Winston churchill achievements

Loading

The following article on the Winston Churchill life is an excerpt from Barrett Tillman&#; D-Day Encyclopedia. It is available for order now from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

---

The product of an alcoholic, syphilitic father and promiscuous American mother, Winston Churchill was one of the greatest figures of the twentieth century.

Ironically, he would never have come to greatness but for his contemporary and bitter rival Adolf Hitler.

Descended from the Dukes of Marlborough, Churchill was primed for success despite his parental problems. He graduated from the Sandhurst military academy in and embarked upon a dizzying army career.

John smith biography summary of winston churchill s speech

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was a British politician, military officer and writer who served as the prime minister of Great Britain from to and from to After becoming prime minister in , Churchill helped lead a successful Allied strategy with the U. From an early age, young Churchill displayed the traits of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, a British statesman from an established English family, and his mother, Jeanette "Jennie" Jerome, an independent-minded New York socialite. Churchill grew up in Dublin, Ireland, where his father was employed by his grandfather, the 7th Duke of Marlborough, John Spencer-Churchill. Churchill proved to be an independent and rebellious student; after performing poorly at his first two schools, Churchill in April began attending Harrow School, a boarding school near London.

He reported news from Cuba, served in India, and in he fought in the battle of Omdurman in Sudan, where he rode in one of the last great cavalry charges. The following year he was a newspaper correspondent in South Africa, covering the Boer War. Not yet twenty-five, he received a thousand dollars a month plus expenses—a staggering amount, but London’s Morning Post considered him worth it.

He was audacious and innovative, and as a later biographer said, ‘‘Churchill used the English language as if he invented it.’’ He also provided drama: captured by the Boers, he completed a daring escape and returned to safety despite a bounty on his head.

Government posts came Churchill’s way almost automatically.

Before the Great War he sat in Parliament as a Conservative, Tory, and Liberal.

John smith biography summary of winston churchill Churchill was famous for his stubborn resistance to Hitler during the darkest hours of the Second World War. He was brought up by servants and friends of the family. He rarely spoke to his father, and he spent most of his childhood at boarding school — Harrow. On leaving school, he went to Sandhurst to train as an officer. After gaining his commission, Churchill sought to gain as much active military experience as possible.

He became Undersecretary of the Colonies, president of the Board of Trade, and Home Secretary. He also found time to marry the Honorable Clementine Hozier in They had a son and two daughters.

In Churchill became First Sea Lord, bringing important changes to the Royal Navy. He recognized the potential of the submarine and airplane, learned to fly, and established the Royal Naval Air Service.

However, in , during World War I his ambitious strategy for the Dardenelles led to the debacle at Gallipoli. Forced from the cabinet, he cheerfully returned to the army and commanded a Scottish battalion on the western front. He also was a major factor behind development of the armored fighting vehicle—which he named, for all time, the tank.

Churchill was back in the cabinet by mid and finished the war as minister of munitions.

He opposed postwar accommodations with Indian separatists such as Gandhi and was involved in other international affairs as colonial secretary, including establishment of the Iraqi nation in Over the next several years he was in and out of Parliament and government, earning an exceptional living from writing.

During the s Churchill expressed growing concern over the resurgence of German nationalism.

Sir Winston Churchill: A biography - Churchill Archives Centre: wsc as john smith? Mr. Churchill doubtless has a grievance against the general public which has always been inclined to underestimate his real and considerable abilities, but for this his own personality is much to blame.

After Adolf Hitler assumed power in , the former sea lord urged strengthening the Royal Navy, but few Britons heeded him. However, as the German Führer went from success to success, it became apparent that Nazi ambition could not be contained. Churchill had only contempt for appeasers like Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and U.S.

ambassador Joseph Kennedy, but with declaration of war in September Churchill the warhorse felt justified in returning to harness. When he resumed his position as First Sea Lord after twenty-four years, the Admiralty signaled the fleet, ‘‘Winston is back.’’

With Chamberlain’s policies and moral authority irrefutably discredited, Churchill became prime minister on 10 May Immediately faced with the fall of France and the possible invasion of England, Churchill directed his immense energy and ability to defense of Shakespeare’s ‘‘scepter’d isle.’’ He shrugged off suggestions by some right-wing politicians and allegedly a few members of the royal family to reach an accommodation with Hitler.

Winston churchill quotes

Winston churchill interesting facts

When was winston churchill born

How old was winston churchill when he died

When did winston churchill became prime minister

Through the summer and fall the Battle of Britain was fought and won in English skies, and the Nazi invasion fleet—such as it was—never sailed. Churchill’s masterful oratory gripped the world’s attention in concert with the epic events unfolding about him.

The following year was equally crucial, witnessing Germany’s attack on Russia and America’s entry into the war.

Churchill had already established a warm relationship with President Franklin Roosevelt and put aside an instinctive dislike and distrust for Soviet premier Joseph Stalin. Churchill, a firm anticommunist, knew Stalin for what he was—unlike Roosevelt, who consistently made allowances for the Soviet dictator, fondly calling the genocidal despot ‘‘Uncle Joe.’’ Despite their personal and national differences with respect to communist Russia, Churchill and Roosevelt remained staunch allies throughout the war.

They quickly decided on a ‘‘Germany first’’ strategy, but in early the main threat was from Japan, which was rolling up easy victories in the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaya.

In December the first Big Three meeting was held in Tehran, Iran, agreeing upon the Anglo-American landings in northern France sometime in the summer of Churchill and Roosevelt maintained almost daily contact by phone and mail, with some 1, messages between the two leaders; a frequent topic was Overlord and its myriad details.

Despite his enthusiasm and aggressiveness, Churchill retained doubts about Overlord.

John smith biography summary of winston churchill s life In the beginning there was little more than a newsletter, and for six years during its early life there was nothing at all. Yet the enterprise we brought into the world had a strong kick to it, a purpose in life that somehow kept it going, even though that purpose was not apparent for many years. Like a child it grew into adolescence, then into adulthood. Through the Churchill prism it viewed a more formidable world than any we had known since , considering the changing scene of history as he might have. Early on, his daughter warned us never to speculate on how he might react to this or that modern situation, and after being warned we never did.

Perhaps he still stung from the Gallipoli failure twenty-nine years before, but in any case Churchill was atypically cautious. He favored a Mediterranean approach, up the boot of Italy via the ‘‘soft underbelly of Europe.’’ Even when the Italian campaign bogged down he told Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, ‘‘If [by winter] you have secured the port at Le Havre and freed beautiful Paris from the hands of the enemy, I will assert the victory to be the greatest of modern times.’’

Once the decision had been made, Churchill was Overlord’s fierce advocate.

He reveled in the tactics and gadgets that characterized the greatest amphibious operation yet attempted—he was especially taken with the Mulberry portable harbors. He also informed Eisenhower of his intention to observe the landings from a British cruiser. The supreme commander replied that Churchill was far too valuable to risk and prohibited it.

Churchill calmly replied that as a British citizen he would sign on aboard one of His Majesty’s ships, whereupon Eisenhower’s headquarters contacted Buckingham Palace. King George thereupon called Churchill, declaring that if the prime minister went to Normandy, the monarch could do no less. Churchill relented.

While largely unstated, one of Churchill’s major concerns was limiting Soviet territorial gains in Europe.

Having an eye toward the postwar world, he did not want Stalin in control of formerly democratic nations.

John smith biography summary of winston churchill s iron curtain speech But his strong personality and forceful determination made him a popular figure during the war years. He was the eldest son of Lord Randolph Churchill, a Tory Democrat a British political party who achieved early success as a rebel in his party. Later, after Randolph Churchill failed, he was cruelly described as "a man with a brilliant future behind him. Winston idolized his mother, but his relations with his father, who died in , were cold and distant. It is generally agreed that as a child Winston was not shown warmth and affection by his family.

However, geopolitics required further cooperation with his unlikely ally, and Churchill met Roosevelt for the last time in Stalin’s domain—Yalta in the Crimea, in February Victory in Europe was visible by then, though with more hard fighting to come in the Pacific. Roosevelt’s premature death in April ended the original Big Three.

The English-speaking world was stunned when Churchill was turned out of office in July What appeared to be staggering ingratitude by the British voters probably was better explained by the approaching peace.

Winston Churchill was a warrior by instinct and by preference; his countrymen recognized that fact and considered Labour’s candidate, Clement Atlee, better suited for peacetime challenges. With Japan’s surrender in September, those concerns became even more immediate. He regained the prime ministership in

Churchill finally retired in at the age of eighty-one.

He continued writing, speaking, and painting for the next decade, gaining additional honors. His multivolume history The Second World War received the Nobel Prize for literature, but he wrote twenty other histories and biographies as well. That same year he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. He was made an honorary American citizen in

Sir Winston Churchill died in his ninetieth year, on 24 January Two generations mourned him; kings, queens, and presidents paid him tribute, and historians acknowledged their debt.

Churchill’s place in history is assured; with Hitler he remains a towering political figure of the twentieth century.

His courage, determination, and leadership during Britain’s greatest peril mark him for the ages.

Sir Winston Churchill: A biography - Churchill Archives Centre

The extraordinary life of Winston Churchill - discoverbritain.com

However unlikely the success of a German invasion of Britain in now seems—‘‘Overlord in reverse’’—it did not seem so at the time. When some of his fellow Britons and not a few Americans called for capitulation or accommodation, Winston Churchill chomped his cigar, flashed his V-for-victory sign, and uttered a defiant ‘‘No!’’ that echoes down the ages.

This article is part of our larger selection of posts about Winston Churchill.

To learn more, click here for our comprehensive guide to Winston Churchill.

Cite This Article

"Winston Churchill Life Summary: A Short Bio" History on the Net
© , Salem Media.
January 19, <>
More Citation Information.