BIOGRAPHY OF WINSTON CHURCHILL

PART - 1

By

SIDDHANT AGNIHOTRI

B.Sc (Silver Medalist)

M.Sc (Applied Physics)

Facebook: sid_educationconnect

WHAT WE WILL STUDY?

• BROKEN CHILDHOOD

• POLITICAL RISING

• IN WORLD WAR 1 AND 2

• LATER YEARS AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS INDIA

• Churchill was born at his parental home,

Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, on 30

November 1874 at which time the United

Kingdom was the dominant world power.

• His family were among the highest levels of the

British aristocracy, and thus he was born into

the country's governing elite.

• His paternal grandfather, John Spencer-

Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, had been a

Member of Parliament (MP) for ten years, a

member of the Conservative Party who served

in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin

Disraeli. His own father, Lord Randolph

Churchill, had been elected Conservative MP

for Woodstock in 1873.

CHILDHOOD

• His mother, Jennie Churchill, was from an

American family whose substantial wealth

derived from finance.

• He was unruly and bad as a child and

teachers.He didn’t behave very good with

others. As a young child, Churchill grew up in

Dublin.

• After performing poorly at his first two schools,

Churchill in April 1888 began attending Harrow

School, a boarding school near London. Within

weeks of his enrollment, he joined the Harrow

Rifle Corps, putting him on a path to a military

career.

CHILDHOOD

• He made three attempts to be admitted to the Royal Military Academy,

Sandhurst, only succeeding on the third. There, he was accepted as a

cadet in the cavalry, starting his education in September 1893 and

graduated in 1894.

• He had a very terrible relationship with his parents.His father called

him a failure but he realy admired his father.

• While at school, Churchill wrote emotional letters to his mother, begging

her to come see him, but she seldom came. His father died when he was

21, and it was said that Churchill knew him more by reputation than by any

close relationship they shared

• He started travelling the world visiting Cuba,Sudan andd India.Churchill

arrived in Bombay, British India, in October 1896. They were soon

transferred to Bangalore, where he shared a bungalow with Barnes.

Describing India as a "godless land of snobs and bores“.

YOUNG CHURCHILL

MILITARY SERVICE

• He showed exceptionall skills in military training. Churchill enjoyed a brief

but eventful career in the British Army at a zenith of British military power.

• While in the Army, he wrote military reports for). the Pioneer Mail and the

Daily Telegraph, and two books on his experiences, The Story of the

Malakand Field Force (1898) and The River War (1899

• In 1899, Churchill left the Army and worked as a war correspondent for the

Morning Post, a conservative daily newspaper. While reporting on the Boer

War in South Africa, he was taken prisoner by the Boers during a scouting

expedition. . He made headlines when he escaped, traveling almost

300 miles to Portuguese territory in Mozambique

POLITICAL CAREER

• In 1900, Churchill became a member of Parliament in the Conservative Party for

Oldham, a town in Manchester. Following his father into politics, he also followed

his father's sense of independence, becoming a supporter of social reform. At the

age of 25, he was now an MP.

• In February 1901, Churchill took his seat in the House of Commons, where his

maiden speech gained widespread press coverage. He opposed an increase in

army funding, suggesting that any additional military expenditure should go to the

navy

• In May 1903, the Conservative MP Joseph Chamberlain called for the introduction

of tariffs on goods imported into the British Empire from outside; Churchill became a

leading Conservative voice against such economic protectionism.

• In February 1903, he was among 18 Conservative MPs who voted against the

government's increase in military expenditure.Unconvinced that the Conservative

Party was committed to social justice, Churchill switched to the Liberal Party in

1904.

POLITICAL CAREER

• He was elected a member of Parliament in 1908, and was appointed to

the prime minister's cabinet as president of the Board of Trade. As

president Churchill joined newly appointed Chancellor David Lloyd George

in opposing the expansion of the British Navy. He introduced several

reforms for the prison system, introduced the first minimum wage and

helped set up labor exchanges and unemployment insurance.

• Churchill also assisted in the passing of the People's Budget, which

introduced taxes on the wealthy to pay for new social welfare programs.

The budget passed in the House of Commons in 1909, and was initially

defeated in the House of Lords before being passed in 1910.

• Named first lord of the Admiralty in 1911, Churchill helped modernize

the British Navy, ordering that new warships be built with oil-fired

instead of coal-fired engines. He was one of the first to promote

military aircraft and set up the Royal Navy Air Service. He was so

enthusiastic about aviation that he took flying lessons to understand

firsthand its military potential.

WORLD WAR 1

• Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in

June 1914, there was growing talk of war in Europe. Churchill began

readying the navy for conflict, convinced that if Germany attacked France

then Britain would inevitably join the war

• Churchill remained in his post through the start of World War I, but was

forced out for his part in proposing what became the disastrous Battle of

Gallipoli, and resigned from the government toward the end of 1915. In

1917, he was appointed minister of munitions for the final year of the war,

overseeing the production of tanks, airplanes and munitions.

• From 1919 to 1922, Churchill served as minister of war and air and

colonial secretary under Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

Fractures in the Liberal Party led to the defeat of Churchill as a member of

Parliament in 1922, and he rejoined the Conservative Party

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BIOGRAPHY OF WINSTON CHURCHILL

PART - 2

By

SIDDHANT AGNIHOTRI

B.Sc (Silver Medalist)

M.Sc (Applied Physics)

Facebook: sid_educationconnect

POLITICA ISOLATION

• Churchill accepted the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley

Baldwin's Unionist government, and formally rejoined the Conservative

Party as Chancellor of the Exchequer Churchill oversaw Britain's

disastrous return to the Gold Standard, which resulted in deflation,

unemployment, and the miners' strike that led to the General Strike

of 1926.

• The return to the pre-war exchange rate and to the Gold Standard

depressed industries The Conservative government was defeated in the

1929 general election. When Ramsay MacDonald formed the National

Government in 1931, Churchill was not invited to join the Cabinet. He

was at the low-point in his career, in a period known as "the

wilderness years“.

• In 1932, Churchill accepted the presidency of the newly founded New

Commonwealth Society, a peace organisation which he described in 1937

as "one of the few peace societies that advocates the use of force, if

possible overwhelming force, to support public international law

WORLD WAR 2

• Churchill, holidaying in Spain when the Germans reoccupied the

Rhineland in February 1936.Horrified with the declaration of war

UK,FRANCE,GERMANY AND ITALY signed the Munich agreement on

30 september 1938 giving certain part of Czechoslovakia to

Germany.

• Chamberlain returned to London as triumphant but Churchill had a

different view.He didn’t like this initiative and knew that Hitler will go for

war and he told to chose between WAR AND SHAME.

• On 3 September 1939, the day Britain declared war on Germany following

the outbreak of the Second World War, Churchill was appointed First Lord

of the Admiralty, the same position he had held during the first part of the

First World War. As such he was a member of Chamberlain's small War

Cabinet.

• As Germany began controlling its neighbors, Churchill had become a

staunch critic of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of

appeasement toward the Nazis.

“WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER”

• On 10 May 1940, hours before the German invasion of France by a

lightning advance, it became clear that, following failure in Norway, the

country had no confidence in Chamberlain's prosecution of the war and so

Chamberlain resigned.Churchill replaced him and soon after the

invasion of France he took the command.

• Britain was all alone fighting with mighty Germany and at some

instances the condition seemed so hopeless that his ministers

adviced him to negotiate with Hitler.

• Quickly, Churchill formed a coalition cabinet of leaders from the Labor,

Liberal and Conservative parties. He placed intelligent and talented men in

key positions. On June 18, 1940, Churchill made one of his iconic

speeches to the House of Commons, warning that "the Battle of Britain"

was about to begin.

• After the United States entered World War II, in December 1941,

Churchill was confident that the Allies would eventually win the war.

WORLD WAR 2

• Churchill's good relations with United States President Franklin D.

Roosevelt—between 1939 and 1945 they exchanged an estimated 1700

letters and telegrams and met 11 times.Helped secure vital food, oil

and munitions via the North Atlantic shipping routes.

• In the months that followed, Churchill worked closely with U.S. President

Roosevelt and Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin to forge an Allied war

strategy and post-war world.

• In meetings in Teheran (November-December 1943), Yalta (February

1945) and Potsdam (July 1945), Churchill collaborated with the two

leaders to develop a united strategy against the Axis Powers, and helped

craft the post-war world with the United Nations as its centerpiece.

• As the war wound down, Churchill proposed plans for social reforms

in Britain, but was unable to convince the public. Despite Germany's

surrender on May 7, 1945, Churchill was defeated in the general

election in July 1945

COLD WAR ERA(AFTER 1945)

• In the six years after Churchill’s defeat, he became the leader of the opposition party

and continued to have an impact on world affairs. In March 1946, while on a visit to the

United States, he made his famous "Iron Curtain" speech, warning of Soviet

domination in Eastern Europe. He also advocated that Britain remain independent from

European coalitions.

• After the general election of October 1951, Churchill again became prime

minister, and his second government lasted until his resignation in April 1955.

He also held the office of Minister of Defence from October 1951 until 1 March

1952.

• In the early 1950s, Britain was still attempting to remain a third major power on the

world stageThese domestic reforms were overshadowed by a series of foreign policy

crises in the colonies of Kenya and Malaya, where Churchill ordered direct military

action. While successful in putting down the rebellions, it became clear that Britain was

no longer able to sustain its colonial rule.

• In 1908, Winston Churchill married Clementine Ogilvy Hozier after a short

courtship. The couple had five children together: Diana, Randolph, Sarah,

Marigold (who died as a toddler of tonsillitis) and Mary

DEATH AND HONOURS

• After leaving the premiership, Churchill spent less time in parliament until he

stood down at the 1964 general election. Churchill spent most of his

retirement at Chartwell and at his home in Hyde Park Gate, in London, By the

time of the 1959 general election Churchill seldom attended the House of

Commons.

• In 15 January 1965, Churchill suffered a severe stroke and died at his London

home nine days later, aged 90, on the morning of Sunday, 24 January 1965,

70 years to the day after his own father's death. y decree of the Queen, his

body lay in state in Westminster Hall for three days and a state funeral service

was held at St Paul's Cathedral on 30 January 1965

• In 1953, Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. The same year, he

was named the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

CRIMES OF CHURCHILL

• There has been debate over Churchill's culpability in the deaths of approx 4.3 millions

of Indians during the Bengal famine of 1943. Some commentators point to the

disruption of the traditional marketing system and maladministration at the provincial

level as a cause, with Churchill saying that the famine was the Indians' own fault for

"breeding like rabbits".

• Adam Jones, editor of the Journal of Genocide Research, calls Churchill "a genuine

genocidaire", noting that the British leader called Indians a "foul race" in this period and

said that the British air force chief should "send some of his surplus bombers to destroy

them."

• The real cause was the fall of Burma to the Japanese, which cut off India's main supply

of rice imports when domestic sources fell short ...it is true that Churchill opposed

diverting food supplies and transports from other theatres to India to cover the shortfall:

this was wartime.'

• In response to an urgent request by the Secretary of State for India (Leo Amery) and

the Viceroy of India (Wavell), to release food stocks for India, Churchill responded with a

telegram to Wavell asking, if food was so scarce, "why Gandhi hadn't died yet". In

July 1940, newly in office, he reportedly welcomed reports of the emerging conflict

between the Muslim League and the Indian Congress, hoping "it would be bitter and

bloody

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