Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill . British politician who throughout his brilliant career was successively the most popular and most criticized man in England . Known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II .
His versatile genius, in addition to leading him to conquer immortality in the world of politics, made him stand out as a historian, biographer, orator, and war correspondent and on a more modest level; as a painter, bricklayer, novelist, aviator, polo player, soldier, and cavalry owner.
Biographical synthesis
Childhood and youth
He was born on 30 of November of 1874 in the palace of Blenheim in Oxfordshire , England . His father was Lord Randolph Churchill , third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough , and his mother was a young American woman of stunning beauty named Jennie Jerome , daughter of American millionaire Leonard Jerome .
There is no doubt that in his early years he knew happiness, because in his autobiography he tenderly evokes the days spent under the protective shadow of his mother, who in addition to being beautiful was cultured, intelligent and sensitive.
Perhaps for this reason, upon being admitted by his father to an expensive school in Ascot, the boy reacted rebelliously; being away from home was unbearable for him, and Winston protested by opposing anything that was studying. He was frequently punished and his grades were always among the worst. When in 1888 he entered the famous Harrow School, the future Prime Minister was included in the class of the most retarded pupils. One of his teachers would say of him:”He was not an easy boy to handle. It was true that his intelligence was brilliant, but he only studied when he wanted and with the teachers who deserved his approval.”
Churchill failed twice in a row in the entrance exams at Sandhurst Military Academy . However, once he entered the institution, a radical change took place in him. His proverbial stubbornness, resolve, and indomitable spirit did not leave him, but the habit of capriciously dissenting from everything began to disappear. He worked hard, was diligent and serious in class, and very soon he stood out among students of his level.
First steps in politics
Shortly after he joined the Fourth of Hussars, a cavalry regiment reputed as one of the best in the army. He fought in Cuba , India and the Sudan , and on the battlefields he learned about the art of war everything that he had not found in books, especially practical questions of strategy that would later help him to face the enemies of England. .
However, military life soon weary him. He resigned to go into politics and joined the Conservative Party in 1898 , running for election a year later. Narrowly failing to obtain the MP’s act, Churchill moved to South Africa as a correspondent for the Morning Post in the Boer War.
There he was taken prisoner and transferred to Pretoria , but he managed to escape and returned to London a popular hero: for the first time, his name made the front pages of the newspapers, as he had traveled more than four hundred kilometers in his flight, facing endless of dangers with extraordinary cold blood. It is not surprising, then, that he won a seat in the elections held at the turn of the century and that, just turned twenty-six, he was able to start a brilliant political career.
As speaker
In Parliament , his speeches and good humor soon became famous. But his independent spirit, reluctant to submit to partisan disciplines, made him significant enemies in the chamber, even among his own co-religionists. Thus, it is not surprising that he changed parties several times and that his interventions, both expected and feared by all, always aroused tremendous controversy.
After being appointed Undersecretary for the Colonies and Minister of Commerce in a liberal government, Churchill foresaw with extraordinary accuracy the events that unleashed the First World War and the course that the war took in its first stage. His prophecies, considered absurd by the military, came true and surprised everyone by the clairvoyance with which they had been formulated.
As Lord of the Admiralty
Churchill was appointed Lord of the Admiralty and immediately embarked on a profound reorganization of his country’s army. He first set out to make the British navy the first in the world, swapping coal for oil as a fleet fuel and ordering the installation in all units of large-caliber [[| gun | guns]]. Then he launched the creation of an aerial weapon and, finally, determined to counteract the fearsome German power, he promoted the construction of the first “terrestrial battleships”, achieving that the tank began to be considered essential as a war instrument.
After the war ended, Churchill suffered the consequences of the postwar reaction and for a time was relegated to a secondary role on the political scene. In 1924 he reconciled with the Conservatives and a year later he was put in charge of the Treasury Department in the Stanley Baldwin government .
It was a time of economic decline, unrest, labor unrest, and massive strikes, and the stubborn conservatism he displayed did not satisfy even his own colleagues. In a word, everyone was tired of him and his popularity dropped.
As a painter
Between 1929 and 1939 , Churchill voluntarily withdrew from politics and devoted himself mainly to writing and cultivating his love of painting under the pseudonym Charles Morin.”If this man were a painter by trade, he could earn a very good living.”
Picasso
Fight against fascism
Churchill continued to belong to the English Parliament, but during those years he was practically without influence. Things changed when, observing the growing threat that Hitler posed , he proclaimed the urgent need for England to rearm and waged a solitary struggle against the emerging fascism. On several occasions, both on camera and in his newspaper articles, he vigorously denounced the Nazi danger to a nation that, once again, seemed afflicted with a blindness that could end in tragedy.
Following the signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938 , in which Britain and France gave in to German power, people realized again that Churchill had been right from the start. There were a dozen times when Hitler could have been arrested without bloodshed, experts later claimed. In each of them, Churchill ardently advocated for action.
The 1 as September as 1939 , the Nazi army entered with scintillating precision in Poland ; two days later, France and England declared war on Germany and, in the evening, Churchill was called up to his old post in the Admiralty. All units in the fleet radioed the same message: “Winston is back with us.”
The same deputies who a week before had fought him viciously, acclaimed him standing up when he entered Parliament. But this was a bitter hour in the history of the Kingdom. The nation was ill prepared for war, both materially and psychologically. So when he was appointed prime minister on October of maypole of 1940 , Churchill delivered a moving speech where it celebrated a phrase that took Roosvelt .”I have nothing more to offer than blood, effort, tears and sweat”
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill 13 of maypole of 1940 , first speech as Prime Minister before the House of Commons
This phrase would become a true popular slogan for six years; his contribution to victory was to be decisive. Churchill managed to maintain morale at home and abroad through his speeches, exerting an almost hypnotic influence on all British people.
He formed a government of national concentration, which assured him the collaboration of his political adversaries, and created the Ministry of Defense for a better direction of the war effort. When the former Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany , and while the United States continued to proclaim its unshakable neutrality, Churchill called a meeting of his cabinet and with excellent humor said:”Well, gentlemen, we are alone. For my part, I find the situation extremely stimulating.”
Churchill, of course, did everything he could to get both powers into the war, which he accomplished in short order. During endless days, he directed the operations working between sixteen and eighteen hours a day, transmitting his vigor to everyone and infecting them with his energy and optimism.
Postwar period
At the end of the Second World War on the day of the Allied victory, he addressed Parliament again and was the subject of the most tumultuous applause in the history of the assembly upon entering. The deputies forgot all the ritual formalities and rose to the seats, shouting and shaking newspapers. Churchill stood at the head of the ministerial bench, tears streaming down his cheeks and his hands shakily clinging to his hat.
Despite the enormous popularity achieved during the war, two months later the English vote deposed him from his post. Churchill continued in Parliament and became head of the opposition. In a speech delivered in March 1946, he popularized the term “Iron Curtain” and some months later called for the creation of the United States of Europe.
After the triumph of the Conservatives in 1951 he became Prime Minister again, and two years later he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his Memoirs on World War II . Citing reasons of age, he resigned in April 1955 , after being appointed Knight of the Garter by Queen Elizabeth II and rejecting a title of nobility in order to remain as a deputy in the House of Commons.
Re-elected in 1959 , he no longer stood in the 1964 elections . However, his figure continued to weigh on political life and his advice continued to guide those who ruled the destinies of the United Kingdom after him .
Death
The people had seen in Churchill the personification of the noblest of their history and of the most beautiful qualities of his race, that is why they did not cease to acclaim him as their hero until his death, which occurred on January 24 , 1965 , after an attack. heart disease that caused a severe cerebral thrombosis.