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January 25, 2005
The greatest Englishman in history.
This weekend sees the 40th anniversary of the death and funeral of the man the British public recently voted as the greatest Englishman in a BBC poll. I am, of course, talking about that master of the spoken and written word, Sir Winston Churchill KG, etc.
At the time of the poll, there were definitely some red faces as our current bunch of political leaders would have liked to see someone else top the poll, but memories have not failed and Sir Winston's achievements stand like a beacon in our history. Yes, he was a difficult man, yes, he was given to grand plans and hairbrained schemes, but, as this nation stood alone and with its back to the Irish Sea at home, and under attack in its many Dominions and Colonies abroad, this man refused to bow to the siren calls of appeasement and surrender - and sent the language "marching out to war", a move which bought invaluable time while the armed forces regrouped, restructured, and re-armed.
This was the man who, in 1940, as the country faced disaster on every front, the political elite and the civil servants schemed and plotted to keep from power at all costs. Fortunately for the world, they failed.
His funeral was as it should have been, a full State occassion, probably the last one we will ever see for a commoner. It has always been a rare honour, with Nelson and Wellington among the very few accorded it. Sir Winston's was also unique in that the crowds exceeded even Princess Diana's funeral and, as the Port of London Authorities launch, bearing the coffin travelled up the Thames, the moored ships lowered their ensigns in salute, and the wharfside cranes lowered their jib-booms. Even Tower Bridge raised its caissons as the procession passed and the minute guns fired their salute as a background to his arrival at Tower Wharf.
This nation, as indeed every "free" nation, owes this man an enormous debt. It was his determination, his refusal to surrender, and his fighting spirit which fired the free world into action and marshalled the forces of freedom against the dictatorships then engulfing and enslaving Europe and the Far East.
There are, of course, those who today try to rewrite the history, who dig deep to find those who hated him and who loathed him and did their utmost to frustrate and thwart his leadership. In the end, though, they reveal themselves as the pygmies and hobgoblins they are. Nothing can detract from the achievement of rescuing a lost cause and turning it into a victory. Not even the Labour Party's treasonable support for strikes in munitions plants, strikes in shipyards, and strikes in the coal mines even as the nation's military were dying in defending them. Churchill strode above it all and left us a legacy to be proud of. He managed to hold together a government of "National Unity" with members of all parties in his cabinet, treating them with a courtesy and respect they did not return. Indeed, the Labour Party used their positions to spend the war undermining him and preparing for the election they forced immediately after VE Day. Even that act of treachery did not deter this greatest of men.
Many in the colonies and Dominions also did not appreciate his sometimes ruthless approach, and in Australia particularly there was and is a lot of ill feeling over his refusal to release the Australian divisions from the Western Desert to defend against a possible invasion of Australia by the Japanese. Those who do criticise him for his apparently callous dismissal of the call from Canberra fail to understand just how close the desert front was to collapse. The removal of this vital force would have been a disaster. Perhaps he could have been a bit more diplomatic, but perhaps, too, he didn't have the time to be.
In his own words during the Battle of Britain, "If the British Empire lasts a thousand years, men will still say that this was their finest hour!"
The Monk will be making a short pilgrimage to Bladon Parish Church, near Woodstock, to pay his respects in the very near future.
Posted by The Gray Monk at January 25, 2005 10:24 AM