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{{Infobox Prime Minister| name = The Rt Hon Sir Winston Churchill | image = Winston Churchill.jpg| order = Prime Minister of the United Kingdom [1940 [1945| monarch = [George VI of the United Kingdom| predecessor = Neville Chamberlain| term_start2 = [26 October 1951 [1955[Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom| deputy2 = Anthony Eden| successor2 = [Anthony Eden| order3 = Chancellor of the Exchequer [1924 [1929| predecessor3 = [Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden| successor3 = Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden| birth_date = | birth_place = Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire,Oxfordshire, England, [London, England| burial_place =[St Martin's Church, Bladon, Oxfordshire, England
[Liberal Party (UK)| spouse =Clementine Churchill-->Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, [Order of the Garter, Order of Merit (Commonwealth), Order of the Companions of Honour, Territorial Decoration, Fellow of the Royal Society, Queen's Privy Council for Canada. (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a Politics of the United Kingdom who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman, orator and strategist, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army. He has been studied to a unique extent as part of modern History of the British Isles and History of the world. A prolific author, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his own historical writings.

During his army career Churchill saw combat with the Malakand Field Force on the Northwest Frontier, at the Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan and during the Second Boer War in South Africa. During this period he also gained fame, and not a small amount of notoriety, as a correspondent. At the forefront of the political scene for almost sixty years, Churchill held numerous political and cabinet positions. Before the First World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade and Home Secretary during the Liberal Government 1905-1915. In the First World War Churchill served in numerous positions, as First Lord of the Admiralty, Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. He also served in the British Army on the Western Front (World War I) and commanded the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. During the Interwar period, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

After the outbreak of the World War II, Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain in May 1940, he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and led the British war effort against the Axis powers of World War II. His speeches were a great inspiration to the embattled Allies of World War II. After losing United Kingdom general election, 1945, Churchill became the leader of the opposition. In 1951, Churchill again became Prime Minister before finally retiring in 1955. Upon his death, he was granted the honour of a state funeral which saw one of the largest assemblies of politicians in the world.

Early life A descendant of a famous aristocratic family, Churchill's birth name was Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. His family was the senior branch of the Spencer family, which changed their surname to Churchill in the late 18th century. They did this to highlight their descent from John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough who won the Battle of Blenheim (a battle that seemed world-decisive for the next couple of centuries); fought to deny Philip V of Spain his inheritance of the War of the Spanish Succession which ultimately failed. Sir Winston descended from the first member of the Churchill family to achieve public prominence. Likewise John Churchill's mother was a first cousin several times removed of Sir Francis Drake.

Winston's father, Lord Randolph Churchill, the third son of the John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough was also a politician; Winston's mother, Jennie Churchill (née Jennie Jerome), the daughter of American millionaire Leonard Jerome, was of mostly Colonial American, ultimately English people, descent. Churchill was born two months premature in a bedroom in Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, Oxfordshire on 30 November 1874. He arrived eight months after his parents' hasty marriage. He had one brother, John Strange Spencer-Churchill.

Churchill had an independent and rebellious nature and generally did poorly in school, for which he was punished. He entered Harrow School on 17 April 1888, where his military career began—within weeks of his arrival, he had joined the Combined Cadet Force.http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=638 Churchill earned high marks in English studies and history; he was also the school's fencing (sport) champion. He was rarely visited by his mother (then known as Lady Randolph), but wrote letters begging her to either come to the school or to allow him to come home. Churchill also had a very distant relationship with his father and Churchill once remarked how they barely talked to each other. Due to his lack of parental contact Churchill became very close to his nanny, Elizabeth Anne Everest, whom he used to call "Woomany".{{cite web| url = http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=764 | title = Lady Randolph in Winston's Boyhood | accessdate = 2007-04-26 | author = Douglas J. Hall | publisher = The Churchill Centre --> Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill - randomhouse.com

Speech impediment Churchill described himself as having a "speech impediment," which he consistently worked to overcome; after many years, he finally stated, "My impediment is no hindrance". Although the Stuttering Foundation of America has claimed that Churchill stuttering, the Churchill Centre has concluded that he lisped.{{cite web| url = http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=100 | title = Leading Churchill Myths: He stuttered | accessdate = 2007-03-10 | author = John Mather, M.D. | publisher = The Churchill Centre -->Churchill's impediment may also have been clutteringhttp://wvutoday.wvu.edu/news/page/5871/, which would fit more with his lack of attention to unimportant details and his very secure ego. Weiss suggests that Churchill may have "excelled because of, rather than in spite of his cluttering".{{cite book| first=Deso | last=Weiss | title= Cluttering | location = New Jersey | publisher= Prentice Hall, Inc. | id=LC 64-25326 | pages=58 | year = 1964 -->

Service in the Army Sandhurst After Churchill left Harrow in 1893, he applied to attend the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. However it took three attempts before Churchill passed the admittance exam. Once there, Churchill did well and he graduated eighth out of a class of 150 in December 1894. He was immediately commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars on 20 February 1895. In 1941, he received the honour of Colonel of the Queen's Royal Hussars#Privileges & Traditions.

Churchill's official biographer Martin Gilbert noted in a 1991 interview about his book, Churchill: A Life, that Churchill was accused of Sodomy other students while at Sandhurst. In the book Gilbert states that Churchill immediately filed a libel case against his accuser, who was the father of a young officer snubbed by Churchill and his peers in the Hussars. According to Gilbert the father withdrew the charge and settled out of court with Churchill for a sum of £400.Churchill: A Life, New York, 1991, ISBN 0805023968

War correspondent Churchill's pay as a second lieutenant in the 4th Hussars was £300. However Churchill believed that he needed at least £500 to support a style of life in keeping with other officers of the regiment. According to biographer Roy Jenkins, this is why Churchill took an interest in war correspondence. When Churchill finished training he asked to be posted to areas of action in which, against all etiquette, he earned additional income as a roving war correspondent for the London newspapers.

Bill Deedes explained to a gathering of the Royal Historical Society in 2001 about why Churchill went into the front line. "He was with Grenadier Guards, who were dry alcohol at battalion headquarters. They very much liked tea and condensed milk, which had no great appeal to Winston, but alcohol was permitted in the front line, in the trenches. So he suggested to the colonel that he really ought to see more of the war and get into the front line. This was highly commended by the colonel, who thought it was a very good thing to do."

In 1895, Churchill travelled to Cuba to observe the Spanish fight the Cuban guerrillas; he had obtained a commission to write about the conflict from the Daily Graphic. To Churchill's delight, he came under fire for the first time on his twenty-first birthday.{{cite web| url = http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=638 | title = Lt. Churchill: 4th Queen's Own Hussars | accessdate = 2007-02-26 | last = Russell | first = Douglas S. | date = 1995-10-28 | publisher = Churchill Centre--> Churchill soon received word that his nanny, Mrs Everest, was dying; he then returned to England and stayed with her for a week until she died. He wrote in his journal ''"She was my favourite friend."'' In Churchill's ''[My Early Life'' he wrote "She had been my dearest and most intimate friend during the whole of the twenty years I had lived."

About this time he read Winwood Reade's Martyrdom of Man, a classic of Victorian atheism, which completed his loss of faith in Orthodox Christianity and left him with a sombre vision of a godless universe in which humanity was destined, nevertheless, to progress through the conflict between the more advanced and the more backward races. When he was posted to India and began to read avidly, to make up for lost time, Churchill was profoundly impressed by Darwinism. He lost whatever religious faith he may have had through reading Gibbon, he said and took a particular dislike, for some reason, to the Catholic Church, as well as Christian missions. He became, in his own words, "a materialist to the tips of my fingers," and he fervently upheld the worldview that human life is a struggle for existence, with the outcome the survival of the fittest. This philosophy of life and history Churchill expressed in his one novel, Savrola. He passed for a time through an aggressively anti-religious phase, but this eventually gave way to a more tolerant belief in the workings of some kind of Divine Providence.

Malakand In 1897, Churchill attempted to travel to both report and, if necessary, fight in the Greco-Turkish War (1897), but this conflict effectively ended before he could arrive. Later, while preparing for a leave in England, Churchill heard that three brigades of the British Army were going to Siege of Malakand against a Pashtun tribe and he asked his superior officer if he could join the fight. He fought under the command of General Jeffery, who was the commander of the second brigade operating in Malakand, in what is now Pakistan. Jeffery sent fifteen scouts and Churchill to explore the Mamund Valley; while on reconnaissance, they encountered an enemy tribe, dismounted from their horses and opened fire. After an hour of shooting, their reinforcements, the 35th Sikhs arrived, and the fire gradually ceased and the brigade and the Sikhs marched on. Hundreds of tribesmen then ambushed them and opened fire forcing them to retreat. As they were retreating four men were carrying an injured officer but the fierceness of the fight forced them to leave him behind. The man who was left behind was slashed to death in front of Churchill’s eyes; afterwards he wrote, "I forgot everything else at this moment except a desire to kill this man". However the Sikhs' numbers were being depleted so the next commanding officer told Churchill to get the rest of the men and boys to safety.

Before he left he asked for a note so he would not be charged with desertion. He received the note, quickly signed, and headed up the hill and alerted the other brigade, whereupon they then engaged the army. The fighting in the region dragged on for another two weeks before the dead could be recovered. Churchill wrote in his journal: "Whether it was worth it I cannot tell." An account of the Siege of Malakand was published in December 1900 as the The Story of the Malakand Field Force. He received £600 for his account. During the campaign, he also wrote articles for the newspapers The Pioneer (daily) and The Daily Telegraph. His account of the battle was one of his first published stories, for which he received GBP5 per column from The Daily Telegraph.

Sudan , one of Churchill's first booksChurchill was transferred to Egypt in 1898 where he visited Luxor before joining an attachment of the 21st Lancers serving in Sudan under the command of General Herbert Kitchener. During his time he encountered two future military officers of the First World War - Douglas Haig, then a captain and Earl Jellicoe, then a gunboat lieutenant. While in the Sudan, Churchill participated in what has been described as the last meaningful British Charge (warfare) at the Battle of Omdurman in September 1898. He also served as a war correspondent for the Morning Post. By October 1898, he had returned to Britain and begun work on his two-volume work;The River War, an account of the reconquest of the Sudan published the following year. Churchill stood for parliament in 1899 as a Conservative Party (UK) candidate in Oldham in a by-election, which he lost, coming third.

South Africa After Churchill's failure at the election in Oldham he went to South Africa in 1899 to report on the Second Boer War as a war correspondent. On 12 October 1899, the war between Britain and the Boer Republics broke out in South Africa. Churchill was captured and held in a POW camp in Pretoria. Churchill escaped from his prison camp and travelled almost 300 miles (480 km) to Portugal Maputo in Maputo Bay, with the assistance of an English mine manager. His escape made him a minor Hero for a time in Britain, though instead of returning home, he rejoined General Redvers Henry Buller army on its march to relieve the British at the Siege of Ladysmith and take Pretoria. This time, although continuing as a war correspondent, Churchill gained a commission in the South African Light Horse Regiment. He was one of the first British troops into Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal and Pretoria; in fact, he and Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, his cousin, were able to get ahead of the rest of the troops in Pretoria, where they demanded and received the surrender of 52 Boer guards of the prison camp there.

In 1900, he returned to England on the RMS Dunottar Castle, the same ship on which he set sail for South Africa eight months earlier, and he published books on the Boer war, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and Ian Hamilton's March, which were published in May and October respectively.

Early years in Parliament After his failure to be elected in Oldham in 1899, he returned again to stand in the United Kingdom general election, 1900 (also known as "Khaki election#Khaki election, 1900"). In December, 1900, a dinner was given at the Waldorf-Astoria in honor of the young journalist, recently returned from his well-publicized adventures in South Africa. Mark Twain, who introduced him, had already, it seems, caught on to Churchill. In a brief satirical speech, Twain slyly suggested that, with his English father and American mother, Churchill was the perfect representative of Anglo-American cant. This time however he was elected; but rather than attending the opening of Parliament of the United Kingdom, he embarked on a speaking tour throughout Britain and the United States, in the process raising ten thousand pounds for himself. (Members of Parliament were unpaid in those days and Churchill was not rich by the standards of other MPs at that time.) In both these elections, his campaign expenses were paid by his cousin the 9th Duke of Marlborough.(p37 "The Aristocratic Adventurer by David Cannadine originally an essay entitled Churchill: The Aristocratic Adventurer" in "Aspects of Aristocracy" )

In Parliament, Churchill became associated with a group of Tory dissidents led by Hugh Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood called the Hughligans, a play of words on "hooligans". During his first parliamentary session, Churchill provoked controversy by opposing what he viewed as the government's extravagant Military budget.Roy Jenkins Churchill (Macmillan, 2001), pages 74-76 ISBN 0-333-78290-9 By 1903, he was drawing away from Lord Hugh's views. He also opposed the Liberal Unionist leader Joseph Chamberlain, whose party was in coalition with the Conservatives. Chamberlain proposed extensive tariffs intended to protect Britain's economic dominance. This earned Churchill the detestation of his own supporters—indeed, Conservative backbenchers even staged a walkout once while he was speaking.Roy Jenkins Churchill (Macmillan, 2001), page 86 ISBN 0-333-78290-9 His own constituency effectively deselected him, although he continued to sit for Oldham until the next general election.

In 1904, Churchill's dissatisfaction with the Conservatives had grown so strong that, on returning from the Whitsun recess, he Crossing the floor to sit as a member of the Liberal Party (UK). It was rumoured at the time that his real reason in doing so was that he would receive an official salary.(Cannadine op cit 27) As a Liberal, he continued to campaign for free trade. He won the seat of Manchester North West (UK Parliament constituency) (carefully selected for him by the party - his electoral expenses were paid for by his uncle Edward Marjoribanks, 2nd Baron Tweedmouth, a senior LiberalSee Cannadine op cit p3) in the United Kingdom general election, 1906. As a Liberal, Churchill played an instrumental role in passing a law that established a minimum wage in Britain.

From 1903 until 1905, Churchill was also engaged in writing Lord Randolph Churchill (book), a two-volume biography of his father which was published in 1906 and received much critical acclaim.Roy Jenkins Churchill (Macmillan, 2001), pages 102-103 ISBN 0-333-78290-9 However, filial devotion caused him to soften some of his father's less attractive aspects.Roy Jenkins Churchill (Macmillan, 2001), page 101 ISBN 0-333-78290-9 Theodore Roosevelt, who had known Lord Randolph, reviewed the book as "a clever tactful and rather cheap and vulgar life of that clever tactful and rather cheap and vulgar egotist".Cannadine op cit 47 Some historians suggest Churchill used the book in part to vindicate his own career and in particular to justify crossing the floor.e.g. Cannadine op cit p 41, Robert Rhodes James - Churchill: A Study in Failure p34-35

Ministerial office Growing prominence When the Liberals took office, with Henry Campbell-Bannerman as Prime Minister, in December 1905, Churchill became Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. Serving under the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, Churchill dealt with the adoption of constitutions for the defeated Boer Republics of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony and with the issue of 'Chinese slavery' in South African mines. He also became a prominent spokesman on free trade.

Churchill became the most prominent member of the Government outside the Cabinet, and when Campbell-Bannerman was succeeded by Herbert Henry Asquith in 1908, it came as little surprise when Churchill was promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. Under the law at the time, a newly appointed Cabinet Minister was obliged to seek re-election at a by-election. Churchill lost his Manchester seat to the Conservative William Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount Brentford but was soon elected in another by-election at Dundee (UK Parliament constituency). As President of the Board of Trade, he pursued radical social reforms known as the Liberal reforms, enacted in conjunction with David Lloyd George, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. Most notable amongst these was the People's Budget that led to the downfall of the House of Lords as well as the opposition of Navy building by then First Lord of the Admiralty, Reginald McKenna.

1911In 1910, Churchill was promoted to Home Secretary, where he was to prove somewhat controversial. On society he commented that "The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate...I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed" - Churchill to Asquith, 1910. A famous photograph from the time shows the impetuous Churchill at the scene of the January 1911 Siege of Sidney Street, peering around a corner to view a gun battle between cornered anarchists and Scots Guards. His role attracted much criticism. The building under siege caught fire and Churchill supported the decision to deny the Firefighter access, forcing the criminals to choose surrender or death. Arthur Balfour asked, "He and a photographer were both risking valuable lives. I understand what the photographer was doing but what was the Right Honourable gentleman doing?"

1910 also saw Churchill preventing the army being used to deal with a Tonypandy Riot mine in Tonypandy. Initially, Churchill blocked the use of troops fearing a repeat of the Bloody Sunday 1887 in Trafalgar Square. Nevertheless, troops were deployed to protect the mines and to avoid riots when thirteen strikers were tried for minor offences, an action that broke the tradition of not involving the military in civil affairs and led to lingering dislike for Churchill in Wales.

First Lord of the Admiralty In 1911, Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty, a post he held into World War I. He gave impetus to reform efforts, including development of naval aviation {he undertook flying lessons himself http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=347553}, tanks, and the switch in fuel from coal to oil, a massive engineering task, also depending on securing Mesopotamia's Mineral rights, bought circa 1907 through the secret service using the Burmah Oil Company as a front company.

The development of the tank was financed from naval research funds via the Landships Committee, and, although a decade later development of the battle tank would be seen as a stroke of genius, at the time it was seen as misappropriation of funds. The tank was deployed too early and in too small numbers, much to Churchill's annoyance. He wanted a fleet of tanks used to surprise the Germans under cover of smoke, and to open a large section of the trenches by crushing barbed wire and creating a breakthrough sector.

In 1915, Churchill was one of the political and military engineers of the disastrous Battle of Gallipoli landings on the Dardanelles during World War I. Churchill took much of the blame for the fiasco, and when Prime Minister Asquith formed an all-party Coalition Government 1915-1916, the Conservatives demanded Churchill's demotion as the price for entry. For several months Churchill served in the sinecure of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, before resigning from the government, feeling his energies were not being used. He rejoined the army, though remaining an MP, and served for several months on the Western Front commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. During this period, his second-in-command was a young Archibald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso who later led the Liberal Party.

Return to power In December 1916, Asquith resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by David Lloyd George. The time was thought not yet right to risk the Conservatives' wrath by bringing Churchill back into government. However, in July 1917, Churchill was appointed Minister of Munitions, and in January 1919, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. He was the main architect of the Ten Year Rule, but the major preoccupation of his tenure in the War Office was the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Churchill was a staunch advocate of foreign intervention, declaring that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle".{{cite web| url = http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=282 | title = Cover Story: Churchill's Greatness. | accessdate = 2007-02-26 | author = Jeffrey Wallin with Juan Williams | date = 2001-09-04 | publisher = Churchill Centre --> He secured, from a divided and loosely organised Cabinet, intensification and prolongation of the British involvement beyond the wishes of any major group in Parliament or the nation — and in the face of the bitter hostility of Labour. In 1920, after the last British Armed Forces had been withdrawn, Churchill was instrumental in having arms sent to the Poles when they invaded Ukraine.

He became Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1921 and was a signatory of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which established the Irish Free State. Churchill always disliked Éamon de Valera, the Sinn Féin leader. Churchill, to protect British maritime interests engineered the Irish Free State agreement to include three Treaty Ports (Ireland) — Queenstown (Cobh), Berehaven and Lough Swilly — which could be used as Atlantic bases by Royal Navy.Paul Addison, 'Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer (1874–1965)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2007 http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk:80/view/article/32413, accessed 10 Sept 2007 Under cuts instituted by Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer and others, the bases were neglected. Under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement the bases were returned to the newly constituted Éire in 1938.

As the President of the Air Council, he advocated the use of tear gas against insurgents, arguing that it was ridiculous to "lacerate" a man with lead but "boggle" at making his eyes water.

Career between the wars Second crossing of the floor In 1920, as Secretaries of State for War and Air, Churchill had responsibility for quelling the rebellion of Kurds and Arabs in British-occupied Iraq. at the Yenice Station outside of Adana in south-east Turkey, on January 30, 1943In October 1922, Churchill underwent an operation to remove his appendix. Upon his return, he learned the government had fallen and a United Kingdom general election, 1922 was looming. The Liberal Party was now beset by internal division and Churchill's campaign was weak. Even the D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd, a Newspaper publisher, published vitriolic rhetoric about his political status in the city, particularly from David Coupar Thomson. At one meeting, he was only able to speak for 40 minutes when he was barracked by a section of the audience.{{cite web| last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | year = 1922 | url = http://www.nls.uk/digitallibrary/churchill/6.8.html | title = Churchill Howled Down | format = HTML | work = Churchill the Evidence | publisher = | accessmonthday = November 14 | accessyear = 1922 --> He came only fourth in the poll and lost his Dundee (UK Parliament constituency) to the Scottish Prohibition Party Edwin Scrymgeour, quipping later that he left Dundee "without an office, without a seat, without a party and without an appendix".{{cite web| url = http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=710 | title = All the Elections Churchill Ever Contested | accessdate = 2007-02-26 | last = Hall | first = Douglas J. | year = 1950 | format = HTML | work = Churchill and... Politics | publisher = The Churchill Centre -->

Churchill stood for the Liberals again in the United Kingdom general election, 1923, losing in Leicester, but over the next few months he moved towards the Conservative Party in all but name. His first electoral contest as an Independent candidate, fought under the label of "Independent Anti-communism," was a narrow loss in a by-election in a Abbey (UK Parliament constituency) — his third electoral defeat in less than two years. However, he stood for election yet again several months later in the United Kingdom general election, 1924, again as an Independent candidate, this time under the label of "Constitutionalist" although with Conservative backing, and was finally elected to represent Epping (UK Parliament constituency) - a statue in his honour in Woodford Green was erected when Woodford Green was part of the Epping constituency. The following year, he formally rejoined the Conservative Party, commenting wryly that "Anyone can rat parties, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat." {{cite web| url = http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/story/0,15803,1453251,00.html | title = Labour defector asks to return | accessdate = 2007-07-13 | last = | first = | year = 2005 | format = | work = | publisher = Guardian Unlimited -->

Chancellor of the Exchequer He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924 under Stanley Baldwin and oversaw Britain's disastrous return to the Gold Standard, which resulted in deflation, unemployment, and the miners' strike that led to the UK General Strike 1926.

His decision, announced in the 1924 Budget, came after long consultation with various economists and the board of the Bank of England. He held a dinner at which the economist John Maynard Keynes, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Sir Otto Niemeyer and others argued the case.

This decision prompted Keynes to write The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill, arguing that the return to the gold standard at the pre-war parity in 1925 (£1=$4.86) would lead to a world Great Depression. Interestingly, the pamphlet did not criticise the decision to return to the gold standard per se. However, the decision was generally popular and seen as 'sound economics' although it was opposed by Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook and the Federation of British Industries James op cit 207 ).

Churchill later regarded this as the greatest mistake of his life; he stated he was not an economist and that he acted on the advice of the Governor of the Bank of England, Montagu Norman. However in discussions at the time with former Chancellor McKenna Churchill acknowledged that the return to the gold standard and the resulting 'dear money' policy was economically bad. In those discussions he maintained the policy as fundamentally political - a return to the pre war conditions in which he believed James op cit 206 . In his speech on the Bill he said "I will tell you what it (the return to the Gold Standard) will shackle us to. It will shackle us to reality."

It was not only the return to the Gold Standard that later economists, as well as people at the time, criticised in Churchill's time at the Treasury. Rather it was his budget measures which, even given the consensus at the time that the budgets should be balanced were attacked as assisting the generally prosperous rentier banking and salaried classes (to which Churchill and his associates generally belonged) at the expense of manufacturers and exporters which were known then to be suffering from imports and from competition in traditional export markets. H Henderson The Interwar Years and other papers. Clarendon Press

The return to the pre-war exchange rate and to the Gold Standard depressed industries. The most affected was the Coal industry. Already suffering from declining output as shipping switched to oil, as basic British industries like cotton came under more competition in export markets, the return to the pre war exchange was estimated to add up to 10% in costs to the industry. In July 1925 a Commission of Inquiry reported generally favouring the miners, rather than the mine owners position. Attached to the report was a memorandum from Sir Josiah Stamp stating that the increased difficulties in the Coal industry could be entirely explained by the 'immediate and necessary effects of the return to Gold."

Baldwin, with Churchill's support proposed a subsidy to the industry while a Royal Commission prepared a further report

During the UK General Strike 1926, Churchill was reported to have suggested that machine guns be used on the striking miners. Churchill edited the Government's newspaper, the British Gazette, and, during the dispute, he argued that "either the country will break the General strike, or the General Strike will break the country." Furthermore, he controversially claimed that the Fascism of Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing, as it had, "a way to combat subversive forces" — that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of Communist revolution. At one point, Churchill went as far as to call Mussolini the "Roman genius… the greatest lawgiver among men."Picknett, Lynn, Prince, Clive, Prior, Stephen & Brydon, Robert (2002). War of the Windsors: A Century of Unconstitutional Monarchy, p. 78. Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 1-84018-631-3.

Political isolation The Conservative government was defeated in the United Kingdom general election, 1929. Churchill did not seek election to the Conservative Business Committee, the forerunner to the Shadow Cabinet. In the next two years, Churchill became estranged from the Conservative leadership over the issues of protective tariffs and Indian Independence Movement, which he bitterly opposed. He further distanced himself from the party as a whole by his friendships with press barons, financiers and people seen as unsound and by his political views.When Ramsay MacDonald formed the National Government (United Kingdom) in 1931, Churchill was not invited to join the Cabinet (government). He was now at the low point in his career, in a period known as "the wilderness years".

He spent much of the next few years concentrating on his writing, including Marlborough: His Life and Times — a biography of his ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough — and A History of the English Speaking Peoples (though the latter was not published until well after World War II). Though badly hurt when he was struck by a car in New York City on a North American speaking tour, he wrote a profitable article about the experience. He supported himself largely by his writing and was one of the best paid writers of his time.

His Ideology, set forth in his 1930 Romanes Election and published as Parliamentary Government and the Economic Problem (OUP) (republished in 1932 in his collection of essays "Thoughts and Adventures") (in America under the title Amid These Storms) involved abandoning universal suffrage, a return to a property franchise, proportional representation for the major cities and an economic 'sub parliament'. He continued to support Mussolini, in 1933 writing of him as 'the greatest lawgiver among men' Canadine op cit p52 . Some suspected him of wishing to become the "British Mussolini". Harold George Nicolson for example wrote in 1932 of a new Britain governed by Churchill and Oswald Mosley in his novel Public Faces.

Indian Independence During the first half of the 1930s, outspoken opposition towards the granting of Dominion status to India (see Simon Commission and Government of India Act 1935) became Churchill's major political focus. .

Churchill was one of the founders of the India Defence League, a group dedicated to the preservation of British power in India. In speeches and press articles in this period he forecast widespread British unemployment and civil strife in India should independence be granted to India. James op cit 260 .The Viceroy Lord Irwin who had been appointed by the prior Conservative Government engaged in the Round Table Conference in early 1931 and then announced the Government's policy that India should be granted Dominion Status. In this the Government was supported by the Liberal Party and, officially at least, by the Conservative Party.

This support as Churchill later wrote "brought about my breaking point with Mr Baldwin" The Gathering Storm p37 . Churchill denounced the Round Table Conference. He spoke at a public meetings at Manchester and Liverpool in January and February 1931 respectively. At both he forecast widespread unemployment into the millions and other social and economic problems in England if India became self governing. James op cit 259 . Though he would come to respect Mahatma Gandhi, especially after Gandhi "stood up for the untouchables",Gilbert, Martin. Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth * 1922-1939. (c)1976 by C&T Publications, Ltd.: p.618 at a meeting of the West Essex Conservative Association specially convened so Churchill could explain his position he said , "It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle-Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace...to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor." Ibid.: p. 390 . He called the Congress leaders "Brahmims who mouth and patter principles of Western Liberalism." speech on 18th March 1931 quoted in James op cit pg 254

In Parliament on 26th January 1931 he attacked the Government's policy saying that the Round Table Conference "was a frightful prospect" and that he would support "effective and real organisms of provisional and local government in the provinces." 247 House of Commons Debates 5s col 755 . He returned to the Parliamentary attack on 13th March. Baldwin answered him by quoting Churchill's own speech in winding up the debate for the Lloyd George Coalition government on Jallianwala Bagh massacre in which Churchill defended the cashiering of General Reginald Dyer. Baldwin continued by challenging Churchill and his other critics to depose him as leader of the Conservative Party. Hugh Martin Battle p229

Perhaps the incident that damaged Churchill's reputation within the Conservative Party the most was his speech on the eve of the Westminster St George's (UK Parliament constituency). In this normally very safe Conservative seat, the official Conservative candidate Duff Cooper was opposed by an independent Conservative supported by Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook and their respective newspapers. Both press barons had tried to urge specific policies on the Conservative Party - Rothermere opposed Indian home rule, Beaverbrook pressed for Tariff Reform under the slogan Empire Free Trade. Churchill's speech at the Albert Hall had been arranged before the date of the by election had been set James op cit p262 . But he made no attempt to change the date and his speech was seen as a part of the Press Baron's campaign against Baldwin. This was reinforced by Churchill's personal friendship with both but especially with Beaverbrook who wrote "The primary issue of the by-election will be the leadership of the Conservative Party. If..(the independent candidate wins) Baldwin must go" letter quoted in A J P Taylor Beaverbrook p 304 . Baldwin's position was strengthened when Duff Cooper won and when the civil disobedience campaign in India ceased with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact

Churchill's break with Baldwin was permanent. He never held any office while Baldwin was in Parliament. In 1947 Churchill said "I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill, but it would have been much better had he never lived." In the index to the Gathering Storm, Churchill's first volume of his History of World War Two, he records Baldwin "admitting to putting party before country" for his alleged admission that he would not have won the 1935 Election if he had pursued a more aggressive policy of rearmament. Churchill selectively quotes a speech in the Commons by Baldwin and gives the false impression that Baldwin is speaking of the general election when he was speaking of a by election in 1933 and omits altogether Baldwin's actual comments about the 1935 election "we got from the country, a mandate for doing a thing substantial rearmament programme that no one, twelve months before, would have believed possible".Robert Rhodes James, Churchill: A Study in Failure (Pelican, 1973), p. 343. This canard had been first put forward in the first edition of Guilty Men but in subsequent editions (including those before Churchill wrote the Gathering Storm) had been corrected. for full discussion see R Basset"Telling the truth to the People: the myth of the Baldwin "confession' Cambridge Journal November 1948

Churchill continued his campaign against any further transfer of power to Indians. He continued to predict bloodshed in India and mass unemployment at home. His speeches often quoted nineteenth century politicians and his own policy was to maintain the existing Raj. Some historians see his basic attitude to India as being set out in his My Early Life which was published in 1930 James op cit p258

German Rearmament Beginning in 1932 when he opposed those who advocated giving Germany the right to military parity with France James op cit285-6 Churchill spoke often of the dangers of Germany's rearmament.

He later, particularly in The Gathering Storm tried to portray himself as being for a time, a lone voice calling on Britain to strengthen itself to counter the belligerence of Germany.Picknett, et al., p. 75.. However George Ambrose Lloyd, 1st Baron Lloyd was the first to so agitate Lord Lloyd and the decline of the British Empire J Charmley p 1,2, 213ff .

Churchill's attitude toward the Fascist dictators was ambiguous. In 1931 he warned against the League of Nations opposing the Japanese in Manchuria "I hope we shall try in England to understand the position of Japan an ancient state...On the one side they have the dark menace of Soviet Russia. On the other the chaos of China four or five provinces of which are being tortured under Communist rule". James op cit p329 quoting Churchill's speech in the Commons In contemporary newspaper articles he referred to the Spanish Republican government as a communist front, and Franco's army as the "Anti red movement' James op cit p 408 . He supported the Hoare-Laval Pact and continued up till 1937 to praise Mussolini A J P Taylor Beaverbrook Hamish Hamilton 1972 p375 .In 1937 in his book "Great Contemporaries", Churchill wrote: "If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable (as Hitler) to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations". Speaking in the House of Commons, 1937 he said "I will not pretend that, if I had to choose between communism and Nazism, I would choose communism". In the same work, Churchill expressed a hope that despite Hitler's apparent dictatorial tendencies, he would use his power to rebuild Germany into a worthy member of the world community. "One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievements. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations" - From 'Great Contemporaries', 1937.

Churchill's first major speech on defence on 7th February 1934 stressed the need to rebuild the Royal Air Force and to create a Ministry of Defence, his second, on 13th July urged a renewed role for the League of Nations. These three topics remained his themes till early 1936. In 1935 he was one of the founding members of "Focus" a group which also included Sir Archibald Sinclair, Lady Violet Bonham Carter, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury, Wickham Steed and Professor Gilbert Murray. Focus brought together people of differing political backgrounds and occupations who were united in seeking 'the defence of freedom and peace' for a history of Focus see E Spier Focus Wolff 1963 . Focus led to the formation of the much wider Arms and the Covenant Movement in 1936.

Churchill was holidaying in Spain when the Remilitarization of the Rhineland in February of that year and returned to a divided England where the Labour opposition was adamant in opposing sanctions and the National Government divided between advocates of economic sanctions and those who said that even these would lead to a humiliating backdown by Britan as France would not support any intervention. Harold Nicholson's letter to his wife on 13th March summed up the situation " If we send an ultimatum to Germany she ought in all reason to climb down. But then she will not climb down and we shall have war... The people of this country absolutely refuse to have a war. We would be faced with a general strike if we suggested such a thing. We shall therefore have to climb down ignominiously " Diaries and Letters 1930-1939 p 249 Churchill's speech on 9th March was measured and praised by Neville Chamberlain as constructive. But within weeks Churchill was passed over for the post of Minister for Co-ordination of Defence in favour of the Attorney General Sir Thomas Inskip James op cit p333-337 .

This surprising appointment- it surprised Inskip as much as anyone - came despite advice to Baldwin to broaden his cabinet. Historians have variously seen it as Baldwin's caution in not wanting to appoint someone as controversial as Churchill, as avoiding giving Germany any sign that the United Kingdom was preparing for war and as avoiding someone who had few allies in the Conservative Party and was opposed as a war monger by many people in England A P Herbert for example wrote "I did think he rather enjoyed a war and after three years in the trenches in Gallipoli and France, I did not" A P Herbert Independen {{Infobox Prime Minister| name = The Rt Hon Sir Winston Churchill | image = Winston Churchill.jpg| order = Prime Minister of the United Kingdom [1940 [1945| monarch = [George VI of the United Kingdom| predecessor = Neville Chamberlain| term_start2 = [26 October 1951 [1955[Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom| deputy2 = Anthony Eden| successor2 = [Anthony Eden| order3 = Chancellor of the Exchequer [1924 [1929| predecessor3 = [Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden| successor3 = Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden| birth_date = | birth_place = Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire,Oxfordshire, England, [London, England| burial_place =[St Martin's Church, Bladon, Oxfordshire, England
[Liberal Party (UK)| spouse =Clementine Churchill-->Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, [Order of the Garter, Order of Merit (Commonwealth), Order of the Companions of Honour, Territorial Decoration, Fellow of the Royal Society, Queen's Privy Council for Canada. (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a Politics of the United Kingdom who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman, orator and strategist, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army. He has been studied to a unique extent as part of modern History of the British Isles and History of the world. A prolific author, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his own historical writings.

During his army career Churchill saw combat with the Malakand Field Force on the Northwest Frontier, at the Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan and during the Second Boer War in South Africa. During this period he also gained fame, and not a small amount of notoriety, as a correspondent. At the forefront of the political scene for almost sixty years, Churchill held numerous political and cabinet positions. Before the First World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade and Home Secretary during the Liberal Government 1905-1915. In the First World War Churchill served in numerous positions, as First Lord of the Admiralty, Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. He also served in the British Army on the Western Front (World War I) and commanded the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. During the Interwar period, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

After the outbreak of the World War II, Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain in May 1940, he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and led the British war effort against the Axis powers of World War II. His speeches were a great inspiration to the embattled Allies of World War II. After losing United Kingdom general election, 1945, Churchill became the leader of the opposition. In 1951, Churchill again became Prime Minister before finally retiring in 1955. Upon his death, he was granted the honour of a state funeral which saw one of the largest assemblies of politicians in the world.

Early life A descendant of a famous aristocratic family, Churchill's birth name was Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. His family was the senior branch of the Spencer family, which changed their surname to Churchill in the late 18th century. They did this to highlight their descent from John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough who won the Battle of Blenheim (a battle that seemed world-decisive for the next couple of centuries); fought to deny Philip V of Spain his inheritance of the War of the Spanish Succession which ultimately failed. Sir Winston descended from the first member of the Churchill family to achieve public prominence. Likewise John Churchill's mother was a first cousin several times removed of Sir Francis Drake.

Winston's father, Lord Randolph Churchill, the third son of the John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough was also a politician; Winston's mother, Jennie Churchill (née Jennie Jerome), the daughter of American millionaire Leonard Jerome, was of mostly Colonial American, ultimately English people, descent. Churchill was born two months premature in a bedroom in Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, Oxfordshire on 30 November 1874. He arrived eight months after his parents' hasty marriage. He had one brother, John Strange Spencer-Churchill.

Churchill had an independent and rebellious nature and generally did poorly in school, for which he was punished. He entered Harrow School on 17 April 1888, where his military career began—within weeks of his arrival, he had joined the Combined Cadet Force.http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=638 Churchill earned high marks in English studies and history; he was also the school's fencing (sport) champion. He was rarely visited by his mother (then known as Lady Randolph), but wrote letters begging her to either come to the school or to allow him to come home. Churchill also had a very distant relationship with his father and Churchill once remarked how they barely talked to each other. Due to his lack of parental contact Churchill became very close to his nanny, Elizabeth Anne Everest, whom he used to call "Woomany".{{cite web| url = http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=764 | title = Lady Randolph in Winston's Boyhood | accessdate = 2007-04-26 | author = Douglas J. Hall | publisher = The Churchill Centre --> Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill - randomhouse.com

Speech impediment Churchill described himself as having a "speech impediment," which he consistently worked to overcome; after many years, he finally stated, "My impediment is no hindrance". Although the Stuttering Foundation of America has claimed that Churchill stuttering, the Churchill Centre has concluded that he lisped.{{cite web| url = http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=100 | title = Leading Churchill Myths: He stuttered | accessdate = 2007-03-10 | author = John Mather, M.D. | publisher = The Churchill Centre -->Churchill's impediment may also have been clutteringhttp://wvutoday.wvu.edu/news/page/5871/, which would fit more with his lack of attention to unimportant details and his very secure ego. Weiss suggests that Churchill may have "excelled because of, rather than in spite of his cluttering".{{cite book| first=Deso | last=Weiss | title= Cluttering | location = New Jersey | publisher= Prentice Hall, Inc. | id=LC 64-25326 | pages=58 | year = 1964 -->

Service in the Army Sandhurst After Churchill left Harrow in 1893, he applied to attend the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. However it took three attempts before Churchill passed the admittance exam. Once there, Churchill did well and he graduated eighth out of a class of 150 in December 1894. He was immediately commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars on 20 February 1895. In 1941, he received the honour of Colonel of the Queen's Royal Hussars#Privileges & Traditions.

Churchill's official biographer Martin Gilbert noted in a 1991 interview about his book, Churchill: A Life, that Churchill was accused of Sodomy other students while at Sandhurst. In the book Gilbert states that Churchill immediately filed a libel case against his accuser, who was the father of a young officer snubbed by Churchill and his peers in the Hussars. According to Gilbert the father withdrew the charge and settled out of court with Churchill for a sum of £400.Churchill: A Life, New York, 1991, ISBN 0805023968

War correspondent Churchill's pay as a second lieutenant in the 4th Hussars was £300. However Churchill believed that he needed at least £500 to support a style of life in keeping with other officers of the regiment. According to biographer Roy Jenkins, this is why Churchill took an interest in war correspondence. When Churchill finished training he asked to be posted to areas of action in which, against all etiquette, he earned additional income as a roving war correspondent for the London newspapers.

Bill Deedes explained to a gathering of the Royal Historical Society in 2001 about why Churchill went into the front line. "He was with Grenadier Guards, who were dry alcohol at battalion headquarters. They very much liked tea and condensed milk, which had no great appeal to Winston, but alcohol was permitted in the front line, in the trenches. So he suggested to the colonel that he really ought to see more of the war and get into the front line. This was highly commended by the colonel, who thought it was a very good thing to do."

In 1895, Churchill travelled to Cuba to observe the Spanish fight the Cuban guerrillas; he had obtained a commission to write about the conflict from the Daily Graphic. To Churchill's delight, he came under fire for the first time on his twenty-first birthday.{{cite web| url = http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=638 | title = Lt. Churchill: 4th Queen's Own Hussars | accessdate = 2007-02-26 | last = Russell | first = Douglas S. | date = 1995-10-28 | publisher = Churchill Centre--> Churchill soon received word that his nanny, Mrs Everest, was dying; he then returned to England and stayed with her for a week until she died. He wrote in his journal ''"She was my favourite friend."'' In Churchill's ''[My Early Life'' he wrote "She had been my dearest and most intimate friend during the whole of the twenty years I had lived."

About this time he read Winwood Reade's Martyrdom of Man, a classic of Victorian atheism, which completed his loss of faith in Orthodox Christianity and left him with a sombre vision of a godless universe in which humanity was destined, nevertheless, to progress through the conflict between the more advanced and the more backward races. When he was posted to India and began to read avidly, to make up for lost time, Churchill was profoundly impressed by Darwinism. He lost whatever religious faith he may have had through reading Gibbon, he said and took a particular dislike, for some reason, to the Catholic Church, as well as Christian missions. He became, in his own words, "a materialist to the tips of my fingers," and he fervently upheld the worldview that human life is a struggle for existence, with the outcome the survival of the fittest. This philosophy of life and history Churchill expressed in his one novel, Savrola. He passed for a time through an aggressively anti-religious phase, but this eventually gave way to a more tolerant belief in the workings of some kind of Divine Providence.

Malakand In 1897, Churchill attempted to travel to both report and, if necessary, fight in the Greco-Turkish War (1897), but this conflict effectively ended before he could arrive. Later, while preparing for a leave in England, Churchill heard that three brigades of the British Army were going to Siege of Malakand against a Pashtun tribe and he asked his superior officer if he could join the fight. He fought under the command of General Jeffery, who was the commander of the second brigade operating in Malakand, in what is now Pakistan. Jeffery sent fifteen scouts and Churchill to explore the Mamund Valley; while on reconnaissance, they encountered an enemy tribe, dismounted from their horses and opened fire. After an hour of shooting, their reinforcements, the 35th Sikhs arrived, and the fire gradually ceased and the brigade and the Sikhs marched on. Hundreds of tribesmen then ambushed them and opened fire forcing them to retreat. As they were retreating four men were carrying an injured officer but the fierceness of the fight forced them to leave him behind. The man who was left behind was slashed to death in front of Churchill’s eyes; afterwards he wrote, "I forgot everything else at this moment except a desire to kill this man". However the Sikhs' numbers were being depleted so the next commanding officer told Churchill to get the rest of the men and boys to safety.

Before he left he asked for a note so he would not be charged with desertion. He received the note, quickly signed, and headed up the hill and alerted the other brigade, whereupon they then engaged the army. The fighting in the region dragged on for another two weeks before the dead could be recovered. Churchill wrote in his journal: "Whether it was worth it I cannot tell." An account of the Siege of Malakand was published in December 1900 as the The Story of the Malakand Field Force. He received £600 for his account. During the campaign, he also wrote articles for the newspapers The Pioneer (daily) and The Daily Telegraph. His account of the battle was one of his first published stories, for which he received GBP5 per column from The Daily Telegraph.

Sudan , one of Churchill's first booksChurchill was transferred to Egypt in 1898 where he visited Luxor before joining an attachment of the 21st Lancers serving in Sudan under the command of General Herbert Kitchener. During his time he encountered two future military officers of the First World War - Douglas Haig, then a captain and Earl Jellicoe, then a gunboat lieutenant. While in the Sudan, Churchill participated in what has been described as the last meaningful British Charge (warfare) at the Battle of Omdurman in September 1898. He also served as a war correspondent for the Morning Post. By October 1898, he had returned to Britain and begun work on his two-volume work;The River War, an account of the reconquest of the Sudan published the following year. Churchill stood for parliament in 1899 as a Conservative Party (UK) candidate in Oldham in a by-election, which he lost, coming third.

South Africa After Churchill's failure at the election in Oldham he went to South Africa in 1899 to report on the Second Boer War as a war correspondent. On 12 October 1899, the war between Britain and the Boer Republics broke out in South Africa. Churchill was captured and held in a POW camp in Pretoria. Churchill escaped from his prison camp and travelled almost 300 miles (480 km) to Portugal Maputo in Maputo Bay, with the assistance of an English mine manager. His escape made him a minor Hero for a time in Britain, though instead of returning home, he rejoined General Redvers Henry Buller army on its march to relieve the British at the Siege of Ladysmith and take Pretoria. This time, although continuing as a war correspondent, Churchill gained a commission in the South African Light Horse Regiment. He was one of the first British troops into Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal and Pretoria; in fact, he and Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, his cousin, were able to get ahead of the rest of the troops in Pretoria, where they demanded and received the surrender of 52 Boer guards of the prison camp there.

In 1900, he returned to England on the RMS Dunottar Castle, the same ship on which he set sail for South Africa eight months earlier, and he published books on the Boer war, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and Ian Hamilton's March, which were published in May and October respectively.

Early years in Parliament After his failure to be elected in Oldham in 1899, he returned again to stand in the United Kingdom general election, 1900 (also known as "Khaki election#Khaki election, 1900"). In December, 1900, a dinner was given at the Waldorf-Astoria in honor of the young journalist, recently returned from his well-publicized adventures in South Africa. Mark Twain, who introduced him, had already, it seems, caught on to Churchill. In a brief satirical speech, Twain slyly suggested that, with his English father and American mother, Churchill was the perfect representative of Anglo-American cant. This time however he was elected; but rather than attending the opening of Parliament of the United Kingdom, he embarked on a speaking tour throughout Britain and the United States, in the process raising ten thousand pounds for himself. (Members of Parliament were unpaid in those days and Churchill was not rich by the standards of other MPs at that time.) In both these elections, his campaign expenses were paid by his cousin the 9th Duke of Marlborough.(p37 "The Aristocratic Adventurer by David Cannadine originally an essay entitled Churchill: The Aristocratic Adventurer" in "Aspects of Aristocracy" )

In Parliament, Churchill became associated with a group of Tory dissidents led by Hugh Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood called the Hughligans, a play of words on "hooligans". During his first parliamentary session, Churchill provoked controversy by opposing what he viewed as the government's extravagant Military budget.Roy Jenkins Churchill (Macmillan, 2001), pages 74-76 ISBN 0-333-78290-9 By 1903, he was drawing away from Lord Hugh's views. He also opposed the Liberal Unionist leader Joseph Chamberlain, whose party was in coalition with the Conservatives. Chamberlain proposed extensive tariffs intended to protect Britain's economic dominance. This earned Churchill the detestation of his own supporters—indeed, Conservative backbenchers even staged a walkout once while he was speaking.Roy Jenkins Churchill (Macmillan, 2001), page 86 ISBN 0-333-78290-9 His own constituency effectively deselected him, although he continued to sit for Oldham until the next general election.

In 1904, Churchill's dissatisfaction with the Conservatives had grown so strong that, on returning from the Whitsun recess, he Crossing the floor to sit as a member of the Liberal Party (UK). It was rumoured at the time that his real reason in doing so was that he would receive an official salary.(Cannadine op cit 27) As a Liberal, he continued to campaign for free trade. He won the seat of Manchester North West (UK Parliament constituency) (carefully selected for him by the party - his electoral expenses were paid for by his uncle Edward Marjoribanks, 2nd Baron Tweedmouth, a senior LiberalSee Cannadine op cit p3) in the United Kingdom general election, 1906. As a Liberal, Churchill played an instrumental role in passing a law that established a minimum wage in Britain.

From 1903 until 1905, Churchill was also engaged in writing Lord Randolph Churchill (book), a two-volume biography of his father which was published in 1906 and received much critical acclaim.Roy Jenkins Churchill (Macmillan, 2001), pages 102-103 ISBN 0-333-78290-9 However, filial devotion caused him to soften some of his father's less attractive aspects.Roy Jenkins Churchill (Macmillan, 2001), page 101 ISBN 0-333-78290-9 Theodore Roosevelt, who had known Lord Randolph, reviewed the book as "a clever tactful and rather cheap and vulgar life of that clever tactful and rather cheap and vulgar egotist".Cannadine op cit 47 Some historians suggest Churchill used the book in part to vindicate his own career and in particular to justify crossing the floor.e.g. Cannadine op cit p 41, Robert Rhodes James - Churchill: A Study in Failure p34-35

Ministerial office Growing prominence When the Liberals took office, with Henry Campbell-Bannerman as Prime Minister, in December 1905, Churchill became Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. Serving under the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, Churchill dealt with the adoption of constitutions for the defeated Boer Republics of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony and with the issue of 'Chinese slavery' in South African mines. He also became a prominent spokesman on free trade.

Churchill became the most prominent member of the Government outside the Cabinet, and when Campbell-Bannerman was succeeded by Herbert Henry Asquith in 1908, it came as little surprise when Churchill was promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. Under the law at the time, a newly appointed Cabinet Minister was obliged to seek re-election at a by-election. Churchill lost his Manchester seat to the Conservative William Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount Brentford but was soon elected in another by-election at Dundee (UK Parliament constituency). As President of the Board of Trade, he pursued radical social reforms known as the Liberal reforms, enacted in conjunction with David Lloyd George, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. Most notable amongst these was the People's Budget that led to the downfall of the House of Lords as well as the opposition of Navy building by then First Lord of the Admiralty, Reginald McKenna.

1911In 1910, Churchill was promoted to Home Secretary, where he was to prove somewhat controversial. On society he commented that "The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate...I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed" - Churchill to Asquith, 1910. A famous photograph from the time shows the impetuous Churchill at the scene of the January 1911 Siege of Sidney Street, peering around a corner to view a gun battle between cornered anarchists and Scots Guards. His role attracted much criticism. The building under siege caught fire and Churchill supported the decision to deny the Firefighter access, forcing the criminals to choose surrender or death. Arthur Balfour asked, "He and a photographer were both risking valuable lives. I understand what the photographer was doing but what was the Right Honourable gentleman doing?"

1910 also saw Churchill preventing the army being used to deal with a Tonypandy Riot mine in Tonypandy. Initially, Churchill blocked the use of troops fearing a repeat of the Bloody Sunday 1887 in Trafalgar Square. Nevertheless, troops were deployed to protect the mines and to avoid riots when thirteen strikers were tried for minor offences, an action that broke the tradition of not involving the military in civil affairs and led to lingering dislike for Churchill in Wales.

First Lord of the Admiralty In 1911, Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty, a post he held into World War I. He gave impetus to reform efforts, including development of naval aviation {he undertook flying lessons himself http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=347553}, tanks, and the switch in fuel from coal to oil, a massive engineering task, also depending on securing Mesopotamia's Mineral rights, bought circa 1907 through the secret service using the Burmah Oil Company as a front company.

The development of the tank was financed from naval research funds via the Landships Committee, and, although a decade later development of the battle tank would be seen as a stroke of genius, at the time it was seen as misappropriation of funds. The tank was deployed too early and in too small numbers, much to Churchill's annoyance. He wanted a fleet of tanks used to surprise the Germans under cover of smoke, and to open a large section of the trenches by crushing barbed wire and creating a breakthrough sector.

In 1915, Churchill was one of the political and military engineers of the disastrous Battle of Gallipoli landings on the Dardanelles during World War I. Churchill took much of the blame for the fiasco, and when Prime Minister Asquith formed an all-party Coalition Government 1915-1916, the Conservatives demanded Churchill's demotion as the price for entry. For several months Churchill served in the sinecure of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, before resigning from the government, feeling his energies were not being used. He rejoined the army, though remaining an MP, and served for several months on the Western Front commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. During this period, his second-in-command was a young Archibald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso who later led the Liberal Party.

Return to power In December 1916, Asquith resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by David Lloyd George. The time was thought not yet right to risk the Conservatives' wrath by bringing Churchill back into government. However, in July 1917, Churchill was appointed Minister of Munitions, and in January 1919, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. He was the main architect of the Ten Year Rule, but the major preoccupation of his tenure in the War Office was the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Churchill was a staunch advocate of foreign intervention, declaring that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle".{{cite web| url = http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=282 | title = Cover Story: Churchill's Greatness. | accessdate = 2007-02-26 | author = Jeffrey Wallin with Juan Williams | date = 2001-09-04 | publisher = Churchill Centre --> He secured, from a divided and loosely organised Cabinet, intensification and prolongation of the British involvement beyond the wishes of any major group in Parliament or the nation — and in the face of the bitter hostility of Labour. In 1920, after the last British Armed Forces had been withdrawn, Churchill was instrumental in having arms sent to the Poles when they invaded Ukraine.

He became Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1921 and was a signatory of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which established the Irish Free State. Churchill always disliked Éamon de Valera, the Sinn Féin leader. Churchill, to protect British maritime interests engineered the Irish Free State agreement to include three Treaty Ports (Ireland) — Queenstown (Cobh), Berehaven and Lough Swilly — which could be used as Atlantic bases by Royal Navy.Paul Addison, 'Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer (1874–1965)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2007 http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk:80/view/article/32413, accessed 10 Sept 2007 Under cuts instituted by Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer and others, the bases were neglected. Under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement the bases were returned to the newly constituted Éire in 1938.

As the President of the Air Council, he advocated the use of tear gas against insurgents, arguing that it was ridiculous to "lacerate" a man with lead but "boggle" at making his eyes water.

Career between the wars Second crossing of the floor In 1920, as Secretaries of State for War and Air, Churchill had responsibility for quelling the rebellion of Kurds and Arabs in British-occupied Iraq. at the Yenice Station outside of Adana in south-east Turkey, on January 30, 1943In October 1922, Churchill underwent an operation to remove his appendix. Upon his return, he learned the government had fallen and a United Kingdom general election, 1922 was looming. The Liberal Party was now beset by internal division and Churchill's campaign was weak. Even the D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd, a Newspaper publisher, published vitriolic rhetoric about his political status in the city, particularly from David Coupar Thomson. At one meeting, he was only able to speak for 40 minutes when he was barracked by a section of the audience.{{cite web| last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | year = 1922 | url = http://www.nls.uk/digitallibrary/churchill/6.8.html | title = Churchill Howled Down | format = HTML | work = Churchill the Evidence | publisher = | accessmonthday = November 14 | accessyear = 1922 --> He came only fourth in the poll and lost his Dundee (UK Parliament constituency) to the Scottish Prohibition Party Edwin Scrymgeour, quipping later that he left Dundee "without an office, without a seat, without a party and without an appendix".{{cite web| url = http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=710 | title = All the Elections Churchill Ever Contested | accessdate = 2007-02-26 | last = Hall | first = Douglas J. | year = 1950 | format = HTML | work = Churchill and... Politics | publisher = The Churchill Centre -->

Churchill stood for the Liberals again in the United Kingdom general election, 1923, losing in Leicester, but over the next few months he moved towards the Conservative Party in all but name. His first electoral contest as an Independent candidate, fought under the label of "Independent Anti-communism," was a narrow loss in a by-election in a Abbey (UK Parliament constituency) — his third electoral defeat in less than two years. However, he stood for election yet again several months later in the United Kingdom general election, 1924, again as an Independent candidate, this time under the label of "Constitutionalist" although with Conservative backing, and was finally elected to represent Epping (UK Parliament constituency) - a statue in his honour in Woodford Green was erected when Woodford Green was part of the Epping constituency. The following year, he formally rejoined the Conservative Party, commenting wryly that "Anyone can rat parties, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat." {{cite web| url = http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/story/0,15803,1453251,00.html | title = Labour defector asks to return | accessdate = 2007-07-13 | last = | first = | year = 2005 | format = | work = | publisher = Guardian Unlimited -->

Chancellor of the Exchequer He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924 under Stanley Baldwin and oversaw Britain's disastrous return to the Gold Standard, which resulted in deflation, unemployment, and the miners' strike that led to the UK General Strike 1926.

His decision, announced in the 1924 Budget, came after long consultation with various economists and the board of the Bank of England. He held a dinner at which the economist John Maynard Keynes, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Sir Otto Niemeyer and others argued the case.

This decision prompted Keynes to write The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill, arguing that the return to the gold standard at the pre-war parity in 1925 (£1=$4.86) would lead to a world Great Depression. Interestingly, the pamphlet did not criticise the decision to return to the gold standard per se. However, the decision was generally popular and seen as 'sound economics' although it was opposed by Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook and the Federation of British Industries James op cit 207 ).

Churchill later regarded this as the greatest mistake of his life; he stated he was not an economist and that he acted on the advice of the Governor of the Bank of England, Montagu Norman. However in discussions at the time with former Chancellor McKenna Churchill acknowledged that the return to the gold standard and the resulting 'dear money' policy was economically bad. In those discussions he maintained the policy as fundamentally political - a return to the pre war conditions in which he believed James op cit 206 . In his speech on the Bill he said "I will tell you what it (the return to the Gold Standard) will shackle us to. It will shackle us to reality."

It was not only the return to the Gold Standard that later economists, as well as people at the time, criticised in Churchill's time at the Treasury. Rather it was his budget measures which, even given the consensus at the time that the budgets should be balanced were attacked as assisting the generally prosperous rentier banking and salaried classes (to which Churchill and his associates generally belonged) at the expense of manufacturers and exporters which were known then to be suffering from imports and from competition in traditional export markets. H Henderson The Interwar Years and other papers. Clarendon Press

The return to the pre-war exchange rate and to the Gold Standard depressed industries. The most affected was the Coal industry. Already suffering from declining output as shipping switched to oil, as basic British industries like cotton came under more competition in export markets, the return to the pre war exchange was estimated to add up to 10% in costs to the industry. In July 1925 a Commission of Inquiry reported generally favouring the miners, rather than the mine owners position. Attached to the report was a memorandum from Sir Josiah Stamp stating that the increased difficulties in the Coal industry could be entirely explained by the 'immediate and necessary effects of the return to Gold."

Baldwin, with Churchill's support proposed a subsidy to the industry while a Royal Commission prepared a further report

During the UK General Strike 1926, Churchill was reported to have suggested that machine guns be used on the striking miners. Churchill edited the Government's newspaper, the British Gazette, and, during the dispute, he argued that "either the country will break the General strike, or the General Strike will break the country." Furthermore, he controversially claimed that the Fascism of Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing, as it had, "a way to combat subversive forces" — that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of Communist revolution. At one point, Churchill went as far as to call Mussolini the "Roman genius… the greatest lawgiver among men."Picknett, Lynn, Prince, Clive, Prior, Stephen & Brydon, Robert (2002). War of the Windsors: A Century of Unconstitutional Monarchy, p. 78. Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 1-84018-631-3.

Political isolation The Conservative government was defeated in the United Kingdom general election, 1929. Churchill did not seek election to the Conservative Business Committee, the forerunner to the Shadow Cabinet. In the next two years, Churchill became estranged from the Conservative leadership over the issues of protective tariffs and Indian Independence Movement, which he bitterly opposed. He further distanced himself from the party as a whole by his friendships with press barons, financiers and people seen as unsound and by his political views.When Ramsay MacDonald formed the National Government (United Kingdom) in 1931, Churchill was not invited to join the Cabinet (government). He was now at the low point in his career, in a period known as "the wilderness years".

He spent much of the next few years concentrating on his writing, including Marlborough: His Life and Times — a biography of his ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough — and A History of the English Speaking Peoples (though the latter was not published until well after World War II). Though badly hurt when he was struck by a car in New York City on a North American speaking tour, he wrote a profitable article about the experience. He supported himself largely by his writing and was one of the best paid writers of his time.

His Ideology, set forth in his 1930 Romanes Election and published as Parliamentary Government and the Economic Problem (OUP) (republished in 1932 in his collection of essays "Thoughts and Adventures") (in America under the title Amid These Storms) involved abandoning universal suffrage, a return to a property franchise, proportional representation for the major cities and an economic 'sub parliament'. He continued to support Mussolini, in 1933 writing of him as 'the greatest lawgiver among men' Canadine op cit p52 . Some suspected him of wishing to become the "British Mussolini". Harold George Nicolson for example wrote in 1932 of a new Britain governed by Churchill and Oswald Mosley in his novel Public Faces.

Indian Independence During the first half of the 1930s, outspoken opposition towards the granting of Dominion status to India (see Simon Commission and Government of India Act 1935) became Churchill's major political focus. .

Churchill was one of the founders of the India Defence League, a group dedicated to the preservation of British power in India. In speeches and press articles in this period he forecast widespread British unemployment and civil strife in India should independence be granted to India. James op cit 260 .The Viceroy Lord Irwin who had been appointed by the prior Conservative Government engaged in the Round Table Conference in early 1931 and then announced the Government's policy that India should be granted Dominion Status. In this the Government was supported by the Liberal Party and, officially at least, by the Conservative Party.

This support as Churchill later wrote "brought about my breaking point with Mr Baldwin" The Gathering Storm p37 . Churchill denounced the Round Table Conference. He spoke at a public meetings at Manchester and Liverpool in January and February 1931 respectively. At both he forecast widespread unemployment into the millions and other social and economic problems in England if India became self governing. James op cit 259 . Though he would come to respect Mahatma Gandhi, especially after Gandhi "stood up for the untouchables",Gilbert, Martin. Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth * 1922-1939. (c)1976 by C&T Publications, Ltd.: p.618 at a meeting of the West Essex Conservative Association specially convened so Churchill could explain his position he said , "It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle-Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace...to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor." Ibid.: p. 390 . He called the Congress leaders "Brahmims who mouth and patter principles of Western Liberalism." speech on 18th March 1931 quoted in James op cit pg 254

In Parliament on 26th January 1931 he attacked the Government's policy saying that the Round Table Conference "was a frightful prospect" and that he would support "effective and real organisms of provisional and local government in the provinces." 247 House of Commons Debates 5s col 755 . He returned to the Parliamentary attack on 13th March. Baldwin answered him by quoting Churchill's own speech in winding up the debate for the Lloyd George Coalition government on Jallianwala Bagh massacre in which Churchill defended the cashiering of General Reginald Dyer. Baldwin continued by challenging Churchill and his other critics to depose him as leader of the Conservative Party. Hugh Martin Battle p229

Perhaps the incident that damaged Churchill's reputation within the Conservative Party the most was his speech on the eve of the Westminster St George's (UK Parliament constituency). In this normally very safe Conservative seat, the official Conservative candidate Duff Cooper was opposed by an independent Conservative supported by Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook and their respective newspapers. Both press barons had tried to urge specific policies on the Conservative Party - Rothermere opposed Indian home rule, Beaverbrook pressed for Tariff Reform under the slogan Empire Free Trade. Churchill's speech at the Albert Hall had been arranged before the date of the by election had been set James op cit p262 . But he made no attempt to change the date and his speech was seen as a part of the Press Baron's campaign against Baldwin. This was reinforced by Churchill's personal friendship with both but especially with Beaverbrook who wrote "The primary issue of the by-election will be the leadership of the Conservative Party. If..(the independent candidate wins) Baldwin must go" letter quoted in A J P Taylor Beaverbrook p 304 . Baldwin's position was strengthened when Duff Cooper won and when the civil disobedience campaign in India ceased with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact

Churchill's break with Baldwin was permanent. He never held any office while Baldwin was in Parliament. In 1947 Churchill said "I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill, but it would have been much better had he never lived." In the index to the Gathering Storm, Churchill's first volume of his History of World War Two, he records Baldwin "admitting to putting party before country" for his alleged admission that he would not have won the 1935 Election if he had pursued a more aggressive policy of rearmament. Churchill selectively quotes a speech in the Commons by Baldwin and gives the false impression that Baldwin is speaking of the general election when he was speaking of a by election in 1933 and omits altogether Baldwin's actual comments about the 1935 election "we got from the country, a mandate for doing a thing substantial rearmament programme that no one, twelve months before, would have believed possible".Robert Rhodes James, Churchill: A Study in Failure (Pelican, 1973), p. 343. This canard had been first put forward in the first edition of Guilty Men but in subsequent editions (including those before Churchill wrote the Gathering Storm) had been corrected. for full discussion see R Basset"Telling the truth to the People: the myth of the Baldwin "confession' Cambridge Journal November 1948

Churchill continued his campaign against any further transfer of power to Indians. He continued to predict bloodshed in India and mass unemployment at home. His speeches often quoted nineteenth century politicians and his own policy was to maintain the existing Raj. Some historians see his basic attitude to India as being set out in his My Early Life which was published in 1930 James op cit p258

German Rearmament Beginning in 1932 when he opposed those who advocated giving Germany the right to military parity with France James op cit285-6 Churchill spoke often of the dangers of Germany's rearmament.

He later, particularly in The Gathering Storm tried to portray himself as being for a time, a lone voice calling on Britain to strengthen itself to counter the belligerence of Germany.Picknett, et al., p. 75.. However George Ambrose Lloyd, 1st Baron Lloyd was the first to so agitate Lord Lloyd and the decline of the British Empire J Charmley p 1,2, 213ff .

Churchill's attitude toward the Fascist dictators was ambiguous. In 1931 he warned against the League of Nations opposing the Japanese in Manchuria "I hope we shall try in England to understand the position of Japan an ancient state...On the one side they have the dark menace of Soviet Russia. On the other the chaos of China four or five provinces of which are being tortured under Communist rule". James op cit p329 quoting Churchill's speech in the Commons In contemporary newspaper articles he referred to the Spanish Republican government as a communist front, and Franco's army as the "Anti red movement' James op cit p 408 . He supported the Hoare-Laval Pact and continued up till 1937 to praise Mussolini A J P Taylor Beaverbrook Hamish Hamilton 1972 p375 .In 1937 in his book "Great Contemporaries", Churchill wrote: "If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable (as Hitler) to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations". Speaking in the House of Commons, 1937 he said "I will not pretend that, if I had to choose between communism and Nazism, I would choose communism". In the same work, Churchill expressed a hope that despite Hitler's apparent dictatorial tendencies, he would use his power to rebuild Germany into a worthy member of the world community. "One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievements. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations" - From 'Great Contemporaries', 1937.

Churchill's first major speech on defence on 7th February 1934 stressed the need to rebuild the Royal Air Force and to create a Ministry of Defence, his second, on 13th July urged a renewed role for the League of Nations. These three topics remained his themes till early 1936. In 1935 he was one of the founding members of "Focus" a group which also included Sir Archibald Sinclair, Lady Violet Bonham Carter, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury, Wickham Steed and Professor Gilbert Murray. Focus brought together people of differing political backgrounds and occupations who were united in seeking 'the defence of freedom and peace' for a history of Focus see E Spier Focus Wolff 1963 . Focus led to the formation of the much wider Arms and the Covenant Movement in 1936.

Churchill was holidaying in Spain when the Remilitarization of the Rhineland in February of that year and returned to a divided England where the Labour opposition was adamant in opposing sanctions and the National Government divided between advocates of economic sanctions and those who said that even these would lead to a humiliating backdown by Britan as France would not support any intervention. Harold Nicholson's letter to his wife on 13th March summed up the situation " If we send an ultimatum to Germany she ought in all reason to climb down. But then she will not climb down and we shall have war... The people of this country absolutely refuse to have a war. We would be faced with a general strike if we suggested such a thing. We shall therefore have to climb down ignominiously " Diaries and Letters 1930-1939 p 249 Churchill's speech on 9th March was measured and praised by Neville Chamberlain as constructive. But within weeks Churchill was passed over for the post of Minister for Co-ordination of Defence in favour of the Attorney General Sir Thomas Inskip James op cit p333-337 .

This surprising appointment- it surprised Inskip as much as anyone - came despite advice to Baldwin to broaden his cabinet. Historians have variously seen it as Baldwin's caution in not wanting to appoint someone as controversial as Churchill, as avoiding giving Germany any sign that the United Kingdom was preparing for war and as avoiding someone who had few allies in the Conservative Party and was opposed as a war monger by many people in England A P Herbert for example wrote "I did think he rather enjoyed a war and after three years in the trenches in Gallipoli and France, I did not" A P Herbert Independen

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