The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History

"Character is destiny, said the Greeks"

"But most young people—according to a recent survey—think that Churchillis the dog in a British insurance advertisement."

At the beginningof the book Boris Johnson warns his readers about possible mistakes, which may percolate into the narration. And it is quite normal for he is not a professional historian. The more of it – Johnson doesn't highly appraise himself at all. On the contrary he admits, that he is not worthy to loose the latchet of Churchill's shoes. Still, he tried to tackle the topic. Probably, to involve the readers into thinking, to evoke in them sort of interest for Churchill's life, he bravely intermingles the story with abundance of jokes, fables and slapstick rumors. Some are quite on the edge of decency.

" One day he pushed his luck because he was caught rogering a Guardsman on a bench in Hyde Park at three in the morning—and it was February, by the way."

Some of the apocryphal stories are funny and may serve as an example of English humor, based on words juggling:

" the one where Churchill is on the lavatory, and informed that the Lord Privy Seal wants to see him, and he says that he is sealed in the privy"

Or: "MP Bessie Braddock allegedly told him that he was drunk, and he replied, with astonishing rudeness, that she was ugly and he would be sober in the morning."

But the most interesting part of the book are the chapters dedicated to the World War II.

Boris Johnson regrets that most people dimly believe that the Second World War was won with Russian blood and American money. And his intention is to prove that without Churchill, Hitler would almost certainly have won that war. Churchill  is the resounding human rebuttal to all Marxist historians who think history is the story of vast and impersonal economic forces.

An interesting fact about Churchill: he invented the RAF and the tank, which theoretically led to Britain's eventual victory in the First World War.

Churchill was indispensable to the foundation of Israel and other countries. He made a great contribution into the campaign for a united Europe. When reading the book one may easily agree that Churchill was really a man of character. Destiny had given to the English people time to enjoy and assess firstly Chamberlain, who took the rap for the Nazis' bundling Britain out of Norway. Secondly there was Lord Halifax - the tall, cadaverous Foreign Secretary who had been born with a withered left hand that he concealed in a black glove. And then Churchill came on stage. The war theater stage. With quite non-optimistic background picture. Holland had surrendered; the Belgian King had pusillanimously run up the white flag; Hitler's panzers had surged not just through the Low Countries but through the supposedly impenetrable ravines of the Ardennes; the ludicrous Maginot Line had been bypassed; The Americans were allergic to any more European wars, understandably: they had lost more than 56,000 men in the First World War, and more than 100,000 if you include the toll from influenza. So, Boris Johnson in rather metaphorical style pushed us to believe in Churchill's ability to revive in people the will to fight. To apply maximum efforts to obstruct Hitler's aggression and not to reward aggression by entering talks, as Italy dared to suggest. By the way,not only Mussolini tried to talk Britain into a peace clause discussion, but also the French were trying to get Churchill on a 'slippery slope' towards talks with Hitler and capitulation. Also let us not to forget that the British ruling class was riddled—or at least conspicuously weevilled—with appeasers and pro-Nazis.

Note: in the 1930s the average toff was much more fearful of Bolshevism, and communists' alarming ideology of redistribution, than they were fearful of Hitler.

Churchill rejected all despicable peace-talks offer with saying that the chances of Britain being offered decent terms were at housand to one against. It really looked like a stalemate. So, the subject of "frightful rot" was touched upon. It was almost Shakespearean climax: to contemplate parley or surrender. The comma insertion challenge - to fight not to negotiate – was quite challenging. To sum it up, to underline Churchill's stoicism would be enough to say that he never struck a bargain with Nazi Germany. If we compared Churchill with Hallifax the chasm would be immense:

" In 1938 Halifax was allegedly so incautious as to declare to Hitler's adjutant that he would 'like to see as the culmination of my work the Führer entering London at the side of the English king amid the acclamation of the English people'."

But Churchill was not a deity. In 1940 lot of people had a long charge-sheet against him. Quite often he was accused of nefarious deeds. Johnson here tried to decolorize the ink-water with putting some quantity of mud into it and he reached an opposite effect. For every action has an opposite reaction.

"There was even some suggestion (from Bruce) that Churchill had been engaged in practices of the Oscar Wilde variety—baseless allegations that were dismissed in an expensive libel suit brought by his mother; but mud has a way of sticking.'

But to hell with those homophobic suggestions. Let's better reveal the real deeds-list of Sir Churchill.

1.In 1914 Churchill – a sort of the rising star of the British politics – suggested a second front opening. In Turkey and by using mainly the allies of Britain – troops from Australia and New Zealand. Johnson dwelt on the topic in quite an evasive way– just mentioned that "it cost the lives of so many Australians and New Zealanders that to this day their 1915 expedition to Turkey is the number-one source of pom-bashing and general anti-British feeling among Antipodeans." 115 000 British and dominion troopskilled or wounded. And Churchill's punishment for that sinful deed was only demotion to an obscure cabinet post...

2. In 1931 Churchill incited a sort of discord between India and Britain. I wonder how people could treat him as a diplomatic officer when he baldly dared to call Mahatma Gandhi a 'half-naked fakir'?

3. as Home Secretary in 1910 he was alleged by the Labour Party to have sent armed troops against striking miners at Tonypandy in Wales; and in 1911 he certainly did authorise the troops to fire on striking dockers in Liverpool.

4. To help combat unemployment he was instrumental in setting up the first Labour Exchanges

5. Churchill was the progenitor of unemployment insurance - the precursor of the dole

6. He created a distinction, in British jails,between political prisoners and ordinary criminals

7. He called for a windfall tax on war profiteers

8. He personally directed the action in theSecond World War, in a way that seems bonkers to us today

9. He ordered the destruction of the French fleet in 1940. Five French ships were crippled and one destroyed; and 1,297 French seamen were killed. To this day the memory of Mers-el-Kébiris so toxic as to be taboo in discussions between Britain and France.

10. he unleashed area bombing on Germany

11. Churchill declared the return to GoldStandard. As a result - with exports being greatly overvalued, large sections of industry became uncompetitive.

The icing on the cake was the Land Lease Act which brought to the Britain's loss of its tons of gold bullion; British businesses in America were sold at knock-down prices. Under the terms of the agreement, the Americans insisted on interfering with Britain's overseas trade, and stopped the UK from importing much-needed corned beef from Argentina. The Lend-Lease Act continued to muck up Britain's right to run its own commercial aviation policy, even after the war was over. HereJohnson is brave enough to dare a question:

"It is startling to think that this supposedly unselfish and unsordid act of the US government entailed payments that ended only on—wait for it—31 December 2006, when Mr Ed Balls, then Economic Secretary to the Treasury, wrote a last cheque for $83.3 million or £42.5 million and a letter of thanks to the US government. Has any other country ever been so slavishly punctilious in honouringi ts war debts?"

Note: it has been argued that America took so much cash off Britain in the early stages of the Second World War that this liquidity finally lifted the USA out of depression.

Ok, we could continue beat about the bushes,but it's time to make a conclusion. Whom exactly served Churchill's imp inside of his good or bad self? The question is rather rhetorical, because Winston Churchill was a politician. And it is the naked fact that any politician wins elections on what he is promised for the future, not on the basis of a politician's achievements... The public unfortunately is glad to be deceived. That would be all. Amen!