October 17, 2008

By Piers Brendon

Reviewed by H. Ashley Redburn and Richard Langworth in Finest Hour 45

    What motivates a writer to pen another biography of Winston Churchill? Piers Brendon claims his book offers “what is amazingly not otherwise available —a vivid, complete, but miniature portrait of Churchill.” Evidently he has not read Martin Gilbert’s Clarendon Biography (OUP 1966), Geoffrey Bocca’s “Adventurous Life” (Messner 1958), or R. W. Thompson’s “Yankee Marlborough” (Doubleday 1963), all of which are the same size or smaller and incomparably better. The author appears to have read much, but little that matters, and the result is a selective rehash. The lack of study of primary sources is very apparent, whereas an aspirant to any “Life” must ‘drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring.”

    Had this book been shorn of what Disraeli called the “harebrained chatter of irresponsible frivolity” it could have been shortened by two-thirds and improved by one-third. Comprehensiveness impedes comprehension, says Mr. Brendon, and he proves the point exhaustively. He is right to say that WSC is in danger of being buried under the weight of words being devoted to him, but goes on to shovel his excess quota of dirt into the pit.

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    The Introduction, which is a sort of essay on the art of biography, is good as an essay, but its precepts are ignored in what follows. Cromwell wanted his portrait “warts and all.” This is almost all warts and no portrait. Like most Churchill biographers Brendon reveals his prejudices and preconceived attitudes in the first chapter, putting himself in company with Neilson, Thompson and Roskill, but he lacks the skill of the last. The procrustean bed having been designed, WSC is mutilated to fit it. We British, being mortally afeared of greatness, do not acknowledge the existence of heroes, but breed many pygmies for whom it is easy and natural to attack the Achilles heels of the giants who do rise in their midst.

    The book is uneven and unbalanced, partly because facts are made to fit the author’s fantasies, partly because in pursuing with too much relish the human being, the author has lost sight of Winston the Man. A good historian eschews hindsight in assessing an age and a man: this one is too often out of joint in that respect. There are sneers at the immaturity of the young Churchill; jibes at his “reading list” (selectively and inadequately presented) as a subaltern. Churchill had never read Hamlet “until the 1950s.” Was he—is he—unique in this respect? How many septuagenarians can recite Shakespeare’s plays with the actors at the theatre, as Churchill did—about which there is silence in this book? All the foibles of a full-blooded man are laid before us, stressed and stressed again. All meals are gargantuan; all composed of rich food, “washed down” with copious draughts of champagne, brandy, wine, and whisky, while pungent cigars are constantly smoked. I found it novel to learn of Churchill’s delight with Beaverbrook’s gift of a refrigerator in 1926, because “no longer had he to dilute [sic] his champagne with ice.” Pol Roger on the rocks?

    Every modern historian except Mr. Brendon knows the £25 reward poster for fugitive Churchill in the Boer War was a spoof. This is not the only slipshod work in the Boer War section. Brendon infers that “this brash young Lieutenant” was responsible for the loss of Spion Kop because “he didn’t try to persuade Colonel Thorneycroft to hold the hill, though victory was just a matter of staying put.” The weaknesses of material on the Royal Navy from 1911 to 1916, including the allegedly inadequate protection of turrets and magazines in the new fast battle cruisers, are blamed on Churchill. The inference is that WSC was responsible for the disasters at Jutland (which, wisely, is not mentioned). A little research would have shown that Indefatigable, Queen Mary and Invincible, the three battle cruisers which blew up during Jutland, were all launched or laid down before Churchill became First Lord in 1911. It really is not good enough for a serious historian to give credence to the views of Admiral Bacon on Churchill or the state of the Navy, and to ignore Marder’s classic “From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow,” which presumably the author has not read. The vendetta is pursued into World War II over the loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse; no mention of the intention to accompany them with the carrier Indomitable but for her unfortunate grounding; nor of Admiral Phillips’ responsibilities, his misplaced contempt for the Japanese and the power of hostile aircraft against ships. One further instance of “the demi-god’s” failure is given in the matter of the despatch of tanks to Wavell in North Africa: “In his eagerness to make up for lost time Churchill had not ensured proper testing.” The Premier must also be a mechanic! Yet most of us know that the deficiencies of British armor went back a long way from 1941.

    When Piers Brendon forgets his clever phrases and journalistic verbosity he is capable of serious writing: he correctly stresses Churchill’s contribution to the development of the Welfare State in Britain, postulating that WSC’s plans at the Board of Trade were more progressive and comprehensive than those of any other Liberal Minister, including Lloyd George. But Churchill’s work as Home Secretary is lightly and imperfectly studied, while the assessments of his place in both World Wars are secondhand and second-rate. The chapter “Finest Hour” reads like a disjointed “Sixty Minutes.” It is news to learn that Churchill’s greatest single contribution to the Second World War was his oratory — a view which apparently stems from a remark by Attlee that what Churchill did to win the war was talk about it.”

    As the old Duke said, “Sir, if you believe that, you will believe anything.” And to state that the Nobel Peace Prize was the last honor Churchill really coveted is as ignoble as it is untrue: the last prize he desired was peace itself.

    For whatever reasons this book was written, its avowed aim is not realized. We do not see a complete portrait, even in miniature; we are given glimpses of a deformed man in distorting mirrors. Where is the brilliant conversationalist, the writer, the driving force, the indomitable man, the genius? No hint is given of one “revered as a statesman, remembered as a man, to use Virginia Cowles’ epitaph. This is a book not to be taken seriously nor to be purchased lightly. The publisher’s blurb claims “Mr. Brendon is one of our most talented historical biographers and this promises to be his most popular book so far” —a double-edged tribute, to which one may add, “If at first you don’t succeed, don’t try again, Mr. B.”

    —H. Ashley Redburn

    THE BRENDON OPUS: ANOTHER VIEW

    Mr. Brendon obviously has plenty of chutzpah. In a review, he dismissed “The Last Lion” with Balfourian contempt: “William Manchester’s history of the universe, disguised as a Churchill biography.” In his own introduction Brendon lectures us on “the biographer’s art,” which he claims he has captured in “a vivid, balanced, complete” work. Since he considers “The World Crisis” and “The Second World War” massive autobiographic ego trips, one can only imagine how scathingly he would denounce such a claim in one of Winston Churchill’s own forewords.

    I dispute none of Ashley Redburn’s factual objections and comments about balance, and indeed can add several more. Brendon eschews footnotes, perhaps because he flings quotes around with so little reference to the right chronology. He is inconsistent, calling WSC an “indifferent debater” on p36, then awarding him “smashing power in debate” on p66. He says Churchill’s assault on the Unionists during the 1914 Home Rule debate was “to get back into Liberal good graces”—but he doesn’t give any sources for this novel view. He says Churchill sacked First Sea Lord Battenberg “to protect himself”; that he asked Admiral Carden if the Dardanelles could be forced so as to beg the answer “yes”; that he offered the resigning Lord Fisher a Cabinet seat. I looked in vain for substantiation of such claims.

    By the time I was through Brendon’s self-serving Introduction I was quite prepared to despise this book, and the above confusions did nothing to enhance it. But on the whole, I enjoyed it! Unlike other revisionists—Hughes, Gardner, Thompson, Roskill—Brendon doesn’t test your respect for Churchill. This survives intact. You are made bluntly aware of his foibles— over and over again—but you come away respecting Churchill all the more.

    There are some charming vignettes: of WSC at Casablanca, singing songs with FDR, describing Marrakesh to the President as home of “most elaborately organised brothels”; of Churchill telling “Rab” Butler he was doing less for the war effort than WSC’s black cat Nelson, “who saved fuel and power by acting as a Prime Ministerial hot-water bottle” —though later “Churchill suspected Nelson of semaphoring state secrets with his tail to the pelicans in the park.” World leaders are so rarely today portrayed as human that one can’t help enjoying Churchill’s irrepressible humanity. Releasing it—effervescent, spontaneous piquant, full of fun—is the one characteristic of Piers Brendon’s book that stands out.

    “The greatness of Churchill goes without saying,” wrote Peter Lewis in the Sunday Mail. “This book reduces him to a human and intelligible scale—perhaps a shade too enthusiastically. His superhuman qualities are acknowledged but remain a mystery. But for those who have, had enough of State portraits, here is an illuminating, unreverential pencil drawing.”

    – Richard M. Langworth