Winston Churchill is known as one of the most brilliant politicians of the 20th century and is widely regarded as a key reason for the Allied victory in 1945. From his famous speeches to his quirky personality, he has been one of the most influential figures in Europe and the world as we know it today. However, from 1929 to 1939, as the world was in turmoil caused by the Wall Street Crash, rising Nazi extremism and civil war in Spain, it seemed like the perfect time for Churchill to rise to fame and power, but the opposite happened. The question is: why?
Churchill joined the army in 1895 and served in India and Sudan. He was elected as an MP in 1900 and crossed the floor, or “ratted”, to the Liberal Party in 1904, already building himself a negative reputation as untrustworthy and unreliable within the Commons. In 1911, he became First Lord of the Admiralty, and in 1915, he made a decision that was to affect the rest of his life: the Gallipoli campaign. It ended in disaster and severely tainted his reputation, causing him to be removed from the Admiralty. In 1924, he returned to the Conservative Party and was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, a position in which he made another costly mistake when he returned Britain to the Gold Standard in 1925, which placed considerable strain on the economy and worsened his already tainted reputation. In 1929, when the Conservatives lost the election, Churchill effectively entered the political wilderness. Both of these events had lasting consequences, undermining his credibility and contributing to his later reputation as a warmonger when he warned of the need for rearmament. But why was he not invited back into government when Stanley Baldwin formed his government in 1935?
One of the main controversies in which Churchill became embroiled was the question of Indian independence. India had been under British control for well over a century, and in previous years, there had been a series of atrocities, most notably the Amritsar Massacre in 1919, when British troops fired upon a gathering of Indians, killing hundreds of men, women and children. The movement led by Gandhi gained international support, and eventually the British started negotiating with the Indians, despite the vehement opposition of Churchill, who derided Gandhi as a man “posing as a fakir” and “striding half-naked”. His inflammatory words further damaged his already fragile reputation and meant that he became less and less popular in the Commons and with Baldwin. Increasingly isolated, he found a seat in government more and more unlikely. Crucially, his similarly forceful language when condemning Hitler made people think that he was exaggerating again, leading them to dismiss his warnings. However, the India crisis was not the only reason why he remained in the political wilderness for so long. There was another position that the public was reluctant to support: rearmament in response to Hitler’s growing threat to Europe.
Churchill had strong views on rearmament, mostly because of his concern for the preservation of British power and the Empire, which had fuelled his notorious India campaign. He was also worried about Hitler in particular and the Nazi regime. He saw it as brutal and feared a repeat of the disaster of the First World War, and as a prominent political figure, he was in a strong position to issue warnings. However, his disputed estimates and alarmist views caused him to be dismissed as a warmonger and a product of his time. People viewed negotiations and appeasement as the best way to solve international disputes, which is what made Neville Chamberlain so successful and popular, as many believed that the First World War might have been avoided through better diplomacy. Consequently, Churchill’s cries for rearmament and a diversion of spending towards defence, when funding was needed so badly elsewhere, were deeply unpopular with the general public. However, this did not last long.
The 1938 Munich Agreement was seen as the best way to achieve peace without bloodshed, and when Chamberlain came back waving his declaration signed by Hitler, many hailed him as a national hero. But Churchill saw it as a defeat, saying that it was “the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup” in his speech to the Commons, and he was proven right in March 1939, when Hitler occupied the Czech lands of Czechoslovakia and public opinion began to shift. Conscription and air-raid preparations followed, and on 3 September 1939, following Britain’s declaration of war on Germany, Churchill was finally invited back into government by Chamberlain as First Lord of the Admiralty, marking the end of the wilderness years.
Ultimately, Churchill’s political wilderness from 1929 to 1939 was the result of his past mistakes in government, such as Gallipoli and the Gold Standard, and his continued provocative and unpopular views on India and the Abdication Crisis, as well as appeasement and rearmament. Together, these factors made the public and prime ministers reluctant to allow him back into government. In 1939, Britain realised that it was Churchill’s unyielding opposition to Hitler and his stubbornness that the country needed when war arrived.
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“The Wilderness Years.” International Churchill Society, winstonchurchill.org/churchill-central/storyline/the-wilderness-years/.
“Interwar Period.” America’s National Churchill Museum, www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/sir-winston-churchill-interwar-period.html.
“Was Britain Divided About Indian Independence, 1930–47? Background Information.” Churchill Archive for Schools, www.churchillarchiveforschools.com/themes_key-questions_indian-independence_bi.
Catterall, Pippa. “Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1924–9) and the Return to the Gold Standard.” Churchill Archive, www.churchillarchive.com/in-depth-guides.
“1930–1938: The Wilderness.” International Churchill Society, winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1930-1938-the-wilderness/.