All Behind You Winston – Roger Hermiston

But the strain of the war had taken its toll and that night, while attempting to open the window of his bedroom in the White House, he became short of breath and felt a ‘dull pain’ over his heart that travelled down his left arm. Churchill’s doctor, Sir Charles Wilson (who would be ennobled in March 1943 as Lord Moran), examined him and interpreted his symptoms as those of ‘coronary insufficiency’ (more commonly angina), although he told his patient only that he had been overdoing things and that his circulation was ‘a bit sluggish’.

Wilson resolved that no one should know about the attack – not even Churchill’s wife Clementine, or the President. ‘The textbook treatment for this is at least six weeks in bed. This would mean publishing to the world . . . that the PM was an invalid with a crippled heart and a doubtful future,’ Wilson recorded in his diary later. ‘The effect . . . could only be disastrous.’

The prime ministerial party returned to England on Saturday, 17 January. Beaverbrook’s Sunday Express reported large cheering crowds at Plymouth, where Churchill’s entourage landed in a flying-boat from Bermuda. ‘CHURCHILL WILL ANSWER CRITICISM OF FAR EAST WAR’ was the paper’s defiant headline. The next day the Daily Mirror’s political correspondent Bill Greig put it more soberly and realistically: ‘Events have brought him back to a reckoning rather than a festival.’ Sir Stafford Cripps had not been the first politician to discern a growing national lethargy in the bleak days of January 1942.

Lord Woolton, while noting that freedom from air raids had seen life in England ‘almost back to normal’, with restaurants and theatres crowded and West End hotels full, worried that nobody seemed to care very much about ‘getting the war moving’. ‘We hear of labour troubles, strikes, absenteeism in factories engaged on vital war work, because the workers won’t continue to work after they have earned up to the wage that will attract income tax.

And on the continent people are literally dying in thousands from starvation.’ In Parliament the grumbling continued unabated. Sir Cuthbert Headlam, following a conversation with the chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, reflected, ‘There is no doubt today a feeling of great unrest in the Party, and in the House generally, against the Government.’

Prime ministers returning home with a foreign policy triumph habitually fail to read the mood back home. Churchill, flushed with success at the Washington conference, initially indicated to Harvie-Watt that he wished to confront his doubters head on. ‘He said there would be no Government changes and strongly objected to any criticisms.

He said the country and America were behind him’. Egged on by the ever-scheming Beaverbrook, Churchill even flirted with the idea of calling a general election. ‘This sounded ridiculous. I didn’t see what good it could do,’ Harvie-Watt recalled.

‘This too, I know, that England does not love coalitions.’ Benjamin Disraeli, 16 December 1852 ‘We are trying to form a Government that should rally all the nation and set forth the energies of the people. I have not the slightest doubt about our victory, but I have no doubt at all as to the price that will have to be paid or the effort that will be needed.’ Clement Attlee, address to Labour Party conference, morning of 13 May 1940 ‘Well, Ralph, what do I do next?’ Ernest Bevin to his Tory junior minister, Ralph Assheton, on his first morning at the Ministry of Labour, 14 May 1940 1kitap1.com/en 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Prologue ‘A Ministry of all the Talents’ ‘No longer two nations but one’ The Beaverbrook Effect ‘A troglodyte existence’ ‘A New Magna Carta’ ‘Uncle Fred’s Recipe for Survival’ ‘Riding the dung cart’ ‘The Ascendancy of Stafford Cripps’ ‘Ringing the bells of victory’ ‘Slaying the five giants’ ‘A grand job to be done for the nation’ ‘Should we tell the Russians?’

‘Buzz bombs and flying gas mains’ ‘A light shining on every helmet’ Postscript References Bibliography Index 1kitap1.com/en List of Illustrations The Cabinet in the garden of 10 Downing Street on 24 October 1941, together with military chiefs and other officials. Front Row (from left): Ernest Bevin, Lord Beaverbrook, Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill, Sir John Anderson, Arthur Greenwood and Sir Kingsley Wood.

Back Row (from left): Sir Edward Bridges (secretary to the War Cabinet), Sir Charles Portal (Chief of Air Staff), Sir Archibald Sinclair, Sir Dudley Pound (Admiral of the Fleet), A.V. Alexander, Lord Cranborne, Herbert Morrison, Lord Moyne, David Margesson, Brendan Bracken, General Sir John Dill (Chief of the Imperial General Staff), General Sir Hastings Ismay (Military Secretary) and Sir Alexander Cadogan (Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs).

© AP/PRESS ASSOCIATION IMAGES Churchill’s long and varied political life made him uniquely qualified to lead a wartime coalition. His air of defiance and optimism rallied the nation in a way no other could. © POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES The famous Low cartoon in the Evening Standard on 14 May 1940, portraying national unity in the war effort. Striding out with Churchill are his Labour colleagues Attlee, Bevin and Morrison. Close behind (from left) are Chamberlain, Greenwood, Halifax, Sinclair, Duff-Cooper, Alexander and little Leo Amery.

© DAVID LOW, EVENING STANDARD, 14 MAY 1940, THE BRITISH CARTOON ARCHIVE, UNIVERSITY OF KENT, www.cartoons.ac.uk Churchill visits a bomb-damaged home at the height of the Blitz in late 1940. He could provide stirring words on these occasions, but was also easily moved to tears by what he witnessed.

© POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES Sir Archibald Sinclair, Liberal leader and Secretary of State for Air. He had fierce tussles in cabinet with Lord Beaverbrook during the Battle of Britain.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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