August 16, 2013

Finest Hour 118, Spring 2003

Page 44

AN INTERVIEW WITH JEANETTE HANISEE GABRIEL

Winston Churchill on the Nadir of His Grandfather’s Career

William Orpen entered the Army Service Corps in 1916 and was commissioned by Quartermaster General Sir John Cowans to paint senior political and military figures. Churchill’s portrait was done in Orpen’s London studio sometime after WSC’s return from France in May of 1916: a heart-rending and revealing portrayal of a tormented 41-year-old Churchill, grievously wronged and humiliated. It was painted after the disastrous failure of Allied forces to sail a fleet through the Dardanelles to take Constantinople, and the murderous slaughter of British and Anzac forces in the subsequent, abortive attempt to invade the Gallipoli Peninsula. The present Winston Churchill wrote in his biography of his father: “To this day the lies and misrepresentations arising from Churchill’s part in the affair show scant sign of abating.”

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CHURCHILL ON CHURCHILL

Jeanette Gabriel: Why is the Orpen portrait so reflective of your grandfather after the Dardanelles tragedy?

Winston Churchill: It was traumatic—one of the worst periods of his life. Even when he was in the trenches worst periods of his life. Even when he was in the trenches later in France, he implored his wife to make sure, if anything happened to him, that his side of the Dardanelles case was put forward. He joked that once he got to France he was the “escaped scapegoat.”

JHG: What is your view of the Dardanelles strategy?

WSC: I think that forcing the narrows was one of the few great strategic concepts of the Great War; had the fleet sailed through and appeared off Constantinople, it would have knocked Turkey out of the war as the ally of Germany, linked us with Russia, and given the Russians a line of supply through the Black Sea. It could have prevented the Russian collapse and the Bolshevik Revolution, with all its consequences for subsequent history.

His principal concern was the well being of the fighting men. Having been a soldier himself in India, the Sudan and South Africa, having some idea of the power of modern machine guns, he had a horror of British troops being asked to “chew barbed wire” on the Western Front. He had this wonderful gift of logical thinking. He said “If the front door is locked, then let’s try the back door, or come in through the windows.”

Under his impulse, the Admiralty developed two concepts. One was to seize Borkum Island in the Baltic. The second was to force the narrows of the Dardanelles. He signaled to Admiral Carden who was on the spot, who replied that it was possible.

Wanting to have “belt and braces,” my grandfather said, “right, we’ll plan on that.” But to be on the safe side, he asked Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, to provide troops in the event the army was needed to assist the navy by subduing the forts overlooking the straits. Meanwhile the Turks had mined the waters and in the assault many ships were lost to mines. There is debate as to whether a renewed attack would have succeeded, but there is no doubt that the forts were down to their last shells when the officer commanding, Admiral Carden, turned back. [See David Druckman, “Coming to Grips with Gallipoli,” Finest Hour 90.]

Kitchener was not prompt in sending troops. I suspect there was probably some professional jealousy and bad blood between them. On the Khartoum expedition in 1898, Kitchener had tried to prevent my grandfather from joining the campaign. The idea of a junior officer writing for the newspapers was bad enough, but writing a book (The River War) that proved highly critical of the Commander of Chief seemed like insubordination.

JHG: So he had created an enemy?

WSC: I think so. And then he had to work alongside Kitchener in the War Cabinet. I don’t know what their relationship was, but I believe it was part of the reason that Kitchener withheld troops until it was too late. The Turks had dug trenches and built barbed wire entanglements in the water in and around the Gallipoli Peninsula. It was a slaughter—but by then my grandfather no longer had any control. He was appalled that he had no part in the direction of the affairs. He felt they were being mishandled.

Vicariously, he was the one that people blamed, although I have to say that after he died the Gallipoli Association made me an honorary member. There were still many veterans alive, and it showed me that they bore no grudge whatsoever toward my grandfather.

JHG: It must have been very hard to keep hearing that the whole episode was his fault.

WSC: It was always a battle for him, and became a cheap way of attacking Churchills politically. Two years after his death I was fighting my first political battle in Gorton, Manchester. I was twenty-six. One day I was canvassing a street when to my horror I saw the chairman of my Young Conservatives being lifted bodily off the ground by his lapels, by a heftily built man wearing only a vest and braces. He said: “Your bloody granddad—he murdered everyone on the beaches of Gallipoli!” “Hold it,” I said, “It was my bloody granddad, not his, anyway you’ve got the story wrong.”

JHG: How did the family feel about it all?

WSC: In the spring of 1915, when my father was four, he would say his prayers: “God Bless Mummy and Daddy and God Bless the Dardanelles.” So the episode loomed large. Then suddenly, because of the Dardanelles, they were out of their home, Admiralty House, and on the street. There was no ceremony. When you go, you go that day—even if you’re prime minister.

• Next issue: Winston Churchill on the roots of the worlds affection for Sir Winston. 

Churchill Centre Associate Jeanette Gabriel is an art historian and curator in Santa Monica, California.