Churchill is not as universally loved as you imagine. Do you think he could do no wrong?
No. Here are eighteen really bad decisions which can be arguably and authoritatively cited:
1. Deserting his natural home, the Conservative Party, at an opportune political moment (over the issue of Free Trade, which he later abandoned) only to be forced to return to the Conservatives afterward.
2. Going all-out to support the Dardanelles/Gallipoli operations in World War I without plenary authority to see them through.
Churchill and Admiral Fisher (Wikimedia Commons)
3. Misjudging his First Sea Lord, Admiral Fisher, who brought about his temporary political destruction in 1915.
4. Restoring the Gold Standard without commensurate reforms in taxation and wage policies.
5. Not listening to Bernard Baruch before investing in the great Wall Street bull market in the late 1920s.
6. Wasting political capital opposing the India Bill in the early 1930s.
7. Trying to skewer Samuel Hoare on an issue of Privilege when Sam’s Tory friends could stack the deck to protect him, despite his guilt.
8. Standing up for Edward VIII in the Abdication Crisis, long after the King had lost the right to support from anybody. Sir Martin Gilbert’s chapter on the Abdication (Winston S. Churchill, Vol. 5) provides the complete picture.
9. Launching too late the Norway campaign of April 1940, although some of the delay was due to Cabinet dithering.
10. Placing too much faith in the French Army in 1940.
11. Confusing the Germans’ World War II Blitzkrieg with the static warfare of World War I.
12. Believing that capital ships, like HMS Prince of Wales, were safe from hostile aircraft.
13. Believing that Singapore was invulnerable.
14. Believing he could trust Stalin.
15 Comparing Clement Attlee and the Labour Party to “a kind of Gestapo” in the 1945 General Election.
16. Staying on too long as Prime Minister in the 1950s.
17. Believing that personal diplomacy would make a difference in Soviet behavior after Stalin’s death.
18. Not interceding more forcefully to resolve the Anglo-American split over Suez in 1956.
Not everybody agrees with this list, but Churchill acknowledged some of it. In his book The Grand Alliance, over the February 1942 sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse, he writes: “The efficiency of the Japanese in air warfare was at this time greatly underestimated both by ourselves and by the Americans” (Chapter 12). During the Blitzkrieg in France, he writes, “I was shocked by the utter failure to grapple with the German armour, which, with a few thousand vehicles, was encompassing the ensure destruction of mighty armies” (Chapter 3).
Some historians consider the Dardanelles/Gallipoli campaigns unwinable, even had Churchill been in charge: (In the initial attack “by ships alone,” the Turkish forts may have been running short of ammunition, but their mobile batteries weren’t; in the invasion of Gallipoli there was no recent experience in “combined operations” to encourage a successful outcome.) Others question what would have been gained even if had the fleet got through the Dardanelles and appeared off Constantinople. Would Turkey have surrendered, as Churchill thought? These points are worthy of debate by thoughtful people.
Churchill’s faults like his virtues were on a grand scale. The latter outweigh the former but, as Professor Paul Addison wrote, “I always feel that, paradoxically, it diminishes Churchill when he’s regarded as super-human.”
See also a good, reflective piece by Douglas Hall: “Churchill the Great?” Why the Vote Will Not Be Unanimous.
