most remarkable and puzzling enigmas of his time… . His fertile mind, his undoubted courage, his untiring industry, and his thorough study of the art of war, would have made him a useful member of a War Cabinet.’48
That ‘thorough study of the art of war’ coupled with discernment was what enabled Churchill to see the potential of the tank as a weapon. Though he did not invent it, he certainly contributed to its development. Indeed, during the First World War, ‘Churchill’s natural interest in scientific gadgetry deepened.’49
Highly visionary people sometimes fail because they neglect to consider the small details and hidden facts, which can be swallowed up in their big-picture thinking. But Churchill realized that ‘the veils of the future are lifted one by one, and mortals must act from day to day.’50 Such a perspective keeps the visionary from being ambushed by the fine print.
Perspective is also vital in holding back the urge to panic under pressure. ‘When danger is far off we may think of our weakness; when it is near we must not forget our strength.’51
Churchill believed that perspective aided by discernment would give the complete picture necessary for success. ‘Life is a whole,” he said, “and good and ill must be accepted together.’52 But always one’s view must be based on reality, because even man’s ‘greatest neglects or failures may bring him good. Even his greatest achievements may work him ill.’53
Agility
In his early life, especially when he changed political parties, Churchill was viewed as inconsistent. No doubt there were times in his youth when such an allegation carried some truth. However, instead of becoming stodgy and inflexible as he matured, he continued to embrace the importance of flexibility and adaptability.
‘In life’s steeplechase,’ he said, ‘one must always jump the fences when they come.’ Necessary change was a good thing, he thought. ‘To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.’54 Churchill may have smiled a bit when he wrote those words.
His frustrations mounted, however, when he was unable to persuade Parliament and the prime minister – first Stanley Baldwin and then Neville Chamberlain – to change their policies towards Hitler and to rearm Britain as the Nazi threat intensified.
On 2 May 1935, Baldwin made a confession in Parliament that stunned Churchill. The British leader revealed that the Germans had achieved air parity with Great Britain – something that the prime minister had promised six months earlier he would never allow to happen.
Churchill rose to respond. He gave Parliament a brief history lesson:
I pause to ask the Committee to consider what these facts mean and what their consequences impose. I confess that words fail me. In the year 1708, Mr. Secretary St. John, by a calculated Ministerial indiscretion, revealed to the House the fact the battle of Almanza had been lost in the previous summer because only 8,000 British troops were actually in Spain out of the 29,000 that had been voted by the House of Commons for that service. When a month later this revelation was confirmed by the Government, it is recorded that the House sat in silence for half an hour, no Member caring to speak or wishing to make a comment upon so staggering an announcement. And yet how incomparably small that event was to what we have now to face.55
Churchill understood the importance of being agile enough to ‘jump the fences’, and he was distressed at the government’s intransigence, inability to see the reality of Nazi Germany’s threats and lack of the flexibility needed to take action.
When at last he became prime minister, he knew he had to move quickly to shift Britain’s policy to wartime status – and he hoped it was not too late.
Grace
Despite his frustrations both with his country’s leadership before the war and with his opponents throughout his political career, Churchill understood the importance of grace. This character quality also inspired his countrymen to ‘keep calm and carry on’, especially in the face of betrayal and accusation.
Churchill was a great giver of grace, which is what enabled him to work successfully with his coalition War Cabinet, even though the sailing was not always smooth. Just as Churchill came to power, his most sombre warnings were now coming true, and the unwillingness of so many to take him seriously was laid bare. ‘No man on earth has such good reason today to say, I told you so,’ René Kraus observes. ‘He never says it.’56
There was good reason for Churchill to show such grace. ‘Hatred plays the same part in government as acids in chemistry,’ he said.57 That understanding governed Churchill’s actions after the Germans had been defeated, and it may have saved Europe from repeating the catastrophic situation created by the Versailles Treaty after the First World War. ‘As we have triumphed, so we may be merciful; as we are strong, so we can afford to be generous.’58
Rest
Between 1940 and 1945, Churchill had the most demanding, stressful job in the world. It was overwhelming and wearying, and yet he flourished. His energy was reassuring to his own people and to those nations who fought at their side. Despite being run over by a car in New York in 1931, suffering a heart attack in 1941 and having a bout of pneumonia while visiting the North African front in 1943, Churchill was able to plough on.
He lived to the ripe old age of ninety.
One of his secrets was understanding the importance of rest. So many leaders, it seems, try to impress others with their heavy schedules, as if the entire world would collapse if they paused and rested. Churchill needed to impress no one, starting with himself. He scheduled time away from Londo
n at Chequers, the rural retreat of British prime ministers that his daughter Mary called ‘a true haven … from outer storms’.59 Chartwell, Churchill’s family home in the rolling countryside of Kent, was his favourite site for relaxation. He felt that ‘a day away from Chartwell [was] a day wasted.’60
Mary Soames describes her father resting during a 1942 visit to President Franklin Roosevelt’s home at Hyde Park, New York.
Papa presented a charming sight … flat on his back in a patch of sun… . I lay near him and we gazed up at the very blue sky & the green leaves dancing against it – flecked with sun.61
Such relaxation eased Churchill’s much-burdened mind, and he began to muse about the colours he would use if he were painting the scene: ‘[He] commented on the wisdom of God in having made the sky blue and the trees green. “It wouldn’t have been nearly so good the other way round.”’62
Churchill believed that cultivating ‘a hobby and new forms of interest is … a policy of first importance to a public man’.63 He discovered such a hobby at the age of forty in his love for painting. ‘Painting came to my rescue in a most trying time,’ he said.64 Churchill described how, after he left the Admiralty in 1915, he was still a member of the prime minister’s Cabinet and War Council. However, the sudden change in pace from the intensity of the Admiralty to the ‘narrowly measured duties of a counsellor left me gasping’.65 But Churchill also felt ‘great anxiety and no means of relieving it’ as he listened to discussions and watched developments regarding the First World War from a position where he ‘knew everything and could do nothing’.66
Then, one Sunday in the country, he took a paint box belonging to his children, experimented with it, and decided ‘to procure the next morning a complete outfit for painting in oils’. Years later, he recalled of those days that ‘the Muse of Painting came to my rescue – out of charity and out of chivalry.’67
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