The Last Lion Box Set: Winston Spencer Churchill, 1874 - 1965 (99 page)

But watercolors would not do. Being Churchill, whatever he did had to be done for the ages. He told Clementine:
“La peinture à l’huile est bien difficile, mais c’est beaucoup plus beau que la peinture à l’eau
.” She needed only that hint; she was off and running, and when she returned she brought a palette, canvases, an easel, a smock, and tubes. Unfortunately she had neglected to bring turpentine, and that aborted his first venture. Finally he was ready. Later he described his sensations on the threshold of that first attempt. With everything assembled, “the next step was to
begin.
But what a step to take! The palette gleamed with beads of colour; fair and white rose the canvas; the empty brush hung poised, heavy with destiny, irresolute in the air. My hand seemed arrested by a silent veto. But after all the sky on this occasion was unquestionably blue, and a pale blue at that. There could be no doubt that blue paint mixed with white should be put on the top of the canvas. One really does not need to have had an artist’s training to see that. It is a starting-point open to all. So very gingerly I mixed a little blue paint on the palette with a very small brush, and then with infinite precaution made a mark about as big as a pea upon the affronted snow-white shield. It was a challenge, a deliberate challenge; but so subdued, so halting, indeed so cataleptic, that it deserved no response.”
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At that most appropriate moment an automobile was heard in the drive, and out stepped Hazel Lavery, a neighbor, the wife of an artist, and a gifted painter herself. Her appearance was not a coincidence. Clementine was making up for the turpentine. Hazel strode up and said: “What are you hesitating about? Let me have a brush—the big one.” She splashed it into turpentine, socked it into the blue and white, thrashed it about on the palette, and delivered several huge, savage strokes on what Winston called “the absolutely cowering canvas.” Anyone could see, he wrote, “that it could not hit back. No evil fate avenged the jaunty violence. The canvas grinned in helplessness before me. The spell was broken.” He was delighted. This was his style; this was how he lived. It was inevitable that he should become an audacious painter, and a gaudy one; nothing that he ever touched was done by halves. “I cannot pretend to be impartial about the colours,” he wrote. “I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.” When he reached heaven he would “require a still gayer palette than I get here below. I expect orange and vermilion will be the darkest, dullest colours upon it, and beyond them there will be a whole range of wonderful new colours which will delight the celestial eye.”
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Eddie Marsh, who watched his first efforts, thought that “the new enthusiasm… was a distraction and a sedative that brought a measure of ease to his frustrated spirit.” In fact, it would be a solace to him for the next fifty years. He had, he believed, discovered the solution to anxiety and tension. Exercise, travel, retreat, solitude, forced gaiety—he had tried these and none had worked. “Change,” he now wrote, “is the master key. A man can wear out a particular part of his mind by continually using it and tiring it… the tired parts of the mind can be rested and strengthened, not merely by rest, but by using other parts…. It is only when new cells are called into activity, when new stars become lords of the ascendant, that relief, repose, refreshment are afforded.”
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He painted landscapes and still lifes; never people. For one of his studies of bottles he coined a word:
bottlescape
. The dazzling hues were always there, a kind of signature. He knew desperation, but never a gray day. Once, painting in a drab, monochrome countryside, he introduced a dramatic range of mountains which were not there. A puzzled companion asked if he had seen a mirage. No, said Churchill; he just “couldn’t leave it quite as dull as that.” In time he became very good. An art critic scrutinized his work at a Royal Academy exhibition and wrote: “I was bound to recognize that their creator is a real artist. His canvases bear the mark of the spontaneity of a sincere and exuberant, but undisciplined vocation. His landscapes are vigorous and sometimes sensitive. His use of colour is often happy…. I think his fame as a statesman has prejudiced his reputation as an artist.”
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At Hoe Farm he also rejoiced in the company of small children. Sarah was still an infant, but Diana was six and Randolph four, and his two nephews, Johnny and Peregrine, were also there. Long afterward Johnny would recall how, when he and his brother were given a box of Meccano—a kind of Erector Set—they started building a cantilever crane in the farmhouse dining room. Their uncle appeared, puffing on a cigar. He watched thoughtfully for a while, and then murmured: “Hm. A bascule bridge would be better, you know.” Johnny explained that they hadn’t enough pieces. Churchill waved his hand impatiently, summoned a servant, and sent her out to buy several Meccano boxes. Then, Johnny remembers, he “took off his coat and began preparing the largest model bascule bridge ever…. The final construction was a gigantic piece of engineering some fifteen feet long and eight feet high, with a roadway which could be lifted by means of wheels, pulleys and yards of string.” It was so big that the dining room became unusable. The family had to eat elsewhere.
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He also played “gorilla” with the children. Donning his oldest clothes, he would lurk behind shrubbery, waiting for one of them to appear. When one did, he would leap out roaring “Grr! Grr!” and advance menacingly, his arms swinging limply at his sides. “The realism was alarming,” Johnny recalls, “but we squealed with delight and enjoyed this exclusive performance hugely. Few people can say that they have seen an ex–First Lord of the Admiralty crouching in the branches of an oak, baring his teeth and pounding his chest with his fists.” Winston’s son remembered that when his father dropped from a limb, “we would all scatter in various directions. He would pursue us and the one he caught would be the loser.”
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In the Dardanelles Committee the ex–first lord was less effective, but he had lost none of his persuasive powers, and in the beginning most of his recommendations were adopted. On June 1 he circulated a paper among the other members, arguing that while a decision in France had proved impossible, a relatively small expansion of Hamilton’s army could bring victory. “It seems most urgent,” he wrote, “to try to obtain a decision here and wind up the enterprise in a satisfactory manner as soon as possible.” Bonar Law and Sir Edward Carson, another old Churchill adversary, disagreed, but the committee voted to send five more divisions to Gallipoli. In France, Sir Henry Wilson raged: “That makes 9 there and 22 here, and not a single Boche facing the 9. How they will laugh in Berlin.” In any event there was no doubt that Britain was betting heavily on Gallipoli. Hamilton’s army now numbered 120,000 troops. Surely he could break through.
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He didn’t. An old military maxim runs: “Never reinforce failure.” That is how Hamilton used his fresh troops. Churchill telegraphed him, urging a landing on the Bulair Isthmus. Hamilton, obsessed with logistics and matériel, replied that he doubted his troops were capable of the effort, or that it could succeed under the best of conditions. His troops, bogged down, fought, not only Turks, but also summer flies. Discipline grew lax; the men grumbled that they were victims of “the politicians.” Hamilton wired the War Office that he needed ninety-five thousand more men to provide “the necessary superiority.”
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Kitchener told him that Gallipoli had had its chance, and the Dardanelles Committee, to Winston’s alarm, began to consider evacuating the peninsula. Whatever the problems in the east, Churchill said, the west was not the answer. In September the first troops of Kitchener’s army went over the top in France to capture the village of Loos and the high ground a mile beyond. After two days fifteen thousand English and Scottish soldiers had been killed and the German wire was intact. Churchill searched the map again, and, the following month, when Bulgaria entered the war as a German ally, drew up a four-point plan of attack to open a broad Balkan front from the Aegean, offering opportunities for movement and thrusts.

It was rejected. Churchill’s theories of war, Aitken concluded, were “so hare-brained that it would be humorous if the lives of men were things to joke about, or, I might add, to trifle with.” Even Violet Asquith, who defended him passionately, rated him “a guided gambler.” In fact, his military thought was on a plane so extraordinary that others simply could not grasp it. In his multivolume history of the Great War he dwelt upon the significance of maneuver, which, he wrote, may assume many forms, “in time, in diplomacy, in mechanics, in psychology.” Only when military and political thought were joined could leaders discover “easier ways, other than sheer slaughter, of achieving the main purpose.” As he conceived of it, the “distinction between politics and strategy diminishes as the point of view is raised. At the summit true politics and strategy are one.”
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Thus the internal political complexes of the Balkan states, in his mind, were linked to events on all European battlefields. Because these states were politically weak, the opportunities were there and should be seized. Others, lacking his imaginative grasp, dismissed him as superficial. Actually, he was plumbing depths whose very existence was unsuspected by them.

And so the achievements his genius might have wrought were irrevocably lost. His credibility had shrunk as Hamilton’s prospects for victory faded. Once more he was being blamed for a plan that had not been his. Accustomed to respect and even deference, he now had to endure slights which, less than a year ago, would have been unthinkable. Balfour recalled Fisher from Scotland and appointed him chairman of the Admiralty’s Committee on Inventions and Research. Churchill angrily wrote Asquith: “Fisher resigned his office without warning or parley…. You ordered Fisher to return to his post in the name of the King. He paid no attention to yr order. You declared that he had deserted his post in time of war; & the facts are not open to any other construction. For ten days or more the country was without a First Sea Lord as Fisher did not even do his duty till his successor was appointed.” To Balfour he added: “All this must be viewed in relation to a very old man.” He decided not to send the letter, but made his views known to the prime minister through a mutual friend. It didn’t matter. His protest was ignored. The next week Kitchener suggested that he make an official trip to the Dardanelles and Gallipoli. Winston was delighted. Since all British positions on the peninsula were within range of Turkish artillery, he took out a new insurance policy, giving him £10,300 coverage. In addition he held £1,000 in Witbank Collieries stock. He explained all this in a letter to Clementine, to be delivered in the event of his death, and told her where she could find the “complete” Admiralty papers documenting his record. “There is no hurry,” he wrote, “but some day I shd like the truth to be known. Randolph will carry on the lamp. Do not grieve for me too much. I am a spirit confident of my rights. Death is only an incident, & not the most important wh happens to us in this state of being. On the whole, especially since I met you my darling one I have been happy, & you have taught me how noble a woman’s heart can be. If there is anywhere else I shall be on the look out for you. Meanwhile, look forward, feel free, rejoice in life, cherish the children, guard my memory. God bless you. Good bye. W.”
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Kitchener suggested that Hankey accompany him, and it was agreed. The King sent word to him that he was “glad to hear” of his mission. A warm note arrived from Grey. Winston spent a final Sunday with the family at Hoe Farm. Then, after the cabinet meeting had broken up Monday morning, Asquith, Kitchener, and Grey gathered around to wish him a fond farewell. At that point a Tory minister unexpectedly returned and asked where Churchill was going. Told, he made a beeline for Bonar Law. The upshot was that the Conservatives opposed the trip. Asquith again caved in rather than, as he told Churchill, face “any serious division of opinion.” Lord Curzon, one of the Tories who had protested, wrote Winston that “we shared a doubt as to the reception that public opinion might give to such an act, for which the Govt would be held collectively responsible.” The unkindest cut came from Kitchener. The reason he had asked Hankey to go along, he said, was that he thought someone should watch Churchill. After discussing the Tory veto with K of K, Lord Esher wrote in his diary: “He laughed over it a good deal and admitted that he would not have been sorry to get rid of Winston for a while.” News of this reached Churchill. The message to him was clear. He wasn’t wanted. He wasn’t even trusted.
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I
f others had doubts about forcing the Narrows, British submarine commanders didn’t. They slipped in and out, roaming the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea and sinking Turkish ships within sight of Constantinople. Because of them, enemy troops were chronically short of ammunition. Nevertheless, the British learned from prisoners, aerial reconnaissance, and agents in Constantinople that Turkish reinforcements were pouring into Gallipoli. Hamilton wrung his hands. On October 16 he was sacked and General Sir Charles Monro, who had been fighting in France, replaced him. One of Monro’s first duties, the War Office told him, would be to determine whether or not the peninsula should be abandoned. Since he was an ardent Westerner, scornful of this theater, there could be little doubt about his decision. Churchill later called him “an officer of quick decision. He came, he saw, he capitulated.” Before he could take over, however, Roger Keyes made a last plea for a naval assault on the Narrows. He arrived in London on October 28 and converted Balfour and the sea lords. Churchill saw a sparkle of hope. “I believe,” he wrote, “we have been all these months in the position of the Spanish prisoner who languished for twenty years in a dungeon until one morning the idea struck him to push the door which had been open all the time.”
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