The First Lord of the Admiralty readies the British Royal Navy for war
and as the First Lord in 1914 and 1915
Winston Churchill oversaw tactical achievements and brilliant innovations
of military equipment.
But he also oversaw strategic and military failures
and lost his position in May 1915.
My name is Indy Neidell and welcome to another episode of who did what
in world war 1. Today's big star is Winston Churchill.
On November 30th 1874 Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill.
was born in his grandfather’s Blenheim Castle in Woodstock.
His grandfather the Duke of Marlborough had married into nobility.
Winstons father Randolph Churchill was a member of parliament
and a major player in the Conservative Party. His mother
Jenny Jerome was actually american. Winston had a younger brother John
who he remained close to until John's death in 1947.
Young winston studying at the best English boarding schools
finishing at Harrow in 1892 after graduation he applied
unsuccessfully for military service twice.
But he was accepted at Sandhurst the Royal Military Academy.
Winston had always hated school but he did like life at the Academy and
graduated near the head of his class.
His father died a year later likely of a brain tumor.
His mother would marry twice more. Now, Winston was admitted into the fourth
hussars regiment. The only divisional cavalry
Great Britain had at that time. They were to be transferred to India
but before transfer Churchill vacationed in Cuba and the USA
publishing several pieces about his travels in the Daily Graphic.
After several adventures in India he went to Africa and took part
in the campaign to defeat the Mahdi in the sudan taking part in the final battle.
Well it was more of a slaughter at Omdurman the last
real cavalry charge in British history. Churchill resigned from the Army
in May 1899. He ran unsuccessfully for the House of Commons in 1899
after which he went to South Africa and fought in the Second Boer War.
He actually went there as a war correspondent but fought actively
was captured by the enemy and escaped to neutral Portuguese Mozambique.
His escape made him for the first time a national hero.
He ran again for parliament in 1900 and was successful this time
and in March 1901 began to serve as a conservative MP.
A few years later though he would defect to the Liberal Party and when they won
the general election.
Churchill became undersecretary of state for the British colonies.
After this he was president of the Board of Trade overseeing the first
minimum wage law in Britain. In 1910 he became Home Secretary and in October 1911
became First Lord of the Admiralty. As First Lord
Churchill invested millions to compete with the German naval buildup making
sure there was no doubt the British fleet was the master of the Seas.
One of his most important innovations was to modernize the fleet and replace coal
with oil. Soon after the war broke out Churchill involved himself personally
in organizing the defensive of Antwerp which earned him some serious criticism.
Later in the fall he send part of the fleet down to the South Atlantic
where it would destroy the remnants of the German East Asia squadron
at the Battle of the Falklands. Churchills career as First Lord came
to a screeching halt in May 1915 after the failure
of both the attempt to force the Dardanelles and the bloody Gallipolli landings.
Churchill's plan and his tactical failure sent over 200,000 soldiers to their deaths
and Churchill lost his post when a new coalition government was formed.
They may well have been partly influenced by his betrayal of the
Conservative Party years before.
Many thought the Gallipolli marked the end of Winston Churchill's
political career. He spent that summer with his family and in the fall
he volunteered to fight in France taking a position as a major
in the sixth Royal Scots Fusiliers resigning his commission
just before the battle of the Somme the following summer. already that spring though
Churchill was stumping for his political resurrection and it wasn't only his opponents
who derided him for it. But on July 18
1917 Winston Churchill was made Minister of munitions by prime minister Lloyd George.
He served at this post till the end of the war and shortly after that
became Secretary of State for war and secretary of state for air.
Now after the war Churchill wrote several essays and a book
processing his war experience he believes that the western democracies
were responsible for never letting such a catastrophe happen again.
And there was still a risk of such a thing happening.
Turned out to be right. By the end of the war he had been discharged at the
responsibility for Gallipolli but his critics
never let him forget it and the public still viewed him
with skepticism and would for years but he had managed to accomplish quite a bit
especially in investing in new weapons. Foremost among them
the development of the tank which appeared in action near the end of the war.
And played an important part in the final months. He was also a prime mover
in the development of new aircraft and eventually a Royal Air Force.
Churchill was in many respects larger-than-life
and already in 1905 people where writing biographies of him.
And in spite of his wartime successes after the war
the observer wrote that he was a young man whose triumph
has yet to come. As we all know that triumph would come a quarter of a century
later with world war two.
But that war and Churchill's post-world War 1 life and career
are beyond the scope of this channel. But here are a few highlights:
He returned to the Conservative Party in 1924
and served as Chancellor of the Exchequer for five years bringing
Britain back
on the gold standard in 1925. He was out of office in the nineteen thirties
but as the second world war broke out he was once again
First Lord of the Admiralty and finally Prime Minister.
After the war he continued as leader of the Opposition and again prime minister
and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.
Churchill died at the age of 90 on January 24th 1965
exactly seventy years to the day after his father.
when he was born Britain was enacting laws
establishing a 56 our working week and when he died
it was beatlemania. Lot of changes even today.
Fifty years later he is still a big figure and in 2002
the BBC voted him most important British man of
all-time. In 2005 the Winston Churchill Museum
opened in London. So what do you think of churchill? He was certainly
a doer but how much did his personality actually harm him
and his career. Or did it? Let me know in the comments below and if you wanna learn more
about another major world war two players role in world war 1
click here for a bio of Hitler. Don't forget to subscribe to never miss
the action! See you next time.