Winston Churchill's War Leadership (5 page)

During the Second World War Churchill was equally concerned about the human cost of the conflict, and not only to the Allies. At Chequers, after watching a short Royal Air Force film of the bombing of a German city, he commented to those present, “Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?” But he had no doubt that the war had to be fought; that the struggle was between the forces of democracy and human decency on the one hand and tyranny and dictatorship on the other.

No single aspect of Churchill’s war leadership was more intricate and more difficult than Britain’s relationship with the United States. The burden of this association fell on his shoulders. When Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty, President Roosevelt had opened up a secret correspondence with him and had shown a genuine concern for the fate of Britain, but Churchill knew that American neutrality—enshrined in the formal legislation of successive Neutrality Acts—and the isolationist pressures that had beset Roosevelt since his first presidential electoral victory in 1933 were barriers to aid from the United States on the scale required.

In the disastrous summer of 1940, with the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk (accompanied by a massive loss of equipment) and with the intensification of German bombing of factories and airfields throughout Britain, Churchill and those in the inner circle of government knew the precise details of Britain’s weakness on land, sea and air. Despite every effort being made to increase war production, Churchill knew that it was only through a massive contribution by the United States to every facet of Britain’s war-making arsenal that Britain could remain effectively at war. From the first to the last days of his premiership, the link to the United States was central to Churchill’s war policy. He spent more time and energy in seeking to obtain help from the United States than in any other endeavour. In the First World War, as Minister of Munitions, he had seen at first hand how decisive the arrival of American troops on the Western Front had been. From July 1917 to November 1918 he had worked in tandem with his American opposite number, Bernard Baruch, to secure the raw materials needed to prosecute the war to victory. In the interwar years he had written articles in the American press and broadcast to the United States across the Atlantic, urging Americans to realize that the conflict in Europe between democracy and dictatorship was also their conflict. While he reluctantly accepted that the United States would remain neutral in 1940, he also understood that he had the power to encourage Roosevelt to give Britain the military, naval and air supplies without which the future was bleak.

The British public knew almost nothing of this aspect of Churchill’s war leadership. His telegrams to Roosevelt, some 1,300 in all, dealing with every aspect of war strategy and planning, were of the utmost secrecy. Many of the decisions he and Roosevelt reached were equally secret. Without them, Britain’s danger would have been far greater. Every aspect of Britain’s war-making capacity was affected and enhanced by the American contribution. At the naval battle of Taranto in November 1940, Britain’s first major victory over the Italians, the location of the Italian fleet had been a triumph of aerial reconnaissance carried out by a squadron of Glenn Martin photographic reconnaissance aircraft newly arrived in Malta from the United States.

The American dimension was to continue to be central to Churchill’s leadership after the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941. Four days after Pearl Harbor, Hitler made his extraordinary mistake— fatal to him in the long run—of declaring war on the United States. Within a month of America’s entry into the war, Churchill persuaded Roosevelt to put the defeat of Hitler in Europe as a priority before the defeat of Japan in the Pacific. This decision ensured that the Allied invasion and liberation of Northern Europe would take place at the earliest possible opportunity. Churchill hoped it could be done before the end of 1942, but he accepted the reality that the build-up of American forces in Britain could not be completed until early 1944.

Despite the demands and pressures of war policy, which kept him at his desk and with his colleagues for many hours each day, Churchill was a very visible Prime Minister. His public face was an all-powerful facet of his war leadership, and he made considerable efforts to find time to be seen by the people. He was surprised to discover, at the height of the Blitz, that the Londoners he met within hours of their homes being destroyed, far from cursing him, greeted him with enthusiasm and exhorted him to defeat the enemy. His travels to bombed-out cities proved an enormous boost to public morale. His initially improvised two-finger “V-for-victory” sign became a cause for cheers and enthusiasm amid the devastation of a night bombing raid. Wherever he went, Churchill was acclaimed and cheered (even in 1945, when the crowds who were celebrating victory then went on to the polling booth and cast their votes against his Party). His military secretary and confidant, General Ismay, later recalled an episode on the third day of Churchill’s premiership: “I walked with him from Downing Street to the Admiralty. A number of people waiting outside the private entrance greeted him with cries of ‘Good luck, Winnie. God bless you.’ He was visibly moved, and as soon as we were inside the building, he dissolved into tears. ‘Poor people,’ he said, ‘poor people. They trust me, and I can give them nothing but disaster for quite a long time.’”

Another aspect of Churchill’s war leadership that impressed itself on those who saw him at close quarters was his personal example. In his conduct of the war, Churchill set an example for those around him of extreme hard work. His standards were high. “Each night, before I go to bed,” he told one of his Private Secretaries, “I try myself by Court Martial to see if I have done something really effective during the day—I don’t mean merely pawing the ground, anyone can go through the motions, but something really effective.” He was his own severest taskmaster.

The ability of those whom Churchill appointed—their exceptional abilities when crises came—was another aspect of his war leadership. Except in a totalitarian regime, a leader is only as strong as the sum total of those to whom he delegates responsibility. Churchill was a master of the art of delegation—a master and a past master, for his experience in working with subordinates was extensive. No man, however “Churchillian” (as the modern adjective has it), could manage the conduct of a war unless his subordinates were of the highest quality and he had confidence in their abilities. The machinery of war-making between 1940 and 1945 was vast. Every government department devoted its energies in one way or another to the conflict. A massive extension of factories and manufacture focused entirely on war production. Churchill sought the best possible leaders at every level of this national endeavour and supported them in their efforts. On one occasion, answering parliamentary criticisms that he was sluggish, he replied: “I am certainly not one of those who needs to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am a prod.”

There was no more visible aspect of Churchill’s war leadership than his daily scrutiny of what was being done across the whole range of execution of war policy. While relying with confidence on those to whom he had delegated the business of war, Churchill followed everything that was being done with a meticulous eye. This rigorous scrutiny had several purposes. First, to ensure that those in whom he had put his trust were carrying out their duties to the highest standard possible. Second, to give praise where it was merited. Praise and encouragement, while not so exciting to the historian as conflict and disagreement, were an essential part of Churchill’s “prod.” Third, to discover, and rectify, anything he thought was not going well or to suggest a more effective way forward.

Churchill’s daily Minutes constituted a stream of questions and questioning about what was being done and how. As he told a member of his Defence Secretariat: “It was all very well to say that everything had been thought of. The crux of the matter was—had anything been done?” To get things done, to ensure that policies that had been decided upon were not only being implemented but carried out expeditiously and effectively, was at the centre of Churchill’s daily work. As another member of his Defence Secretariat wrote, “His pugnacious spirit demanded constant action; the enemy must be assailed continuously.”

Churchill also had a mastery of detail that enhanced his war leadership over a wide range of complex issues. He had always been interested in the details of policies, however intricate, during his long political career. As First Lord of the Admiralty on the eve of the First World War, he had absorbed himself in the art of flying, had learned to fly (coming within a few hours of his pilot’s wings), and had made numerous suggestions for the improvement of flight and the development of aerial warfare. When war came in 1914, he put the resources of the Admiralty behind the evolution of the tank and made many technical suggestions for its development. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, before establishing pensions for widows and orphans and lowering the age for old age pensions, he studied the actuarial tables to the point where he could converse about them with his most knowledgeable officials.

While at the Admiralty between September 1939 and May 1940, Churchill had made many helpful suggestions about using dummy ships to deceive the Germans, about employing the convoy system to protect British vessels from German submarines, and about many other aspects of naval warfare. When needs became apparent, he made suggestions that often led to substantive and constructive change—as with finding alternate sources of labour to meet the labour shortage in the dockyards, or advancing plans for the placing of radar on ships (before the war he had helped the inventor of radar, Robert Watson-Watt, to obtain a higher priority for his invention). Those closest to Churchill saw his strength in matters of detail. Eric Seal, Churchill’s Principal Private Secretary at the Admiralty and later at Downing Street, wrote in a private letter after a stormy meeting in April 1940 about the course of the Norwegian campaign: “Winston is marvellous at picking up all the threads and giving them coherent shape and form.”

As Prime Minister, Churchill generated a stream of ideas for weapons, devices, enterprises and initiatives. He was a pioneer in the creation of amphibious tanks (the DD tanks—“Donald Ducks”—that were to come ashore at Normandy). He put forward effective proposals for the urgent repair of bombed airfields during the Battle of Britain. He took a personal interest in enhancing the heavy gun defences of Dover, which was under direct German bombardment from across the Channel. His concern for the public welfare led to probing questions about the availability of gas masks and the construction of air-raid shelters. He took a lead in ensuring that proper compensation would be given to those whose homes had been destroyed by German bombs. He monitored the secrecy and security of military plans with close attention and constant suggestions for improvement.

Weaponry and equipment had always fascinated Churchill: in 1895 his first Intelligence task, given to him by British Military Intelligence, had been to examine at first hand in Cuba the efficacy of the new Spanish rifle being used against the insurgents there. During the Second World War he kept a close watch on all weapons and equipment developments. In May 1942, after studying a plan for artificial harbours—an essential component of the cross-Channel landings two years later—he asked the experts to look into the possibility of floating piers that would “float up and down with the tide.” The anchor problem, he added, “must be mastered.” And the landing ships “must have a side-flap cut in them and a drawbridge large enough to overreach the moorings of the piers.” This was done, and the floating piers became an integral part of the harbours that were built—one for the British and one for the Americans. In April 1944, reading a proposal for the return of adult and child evacuees from Canada and the United States on board the converted troopship
Mauretania
, he wrote: “There must not be more people on this ship, with the women and children, than can be carried in the boats.” Attention to detail, to small detail, and yet always with a clear purpose: with the floating piers, to make the cross-Channel landings less dangerous; and with the lifeboats, to ensure the safety of the returning evacuees (aged seven and a half, I was on board that ship).

In all his requests for detailed studies and practical action, Churchill sought positive, hopeful, constructive answers. That, too, was an aspect of his leadership: the optimistic quest. As he wrote at the end of his suggestions for the floating piers: “Let me have the best solutions worked out. Don’t argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves.”

Churchill had enormous powers, both as Prime Minister and as Minister of Defence. Because he had established a National Government (he called it the “Grand Coalition”) and had brought members of all political parties into the highest positions, parliamentary opposition was effectively limited to a handful of malcontents whose dissatisfaction focused more on their exclusion from influence than on specific policies. But Churchill was careful not to abuse the power he had accrued. Reflecting on his new-found authority, he wrote, almost a decade later: “Power, for the sake of lording it over fellow-creatures or adding to personal pomp, is rightly judged base. But power in a national crisis, when a man believes he knows what orders should be given, is a blessing.” Twenty-five years earlier, when he had been forced out of office during the Dardanelles campaign, Churchill had written to his wife, “God for a month of power—and a good shorthand writer.” In 1940 he had both power and good shorthand writers; and he was to be Prime Minister not for a month but for almost five years.

Central to Churchill’s war leadership was his concept of the offensive: the need, as he saw it, to attack whenever possible, even when being attacked. The bombing offensive against Germany was a case in point: in its early stages it was relatively ineffective, and yet, from Churchill’s perspective, it constituted something that could be done, and could be seen to be done, to show that Britain did not have to sit back and accept whatever Germany might throw against it. In December 1939, while still at the Admiralty, Churchill had written to a War Cabinet colleague with regard to his own much postponed plan to drop aerial mines into the River Rhine to disrupt German military barge traffic: “The offensive is three or four times as hard as passively enduring from day to day. It therefore requires all possible help in early stages. Nothing is easier than to smother it in the cradle. Yet here perhaps lies safety.” That same month Churchill wrote to the First Sea Lord: “An absolute defensive is for weaker forces,” and he added: “I could never be responsible for a naval strategy which excluded the offensive principle.” He was delighted—“I purred like six cats,” he later recalled—when General Wavell sent him a plan for an attack in the Western Desert in November 1940: “At long last we are going to throw off the intolerable shackles of the defensive,” he told General Ismay, and added: “Wars are won by superior will-power. Now we will wrest the initiative from the enemy and impose our will on him.”