There once was an organization that was in serious trouble. Competition was fierce and it looked like the entire enterprise might go under. The chief executive officer was ailing and losing support. He had to step down, but there were several possible successors.
One was 65 years old, overweight, a heavy smoker, and a heavy drinker. Many of his peers regarded him as an opportunistic maverick. He had extensive experience, but he’d once been the driving force behind a project that resulted in disaster, costing lives as well as money.
In short, he was the sort of applicant that most recruitment firms and Human Resources departments would quickly screen out.
And yet that was the profile of Winston Churchill when he became prime minister of Great Britain in 1940.
But wait, you may say. That portrait stresses potential negatives. It doesn’t mention Churchill’s extraordinary insight, his undeniable leadership skills, his courage, brilliant oratory and deep intelligence. It omits the sense of history which permitted him to see much further than others into the foggy future. It also doesn’t reveal that he was able to attract significant political support from a large cross-section of the public.
That’s true, but we live in a highly critical society that likes to play “What’s wrong with this person?”. It doesn’t take much to enflame the cancel culture.
Granted, there are people of great talent who have a smooth rise to the top. They may have strong credentials, but it’s wise to remember Tacitus’s description of the Roman emperor Galba: “By common consent, he possessed the makings of a ruler – had he never ruled.”
With Churchill, nothing was cloaked. People knew what they were getting, and part of his appeal was he was an old warrior who was fully aware of what it was like to be hit, denounced, and derided. Each time that occurred, he got back up.
Although the British knew Churchill well, Hitler and the Nazis had an odd blind spot when it came to the man. They regarded him as a Shakespearean drunkard who would blunder about until the British elites decided to replace him with a polished but weak leader, one whom the Germans hoped would possess a fondness for peace agreements.
Modern historians often avoid attributing events to Great Men (or Great Women) and look instead for broad impersonal historical movements or forces. Put me in The Great Person camp. I’ve studied and even seen many situations where the presence or absences of an individual had enormous influence on the outcome.
One of the greatest of lost opportunities in the years prior to the war was that Hitler never met Churchill, but let’s have some fun and stack the deck. Imagine the reaction of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini at the Munich conference if, instead of encountering the weakness of Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, they and their associates had been confronted with the unbending strength of Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, and Joseph Stalin.
Much is being written about Churchill nowadays. The shallowness of many of the perspectives is a warning that we need to improve the teaching of history. Why? Because if there was one person who won the Second World War and saved the modern world from barbarians, it was Winston Churchill.
His clear-eyed view of the Nazis gave him a steely determination to inspire the British people to hold on when other countries were surrendering to, or ignoring, the unique evil that had conquered most of Europe.
Britain was severely weakened after the fall of France, but Nazi-occupied Europe had a formidable foe on its doorstep that could not be ignored. Conquering the British became one of Hitler’s obsessions.
Consider two key decisions that were indirectly influenced by Churchill’s tenacity.
It is widely believed that a major reason why Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union was the Nazi dictator believed that Churchill was refusing to enter peace talks due to a desperate hope that the Russians would eventually enter the war. By taking out the Russians, Hitler reasoned, he would destroy that hope, demoralize the British, and cause them to seek an armistice.
Hitler’s decision to invade Russia, of course, created a second front and turned into one of the greatest military blunders of all time.
There is another decision that may have been at least partially influenced by Churchill’s courage to resist. Many people have been baffled by Hitler’s decision to declare war against the United States following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Why would Hitler bring in the United States, an economic powerhouse that was beyond the reach of German bombers? Had he not declared war on the Americans, it was far from certain that the United States would have entered the war against Germany. Hitler’s move seemed to be completely senseless.
But once again, Churchill is standing in the background. Hitler’s assumption was that the United States would initially focus on defeating the Japanese in the Pacific. While they were distracted by that campaign, he reasoned, a declaration of war on the Americans would allow German submarines in the Atlantic to sink American ships that were carrying food and war supplies to the British. The removal of Britain’s lifeline would starve the island into submission. By the time the Americans were ready to shift their military focus to Germany, Hitler would already have Britain in his grasp.
As things transpired, the Americans didn’t play the game as he hoped. They adopted a war strategy of defeating Germany first and Japan second. Once again, Churchill’s decision to pursue victory caused, albeit indirectly, a major tilt in the war effort.
Once the forces of the Soviet Union and the United States joined with those of the British Empire, the odds of a German victory were remote at best.
Throughout the war, the old man turned out to be a formidable leader/manager and his skills were revealed not merely via his impressive speeches.
Churchill traveled great distances to assess military progress and meet with his allies. He visited the bombed areas, rallied morale, and paid attention to the “small” things, such as the conditions in the bomb shelters, that would affect the average citizen.
The British government soon grew used to the “Action This Day” stickers that accompanied his directions revitalizing the war effort. In his book Churchill As Warlord, historian Ronald Lewin quotes an official who compared Churchill’s monitoring of progress to a searchlight “ceaselessly swinging round and penetrating into the remote recesses of the administration so that everyone, however humble his range or function, felt that one day the beam might rest on him and light up what he was doing.” For a complicated government that initially was slow to shake off its pre-war complacency, Churchill’s leadership conveyed a sense of urgency and accountability.
A finer leader cannot be found. Schoolchildren throughout the world should study his example. Churchill’s story contains valuable lessons in patriotism, courage, wisdom, and greatness.
As the memorial stone on the floor of Westminster Abbey notes:
REMEMBER WINSTON CHURCHILL