Tory Democrat
Andrew Roberts has written what most
critics have characterized as Churchill’s best biography. I am not qualified
to know whether it is the best, but it is certainly very good and remains interesting
throughout its length. What impressed me most about Churchill was his raw
physical courage. He saw combat in India, the Sudan, South Africa where he
escaped from a POW camp and the trenches of World War I. He also demonstrated
his physical stamina when he was over 60 to fly to France when it was being
over-run and on his many trips to Russia and America for wartime meetings.
Roberts brings out this important Churchill quality.
Although known as a conservative later
in life, in his early years he was a flaming liberal by helping to orchestrate
the historic People’s Budget of 1909. There he helped introduce the welfare
state to Britain and worked to curtail the power of the House of Lords, hence
the term Tory Democrat.
As World War I approached he recognized
the evils of Prussian militarism and the importance of oil for the British Navy
as he bought controlling interest in Anglo-Iranian Oil (the BP of today). Early
on in the War he understood that a revolution in military affairs was underway
with the coming of aircraft, tanks and submarines. As an aside in the early 1920s
well ahead of practically everyone he foresaw the potential for an atomic bomb.
Roberts keenly brings out Churchill’s interest in science and technology.
Of course Churchill’s big failure was
the 1915 Gallipoli campaign which ended in tragedy for the British and their
ANZAC allies. But he did learn one very important lesson that no matter how
good a strategy is, its execution depends upon the operational details which in
the case of Gallipoli ensured a disaster.
Aside from being right on Prussian militarism,
Churchill was dead right on the odiousness of Russia under Lenin and Stalin and
of course we remember him weaponizing the English language is his early
opposition to Hitler, against the bulk of his Conservative Party, and his great
speeches during the war. Simply put, Churchill got the big things right and
saved England and the world.
Where Roberts fails in his biography is
that he is too cavalier about Churchill’s two major domestic policy mistakes.
As Chancellor of Exchequer in 1925 he return Britain to the gold standard at
its pre-war level, a valuation that proved to be way to high crippling British
industry. And again in the early 1950s he bought labor peace by giving into the
trade unions thereby accelerating Britain’s industrial decline.
Where Roberts is very good is in his
discussion of Churchill’s daily life where he was way too extravagant leading
to consistent money problems until the late 1940s which were exacerbated by
untimely stock market speculations. He was philo-Semitic when most of Britain’s
upper classes were anti-Semitic and he supported the Zionist project in
Palestine. Although he had a rough exterior he was warm and loving to his
friends and family.
This review only scratches the surface
of Roberts’ remarkable book. I highly recommend it for its insights into one of
the giant personalities of our time and to get a sense of how the world we live
in came into being.
For the full Amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1PYSTO3WF5RTX/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
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