Churchill Part Three
Michael Bentley
Winston S. Churchill, Volume III 1914-16. Martin Gilbert (Heinemann E4.50) On the atmosphere of war he fed and thrived: this is the starkest of all the common observations of Churchill. It need not, however, be a criticism. He detested the spilling of blood and felt more keenly than most the sufferings of those men and women whose lives war most savagely despoils. His 'hideous fascination' in the preparations for war frightened him and caused him to pray for forgiveness; and once immersed in the struggle his sole aim in life was to bring it to an end. Yet for all that the activities of wartime gave Churchill something that no amount of peaceful politics could give — an outlet for his romantic, almost spiritual, love of country. In party politics, for which he was never fitted, his energies were merely dispersed; he craved concentration and direction towards an essential object. War provided that tone to which Churchill's mind could most naturally attune and it follows that the volumes of this enormous biography which cover the two world wars will be those in which the quintessential Churchill is portrayed. It should be said at the outset that in this volume covering the years 1914 to 1916 Mr Gilbert gives no one grounds for disappointment.
The heavy artillery of the book is directed at the cardboard myths and legends which were erected about Churchill during these years. The author shows that Churchill's stance in August 1914 was not bellicose; his joy at the coming of war was merely a reflection of his satisfaction that the Fleet was ready. For the siege of Antwerp Mr Gilbert has a good defence in military terms. He shows that Churchill's notorious 'gadding about' on the Continent at the expense of his work at the Admiralty was largely a story put about by people not in possession of the facts. He puts into perspective the battle of Coronel and reveals Sir Christopher Craddock as the foolish author of his own destruction.
But of course the most important part of the book is concerned with the Dardanelles. It was this venture which came within an ace of breaking Churchill's career for good. The disastrous failure to take the Gallipoli peninsula and Constantinople after a promising start, and the humiliating though brilliant evacuation at the end of 1915 hung about Churchill like a shroud for the rest of his life. He was held to have been responsible for the initiation of the concept, for pushing it through the War Council, for bungling it when his chance came, and for recriminating against Kitchener and Balfour after its failure. The charges have never been answered with the necessary amount of documentation. Churchill himself could not answer them because by the time he came to write The World Crisis the documentary evidence in his own possession was slight and in any case he could hardly know what others had written privately about the venture at the time. And at the time Churchill had been stifled by secrecy and constipated by complication: Asquith forbade him — in the 'national interest' — from publishing the documents necessary to clear his name and since his defence rested on showing what the operation was believed to involve among various people at varying times, the complexity of the subject was not amenable to a strategy of defence by general statement.
In feet, Churchill never wanted the operation in the East to be anything more than 'an interlude' calculated to disturb the impasse on the Western Front. Nor was he alone in desiring the diversion: Lloyd George, Balfour, Grey, Asquith and Hankey also blessed the operation. What Churchill did not see was that he would be required to act from within a restraining net of political considerations. He assumed that power would accompany responsibility and therein lay his mistake, as he acknowledged in a letter to Hankey after his dismissal from the Admiralty: If I have erred, it has been in seeking to attempt an initiative without being sure that all the means and powers to make it successful were at my disposal.
Once the army had become involved in the plan — something Churchill did not want, then did want, then regretted because it had not been done quickly enough — all effective power was taken out of his hands. Immediate military decisions were taken by Kitchener at the War Office or by Hamilton on the spot.
No one knew: Churchill could not tell, Asquith was not only content but determined that sleeping dogs should lie. The Dardanelles cost Churchill the Admiralty and his credibility as a statesman. He suffered a sinecure for a few months before going into the field. When he returned in May 1916 he was a hated man. His only consolation during the bitter months that followed was a commission of enquiry into the Dardanelles imbroglio and that he believed to be loaded against him. No place was offered to him in Lloyd George's government in December 1916.
Mr Gilbert tells the story in over 800 pages of quiet, factual prose. It is easy to carp: the book is made over-long by the use of very lengthy quotations which could have been edited; and there are moments in the introductory sections when the author seems a little too conscious of how important his book is. But even those who dislike the hour-byhour approach to history will recognise the achievement which this book represents. That slightly pastiche quality produced by Randolph Churchill's retinue of researchers is gone; this volume has the stamp of the professional. Mr Gilbert's way is to take a back seat and allow the documents to speak for Churchill; but occasionally he finds it hard to steer and stops to consult the map. When he does so, as in an eightpage chapter entitled Loyalties,' he ceases to be good and begins to be brilliant. For the rest, there is an unmistakeable level of excellence throughout this first instalment of Mr Gilbert's magnum opus.
Peter Firth's poem On Visiting the Asylum, printed last week, was mistakenly attributed to Charles Causley.
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