Winston churchill (1874 - 1965) was a British statesman, politician, author, journalist, historian, and military man. He is known for having served as one of the main leaders during World War II. He also served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on two occasions; his first term began in 1940 and returned to office in 1951.
Churchill was charged with creating a strong coalition within the United Kingdom and quickly changed the results of the contest against Germany led by Adolf Hitler. His speaking skills earned him not only the support of Parliament, but the trust of the British people..
He came from a British aristocratic family, also had American ancestry. From a very young age, he stood out as a correspondent during several armed conflicts in which Great Britain was involved..
At the beginning of his public life he was a member of the Conservative Party, but soon joined the cause of the Liberal Party, with which he felt more affinity. In those years he reached several important positions such as that of Member of Parliament, a position for which he was selected for the first time in 1900..
At the beginning of the First World War, Churchill served as First Lord of the Admiralty, until the Battle of Gallipoli took place, due to which he was separated from the government for a time..
Then he returned to the head of the ministerial portfolios of Armament and State. Also at that time, Churchill was in charge of the Secretary of State for War and State of the Air, among other positions..
During the interwar period, Churchill constantly warned publicly about the threat posed by the Nazis, who were led by Adolf Hitler..
In 1940 he obtained the post of Prime Minister, then replaced Neville Chamberlain, who was characterized by his soft policy towards Germany. Churchill won the support of the majority of political sectors in Parliament in the face of the armed conflict.
In his second chance as prime minister, he took the reins of the country during the transition between George VI and his daughter Elizabeth II. During that period, he prioritized the UK's foreign relations.
He resigned in 1955 due to the physical and mental decay that he suffered not only because of his advanced age, but also because of having suffered two strokes..
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Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born on November 30, 1874 in Oxfordshire, England. He came into the world in Blenheim Palace, which had been his family's home for several generations..
He was a descendant of the Dukes of Marlborough, a British royal house created in 1702. Churchill came from a line of prominent politicians and military men. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had been a Member of Parliament, as was his grandfather John Spencer Churchill.
His mother, Jenny Jerome, came from a wealthy American family. Jerome and Churchill met in 1873 and married in Paris the following year..
When Winston Churchill was 2 years old his family moved to Dublin. There he was educated by a tutor and was in the care of a nanny named Elizabeth Everest.
He had a brother named Jack, who was 6 years his junior. Young Winston's relationship with his father was very cold and although he assured that he loved his mother a lot, he also affirmed that their treatment had been distant.
Almost all of their training was carried out in boarding schools, as was the custom in many of the noble and wealthy families of the time.
Around 1881 Winston Churchill was sent to St. George School, but he was never comfortable in the institution and was recognized for his misconduct and poor academic performance..
When he was 9 years old, the young Churchill was enrolled in the Brunswick School in Hove, where he obtained better grades. However, his demeanor remained.
In April 1888 he entered the Harrow School and demonstrated his intellectual qualities and his interest and talent for history. Then, Churchill had his first approaches with the letters when publishing some poetry and other texts in the magazine Harrovian from his house of studies.
His father insisted that he take a military career, and he did so, albeit with poor academic results..
After taking the test twice, he was admitted to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on his third attempt. Churchill received the position of cadet in the Cavalry and entered the Academy in September 1893.
He remained at the institution for 15 months, after which he graduated in December 1894, at the age of 20. He obtained the eighth position among the 150 young people who were received together with him.
When Winston Churchill was 21 years old, in 1895, he formally began his military career. At that time he secured an appointment as a second lieutenant in the Queen's Fourth Hussar Regiment, which was part of the British Navy..
Then, he began to receive a salary of 150 pounds a year. However, the recent graduate Churchill had not been in action yet. So the following year he used family influence to get sent to a war zone..
Winston Churchill's destination was Cuba. That was when he was able to observe the Cuban War of Independence. Churchill was part of a coalition with Spanish troops trying to quell the uprising.
Also during this period he used to spend time in the United States of America, a country that he deeply admired, both for its institutions and for its population..
At the end of 1896 Winston Churchill arrived in India. In the then British rule it remained for 1 year and 7 months. At that time he devoted himself to reading great works such as those of Plato or Darwin and the economist Adam Smith with whose ideas he felt great affinity..
He took advantage of his stay in India to cultivate himself intellectually and it was at this time that Winston Churchill discovered his political leanings and his positions on many of the most momentous issues of the time..
He never felt a cultural affinity with India or with his compatriots who were established there..
Despite the fact that Herbert Kitchener at first did not want to receive Winston Churchill in the campaign that was being fought in Sudan, in 1898 he had to do so since the young man used the influences he had in London to get signed up for that campaign..
Kitchener claimed that the boy only sought recognition and medals easily. However, Churchill had to participate in the battle that took place at Omdurmam as one of the members of the cavalry..
During his stay in Sudan he also served as a correspondent and later used that experience to publish one of his works called The river war.
Shortly before the outbreak of the Second Boer War, Churchill headed to South Africa to serve as a reporter. Around October 1899 he was made a prisoner of war in Pretoria. However, in December of the same year he managed to escape and went to Durban.
At the beginning of the following year he was appointed a lieutenant in the South African Light Cavalry and took part in the combat to liberate the siege of Ladysmith in Pretoria..
Since he was in India, Winston Churchill began working as a war correspondent and wrote for various English media such as The pioneer Y The Daily Telegraph.
The story of the Malakand Field Force It was the first book published by Churchill during that same time..
Later, while in Sudan, Churchill became part of the corps of columnists who wrote in The Morning Post, giving an inside view of what was happening in Africa.
Between 1899 and 1900 Churchill served as special envoy of the Daily Mail and the Morning post to the war zone in South Africa and those collaborations were later compiled into a book.
Upon returning from South Africa, he ran for the second time as a candidate for a seat in Parliament in the 1900 elections. On that occasion, he was the winner but that position did not provide a salary to the person who held it..
Then Winston Churchill used his experiences in the war to become an acclaimed speaker, and thanks to them he toured the United Kingdom and then the United States of America, where he met personalities such as Mark Twain and Theodore Roosevelt.
With this activity he managed to collect enough income to allow himself to devote his time to politics. From the beginning, Churchill considered himself a liberal by conviction but not in name since he was a member of the Conservative Party.
During his tenure as a member of Parliament in the House of Commons, Churchill gradually separated from conservative ideas and joined the Liberal caucus in 1904..
Finally, he was invited in 1906 to run for the Manchester North West district with the flag of the Liberal Party..
After allying himself with the Liberals, Winston Churchill obtained the position of Assistant Secretary of State for the Colonies, one of his first positions in the government cabinet. His superior was the Earl of Elgin, Victor Bruce.
He collaborated with the creation of the Constitution of the Transvaal Colony, in addition to that, he participated in the creation of the government of the Orange Free State in South Africa. His influence in Parliament was increased every day by his good performance as a statesman..
In 1908 Churchill received the position of president of the Directorate of Commerce in the government of Herbert Henry Asquith and remained in the position until 1910, when he was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs.
In 1911 Churchill was assigned to the post of First Lord of the Admiralty and held the position until 1915.
Winston Churchill had foreseen that the armed conflict against the Germans would be inevitable, so during the years before the Great War, he called in his speeches to be aware of German actions.
One of Churchill's most criticized performances in that period was his support for the Gallipoli campaign. In 1915 he resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty and was demoted to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster..
Shortly afterwards he decided to join the battle and participated in the war as an active member of the army on the Western Front.
In 1916 Winston Churchill returned to England and rejoined as a Member of Parliament, which was chaired by David Lloyd George. However, he was not immediately assigned to any relevant position..
It was not until 1917 that the government decided to put Churchill at the head of the Ministry of Armament.
When the greatest armed conflict known to mankind up to then was over, Winston Churchill was appointed by the English government as Secretary of State for War and Air..
From 1922 he was for a time without a party, since he lost the elections both that year and the next in the districts of Dundee and Leicester, respectively..
In 1924 he ran as a "constitutionalist", a term he himself chose to qualify for in the elections, in Epping and got a seat in Parliament. That same year he was granted the Chancellery of Finance of the United Kingdom where he was until 1929.
After his departure, Churchill spent time away from politics and focused on writing..
Winston Churchill was one of the first to warn, in the mid-1930s, of the risk to peace posed by the imminent rearmament of Germany after the First World War..
When England entered the conflict in 1939, Churchill was reassigned to the post of First Lord of the Admiralty. The following year, following Chamberlain's resignation, Churchill was promoted to the post of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom..
Churchill maintained a close relationship with the President of the United States of America Franklin D. Roosevelt, which allowed the close collaboration between both nations during the war..
He also formed an alliance with the Soviet Union, despite being a fervent opponent of socialism, as part of a strategy to be able to confront Hitler, who was the common enemy..
He remained in the position of prime minister of the nation until July 1945
Despite the fact that Winston Churchill was an undisputed leader of the British people, he was not seen as a man for the peace of the country, and that is why the people did not support the continuity of his government in the general elections.
In 1951 Churchill returned to the post of Prime Minister. That same year he held the post of Defense Minister until 1952.
Then he worried about the international projection and the role of England in foreign policy. This was not well seen by many who wanted the country to devote itself to internal affairs after having spent several decades in warlike conflicts..
Also from his role as prime minister he was in charge of collaborating with the transition between George VI and his daughter Elizabeth II, whose reign began in 1952.
Finally, Winston Churchill resigned as the nation's prime minister in 1955..
Churchill had faced health problems since before his second term as prime minister. In 1949 he had a cerebrovascular accident (CVA); that happened in France before he was invested in office.
But instead of resting, Churchill decided to return to the head of the nation. The physical exhaustion that this implied for his body had consequences of great magnitude when he suffered a second stroke in 1953.
The second episode had more severe sequelae, including a partial paralysis in the middle of the body, which he was able to mask from the members of Parliament, since the next day he continued to perform his duties without anyone noticing any anomaly..
However, in 1955, Winston Churchill decided to separate from his position and his successor was Anthony Eden.
After his retirement he stayed mainly at his home in London, although he also used to visit both the French coast and the United States of America..
He did not totally separate himself from public life, although his appearances gradually diminished and he finally stopped attending Parliament in 1965..
The queen proposed to create the Duchy of London for him and his family, but as it was a hereditary title, he did not accept it since his son did not wish to inherit the title..
Winston Churchill died on January 24, 1965 in London. The famous politician and statesman was 90 years old at the time of his death, which coincidentally occurred on the same day, but 70 years later than his father's..
The cause of his death was a heart attack that caused a cerebral thrombosis. He had been the victim of ten cerebrovascular episodes in his last years.
He had a state funeral, it is said that it was the largest that had ever existed in the world. Official envoys from more than 100 countries attended to pay their respects and was broadcast on television. His remains were deposited in his family's pantheon in Saint Martin, Blandon.
Some debate whether Churchill developed Alzheimer's in his old age, or whether the physical and mental degeneration was simply due to the number of illnesses he suffered at the end of his life..
Another point that is debated is whether the also English writer and historian had been struggling with depression. Some claim that this condition accompanied him for many years, but that he finally managed to diminish his abilities..
He was married to Clementine Hozier since 1908, she survived him for almost 12 years. With Clementine, Churchill had 5 children, named: Diana, Randolph, Sarah, Marigold and Mary.
- Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1907, this is the advisory body of the British monarch.
- In 1922 he received the Order of Companions of Honor, which is awarded for services to the nation..
- Member of the Royal Society in 1941.
- Member of the Privy Council of Canada n 1941.
- Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945.
- Order of Merit in 1946.
- In 1963, President J. F. Kennedy made him an honorary citizen of the United States of America..
- An Arleigh Burke-class destroyer was named USS Winston Churchill. That was the first warship named after an Englishman since the American Revolution. Similarly, other nations decided to honor Churchill by calling some of his ships.
- In 2002 he was declared "The greatest of all", in a poll carried out by the BBC news network in which they asked viewers who the 100 greatest Britons had been..
- It was the first common that was reflected in a British currency, since in 1965 it appeared in the British crown and in 2010 it appeared again in the same currency for being the 70th anniversary of his appointment as Prime Minister.
- Numerous structures and streets have been named in his honor, as have several statues and busts of Winston Churchill all over the world..
On May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill took over the leadership of the nation in one of the largest conflicts in the modern world: World War II. The whole country saw in him a strong leader who could stand up to Adolf Hitler, after having gone through Chamberlain's pacifist policy.
His oratory was one of the most remarkable elements, since with it he managed to direct the entire country, especially all the political parties, towards a direction with a firm step and with a single objective: to achieve victory at any cost..
Just three days after receiving the office, he gave one of his most famous speeches, which in Spanish is known as "Blood, sweat and tears", some of the most prominent fragments of it are:
I will say to this House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, effort, tears and sweat.".
We have before us a test of the most painful nature. We have many, many long months of struggle and suffering before us. You ask me: what is your policy? I will tell you: wage war by sea, land and air with all our power and with all the strength that God can give us; wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark and sad catalog of human crime. That's our policy.
You will ask: what is our objective? I can answer you with one word: victory, victory at all costs, victory despite terror, victory no matter how long and hard the road, because without victory there is no survival..
Let us be clear: there will be no survival for the British Empire, there will be no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, there will be no survival for the encouragement and drive of all generations, for humanity to advance towards its goals..
In 1940, he offered asylum to several monarchs who were displaced by the Nazi regime that was expanding throughout Europe..
Victory did not seem like a given when Churchill visited France in May 1940. However, he gave two brilliant speeches that assured him the support of Parliament to keep England in the conflict. The first was "We will fight on the beaches" on June 4:
We will go to the end, we will fight in France, we will fight in the seas and oceans, we will fight with increasing confidence and increasing strength in the air, we will defend our island, whatever the cost, we will fight on the beaches, we will fight on the landing strips, we will fight. In the fields and in the streets, we will fight in the hills.
We will never surrender, and even if, which I do not think for a moment, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starved, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and protected by the British fleet, would charge. with the weight of resistance, until, when it is God's will, the New World, with all its power and strength, advances to the rescue and liberation of the Old.
After these words, the English, who were down and without the intention of continuing to participate in the war, which they considered distant because it was a continental conflict, regained their courage and fighting spirit..
Days later Churchill gave another speech that transcended and managed to influence the mood of the English known as "The most glorious hour", which concluded as follows
Therefore, we learn to fulfill our duties, and thus bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last a thousand years, men will still say: "This was its most glorious hour.".
After Germany continued to advance, Churchill finally made his first speech in the US Senate. Pearl Harbor had already been attacked in previous days.
Winston Churchill was in charge of preserving and caring for the alliance with the United States of America, which was the main backing of the Western force.
Finally, in June 1944 the Normandy landings took place and the Allied advance began to recover the territory occupied by the Nazis. The following year the war actions ended after the death of Hitler and the taking of Berlin by the Soviet Union.
At that time, international relations were fundamental for Winston Churchill, who came to office again on October 26, 1951. He dedicated himself to taking care of diplomacy with those he considered the natural allies of England, the United States of America..
He faced the Mau Mau Rebellion that occurred in Kenya in 1951. His strategy was at the same time to send troops to contain the insurgents and guarantee greater freedoms to the territory. Tried to use a similar plan with the Malaysian Emergency.
However, his international efforts were not well received, as the English people were looking internally, seeking reconstruction and Churchill continued to see England as a powerful empire..
He resigned in 1955 and his successor was Anthony Eden, who had been his protégé for a long time..
- The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898).
- The river war (1899), originally published in two volumes.
- London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (1900).
- Ian Hamilton's March (1900).
- Lord Randolph Churchill (1906), published in two volumes.
- My African Journey (1908).
- The World Crisis (1923 - 31) published in six volumes:
1911 - 1914 (1923)
1915 (1923)
1916 - 1918 (Part 1) (1927)
1916 - 1918 (Part 2) (1927)
The Aftermath (1929)
The Eastern Front (1931)
- My Early Life (1930)
- Thoughts and Adventures (1932)
- Marlborough: His Life and Times (1933 - 38) originally published in four volumes.
- Great Contemporaries (1937).
- The Second World War (1948 - 53), published in six volumes:
The Gathering Storm (1948)
Their Finest Hour (1949)
The Grand Alliance (1950)
The Hinge of Fate (1950)
Closing the Ring (1951)
Triumph and Tragedy (1953)
- Painting as a Pastime (1948).
- A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956 - 58), published in four volumes:
The Birth of Britain (1956)
The New World (1956)
The Age of Revolution (1957)
The Great Democracies (1958)
- Savrola (1900).
- Story titled "If Lee Had NOT Won the Battle of Gettysburg", within the work If It Had Happened Otherwise (1931).
- Short story titled "The Dream" (1947).
- Mr Broderick's Army (1903).
- For Free Trade (1906).
- Liberalism and the Social Problem (1909).
- The People's Rights (1910).
- Parliamentary Government and the Economic Problem (1930).
- India: Speeches and an Introduction (1931).
- Arms and the covenant (1938).
- Step by Step: 1936-1939 (1939).
- Addresses Delivered (1940).
- Into Battle (1941). Also known as Blood, sweat and tears (Blood, Sweat and Tears).
- Broadcast Addresses (1941).
- The Unrelenting Struggle (1942).
- The End of the Beginning (1943).
- Winston Churchill, Prime Minister (1943).
- Onwards to Victory (1944).
- The Dawn of Liberation (1945).
- Victory (1946).
- Secret Sessions Speeches (1946).
- War speeches (1946).
- World Spotlight Turns on Westminster (1946).
- The Sinews of Peace (1948).
- Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 and 1948 (1950).
- In the Balance: Speeches 1949 and 1950 (1951).
- The War Speeches (1952).
- Stemming the Tide: Speeches 1951 and 1952 (1953).
- The Wisdom of Sir Winston Churchill (1956).
- The Unwritten Alliance: Speeches 1953 and 1959 (1961).
- Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches (1974).
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