The genius of Winston Churchill

     One of the conclusions of the Yalta Conference was that the Allies would return all Soviet citizens that found themselves in the Allied zone to the Soviet Union. This immediately affected the Soviet prisoners of war liberated by the Allies, but was also extended to all Eastern European refugees. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn called the Operation Keelhaul "the last secret of World War II." The operation decided the fate of up to two million post-war refugees fleeing eastern Europe.  

3.3. Bombing of Dresden in World War II. The end of World War II.

     Between 13-15 February 1945, British and US bombers attacked the German city of Dresden, which was crowded with German wounded and refugees.  Because of the cultural importance of the city, and of the number of civilian casualties close to the end of the war, this remains one of the most controversial Western Allied actions of the war³⁰.

     In June 1944, the Allied Forces invaded Normandy and pushed the Nazi forces back into Germany on a broad front over the coming year. After being attacked on three fronts by the Allies, and in spite of Allied failures, such as Operation Market Garden, and German counter-attacks, including the Battle of the Bulge, Germany was eventually defeated. On 7 May 1945 at the SHAEF headquarters in Rheims the Allies accepted Germany's surrender. On the same day in a BBC news flash John Snagge announced that 8 May would be Victory in Europe Day. On Victory in Europe Day, Churchill broadcast to the nation that Germany had surrendered and that a final cease fire on all fronts in Europe would come into effect at one minute past midnight that night. Afterwards Churchill told a huge crowd in Whitehall: "This is your victory." The people shouted: "No, it is yours", and Churchill then conducted them in the singing of Land of Hope and Glory. In the evening he made another broadcast to the nation asserting the defeat of Japan in the coming months. The Japanese later surrendered on 15 August 1945.

     As Europe celebrated peace at the end of six years of war, Churchill was concerning on the possibility that the celebrations would soon be brutally interrupted. He concluded that the UK and the US must prepare for the Red Army ignoring previously agreed frontiers and agreements in Europe "to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire."^[ According to the Operation Unthinkable plan ordered by Churchill and developed by the British Armed Forces, the Third World War could have started on 1 July 1945 with a sudden attack against the allied Soviet troops. The plan was rejected by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee as militarily unfeasible. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

THE CHAPTER 4. Activity of Winston Churchill after the World War II.

4.1. Return to the power.

     The later life of Winston Churchill documents the life of the British politician from the end of World War II and his second term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, until his eventual death and funeral in 1965. After the end of the Second World War Churchill was not elected as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the 1945 election. For six years he was to serve as the Leader of the Opposition³¹.

      During these years Churchill continued to have an impact on world affairs; in 1946 he gave his Iron Curtain speech which spoke of the USSR and the creation of the Eastern Bloc; Churchill also argued strongly for British independence from the European Coal and Steel Community (which he saw as a Franco-German project). In the General Election of 1951 Labour were defeated and Churchill became Prime Minister for a second time. Churchill continued to lead Britain but was to suffer an increasing amount of health problems. Aware that he was slowing down both physically and mentally he decided to resign in 1955. Churchill however continued to sit as an MP for Woodford until he retired from politics in 1964. Churchill died in 1965 and was granted the honour of a state funeral. He was buried in his family plot in St Martin's Church, Bladon near to where he was born at Blenheim Palace³².

     Although Churchill's role in World War II had generated him much support from the British population, he had many opponents. He also expressed contempt for a number of popular ideas, in particular creating a system of national public health care and improving public education. Partly as a result of this Churchill was defeated in the 1945 election by Clement Attlee and the Labour Party. There are different possibilities as to why he lost this election; it could be that the voters thought that the man who had led them so well in war was not the man to lead them in peace, or that the election result was not a reaction against Churchill personally, but against the Conservative Party's record in the 1930s under Baldwin and Chamberlain. Also, the proposed policies of the Labour Party with its reforms such as introducing the NHS may have been thought a better party.

     His Resignation Honours included recommendations outside party politics for the Chiefs of Staff of the armed services and the Ministry of Defence, which had the approval of the new Prime Minister³³.

     Winston Churchill was an early supporter of the pan-Europeanism. In his speech at the University of Zurich in 1946, Winston Churchill called for a "United States of Europe" and the creation of a "Council of Europe". He also participated in the Hague Congress of 1948, which discussed the future structure and role of this Council of Europe.  The Council of Europe was finally founded as the first European institution through the Treaty of London of 5 May 1949 and has its seat in Strasbourg³⁴.

     Churchill was instrumental in giving France a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (which provided another European power to counterbalance the Soviet Union's permanent seat)³⁵.

     Although Churchill was no longer Prime Minister, he would not leave the public eye for many years. His image as a world leader, and seasoned diplomat would allow him to remain a figure head in British politics. Churchill became the leader of the opposition, the Conservative Party. While acting as leader Churchill accomplished a great many things, and would make his voice heard on issues which he felt strongly against. The first major issue which Churchill made himself known was the issue over whether or not to release India from British control. In a speech to the House of Commons in early March 1947, Churchill warned against handing power over to India too soon. Churchill felt that the political parties in India did not truly represent the people, and that in a few years no trace of the new government would remain. This grim prediction made by Churchill would not last however when he finally lent his support to the independence of India³⁶.

     Churchill would write a six volume set on his experiences in World War II. The series entitled, The Second World War, would lend Churchill’s personal thoughts, beliefs, and experiences to the historical record of World War II. Churchill traded the literary rights to his books in return for double the salary he made as Prime Minister. Major points in Churchill’s books included his disgust in the handling of Hitler prior to the onset of World War II, primarily with the policy of appeasement which the allied powers implemented in dealing with the German tyrant.

     After the General Election of 1951, Churchill again became Prime Minister. His third government—after the wartime national government and the brief caretaker government of 1945 — would last until his resignation in 1955. During this period, he renewed what he called the "special relationship" between Britain and the United States, and engaged himself in the formation of the post-war order. He tried in vain to manoeuvre the cabinet into restricting West Indian immigration³⁷.

     In what would become one of Churchill’s most famous speeches, the Fulton Speech would coin a phrase which would be used for the remainder of the Cold War. The iron curtain is what Churchill referred to the Soviet Unions growing influence in Eastern Europe. At the time that Churchill made the speech both the United States and his own government had to publicly disagree with him in order to not appear that they shared in his feelings. His speech would later be hailed as having great prophetic value. Later it would be shown that President Truman and the Prime Minister both shared Churchill’s feelings, but were not at a point of public discloser.

     Churchill would coin another famous term, this time relating to the relationship that the United States and Britain held. This “special relationship”  referred to the closeness of the Anglo-American relationship in war, peace, and in politics. This relationship has gone through different degrees during the course of the two countries, but had been visibly stronger in the 20th century, especially during World War II. Churchill had played a major role in the “special relationship”, becoming what appeared to be close friends with Roosevelt during the war years. Churchill would later try to regain this lost relationship with President Truman³⁸.

     His domestic priorities were, however, overshadowed by a series of foreign policy crises, which were partly the result of the continued decline of British military and imperial prestige and power. Being a strong proponent of Britain as an international power, Churchill would often meet such moments with direct action.

     When President Eisenhower was elected in 1952, Churchill made haste in arranging a meeting with the new leader in hopes of establishing a stronger relationship with the United States. This would prove to be nearly impossible though, due to Churchill’s age. Churchill was beginning to show signs of ageing, and allegedly refused to wear his hearing aid while in meetings, causing the conversations to be carried on at a screaming volume. Eisenhower remarked in his diary how Churchill seemed set in his ways, and that Churchill seems to think that the world’s problems could be solved merely by the close cooperation of Britain and the United States.

     Churchill would also try to establish better relations with the Soviet Union when, in 1953, Stalin died. Churchill saw the death of Stalin to mean that the Soviet Union would be under far better leadership than it had been under, and therefore seized the opportunity to establish better British – Soviet relations. Unfortunately for Churchill, the United States as well as his own party saw this unilateral action as hasty.

     In 1951, grievances against the colonial distribution of land came to a head with the Kenya African Union demanding greater representation and land reform. When these demands were rejected, more radical elements came forward, launching the Mau Mau rebellion in 1952. On 17 August 1952, a state of emergency was declared, and British troops were flown to Kenya to deal with the rebellion. As both sides increased the ferocity of their attacks, the country moved to full-scale civil war³⁹.

     In Malaya, a rebellion against British rule had been in progress since 1948. Once again, Churchill's government inherited a crisis, and once again Churchill chose to use direct military action against those in rebellion while attempting to build an alliance with those who were not.^[15] He stepped up the implementation of a "hearts and minds" campaign and approved the creation of fortified villages, a tactic that would become a recurring part of Western military strategy in South-east Asia.

     The Malayan Emergency was a more direct case of a guerrilla movement, centred in an ethnic group, but backed by the Soviet Union. As such, Britain's policy of direct confrontation and military victory had a great deal more support than in Iran or in Kenya. At the highpoint of the conflict, over 40,000 British and Commonwealth troops were stationed in Malaya. While the rebellion was slowly being defeated, it was equally clear that colonial rule from Britain was no longer plausible.

     In 1953, plans were drawn up for independence for Singapore and the other crown colonies in the region. The first elections were held in 1955, just days before Churchill's own resignation, and in 1957, under Prime Minister Anthony Eden, Malaya became independent.  

4.2. Later life of Winston Churchill.

     In June 1953, when he was 78, Churchill suffered a stroke after a meeting with the Italian Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi at 10 Downing Street. News of this was kept from the public and from Parliament, who were told that Churchill was suffering from exhaustion. He went to his country home, Chartwell, to recuperate from the effects of the stroke which had affected his speech and ability to walk. He returned to public life in October to make a speech at a Conservative Party conference at Margate, having decided that if he couldn't make the speech, he would retire as Prime Minister—but he was able to deliver it without problems⁴⁰.

     Churchill's fondness for alcohol was well-documented. While in India and South Africa, he got in the habit of adding small amounts of whisky to the water he drank in order to prevent disease. He consumed alcoholic drinks on a near-daily basis for long periods in his life, and frequently imbibed before, after, and during mealtimes, although he is not generally considered by historians to have been an alcoholic. The Churchill Centre states that Churchill made a bet with a man with the last name of Rothermere (possibly one of the Viscounts Rothermere) in 1936 that Churchill would be able to successfully abstain from drinking hard liquor for a year; Churchill apparently won the bet⁴¹.

     Aware that he was slowing down both physically and mentally, Churchill retired as Prime Minister in 1955 and was succeeded by Anthony Eden, who had long been his ambitious protégé (three years earlier, Eden had married Churchill's niece, Anne Clarissa Spencer-Churchill, his second marriage). Upon his resignation, the Queen offered him a dukedom but he declined the offer⁴².

     Over the coming years Churchill spent less time in Parliament, occasionally voting in parliamentary divisions, but never again speaking in the House. He continued to serve as an MP for Woodford until he stood down for the last time at the 1964 General Elections. His private verdict on the Suez fiasco was: "I would never have done it without squaring the Americans, and once I'd started I'd never have dared stop". In 1959, he became Father of the House, the MP with the longest continuous service: he had already gained the distinction of being the only MP to be elected under both Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II. On 24 July 1964, Churchill was present in the House of Commons for the last time, and one day later, in 28 July, a deputation headed by the Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, presented Churchill with a Resolution which had been carried nemine contradicente by the House of Commons. The ceremony was held in Churchill's London home at 28 Hyde Park Gate, and was witnessed by Clementine, his children and grandchildren⁴³.