Boris Johnson tells us, at the beginning of this charming portrait of Churchill, that he was one year-old when the great man died. Like every other child of his generation, he was brought up on endless stories of Churchill. He confesses to a feeling of pride that he and Winston were alive together for that one year. I understand that pride. I am a little older than Johnson. I was 12 when Churchill died. He was Prime Minister for the first three years of my life. There is no rational reason for my being proud of that fact. But I am, and always have been.
Churchill's death, of course, impressed me enormously. I remember it as though it were yesterday. I was alone at home in the Berkshire village where we then lived. The door bell rang. The Vicar was there. He asked if my father was in. I told him he wasn't, and that my mother was out shopping. I asked if I could help. He explained that he had just heard of the death of Sir Winston Churchill, and he didn't know whether he should lower the flag over the church to half-mast. I had no hesitation in telling him he should. I am pleased to report that he took my advice, and that my father later confirmed to me that it was obviously correct.
Then, I suppose it must have been a few days later, I was given the day off school to go to London with my mother to file past the coffin in Westminster Hall. I remember it was raining and cold. We queued for some hours. There were all sorts of people in that queue. Many of them, as one would expect, were (to my eyes) elderly. They had lived through the war. They had every reason to mourn the death of the man who had led them to victory. But there were plenty of younger people there (I was certainly not the only child). And it was not only those elderly people who were fighting back the tears. All of us were immensely moved by the passing of an undoubtedly great man. When we finally got into Westminster Hall and walked slowly past the coffin, with the guardsmen standing motionless, presenting arms, I think I felt tears coming to my own eyes. I certainly knew that I was saying goodbye to a truly great man.
As my mother and I were about to leave Westminster Hall a man walked in, through a side door. He saw us and came over to speak to us. He was an MP, and an old family friend. "You should have told me you were coming," he said, "I could have got you in without all that queuing". My instant thought, I swear this is true, is that I would have hated not to have been in the queue. Waiting in the rain for hours on end to walk past the coffin of the greatest Englishman was plainly a more fitting tribute to him than waltzing in through a side entrance with an MP would have been.
Please forgive the anecdote. I only give it in order to explain why I understand entirely where Boris Johnson is coming from. I may be a bit older than he is, but we are really the same generation when it comes to Churchill. We both lapped up stories about him throughout our childhoods. We worshipped him as the man who did more than anyone else to save our country, and the whole free world, from tyranny. And it comes as a shock to both of us to discover that there is a new generation which seems to know little or nothing about the man we were brought up to believe was greater than almost any other who ever lived.
Not only is there widespread ignorance of what Churchill did (Johnson tells us that a recent survey revealed that most British children thought Churchill was a dog used in an advertisement for an insurance company), but, inevitably, a new breed of historians has grown up which is determined to re-write history. They tell us Churchill was evil. He was a warmonger who refused to allow Britain to negotiate a settlement with Hitler which would have prevented the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people throughout Europe. And anyway, they say (slightly illogically), Churchill had no impact on events: all would have been the same if he had never been there. To them, Churchill was no more than a grossly politically incorrect member of the aristocracy who had no right to be Prime Minister in a modern democracy.
All that brings us to Johnson's purpose in writing this book. One thing he did not set out to do was to write a major biography of Churchill. As he points out, there are countless such books already written. No, what he wanted to do was to provide a new generation with a thoroughly readable account of why Churchill was so important and to answer those modern critics who say he made no difference to modern history.
It seems to me that Johnson has succeeded in both his aims. He has written a book which is extraordinarily readable (I bought it yesterday and finished reading it today). The style is glorious, as we have come to expect from the author. I see one newspaper review described it as "fizzing". I can't improve on that. It really is very difficult to put the book down. There is not a single dull page. Even the most dreary modern teenager, addicted to his portable telephone, would be bound to be gripped by the amazing story Johnson has to tell. And that teenager may even be prepared to read the book when he is told how his teachers would disapprove of him reading about a great man who spent almost every waking minute drinking alcohol and smoking cigars!
What about the other aim? Johnson succeeds again. There will be those who quarrel, on reasonable grounds, with his "fiasco factor" and Churchill factor" assessments (he gives points for each in relation to the mistakes Churchill is said to have made). But that isn't important. His main, and best, point is that, without Churchill, we would have caved in in 1940. And, if we had done so, we would have become a puppet in Hitler's hand. Here Johnson takes on those modern historians who reckon we would have been better off doing a deal with Hitler than winning the war.
This needs to be taken in two parts. First, did Churchill make any difference? Second, if he did, was his influence malign?
Johnson's argument that Churchill did make a difference is, it seems to me, almost unanswerable. There was, as France crumbled in 1940, a strong movement in British politics in favour of negotiation with Hitler. It is well known that Halifax and Chamberlain were both inclined to negotiate. It looked very much as though the war cabinet would support them. It was only Churchill's insistence on calling a full cabinet meeting and his impassioned speech to that meeting which led Halifax to back down. I agree with Johnson that, if Churchill had not been there, the probability must be that Britain would have opened negotiations with Hitler in the Summer of 1940. He did make a profound difference to history.
But would we have been better off making a pact with Hitler? This is where I part company with the revisionists in a big way. They, even speaking with hindsight, with full knowledge of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, say Churchill was wrong to fight. Hitler, they contend, would have allowed a neutral Britain to remain free while he embarked on conquering the whole of the continent and overthrowing Russia. Hundreds of thousands of British soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in the war would have lived. And then, when Hitler ruled all of the continent, he would have been happy for Britain to govern herself. I am with Johnson on that. It is first rate poppycock. If we had not had Churchill and Halifax had given in to Hitler Britain would for ever have been a puppet state of the Third Reich.
There may be arguments as to whether things would have been different if Churchill had been removed in 1941, once the decision to fight had been made and before America joined the war. It is certainly possible, I accept, that Churchill's influence was not vital then (though we would have been deprived of some glorious oratory). But I am convinced that Johnson is right to say that the free world owes its salvation to Churchill's stand in 1940.
I do hope this book will reach its target audience, those youngsters who know almost nothing about Churchill. But I also have no hesitation in commending it to people as ancient as I am.
Charles
P.S. I hate to ruin a good story, but Nicholas Soames's anecdote, recorded towards the end of the book, about the Ministry of Defence cleaner is not quite true. I have studied the 1945 resignation honours list. No Dames of the British Empire were appointed in that list.
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