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'Unsinkable' is the story of a man unjustly vilified: Churchill in the First World War. His enemies – the Tory Party – censured him for Antwerp, the Dardanelles and Gallipoli. He could do no right and was regarded as a dangerous maniac. But the true story is quite the opposite. This book tells how, as a brilliant First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill was ousted by his enemies yet clawed his way back to power against all odds. He was the leading critic of senselessly sending men to march towards machine guns, but his calls for 'machines, not men' went unheeded. After a spell in the trenches, he returned to London to clear his name over the Dardanelles. Then he relentlessly fought his way back to power through his brilliant, incisive criticism of the land war. Churchill finally became Munitions Minister in 1917, where he pushed output to unimagined levels. His weapons delivered the victory that had eluded others for the previous three years. Drawing on the private correspondence of Asquith, Churchill, Clementine Churchill and others, and the diaries of Riddell and Hobhouse, author Richard Freeman tells the story of the 'unsinkable politician' and his extraordinary achievements during the Great War.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780752498966 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 272 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
| Age Range: | 12 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
'Unsinkable'
Churchill and the First World War
By Richard Freeman
The History Press
Copyright © 2013 Richard FreemanAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-9896-6
CHAPTER 1
IN A BELGIAN FIELD
'A desperate expedient to meet a desperate situation.'
In a field outside Antwerp stands a man in a flowing cape, sporting a yachting cap and puffing on a huge cigar. Behind him are 400,000 terrified citizens, who have been under siege for weeks. He looks into the distance from where the thundering noise of German heavy guns can be heard. This man is the Allies' last hope and his name is Winston Spencer-Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty. He has been despatched to Belgium in a last desperate effort to stem the advancing Germany armies.
Two days earlier, on 2 October 1914, Churchill had been on a train to Dover. His mission – to consult with the Belgians – was important but not pressing. But when he stepped off the train at Dover he was handed a telegram which urgently recalled him to London. Around midnight, he was back in Lord Kitchener's London house and there he found three despairing men: Kitchener (War Minister), Sir Edward Grey (Foreign Secretary) and Sir William Tyrrell (Grey's Private Secretary). What had brought them together was a telegram from Sir Francis Villiers, the British Envoy Extraordinary to Belgium. His message had been blunt: the Belgians were abandoning Antwerp.
Even Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, hero of the Sudan and architect of victory in the Second Boer War, reeled under the news. If Antwerp fell, the German armies would have a clear route through to France. The small British army of six divisions, sent to war with such high hopes, had been in retreat almost from the day that it met the advancing Germans. The French were also in retreat.
Britain and France faced defeat within days, yet Kitchener had no suggestions to make and all that he and Grey could do was to wring their hands. Then Churchill spoke up. True, it might be impossible to hold on to Antwerp, but what about delaying the German advance? Every day of delay was one more to bring forward reinforcements. Kitchener and Grey seized on the plan and soon Churchill was once more speeding towards Dover.
The official naval historian of the First World War described this mission as a 'desperate expedient to meet a desperate situation'. Churchill was to offer the Belgians huge reinforcements if they would hold out for just a few more days.
At home, the War Office and the Admiralty set to work that night to find men and guns to send to Antwerp. Meanwhile, an empty-handed Churchill reached the city at 3.00 p.m. on 3 October, where he met the King of the Belgians and the Belgian Prime Minister. By early evening, he had an agreement. The Belgians would hold on in return for the promise of large-scale support. In a long telegram to London Churchill reported that the Belgians were sure that they could hold the city for at least three days.
Churchill then went to inspect the lines. There were no trenches – the land had been defensively flooded – and every building of any size was a target for the German artillery. Meanwhile, armed only with rifles, the defenders crouched behind bushes. Beyond the lines, German forces were steadily destroying the outer defensive forts using enormous howitzers before turning their artillery on the inner forts. The dispirited Belgian soldiers became spectators as they watched the mighty defence works being destroyed.
The next day, Kitchener was able to telegraph details of the 53,000 men he was to send to Belgium, commencing with Churchill's very own Naval Brigades that he had created in August.
Churchill set up his headquarters in the city and directed the laying of new defensive positions and, despite heavy shellfire, toured the front line and oversaw dispositions. His calm courage reinvigorated the dispirited Belgians and they returned to their guns and defences. Late at night on 4 October, Churchill reported progress to Kitchener and sent him a long list of urgently needed supplies. Meanwhile, the newly revitalised Belgian Prime Minister told him that Antwerp had to be defended at any price. Churchill's marines had now arrived and the Naval Brigades were expected that evening. By this time, Churchill had become so involved in the battle that he telegraphed to Asquith to offer his resignation from the Cabinet in exchange for a high military rank.
The situation was stable on 5 October, as the Belgians had even succeeded in repulsing a German attack and, by the end of the day, held the whole line of the River Nethe, with casualties not exceeding 150 men. Once more, Churchill set forth to tour the lines and to hand over the command of the Naval Brigades to Major General Archibald Paris of the marines. They met in a cottage, which shook with the explosions as German shells fell nearby. Later, Churchill narrowly missed being a casualty as a shell landed close by when he was getting out of his car. That night he retired to bed at 2.00 a.m. in an optimistic mood. The Belgian troops had held their ground and, even as he slept, a large British force was moving on Antwerp.
When Churchill woke the next day all was confusion, but he set about positioning the newly arrived Naval Brigades into the battlefront, insisting that they be dug-in since none had been trained for manoeuvre. In fact, the brigades were never close to the action. Watching wounded soldiers retreating from the battle area and the masses of refugees fleeing from the city, Churchill realised that the Germans were inexorably gaining ground.
The next day, General Henry Rawlinson arrived to take over from Churchill. Before departing, Churchill joined Rawlinson in a Council of War at the Belgian Royal Palace. Both men were ready to fight on, but the Belgians feared that their lines of retreat would soon be cut and could only accept that nothing more could be done. As Rawlinson took over, Churchill left to return to his less exciting duties at the Admiralty. On 9 October, German forces entered Antwerp. Churchill's bold intervention had bought the Allies five precious days.
No operation in the First World War better illustrates Churchill's incomparable capacity for war. He never accepted that nothing could be done. Even in a situation as desperate as Antwerp, he could see how some purpose could be achieved by continuing to fight as he was always able to apply imagination to an apparently doomed scenario; always ready to find another way when everything seemed lost. And most of all, he had high courage as he neither experienced fear nor shrank from death. These qualities will come to the fore again and again in the story of Churchill in the First World War.
CHAPTER 2FROM SANDCASTLES TO STEEL CASTLES
The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings.
THE ROAD TO WAR
When the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated at Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, The Times wrote that 'The political effects of the tragedy of Sarajevo can only be broadly surmised.' But during that long, hot summer, Britain had no intention of allowing events in remote Serbia to impinge on daily life. In early July, the new passenger liner MS Akaroa left on her maiden voyage to Australia – she was to return as a troop ship; a Mr F.V.A. Smith of the Burton-upon-Trent Amateur Radio Club received his licence to transmit; a new park was opened at Wembley; and a new library was opened at Thornton Heath. Life continued as usual.
The Permanent Secretary in the Foreign Office, Sir Arthur Nicolson, hoped that events in Sarajevo would not 'lead to any further complications'. Churchill, also, took little notice of the assassination. On that day he was indulging in one of the privileges of his post, touring the home ports and naval bases on the Admiralty yacht HMS Enchantress. Never one to deny himself luxury, he had the vessel turned into the combination of floating office and relaxing salon. Wherever he went, the daily work of the Admiralty was efficiently carried out in the comfortable cabins. When administration work was finished, Churchill entertained naval officers, politicians, businessmen and friends in style.
Churchill arrived on HMS Enchantress for his first major public duty after the assassination: the Fleet Review, held in mid-July, at Portland on the Channel coast. By now, there had been threatening diplomatic exchanges between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, but Russia and Germany had taken no steps to calm the ever increasing tension on the Continent. Churchill had announced the Fleet Review in the spring, so it was pure coincidence that it was to take place when a Continental war was imminent. The Liberal government, ever hostile to defence expenditure, had limited the review to ships positioned in British waters. Even so, the Royal Navy was still able to assemble a total of 460 warships and support vessels for King George V to review.
Churchill had been First Lord of the Admiralty since 1911. Henry Asquith, the Prime Minister, had appointed him at a time when there was widespread public concern over the ever-growing German navy, which had been building warships at a rapid pace since 1898. Although Germany protested that the ships were required to help build an empire, the British public was not convinced. Each new keel laid down brought a fresh wave of panic from a fractious electorate.
At the Admiralty, Churchill had laboured night and day to build a navy that could answer the German challenge. Not that he had started from scratch as he had inherited 'the fleet that Jack built'. This was a popular reference to Admiral of the Fleet Lord John 'Jacky' Fisher, who was First Sea Lord in the period 1904–10 and almost certainly the greatest reforming admiral of all time. Fisher had turned a dormant fleet, obsessed with spit and polish and sailing in parade-perfect formations, into a war-ready machine mounting the greatest firepower ever seen. Churchill had a very high opinion – too high, many said – of the ageing admiral and regularly sought his advice on ships and men.
On the morning of 20 July, it was a proud and enthusiastic Churchill who presented the results of his labours to King George V. After a night of rain, the skies were heavy with cloud and a cold easterly wind blew over the sea. As the two men looked across the grey waters they saw the towering bulk of the battleship HMS Iron Duke, leading the First and Second Fleets for the approval of His Majesty. The Iron Duke was the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir George Callaghan, the man who was to command Britain's first line of defence if war were ever to come. Not that the spectators had any expectation of war, as that was something they left to the Continental powers who were inextricably tied together in a web of alliances. Britain had no formal alliance with any power. Even the famous Entente Cordiale of 1904 did no more than oblige Britain to leave France a free hand in Morocco, in return for France keeping out of Egyptian affairs.
The twenty-two-mile-long parade of ships from the Royal Navy was an expression of a self-confident empire at the height of its powers. The fleet comprised fifty-five battleships, four battlecruisers, twenty-seven cruisers, twenty-eight light cruisers and seventy-eight destroyers, not to mention vast numbers of minelayers, minesweeping gunboats, repair ships and depot ships for torpedo craft.
As if the gods wished to bless the review, the sun broke through as the first ships began to pass the royal yacht. The King observed the thin scarlet line of the marines standing to attention around the forecastle of each warship. As each vessel passed His Majesty, a band thundered out triumphal music and the sailors gave three cheers for their sovereign. It took an hour for the First Fleet to pass, by which time the leading vessels were disappearing over the horizon. The Second and Third Fleets, which had been mobilised purposely for the occasion, followed, being led by the older but still powerful pre-dreadnought battleships and their cruisers and auxiliaries.
Years later, Winston Churchill was to recall that 'One after another the ships melted out of sight beyond the Nab [lighthouse]. They were going on a longer voyage than any of us would know.'
* * *
As the fleet disappeared from view, the King and Churchill made a hasty departure. They were to return to London to deal with a most pressing matter: Ireland. The country was on the brink of civil war over the Irish Home Rule impasse. On 12 April 1912, Asquith had introduced the Liberal Party's third attempt at a Home Rule Bill for Ireland. Whereas Prime Minister William Gladstone's two earlier attempts (in 1886 and 1893) had both failed, Asquith could confidently expect to put his Act on the Statute Book. He could be equally certain that, if the Act came into force, the Protestant counties of Ireland (known as Ulster) would rise in arms against the British government. This was not some wild prediction. Under the leadership of the brilliant and unscrupulous lawyer Sir Edward Carson, 500,000 Ulster people had signed his 1912 'Covenant', which committed them to use 'all means which may be found necessary' to prevent the Bill becoming law. A provisional government was established, thousands of Ulster Volunteers were recruited and 100,000 rifles had been imported. As the Cabinet contemplated the rebellious Ulster threat, the British army base at the Curragh was never far from their minds.
In March 1914, the government had faced an increasing threat of violence in Ireland from the Ulster Volunteers. Orders were prepared for troops to protect military sites and public buildings. The army officers at the Curragh base wrongly assumed that they were about to be ordered into action against the volunteers. General Sir Arthur Paget, Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, was called to London, where he was briefed on the government's limited precautions. When he returned to Ireland, Paget woefully misrepresented what he had been told at the briefing. More convinced than ever that they were to be ordered into action, seventy officers resigned their commissions. The War Minister responsible for this farce – Colonel J.E.B. 'Jack' Seely – was forced to resign. But the real casualty was the government, which had now lost control of its own armed forces in Ireland.
All this explains how it was that, while half of Europe was on the brink of war, the British Cabinet met day in, day out to discuss Ulster. The Home Rule conference finally sat from 21 July to 24 July, and Churchill was there to record its dismal progress. On the second day he told his wife, Clementine, that it was 'in extremis'. On the fourth day the conference broke up in total disarray. And so it was that until the end of July, the British Cabinet had never for one moment discussed the threatening developments on the Continent. Ultimatums, threats to mobilise, mobilisations came and went, but Ulster was the only cloud on the Liberal government's horizon. Asquith described the Cabinet's mood when he wrote to his epistolary 'lover' Venetia Stanley: 'Happily there seems to be no reason why we should be anything more than spectators.' (Venetia was a close friend of Asquith's daughter Violet and had been his intimate correspondent since 1910.)
On 23 July, at 6.00 p.m. – the penultimate day of the Home Rule conference – the Austrian government handed its infamous ultimatum to Serbia. It contained two particular items that would have led to the end of the Serbian state. Austria-Hungary had demanded that Serbia accept 'collaboration' inside the Serbian government to eradicate the Serbian nationalist movement and also claimed the right to dismiss all Serbian 'officers and functionaries' who were suspected of having connived in the assassination. Serbia had two days to reply.
Although the severity of the demands contained in the ultimatum far exceeded anything that Europe had witnessed in modern times, they raised no concern in the Cabinet on the following day. During a discussion on the arcane intricacies of the religious affiliations of villages in Fermanagh and Tyrone a telegram was handed to the Foreign Secretary. As Sir Edward Grey read out the ultimatum to the assembled ministers, Churchill quickly recognised the danger that it embodied. The equation was simple enough – even if beyond the deductive powers of his fellow ministers. If Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia, Russia would have to support her, and if Russia became involved, her ally France would be called to arms. And, although Britain and France had no formal alliance, their mutual interests were deep and strong. War would be hard to avoid. Immediately, Churchill left the Cabinet room and returned to his office – just a few minutes' walk across Horse Guards Parade. He cancelled a conference to be held the next day and sat down at his desk to write out a list of twenty-seven actions to make the navy ready for war. Top of the list was 'First and Second Fleets: Leave and disposition'. Churchill had taken the first step to ensure that if Armageddon came, Britain would be ready. No other minister – let alone the Prime Minister – had yet taken in the fact that war was now unavoidable.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from 'Unsinkable' by Richard Freeman. Copyright © 2013 Richard Freeman. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Dedication,
Acknowledgements,
Prelude,
Chapter 1 In a Belgian field,
Chapter 2 From sandcastles to steel castles,
Chapter 3 The elusive foe,
Chapter 4 Exit First Sea Lord,
Chapter 5 The dynamic duo,
Chapter 6 The Dardanelles,
Chapter 7 Fisher wavers,
Chapter 8 The revenge of the Tories,
Chapter 9 Bystander,
Chapter 10 In search of a battalion,
Chapter 11 In search of a role,
Chapter 12 Publish and be saved,
Chapter 13 Return to power,
Chapter 14 Machines, not men,
Chapter 15 The last push,
Epilogue,
Key players,
Works consulted,
Notes,
Plate Section,
Copyright,