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Winston Churchill - The Fraud

The Untold Truth About Churchill's Legacy

By T.P SchofieldPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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Winston Churchill’s demigod-like status is unrivaled in the field of British political history; he was a personification of "Britishness" encompassing the very values that put the "Great" in Great Britain. It is wholly unsurprising that in 2002 he was declared the "Greatest Briton" via a BBC nationwide poll, beating such luminaries as Shakespeare, Brunel, and Cromwell. However, is Winston Churchill’s prodigious legacy well deserved? Or are our impressions of him distorted; a mere propaganda-funded stratagem designed to dress up the atrocities of our modern history in the form of strong leadership.

It is no secret that Churchill believed in racial hierarchy, viewing the white protestant class as the top ranking in society, whilst people of African and Indian descent were amongst the bottom ranking. These views remained coherent and were truly apparent throughout Churchill’s life. During the Second Boer War (1899-1902) Churchill defended the use of concentration camps used to imprison the white Boers, the camps claimed the lives of 4177 women, 22,074 children under the age of 16, and 1676 men. Churchill later described the conflict stating "It was great fun galloping around," however wrote of his "irritation that Kaffirs should be allowed to fire on white men."

Churchill didn’t leave his racial prejudice in South Africa however; famously stating "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion," Churchill was vocal about his opinion regarding the Indian population, with his incongruous relationship with Gandhi well known. When discussing the 1943 Bengal famine he notably stated, "If food is scarce, why isn’t Gandhi dead yet?" Churchill opposed granting India freedom and thus viewed Gandhi as a threat to British Imperialist gains. It is widely viewed that the Bengal famine itself was a significant failing of Churchill, with his prejudicial actions demonstrating a lack of remorse to the Indian people, whom he viewed as inferior. Economist and Nobel Prize-winner Amartya Sen has actually proven that the famine, which claimed the lives of 3 million people, was caused by British Imperialist policy. Though the British cabinet pleaded with Churchill to send aid and resources, he simply refused. This immoral outlook was reiterated post-war also, when Churchill decided the mineral-rich highlands of Kenya should be reserved for solely white people. When rebellion broke out, 150,000 protesters were sent to prison camps, with electric shock torture, mutilations, and whippings rife for suspected rebels. Coincidentally Barack Obama’s grandfather was, in fact, a victim of Churchill’s Kenyan purge, enduring 3 years of torture. It’s thus no surprise Obama sent the White House's Winston Churchill Bust back to Britain during his presidential tenure.

One of Churchill’s most notable controversies was his few dalliances with chemical weapons. In 1918 Churchill, who was secretary for war at the time, wanted to take a hard line against the Bolsheviks. Britain had recently developed a chemical weapon known as M Device at Porton; Churchill aimed to use this chemical agent against the Bolsheviks. 50 thousand canisters were dropped via plane on the Bolshevik armies and strongholds during a 2-month period. Furthermore, Churchill wanted to use M Device against the rebellious tribes of North India, exclaiming in a memo to the India Office "They’re really troublesome, let’s gas them." When the Kurds rebelled against British rule in Iraq in the 1920s, Churchill again advocated for the use of poison gas stating; "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against the uncivilised tribes." It’s almost ironic that Churchill’s decision to stockpile 20,000 tonnes of poison gas in order to repel a German invasion was lauded as successful military strategy, when in recent times Syria’s "barbaric" arsenal of 1000 tonnes of mustard gas has been widely viewed as deplorable, and consequently destroyed in 2014 by the UN.

Winston Churchill’s iconic reputation undoubtedly stems from his wartime prowess, with his stoic presence and charismatic orating skills leading Britain against the tyranny of Hitler’s Germany. However, Churchill’s military actions are vastly more chequered than the history books often make out, I am going to draw upon three key examples at different stages of Churchill’s career in order to highlight his military failings.

As Brit’s we often memorialize such First World War battles as The First Battle of Ypres, The Marne, or The Somme however often ignorantly ignore the Gallipoli campaign, a key conflict that took place between February 1915 and January 1916. The architect behind the Gallipoli campaign’s naval strategy was Churchill, who at the time held the position of First Lord of the Admiralty. The primary aim of the campaign was to break the stalemate occurring on both the Eastern and Western Fronts by opening up a new battlefront on the northwest coast of Turkey. Churchill’s attitude was gung-ho, overzealous, and arrogant, all of which were reflected in the invasion’s failings. When the Allied Forces did in fact land on the Gallipoli peninsula, many landed in wrong areas resulting in heavy casualties and a break down in military strategy. The gamble ultimately resulted in an embarrassing military disaster with the lives of 46,000 Allied troops the price.

Churchill’s hubristic attitude was reiterated in the Norwegian campaign of 1940. After the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, it was widely anticipated that Hitler would turn his attention to the neutral state of Norway, thus sparking heated Commons debate as to how Britain should respond. The hypothesis was proven correct in April 1940 when Hitler dispatched troops to key parts of the Norwegian coast, thus provoking Britain to intervene. Warships were sent seemingly to every location bar the right one; with Churchill (who was First Lord of the Admiralty at the time) overruling the initial and arguably correct orders Home Fleet Commander Sir Charles Forbes, this in turn resulted in German occupation of Norway.

Finally, in regard to the Cold War, Churchill’s actions have been further scrutinized. During the 1945 Yalta Conference Churchill proceeded the essentially hand over the states of Poland, Hungary and Romania to Stalin’s Soviet Bloc in order to prevent Stalin from acquiescing Greece. It’s important to remember that these countries only retained independence in the 80s and 90s, with Churchill's impetuous attitude having long-term consequences for Eastern Europe.

Though the emphasis of public opinion regarding Churchill relies on his actions overseas, his record regarding domestic policy is again varied to say the least. His brash actions as Chancellor were highlighted in his attempt to control the value of British currency despite an overvalued fixed exchange rate; Churchill followed this course of action in order to return Britain to a central position in world finance; however the action merely exacerbated the great depression. Undoubtedly Churchill’s largest domestic conflict was against the trade unionists and miners and stems from an altercation in 1910. Riots began in November 1910 in South Wales because of disagreement between the workers and the mine owners, this disagreement led to the workers striking. When strikers clashed with police. Churchill, the then home secretary made the decision to send in soldiers. In 1911, a transport workers' strike in Liverpool led to clashes, and again Churchill sent in soldiers to resolve the conflict; shots were fired and 2 people died.

In this article, I have undoubtedly focused on the misgivings of Winston Churchill, when in fact Churchill’s tenure was undoubtedly rife with both monumental triumph and abject failure. However, we seem to live in an age of extremes; an age of simplified media, with the press insistent on portraying figures as heroes or villains. The reality, however, is simply not as clear-cut as that; and like any historical figure, his legacy is not plainly good or bad; it’s open to an array of opinion, interpretation, and judgment. It’s therefore essential to look at Winston Churchill not as a hero or a villain, but to glean from Churchill’s triumphs and learn from his failings. It’s only through this method that society can truly progress.

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