Winston Churchill

The bulldog himself.

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Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was a British aristocrat and politician who served as First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911-1917 and Prime Minister in 1940-45 and 1951-55. Today he is remembered for his performance in the role of "courageous leader of beleaguered Britain" during World War II. That, most would argue, deserves praise.

And the not-so-praiseworthy stuff[edit]

Churchill remains a controversial figure because of incompetent or brutal decisions made during the two world wars. He played a central role in planning the disastrous military campaign at Gallipoli during WWI, leading to a quarter-million Allied casualties. Worse, his decisions during the Second World War led to the fire-bombing of German cities by the Royal Air Force (the bombing of Dresden is one of the rare examples in which the US Army Air Corps joined the RAF in the purposeful incineration of an entire city.) To be fair, however, Churchill later realized how horrific it was and expressed deep regret over this strategy, likening it to "mutual annihilation," and lamenting a lost age of chivalry in warfare.

Churchill's attitude towards Indian affairs arises over what some historians claim about the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, which has sought to place significant blame on Churchill's wartime government for the starvation and deaths up to four million people. In response to an urgent request by the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, and Viceroy of India, Wavell, demanded to release food stocks for India, Churchill allegedly responded with a telegram to Wavell asking, if food was so scarce, "why Gandhi hadn't died yet?", although some have disputed if he really said this.^[2] He is remembered in India not only for that little famine in Bengal, but also for calling Mahatma Gandhi a "half naked seditious fakir."

And then there was the matter of the Tonypandy riots in South Wales. The Welsh working class has never forgiven Churchill for sending troops to remove pickets by force from the coal mines, although the commonly repeated claim that the soldiers shot strikers dead in the street is a lie.^[3]

Churchill was a racist and bought into eugenics, advocating confinement and sterilization of the "feeble-minded".^[4]

In 1937, Churchill told the Peel Commission:

I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.^[5]

Churchill conspired with Eisenhower and the CIA to depose Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected (if by then increasingly authoritarian) Prime Minister of Iran, and install in his place the Shah. This led to the anti-Western blowback that created the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Churchill's second premiership saw him preside over the suppression of the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya, which became infamous for the British government's use of Nazi-style interment camps which amounted to concentration camps in all but name. These camps, ostensibly intended to intern suspected Mau Mau guerrillas somewhere they could do no harm, in practice saw thousands of random Kikuyu civilians rounded up and imprisoned. Making things worse was the widespread use of torture and rape in the camps in an attempt to extract information about the Mau Mau, including men being castrated and various instruments such as broken bottles being inserted into men's rectums and women's vaginas.^[6] Victims included Barack Obama's grandfather, who had metal pins stuck through his fingers and buttocks and his testicles crushed in a vice.^[7]

Victory V[edit]

Up yours, Adolf!

He adopted the palm-forward two-fingered V sign (Victory Sign) as a symbol of British defiance towards the Axis powers during World War Two. Unfortunately, he at first used it the wrong way round.^[8] As, later, did Margaret Thatcher.^[9]

Britishness[edit]

Winston Churchill's image is regularly deployed by wingnut funsters such as UKIP,^[10] the British National Party^[11] and not unoccasionally by U.S. Republicans. They generally try to associate Churchill with some sort of anti-immigrant, anti-Europe agenda.^[12] This is just a little bit odd as:

• Winston was himself the son of an immigrant,^[13] and was a descendant of French asylum-seekers.^[14]
• It was Mr. Churchill who first called for the establishment of "a kind of United States of Europe"^[15][16] and who supervised the establishment of the Council of Europe on 5 May 1949 by the Treaty of London.^[17]
• It was Churchill who described the English as a "Bastard Race",^[18] meaning, not "bad", but of the mixed-immigrant heritage that gives them strength. Of all people.
• It was Churchill who invented the idea of a European Court of Human Rights.^[19]

Mental health[edit]

It has been widely suggested that Churchill suffered from bipolar disorder^[20] or ADHD,^[21] and thus it is not surprising that he was given to hellish bouts of depression. He referred to it as "the Black Dog" and was able to fend it off by painting, drinking copious quantities of alcohol (approved by his doctor), and consuming voracious quantities of his favourite Stilton cheese, rich desserts and imported cigars which he developed a taste for as a teenager. He suffered ten strokes but still lived to be 90.

Churchill is alleged to have slept only four hours, drunk an entire bottle of port before retiring and three scotch and sodas before lunch alone. Upon the subject of his alcoholism, Churchill remarked with characteristic dryness "I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."^[22]

Inspirational quotes![edit]

A politician noted for his racism, military blunders and mass starvation, pictured with Joseph Stalin.

External links[edit]

• Works of Winston Churchill on Wikisource
• Not his finest hour: The dark side of Winston Churchill

References[edit]