January 7, 2009

PROCEEDINGS of the International Churchill Societies 1988-89

by Raymond A. Callahan
Professor of History, University of Delaware Churchill Symposium at Bretton Woods

    This is a good time – and the annual meeting of the International Churchill Society an excellent place – to reflect upon the question of where historical study and evaluation of Winston Churchill’s remarkable career stands. The official biography has now, after twenty years and nearly ten thousand pages of text, been brought almost to completion, lacking only the final document volumes. The thrust of Churchill studies will now pass to historians who will pore over archives, the official biography and mountains of secondary material in search of some synthesis. The two papers you have heard today, by historians who have long labored on the World War II period – the height of Churchill’s career – are some indication that even an era apparently so thoroughly covered (not least by the subject himself) can, when examined skillfully, yield new insights into Winston Churchill.

    Max Schoenfeld’s paper deals with several key issues – the role of alliance politics in the formulation of British strategy, the shaping of that strategy by the allocation of resources (a key to Churchill’s success as Minister of Defence), and the need to reassess so much in the standard accounts of the war to accommodate what we now know about “Ultra.” (It illustrates as well Churchill’s incredible energy and tenacity in pursuing his goals – another crucial element in his success). The most significant points, it seems to me, in Max Schoenfeld’s paper are three in number. First, Churchill never forgot that it was necessary to attack in order to win. “In war,” as he put it, “armies must fight.”

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    It might seem unnecessary even to mention this but for the misunderstanding that has persisted for a generation – while the writing of World War II history was dominated by the memories and memoirs of participants – that held that Churchill wished to avoid direct engagement with Germany. He in fact saw clearly that the German army must be grappled with but – and this is the second point – he had come to have grave doubts about the combat effectiveness of the British army. After the loss of Malaya and Burma, and repeated defeats in the Western Desert it is not surprising that he felt this way.

    However, and here is the third point: if the British army was a flawed instrument, and the American several years from full development, and the necessity urgent of showing the Russians something in the way of serious British effort against Germany (the Russians were unlikely to be impressed by less than a dozen divisions facing Rommel), what else was there but Bomber Command?

    We must remember – what Churchill never for a moment forgot, and acknowledged even in the Cold War’s bitterest moments – how vital the Red Army was to Allied victory. Seeing the issues with ruthless and doubtless uncomfortable clarity, Churchill had no real choice but to give a good example of the truth of Wolfe’s celebrated dictum – that war is an option of difficulties – by pressing for risks to be run in the Atlantic in order to maximize the tonnage of bombs Harris could shower down on Germany.

    Max Schoenfeld makes one other very interesting point. The admirals did a poor job of presenting their case. In their numerous postwar writings few of the generals, admirals or air marshals seemed to recognize that persuading the Minister of Defence that they had a good case was part of their job.

    Ted Wilson’s paper sheds light on a different, and no less important, aspect of Churchill’s wartime leadership. Churchill, it has long been recognized, was least comfortable with economic and financial issues. Ted Wilson has illustrated how little attention – even crucially important negotiations that would shape the industrial world’s postwar finances – could be commanded from the Prime Minister. Of course by 1944 Churchill was tired and his reluctance, always marked, to spend energy on postwar matters had hardened into something like a rooted aversion. Nevertheless, even when allowance is made for this, it is still remarkable that he could not bring himself to pay closer attention to this vital area.

    Or, might that perhaps be the wrong way to put it? Perhaps the prime minister had already made the fundamental decision not to quarrel with the Americans on an issue where, in any case, he could not hope to win. If that is true, far from inattention to an important matter, he was demonstrating a prudent conservation of both his energies and his clout with the Americans.

    Is there any evidence for this hypothesis? On the day of his final resignation in 1955, Churchill assembled the junior ministers in his government and gave them two pieces of valedictory advice- never despair – and never be separated from the Americans. When had he come to the conclusion that staying in step with the United States was crucial to Britain’s long term future – as well as to victory over Germany? Almost certainly during the later war years, as it was borne in upon him that Britain’s dwindling strength would be over- shadowed after the war by her two mighty allies. If Britain could no longer stand alone, there could only be one choice as between Washington and Moscow.

    Turning from the two excellent papers we have heard this afternoon, what brief general points can be made about the state of historical evaluation of Churchill’s career? First, it is clear that the official biography, a remarkable achievement in its way, cannot be the final word. Martin Gilbert’s decision to let the Churchill archive speak for itself, without much authorial conclusion-drawing, means that a massive task of analysis and evaluation remains. just one example of what I mean must suffice today.

    One of the striking things in Gilbert’s final volume is the relatively slight amount of time and energy Churchill devoted to fighting Attlee’s Indian policy. Yet this was the man who, only a few years before, according to Leo Amery’s recently published wartime diaries, had been so difficult and obstructive in war cabinet discussions about India that Amery pronounced him not completely sane on the subject.What turned 1944’s furious defense of the Raj into 1947’s almost calm acceptance of its demise? The answer would require a book in itself and I hope someone is even now planning a volume on “Churchill and the Raj.”

    Beyond studies of Churchill in relation to a single issue or problem there must someday be, what he clearly deserves: a great biography with the literary polish and historical insight Sir John Neale brought to his study of Elizabeth I or Lord Blake to his splendid life of Disraeli.

    Having said that there is still much to do in assessing Churchill, what interim verdicts might nonetheless be offered? Confining myself to World War II, which has been the focus of today’s session, I will offer one, which links with some of the themes Max Schoenfeld and Ted Wilson developed. As we gain more perspective on the years 1939-1945 it is clear that one of Churchill’s principal preoccupations, perhaps the preoccupation, was the problem of fighting a coalition war with two stronger partners while trying simultaneously to maintain intact the endangered fabric of Britain’s world position. It was an impossible assignment, but Churchill did more with less than any conceivable alternative British leader could have managed.

    Like his great ancestor Marlborough, Churchill was an excellent coalition operator. And it is becoming clear that he was far less wrong on strategy and operations than his postwar critics – American or British – liked to claim. In the twilight of his life he made occasional pessimistic remarks (curiously ignored by Gilbert) about what he had accomplished. In fact, during the war he had accomplished a remarkable amount, as all subsequent historical scrutiny has only served to confirm. Was the long term result for Britain of having fought that sort of war a mixed one? Probably. But as A.J.P. Taylor, no hero worshipper, once remarked, it was the sort of war the British wanted to fight. That being so, Churchill was the leader they needed. Nothing any of us write is ever likely to alter that great fact.

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