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Why Winston Churchill is not really a war hero
Britain’s wartime PM would have been a truly great leader if he had atoned for his warmongering, says Peregrine Worsthorne
All wars, even necessary ones, are evil in some degree, not excluding the Second World War which may well go down in history as the most evil of all, if only because it resulted in the production and use of nuclear bombs. True, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not strictly war crimes but if not war crimes, then certainly legalised murder on a massive scale.
From which it follows that warmongering is also evil, and seldom has there been a statesman as good at glorifying war, and as indecently eager to wage war as Winston Churchill. All his works demonstrate his love of war, glamourise its glories and minimise its horrors.
Yet year after year shoals of books about Churchill appear - Andrew Roberts's Masters and Commanders is the latest one - which totally ignore how low under Churchill's leadership Britain had to stoop to conquer.
Churchill’s refusal to shoulder his burden of guilt is a huge disqualification for his place in this country’s pantheon
When the war was on, and for some decades thereafter, veneration of Churchill was absolutely understandable; part of the legitimate self-justification of a righteous nation fighting a necessary war. As a soldier in it I was as much uplifted by his upbeat rhetoric as everybody else; and as reluctant as everybody else after the war to see the ugly reality which the eloquence disguised.
But now my reaction is very different. Churchill's refusal ever to recognise the mote in his own country's eye or to shoulder the burden of his own individual guilt strike me as a major disqualification for his prime place in this Christian country's pantheon. Abraham Lincoln, who didn't hesitate to do public penance on both scores after the Civil War, puts Churchill to shame.
Truth to tell, warmongering is a far more damaging and infantile folly than is pacifism, and it is only by dimming Churchill's fame that this truth can ever again shine forth. ·
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Peregrine Worsthorne was a high profile columnist for the Daily Telegraph for whom I had an intense dislike, finding him far too right wing. Rather interestingly, though, this is the third article of his appearing in the Post with which comments I concur fully.
I was born during the war and my father was a very keen Churchill admirer, but as I became older and able to read and understand serious historical works, and think objectively, I found that my father's idol had feet of clay.
Dear Mr W. At first I could not believe what I was reading here. Like you, I was involved in WWII. You in a regular army, I in irregular underground resistence, what the French called Les Maquis. These were dark days when we listened on our clandestine radios for a ray of hope. Churchill and many others did bring same from London. As mentioned in earlier comments, who, living in those days, can forget the armadas of aeroplanes coming over from England to bombard the hated huns. Then liberty, in our case thanks to the Canadians, backed up by the Brits under Montgomery. For us Churchill will forever be that beacon of determination and true English courage. Reading you further, I have to agree that Churchill's less admirable role here in RSA did come to mind. As a child indoctrinated with English colonialism, he made mistakes here. But can one judge him and condemn him on this when compared with what he did for Europe in those dark days of the 40's, which were not of his choosing? To my knowledge, after he was voted out, he never went to war again. Sorry to disagree once again with you, warrior of the pen. Rgds Bob Visser - Joburg
Although Mr. Worsthorne can claim to have taken an active part in World War II, - unlike me who was born in 1944, I nonetheless refuse to accept his libellous description of Churchill as a war-monger.
Pacifism in the face of Hitler's murderous aims and achievements, - even before Chamberlain declared war in September, 1939, was no answer to such threats to civilisation. If, as Worsthorne concedes, this war was "necessary", then it had to be fought wirth weapons, not just words or propaganda. But if we had to use weapons to put Hitler back in his place, then the deaths of enemy combatants and even enemy civilians was inevitable. It may be true that the bombing of Dresden, for example, was "OTT" or excessive, but the war that is in view here was no minor "diplomatic upset" or skirmish but total war.
However, one point that nobody seems to recall is that Winston Churchill was far-sighted enough to foresee the equally dreadful consequences of the Soviets' conquest of Eastern Europe with their Iron Curtain, subjugation of sovereign nations like the Poles or Czechs, plus the consequent expansion of the Gulag Archipelago in the U.S.S.R. Perhaps Messrs. Worsthorne and Simmons would care to comment on the horrendous death-toll in those concentration and work camps, as on the Solovetsky Islands near St-Petersburg or in the frozen wastes of Kolyma?
I've always been of this opinion. Churchill's insistence on the blackout resulted in thousands of civilian deaths due to German bombers not knowing where they were and dropping on residential areas by mistake. And then there's Dresden, Churchill's real war crime.