Page 48 - All About History - Issue 33-15

Hero or Villain?
WINSTON CHURCHILL

The
wholesale
bombingofDresden
killed more than
20,000; the target
wascivilian,not
military

More than 90 per cent of
Dresden was destroyed in
the Allied bombing raid

fiercely opposed appeasement and believed that, “The plain fact is that, in his absence, Britain
far from “peace in our time,” Neville Chamberlain’s
efforts could only end in disaster. would have made terms with Hitler”
As history has since proved, he was absolutely
right, and when Chamberlain resigned, it was
Churchill who assumed the office of prime with Hitler.” This claim is difficult to deny. Behind the heart of the British Empire, and these opinions
minister. He is familiar now as the immovable, the scenes, the government seriously considered echoed those of his contemporaries and the world
cigar-chomping statesman, a leader who defiantly appeasement, convinced that Britain’s forces were in which he was forged.
stated “we shall never surrender,” and never did, no match for those of Germany. Yet Churchill Surely one of the darkest moments in Churchill’s
who battled with the “black dog” of his depression would not hear of it. He was, as Isaiah Berlin administration occurred with his handling of the
to the end and shouldered the burden of a nation, stated, a man who believed in “the battle between Bengal famine in 1943. Millions died, and as the
but there were two sides to this complex figure, a simple good and simple evil,” and when Churchill people begged for wheat to feed those who were
darkness that belies his colossal reputation. addressed the cabinet, who were faced with the starving, Churchill continued to export rice out of
In the raging fires of the war that claimed more unthinkable task of committing a nation to war, his India even as Allied ships laden with grain sailed
than 60 million lives, it is not hard to see how take on the situation boiled down to one simple on by. Leo Amery, secretary of state for India, wrote
Churchill’s heroic reputation was forged. A master thing: the country must at least try to fight. that “on the subject of India, Winston is not quite
orator, he gave the nation the figurehead it needed; Yet this single-minded, unshakeable conviction sane,” and today historians continue to disagree on
unbending as granite, strong as steel and possessed in his own opinion was not always a good thing. Churchill’s part in the famine. Some argue that he
of a self-assurance that could lurch all too easily Just as he spoke freely on the matter of defending was focused on the broader canvas and the world
into arrogance. When he became prime minister, Britain, so too was he vocal on issues that to our war in which he was engaged, and that once he
there were few outside of his own party who eyes are indefensible. His belief that indigenous became aware of the extent of the catastrophe,
cheered him into the job. American and Australian people were displaced by he did take action to alleviate it. Others point out
Churchill’s status as a national hero rests, of “a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly Amery’s recollection of Churchill’s anti-Indian
course, on his masterful leadership of the nation wise race,” leaves the modern reader with a queasy diatribes in which he blamed the people for their
during wartime. Historian Max Hastings left little sense that this should not be how a hero sees the own famine as “they breed like rabbits,” and the fact
room for doubt when he stated: “The plain fact is world. Yet we cannot read statements such as these that he ignored reports of the famine as long as he
that, in his absence, Britain would have made terms in a vacuum: Churchill was a Victorian, a soldier in possibly could, choosing simply to do nothing.
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