Sir Winston Churchill
UnCirculated Silver and 24Kt Gold Plated Commemoration Coin
One side has a image of the great man in gold behind a silver cityscape of London with Big Ben on the House of Parliament and St. Pauls Cathedral. There are also some small German Planes flying about London during the Blitz.
It also has his name and the year he was born 1874 and the year he died 1965. Around the edge of the coin is one his most famous quotes
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"
The other side has a red, white and blue union jack with the Great Man with his famous V for Victory Gesture. Around the side of the coin is another of his inspirational quotes
"Never, Never, Never give up. if your going through hell keep going"
The coin is 40mm in diameter, weighs 30 grams.
Comes in air-tight acrylic coin case
A Beautiful coin and Magnificent Keepsake Souvenir to Commemorate a Great Leader and a man who was voted the Greatest Ever Britain.
In Excellent Condition
Starting at a Penny...With No Reserve..If your the only bidder you win it for 1p....Grab a Bargain!!!!
I have a lot more World War Items on Ebay >>> Check out my other items!
Bid with Confidence please read my 100% Positive feedback from over 15,000 satisfied customer
Read how quickly they receive their items - I post all my items within 24 hours of receiving payment
I am a UK Based Seller with over 5 years of eBay Selling Experience
I am Highly Rated Seller by Ebay and My selling Performance is Rated Premium Service
International customers are welcome.
I have shipped items to over 120 countries and I will ship anywhere worldwide
UK Buyers can expect their items in a few days sometimes they arrive the next day
Items sent to Europe usually take about a week and outside Europe take around 2 weeks
International orders may require longer handling time if held up at customs. A small percentage do get held up at customs if they do they can take up to 6 weeks to arrive
Why not treat yourself?
I always combine multiple items and send an invoice with discounted postage
I leave instant feedback upon receiving yours
All payment methods accepted from all countries in all currencies
Are you looking for a Interesting conversation piece?
A birthday present for the person who has everything?
A comical gift to cheer someone up?
or a special unique gift just to say thank you?
You now know where to look for a bargain!
Be sure to add me to your favourites list!
Please click here If you want to take a look at my other ebay auctions other items!
Most of my auctions start at a penny with No Reserve
All Items Dispatched within 24 hours of Receiving Payment.
Thanks for Looking and Good Luck with the Bidding!!
I have sold items to coutries such as Afghanistan * Albania * Algeria * American Samoa (US) * Andorra * Angola * Anguilla (GB) * Antigua and Barbuda * Argentina * Armenia * Aruba (NL) * Australia * Austria * Azerbaijan * Bahamas * Bahrain * Bangladesh * Barbados * Belarus * Belgium * Belize * Benin * Bermuda (GB) * Bhutan * Bolivia * Bonaire (NL) * Bosnia and Herzegovina * Botswana * Bouvet Island (NO) * Brazil * British Indian Ocean Territory (GB) * British Virgin Islands (GB) * Brunei * Bulgaria * Burkina Faso * Burundi * Cambodia * Cameroon * Canada * Cape Verde * Cayman Islands (GB) * Central African Republic * Chad * Chile * China * Christmas Island (AU) * Cocos Islands (AU) * Colombia * Comoros * Congo * Democratic Republic of the Congo * Cook Islands (NZ) * Coral Sea Islands Territory (AU) * Costa Rica * Croatia * Cuba * Curaçao (NL) * Cyprus * Czech Republic * Denmark * Djibouti * Dominica * Dominican Republic * East Timor * Ecuador * Egypt * El Salvador * Equatorial Guinea * Eritrea * Estonia * Ethiopia * Falkland Islands (GB) * Faroe Islands (DK) * Fiji Islands * Finland * France * French Guiana (FR) * French Polynesia (FR) * French Southern Lands (FR) * Gabon * Gambia * Georgia * Germany * Ghana * Gibraltar (GB) * Greece * Greenland (DK) * Grenada * Guadeloupe (FR) * Guam (US) * Guatemala * Guernsey (GB) * Guinea * Guinea-Bissau * Guyana * Haiti * Heard and McDonald Islands (AU) * Honduras * Hong Kong (CN) * Hungary * Iceland * India * Indonesia * * Iraq * Ireland * Isle of Man (GB) * Israel * Italy * Ivory Coast * Jamaica * Jan Mayen (NO) * Japan * Jersey (GB) * Jordan * Kazakhstan * Kenya * Kiribati * Kosovo * Kuwait * Kyrgyzstan * Laos * Latvia * Lebanon * Lesotho * Liberia * Libya * Liechtenstein * Lithuania * Luxembourg * Macau (CN) * Macedonia * Madagascar * Malawi * Malaysia * Maldives * Mali * Malta * Marshall Islands * Martinique (FR) * Mauritania * Mauritius * Mayotte (FR) * Mexico * Micronesia * Moldova * Monaco * Mongolia * Montenegro * Montserrat (GB) * Morocco * Mozambique * Myanmar * Namibia * Nauru * Navassa (US) * Nepal * Netherlands * New Caledonia (FR) * New Zealand * Nicaragua * Niger * Nigeria * Niue (NZ) * Norfolk Island (AU) * Northern Cyprus * Northern Mariana Islands (US) * Norway * Oman * Pakistan * Palau * Palestinian Authority * Panama * Papua New Guinea * Paraguay * Peru * Philippines * Pitcairn Island (GB) * Poland * Portugal * Puerto Rico (US) * Qatar * Reunion (FR) * Romania * Russia * Rwanda * Saba (NL) * Saint Barthelemy (FR) * Saint Helena (GB) * Saint Kitts and Nevis * Saint Lucia * Saint Martin (FR) * Saint Pierre and Miquelon (FR) * Saint Vincent and the Grenadines * Samoa * San Marino * Sao Tome and Principe * Saudi Arabia * Senegal * Serbia * Seychelles * Sierra Leone * Singapore * Sint Eustatius (NL) * Sint Maarten (NL) * Slovakia * Slovenia * Solomon Islands * Somalia * South Africa * South Georgia (GB) * South Korea * South Sudan * Spain * Sri Lanka * Sudan * Suriname * Svalbard (NO) * Swaziland * Sweden * Switzerland * Syria * Taiwan * Tajikistan * Tanzania * Thailand * Togo * Tokelau (NZ) * Tonga * Trinidad and Tobago * Tunisia * Turkey * Turkmenistan * Turks and Caicos Islands (GB) * Tuvalu * U.S. Minor Pacific Islands (US) * U.S. Virgin Islands (US) * Uganda * Ukraine * United Arab Emirates * United Kingdom * United States * Uruguay * Uzbekistan * Vanuatu * Vatican City * Venezuela * Vietnam * Wallis and Futuna (FR) * Yemen * Zambia * Zimbabwe and major cities such as Tokyo, Yokohama, New York City, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Mexico City, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Manila, Mumbai, Delhi, Jakarta, Lagos, Kolkata, Cairo, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, Shanghai, Karachi, Paris, Istanbul, Nagoya, Beijing, Chicago, London, Shenzhen, Essen, Düsseldorf,, Bogota, Lima, Bangkok, Johannesburg, East Rand, Chennai, Taipei, Baghdad, Santiago, Bangalore, Hyderabad, St Petersburg, Philadelphia, Lahore, Kinshasa, Miami, Ho Chi Minh City, Madrid, Tianjin, Kuala Lumpur, Toronto, Milan, Shenyang, Dallas, Fort Worth, Boston, Belo Horizonte, Khartoum, Riyadh, Singapore, Washington, Detroit, Barcelona,, Houston, Athens, Berlin, Sydney, Atlanta, Guadalajara, San Francisco, Oakland, Montreal, Monterey, Melbourne, Ankara, Recife, Phoenix/Mesa, Durban, Porto Alegre, Dalian, Jeddah, Seattle, Cape Town, San Diego, Fortaleza, Curitiba, Rome, Naples, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Tel Aviv, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Lisbon, Manchester, San Juan, Katowice, Tashkent, Fukuoka, Baku, Sumqayit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Sapporo, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Taichung, Warsaw, Denver, Cologne, Bonn, Hamburg, Dubai, Pretoria, Vancouver, Beirut, Budapest, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Campinas, Harare, Brasilia, Kuwait, Munich, Portland, Brussels, Vienna, San Jose, Damman , Copenhagen, Brisbane, Riverside, San Bernardino, Cincinnati and Accra
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill KG OM CH TD DL FRS RA (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician, army officer, and writer, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. As Prime Minister, Churchill led Britain to victory in the Second World War. Ideologically an economic liberal and British imperialist, he was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924 before rejoining the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. Churchill represented five constituencies during his career as Member of Parliament (MP).
Born in Oxfordshire to an aristocratic family, Churchill was a son of Lord Randolph Churchill and Jennie Jerome. Joining the British Army, he saw action in British India, the Anglo–Sudan War, and the Second Boer War, gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns. Elected an MP in 1900, initially as a Conservative, he defected to the Liberals in 1904. In H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, and First Lord of the Admiralty, championing prison reform and workers' social security. During the First World War, he oversaw the Gallipoli Campaign; after it proved a disaster, he resigned from government and served in the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front. In 1917 he returned to government under David Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, and was subsequently Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, then Secretary of State for the Colonies. After two years out of Parliament, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government, returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move widely seen as creating deflationary pressure on the UK economy.
Out of office during the 1930s, Churchill took the lead in calling for British rearmament to counter the growing threat from Nazi Germany. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was re-appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's resignation in 1940, Churchill replaced him. Churchill oversaw British involvement in the Allied war effort, resulting in victory in 1945. His wartime response to the 1943 Bengal famine, which claimed an estimated three million lives, has caused controversy, and he sanctioned the 1945 bombing of Dresden, which caused tens of thousands of civilian deaths and continues to be debated. After the Conservatives' defeat in the 1945 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition. Amid the developing Cold War with the Soviet Union, he publicly warned of an "iron curtain" of Soviet influence in Europe and promoted European unity. He was re-elected prime minister in the 1951 election. His second term was preoccupied with foreign affairs, including the Malayan Emergency, Mau Mau Uprising, Korean War, Syrian crisis and a UK-backed coup. Domestically his government emphasised house-building and developed an atomic bomb. In declining health, Churchill resigned as prime minister in 1955, although he remained an MP until 1964. Upon his death in 1965, he was given a state funeral.
Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Churchill remains popular in the UK and Western world, where he is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending liberal democracy from the spread of fascism. Also praised as a social reformer and writer, among his many awards was the Nobel Prize in Literature. Conversely, his imperialist and racist views—coupled with his sanctioning of human rights abuses in the suppression of anti-imperialist movements seeking independence from the British Empire—have generated considerable controversy
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office
26 October 1951 – 7 April 1955
Monarch
George VI
Elizabeth II
Deputy
Anthony Eden
Preceded by
Clement Attlee
Succeeded by
Anthony Eden
In office
10 May 1940 – 26 July 1945
Monarch
George VI
Deputy
Clement Attlee
Preceded by
Neville Chamberlain
Succeeded by
Clement Attlee
Personal details
Born
Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
30 November 1874
Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England
Died
24 January 1965 (aged 90)
Kensington, London, England
Cause of death
Stroke
Resting place
St Martin's Church, Bladon
Political party
Conservative
(Before 1904; 1924–1964)
Liberal
(1904–1924)
Spouse(s)
Clementine Hozier (m. 1908)
Children
Diana Churchill
Randolph Churchill
Sarah Churchill
Marigold Churchill
Mary Soames
Parents
Lord Randolph Churchill
Jennie Jerome
Education
Harrow School
Royal Military College, Sandhurst
Military service
Allegiance
United Kingdom
Service/branch
British Army
Territorial Army
Years of service
1895–1900
1900–1924
Rank
Commands
6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers
Battles/wars
Mahdist War
Second Boer War
First World War
Churchill was born at his parental home, Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, on 30 November 1874,[5][6] at which time the United Kingdom was the dominant world power.[7] A direct descendant of the Dukes of Marlborough, his family were among the highest levels of the British aristocracy,[8] and thus he was born into the country's governing elite.[9] His paternal grandfather, John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, had been a Member of Parliament (MP) for ten years, a member of the Conservative Party who served in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.[10] His own father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had been elected Conservative MP for Woodstock in 1873.[11] His mother, Jennie Churchill (née Jerome), was from an American family whose substantial wealth derived from finance.[12] The couple had met in August 1873, and were engaged three days later, marrying at the British Embassy in Paris in April 1874.[13] The couple lived beyond their income and were frequently in debt;[14] according to the biographer Sebastian Haffner, the family were "rich by normal standards but poor by those of the rich
First World War
I cannot feel that we in this island [i.e. Britain] are in any serious degree responsible for the wave of madness which has swept the mind of Christendom. No one can measure the consequences. I wondered whether those stupid Kings and Emperors could not assemble together and revivify kingship by saving the nations from hell but we all drift on in a kind of dull cataleptic trance. As if it was somebody else's operations.
Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in June 1914, there was growing talk of war in Europe.[235] Churchill began readying the navy for conflict,[236] convinced that if Germany attacked France then Britain would inevitably join the war.[237] Although there was strong opposition to involvement in the conflict within the Liberal Party,[237] the British Cabinet agreed that a German invasion of Belgium would be a cause for war. When this happened, Britain declared war.[238] Churchill was tasked with overseeing the country's naval warfare effort.[239] In two weeks, the navy transported 120,000 British troops across the English Channel to France.[239] In August, he oversaw a naval blockade of German North Sea ports to prevent them from transporting food by sea;[240] he also sent submarines to the Baltic Sea to assist the Russian Navy against German warships.[240] Also in August, he sent the Marine Brigade to Ostend to force the Germans to reallocate some of their troops away from their main southward thrust.[241]
In September, Churchill took over full responsibility for the aerial defence of Britain,[241] and made several visits to France to oversee the war effort.[242] While in Britain, he spoke at all-party recruiting rallies in London and Liverpool,[243] and his wife gave birth to their third child, Sarah.[244] In October he visited Antwerp to observe Belgian defences against the besieging Germans; he promised Belgian Prime Minister Charles de Broqueville that Britain would provide reinforcements for the city.[245] The German assault continued, and shortly after Churchill left the city he agreed to a British retreat, allowing the Germans to take Antwerp; many in the press criticised Churchill for this.[246] Churchill maintained that his actions prolonged the resistance by a week (Belgium had proposed surrendering Antwerp on 3 October) and that this time had enabled the Allies to secure Calais and Dunkirk.[247]
In November, Asquith called a War Council, consisting of himself, Lloyd George, Edward Grey, Kitchener, and Churchill.[248] Churchill proposed a plan to seize the island of Borkum and use it as a post from which to attack Germany's northern coastline, believing that this strategy should shorten the war.[249][verification needed] Churchill also encouraged the development of the tank, which he believed would be useful in overcoming the problems of trench warfare, and funded its creation with admiralty funds.[250] To relieve Turkish pressure on the Russians in the Caucasus, Churchill was part of a plan to distract the Turkish Army by attacking in the Dardanelles, with the hope that if successful the British could seize Constantinople.[251] In March, a fleet of 13 battleships attacked in the Dardanelles but faced severe problems from submerged mines; in April, the 29th Division began its assault at Gallipoli.[252] Many MPs, particularly Conservatives, blamed Churchill for the failure of these campaigns.[253] Amid growing Conservative pressure, in May, Asquith agreed to form an all-party coalition government; the Conservatives' one condition of entry was that Churchill be demoted from his position at the Admiralty.[254][255] Churchill plead his case with both Asquith and Conservative leader Bonar Law, but ultimately accepted his demotion to the position of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.[256]
On the Western Front: 1915–1916
Winston Churchill commanding the 6th Battalion, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, 1916. Archibald Sinclair sits to the left
For several months Churchill served in the sinecure of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. However, on 15 November 1915 he resigned from the government, feeling his energies were not being used.[257]
Although remaining a member of parliament, Churchill returned to the British Army, attempting to obtain an appointment as brigade commander, but settling for command of a battalion. After some time gaining front-line experience as a Major with the 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards, he was appointed temporary Lieutenant-Colonel, commanding the 6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers (part of the 9th (Scottish) Division), on 1 January 1916.[258][259]
Correspondence with his wife shows that his intent in taking up active service was to rehabilitate his reputation, but this was balanced by the serious risk of being killed. During his period of command, his battalion was stationed at Ploegsteert but did not take part in any set battle. Although he disapproved strongly of the mass slaughter involved in many Western Front actions, he exposed himself to danger by making excursions to the front line and personally made 36 forays into no man's land
Churchill later sought to portray himself as an isolated voice warning of the need to rearm against Germany. While it is true that he had a small following in the House of Commons during much of the 1930s, he was given privileged information by some elements within the government, particularly by disaffected civil servants in the War Ministry and Foreign Office. The "Churchill group" in the latter half of the decade consisted of only himself, Duncan Sandys and Brendan Bracken. It was isolated from the other main factions within the Conservative Party in pressing for faster rearmament and a stronger foreign policy;[338][339] one meeting of anti-Chamberlain forces decided that Churchill would make a good Minister of Supply.[340]
Even during the time Churchill was campaigning against Indian independence, he received official and otherwise secret information. From 1932, Churchill's neighbour, Major Desmond Morton, with Ramsay MacDonald's approval, gave Churchill information on German air power.[341] From 1930 onward Morton headed a department of the Committee of Imperial Defence charged with researching the defence preparedness of other nations. Lord Swinton, as Secretary of State for Air, and with Baldwin's approval, in 1934 gave Churchill access to official and otherwise secret information.
Swinton did so, knowing Churchill would remain a critic of the government, but believing that an informed critic was better than one relying on rumour and hearsay.[342] Churchill was a fierce critic of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler[343] and in private letters to Lloyd George (13 August) and Lord Moyne (11 September) just before the Munich Agreement, he wrote that the government was faced with a choice between "war and shame" and that having chosen shame would later get war on less favourable terms.[344][345][346]
Return to the Admiralty
On 3 September 1939, the day Britain declared war on Germany following the outbreak of the Second World War, Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, the same position he had held during the first part of the First World War. As such he was a member of Chamberlain's small War Cabinet.[347][348][349]
In this position, he proved to be one of the highest-profile ministers during the so-called "Phoney War", when the only noticeable action was at sea and the USSR's attack on Finland. Churchill planned to penetrate the Baltic with a naval force. This was soon changed to a plan involving the mining of Norwegian waters to stop iron ore shipments from Narvik and provoke Germany into attacking Norway, where it could be defeated by the Royal Navy.[350] However, Chamberlain and the rest of the War Cabinet disagreed, and the start of the mining plan, Operation Wilfred, was delayed until 8 April 1940, a day before the successful German invasion of Norway
"We shall never surrender"
Churchill wears a helmet during an air raid warning in the Battle of Britain in 1940
On 10 May 1940, hours before the German invasion of France by a lightning advance through the Low Countries, it became clear that, following failure in Norway, the country had no confidence in Chamberlain's prosecution of the war and so Chamberlain resigned. The commonly accepted version of events states that Lord Halifax turned down the post of prime minister because he believed he could not govern effectively as a member of the House of Lords instead of the House of Commons. Although a prime minister does not traditionally advise the King on a prime minister's own successor, Chamberlain wanted someone who would command the support of all three major parties in the House of Commons. A meeting between Chamberlain, Halifax, Churchill, and David Margesson, the government Chief Whip, led to the recommendation of Churchill, and, as constitutional monarch, George VI asked Churchill to be prime minister. Churchill's first act was to write to Chamberlain to thank him for his support.[352]
Churchill takes aim with a Sten submachine gun in June 1941. The man in the pin-striped suit and fedora to the right is his bodyguard, Walter H. Thompson.
Churchill was still unpopular with many Conservatives and the Establishment,[339][353] who opposed his replacing Chamberlain; the former prime minister remained party leader until dying in November.[354] Churchill probably could not have won a majority in any of the political parties in the House of Commons, and the House of Lords was completely silent when it learned of his appointment.[339] Ralph Ingersoll reported in late 1940 that, "Everywhere I went in London people admired [Churchill's] energy, his courage, his singleness of purpose. People said they didn't know what Britain would do without him. He was obviously respected. But no one felt he would be Prime Minister after the war. He was simply the right man in the right job at the right time. The time being the time of a desperate war with Britain's enemies."[355]
An element of British public and political sentiment favoured a negotiated peace with Germany, among them Halifax as Foreign Secretary. Over three days in May (26–28 May 1940), there were repeated discussions within the War Cabinet of whether the UK should associate itself with French approaches to Mussolini to use his good offices with Hitler to seek a negotiated peace: they terminated in refusal to do so. Various interpretations are possible of this episode, and of Churchill's argument that "it was idle to think that, if we tried to make peace now, we should get better terms than if we fought it out", but throughout Churchill seems to have opposed any immediate peace negotiations.[356] Although at times personally pessimistic about Britain's chances for victory (Churchill told Hastings Ismay on 12 June 1940 that "[y]ou and I will be dead in three months' time"[354]) his use of rhetoric hardened public opinion against a peaceful resolution and prepared the British for a long war.[357]
Coining the general term for the upcoming battle, Churchill stated in his "finest hour" speech to the House of Commons on 18 June, "I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin."[358] By refusing an armistice with Germany, Churchill kept resistance alive in the British Empire and created the basis for the later Allied counter-attacks of 1942–45, with Britain serving as a platform for the supply of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Western Europe.[citation needed]
In response to previous criticisms that there had been no clear single minister in charge of the prosecution of the war, Churchill created and took the additional position of Minister of Defence, making him the most powerful wartime prime minister in British history.[339] He immediately put his friend and confidant, industrialist and newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook, in charge of aircraft production and made his friend Frederick Lindemann the government's scientific advisor. It has been argued that it was Beaverbrook's business acumen that allowed Britain to quickly gear up aircraft production and engineering, which eventually made the difference in the war.[359]
Churchill walks through the ruins of Coventry Cathedral with Alfred Robert Grindlay, 1941
Churchill's speeches were a great inspiration to the embattled British. His first as prime minister was the famous "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech. One historian has called its effect on Parliament "electrifying". The House of Commons that had ignored him during the 1930s "was now listening, and cheering".[340] Churchill followed that closely with two other equally famous ones, given just before the Battle of Britain. One included the words:
... we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.[360]
The other:
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour'.[361]
At the height of the Battle of Britain, his bracing survey of the situation included the memorable line "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few", which engendered the enduring nickname The Few for the RAF fighter pilots who won it.[362] He first spoke these famous words upon his exit from No. 11 Group's underground bunker at RAF Uxbridge, now known as the Battle of Britain Bunker on 16 August 1940. One of his most memorable war speeches came on 10 November 1942 at the Lord Mayor's Luncheon at Mansion House in London, in response to the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein. Churchill stated:
Without having much in the way of sustenance or good news to offer the British people, he took a risk in deliberately choosing to emphasise the dangers instead. "Rhetorical power", wrote Churchill, "is neither wholly bestowed, nor wholly acquired, but cultivated." Not all were impressed by his oratory. Robert Menzies, Australian Prime Minister, said of Churchill during the Second World War: "His real tyrant is the glittering phrase so attractive to his mind that awkward facts have to give way."[364] Another associate wrote: "He is ... the slave of the words which his mind forms about ideas ... And he can convince himself of almost every truth if it is once allowed thus to start on its wild career through his rhetorical machinery
In June 1944, the Allied Forces invaded Normandy and pushed the Nazi forces back into Germany on a broad front over the coming year. After being attacked on three fronts by the Allies, and in spite of Allied failures, such as Operation Market Garden, and German counter-attacks, including the Battle of the Bulge, Germany was eventually defeated. On 7 May 1945 at the SHAEF headquarters in Rheims the Allies accepted Germany's surrender. On the same day in a BBC news flash John Snagge announced that 8 May would be Victory in Europe Day.[425] On Victory in Europe Day, Churchill broadcast to the nation that Germany had surrendered and that a final ceasefire on all fronts in Europe would come into effect at one minute past midnight that night.[426][427]
Afterward, Churchill told a huge crowd in Whitehall: "This is your victory." The people shouted: "No, it is yours", and Churchill then conducted them in the singing of "Land of Hope and Glory". In the evening he made another broadcast to the nation asserting the defeat of Japan in the coming months.[428] The Japanese surrendered on 15 August 1945. As Europe celebrated peace at the end of six years of war, Churchill was concerned with the possibility that the celebrations would soon be brutally interrupted.[clarification needed][429] He concluded the UK and the US must anticipate the Red Army ignoring previously agreed frontiers and agreements in Europe, and prepare to "impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire."[429] According to the Operation Unthinkable plan ordered by Churchill and developed by the British Armed Forces, the Third World War could have started on 1 July 1945 with a sudden attack against the allied Soviet troops. The plan was rejected by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee as militarily unfeasible
Elizabeth II offered to create Churchill Duke of London, but this was declined as a result of the objections of his son Randolph, who would have inherited the title on his father's death.[491] He did, however, accept a knighthood as Garter Knight. After leaving the premiership, Churchill spent less time in parliament until he stood down at the 1964 general election. Churchill spent most of his retirement at Chartwell and at his home in Hyde Park Gate, in London, and became a habitué of high society on the French Riviera.[428][492]
Although publicly supportive, Churchill was privately scathing about Eden's Suez Invasion. His wife believed that he had made a number of visits to the US in the following years in an attempt to help repair Anglo-American relations.[493]
By the time of the 1959 general election Churchill seldom attended the House of Commons. Despite the Conservative landslide, his own majority fell by more than a thousand. It is widely believed that as his mental and physical faculties decayed, he began to lose a battle he had supposedly long fought against depression. However, the nature, incidence and severity of Churchill's depression is uncertain. Anthony Montague Browne, Personal Secretary to Churchill during the latter's final ten years of life, wrote that he never heard Churchill refer to depression, and he disputed that the former prime minister suffered from depression.[494]
There was speculation that Churchill may have had Alzheimer's disease in his last years, although others maintain that his reduced mental capacity was simply the cumulative result of the ten strokes and the increasing deafness he suffered from during the period 1949–1963.[495] In 1963, US President John F. Kennedy, acting under authorisation granted by an Act of Congress, proclaimed him an Honorary Citizen of the United States,[496] but he was unable to attend the White House ceremony.[497]
Despite poor health, Churchill still tried to remain active in public life, and on St George's Day 1964, sent a message of congratulations to the surviving veterans of the 1918 Zeebrugge Raid who were attending a service of commemoration in Deal, Kent, where two casualties of the raid were buried in the Hamilton Road Cemetery. On 15 January 1965, Churchill suffered a severe stroke and died at his London home nine days later, aged 90, on the morning of Sunday, 24 January 1965, 70 years to the day after his own father's death.[497]
Funeral
Churchill's grave at St Martin's Church, Bladon
Churchill's funeral plan had been initiated in 1953, after he suffered a major stroke, under the name Operation Hope Not. The purpose was to commemorate Churchill "on a scale befitting his position in history", as Queen Elizabeth II declared.[498]
The funeral was the largest state funeral in world history up to that time, with representatives from 112 nations; only China did not send an emissary. In Europe, 350 million people, including 25 million in Britain, watched the funeral on television, and only the Republic of Ireland did not broadcast it live.[499]
By decree of the Queen, his body lay in state in Westminster Hall for three days and a state funeral service was held at St Paul's Cathedral on 30 January 1965.[500] One of the largest assemblages of statesmen in the world was gathered for the service. Unusually, the Queen attended the funeral because Churchill was the first commoner since William Gladstone to lie-in-State.[501] As Churchill's lead-lined coffin passed up the River Thames from Tower Pier to Festival Pier on the MV Havengore, dockers lowered their crane jibs in a salute.[502]
The Royal Artillery fired the 19-gun salute due a head of government, and the RAF staged a fly-by of sixteen English Electric Lightning fighters. The coffin was then taken the short distance to Waterloo station where it was loaded onto a specially prepared and painted carriage as part of the funeral train for its rail journey to Hanborough,[503] seven miles northwest of Oxford.
Sir Winston Churchill's funeral train passing Clapham Junction
The funeral train of Pullman coaches carrying his family mourners was hauled by Battle of Britain class steam locomotive No. 34051 Winston Churchill. In the fields along the route, and at the stations through which the train passed, thousands stood in silence to pay their last respects. At Churchill's request, he was buried in the family plot at St Martin's Church, Bladon, near Woodstock, not far from his birthplace at Blenheim Palace. Churchill's funeral van—former Southern Railway van S2464S—is now part of a preservation project with the Swanage Railway, having been repatriated to the UK in 2007 from the US, to where it had been exported in 1965.[504]
Later in 1965 a memorial to Churchill, cut by the engraver Reynolds Stone, was placed in Westminster Abbey.[505]
Artist, historian, and writer
Allies (1995) by Lawrence Holofcener, a sculptural group depicting Franklin D. Roosevelt and Churchill in New Bond Street, London
Main articles: Winston Churchill as historian and Winston Churchill as writer
Churchill was an accomplished amateur artist and took great pleasure in painting, especially after his resignation as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915.[506] He found a haven in art to overcome the spells of depression which some say he suffered throughout his life. As William Rees-Mogg has stated, "In his own life, he had to suffer the 'black dog' of depression. In his landscapes and still lives there is no sign of depression."[507] Churchill was persuaded and taught to paint by his artist friend, Paul Maze, whom he met during the First World War. Maze was a great influence on Churchill's painting and became a lifelong painting companion.[508]
Churchill's best known paintings are impressionist landscapes, many of which were painted while on holiday in the South of France, Egypt or Morocco.[507] Using the pseudonym "Charles Morin",[353] he continued his hobby throughout his life and painted hundreds of paintings, many of which are on show in the studio at Chartwell as well as private collections.[509] Most of his paintings are oil-based and feature landscapes, but he also did a number of interior scenes and portraits. In 1925 Lord Duveen, Kenneth Clark, and Oswald Birley selected his Winter Sunshine as the prize winner in a contest for anonymous amateur artists.[510]:46–47 Due to obvious time constraints, Churchill attempted only one painting during the Second World War. He completed the painting from the tower of the Villa Taylor in Marrakesh.[511]
Some of his paintings can today be seen in the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection at the Dallas Museum of Art. Emery Reves was Churchill's American publisher, as well as a close friend[512] and Churchill often visited Emery and his wife Wendy Russell Reves at their villa, La Pausa, in the South of France, which had originally been built in 1927 for Coco Chanel by her lover the 2nd Duke of Westminster. The villa was rebuilt within the museum in 1985 with a gallery of Churchill paintings and memorabilia.[513][514]
Gunther estimated in 1939 that Churchill earned $100,000 a year ($1.39 million in 2016) from writing and lecturing, but that "of this he spends plenty".[366] Despite his lifelong fame and upper-class origins, Churchill always struggled to keep his income at a level which would fund his extravagant lifestyle. MPs before 1946 received only a nominal salary (and in fact did not receive anything at all until the Parliament Act 1911) so many had secondary professions from which to earn a living.[515] From his first book in 1898 until his second stint as Prime Minister, Churchill's income while out of office was almost entirely from writing books and opinion pieces for newspapers and magazines, among them the fortnightly columns that appeared in the Evening Standard from 1936 warning of the rise of Hitler and the danger of the policy of appeasement.[516]
Churchill was a prolific writer, often under the pen name "Winston S. Churchill", which he used by agreement with the American novelist of the same name to avoid confusion between their works. His output included a novel, two biographies, three volumes of memoirs, and several histories. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values".[517] Two of his most famous works, published after his first premiership brought his international fame to new heights, were his six-volume memoir The Second World War and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples; a four-volume history covering the period from Caesar's invasions of Britain (55 BC) to the beginning of the First World War (1914).[518] A number of volumes of Churchill's speeches were also published. the first of which, Into Battle, was published in the United States under the title Blood, Sweat and Tears, and was included in Life Magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924–1944.[519]
Churchill was an amateur bricklayer, constructing buildings and garden walls at his country home at Chartwell,[353] where he also bred butterflies.[520] As part of this hobby Churchill joined the Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers,[521] but was expelled due to his revived membership in the Conservative Party.[353]
Churchill was passionate about science and technology. When he was 22 he read Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species and a primer on physics. In the 1920s and 1930s, he wrote popular-science essays on topics such as evolution and fusion power. In an unpublished manuscript, Are We Alone in the Universe?, he investigates the possibility of extraterrestrial life in a thoroughly scientific way.[522][523]
Political ideology
Churchill was a career politician, with biographer Robert Rhodes James describing him as a man "who was to devote himself for his entire adult life to the profession of politics".[524] In James' view, Churchill was "fundamentally a very conservative man", and that this "basic conservatism was a conspicuous feature of his political attitudes".[525] Gilbert described Churchill as being "liberal in outlook" throughout his life,[526] although Jenkins thought that "there is room for argument about whether he was ever an engrained philosophical Liberal".[527]
Liberalism is not Socialism, and never will be. There is a great gulf fixed. It is not a gulf of method, it is a gulf of principle... Socialism seeks to pull down wealth; Liberalism seeks to raise up poverty. Socialism would destroy private interests; Liberalism would preserve private interests in the only way in which they can be safely and justly preserved, namely by reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference... Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Socialism attacks capital; Liberalism attacks monopoly.
— Winston Churchill on liberalism and socialism, 1908[528]
Gilbert described Churchill as "a radical" who believed that the state was needed to ensure "minimum standards of life, labour and social well-being for all citizens". [529] Many Liberals doubted the conviction of his radicalism when it came to social reform.[530] Churchill's speeches on liberalism emphasised the retention of Britain's existing social structure and the need for "gradualness" rather than revolutionary change;[531] he accepted and endorsed the existence of class divisions in British society.[532] Churchill sought social reform not out of a desire to challenge the existing social structure but out of an attempt to preserve it.[533] Charles Masterman, a Liberal reformer who knew Churchill, stated that the latter "desired in England, a state of things where a benign upper class dispensed benefits to an industrious, bien pendant, and grateful working class".[530] In Jenkins' view, Churchill's privileged background prevented him from empathising with the poor, and instead he "sympathize[d] with them from on high".[534] As a minister, Churchill engaged in anti-socialist rhetoric,[535] and sought to clearly differentiate socialism from liberalism.[536]
Although Churchill had upset both Edward VII and George V in his political career, he always remained a firm monarchist,[537] displaying a romanticised view of the British monarchy.[538] Jenkins described Churchill's opposition to protectionism as being based on a "profound conviction",[539] although during his political career many questioned the sincerity of Churchill's anti-protectionist beliefs.[540] Although as Home Secretary he found sanctioning executions to be one of his most emotionally taxing tasks, he did not endorse the abo