Richard Toye

Little Englander

Sir Winston Churchill was quoted saying both "I hate people with slit eyes & pig tails" and in the British Empire "there should be no barrier of race, colour or creed which should prevent any man from reaching any station if he is fitted for it", albeit applied at a very slow pace.

The British Empire was very important for Churchill's career, which he started in British India. Books about the Empire established him as a journalist. And his ministerial years before his time "in the wilderness" were mostly spent on military posts and time in the Colonial Office. Later on as prime minister he presided over parts of the liquidation of that same Empire.

Churchill's birth coincided with the "triumphant phase" of British imperialism, the same period that Queen Victoria was crowned Empress of India. Imperialistic opinions were common among his family and in the public school he attended. He learned from Gibbon that empire brought advantages to those ruled (p. 27) and from others the Darwinian idea that the day of small nations had passed. The uneducated populations of the world would never begin to advance until their property was secure and they enjoyed the rights of man, and these they would never obtain except by means of European conquest. War in Asia was the engine for social improvement. In the 1920's such Victorian opinions had become old fashioned.

In a speech Churchill stated that he had gone "scurrying about the world from one exciting scene to another" when Britain had fought "a lot of jolly little wars against barbarous peoples" (p.35). It was not uncommon for a soldier in the army in British India (as Churchill had become after his time in Sandhurst) to combine the sword with the pen, making him the "premier journalist of Empire". The war correspondent G.W. Steevens thought Churchill could make it as "a great popular leader, a great journalist, or the founder of a great advertising business" (p.52). Churchill saw the expansion of the Empire into Afghanistan as inevitable and wrote that Britain's "ancient democracy" (p.44) would understand. Churchill defended the British use of dum dum bullets as much as he rejected their use by the Boers. His capture at Mafeking made him think somewhat more positively about the Boers and the opportunities of a South Africa under British rule. The capture of the Transvaal and Orange Free State were necessary, as otherwise the British ruled Cape would be "at best but a Canada" next to a United States (p.61). Consequently, the Boer Wars were just wars. The "Dutch and British races" must forever live under the supremacy of Britain. Realpolitik was Churchill's principle. He had no qualms about the Empire's anti-guerrilla tactics of farm burning and concentration camps. Such opinions were not shared by all of Britain; e.g. the Liberals were pro-Boer.

After the Boer War Churchill concentrated on politics. He opposed the imperial tariffs meant to consolidate the Empire "which can only be maintained by relations of interest as well as sentiment", thinking that the Empire was a family, not a syndicate. In 1904 Churchill moved over from the Torries to the Liberals and became Under-Secretary in the Colonial Office.

Africa kept him busy in his new role. South Africa's form of government and the share of its Asian minorities in the country's rule was as important an issue as it was in Kenya. Churchill opposed white self-government in Kenya with its small number of white settlers (p.118), but not in South Africa.

Churchill's next post was a home portfolio, aiming at social reform. After 1911, as First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill tried to convince Canada, Australia and New Zealand to contribute naval vessels to the defence of Empire, which was de facto mainly aiming at Britain itself. During the Anglo-Irish War, Churchill was War Secretary, and had to defend indiscriminate shootings and burnings in the fight against the IRA. Overall, his attitude towards Ireland was conciliatory, as it had been to the Boers earlier.

Churchill returned to the colonial department in 1921. Here he was instrumental in carving up the former Ottoman territories during the Paris and Cairo Conferences. Most of the decisions were taken collectively. Still, because of various incidents of the time his style was seen as domineering and occasionally even jingoistic. Churchill was seen as a Diehard of Empire. The growing call for Indian self government found little sympathy with him. India was not a country, but only an idea held together by Britain. He compared India to Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, with wars continuing until his days (p.313). British rule offered benign central control to the subcontinent. Churchill had little enthusiasm for Hinduism, which he considered feeble (in line with Katherine Mayo's book Mother India). He found Gandhi's decision to abandon Western dress repellent, marking a retreat from civilisation itself. On the other hand, Churchill was more positive about the Muslim minority, whom he counted among India's "martial races". Churchill could not stop the India Bill, aimed at putting India on the way to self government.

When Hitler attacked Western Europe, the Empire rallied behind Britain and its new prime minister, although some, like the Australian Prime Minister Menzies, found Churchill a poor strategist, a weak organiser, and that he "should be at the helm instead of touring the bombed areas". The war period was a tightrope walk for the British government, balancing the war effort against requirements of India and the Dominions, as well as growing American pressure. Before Pearl Harbor America was not yet a formal ally, but FDR brought anti-imperialist points into the Atlantic Charter (p.212). It unleashed expectations beyond the control of the British government.

Churchill's "Germany First" policy had met Australian unease, particularly after the fall of Singapore and the subsequent air raids on Darwin. Australia was considered to vast and to remote for a Japanese invasion (p.219). Failed negotiations and subsequent violence in India in 1942 was countered with violence without disenchanting the all important American ally. On several occasions mobs were machine-gunned from the air (p.226). Still the pressure was on Britain, and Goebbels observed in 1943 that "Britain will lose this war in the political sphere, even if she should succeed in winning it in the military sphere". The end of hostilities in Europe led to the withdrawal of Labour and Liberal ministers, the ejection of Churchill from government and a failed conference about the future of India in Simla.

After the war, Churchill promoted Britain as the centre of the three circles Empire, English-speaking nations and a united Europe, "the key to a safe and happy future to humanity", despite its decline as an imperial power. Naturally he opposed the "cowardly abandonment of our duties" in India, but the electorate and their politicians cared more for domestic matters. Military overstretch economic crisis and nationalist pressures led to a quick liquidation of much of the Empire in Asia and the Middle East. Churchill was a diehard again in the case of Egypt (which gave him the name of a "war monger") and later the Suez Canal Zone. Even the zone was untenable. Decolonisation in Africa now came on the agenda. Unable to solve the guerrilla war, appalling atrocities occurred in Kenya during Churchill's last stint as prime minister. After his retirement the liquidation of the Empire was speeded up. Churchill's funeral could be seen as Britain's last great imperial pageant.

Churchill's combination of social Darwinism with Medieval chivalry and a mystical believe in British democracy is somewhat puzzling. However, it does make you understand why this man would not shirk for the might of Nazi Germany.

Fortunately, racist opinions as expressed by Sir Winston are ever more exotic nowadays. Often, but not always, such opinions were quite "middle of the road" in his own days. And they are at least somewhat balanced by other brilliant sweeping statements. As an observer stated about Churchill:

"It is a wonderful character - the most marvellous qualities and superhuman genius mixed with an astonishing lack of vision at times, and a impetuosity which if not guided must inevitably bring him into trouble again and again" (p.244).

Overall, Churchill's Empire is an interesting biography, although the book could have been shorter for the casual reader. The financial profit and loss account of Empire remains unclear. The Empire brought glory and influence and should thus be maintained. It was also a source of soldiers and money (Britain ran up high debts against India during the Second World War), but made the War (on multiple continents and with stakeholders from the Dominions that had to be satisfied) also much more difficult to manage).… (more)