[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.There was much gunrunning among both Protestants and Catholics and threats by Ulster Protestant army officers, many of whom held senior posts, to resign their commissions rather than participate in coercing Ulster to accept Home Rule.He made two hazardous visits to Ulster, on one taking Clemmie, to put the government’s case, and he was prepared to use force to ensure that Ulster abide by the Home Rule compromise.It is worth noting that in the years 1911-14, Churchill felt bound to pursue policies which antagonized most of the senior admirals and many of the senior generals.This helps to explain his troubles during the war.Indeed, though he was not at all an extremist, his actions often looked extreme.His nature was such that, once a policy was finally determined in the cabinet, he pushed it with enthusiasm bordering on recklessness.Ulster was determined to fight, as his father had said.He himself now believed that London should fight, and would be right—though he never actually said it.But in a speech at Bradford on March 14, 1914, he said that it was time to “go forward together and put these grave matters to the proof.” He ordered the Third Battle Squadron to be within an hour’s sailing from Belfast, to show that the legitimate government was serious about using force.Fortunately Asquith quickly canceled the order.But it was known, and bitterly resented, that Churchill was the foremost in the cabinet in his willingness to coerce Ulstermen, whose greatest pride was that they were “loyalists” and stuck by the empire, unlike the southern Irish Catholics who were violently anti-British.If Churchill found himself uncomfortable in this unusual role he did not show it.He put himself firmly on the side of parliamentary institutions and the rule of law.And, as always, action for him was more heartening—and delicious—than sitting behind a constitutional desk.If the crisis had exploded into civil war, as looked likely by July 1914, it is not clear what Churchill would have done.But the coming of European war shoved Ulster violently onto the back burner, and Churchill eagerly turned his attention in a totally different direction.In fact he had been working for some months to get the navy into a high state of readiness, and as the buildup to war accelerated, he ordered the navy not to disband after its summer maneuvers but to take up action stations.From the start of the crisis, he was a prominent member of the war party.The issue to him was Belgium and her ports, especially Antwerp.Britain had always been opposed to these ports, aimed like pistols at her coast, being in the hands of a major power, especially France.That was why Britain gave a solemn guarantee of Belgian independence.Now Germany was the threat, and when the right wing of the German army, as part of the “Schlieffen Plan” to subdue France, swung through Belgian territory, Churchill was enthusiastically in favor of Britain sticking to the guarantee—“a mere scrap of paper” as the kaiser bitterly called it.Moreover he persuaded Lloyd George to take the same view and thus prevented the breakup of the government, though he was unable to stop Lord Morley, his friend and mentor, from resigning.When war came Churchill was ready, prepared psychologically and in every way, for what he realized would be the biggest conflict in history.He was like a man who had long schooled himself for a job and was now told to do it.And he had got the vast machine for which he was responsible geared up, too.The war, in many ways, proved a disaster for Churchill.But on his downfall, Lord Kitchener, who had been made chief warlord at the outset, reassured him, “There is one thing, at least, they can never take away from you—when the war began you had the fleet ready.”Chapter ThreeThe Lessons of FailureThough Churchill entered the Great War readily, if not eagerly, we must remember that he had warned in speech and print that it would be a catastrophe for humanity.He was the only one, apart from that brilliant prophet of the future H.G.Wells, to predict its horrors so clearly.And they proved worse than either supposed.Indeed the first of the two world wars proved the worst disaster in modern history, perhaps in all history, from which most of the subsequent problems of the twentieth century sprang, and many of which continue, fortissimo, into the twenty-first.He saw all these tremendous events from a highly personal viewpoint and portrayed them vividly, seen from close quarters and invested with strong emotion.As with every major event in his life, he told the story as soon as it was over, on an appropriately large scale.A.J.Balfour, who always viewed him with a salty mixture of admiration and vitriol, put it: “Winston has written an enormous book about himself and called it The World Crisis.”Even before the book appeared, he had epitomized its monstrous nature in glowing words on a sheet of War Office paper:All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them.The mighty educated states involved conceived— not without reason—that their very existence was at stake.Neither peoples nor rulers drew the line at any deed which they thought could help them to win.Germany, having let Hell loose, kept well in the van of terror; but she was followed step by step by the desperate and ultimately avenging nations she had assailed.Every outrage against humanity and international law was repaid by reprisals—often on a greater scale and of longer duration.No truce or parley mitigated the strife of the armies.The wounded died between the lines: the dead mouldered into the soil.Merchant ships and neutral ships and hospital ships were sunk on the seas, and all on board left to their fate, or killed as they swam.Every effort was made to starve whole nations into submission, without regard to age or sex.Cities and monuments were smashed by artillery.Bombs from the air were cast down indiscriminately.Poison gas in many forms stifled or seared the soldiers.Liquid fire was projected upon their bodies.Men fell from the air in flames, or were smothered often slowly in the dark recesses of the sea.The fighting strength of armies was limited only by the manhood of their countries.Europe and large parts of Asia or Africa became one vast battlefield on which not only armies but entire nations broke and ran.When all was over, torture and cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilised, scientific Christian states had been able to deny themselves, and they were of doubtful utility.At the time, Churchill was too busy to reflect on the horrors of war.He was responsible for 1,100 warships, with more joining them every week from the shipyards [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.There was much gunrunning among both Protestants and Catholics and threats by Ulster Protestant army officers, many of whom held senior posts, to resign their commissions rather than participate in coercing Ulster to accept Home Rule.He made two hazardous visits to Ulster, on one taking Clemmie, to put the government’s case, and he was prepared to use force to ensure that Ulster abide by the Home Rule compromise.It is worth noting that in the years 1911-14, Churchill felt bound to pursue policies which antagonized most of the senior admirals and many of the senior generals.This helps to explain his troubles during the war.Indeed, though he was not at all an extremist, his actions often looked extreme.His nature was such that, once a policy was finally determined in the cabinet, he pushed it with enthusiasm bordering on recklessness.Ulster was determined to fight, as his father had said.He himself now believed that London should fight, and would be right—though he never actually said it.But in a speech at Bradford on March 14, 1914, he said that it was time to “go forward together and put these grave matters to the proof.” He ordered the Third Battle Squadron to be within an hour’s sailing from Belfast, to show that the legitimate government was serious about using force.Fortunately Asquith quickly canceled the order.But it was known, and bitterly resented, that Churchill was the foremost in the cabinet in his willingness to coerce Ulstermen, whose greatest pride was that they were “loyalists” and stuck by the empire, unlike the southern Irish Catholics who were violently anti-British.If Churchill found himself uncomfortable in this unusual role he did not show it.He put himself firmly on the side of parliamentary institutions and the rule of law.And, as always, action for him was more heartening—and delicious—than sitting behind a constitutional desk.If the crisis had exploded into civil war, as looked likely by July 1914, it is not clear what Churchill would have done.But the coming of European war shoved Ulster violently onto the back burner, and Churchill eagerly turned his attention in a totally different direction.In fact he had been working for some months to get the navy into a high state of readiness, and as the buildup to war accelerated, he ordered the navy not to disband after its summer maneuvers but to take up action stations.From the start of the crisis, he was a prominent member of the war party.The issue to him was Belgium and her ports, especially Antwerp.Britain had always been opposed to these ports, aimed like pistols at her coast, being in the hands of a major power, especially France.That was why Britain gave a solemn guarantee of Belgian independence.Now Germany was the threat, and when the right wing of the German army, as part of the “Schlieffen Plan” to subdue France, swung through Belgian territory, Churchill was enthusiastically in favor of Britain sticking to the guarantee—“a mere scrap of paper” as the kaiser bitterly called it.Moreover he persuaded Lloyd George to take the same view and thus prevented the breakup of the government, though he was unable to stop Lord Morley, his friend and mentor, from resigning.When war came Churchill was ready, prepared psychologically and in every way, for what he realized would be the biggest conflict in history.He was like a man who had long schooled himself for a job and was now told to do it.And he had got the vast machine for which he was responsible geared up, too.The war, in many ways, proved a disaster for Churchill.But on his downfall, Lord Kitchener, who had been made chief warlord at the outset, reassured him, “There is one thing, at least, they can never take away from you—when the war began you had the fleet ready.”Chapter ThreeThe Lessons of FailureThough Churchill entered the Great War readily, if not eagerly, we must remember that he had warned in speech and print that it would be a catastrophe for humanity.He was the only one, apart from that brilliant prophet of the future H.G.Wells, to predict its horrors so clearly.And they proved worse than either supposed.Indeed the first of the two world wars proved the worst disaster in modern history, perhaps in all history, from which most of the subsequent problems of the twentieth century sprang, and many of which continue, fortissimo, into the twenty-first.He saw all these tremendous events from a highly personal viewpoint and portrayed them vividly, seen from close quarters and invested with strong emotion.As with every major event in his life, he told the story as soon as it was over, on an appropriately large scale.A.J.Balfour, who always viewed him with a salty mixture of admiration and vitriol, put it: “Winston has written an enormous book about himself and called it The World Crisis.”Even before the book appeared, he had epitomized its monstrous nature in glowing words on a sheet of War Office paper:All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them.The mighty educated states involved conceived— not without reason—that their very existence was at stake.Neither peoples nor rulers drew the line at any deed which they thought could help them to win.Germany, having let Hell loose, kept well in the van of terror; but she was followed step by step by the desperate and ultimately avenging nations she had assailed.Every outrage against humanity and international law was repaid by reprisals—often on a greater scale and of longer duration.No truce or parley mitigated the strife of the armies.The wounded died between the lines: the dead mouldered into the soil.Merchant ships and neutral ships and hospital ships were sunk on the seas, and all on board left to their fate, or killed as they swam.Every effort was made to starve whole nations into submission, without regard to age or sex.Cities and monuments were smashed by artillery.Bombs from the air were cast down indiscriminately.Poison gas in many forms stifled or seared the soldiers.Liquid fire was projected upon their bodies.Men fell from the air in flames, or were smothered often slowly in the dark recesses of the sea.The fighting strength of armies was limited only by the manhood of their countries.Europe and large parts of Asia or Africa became one vast battlefield on which not only armies but entire nations broke and ran.When all was over, torture and cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilised, scientific Christian states had been able to deny themselves, and they were of doubtful utility.At the time, Churchill was too busy to reflect on the horrors of war.He was responsible for 1,100 warships, with more joining them every week from the shipyards [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]