0:01

He was involved in three car

0:03

crashes, two plane crashes. He

0:06

went into no man's land in the First World War

0:08

some 30 times. He got

0:10

so close to the German trenches, he could actually

0:12

hear them speaking in their trenches. He

0:15

once said that there's nothing so exhilarating in

0:17

life as to be shot at without result.

0:21

The Conservatives tried to deselect him, and

0:23

every single thing that he said turned

0:25

out to be right and everything that

0:27

they said turned out to be wrong.

0:58

Andrew Roberts, such a delight to have you on the

1:00

show. You are, of course, the author of many, many

1:02

books, but the one we really want to

1:04

talk to you about is one that

1:06

in internet terms has gone viral and

1:08

continues to sell tens of thousands of

1:11

copies every year, is Churchill walking with

1:13

destiny. And we wanted to spend some

1:15

time, a long time actually, talking to

1:17

you about here in Westminster, where

1:19

we're sitting, about a man who shaped

1:21

the destiny of this country, the

1:23

history of this country, about

1:26

whom actually people of my generation, we've got a couple

1:28

of young guys here, having

1:30

been educated in this country, we know very

1:32

little about. Very little about.

1:35

Well, that's partly because he's not taught in

1:37

the schools any longer. He used to be, but now

1:39

he isn't. You can get

1:42

through your entire history syllabus and only

1:44

learn about Winston Churchill for

1:46

14 seconds on a video. Yes,

1:49

well, we are going to counteract that by

1:51

spending some time doing it. So I suppose

1:53

the best place to start would be right

1:55

at the beginning. We really want to spend

1:57

some time with you talking about Churchill's law.

2:00

life from the beginning to the end. I

2:02

went to Chartwell, which is the house. Yes,

2:06

it's a beautiful manor house in Kent, which he bought

2:08

when he was about 60 and lived into

2:11

the rest of his life. Yes. And when you

2:13

go there, you suddenly realize, uneducated

2:15

as I am, I mean, this guy,

2:18

he lived about seven lives worth of

2:20

lives in like one section of his

2:22

life. We'll get to

2:24

all of that later. But from

2:26

the beginning, where was he born? How did

2:29

he grow up? What was the kind of

2:31

beginnings of Churchill? Well, he was born in

2:33

a much grander place even than Chartwell. He

2:35

was born in Blenheim Palace, which is the

2:37

grandest of all the duke-all palaces, the

2:40

Spencer Churchill's magnificent palace in

2:42

Oxfordshire. And he was born

2:45

there because his grandfather was the Duke

2:47

of Marlborough. And his

2:49

father was a very successful politician, the

2:51

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Randolph Churchill.

2:54

And his mother was an American

2:56

heiress called Jenny Jerome. And

2:59

so, yes, he grew up as

3:01

an upper class Victorian,

3:04

essentially. Not exactly humble

3:06

beginnings. But then he

3:08

actually, having been educated,

3:11

and my understanding is he wasn't a particularly

3:13

successful student. Is that right? Well, actually, he

3:15

made out that he was less successful student

3:17

than he was. In fact, he was pretty

3:19

good at he came in the top third

3:21

of all his classes. He came top of

3:23

history and English quite a lot in his

3:25

classes. So when you read his school reports,

3:28

they're an awful lot better than he

3:30

made himself out to be. But

3:33

he certainly wasn't a class student.

3:35

He wasn't going to go to Oxford or

3:37

Cambridge, for example. And why did he

3:39

do that? Why did he paint himself as intellectually

3:42

mediocre? Surely that's not the

3:44

smartest play, particularly if you

3:46

want to lead a country.

3:49

Well, exactly. He's a very

3:51

unusual person. He has

3:54

autobiography, and this is where he made himself

3:56

out to be a bit thicker than he

3:58

genuinely was. It's the

4:00

most beautifully written book. It's

4:02

called My Early Life. It was published in 1930. I

4:05

do recommend anybody read it. But

4:08

you have to work out the bits

4:10

where he's playing with the reader as

4:12

opposed to just giving them the

4:14

sort of word-for-word accuracy about his life.

4:18

So he was good at school but

4:20

not great. And where did

4:22

he go from there? Because in my understanding

4:24

he tried to go to, I think it's

4:26

Sandhurst several times. It was a third attempt,

4:28

wasn't it, that he got into Sandhurst? That's

4:30

right. And he got in for the cavalry

4:33

rather than the infantry. The cool kids

4:35

went for the infantry. The ones who weren't

4:38

so successful went for the cavalry. His

4:40

father was angry with him about that

4:42

because it was much more expensive to

4:44

put a boy through as a

4:46

cavalry officer. Of course you had to

4:48

buy the horse apart from him. And

4:51

he had this belief

4:55

in himself though that

4:57

drove him all the way through his

4:59

life, this sense of, driving sense of

5:01

personal destiny. His father wasn't kind

5:03

to him. He never

5:06

seems to have appreciated that there was anything

5:08

special about young Winston. His

5:10

mother loved him but saw virtually nothing

5:12

of him in the way that Edwardian

5:15

parents sometimes did, especially the aristocratic ones.

5:17

She was having affairs with the Prince

5:19

of Wales and the Austrian ambassador and

5:22

so on and saw very little of

5:24

him and his younger brother Jack. But

5:27

nonetheless he did do well at

5:29

Sandhurst because he loves everything, absolutely

5:31

everything to do with soldiering. And

5:34

you talk about his parents effectively either

5:36

not being present or not

5:38

being kind to him. Did he

5:40

have formative personalities in his life,

5:42

people who guided him

5:44

when he was younger, inspired him, drove him,

5:46

challenged him? Very much he did,

5:49

yes. The first of which actually was when

5:51

we called Elizabeth Everest who was his nanny.

5:54

He loved

5:56

and worshipped her and she was kind him

6:00

and showed him the love and infection that

6:02

he wasn't frankly getting from his parents. And

6:05

then there was a man

6:07

who was a great orator,

6:10

an American politician called Bert

6:12

Cochran who was one of

6:14

his mother's lovers, who

6:16

also became sort of father figure to him

6:18

after his own father, Lord Randolph, died in

6:21

1895 when his father was 45 and Winston

6:23

was 20. And

6:27

the other thing I wanted to pick up sort of going away

6:29

from the story of his life for

6:32

just one second, you mentioned that he was

6:34

a Victorian and there

6:36

will be a lot of young people who don't really

6:38

know what that means exactly because this was a society

6:41

of people who have different values and

6:43

different viewpoints and different approaches to many things

6:45

to what we have today. What

6:47

does it mean for someone to be

6:50

a Victorian? Well to be an aristocratic

6:52

Victorian in the period

6:54

that he was growing up, which was essentially the 1880s

6:57

and the 1890s meant that you

6:59

were a believer in the Empire. He

7:01

was born in 1874 and

7:03

he believed that the British Empire was a

7:06

good thing for civilisation and the world in

7:08

a way that obviously is not taught in

7:11

any way today. But

7:13

a very milder. To put it very mildly.

7:16

And this had the very positive aspects of

7:19

essentially he thought he was recreating a

7:21

combination of ancient Greece and ancient Rome

7:23

where Britain was going to be able

7:26

to teach the native peoples of the

7:28

Empire development in many, many areas of

7:31

human development. And it had the negative

7:33

side also of course of a belief

7:35

that you were at the very top,

7:38

the apex of the sort of human

7:40

condition that you were racially superior to

7:42

everybody else because you were white and

7:44

you were also racially superior to every

7:46

other white because you were British. And

7:49

this meant that there was a sense,

7:51

you get it very much of course from Darwinism, Charles

7:54

Darwin was still alive whilst Churchill

7:57

was a boy. there

8:00

was a sort of a pinnacle

8:03

and that's key being upper class and

8:05

British and white was at the absolute

8:07

top of the pinnacle. Now what this

8:09

meant was that he had deep responsibilities

8:11

to everybody else. This

8:14

is something that's often misunderstood

8:16

or ignored, but because he

8:19

was this at the top of

8:21

the pinnacle essentially, it was

8:23

his duty to spend the rest of his

8:25

life doing good things for everybody else. Privilege

8:29

had a deep sense of responsibility

8:31

attached to it, which sometimes we

8:33

forget about that aspect of Victorian

8:35

chivalry. And would that, coming back

8:37

to the story now, by

8:39

the way we should say for our American and other

8:41

viewers, Sandhurst is of course the military academy. They're

8:44

West, our West Point. Just better. You're

8:49

going to get all your hay mail now from

8:51

a very angry American to have guns. Yeah.

8:55

So he goes to Sandhurst and is that

8:57

part of why he wants to go into

8:59

a military career, because it is a career

9:01

of service to your country? Yes, very much.

9:04

The ethos of Sandhurst,

9:06

like West Point in fact, is

9:08

this concept of giving back to

9:10

society because of the privileges that

9:12

you yourself have enjoyed

9:15

in life. And he did have

9:17

huge privileges, as I mentioned earlier,

9:20

about his family. However, actually both

9:22

his parents were terrible spendthrifts. They

9:25

spent his inheritance, certainly his mother

9:27

did after his father died. He

9:29

had to work very hard. He

9:31

wound up becoming the best aid

9:33

war correspondent in the world when

9:35

he fought in the Boer War

9:37

in South Africa. So it wasn't

9:39

as though he actually was rich.

9:41

He never was actually. He was

9:43

pretty much broke

9:46

all his life until he wrote the war

9:48

memoirs of the Second World War when he

9:50

was in his early seventies. Wow.

9:53

So money was always

9:55

an issue for him. And you wouldn't think

9:57

that by just a superficial glance at the moment.

10:00

man himself? No, that's because he always bought

10:02

the best of everything and the reason was

10:04

that he was always in debt and

10:07

he could afford things because he was constantly

10:09

getting into debt. There are two points in

10:11

the 1930s where he nearly had

10:13

to sell that beautiful house chart will that

10:15

you visited because he

10:18

was always broke and this is a good thing

10:20

as far as historians like me are concerned because

10:22

what it meant was that he had to write

10:25

37 books and write over 800

10:29

articles and the way of course that's the

10:31

best way to get into the mind of

10:34

a man like Churchill is to read what he

10:36

wrote and as a result we have an awful

10:38

lot of it many millions of words he wrote

10:40

more than Shakespeare and Dickens put together. Wow and

10:42

what's his career in the military successful? It was

10:45

after fashion but

10:48

the trouble was of course he did need to

10:50

make money and be a war correspondent so the

10:52

soldiers always thought of

10:54

him as a journalist and the journalists always thought

10:56

of him as a soldier and that meant he

10:58

could never really get to the top in the

11:01

British Army. The highest he got was to

11:03

be a colonel in the First World War

11:07

but he fought on five

11:10

campaigns on four continents. It was an

11:13

amazing amazing military career. He took part

11:15

in the last great cavalry charge of

11:17

the British Empire at the Battle of

11:20

Omdemen where he charged with

11:22

the 21st Lancers. He went

11:25

into no man's land in the First World War some

11:27

30 times and

11:30

doing trench raids and so on so

11:32

he showed tremendous courage. The

11:36

people talk about his courage and

11:39

they talk about his particularly when it

11:41

comes to his military career and obviously afterwards how

11:43

does that shape the way he viewed war and

11:45

conflict? Well he hated war he

11:48

was not a war monger he was accused

11:50

all his life of being a war monger

11:52

but because he's come up close and personal

11:54

to death seen so many of his friends

11:56

killed from the age of 21 onwards

11:58

he had seen his his close

12:01

friends die in war. He never

12:03

was a warmonger. He believed in

12:06

deterring war by

12:09

military strength and so

12:11

that was his immediate

12:13

feeling about war. However, once

12:16

war had started

12:18

he believed in winning it

12:20

and he was an absolutely

12:22

fascinated by every aspect of

12:24

war. He would go

12:26

out of his way to use

12:28

scientific knowledge to try to ensure

12:30

that Britain was at the absolute

12:33

forefront, the cutting edge of all

12:35

the new war technologies. Of course,

12:37

in a sense he's the godfather

12:39

of the tank which completely altered

12:41

the whole nature of war and

12:43

still has. And Andrew, just

12:45

flesh out the military career for us

12:47

first. So he goes to Sandhurst and

12:49

then what happens from there? And then

12:51

he gets sent off to India, fights

12:54

in the northwest frontier of India where he

12:56

fights against the

13:01

various clans and tribes

13:04

such as the Talib, the grandparents

13:06

essentially of the Taliban and

13:08

the Afridi tribes that were

13:11

attacking the Punjabi farmers.

13:15

So he defended the Punjabis up

13:17

in the northwest frontier. Then he

13:20

went off to Cuba

13:23

and fought on the side of the

13:25

Spanish in Cuba, really more watching than

13:27

fighting but nonetheless on his 21st birthday

13:29

he heard the

13:32

bullets fired. He was tremendously lucky

13:34

that he was never hit. He

13:37

once said that there's nothing so

13:39

exhilarating in life as to be shot at

13:41

without result. And

13:43

he was shot at without result a

13:45

great deal. He then fought

13:47

in the Sudanese campaign, sorry he went

13:49

back to northwest frontier, then the Sudanese

13:52

campaign, what's called the River War in

13:54

1898 when he took part in this

13:57

great cavalry charge. And then he fought in the

13:59

Boer War. in 1899

14:01

and 1900, and then he

14:04

got elected to Parliament. So he had

14:06

fought in all of those wars

14:08

prior to, of course, later on, fighting in

14:10

the First World War. And the Boer War

14:13

in particular, I think, is a moment when

14:15

his courage really comes through

14:17

because there is this incredible story about

14:19

him having to work his

14:21

way through without any – Well,

14:24

he essentially escapes from prison.

14:28

He gets captured after taking

14:31

part in the defence of a train

14:33

which has been ambushed by the Boers,

14:35

the Africans, white South Africans.

14:38

And he gets put in a

14:40

prisoner of war camp in Pretoria

14:42

and then escapes and makes his

14:44

way 300 miles through enemy territory.

14:48

At one point he has to sleep

14:51

down in a mine, and

14:54

the candle gutters out that

14:56

he was given, and you could feel the

14:58

rats scurrying over his face down

15:00

in the depths of his mine.

15:03

And he manages – at another point he's

15:06

actually followed by a vulture. And

15:08

nonetheless, he manages to escape to

15:11

freedom in Mozambique. So

15:13

this is the thing really that A

15:16

tells him that he's got something

15:18

special. He always thought he

15:20

had anyhow, but this actually does

15:23

give him the sense that he's special. And

15:26

also, of course, it makes him a hero of

15:28

the British Empire because he has escaped, and he

15:30

did it in the same week as

15:32

a series of disastrous victory –

15:34

defeats for the British Empire. It's

15:37

called Black Week because there are

15:39

three serious military defeats in one

15:41

week. And the only

15:43

really good news at that time

15:45

was Winston Churchill successfully escaping from

15:47

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17:21

Wow. So he almost became a

17:23

celebrity of his time then, really?

17:25

Not almost. He was. He was

17:27

the first great modern celebrity, war

17:29

celebrity, as it were. Oh,

17:32

wow. So did that then

17:34

help with his transition into

17:36

becoming a politician? Precisely that,

17:38

yes. He'd already stood for

17:40

Parliament once for Oldham

17:42

in Lancashire and failed

17:45

to get elected. But now, when

17:47

he came back after this extraordinary

17:50

prison escape, his celebrity

17:52

status did help him get elected

17:55

with a decent majority. So he

17:57

was a politician and then he...

18:00

decided to enlist in during the First World

18:02

War during the ball

18:04

during the ball absolutely but he'd

18:06

already fought in the ball so he came

18:08

back in order to stand and

18:11

heard he'd already stood for Parliament before he

18:13

went out to the ball wall and had

18:15

lost and then he went back

18:17

having fought in the ball war and won

18:20

and then I guess what Francis is getting

18:22

at is what happens when World War

18:25

one breaks out he's I'm assuming an MP at

18:27

this point well this is 15 years later of

18:29

course so yes he's a

18:31

he's actually the first Lord of

18:33

the Admiralty so by this

18:35

stage he in 1915 he'd become he'd

18:37

become first Lord of the Admiralty in

18:40

1911 by the time of the outbreak

18:42

of the First World War in 1914

18:44

he was still first

18:46

Lord of the Admiralty and he managed to get

18:48

the whole of the British Expeditionary Force and

18:51

over a hundred thousand men across

18:53

to France without losing a single

18:55

man from German U-boats or any

18:57

other any other disaster so he

19:00

was very successful in that he

19:02

had the British Navy ready for

19:04

the First World War and then

19:07

the catastrophe of the

19:09

Dardanelles struck this

19:12

was largely his fault he was the

19:14

person who believed that if you could

19:16

get the British Navy

19:18

in the Eastern Mediterranean from

19:21

the Eastern Mediterranean up through the Dardanelles

19:24

straits and anchor it

19:27

off Constantinople modern-day modern-day

19:30

anchor that's right you would

19:32

be able through the threat

19:35

of shelling to to take

19:38

the Turkish Empire out of

19:41

the First World War and if that has happened

19:43

it would have been one of the greatest strategic

19:46

victories of modern warfare

19:48

but it didn't and on the

19:50

18th of March 1915 the

19:52

Anglo-French flotilla lost no fewer than

19:55

six ships either destroyed or sunk

19:57

so we had to pull

20:01

back and then they attacked five weeks later on

20:03

the 25th of April 1915 and

20:06

got horribly stuck on

20:08

the on the Glipoli Peninsula

20:10

which is on the western side

20:12

of the strait and in

20:15

the end no fewer than 147,000 men were killed or

20:19

wounded in that campaign and it completely

20:21

wrecked Churchill's career because it had been

20:23

his idea and he that

20:25

decided that he was going to leave

20:27

the government and fight in the trenches

20:29

he didn't need to he was 40

20:31

years old we weren't calling up married

20:33

40 year olds at that stage but

20:35

he did because he wanted a form

20:37

of redemption and and that's

20:40

why he went to join the

20:42

absolutely incredible can you imagine any

20:44

politician doing that today God no is

20:48

the blonde way of putting it but also as well

20:51

in many ways that was facing certain death

20:53

because many men who went to fight in

20:56

World War one didn't come

20:58

back officers in some stretches of

21:00

the same front that he was

21:02

fighting on had a six-week long

21:05

survival rate their

21:07

longevity for fighting

21:09

the trenches was six weeks so

21:12

when he went to fight how long did

21:14

that career last being he was there for

21:16

a year and he was fortunate it was

21:19

it was one of the quieter sides

21:22

of the of the front

21:24

however as I mentioned he went

21:26

on 30 trench raids and

21:28

those were he got so close to the

21:30

German trenches he could actually hear them speaking

21:32

in their trenches so you

21:34

can imagine how dangerous that was

21:36

there was one occasion when the

21:39

German whizbang high explosive shell came

21:41

and hit his dugout and

21:43

decapitated everyone inside it but he

21:45

left five minutes earlier so and

21:49

he said on that occasion that he felt as if he could

21:52

hear invisible wings beating over

21:54

him a real sense that

21:56

he was being kept for something important

22:00

know, in life. And he

22:02

had that sense about him. This is

22:04

why I called my book Walking with Destiny

22:06

because although he, of course, himself said

22:08

that he felt as if he were walking

22:10

with destiny and that all his past life

22:12

had been but a preparation for this hour

22:15

and for this trial, all the way

22:17

through his life he thought he was walking

22:19

with destiny. It wasn't just in May 1940

22:22

when Hitler invaded Europe.

22:27

He was born two months prematurely, which

22:29

in Victorian England could be a death

22:31

sentence. He nearly

22:33

died of pneumonia when he was 11. He

22:36

nearly was involved in three

22:38

car crashes, two plane crashes,

22:41

nearly drowned in late Geneva,

22:43

very nearly died in

22:47

a house fire. It's incredible how close he

22:49

came to death on so many occasions. And

22:52

the event, including of course that time when

22:54

he left the dugout and it got hit.

22:57

And the result was that he

22:59

felt that he was being specially

23:03

kept back for a great occasion. That's

23:06

so interesting. And one of the things I was going to

23:08

ask you, we've got past it now, but I

23:10

can't imagine being somebody in

23:13

charge of tens of thousands of

23:15

men, ships, your

23:17

country's war effort and

23:20

making a cock up that costs

23:22

men lives, that causes

23:25

your country to suffer a defeat

23:27

in a major war in

23:30

public. And then you're

23:32

so gutted by that experience you go

23:35

into the tranchester fight. I

23:37

imagine that's a bit of a setback in

23:39

terms of your self image. I imagine that's

23:41

really difficult to preserve that sense

23:44

of destiny in that moment. He must

23:46

have been distraught. He was distraught. His

23:48

wife said it was the only time

23:50

that he ever seriously considered committing suicide.

23:52

He took up painting, which helped

23:54

in fact helped him emotionally

23:57

and psychologically. But

24:00

yes, I mean people would still even in the 1930s

24:03

so 15 plus years later would still

24:05

shout What about the Dardanelles at him

24:07

when he was making speeches in public?

24:11

in public addresses and In

24:14

one in one in fact funny enough

24:16

he stood for Westminster Just

24:19

just here this constituency and people would shout

24:22

at him. You know, what about the Dardanelles

24:24

and so

24:26

you do have a real sense that

24:28

he was That

24:31

he understood this setback but

24:33

one of the great things about Winston Churchill

24:35

was that he learnt from his mistakes and Never

24:38

in the Second World War when he was permanent in the

24:40

Second World War Never once did

24:42

he overrule the Chiefs of Staff in the way

24:44

that he had done in the First World War in order

24:47

to pursue The Dardanelles expedition.

24:49

So he know he actually learned from

24:51

that mistake and And

24:53

it was a very important lesson to learn of

24:56

course. Oh, sorry go for it I

24:58

was gonna say he talked frequently he

25:00

gave it a term which his

25:02

depression was the black dog Was

25:04

that do you think that stemmed

25:06

from the experience with the

25:08

Dardanelles and Constantinople? The only

25:11

time he ever used that phrase black dog

25:13

He only used it once was in a

25:15

letter to his wife in July 1911 when

25:17

he was talking about a particular

25:20

moment of depression He was not

25:22

a black dog depressive as in

25:25

it didn't suddenly strike

25:27

him for no reason He got

25:29

depressed for the same reason that

25:31

anybody would get depressed under those

25:33

circumstances The classic example being the

25:35

fall of Tobruk in June 1942

25:38

the fall of Singapore in February 1942 These

25:41

are moments when anyone would have got depressed

25:43

He wasn't somebody who had a sort of

25:45

chemical imbalance and as we know with actual

25:47

manic depression Which black dog is a terrible

25:51

terrible disease that

25:53

you you can't? Chair

25:56

over 900 meetings of the

25:58

Defense Committee of the

26:01

cabinet at all times of

26:03

day or night if you are suffering from

26:05

that kind of depression. So it's

26:07

a misunderstanding to think that he

26:10

was a manic depressive. He was.

26:12

He got sad when sad things

26:14

happened. Yeah, precisely. Yes, exactly. Which

26:17

happened a lot in his life. I imagine.

26:19

Because his whole life was a total roller

26:21

coaster up and down the entire time. Well,

26:23

right. And so he fights

26:25

in World War I. And

26:28

World War I, many people have

26:30

argued, Peter Hitchens, who's been on our

26:32

show, he wrote a whole book about it, was

26:35

really the moment when the British Empire

26:37

starts to feel like it's on the

26:39

downslope. Was he aware of

26:41

this at the time? Did he feel this? Did he

26:43

say anything about it? He was acutely aware of it.

26:46

Absolutely he was. And of course, it was in his

26:48

great 1942 speech

26:51

that was made at the Guildhall when he

26:53

said, I did not become the King's first

26:55

minister in order to preside over the liquidation

26:57

of the British Empire. He

26:59

was very, very aware

27:01

that Britain was

27:03

becoming weaker. This

27:05

was obviously clear with regard

27:07

to the Quit India campaign

27:09

in the Congress party

27:11

in India. He was very much stood

27:14

up against Mahatma Gandhi

27:16

in the 1930s. He saw

27:18

the way in which the United States was

27:20

becoming richer and more powerful and

27:22

was likely one day to take the place

27:25

of the British Empire. And he didn't

27:27

like it. He

27:29

preferred the Americans to take over from anyone else, the

27:31

Germans or any fascist power.

27:36

But nonetheless, he didn't like the

27:38

idea of Britain's place in the

27:40

sun being taken by anybody

27:42

else. This was a natural reaction, of

27:44

course, of a British imperialist of his

27:47

age and class and background. Well, quite.

27:49

And so he fights in World War

27:51

I. And what happens then, is

27:53

he, by the way, is he from a public

27:56

perception, you mentioned people continue to heckle him about

27:58

the diad and else, etc. But

28:00

does his decision to go and fight,

28:02

rehabilitate him in the public consciousness? In

28:05

a sense it does, and he does come

28:08

back to become Minister of Munitions for

28:10

the rest of the last part of the First World

28:13

War. And there he

28:15

does a fantastic job, and you look

28:17

at the graphs of output of shells

28:19

necessary and all the various other munitions

28:21

necessary to win that war. And

28:24

they go straight off the charts.

28:26

He works so hard. And

28:28

that's appreciated too. Then he became Minister of

28:31

War and was in charge of demobilisation of

28:33

the army. He did a very good job

28:35

there as well. But he

28:38

also put his reputation, he

28:41

essentially damaged his reputation again because he

28:43

was tremendously in favour of

28:46

strangling, in his words, and he had

28:49

the most extraordinary mastery of the English

28:51

language, as you can imagine, strangling

28:54

Bolshevism in its cradle. He

28:56

wanted to send the British army, or

28:58

at least a proportion of the British

29:01

army, to help the white Russians try

29:03

to destroy Bolshevism. And he's

29:05

been a criticising the North a lot for that. He's

29:07

been attacked. There's just a book last week that was

29:09

published saying how terrible this was. But

29:11

frankly, I think it was a brave

29:15

thing to do. If

29:17

you had managed to strangle Bolshevism

29:19

and you hadn't had Soviet communism,

29:21

about 100 million people would

29:24

be – their lives

29:26

would have been saved, who were murdered by

29:28

communism of various types in the 20th

29:30

century. So actually, I

29:32

think it was a very far-sighted thing to have

29:34

done. But at the time, it was another thing

29:37

that he was accused

29:39

of having been

29:41

disastrously wrong about. When

29:44

we look at his political career, he had a

29:46

very interesting political career because there were many times

29:48

he was actually criticised by

29:50

both the Conservatives and

29:52

Labour. And the Liberals as well, of

29:54

course. He changed sides

29:57

twice as well. He started off

29:59

as a… conservative like his father had been

30:02

and then in 1904 over free trade he

30:04

became a liberal and then

30:06

in 1924 again over free trade he

30:08

went back to the conservatives you know

30:10

he kept his belief but

30:14

the parties changed theirs and he stuck

30:16

to his beliefs but it looked very

30:18

much as though he was just jumping

30:20

ship because each time he jumped ship

30:22

just before that party got into government

30:25

and so he was thought of

30:27

very often as being just

30:30

an opportunist and

30:32

he did make mistakes that's the other thing he wrote

30:34

to his wife when he was in the trenches he

30:37

said i should have made nothing if i had not

30:39

made mistakes he got loads of things wrong we've

30:41

already got the russian

30:43

civil war the gallipoli campaign

30:46

just the biggest of them but he

30:48

was opposed to female suffrage at the

30:50

beginning he was opposed to he wanted

30:53

to bring britain into the gold standard at

30:56

the wrong time at the wrong level as

30:58

it turned out he was in favor

31:00

of the black and tans trying to put down

31:03

the irish uprisings of the

31:05

early 1920s as well which

31:08

horribly boomeranged on the on the

31:10

british and so all in all

31:13

you know he did make mistakes but as i

31:15

mentioned earlier from each of those that i've mentioned

31:17

he learned his lesson we'll be

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Now back to the interview.

32:19

So from 1918 he

32:21

returns after the First World War. What

32:23

happens then? From being Minister of

32:26

Munitions to the point that the First

32:28

World War ended, he then

32:30

became Minister of War and Air as well

32:32

and he was the father of the RAF.

32:35

So actually the Royal Air Force was very much

32:37

his idea. And then after that

32:39

in 1924 he became

32:41

the Chancellor of the Exchequer. And

32:45

he was not much of an

32:47

economist frankly but nonetheless he presided

32:50

over the most difficult period because

32:52

it coincided with the outbreak of

32:55

the general strike in 1926. And he

32:57

wanted to be

33:00

as generous as possible to the mine

33:02

workers who led

33:05

that strike. But nonetheless it was a

33:07

terribly difficult period. By 1930 he was

33:09

out of office.

33:13

The Conservatives had lost the subsequent

33:15

general election and he fell

33:19

out with the front bench, with

33:22

the Conservative leadership over independence for

33:24

India and resigned from the

33:26

front bench. And so

33:28

let's go into that because obviously that is you know

33:30

that's a huge part of the story here. Where

33:34

did he lie when it came to

33:36

this particular issue? He very much thought

33:39

that the British should not move towards

33:41

what's called Dominion status which is essentially

33:43

self-government for India. He thought that India

33:45

was the jewel in the crown of

33:47

the British Empire. That if

33:50

you gave the majority Hindu

33:52

population of India essentially

33:56

the power over all Indians

33:59

then it would would be disastrous for

34:01

the Indian princes, which ruled about a

34:03

third of India at the time. Also

34:06

very bad for the Muslim minority in

34:08

India and also bad for the untouchables,

34:12

who he feared would be

34:15

kept down even more than they were

34:17

by Indian society at the time. And

34:20

so he opposed it

34:22

and did everything he could

34:24

to stop Indian self-government but

34:26

failed. And the Indian Self-Government

34:28

Act of 1935 passed against

34:30

his opposition. But

34:35

were his fears actually realised, and

34:37

obviously it was inevitable that India was

34:39

going to self-government, but were his fears

34:41

actually correct as to what would happen?

34:43

Well if you look at Mr Modi's

34:45

way of ruling India at the moment,

34:48

and especially where the princes, where the

34:51

Muslims and where the untouchables are in

34:53

Indian society, actually Churchill makes it had

34:55

a bit of a point frankly. And

34:57

Andrew it strikes me that this isn't

34:59

strictly a Churchill question, but I think

35:01

it's important to flesh this out for

35:03

all of us, including myself to understand.

35:05

Francis said something which may or may

35:07

not be true, but you know Indians

35:09

and self-governance was inevitable. Which begs

35:11

the question really, why

35:14

was the British Empire at this

35:16

point starting to essentially decline

35:19

and all of these

35:21

conversations about self-governance here, independence there,

35:23

why were they taking off? The

35:26

major problem for the British Empire after

35:28

the First World War was a financial

35:30

one. It was broke, it

35:32

had spent an enormous amount of money fighting

35:35

that war, and compared

35:37

to countries like America it had

35:40

no resources. It had

35:42

sold off a lot of its assets during

35:44

the war to continue fighting the war. It

35:47

was also morally demoralised

35:49

because of the loss of

35:51

an entire generation of essentially

35:54

young men who'd been killed, three

35:56

quarters of a million of them in

35:58

the war. It

36:01

got bigger actually physically up until

36:03

1921, but

36:05

it was hollowed out essentially. And

36:08

then when the threats to India

36:11

started, it seemed

36:13

very much that the whole organisation

36:15

essentially was being run by more

36:18

of wilderness of mirrors really

36:20

than an empire of the kind that

36:25

had been there 20 years previously.

36:27

Was there also a rising cynicism from the

36:30

working classes to the upper classes because of

36:32

the debacle of the First World War, lions

36:34

led by donkeys etc? There was a very

36:36

strong, yes, that was an important aspect was

36:39

that although the actual officers

36:42

in the trenches themselves had been

36:45

incredibly brave and the working classes

36:47

admired their officers of

36:49

their own units who

36:52

died in greater proportion than the

36:54

working classes did in

36:56

that war, also the high

36:59

officers, the generals who

37:01

had come up with the

37:04

grand strategy were not respected

37:06

because of the disastrous grand

37:08

strategy that was adopted. Now

37:11

there are a lot of historians and to

37:13

an extent I'm amongst them that tries to

37:16

look at any other kind of grand strategy

37:18

that could have won that war frankly. But

37:21

nonetheless, yes, there was a sense

37:23

that the

37:26

officer class had let the working

37:28

classes down, but not the officer

37:30

class in the trenches, but the

37:32

ones back in the chateau. So

37:35

the empire is morally weakened,

37:39

financially bankrupt, not

37:42

bankrupt but… And also one other aspect

37:44

of it which I didn't mention also

37:46

strategically outmaneuvered because you

37:49

have Japan in the Far

37:51

East, Italy in the

37:53

Mediterranean and Germany all coming up in the 1930s

37:55

and all of course… with

38:00

each other in the anti-Comintern Act of 1937

38:04

and posing three separate threats to

38:06

the British Empire in three separate

38:09

geographical areas. So a

38:11

very difficult position. Churchill is in the

38:14

Conservative Government. He resigns over India. This

38:16

is 1931, did you say? 1930.

38:21

And this is just

38:23

about Hitler and his Nazi party

38:25

are about to take over in Germany. So how does the next

38:27

few years play out in the early 30s? Well, the

38:30

whole of the 1930s can be

38:32

seen really as one decade of

38:34

what he called the trawling tides

38:36

of drift and surrender. When

38:39

the locusts ate, he was

38:41

opposed to Adolf Hitler and

38:43

the Nazis. He

38:45

made the most magnificent speeches warning

38:48

about exactly what was going to

38:50

happen. He tried

38:53

to stop it from happening and

38:55

no one listened to him. He was ridiculed.

38:57

He was shouted down in the House of

38:59

Commons. He was attacked in

39:01

the press. They tried to take

39:04

away his seat. The Conservatives tried

39:06

to deselect him for his parliamentary

39:08

seat. On the basis he

39:10

was warmongering? On the basis that

39:12

he was warmongering, exactly. And every

39:14

single thing that he said turned out

39:16

to be right and everything that they

39:18

said turned out to be wrong. And

39:21

you see that long time

39:24

from the accession of

39:26

Adolf Hitler to becoming

39:29

the Chancellor of

39:31

Germany in January 1933, then

39:33

through obviously the anti-Semitic laws

39:35

that he passes, the remilitarization

39:38

of the Rhineland in 1936, the

39:41

Anschluss of 1938, the

39:45

Munich Crisis, of course, over the Sudetenland in 1938,

39:48

and then the horrors of marching

39:50

into Prague in the March of

39:52

1939. And by

39:54

the end of 1939, After

39:57

a whole decade of Churchill saying, this

39:59

is what is going to happen, Apa

40:01

Finally when he was proved right on

40:03

the fifteenth of March, Nineteen Thirty nine

40:05

Now everybody else has proved wrong. Finally,

40:07

the British people did actually start listening

40:09

to Winston Churchill. Andrew I wanted

40:12

to ask a question which is. How

40:15

many of those people were just

40:17

incorrect and read the situation wrong?

40:19

Which we can all do. And

40:21

how many of them were. Nazi.

40:23

Sympathizers not many Nazi since

40:25

sizes frankly there was some.

40:27

Of course the producing in

40:30

the Fascists was A and.

40:33

With her. Party but was

40:35

never neglect full force. It never got anybody

40:37

elected to parliament. Unite. Under. It's

40:39

own nine hundred say nam. As

40:42

theme am. but a lot of

40:44

people were good natured people who

40:47

fit for the best bits force

40:49

in the first were born, didn't

40:51

wanna see another wolf. Couldn't believe

40:53

that the Germans would ever start

40:56

another war. They were people who

40:58

couldn't believe that Hitler could be

41:00

so evil is still want another

41:02

war. They lot of them were

41:05

christians who believes that the phrase

41:07

appeasement was actually a positive thing.

41:09

I'm there with people who thought

41:12

that. A business was much

41:14

more important than the Germans, would

41:16

never go to war and and

41:18

destroy the capitalist economy and so

41:21

it was stored. Really The numbers

41:23

of people who were willing to

41:25

just assume that the government was

41:28

right and that's Winston Churchill was.

41:30

it was an insane warmonger. Are

41:33

under you alluded to earlier and on

41:35

I'm on Sundays. Be someone was born

41:37

in the Soviet Union, I'm likely to

41:39

bring the South naturally. but for a

41:42

you mentioned turtles press in some our

41:44

fascism in the threat of Nazis I'm

41:46

in Germany and you also earlier talked

41:48

about the his presence. When it comes

41:51

to the other terrible ideology that came

41:53

out of the early twentieth century, it's

41:55

during the thirties. the true horror of

41:57

the communist regime in Soviet Russia is.

42:00

The thing to became. Difficult

42:02

to ignore. Let's put it like this and Churchill

42:04

is one of the people who is openly speaking

42:06

about this and the too soon as he not

42:08

Cf. And. Again, there are quite a

42:10

lot of people here and in England and in

42:12

the west more broadly who would quite like So

42:14

the know that. That's why is

42:17

exactly no No, he was the

42:19

leading voice of and communism in

42:21

that British politics in the Nineteen

42:23

thirties. Some of his greatest speeches

42:26

were given about the the horrors

42:28

of than what had been unleashed

42:30

by and Lenin and Trotsky and

42:33

he personally attack starting on and

42:35

so on. And

42:37

he was a

42:39

i'm. A I'm

42:41

a great and communist and of

42:43

course this am continued all the

42:45

way up until he recognized the

42:48

it's the greatest threat as a

42:50

more immediate threat at least was

42:52

from the more dangerous threat was

42:54

from Hitler and at that point

42:56

he was in favor of having

42:59

an alliance with the reasons but

43:01

the trouble is that Poland was

43:03

in between Russia and and Germany

43:05

and so the only way in

43:07

which the Russians could be brought

43:10

to bear. In an anti

43:12

nazi envelop Months essentially was it's

43:14

supposed greets of it's which of

43:16

course they would not do. They.

43:19

Fought against the Russians in Nineteen

43:21

Twenty and Twenty One and that

43:23

they didn't want some Russian troops

43:25

on their soil and understand be

43:27

say when one sees the rest

43:29

as an European history say it

43:31

was a incredibly difficult than situation

43:33

at the time at But Turtle

43:35

deed Full see the a Nazi

43:37

Soviet Packs of August, Nineteen Thirty

43:39

Nine and of course when Hitler

43:41

did invade Russia, A Turtle was

43:44

the first person to say we

43:46

must immediately ally with Russia even

43:48

though he knew. That Stalin had

43:50

done the most appalling crimes including

43:52

of course killing the Polish and

43:55

officer corps cut scene in nineteen

43:57

forties. So. you very much a

43:59

pragmatist He had to be. In

44:01

wartime, realpolitik, if you're to survive, is

44:04

the only way to go forward. To

44:07

give him his due, of course after the

44:09

Second World War, he was also the first

44:11

person to have the guts to actually say

44:13

that what Stalin was doing

44:16

in Eastern Europe was a threat to

44:18

democracy there. And he

44:20

was in his great Iron Curtain

44:22

speech in Fulton, Missouri on the

44:24

5th of March 1946, the first

44:26

person to actually warn against Stalin.

44:30

And let's just touch on

44:32

Neville Chamberlain, because he's painted now

44:34

as this weak, myopic, slightly pathetic

44:36

figure. Is that unfair? Very unfair,

44:38

yeah. He was a very tough

44:42

and in his day incredibly popular

44:44

politician. He

44:46

probably would have won a landslide victory at any

44:48

time had he called a general election in 1939

44:50

or late 1938. He,

44:56

as a domestic politician, had been a really

44:59

tough minister in the government.

45:01

He'd been a senior minister for 20 years.

45:04

He was the son of Joseph Chamberlain, one of the

45:06

great Victorian politicians. So,

45:08

yes, no, it's wrong to think of

45:10

him as some kind of weak, vacillating

45:12

character. It might have

45:14

been better if he had been, by the way, because

45:16

he might have been able to have been pushed off

45:18

the policy of appeasement, which he clung on to even

45:21

after it became obvious that

45:25

it wasn't working. When he came

45:27

back from Munich and waved

45:29

a piece of paper in the air,

45:31

he truly believed that he had

45:34

personally, through his own diplomacy, managed

45:36

to save peace for his time

45:39

and told the cabinet as much.

45:42

He was a very vain man in that sense. And delusional

45:45

as well. Well, ultimately, yes, because by

45:47

the time of the move into Prague

45:49

in March 1939, he still had

45:52

to be forced into giving the guarantee.

46:00

to Poland, which they gave on

46:02

the 1st of April 1939, which

46:04

of course was the trigger that started the Second World

46:06

War. So, Andrew, if you

46:09

wasn't motivated by weakness, what

46:11

was the basis of the policy of a

46:13

piece? Well,

46:15

first of all, it was the

46:17

sense that we couldn't fight Italy,

46:19

Japan and Germany all at

46:21

the same time without any allies. The

46:24

Americans were in full-on isolationist

46:27

mode. The America First Movement

46:29

was tremendously powerful at that

46:31

time. The

46:35

Russians at the time, of course, from the August of

46:37

1939 onwards were allied to the

46:41

Germans. Yes. The French didn't

46:43

want to go to war at all. And

46:47

so we saw the strategic

46:50

danger of actually going to war

46:52

against three big powers right the

46:54

way around the world, from

46:56

the Far East to the Channel,

46:58

essentially with no allies. And

47:01

so that was one of the major

47:03

reasons behind appeasement. The other one, and

47:06

this we have to give Neville Chamberlain his due,

47:08

was that major advances were

47:10

being made in terms of radar

47:14

and the latest

47:17

types of hurricane and spitfire. And we

47:19

needed to make as many as we

47:21

possibly could before war broke out. In

47:24

that period of the year between Munich

47:26

and the outbreak of war, between the

47:28

September of 1938 and the September of

47:30

1939, we did

47:33

build enough hurricanes and spitfires to

47:36

win the Battle of Britain in 1940.

47:39

Now, we didn't know that that was going to happen,

47:41

of course. It was pure luck, frankly. But

47:43

it was very much a

47:45

plan to try to create

47:48

as much as we could in terms

47:50

of armaments. It's worth pointing

47:52

out, of course, that the Germans created much more

47:54

in that year than we did. But

47:56

nonetheless, that was an important aspect of it as well.

48:00

I have to say I suddenly find myself

48:02

rather persuaded by the argument for appeasement,

48:04

particularly on the first point. If you've

48:06

got a, yes, the British Empire, but

48:09

as we've discussed, bankrupt and morally quite

48:11

weakened, no allies. Well,

48:14

no, the thing was that, of course, they should have

48:16

got allies. They should have done much more. The

48:19

Chamberlain government was totally uninterested in trying to

48:21

persuade the Americans. It was totally uninteresting

48:23

in trying to get the Russians on

48:26

board. That would have been difficult because the

48:28

Russians wanted the Baltic states, and

48:30

we were in no position as a democracy to

48:33

hand over the Baltic states in the way that

48:35

Hitler obviously could do. We

48:37

should have been rearming so much earlier in

48:39

the 1930s, getting all

48:41

the latest cutting edge

48:45

weaponry, and also

48:47

obviously making much

48:49

more of a

48:52

forward movement in Europe

48:54

itself. I mean, we didn't send any

48:56

troops to the

48:59

European continent until

49:01

after the war broke now. Yes. I guess

49:03

where I was going with my question is

49:05

I can see why maybe some of Churchill's

49:08

arguments were falling on deaf ears, because the

49:11

argument that we have no allies, we're

49:13

one, yes, empire, but we've got

49:15

all these challenges we're going to have to fight off. It's

49:18

much wiser to avoid a fight at any

49:20

cost almost. It must have been

49:22

quite difficult for Churchill to try and make inroads

49:24

against that. It certainly was, and

49:27

the key moment, of course, comes in Munich

49:29

because had the Czechs fought

49:32

at in 1938 and

49:35

the French and British invaded or attacked at

49:37

least in the West, firstly,

49:40

there's a chance that Hitler might have fallen

49:42

anyway. Some generals said they were

49:44

going to overthrow him. Secondly,

49:46

there's no certainty

49:48

that he would have been able to have won

49:50

that war, a 1938 war. By

49:53

1939, and certainly by 1940, he had the entirety of the German Reich up. to

50:00

mobilization point and of course was able

50:02

to steamroller Poland and then in the

50:04

May 1940

50:06

crushed the British and French in the

50:09

West. Andrew, I got

50:11

told this and maybe this is completely wrong

50:13

but Hitler also had quite a favorable impression

50:15

of the British. He

50:17

quite liked us. He

50:19

ideologically... I wouldn't brag about that. No,

50:22

it's important, it's a very important aspect of this.

50:26

No, he didn't like us because

50:28

he was jealous of our empire

50:30

but he was impressed by our

50:32

empire and the way in which

50:35

very, very small numbers of British

50:37

troops managed to essentially run the

50:39

Indian empire. There were...

50:42

There was only a few thousand,

50:45

tens of thousands in an empire of 300 million

50:48

people in India. So

50:51

it was... In that sense

50:53

he was impressed. He was also impressed by the

50:55

sheer scale and size of the empire which he

50:57

would be because it was the largest empire the

50:59

world had ever seen. But

51:02

he didn't like the British, no. In

51:04

fact when he went on rant he

51:07

would rant against... Well certainly Winston Churchill

51:09

as you can imagine but also the

51:12

British as a people. And

51:14

so Neville Chillingman

51:16

has pursued this policy of appeasement.

51:18

He's becoming quite obvious to everybody

51:20

that this isn't going to work.

51:23

How does his political career end

51:25

considering he's his tough uncompromising character?

51:28

Neville Chamberlain's career ended in a

51:30

debate called the Norway

51:32

debate over the defeat that the British and

51:35

French had suffered in Norway. And

51:37

it was held on the 7th and 8th of May 1940 and because

51:39

so few conservatives and natural

51:47

supporters of the government actually

51:49

turned up to vote for

51:51

Chamberlain even though he did win an 81 seat

51:55

majority, usually

51:57

the majority was much bigger than that. And

52:00

so he was forced to resign on

52:03

the morning of the 10th of May

52:05

1940. When

52:07

Churchill became the Prime

52:10

Minister on the 10th of May 1940, he

52:12

was called by King George VI to go

52:15

to Buckingham Palace in the evening and

52:17

that was the same day that Adolf

52:19

Hitler, purely by coincidence,

52:22

invaded the Low Countries and

52:25

Holland and Belgium, ultimately obviously

52:27

also to invade France. We'll

52:30

be back with our guests in a minute,

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code TRIG. Now back

53:29

to the interview. And

53:32

he wasn't a young man, by the way, when he

53:35

became leader of this country, was he at that

53:37

point? He was 65, which is

53:39

the retirement age. And

53:43

he said of that day, of

53:46

that evening, that he felt as

53:48

if he were walking with destiny and that all of

53:50

his past life had been but a preparation for this

53:52

hour and for this trial. And in a

53:54

sense it was. All of the things he'd done in

53:56

the First World War, all of the amazing

53:59

jobs, that he'd held up till that

54:01

point. He held all but

54:04

one of the great offices of state. His

54:09

whole career up until that point had

54:11

in a way been a preparation and

54:14

the extraordinary thing was

54:16

that when he was only 16 years

54:18

old as a schoolboy at Harrow

54:20

he told his best friend Merlin

54:23

Evans, there shall be great upheavals,

54:25

great struggles in our lives, I

54:28

shall be called upon to save England and save

54:30

the Empire. He said that when he was

54:32

only 16 and then half a

54:34

century later exactly that happened. So

54:36

I mean what a

54:38

story. I mean it sounds like something out

54:40

of a film really which is why so

54:43

many people have made movies and

54:45

TV series about him. So he's 65

54:47

years old, he assumes a man to

54:49

a leader. Britain to

54:51

be honest it doesn't look like we're going

54:53

to win. No

54:55

it looks very much like we're

54:58

going to lose. In the first

55:00

two weeks we are pushed off

55:02

the continent and the German Blitzkrieg,

55:04

a completely new form of warfare

55:06

in which their bombers and their

55:09

tanks and their infantry all

55:11

work together in a

55:13

seamless hole to cut through

55:16

the Ardennes and essentially get

55:18

to the Channel port by the 20th of

55:20

May 1940

55:23

and force the British

55:26

Expeditionary Force to to

55:28

re-embark at Dunkirk very nearly captures the

55:30

whole of the, Hitler could have captured

55:32

the whole of the British Expeditionary Force

55:35

if he hadn't executed his hold order

55:37

of the 24th of May

55:39

and by the 4th of June the

55:41

British Expeditionary Force minus 40,000 men who

55:44

are captured back in Britain.

55:46

Again the Russians are allied to the Germans,

55:49

the Americans aren't involved, the French have essentially

55:51

been knocked out of the war, we look

55:53

as though we've lost. And

55:56

what sustained him and I think

55:58

I know the answer to this question through

56:00

those incredibly dark moments when it looked

56:02

like Britain was going to fall. His

56:05

self-belief, his belief in destiny, not

56:07

just his own personal destiny but

56:09

national destiny as well. He

56:12

believed that Britain was

56:15

specifically going to see it through

56:17

and to win. He had

56:20

a belief in himself and

56:22

his country that was

56:24

not going to be essentially

56:26

affected by the situation on

56:28

the ground. He made speeches

56:32

giving the British people reason to hope.

56:35

Frankly, they weren't great reasons when one

56:37

looks at them logically and rationally but

56:39

it wasn't a logical and rational moment,

56:41

frankly. It was one in which you

56:43

had to have self-belief and

56:46

he did have that. And one of the things we haven't

56:48

touched on so far but I think it's the

56:50

right moment to touch on is

56:52

you've actually talked about him having

56:54

different roles within government prior to

56:56

this moment in which he actually

56:59

does very well. So he's clearly

57:01

a competent not just leader who

57:03

gives speeches and inspires people but

57:05

actually competent at administration and management

57:07

and running departments. Why

57:09

is that? Why is he so good?

57:11

Well, absolutely. He runs huge departments. The

57:13

Ministry of Munitions was the biggest government

57:16

department in the world at the time

57:18

of the number

57:20

of people. It had well over one and a

57:22

half million people working for it. He

57:25

was a chancellor of the Exchequer

57:27

and therefore in charge of the entire British

57:29

economy for five years. These are big areas.

57:33

The First Lord of the Admiralty at the time

57:35

with the British Navy was easily the biggest navy

57:39

in the world as well. So he

57:42

was good at these big things and

57:44

the reason was that he was a

57:46

real micromanager. He got down into the

57:49

basics of everything. He would visit the

57:52

depots constantly. He would meet people

57:55

below the top level. So he

57:57

actually knew what people on

58:00

the shop floor thinking and

58:04

saying. He was somebody who was so

58:06

energetic, you know, every morning bounced out

58:08

of bed early in order to get

58:11

the job done. And this was partly

58:13

obviously because of his ambition. He wanted to

58:15

do well in each of his jobs and

58:18

therefore get promoted, but also because he was

58:20

a parental perfectionist when it came to the

58:22

duties that he was given.

58:24

And was he a good people person? Oh,

58:27

wonderful. Actually wonderful. He had any

58:29

number of sort of top tips for how

58:32

to get

58:34

on with people. He was

58:36

immensely charming, very

58:39

funny man. And so he was able to

58:41

put people at their

58:45

calm. He was

58:47

very, very calm in crises as

58:49

well, which people hugely appreciated,

58:52

especially considering how many crises he was

58:54

involved in in his life. He was

58:57

a very much

59:00

a people person is the exact right way

59:02

of putting it. Yeah, he would, if he

59:05

felt that people weren't connecting

59:07

with each other, he would make sure that

59:09

they turned up, he'd give parties, he would

59:11

give them Swedish milk punch,

59:13

which is a rather disgusting sounding

59:15

drink nonetheless. And it was something

59:18

that he would give them

59:20

and he would make sure that people met

59:24

other people important for them and so on.

59:26

He was very, very good when it comes

59:28

to everything to do with networking. That's very

59:30

interesting. He was a connector. So how does

59:32

he bring this to bear? Britain looks

59:35

like it's about to lose. The British

59:37

expeditionary force has been forced back to

59:40

Britain having lost

59:42

tens of thousands of soldiers

59:44

captured, no allies to

59:46

speak of at the time. Iraq is not

59:49

involved in the war. Germany seems

59:52

incredibly powerful with these new tactics.

59:54

The Soviet Union is maybe not

59:56

allied. Maybe

59:59

not. aggression. But anyway,

1:00:01

it doesn't really matter too

1:00:03

much. It's supplying grain and

1:00:05

oil and soil. What

1:00:09

does social do? Well, I think one

1:00:12

very important point to point out is

1:00:14

of course that although

1:00:16

we don't have foreign allies, we

1:00:18

do have the Empire. So

1:00:20

we have the millions of people

1:00:23

who join the Indian

1:00:25

army, which becomes the largest volunteer army

1:00:27

in the history of mankind, still is

1:00:29

to this day. We

1:00:32

have the Australians who are

1:00:35

superb fighters, as are the New

1:00:38

Zealanders. The Canadians are

1:00:40

superb fighters, but also are able

1:00:43

to ship huge amounts of grain

1:00:45

and so on across the Atlantic

1:00:47

to Britain

1:00:50

to keep feeding Britain. All three

1:00:52

of those, sorry four of those,

1:00:55

and also troops from the Caribbean

1:00:58

countries fight in North Africa and

1:01:00

in various other parts of the

1:01:02

world, Burma and so on.

1:01:06

And finally also fight

1:01:08

in Italy and Europe. So

1:01:10

the Empire is a huge,

1:01:13

huge supporter of Britain in

1:01:15

its hour of need in 1940 and 1941, whilst Britain

1:01:17

is fighting

1:01:20

for its life. And how willing are these,

1:01:22

we've alluded to the fact that by this

1:01:24

point, the Empire is starting to break down

1:01:26

and it's inevitable that it

1:01:29

will collapse eventually as it does. How

1:01:31

willing are the Indians to go and sign up and

1:01:33

fight in a war that... This is the

1:01:35

amazing thing. They're incredibly willing. The

1:01:38

New Zealanders, Canadians and Australians

1:01:40

all declare war on the

1:01:43

same day that the war

1:01:45

breaks out, 3rd of September.

1:01:48

The Maoris, for example, have their chiefs come

1:01:50

together and declare war against Germany, even though

1:01:52

they're on the other side of the world

1:01:54

from Germany. The Indians, of course, Was

1:02:00

it my the Viceroy part? You

1:02:02

know nobody forces them to sign

1:02:04

up and they do so in

1:02:07

them millions to were to fight.

1:02:09

This is this is a eighteen

1:02:11

months will say before the Japanese

1:02:14

attack in in Pearl Harbor. So

1:02:16

yes it's a it's a Great

1:02:18

Imperial, a family essentially that comes

1:02:20

together to us to try to

1:02:23

cite the horrors of fascism. And

1:02:25

how much is that was a loyalty to

1:02:27

Britain and how much of that was. A

1:02:31

look over what what Germany were doing

1:02:33

and going. this is an evil that

1:02:35

nice to be defeated of us. Absolutely

1:02:38

yeah and and of course it would

1:02:40

be both. You know is that makes

1:02:42

perfect sense has netted sir and it

1:02:44

is up and to Munich a loss

1:02:47

as the rest of the empire wasn't

1:02:49

interested in getting involved in a European

1:02:51

war. But once it became clear from

1:02:53

Munich on woods and especially as I

1:02:56

keep coming back this idea of the

1:02:58

of the read miniaturize a soon as

1:03:00

Prague have been that moment where he

1:03:02

moves in super senior and Moravia and

1:03:04

then takes a whole of the rest

1:03:07

of Czechoslovakia in the March. Nineteen Thirty

1:03:09

Nine That is the clear signals to

1:03:11

the whole world that Hitler is not

1:03:13

just insisted in trying to get Germans

1:03:16

back into the rice as he had

1:03:18

been claiming for years and that all

1:03:20

he wanted to do was rip up

1:03:22

the Versailles treaty, know he was taking

1:03:25

Slavs into the right as well and

1:03:27

say that was the moment at which

1:03:29

your stadiums, Canadians, New Zealanders, And so

1:03:32

on. All recognized that hit that

1:03:34

was exactly the kind of evil

1:03:36

com crash that hit at Sir

1:03:38

Winston Churchill of the morning about

1:03:41

so. They

1:03:43

then. Started to fight

1:03:45

the germans. a moot point did

1:03:47

we see the germans start getting

1:03:49

pushed back as if it looks

1:03:51

like it was a more fair

1:03:53

fight. An isolate. The

1:03:56

seat didn't look inevitable. For.

1:03:58

The first name is Cool Sweet Victory. Britain.

1:04:01

On the fifteenth of September Nineteen

1:04:03

Forty, it became clear that the

1:04:05

Oriented won the battle of loss

1:04:07

against the law suffer. And

1:04:09

dirt And the invasion therefore wasn't

1:04:11

going to take place. We didn't

1:04:14

know it wasn't gonna take place

1:04:16

really until the June of nice

1:04:18

if we won when the Hitler

1:04:20

invaded Russia. But it's but it

1:04:22

became pretty clear because you can't

1:04:25

invade across twins two miles of

1:04:27

so was Us unless you have

1:04:29

air superiority or we establish that

1:04:31

obesity in that a Operation Overlord

1:04:33

in June nineteen Forty four going

1:04:36

the other direction and they didn't

1:04:38

have operational. An. Air

1:04:40

superiority because they lost the Battle

1:04:42

of Britain. That was the first

1:04:44

point but then it's an awesome

1:04:46

till the November ninth and Forty

1:04:48

Two. So a fool to and

1:04:50

a half years after the Battle

1:04:52

of Britain that the Germans start

1:04:54

to get serious, be defeated on

1:04:56

land and that happens in North

1:04:58

Africa the middle of El Alamein

1:05:00

him that at the end ninety

1:05:02

Forty Two. And. How

1:05:04

much so that was? Because. The.

1:05:07

Americans then got involved. A

1:05:10

lot because we're very fortunate that

1:05:12

the Americans. Gave Us

1:05:14

in the Sand A essentially

1:05:16

the Sherman tanks am. With

1:05:18

which we fools and the battle

1:05:20

know sam as El Alamein and

1:05:22

also of course in the same

1:05:24

months and they demonise In Forty

1:05:27

Two, the Americans also landed a

1:05:29

quarter of a million men in

1:05:31

North West Africa and in Morocco

1:05:33

and and. And. Elsewhere on

1:05:35

the northwestern coasts there was another, but

1:05:37

the Americas not involved in the war's

1:05:39

a combination of this point is it

1:05:41

in November? Nineteen Forty Two it is.

1:05:44

So. I'm yes he goes if

1:05:46

that is of course this is why

1:05:48

this one has been attacked this and

1:05:50

will. This is if this is an

1:05:52

amazing thing about America is that although

1:05:55

it wasn't attacked by Germany, yes it

1:05:57

it's and Hitler didn't declare war against

1:05:59

Americans or. Eleventh as December Nineteen,

1:06:01

Forty One Four days after

1:06:03

Pearl Harbor, the Roosevelt Administration

1:06:05

took the most incredibly statesman

1:06:07

like decision to put Germany

1:06:09

first. It's cool, the Germany

1:06:12

First policy. And they

1:06:14

and will be decided to do

1:06:16

was to even if they hadn't

1:06:18

been attacked by Germany. They.

1:06:20

Only been attacked by Japan in

1:06:22

the Pacific, they nonetheless had seventy

1:06:25

percent of their resources concentrated on

1:06:27

defeating Germany. And this is because

1:06:29

of great statesman said by the

1:06:31

Roosevelt administration by General Marshall and

1:06:33

by General Eisenhower and others who

1:06:36

came up with what's called the

1:06:38

Germany First policy and them. And

1:06:40

the fact is that a on

1:06:42

the clouds of it's in the

1:06:45

great military think it's if you

1:06:47

are taxed by two enemies, you

1:06:49

take out the strongest. One first

1:06:51

and that Hitler was much stronger

1:06:53

than Japan. Whenever I

1:06:55

think about Pearl Harbor I

1:06:57

always see is. A

1:07:00

good. Teacher Listening to Do by

1:07:03

the Japanese You've got the Americans.

1:07:05

They're not involved at this stage

1:07:07

in. There. Was super power.

1:07:10

Why? He than what I. Am

1:07:13

because of the old embargo as

1:07:15

the fear was goods to pounds.

1:07:17

A sense either Japanese empire was

1:07:19

essentially just gonna run out of

1:07:22

oil. And the way to

1:07:24

smash that was to take on

1:07:26

the Americans and or steal the

1:07:29

the oil this the and Netherlands

1:07:31

East Indies.season. And the

1:07:33

only way to do that was

1:07:35

to attack America. And it was,

1:07:38

of course, and it ultimately incredibly

1:07:40

stupid and suicidal as into a

1:07:42

dumb because you can't invade America.

1:07:44

America isn't an invader bull country

1:07:46

and that's also why it was

1:07:48

a stupid and indeed literally suicidal

1:07:50

for at all fit into declare

1:07:53

war on America on the eleventh

1:07:55

of December, nineteen Forty One. But

1:07:57

Sam posters these countries did that

1:07:59

and. And what would

1:08:01

happen to them He and and you're

1:08:03

coming back to Churchill. I imagine when

1:08:06

he's taking over ninety forty, the war

1:08:08

looks like. Is. Unwinnable at

1:08:10

this point or close to. He's giving all

1:08:12

the speeches, is trying to marshal the defense

1:08:14

of Britain. Number.

1:08:16

One of the top of is

1:08:18

less or certainly closer would have

1:08:20

been how do I get the

1:08:22

Americans to help us That's why

1:08:24

on the Americans did help enormously.

1:08:26

They sent over in the a

1:08:29

man do know from Nineteen Fourteen

1:08:31

the summer of Nineteen forty, huge

1:08:33

numbers of rifles, millions of rounds

1:08:35

of ammunition, an enormous amounts of

1:08:37

military help, and then they passed

1:08:39

the least that the Lend Lease

1:08:41

Act which allowed us to buy

1:08:43

enormous amounts of munitions from them

1:08:45

as well. As so so,

1:08:47

the Americans did how what they obviously

1:08:50

didn't want to do at that. Time.

1:08:53

Was to actually I get involved

1:08:55

in in the in the hot

1:08:57

war in the and because they

1:08:59

hadn't been attacked. And

1:09:01

yet when? At of

1:09:03

Hitler did declare war on them.

1:09:05

Then they took this say credible

1:09:07

decision. This Germany first decision and

1:09:09

they landed all those men Could

1:09:12

have a million men in the

1:09:14

Western theater as opposed to just

1:09:16

concentrating on the Japanese. coffee Did

1:09:18

fight back very much against the

1:09:20

Japanese. You have got a canal

1:09:22

you have said about Midway by

1:09:24

Nineteen Forty Two, but the lion's

1:09:27

share of the American resources goes

1:09:29

to citing hits or in the

1:09:31

West. So.

1:09:34

It. Was Churchill happy with the situation where

1:09:36

he was getting supplies you got lend lease

1:09:38

or was he's dying down the door trying

1:09:40

to get the American? So I actually get

1:09:43

Kinetic Li involved. Turtle.

1:09:45

Very much on seats and

1:09:47

the to be Knesset claim

1:09:49

involved of course, but M

1:09:51

C recognize that he couldn't

1:09:53

effect internal American domestic political

1:09:55

opinion. Or beyond

1:09:57

making speeches. Three Americans,

1:10:00

Constantly getting his ambassador to

1:10:02

try to encourage the Americans

1:10:04

to give more help am

1:10:07

and thus making sure that

1:10:09

Americans saw the war in

1:10:11

the correct size illogical terms

1:10:14

which will obviously without. A

1:10:16

civilization and and democracy on one

1:10:18

side, against their fascism and frankly

1:10:20

evil on the other. When

1:10:23

you told a story about. Churchill.

1:10:27

Is. Was sixty five years old the

1:10:29

told it must have taken on him.

1:10:32

Both physical and emotional must

1:10:35

have been. In. So.

1:10:37

It. It must have been almost unbearable.

1:10:40

Well. That's why I mean you sixty five

1:10:42

years old when he became prime minister nineteen

1:10:44

forties, who was in his early seventies by

1:10:46

the time of. The.

1:10:49

End of the in and he

1:10:51

was extraordinary brave during the Second

1:10:53

world war he go up on

1:10:55

to the arms. On. To

1:10:58

the room so vital indeed of

1:11:00

a building that stuff behind us

1:11:02

there are the Air Ministry. he

1:11:04

go up on the roof during

1:11:06

the blitz, he undertook hundred and

1:11:08

ten thousand miles of flights outside

1:11:11

the United Kingdom, not a slight.

1:11:13

Also shit perjure is by sit

1:11:15

outside the United Kingdom, sometimes within

1:11:17

the radius of the of the

1:11:19

lucifer he would he have four

1:11:21

separate bouts of pneumonia, one of

1:11:24

which very nearly killed him in

1:11:26

Carthage in Nineteen Forty. Three and

1:11:28

so he really was serving tremendous

1:11:30

physical courage. But that is Winston

1:11:32

Churchill. You see, this is the

1:11:34

great thing he he sued as

1:11:37

much physical courage as he had

1:11:39

so moral courage throughout his career

1:11:41

and list stance on his the.

1:11:44

The things that people say about him that he

1:11:46

was an alcoholic and he was. Permanently.

1:11:48

Drunk A said sir I caught

1:11:50

humbling that I'm well now you

1:11:52

couldn't really have run that as

1:11:54

sex mobile. Frankly, the and I've

1:11:56

gone through all of these and

1:11:58

sled these meetings. The Cabinet and

1:12:00

the War Cabinet if you are permanently

1:12:03

drugs. He did drink a hell of

1:12:05

a lot of that's one thing to

1:12:07

remember I see has a right not

1:12:09

serines capacity for alcohol he would he

1:12:12

would drink our most lumps times and

1:12:14

certainly most in the times he didn't

1:12:16

get completely plastered but he did have

1:12:18

a whiskey and soda is that would

1:12:20

start at about six o'clock in the

1:12:23

evenings and then goes through on but

1:12:25

some. His private secretary and. As

1:12:27

in bonds, a few. Brown told me

1:12:29

that these were what he called mouth

1:12:32

was so very very little whiskey, large

1:12:34

amounts of that of soda. and there

1:12:36

was a a friend of his cool,

1:12:38

Cp Scott. He said that Winston Churchill

1:12:40

couldn't have been an alcoholic because no

1:12:42

alcoholic could have drunk that Nazis. That's

1:12:46

or into seats are I mean the I

1:12:48

guess the obvious counterpoint to your argument that

1:12:51

he couldn't have ten dollars, meetings, etc was

1:12:53

that Hitler promptly was on all sorts of

1:12:55

drugs the entire war and also was teetotal.

1:12:58

And of cool. So so Hitler was on

1:13:00

the other end of the area of the

1:13:02

spectrum. As it works, I'm. Hitler

1:13:04

would be the in frames athena different

1:13:06

ways that they did. they acted hits

1:13:09

and at the beginning as meetings would

1:13:11

set out what he wanted the meeting

1:13:13

to discuss then that he would listen

1:13:15

quite a lot. He was quite good

1:13:17

listener. in fact we know from these

1:13:20

your conferences which were all taken down

1:13:22

by the stenographers every word the of

1:13:24

who sunset and eastern their preference but

1:13:26

then at the end you'd some up

1:13:29

and not change his mind at all

1:13:31

He would he would have listened to

1:13:33

his generals but. Then he would not

1:13:35

have taken their point of view. We.

1:13:37

Turtle, it was very different make he

1:13:39

didn't start off saying what he won't

1:13:42

eat, He would listen to what they

1:13:44

have to say and if the arguments

1:13:46

were better than his arguments, he would

1:13:48

change his mind. And that obesity is

1:13:50

the much more democratic, much more grown

1:13:52

up, frankly and much more useful and

1:13:55

little successful way of getting about a

1:13:57

meeting. Will Fly You mentioned that one

1:13:59

of them. The lessons he learned from

1:14:01

his earlier mistakes was that his opinion

1:14:03

wasn't always the right one on that. You

1:14:05

are to listen to the professionals, particularly when

1:14:08

it comes to matters of was handed that

1:14:10

manifests itself during World War Two or well.

1:14:12

He would have some of the The Chiefs

1:14:14

of Staff this across the table from him

1:14:17

again not very far from here to say

1:14:19

the there in the Cabinet War Rooms and

1:14:21

they would add in General Addenbrooke, the Chief

1:14:24

of the Imperial General Staff would lean across

1:14:26

and three pencils and hall say no, I

1:14:28

disagree with you Prime Minister. Ahmet

1:14:30

that they would have these arguments. Sometimes they

1:14:32

would be rouse, sometimes they would bang the

1:14:34

table. Sometimes. His concerts would burst

1:14:37

into tears. If he didn't

1:14:39

get his way thought is that

1:14:41

she's the staff all stuck to

1:14:43

their original beliefs as they did

1:14:45

a the say the Sumatra planned

1:14:47

of March nineteen forty three and

1:14:49

various Norwegian and plans as well

1:14:51

and they refuse to change their

1:14:53

minds then and then. Natural never

1:14:55

overruled them and and this turned

1:14:57

out to be the best thing

1:14:59

you know because they did not

1:15:02

make any suits Arrows they were

1:15:04

of course they were mistakes and

1:15:06

and deceit, sons and problems and.

1:15:08

And so on. but the Chiefs of

1:15:10

Staff overrule didn't make the kind of

1:15:12

errors that they would have made his

1:15:14

they had been potty in turtles hands

1:15:16

and as we move towards the end

1:15:19

of the wall when we saw. The

1:15:21

fire bombing of Dresden. How

1:15:23

much was Church was involved in

1:15:26

those decisions when he was one

1:15:28

of the yeah people? Of course

1:15:30

it was. That was an R

1:15:33

A S Bomber Command decision which

1:15:35

was an essentially okayed by the

1:15:37

Chiefs of Staff The address them

1:15:40

one in particular on the thirteenth

1:15:42

and fourteenth says February Nineteen or

1:15:44

forty Five was an easy decision

1:15:46

for the as he starts to

1:15:49

say because the Russians had asked

1:15:51

Bomber Command see smash the Railway.

1:15:53

notes that we're bringing german

1:15:56

forces back from the west

1:15:58

to soar up the defence

1:16:01

of Nazi positions in the East. And

1:16:05

so to attack the railway sidings, which

1:16:07

is what they did in Dresden,

1:16:10

was not a difficult decision to take.

1:16:13

The reason that the losses were so

1:16:15

high, and by the way they're nothing

1:16:17

like as high as pro-Nazi

1:16:19

historians have made out, they're much more

1:16:21

like 20,000 rather than 200,000 people killed

1:16:23

on those raids. The

1:16:28

reason they were so high was

1:16:30

because the galitres of Dresden had

1:16:32

not prepared proper defences in

1:16:35

Dresden. But

1:16:37

nonetheless, I guess what Francis' question is getting

1:16:40

at, and this is

1:16:42

relevant to a more modern context when

1:16:44

we see conflicts that are ongoing currently

1:16:46

where there's a constant discussion about civilian

1:16:48

casualties and war and so on. In

1:16:52

the last year and a half of the war,

1:16:54

the Allies in Britain in particular dropped a hell

1:16:56

of a lot of munitions

1:16:58

on Nazi Germany. To

1:17:01

what extent was there a moral

1:17:03

debate within the British government and armed forces

1:17:05

about that? Or was it just seen as,

1:17:08

look, we've got to win the war, this

1:17:10

is what you do when you're in war?

1:17:12

There was a moral debate. The Church of

1:17:14

England had several bishops who were opposed to

1:17:16

it and who said so in debates in

1:17:18

the House of Lords. This

1:17:20

got very little traction amongst the public.

1:17:22

The public, frankly, who had

1:17:24

taken the blitz, of course, back

1:17:27

in 1940, 1941, and

1:17:29

in the V2 attacks in 1944, were

1:17:32

taking it all over again. They were

1:17:34

very much in favour of giving it

1:17:36

back to the Germans. As it was,

1:17:38

we lost over 50,000 killed civilians and

1:17:44

the Germans lost half a million. So

1:17:46

we gave it back 10 times. And

1:17:48

that, tragically, is war.

1:17:51

That's what happens in war when you start a war

1:17:53

and you try to kill as many innocent civilians

1:17:58

as possible. I mean, obviously, it's not a war. there

1:18:00

is a war going on at the moment in Gaza

1:18:02

where much the same kind of

1:18:05

thing is happening. Very many more

1:18:07

civilians being killed than originally were

1:18:10

killed by the aggressors. But it's

1:18:12

absolutely essential to remember who were

1:18:14

the aggressors. Well, quite. And it's

1:18:16

one of the reasons I brought

1:18:18

in the modern situation. However, I'm

1:18:20

just curious. And to

1:18:23

think about the decision,

1:18:25

was there a – you

1:18:27

alluded to the fact that the general public frankly

1:18:30

wanted to give it back to the Germans. Was

1:18:33

there an element of the aerial bombardment

1:18:35

of Germany that was about punishment?

1:18:38

Not really, no. It was –

1:18:40

that was there. Of

1:18:43

course it was. But actually, when you

1:18:45

look at the graphs of the increase

1:18:47

in munitions productions,

1:18:50

by the August of 1943, all of

1:18:52

the graphs come –

1:18:55

they basically plateau off because

1:18:57

the Allied bombing campaign – it wasn't

1:18:59

just the RAF, of course, it was

1:19:01

also the US AAF – are

1:19:05

able to take out the

1:19:08

factories necessary in

1:19:10

so many cases that mean that,

1:19:12

yes, the Germans continue to increase

1:19:15

military production, but nothing like the same extent as

1:19:17

in 1941, 1942, and the early part of 1943.

1:19:23

So it really is an attempt to hit

1:19:26

the war-bearing factories, the oil

1:19:28

refineries, the tank

1:19:31

production factories, and they're very successful in

1:19:33

that. Was it seen

1:19:35

really as a way of just

1:19:37

expediting the end of this conflict? Precisely.

1:19:40

You try and shorten the war by

1:19:42

any means possible. The

1:19:44

RAF and the US AAF believe that

1:19:46

they could actually win the war just

1:19:48

by smashing German cities. And

1:19:50

if you also – what was called, it's

1:19:52

a rather horrible phrase, but nonetheless, sort

1:19:55

of the bloodless phrase, de-hows –

1:19:58

but if you also, at the same times hitting

1:20:00

the factories, de-house the civilian population,

1:20:03

you make it much more difficult

1:20:05

for them also to work

1:20:07

in the factories to produce the necessary munitions

1:20:10

for the Germans to carry on fighting. So

1:20:12

it was just a very simple and effective

1:20:14

way of bringing the country to its knees?

1:20:16

Yes. And it did it

1:20:18

extremely successfully, and if we had not done it, you

1:20:21

could well have found that the Germans

1:20:24

could have carried on fighting for

1:20:26

many months, indeed possibly even

1:20:28

years longer, and if that had happened, many

1:20:30

more millions of people would have died. And

1:20:33

at what point did they find

1:20:35

out about the concentration camps? Relatively

1:20:40

late on. There

1:20:43

were overflights, of course, where

1:20:45

reconnaissance planes were able to

1:20:47

take, as we discovered after

1:20:49

the war, a very good

1:20:51

photograph of the actual rampant

1:20:53

Auschwitz. There's a

1:20:55

photograph. If you visited Auschwitz

1:20:57

today, you see this allied

1:21:01

photograph. But at the time, they didn't know

1:21:03

what it was, tragically. Then

1:21:07

there were some people in 1942 who

1:21:09

actually came back, very brave Poles that

1:21:11

came back to explain what was going

1:21:14

on. Only by

1:21:16

1944, by the time

1:21:18

of the mass movement of

1:21:21

Hungarians to Auschwitz, the

1:21:23

Western Allies had a pretty

1:21:26

good idea that something truly monstrous

1:21:28

was taking place. Winston Churchill

1:21:30

said to Anthony Eden, you know,

1:21:32

invoke me if necessary, but we

1:21:35

need to bomb the railways going

1:21:37

from Hungary to Auschwitz. The trouble is,

1:21:40

bombing a railway is very difficult, as

1:21:42

we've discovered at Dresden, apart from anything

1:21:44

else. It's

1:21:46

a really tricky thing

1:21:48

to do because it's in a straight line. And

1:21:52

so what happened essentially was

1:21:54

that the Americans didn't want

1:21:57

to undertake the daylight bombings

1:21:59

highly. not producing

1:22:01

and the RAF used to

1:22:03

bomb at night so tragically

1:22:06

that was not done. And

1:22:09

so we're going to the bombings

1:22:11

of Dresden. Was that

1:22:13

the one thing that really ended the

1:22:15

Nazi regime or were there other factors

1:22:18

involved? Oh no, no, no. The thing

1:22:20

that ended the Nazi regime was

1:22:23

D-Day in the West where

1:22:25

you have a million men by

1:22:28

D plus 30 landing on in

1:22:30

Western Europe and Operation

1:22:32

Bragration in the East where

1:22:34

in the August of 19,

1:22:36

July and August of

1:22:38

1944, the Red

1:22:41

Army kills, captures or wounds

1:22:43

over half a million German soldiers, 510,000

1:22:45

German soldiers and then it smashes essentially Army

1:22:51

Group Centre in Belarus and

1:22:53

marches on to Berlin. The

1:22:56

war was not won by the

1:23:00

combined bomber offensive although that did

1:23:02

help enormously. It was won by

1:23:04

fighting on the ground in Europe,

1:23:06

extirpating the Nazi regime in Germany.

1:23:08

Well I'm glad you said that

1:23:10

because my Soviet ancestors were not

1:23:12

accepted. The telling of the

1:23:14

story for us is an attempt and in fact

1:23:16

there are historians who have argued that really Germany

1:23:18

lost the war in the attempt

1:23:21

to capture Moscow which failed and stalled. Yeah,

1:23:24

I mean it's a very interesting historical

1:23:26

discussion. I go into this in my

1:23:29

book The Storm of War. Is

1:23:32

it the failure to capture Moscow

1:23:34

in the October and

1:23:37

November of 1941? You

1:23:39

could argue that it's Stalingrad of course between

1:23:41

August 1942 and the fall in the February

1:23:47

of 1943. Some

1:23:50

would argue that Hitler's

1:23:52

counter-attack at Kursk In

1:23:54

the Kursk salient in the July of

1:23:56

1943 and the failure of that is

1:23:58

the key moment. I'm by

1:24:01

the time of operation Progress even

1:24:03

you know the the German armies

1:24:05

very much wrong the a retreat

1:24:07

but your your your lesson ancestors

1:24:09

can to take great pride because

1:24:11

of the size for every five

1:24:13

Germans killed in combat by which

1:24:15

I don't mean bomb from the

1:24:17

and not that half a million.

1:24:19

Add we meant figure We mentioned earlier that

1:24:21

that half a million. Sorry. That

1:24:24

that for every some items killed

1:24:26

on a battlefield four died on

1:24:28

the Eastern Front year and it

1:24:30

costs the Russians some twenty seven

1:24:32

million people exactly. And and the

1:24:34

reason I bring it up to

1:24:36

his I imagine the for Churchill

1:24:38

the pragmatic necessity of doing a

1:24:40

deal with the devil. Joseph.

1:24:42

Stalin would have been simultaneously a

1:24:45

very difficult and a very simple

1:24:47

decision at once. Is that fair

1:24:49

to say Yes, that is actually

1:24:51

he the moment that he heard

1:24:53

of Hitler's an invasion of Russia,

1:24:55

operation Barbarossa on the twenty second,

1:24:57

as do Nineteen Forty One. He

1:24:59

immediately went to the House of

1:25:02

Commons and declared the alliance with

1:25:04

the with the Soviet Union. I

1:25:06

mean it's an amazing thing seems

1:25:08

to do at this man who

1:25:10

had been a powerful, the most

1:25:12

powerful. Anti communist advocate since nineteen

1:25:14

seventeen since the Russian Revolution comes out

1:25:16

and says i would you said he

1:25:19

makes a joke of it saying that

1:25:21

sets saying that he would make a

1:25:23

positive reference to of the Devil in

1:25:25

the house of Commons the if the

1:25:27

devil was a rare invade Russia. And

1:25:30

and he and he goes to the

1:25:32

House of Commons and says that this

1:25:34

and at Hitler invaded hell than he

1:25:37

would make us has. Positives:

1:25:39

reference to satan and in the

1:25:41

house of commons as silly had

1:25:44

this very much the sense that

1:25:46

he puts his i'm a country's

1:25:48

best interests first and swallows a

1:25:51

sense leave for the remainder of

1:25:53

the war his hatred of communism

1:25:55

and them and is is right

1:25:58

to do so because Of

1:26:00

course, the most important thing is to defeat the

1:26:02

Nazis. And the reason I bring that up is

1:26:04

that I think most even

1:26:07

people like us who are not well educated in

1:26:09

history will be familiar with towards

1:26:11

the end of World War II, Germany

1:26:14

is being enveloped from both sides, and eventually

1:26:16

succumbs, Hitler kills himself, and blah blah blah

1:26:18

blah. What's interesting to me is

1:26:21

there must have been a calculation at some point

1:26:23

where Churchill and the Americans would have gone, we're

1:26:26

going to win this war. And

1:26:29

then we've got another problem,

1:26:32

which is we've won this war with Joseph Stalin,

1:26:34

with whom we've had to do a deal with

1:26:36

the devil, and now the devil is in the

1:26:38

heart of Europe. Well, that comes

1:26:40

by the Yalta Conference, of course, of

1:26:43

January and February 1945. So

1:26:46

they agree

1:26:49

essentially to believe Stalin's

1:26:51

lies about the integrity

1:26:53

and independence of Poland.

1:26:56

That's one of the things

1:26:58

they need to do essentially if they're

1:27:00

to keep the alliance together until the

1:27:03

moment when the Germans are ultimately defeated

1:27:05

in the May of 1945. It's

1:27:08

a very difficult moment.

1:27:10

You can argue, and

1:27:13

historians do, that they

1:27:16

were being deliberately naive, or

1:27:19

they were just following realpolitik, which is what

1:27:21

I believe. If you've

1:27:23

got an alliance with somebody

1:27:25

who is worse than the person you've

1:27:28

got the alliance with, then you have to see

1:27:30

that alliance through. Because I guess

1:27:32

the reason I'm bringing this up is I'm

1:27:34

just curious as a historian what other options

1:27:36

you think there may have been available, because

1:27:38

if you look at it objectively, World

1:27:41

War II was started in defense of Poland

1:27:43

and Eastern Europe from being occupied by Hitler.

1:27:46

All of that territory and way more

1:27:48

ends up falling to a dictator who's

1:27:50

almost as bad. That's right. That

1:27:53

is the ultimate irony of World War II.

1:27:59

There are others. So he

1:28:01

starts believing

1:28:03

that the British Empire needs

1:28:06

to be protected and we

1:28:08

wind up so poor and

1:28:10

poverty-stricken and weak that the

1:28:12

Empire has to be given away. He

1:28:15

is an anti-socialist and yet the

1:28:17

whole of Eastern Europe is dominated

1:28:20

by communism. There are lots of

1:28:22

ironies of the Second World War,

1:28:24

but the central one, which is

1:28:26

that Adolf Hitler had to be

1:28:28

stopped, Nazism had to be extirpated

1:28:31

and destroyed. That's

1:28:34

the one that I think Britain

1:28:37

and the Western powers have

1:28:40

an untarnishable glory in

1:28:42

being the people who

1:28:44

started from the first day of the war

1:28:47

and went on to the last day of

1:28:49

the war. And that's something that Canadians and

1:28:51

Australians, New Zealanders and so on,

1:28:54

Indians are able, I think,

1:28:56

to take great pride along with the

1:28:58

British for. Were there any other options

1:29:00

at Yalta? Could they have done anything

1:29:02

to save people from Europe? There was

1:29:04

this thing called Operation Unthinkable. This wasn't

1:29:06

at Yalta. There

1:29:09

was nothing you could do at Yalta

1:29:11

because by that stage the Soviets had

1:29:13

millions of boots on the ground in

1:29:15

Poland and at least in Europe. But

1:29:17

by the time of Potsdam, of course,

1:29:19

the United States had the nuclear bomb,

1:29:21

but there was simply no way they

1:29:23

could have threatened to use it against

1:29:25

their Soviet allies who had lost 27

1:29:28

million fighting against the human

1:29:31

beings, fighting against the Germans. Against

1:29:36

the Germans. Uncle Joe

1:29:39

Stalin was very popular in the

1:29:41

West, of course. There was simply

1:29:43

no way that the nuclear bomb

1:29:45

could have been threatened against the

1:29:47

Russians. And

1:29:51

of course, you still had to win the war in

1:29:53

the East against Japan. And

1:29:55

the Russians promised to go to war

1:29:57

three months to the day after the

1:29:59

end. end of the war in

1:30:01

Europe and they carried out that promise.

1:30:03

So no, the

1:30:07

opportunities were non-existent, frankly.

1:30:10

And moving over to the war in the

1:30:12

East, some of the most brutal and horrific

1:30:15

fighting was in countries like Burma, where we

1:30:17

suffered horrific losses. How

1:30:19

much was Churchill involved in the

1:30:22

discussions about dropping the nuclear bombs

1:30:24

on Japan? Oh, very closely involved.

1:30:27

It was an Anglo-American decision. Absolutely.

1:30:29

He was as much

1:30:31

in favor of it as

1:30:34

Truman. He had signed the

1:30:37

original agreement with FDR about

1:30:39

the joint decision-making. A

1:30:42

lot of British scientists were,

1:30:44

of course, involved in what

1:30:48

was going on in New

1:30:50

Mexico in creating

1:30:52

the bomb. And

1:30:55

it wasn't until after the war in the

1:30:57

March of 1946 that the Americans

1:31:00

moved to essentially make the nuclear

1:31:02

bomb an American thing and cut

1:31:05

the British out of the decision-making

1:31:07

process. So he thought it was

1:31:09

a necessary evil to get rid,

1:31:11

to bring Japan, essentially

1:31:15

humiliate them and decimate them?

1:31:17

Well, to defeat them, essentially. He wasn't

1:31:20

that worried about humiliation and decimation so

1:31:22

much as their surrender. And it did

1:31:24

take place, of course, within days of

1:31:27

the Nagasaki bomb

1:31:29

being dropped. And

1:31:31

before we move on and we talk about

1:31:33

other things, what was Churchill's impression of Hitler?

1:31:36

Was it someone that he actually, despite

1:31:38

obviously the awful atrocities a man committed,

1:31:40

was this someone that he had a

1:31:43

grudging amount of respect for? No. No,

1:31:45

he thought of Hitler as being completely

1:31:47

useless as a strategist. He thought at

1:31:49

the very beginning of the war when

1:31:51

Hitler was doing extremely well that

1:31:54

maybe he did have a

1:31:56

sort of sixth sense. He worried that

1:31:58

he did. It

1:32:00

soon became very clear when

1:32:02

he made mistake after mistake,

1:32:04

especially in North Africa, the

1:32:06

timing of the invasion of

1:32:08

Russia and then one mistake

1:32:10

after another in Russia, that

1:32:13

actually he was a

1:32:15

pretty useless strategist. And he

1:32:17

made lots of jokes about Corporal Schickelgruber

1:32:20

and what a bad strategist he was.

1:32:22

And in fact, when in July 19, the 20th of July 1944, the Germans tried

1:32:24

to kill Hitler and

1:32:30

blow him up. And Churchill

1:32:32

went on the radio and said, well, we can be pleased

1:32:35

that they failed because of all

1:32:37

the strategic mistakes that Corporal Schickelgruber

1:32:39

is making. So no,

1:32:42

he didn't have a high respect for him. He thought

1:32:44

of him as a common gutter

1:32:46

snipe. He called him at one point,

1:32:48

corkus boss. He

1:32:50

has some absolutely magnificent

1:32:53

phraseology for Hitler,

1:32:55

which he unleashed. Even better phraseology

1:32:58

for Mussolini actually as well. And

1:33:01

was his criticisms, were his criticisms

1:33:03

of Hitler accurate? Yes,

1:33:07

overall, they certainly were because

1:33:09

Hitler, as I mentioned, didn't

1:33:11

listen to many of

1:33:14

his top generals. He had people

1:33:17

like Gerd von Rundstedt and

1:33:19

Erwin Rommel, Erich

1:33:22

von Manstein, Heinz Guderian, these

1:33:25

generals who were

1:33:27

far better strategists than he, people

1:33:29

who had gone to staff college,

1:33:31

who had been officers in the

1:33:34

Great War, and who

1:33:36

were very significant and

1:33:38

impressive commanders in the field. And

1:33:41

they would go and talk to Hitler, as

1:33:43

I say, we have every word spoken in

1:33:46

the Fuhrer conferences. And

1:33:48

Hitler would just stick

1:33:51

to his original ideas about what

1:33:53

he wanted. He also became a

1:33:55

terrible micromanager, much, much worse than

1:33:57

Churchill. Churchill came back. as

1:34:00

the war progressed and was able to see things in

1:34:03

the round, whereas Hitler would

1:34:05

concentrate on where individual regiments

1:34:07

were trying to capture individual

1:34:10

villages deep in Russia, which

1:34:12

was of course a ridiculous way to fight

1:34:15

a war. So when one looks

1:34:18

at the different ways that the

1:34:20

two men dealt

1:34:22

with decision making, they're very, very different. And

1:34:25

do you think part of it as well

1:34:27

why Churchill was a far more competent leader

1:34:29

is the fact that he was much more

1:34:31

emotionally stable than Hitler? No, it wasn't just

1:34:33

that. And by the way, he was a

1:34:35

very emotional man. He burst into tears some

1:34:37

50 times during the Second World

1:34:40

War. He would get very emotional. He wasn't

1:34:42

in that sense a stiff upper-lit Victorian. He

1:34:44

was a much more sort

1:34:46

of regency aristocratic figure who wore

1:34:49

his heart on his sleeve. No, what it

1:34:51

was was that he was far more

1:34:53

intelligent than Hitler. And

1:34:56

he had spent a lifetime thinking

1:34:58

about grand strategy ever since he

1:35:00

had been taught it when he

1:35:02

was at Sandhurst. He heard, of

1:35:04

course, in the First World War

1:35:06

been thinking about and been involved

1:35:08

in grand strategy, not always successfully

1:35:10

as we discover from the Dardanelles,

1:35:13

but nonetheless, that he was

1:35:15

also involved in very successful parts of it. And

1:35:18

he was a person who

1:35:20

wrote a lot of history. One of

1:35:22

the reasons I'm proud to be a historian

1:35:24

was that Winston Churchill was a historian. And

1:35:26

he was able to look at the problems

1:35:28

of the day through the lens of history.

1:35:32

And he also was

1:35:34

somebody who would listen to

1:35:36

his strategists and take

1:35:38

their advice and not overall them.

1:35:40

So he had all of these

1:35:42

enormous advantages that Hitler chose to

1:35:44

throw away. And what did he

1:35:46

make of Stalin? Well,

1:35:48

interestingly, Stalin actually came round

1:35:50

to the Western way of

1:35:53

making war, the deliberative way,

1:35:55

the way the interactive way,

1:35:58

rather than the the

1:36:00

way he started off. At the

1:36:02

time of Operation Barbarossa, he had something

1:36:04

akin to a mental breakdown and went

1:36:06

back to his dutchess and couldn't be

1:36:09

heard from at all until the Polit

1:36:11

Bureau went to him. And

1:36:13

by the way, just to add something,

1:36:15

when they arrived, he thought they were

1:36:18

there to arrest him? Yeah, absolutely, and

1:36:20

to liquidate him, exactly. And so he

1:36:22

was surprised and pleasantly, very pleasantly

1:36:25

surprised when they turned to him and

1:36:27

said, you know, you are our leader

1:36:29

and you've got to save us. And

1:36:32

what he then did was to listen. I mean,

1:36:34

he was a dictator, of course,

1:36:36

but nonetheless, he listened to

1:36:38

men like Zhukov and Rokozovsky

1:36:40

and Ivan Konev and

1:36:43

the great Russian marshals. And

1:36:46

when the great battles that we mentioned

1:36:48

earlier, Stalingrad and Moscow and Kursk

1:36:50

and so on and the Battle of Berlin

1:36:55

were fought, they were

1:36:58

fought by the marshals

1:37:00

interacting in a rational

1:37:02

and logical way with Stalin. And he

1:37:04

didn't go down the hipster route, which

1:37:06

he perfectly easily could have, of course,

1:37:09

because he was a paranoid dictator. And

1:37:12

but just on the Stalin

1:37:14

thing, Churchill and Stalin met on

1:37:16

several occasions at these conferences. What

1:37:18

did you do? We know what

1:37:20

Churchill made of Stalin? I'm afraid

1:37:23

he liked him. It's it's it's

1:37:25

you know, I'm as you can

1:37:27

tell, I'm an admirer of Winston

1:37:29

Churchill. And I'm sorry to say

1:37:31

that he got on very well

1:37:33

with the most evil man apart

1:37:35

from Hitler. I think he

1:37:38

he had a bit of a drinking competition with him

1:37:40

at the Kremlin the first time

1:37:42

they met in the August of 1942. Then

1:37:44

he got on very well within again

1:37:48

in the October of 1944. He

1:37:50

visited Moscow both times, of

1:37:52

course. They also met at Tehran

1:37:54

and Yalta and and

1:37:56

Potsdam. And there

1:37:59

was moment where Stalin

1:38:01

said that he was going to shoot 50,000 German officers

1:38:05

out of hand as soon as they were

1:38:07

captured and Churchill got up from the table

1:38:09

and marched out and refused to interact. But

1:38:13

other than that I'm afraid they got on

1:38:15

well. He believed he could out drink Stalin

1:38:19

in vodka. Very interesting. Well,

1:38:22

Andrew, it's been such an

1:38:24

interesting discussion of the biography of Winston Churchill

1:38:26

and we wanted to bring it a little

1:38:28

bit into conversation about

1:38:30

his legacy and how people talk about

1:38:33

him now. We've obviously seen an attempt

1:38:36

to change narrative, let's put

1:38:38

it like this, or to perhaps

1:38:41

drag his legacy out of the historical context

1:38:43

in which it exists. And as you well

1:38:46

know his statue just down the road here

1:38:48

in Parliament Square was defaced

1:38:50

with the words Churchill was a racist and

1:38:53

all of this. And by the way, based on what you were saying

1:38:55

earlier, I think by the standards of

1:38:57

the modern day a kind of Victorian

1:39:01

racial superiority by our standards today

1:39:04

would be absolutely considered that way.

1:39:06

Absolutely. I don't know. In today's

1:39:12

world his views are

1:39:15

obscene and absurd of course also.

1:39:17

But what he didn't know was

1:39:19

the scientific underpinning that we have

1:39:21

whereby we know that racism,

1:39:25

biological racism is obscene

1:39:27

and absurd. They believed

1:39:29

in a Darwinian form

1:39:31

of scientific racism which

1:39:34

is despicable to us today of course.

1:39:38

But I think to blacken

1:39:40

his memory because of something that

1:39:43

was considered a scientific fact at

1:39:45

the time that he

1:39:47

was living is pretty strange. It's

1:39:49

a sort of unhistorical

1:39:51

way, a historical way

1:39:53

really, of approaching people

1:39:56

in the past. Well this is quite what I was

1:39:58

going to ask you which is we I

1:40:01

don't know what you make as a historian of the

1:40:03

fact that people seem to have forgotten that there

1:40:06

was a different time in which values

1:40:08

were different, scientific understanding were different. I

1:40:11

wonder whether they do genuinely think

1:40:13

that or whether or not it's just

1:40:15

a political thing where

1:40:17

they impose ideological stances

1:40:21

and they know perfectly well that actually

1:40:24

they don't really make much sense logically

1:40:26

but they don't care because they want

1:40:28

to grandstand, want to

1:40:31

use a spray

1:40:33

can to make a political

1:40:35

point essentially. They

1:40:38

know that it is infuriating

1:40:40

and hurtful really to a

1:40:42

generation of people, our grandparents

1:40:44

and parents' generation who remember

1:40:46

the Second World War. It's

1:40:49

also of course very