June 21, 2015

Finest Hour 100, Autumn 1998

Page 49

Q. What kind of relation did Churchill have with Prime Minister Menzies of Australia? [email protected]

A. The Australian historian, David Day, wrote a critical work, Menzies and Churchill at War (N. Ryde, NSW: Angus & Robertson 1986) which is worth reading for the negative side. But this has to be considered alongside Menzies’s own memoir Afternoon Light (London: Cassell 1967), and his WSC By RGM (Melbourne: Willkie & Co. 1965), limited to 500 copies, possibly available through an Australian library exchange.

Menzies was often frustrated by Churchill’s ideas about strategic priorities, especially with respect to the defense of Australia. In the end, however, Menzies came up with this summary, in Afternoon Light:

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“Years afterwards, in 1948,1 made a remark to Winston….’You realise,’ I said, ‘that five years after your death…clever young men will be writing books explaining that you were never right about anything!’ ‘Oh,’ he said in a friendly grumble, ‘you think so, do you?’ I retorted that, as he himself was an historian who had felt called upon to restore the reputation of the great Marlborough, he knew that such things could and would happen. ‘But!,’ I added, ‘not many years later, the clever young men will have been forgotten, and your name will be seen at the pinnacle.'”

Q. l have heard some rather disturbing comments to the effect that Churchill was prepared to sacrifice the Australians to achieve the liberation in Europe during WW2. Can you clarify or direct me to the text? -Peter Baker

A. The Australian antipathy to Churchill goes back to the Dardanelles/Gallipoli campaign in WW1, which many Australians say he conceived (wrong), and in which Aussie troops suffered the most casualties (far more British were killed and wounded, although the slaughter was epic on all sides). David Day (see above Q&A) has carried the antipathy forward into World War II with his book, which criticizes Churchill for leaving Australia undefended. Ironically, other critics complain that Churchill hesitated to invade France, when the cause for his hesitation was his memory of what happened to poorly led troops flung ashore on Gallipoli. Professor Day actually states that Robert Menzies was a contender for the British Premiership.

Q. Do you know the names of any of Churchill’s speechwriters?

A. That’s a fun question, which can best be answered by relating the experience of Churchill’s official biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert. Many years ago a junior minister asked Sir Martin who Churchill’s speechwriters were. “He didn’t use any,” replied Gilbert, incurring the indignant disbelief of Douglas Hurd, future Foreign Secretary of Great Britain.

Q. Please cite the oft-quoted remark of Churchill’s before World War II that Britain had nothing to fear from Japan. -Wendell Nix

A. Refer to the official biography, Winston S. Churchill, Vol. 5, Prophet of Truth 1922-1939, by Martin Gilbert, English edition (London: Heinemann 1976):

In 1925, Churchill as Chancellor was involved in budget considerations for the Washington Naval Treaty, which apportioned the capital ships of the UK, USA and Japan (Gilbert Chapter 6). WSC consistently downplayed the threat of Japan, and the quote most often cited by his critics is from his letter to Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, then Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, on 22 March 1925:

I do not believe Japan has any idea of attacking the British Empire, or that there is any danger of her doing so for at least a generation to come. If, however, I am wrong and she did attack us ‘out of the blue,’ I do not think there would be any difficulty in defeating her. She would not, as was the case with Germany, have any chance of striking at the heart of the Empire and destroying its power to wage war. We should be put to great annoyance and expense, but in three or four years we could certainly sweep the Japanese from the seas and force them to make peace.

It is interesting to read Churchill’s qualifications in this passage, considering what happened seventeen years later. His first sentence is often quoted out of context as an example of his lack of foresight (although, further in Prophet of Truth, he urges defense planners to take Japan into account as early as 1936; see index references to Japan from page 699 on). The later sentences show that he rather accurately summed up what actually happened (with, of course, American dominance) in 1942-45. Japan never did have the power to strike at “the heart of-the Empire”; and seventeen years is not quite a generation, but it’s close.