The Dark Side of Winston Churchill (that you've never been told)

[kochman]

Judging leaders of yesteryear with today's norms/mores/etc is always going to lead to disappointment.

Of course Churchill wanted to keep India... most Brits did, that's why it took so long for them to give it up. Just like the Brits wanted to keep the USA, etc... it was their Empire, their sons fought and died to take the places, whether you like that or not, and the nation didn't want to just say, nevermind your losses...

Washington was a great man, and he was a man of his times... He had slaves, he grew up with slaves, and at the time, it was accepted. Does that means his comments about freedom are null and void? I don't think so... He was a revolutionary after all!

I mean, if you dig deep enough, you can find all sorts of things about people. Life is long, people do things.

Let's look at Bill Clinton... he was a draft dodging, Vietnam War protest organizing hippie... who later ordered several questionable military conflicts... A young BC would hate the elder BC...

Thus is life.

 

[Uncle Anton]

Erm, hope you're not referring to me Kraznaya... I don't live in a Colony, I live in a Constitutional Monarchy. You might want to look the difference on that one up.

And if you re-read my post, I think you'll find I wasn't defending or absolving anyone. Indeed if you know so much about him you'd note that as an Australian I have plenty to dislike about Churchill.

I was, quite correctly I might add, simply pointing out that no leader in history is perfect or beyond reproach, definitely not so when one reaches that level of responsibility. And I'd challenge anyone here to prove me wrong.

 

[Joecoolyo]

"Supported" might not be a very accurate description. He thought Hitler could be reasoned with, which is not really the same as supporting Hitler.

Supported might be a little extreme, but I think it went a little farther than just reasoning with him.

 

[onedreamer]

I used to think of him as a great leader who saved Britain from the Germans, but after reading this my respect and admiration for him has vanished. he actions described the last few paragraphs constitute crimes against humanity, no less.

Spoiler :

Churchill opposed Mohandas Gandhi's peaceful disobedience revolt and the Indian Independence movement in the 1930s, arguing that the Round Table Conference "was a frightful prospect".[95] Later reports indicate that Churchill favoured letting Gandhi die if he went on a hunger strike.[96] During the first half of the 1930s, Churchill was outspoken in his opposition to granting Dominion status to India. He was a founder of the India Defence League, a group dedicated to the preservation of British power in India. Churchill brooked no moderation. "The truth is," he declared in 1930, "that Gandhi-ism and everything it stands for will have to be grappled with and crushed."[97] In speeches and press articles in this period he forecast widespread unemployment in Britain and civil strife in India should independence be granted.[98] The Viceroy Lord Irwin, who had been appointed by the prior Conservative Government, engaged in the Round Table Conference in early 1931 and then announced the Government's policy that India should be granted Dominion Status. In this the Government was supported by the Liberal Party and, officially at least, by the Conservative Party. Churchill denounced the Round Table Conference.

At a meeting of the West Essex Conservative Association specially convened so Churchill could explain his position he said, "It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle-Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace... to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor."[99] He called the Indian National Congress leaders "Brahmins who mouth and patter principles of Western Liberalism".[100]

...

Another source of controversy about Churchill's attitude towards Indian affairs arises over what some historians term the Indian 'nationalist approach' to the Bengal famine of 1943, which has sought to place significant blame on Churchill's wartime government for the excessive mortality of up to three million people.[104][105][106] Arthur Herman, author of Churchill and Gandhi, contends, '...It is true that Churchill opposed diverting food supplies and transports from other theatres to India to cover the shortfall: this was wartime.'[108] In response to an urgent request by the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, and Viceroy of India, Wavell, to release food stocks for India, Churchill responded with a telegram to Wavell asking, if food was so scarce, "why Gandhi hadn't died yet."[109] In July 1940, newly in office, he welcomed reports of the emerging conflict between the Muslim League and the Indian Congress, hoping "it would be bitter and bloody".

Food deliveries from other parts of the country to Bengal were refused by the government [aka Churchill] in order to make food artificially scarce. This was an especially cruel policy introduced in 1942 under the title "Rice Denial Scheme." The purpose of it was, as mentioned earlier, to deny an efficient food supply to the Japanese after a possible invasion. Simultaneously, the government authorised free merchants to purchase rice at any price and to sell it to the government for delivery into governmental food storage. So, on one hand the government was buying every grain of rice that was around and on the other hand, it was blocking grain from coming into Bengal from other regions of the country.[29] The price controls on wheat were introduced on December 1941, and on rice in 1942.[30]
[97]

...

Churchill [in a letter to Roosevelt] acknowledged the crucial importance of maintaining Hindu-Muslim antipathy to preserve British rule [1 million dead and 18 million Muslim and Hindu refugees associated with India-Pakistan Partition in 1947].

I would be more indignated about the sinking of the french battleships which costed the lives of over 1 thousands french that were, needless to remind, formerly allied before the armistice and neutral at the time of the event. It was an awful decision entirely wanted by Churchill and that could have very well been avoided.

 

[Shekwan]

Yeah he was an a-hole, this is not news to most people. That said I don't see why he was all that bad, he was pretty tame for an imperialist.

As for the sinking of the French Navy, of course it was wanted by Churchill! The Nazis could have seized them.

 

[galdre]

I believe he also told the police to drag suffragists down allies and rape them - yeah, the old toad wasn't that nice of a guy

 

[classical_hero]

Sometimes you do have to do terrible things to do good in times of massive trouble.

 

[galdre]

Sometimes you do have to do terrible things to do good in times of massive trouble.

the ends do not justify the means

 

[SuperJay]

A politician wanted to do bad things? Even a politician who did some good things?!?

I'm shocked!!

 

[Abaddon]

the ends do not justify the means

Sometimes they do.

 

[onedreamer]

Pretty lame excuse. When the commies burn their own towns (making sure to evacuate them before) they are evil, when the british cold bloodedly kill a thousands people in the sinking of foreign fleets (not even theirs), they are heroes who saved the world from the nazi. The point is that they gave them a term to evacuate the ships and then sank them before that term. There is no excuse for what happened in that occasion.

 

[Quackers]

I don't see anything wrong in the article..

 

[Abaddon]

Pretty lame excuse. When the commies burn their own towns (making sure to evacuate them before) they are evil, when the british cold bloodedly kill a thousands people in the sinking of foreign fleets (not even theirs), they are heroes who saved the world from the nazi. The point is that they gave them a term to evacuate the ships and then sank them before that term. There is no excuse for what happened in that occasion.

Er, everyone loves their own, and hates others.. Look at how Stalin is still revered, or even Hitler if you ask the right people...

 

[Shekwan]

Pretty lame excuse. When the commies burn their own towns (making sure to evacuate them before) they are evil, when the british cold bloodedly kill a thousands people in the sinking of foreign fleets (not even theirs), they are heroes who saved the world from the nazi. The point is that they gave them a term to evacuate the ships and then sank them before that term. There is no excuse for what happened in that occasion.

Thats not comparable because a Navy is a weapon of war and a village is somebodies livelihood and whole means of survival. Under no hypothetical is that village a threat to the "communists" survival but in the other situation the Vichy Navy could certainly be argued to be a threat to Britain's survival.

 

[holy king]

the brits didnt make him prime minister during ww2 because he was so nice and kind.

 

[Brighteye]

Chruchill was a reactionary Conservative. Gandhi was as racist as he was. Neither had perfect opinions by modern standards.
We usually respect great leaders not because they are paragons of virtue and perfection, but because they achieved great things.

The sort of hero-worship that respects someone enough to be very disappointed at such revelations needs to be crushed.

 

[Flying Pig]

There is a great danger in judging a historical character by the mores of our own world. Churchill was Prime Minister of an Imperial nation, a cavalry officer who had charged after the Mahdi towards Khartoum, and an Englishman of the old school. Most British people at the time were opposed to Ghandi - the idea that nations should rule themselves was far from established in our collective psyche - and only ended up favouring Indian independance after it became clear that to hold onto the colony would be a drain on the money, military power, and international presteige of the UK: after all the USA was rather keen on decolonisation given its own history. Now we're on the subject, he - along with almost everyone else at the time - believed that white people were automatically superior, that Jews were greedy and untrustworthy, and that Communism was a threat to world civilization in the 1930s greater than that of Hitler.

 

[GinandTonic]

Pretty lame excuse. When the commies burn their own towns (making sure to evacuate them before) they are evil, when the british cold bloodedly kill a thousands people in the sinking of foreign fleets (not even theirs), they are heroes who saved the world from the nazi. The point is that they gave them a term to evacuate the ships and then sank them before that term. There is no excuse for what happened in that occasion.

Churchill was an arse on many occasions, but the sinking of the French fleet is not remotely as you put it. The British ultimatum in full -

It is impossible for us, your comrades up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German enemy. We are determined to fight on until the end, and if we win, as we think we shall, we shall never forget that France was our Ally, that our interests are the same as hers, and that our common enemy is Germany. Should we conquer we solemnly declare that we shall restore the greatness and territory of France. For this purpose we must make sure that the best ships of the French Navy are not used against us by the common foe. In these circumstances, His Majesty's Government have instructed me to demand that the French Fleet now at Mers el Kebir and Oran shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives; (a) Sail with us and continue the fight until victory against the Germans. (b) Sail with reduced crews under our control to a British port. The reduced crews would be repatriated at the earliest moment. If either of these courses is adopted by you we will restore your ships to France at the conclusion of the war or pay full compensation if they are damaged meanwhile. (c) Alternatively if you feel bound to stipulate that your ships should not be used against the Germans unless they break the Armistice, then sail them with us with reduced crews to some French port in the West Indies — Martinique for instance — where they can be demilitarised to our satisfaction, or perhaps be entrusted to the United States and remain safe until the end of the war, the crews being repatriated. If you refuse these fair offers, I must with profound regret, require you to sink your ships within 6 hours. Finally, failing the above, I have the orders from His Majesty's Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into German hands.

And it was the French that started the shooting. Albeit because the Brits were mining the waterway.

There was simply no way the Brits were going to let the Germans have the French fleet, so they demanded they make their intentions clear.

 

[lordsurya08]

I would be more indignated about the sinking of the french battleships which costed the lives of over 1 thousands french that were, needless to remind, formerly allied before the armistice and neutral at the time of the event. It was an awful decision entirely wanted by Churchill and that could have very well been avoided.

More indignated by the deaths of 1k soldiers than the deaths of 10mil+ civilian Indians and Iraqis?

 

[Miles Teg]

There is a great danger in judging a historical character by the mores of our own world. Churchill was Prime Minister of an Imperial nation, a cavalry officer who had charged after the Mahdi towards Khartoum, and an Englishman of the old school. Most British people at the time were opposed to Ghandi - the idea that nations should rule themselves was far from established in our collective psyche - and only ended up favouring Indian independance after it became clear that to hold onto the colony would be a drain on the money, military power, and international presteige of the UK: after all the USA was rather keen on decolonisation given its own history. Now we're on the subject, he - along with almost everyone else at the time - believed that white people were automatically superior, that Jews were greedy and untrustworthy, and that Communism was a threat to world civilization in the 1930s greater than that of Hitler.

I'm pretty sure that suggesting "Keep England White" as an election slogan in 1955 qualifies as reactionary and racist even by the standards of the time. It should be possible to acknowledge that good and great people had character flaws that can't simply be dismissed as the products of their time.