Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born November 30th, 1874, in Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England. He was born into wealth, the son of a British Lord and an American socialite.
Due to political and military aspirations, young Churchill made his way into the Royal Military Academy (Sandhurst), graduating in December 1894. Immediately following his graduation, Winston Churchill joined the 4th Hussars Cavalry. Longing to see military action, Churchill used every opportunity possible to see battle.
After several years of campaigns and military adventures, the excitement of army life had worn out. In 1899, Churchill decided he had served long enough and left the army to make his first attempt at politics. Unfortunately, in his first attempt running for Parliament, Churchill lost the election. Churchill did not allow this setback to slow him down. Instead, the aspiring politician signed on with the Morning Post as a war correspondent, gaining immense popularity for his exploits covering the Boer War in South Africa. These exploits gained him popularity, resulting in his 1900 Parliamentary victory.
Over the next few years, Churchill began to grow his political prowess. In Parliament, Churchill was more invested in defending policies than he was in defending a specific party, being labeled as a “turn-coat” due to his shifting vote and his “crossing of the floor” from the Conservative Party to the Liberal Party in 1904. Regardless of his shifting party affiliations, Churchill worked tirelessly, arguing extensively for free trade, welfare, and even military cuts. Due to these political acts Churchill began to be labelled and classified as a radical.
Prior to World War I, Churchill started to wander away from his radicalism as he realized that war loomed between Britain and Germany. With this realization, he gained an appointment to become the First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911-1915. Throughout his time in this role, he met immense challenges, eventually resigning after the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign, for which Churchill had been responsible.
After leaving politics in 1915, Churchill rejoined the military as a colonel. He wanted to know what troops were facing in the trenches of World War I, remaining there until 1916. While there, he did see action, leading to a personal understanding of what men faced fighting in the trenches.
Following World War I, Churchill rejoined the Conservative Party and aided in Britain’s rebuilding. He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer during this time. Unfortunately, after losing his seat in 1929 he was largely kept outside of politics until the Second World War.
Following Churchill’s second stint in politics, there was much debate over whether he deserved to return to office. Some in Britain thought Churchill to be too radical, and following his loss in 1929, many speculated he would never regain a seat in Parliament.
During his absence from the limelight, Churchill turned to writing books and honing his oratory skills. Yet he continued to work outside of the political arena for causes he believed in such as a Ministry of Defense. With the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in the 1930s, Churchill also became increasingly vocal about the rising German threat in Europe.
Churchill’s warnings regarding Naziism proved prescient and led to his reemergence on the political scene. In 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appointed Churchill to First Lord of the Admiralty. Churchill became known for his fierce opposition to concessions to Hitler in his conquest of Europe, as well as his bold proclamations on the perils of the Third Reich. When Neville Chamberlain resigned in May 1940, with the German’s rampaging through Europe, Churchill was the choice to lead the British people in facing the Nazi threat. On May 10, 1940, as German forces invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, Churchill became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Churchill’s early tenure was a dark time for the British. Germans quickly stormed through Western Europe, threatening to strand hundreds of thousands of British troops on the beaches of Dunkirk. Churchill stood firm against calls for negotiating a peace, and facilitated a miraculous evacuation, saving the British Army to fight again another day. With Western Europe in German hands, the British were subjected to German air raids. Although this attempt was largely unsuccessful, the German “Blitz” on England was overpowering and harmful. Yet with the Nazi invasion of Russia in summer of 1941 and the Japanese bombing of the United States in December, Great Britain soon was no longer alone in their fight against Nazi fascism, now fighting alongside the Soviets and the Americans.
In time, Churchill carefully used diplomacy to forge the allies into a strong cohesive force. As the Russians fought a brutal front in Eastern Europe, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin repeatedly called for Britain and the United States to open a second front in Western Europe, pressing the Germans on both sides. Churchill responded to these calls by advocating for offensives in North Africa and the Mediterranean, eroding away at German and Italian forces in those regions. By 1944, the Allies were ready to fight on mainland Europe, invading Normandy, France in June. After 11 months of heavy fighting, trials, and triumphs, the Allies received German’s surrender on May 8, 1945—VE Day.
Unfortunately for Churchill, soon after the Nazi surrender, his Conservative Party lost the 1945 election, and Churchill stepped down as Prime Minister. Over the next few years, Churchill continued to lead the Conservative Party as the opposition leader. He warned Britian about the dangers of the Soviet Union and communism. It was during this time, in 1946, that Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” speech at a commencement ceremony in Fulton, Missouri.
In 1951, Churchill returned as Prime Minister, with his Conservative Party ascending back into power. For the next four years, he worked diligently to ease the Cold War tensions and worked to help lighten international disputes. Unfortunately, poor health forced his resignation as Prime Minister in 1955. Despite this, Churchill stayed on as a member of Parliament until 1964. After an incredible career, Winston Churchill died January 24th, 1965.
Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower
Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower first met during the Second World War. Throughout the war, Churchill and Ike worked closely together and maintained a deep respect. Their partnership was instrumental in the planning for the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on June 6, 1944. After the war, they worked together again during Churchill’s second stint as Prime Minister, which overlapped with President Eisenhower’s first term in office.
Due to the close relationship that developed between England and the United States of America following World War II, Ike and Churchill became good friends. During the early 1950s, Ike and Churchill worked to improve the post-war situation in Europe, working to further establish NATO but also attempting to create other organizations which would ensure peace.
As they worked for the reunification of Europe as a whole and the higher ideal of world peace, the problem of the Soviet Union and the Cold War was just beginning. Eisenhower and Churchill struggled with now to lessen Cold War tensions and avoid a third world war in their lifetimes. Despite not always agreeing on what tactic was the best in dealing with the Soviet threat, the United Kingdom and the United States attempted to work together, nonetheless.
Despite these tensions and problems, Churchill and Eisenhower worked hard to make a difference in easing tensions and securing peace. Following Churchill’s resignation as Prime Minister in 1955, their official roles together ended, and they became solely friends. Despite their differences, their friendship remained strong until Churchill’s death in 1965. Eisenhower traveled to England and provided a eulogy at Churchill’s state funeral, in which he said of his friend and ally, “With no thought of the length of time he might be permitted on earth, he was concerned only with the quality of the service he could render to his nation and to humanity. Though he had no fear of death, he coveted always the opportunity to continue that service”.
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