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AIR-RAID SIREN AND BOMBING

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On becoming Prime Minister
in 1940,

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Winston Churchill said

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that all his past life
had been preparation

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for a moment of destiny.

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But no chapter had prepared him
more than the First World War.

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In 1914, he had felt the same
call of destiny and glory,

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but would experience
humiliation and disgrace.

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Gallipoli, this great Napoleonic
strategic stroke, when it failed,

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was more than simply,
"This is a failed campaign."

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This got to his very soul.

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In early 1916, he was an infantry
officer serving in the trenches,

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where his battle to clear his name
and regain war command began.

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This is a classic story of hubris
and nemesis and then redemption.

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The story of his fall and rise can
be told largely in his own words,

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for Churchill confided all
to his young wife, Clementine,

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in an intimate correspondence.

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I cannot tell you how much I love
and honour you, and how sweet

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and steadfast you have been through
all my hesitations and perplexity.

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His "darkest hour" would prove
to be Clementine's finest,

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as war transformed the most
important relationship of his life.

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This is a woman who's
a great political strategist,

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who is his confidante and is
the only person who can talk to him

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openly, frankly, honestly.

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Churchill would make thrilling
contributions to the war

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on land, sea and air.

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But the hardest battle
lay within himself.

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He was a simply astonishing man

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who'd never understood
the meaning of stop, finish, over,

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and was just going to press on
till the very end.

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This is the story of Churchill
and the First World War.

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The cauldron in which
a greater warlord would be forged.

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In July 1914, as Europe
spiralled suddenly toward war,

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a young British Minister
stood apart from his troubled peers.

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The First Lord of the Admiralty,
Winston Spencer Churchill,

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was the political head
of the Royal Navy.

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Brilliant, but vain, he believed
he had a special gift for war.

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In August 1914,
Winston Churchill is best described

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as a bundle
of excitement and energy.

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He's a man who's gone a very long way
in a short time.

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He's been a leading social reformer
in the House of Commons.

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He has been Home Secretary

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and now he's the political head
of the Royal Navy.

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And I think all of his virtues
are there but also his vices.

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Above all,
he's not trusted by many people.

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War was in Churchill's blood.

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A Sandhurst-educated cavalry
officer, his dashing accounts

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of imperial adventures

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and a prisoner-of-war escape
in the Boer War

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helped spur him to the top
of the ruling Liberal government.

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Two things are essential
for understanding

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Winston Churchill's character.

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First of all,
he thinks of himself as a soldier -

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actually, a warrior might be
a better way of putting it -

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but he, fundamentally,
sees himself as a military man.

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The second thing is that
he is an imperialist.

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He has an unquestioning belief
in the British Empire,

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as, indeed, almost everybody did,
at that point.

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Churchill was no warmonger.

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But since 1911, he and the Admiralty
had responded vigorously

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to the growing naval ambitions
of the German Empire.

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He would not flinch from conflict.

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Aged just 39,
and at the very peak of his powers,

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he wrote to his wife
of heady events and emotions.

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My darling one and beautiful.

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Everything trends towards
catastrophe and collapse.

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I am interested,
geared up and happy -

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is it not horrible
to be built like that?

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The preparations have
a hideous fascination for me.

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29 years old and nicknamed "The
Cat", Clementine Spencer Churchill

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was on a seaside holiday
with their two young children.

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Clementine Churchill
was an Edwardian beauty.

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She was highly strung,
she was quite emotional.

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In July 1914, there's
a great deal of anticipation

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and excitement in the air
that's about the war,

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and she's very excited
about what Winston is doing.

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She's also expecting
their third child

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and she's really thinking about sort
of domestic things, what is to come.

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They had no idea then
what would come,

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what suffering
they would go through.

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They were naive.

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My darling, I much wish I were
with you during these anxious,

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thrilling days.

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I know how you are feeling,

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tingling with life
to the tips of your fingers.

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Surely every hour of delay must make
the forces of peace more powerful.

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It would be a wicked war.
Your loving Clemmie.

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During the July crisis and leading
up to the outbreak of war,

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Churchill has, very naturally,

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been at the forefront of all
political decision-making.

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He controls Britain's only
first-class strategic instrument,

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the Royal Navy,

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the thing that is going to have to
control the world, if war breaks out,

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and getting it into the right place
at the right time, at the outbreak

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of war, is absolutely critical,
so the timing is everything.

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On July 28, the First Fleet
was concentrated at Portland,

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far from its war station
at Scapa Flow

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in the North Sea,
where it could blockade Germany.

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A peace-time mobilisation
risked provoking Germany,

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yet Churchill gambled, ordering
the Fleet to slip back secretly

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through the Dover Straits at night.

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An exultant First Lord had made
the Fleet "ready for war".

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Diplomatic ultimatums were set
to expire at 11pm on August 4.

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Cat, dear, it is all up.

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Germany has quenched
the last hopes of peace.

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The world has gone mad,
and we must look after ourselves

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and our friends.

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At the sound of Big Ben, it was
Churchill who launched Britain

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into war, with a signal sent
to fleets across the globe.

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"Admiralty to all ships - commence
hostilities, at once, with Germany."

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The only Cabinet member
with experience of war,

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he could not fail to imagine
greater glories ahead.

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Churchill left to brief
the senior colleagues most aware

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of his mix of genius and egotism.

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Prime Minister Herbert Asquith
was still sitting in grave silence,

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together with David Lloyd George,

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when the First Lord
crashed noisily in.

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The Chancellor noted with disquiet
that Churchill seemed

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"a really happy man".

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In some ways, he is the Churchill
of the Second World War

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and even after -
he's just a very young,

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rather green version of that
Churchill. He's just quite immature,

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politically, and he's going to learn
some very interesting lessons.

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The First World War will destroy
the world that he grew up in,

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it will destroy the social order
that he's familiar with,

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it will destroy the kinds
of ambitions that he might have had.

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That August,
the Navy successfully ferried

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the British Expeditionary Force,
without loss, to war in France.

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But Churchill's mood had changed -

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the Navy's passive blockade strategy
seemed almost to bore him.

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The former Hussar was restless,
yearning for action.

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Clementine was troubled
by his impatient state of mind.

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Frequent trips
to Army headquarters in France

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were irritating his colleagues.

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She begins to see in this time,
in Winston, a war lust

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and she begins to see that
he needs some sort of containing,

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some sort of restraint.

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I think she realises, at this stage,
that there's nobody else

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who's going to do that, and so very
subtly and quietly in her letters,

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she begins to, kind of,
draw attention to it and warn him.

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Yet Churchill was more than
a "death or glory" Hussar -

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he was a sophisticated thinker
on the science of war.

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Although Churchill had taken
part in the last cavalry charge

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of the British Army at Omdurman,

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although he was a Victorian figure,

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he was a very modern
military thinker.

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He understood
the importance of exploring,

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of exploiting, science, technology.

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He saw that wars were going to be
won by a combination of arms,

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manoeuvre on land,
sea power and air power.

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This passion for military technology
had seen both the Navy -

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and Churchill himself -
take to the skies.

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At the turn of the 20th century,
the Royal Navy

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is the world's leading
technological fighting force.

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It masters all
of the new technologies.

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When the aeroplane comes along,
the Navy very quickly works out

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this is going to be an asset,
it's going to allow you to scout,

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it's going to allow you to fly
over the land from the sea.

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Churchill himself is
a great enthusiast for aviation,

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but it turns out, a very poor pilot.

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He manages to crash and he's
persuaded not to try to learn

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ever again,
so other people do the flying.

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But Churchill can see the potential

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and he's prepared to back the junior
officers who have these enthusiasms.

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His airmen gave the First Lord
a ticket to the land war in France.

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In September,
the Navy won responsibility

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for the aerial defence of Britain
against Zeppelin airships.

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Churchill's obviously wanting to get
more involved in the land battle,

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that's where the action is.

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He's got the excuse of sending over
the Royal Naval Air Service,

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and they're actually
sent out across to Dunkirk,

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where they have
the excuse to be there,

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because the Royal Naval Air Service,

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the planes, can go and bomb
the German Zeppelins

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which might bomb our ships.
There's a reason for doing it.

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That autumn, Navy pilots launched
the first-ever bombing raids

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on Germany, targeting Zeppelin
air sheds in Dusseldorf and Cologne.

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The "Dunkirk Circus"
also allowed Churchill to deploy

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another mechanised unit, the dashing
squadron of Naval Armoured Cars.

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He's getting reports back that,
actually, with this war of movement

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that's still going on,
we need some armoured cars,

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to protect our air force base.

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And they go on, sort of,
almost like buccaneering patrols,

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to try and bump into the enemy

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and to try and shoot up
some German columns advancing, etc.

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So they have machine guns fitted -

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he sees the value
of a mobile armoured vehicle.

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Yet, as the duelling armies
raced westward,

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it was the First Lord himself
who now made

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a highly-controversial
intervention.

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The Belgian city of Antwerp
was under siege.

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A protective chain of forts ringed
a port commanding a key position

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on the Allied left flank.

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Yet, German howitzers were smashing
these redoubts one by one.

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If Antwerp held, the German advance
in the north would stall.

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The Germans would simply not be able
to get into northern France,

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and their whole campaign
would fail at that point.

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Churchill instinctively
puts his finger on the spot

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and he says we must do
something about this.

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On October 3, Churchill
arrived in "Fortress Antwerp",

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on an urgent fact-finding mission.

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The Belgians
were poised to surrender,

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leaving open the road
to the Channel ports.

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Alarmed, Churchill called
for a defiant last stand.

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And he would stay on
to lead their resistance.

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The First Lord
would not fight alone.

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He summoned Marines
and his "private army",

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the Royal Naval Division.

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He's actually involved in sending
troops from Dunkirk up to Antwerp,

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again to help reinforce
the Belgians,

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and he uses buses to do this -

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he actually commissions
100 buses from London.

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They're driven down to the coast,
taken across,

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and he does this quickly.
That's the thing about Churchill -

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he gets things to happen relatively
quickly, for the First World War.

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Consisting of fresh-faced
volunteers and surplus sailors,

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this brand-new infantry force
was neither trained nor equipped.

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But they were rushed
to the front line.

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Here,
journalists observed Churchill, too,

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smoking large cigars
under a rain of shrapnel.

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In this supercharged state,
the warrior over-reached himself.

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What happens next, however,

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is that he, rather excitedly,
sends a telegram back to London,

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saying that he wants to, in effect,

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give up his government post
and take command

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of the British Forces there.

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Oh, and by the way,
can he be a general?

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And the very idea
of General Churchill carrying out

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this role in Antwerp just provokes
laughter among his colleagues,

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and I suspect they're laughing
AT him, not laughing WITH him.

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On October 10th,
Antwerp finally capitulated.

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Six days had been won.

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But there was a price to pay.

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Over 1,000 of his new soldiers
were left stranded.

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Fleeing into neutral Holland,

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00:15:43,880 --> 00:15:46,400
they were interned
for the rest of the war.

237
00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:50,800
Some hailed him a hero.

238
00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:54,480
But a hostile press branded
Churchill a reckless adventurer,

239
00:15:54,480 --> 00:15:57,760
and his Antwerp mission a blunder.

240
00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:04,320
Churchill's neither a hero
nor a buffoon over Antwerp.

241
00:16:04,320 --> 00:16:06,200
It was a sensible idea

242
00:16:06,200 --> 00:16:09,160
and actually, it probably
did make a bit of a difference,

243
00:16:09,160 --> 00:16:12,320
but Churchill
has a very unfortunate habit

244
00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:15,000
of making himself look foolish,
as a result,

245
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:17,720
and he does look foolish
in the eyes of his peers.

246
00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:22,280
Clementine was anxious,

247
00:16:22,280 --> 00:16:27,440
knowing Churchill's military ardour
had powerful unseen roots.

248
00:16:28,960 --> 00:16:33,160
Both believed he was destined
to achieve greatness.

249
00:16:33,160 --> 00:16:37,400
Yet, Churchill harboured boyish
dreams of emulating the epic deeds

250
00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:40,120
of his ancestor,
the Duke of Marlborough.

251
00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:44,840
For Churchill, there's an acute
consciousness of destiny.

252
00:16:44,840 --> 00:16:47,280
There's an acute consciousness
of a man

253
00:16:47,280 --> 00:16:49,240
who really
should achieve greatness.

254
00:16:49,240 --> 00:16:52,360
His ancestor, the
Duke of Marlborough had a meteoric

255
00:16:52,360 --> 00:16:55,360
and highly-successful career,
leading to the construction

256
00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:56,920
of his vast palace,

257
00:16:56,920 --> 00:16:59,680
far larger than any
King of England has ever lived in,

258
00:16:59,680 --> 00:17:02,040
as a prize
for his war-winning efforts.

259
00:17:02,040 --> 00:17:03,800
And Churchill
was born in this house

260
00:17:03,800 --> 00:17:07,280
and he grew up there
acutely conscious of that legacy.

261
00:17:07,280 --> 00:17:11,800
So he's very much aware that
he stands in a family tradition.

262
00:17:11,800 --> 00:17:15,840
He was acutely conscious of being
Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill -

263
00:17:15,840 --> 00:17:17,440
these were important names.

264
00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:24,360
Early 1915 would see the warlord
seduced by a daring idea

265
00:17:24,360 --> 00:17:27,520
which inflamed
this sense of destiny.

266
00:17:27,520 --> 00:17:29,920
He told Lloyd George that,
if it worked,

267
00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:32,760
he would be
"the biggest man in Europe".

268
00:17:34,680 --> 00:17:38,160
But he was hurtling toward
the greatest disaster of his life.

269
00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:51,040
Churchill was an egomaniac,
there's no doubt about it.

270
00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:55,200
He possessed enormous faith
in himself and self-confidence

271
00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:57,640
and an almost manic energy.

272
00:17:57,640 --> 00:17:59,000
He was driven.

273
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:02,880
He had endless ideas,
a fertile mind,

274
00:18:02,880 --> 00:18:06,040
but he sometimes found it
rather difficult to work out

275
00:18:06,040 --> 00:18:08,440
what was a good idea
and what was a bad idea.

276
00:18:11,040 --> 00:18:16,160
By Christmas 1914, a scar
of trenches ripped across Europe

277
00:18:16,160 --> 00:18:21,440
from the Alps to the sea, locking
armies in a murderous stalemate.

278
00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:26,640
Churchill applied
his prodigious imagination

279
00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:28,640
to the breaking of the deadlock.

280
00:18:28,640 --> 00:18:30,240
"My dear Prime Minister,

281
00:18:30,240 --> 00:18:32,680
"are there not other alternatives

282
00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:36,000
"than sending our armies
to chew barbed wire in Flanders?

283
00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:41,440
"Further, can not the power
of the Navy be brought more directly

284
00:18:41,440 --> 00:18:43,120
"to bear upon the enemy?

285
00:18:44,400 --> 00:18:47,600
"Ought we not to engage him
on new frontiers?"

286
00:18:49,480 --> 00:18:53,960
Churchill is still very excited -
he loves war.

287
00:18:53,960 --> 00:18:58,040
You know, he's not a cruel man,
but, nonetheless, he finds war

288
00:18:58,040 --> 00:18:59,720
to be tremendously exciting,

289
00:18:59,720 --> 00:19:04,240
and the Royal Navy had swept
enemy ships from the seas.

290
00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:08,200
And from that point onwards,
it's a slow, grinding campaign

291
00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:13,200
of starving the Germans into
submission, and he longs for action.

292
00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:15,920
He's throwing out ideas
left, right and centre,

293
00:19:15,920 --> 00:19:18,400
memoranda are flowing out
from his office.

294
00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:21,480
You would have thought he'd had
enough to do running the Royal Navy,

295
00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:25,800
but actually he wants to really
run the entire war himself.

296
00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:34,520
Early 1915 saw strange contraptions
called "Winston's Follies"

297
00:19:34,520 --> 00:19:36,400
emerge from engineering sheds.

298
00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:41,600
Struck by the success
of his armoured cars,

299
00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:43,640
the Navy head was sponsoring

300
00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:48,240
the development of a trench-crossing
machine or land ship.

301
00:19:49,440 --> 00:19:51,640
We have been sending men forward,

302
00:19:51,640 --> 00:19:53,400
trying to break through
the barbed wire,

303
00:19:53,400 --> 00:19:55,760
trying to attack German positions,

304
00:19:55,760 --> 00:19:58,640
and they are, literally,
at times, getting mown down.

305
00:19:58,640 --> 00:20:02,680
So what are we going to do
to save those men's lives?

306
00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:06,680
Let's investigate. Could we use
things like steam engines

307
00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:08,680
to actually crush down the wire?

308
00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:10,760
Now, part of those experiments,

309
00:20:10,760 --> 00:20:14,000
he actually gets
a small tracked truck

310
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:15,600
on Horse Guards Parade,

311
00:20:15,600 --> 00:20:18,040
and it's filled through
half a tonne of bricks.

312
00:20:18,040 --> 00:20:20,520
And First Lord of the Admiralty
actually is there

313
00:20:20,520 --> 00:20:23,400
on Horse Guards Parade
pushing this thing

314
00:20:23,400 --> 00:20:26,240
and understanding
that tracks are really the way

315
00:20:26,240 --> 00:20:28,240
that you can get across
awkward ground

316
00:20:28,240 --> 00:20:29,920
and they've fantastic mobility.

317
00:20:33,320 --> 00:20:36,720
Yet his imagination was fired
by a dazzling alternative

318
00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:38,640
to costly trench war in the west.

319
00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:44,800
The aim was to knock
Germany's eastern ally,

320
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:47,520
the Ottoman Turks, out of the war.

321
00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:53,640
Churchill had a very
romantic view of war,

322
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:56,880
and the Western Front
simply didn't match up to that.

323
00:20:56,880 --> 00:21:00,320
Gallipoli, this great
Napoleonic strategic stroke

324
00:21:00,320 --> 00:21:02,760
which could win the war,

325
00:21:02,760 --> 00:21:07,000
I think very much played
to Churchill's sense

326
00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:09,720
of not only what warfare
should be like,

327
00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:12,760
but where his position
in warfare lay.

328
00:21:12,760 --> 00:21:16,240
This was his chance
to emulate his great ancestor,

329
00:21:16,240 --> 00:21:18,120
the 1st Duke of Marlborough,

330
00:21:18,120 --> 00:21:22,080
by bringing off a war-winning,
strategically brilliant stroke.

331
00:21:22,080 --> 00:21:25,360
The plan envisaged
the Fleet running the gauntlet

332
00:21:25,360 --> 00:21:27,640
of the narrow Dardanelle Straits.

333
00:21:30,120 --> 00:21:34,320
The Army would occupy
the Gallipoli peninsula,

334
00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:39,440
while the Navy stormed on to the
glittering prize of Constantinople.

335
00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:46,880
This is strategic thinking
on a very large scale

336
00:21:46,880 --> 00:21:49,240
and, in that sense,
I think, you know,

337
00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:52,280
Churchill is showing
a great deal of imagination.

338
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:57,000
Unfortunately,
the planning was, I think,

339
00:21:57,000 --> 00:22:00,680
far beyond
the capability of the British

340
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:03,640
to put into practice in 1915.

341
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:07,760
Decision-making
in Whitehall was muddled.

342
00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:10,960
Lord Kitchener
at the War Office delayed badly

343
00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:13,440
over the despatch of his Armies.

344
00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:17,240
But Churchill's zeal and enthusiasm
swept doubts aside.

345
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:23,000
That's the paradox of Churchill.

346
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:28,680
Someone who was brilliant insightful
and energetic, but at the same time

347
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:32,920
sometimes reckless and quite often
blind to the mistakes

348
00:22:32,920 --> 00:22:36,240
that he was making, until it was
too late to do anything about them.

349
00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:41,400
In early spring,
the Admiralty faced a choice -

350
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:46,000
to wait for Kitchener's armies,
or to strike fast with ships alone.

351
00:22:47,120 --> 00:22:51,080
Churchill chose to gamble
and sent the Fleet in.

352
00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:01,600
The Naval attack on the Dardanelles

353
00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:03,600
was a very difficult
operation of war.

354
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:07,200
It involved steaming up a very
narrow passage under direct gunfire

355
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:09,520
from heavy and medium-calibre guns

356
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:12,640
and through minefields,
with a very strong current

357
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:15,640
running against the ships
trying to get up the Straits.

358
00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:20,480
Churchill says we must press on,
we must push this attack far faster,

359
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:23,200
we must really go for a...
a high-risk offensive operation,

360
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:26,640
directly into the main waterway
and to use the whole Fleet.

361
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:30,400
And three battleships were sunk -
one French, two British -

362
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:32,440
running into minefields

363
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,520
and, from that point on,
the Naval offensive stalled.

364
00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:41,960
The abortive naval assault
saw the Turks rush reinforcements

365
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:43,360
to the peninsula.

366
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:49,240
Kitchener's armies finally arrived,

367
00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:54,920
but the landings he planned at Anzac
Cove, Helles and later at Suvla

368
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:57,160
all met with huge loss of life.

369
00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:01,320
And bloody trench war resumed.

370
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:07,120
His brother,
Major Jack Churchill, was there,

371
00:24:07,120 --> 00:24:10,560
and his accounts
of heroism and sacrifice

372
00:24:10,560 --> 00:24:12,600
fuelled Churchill's frustration.

373
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:19,200
Churchill could see the disaster
unfolding before his eyes.

374
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:22,680
The men who'd been appointed
to command the Dardanelles operation

375
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:27,680
were a series of incompetents,
at best, or men who simply lacked

376
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:33,320
experience and confidence, and yet
he couldn't do anything about that.

377
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:36,080
He had to stand by on the sidelines

378
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:39,600
and watch
this awful mess deteriorate.

379
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:44,840
His frustration was enormous, but he
had set it in motion and eventually

380
00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:48,320
he had to pay the political price
for the failure at Gallipoli.

381
00:24:56,840 --> 00:25:00,560
Tragic events in the Mediterranean
were not the immediate cause

382
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:03,000
of Churchill's downfall.

383
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,080
The man responsible
was a close friend

384
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:07,320
and father figure
inside the Admiralty...

385
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:10,280
..Lord Jacky Fisher.

386
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,920
This 74-year old Naval legend
had been brought back

387
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:19,720
from retirement to lead
the Navy in October, 1914.

388
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:25,040
The two men were kindred spirits.

389
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:29,800
But Navy insiders
like Admiral Beatty foresaw

390
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:31,920
a messy clash of egos.

391
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:37,800
One old, wily
and of vast experience.

392
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:43,120
One young, self-assertive,
with a great self-satisfaction,

393
00:25:43,120 --> 00:25:47,760
but unstable.
They cannot work together.

394
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:50,200
They cannot both run the show.

395
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:55,600
These are two men who are simply
at opposite ends of every spectrum.

396
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:58,160
Churchill is a young,
dynamic politician

397
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:00,720
who wants to run the Navy
like an Admiral,

398
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:04,520
and Fisher is an elderly, astute
and very experienced Admiral

399
00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:06,920
who wants to run the Navy
like a politician,

400
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:09,720
and both of them
actually wanted each other's job.

401
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:17,680
By April 1915, Fisher had cold feet
about both the Dardanelles operation

402
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:21,920
and an interfering,
autocratic First Lord.

403
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:25,760
Tensions evident in letters held
in Churchill College, Cambridge.

404
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:33,360
What we have here
is a wonderful exchange of letters,

405
00:26:33,360 --> 00:26:36,480
which I think captures
the deteriorating relationship

406
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:40,720
between Admiral Fisher
and Winston Churchill.

407
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:43,520
Here you can see that
Fisher has written,

408
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:46,080
"Damn the Dardanelles!
They'll be our grave!"

409
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:48,400
And at the bottom, he signs off,

410
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:51,600
"Procrastinations,
vacillations, Antwerps."

411
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:54,680
How did Churchill respond
on receiving letters like this?

412
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:57,520
Well, I think you can see
his gut reaction here,

413
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:00,440
in this handwritten note,
which he's addressed at the top

414
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:05,440
to the First Sea Lord,
8th April 1915, quoting Napoleon,

415
00:27:05,440 --> 00:27:08,520
"We are defeated at sea because
our admirals have learned -

416
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:12,640
"where I know not - that war
can be made without running risks."

417
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:19,200
On May 15, Lord Fisher
went missing from the Admiralty.

418
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:23,960
Fisher, ultimately,
has had enough and he resigns

419
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:26,240
and writes
a big resignation letter

420
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:28,520
in which he demands
that they get rid of Churchill,

421
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:31,280
that he be allowed
to essentially run the Navy,

422
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:33,920
and he sets out
a huge, kind of, list of...

423
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,080
"You must do exactly as I tell you,

424
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:38,680
"because I'm the only man
who can win the war."

425
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:40,480
And they call his bluff.

426
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:43,960
Fisher was out.

427
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,960
But he had badly damaged Asquith's
already teetering government.

428
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:52,440
The Conservative opposition
scented blood

429
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:55,200
and pressed
for a share in government.

430
00:27:56,720 --> 00:27:58,920
Churchill was in acute danger.

431
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:05,400
For he was the "Blenheim rat",
the "renegade" and "class traitor"

432
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:09,040
who had deserted the Tories
to join the ruling Liberals in 1904.

433
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:16,600
That weekend,
the Churchill's journeyed

434
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:19,480
to Asquith's Thames-side home,
to plead for his job.

435
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:22,160
But the game was up.

436
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:27,200
Within days, Asquith would agree
to lead a coalition.

437
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:31,680
After the four years
they called a "golden age",

438
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,480
the Churchills
would leave Admiralty House.

439
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:41,560
He was sacked. Clementine leapt
fiercely to her husband's defence.

440
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:47,920
"My dear Mr Asquith,
if you throw Winston overboard,

441
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:50,600
"you will be committing
an act of weakness

442
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:54,120
"and your coalition government will
not be as formidable a war machine.

443
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:56,960
"Winston may, in your eyes,
have faults,

444
00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:59,920
"but he has the supreme quality
which I venture to say

445
00:28:59,920 --> 00:29:03,880
"very few of your present,
or future cabinet, possess -

446
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:08,560
"the power, the imagination and
the deadliness to fight Germany."

447
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:14,920
That's what she says to the
Prime Minister - you are weak.

448
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:16,680
She talks about
how wonderful Winston is,

449
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:19,920
but basically,
she's saying, you are a weak man,

450
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:23,920
and that is devastating, I think,
it's a devastating thing to do.

451
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,040
It potentially
ruptures their relationship,

452
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:28,880
but it shows that she's got claws
and she will fight for him.

453
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:33,080
As it happens, it's Margot
who really takes issue with her.

454
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:36,120
She calls Clementine "a fish wife".

455
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:39,640
She describes her as having
"the soul of a servant".

456
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:42,560
But no, she does not have
the soul of a servant -

457
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:44,120
she's fighting for her man.

458
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:48,320
Obsessed with the Dardanelles,

459
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:51,640
Churchill accepted
a lowly government post,

460
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,040
hoping in vain to influence policy.

461
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,960
Privately,
he expressed shock and despair.

462
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:04,880
I am the victim of a political
intrigue. I am finished.

463
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,520
Finished in respect of all
I care for - the waging of war,

464
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:10,720
the defeat of the Germans.

465
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:16,760
The memory of his famous father
Randolph's own political downfall

466
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:19,160
now weighed heavily.

467
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:23,840
Now, that, of course, made the fall
that Winston himself suffered

468
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:26,600
in the wake
of the Dardanelles disaster

469
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:29,640
all the more awful
and all the more bitter.

470
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:32,520
It was very difficult for him
to see the way back,

471
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:34,880
and he felt that,
not only had he failed,

472
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:38,760
but he'd confirmed
everyone's view of the Churchills,

473
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,120
that they were bound to fail.

474
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:45,520
First Randolph and then Winston -
it was like a family curse.

475
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:48,440
And Churchill
thrashed around in desperation,

476
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:51,160
wondering how could
he find a way back?

477
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:56,600
The Churchills retired to Hoe Farm,

478
00:30:56,600 --> 00:31:00,040
a weekend retreat,
to lick their wounds.

479
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:03,600
Clementine recognised
that her husband was battling

480
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:05,360
with dark inner demons.

481
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:14,040
People tend to talk
about Churchill's "black dog".

482
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:16,240
He's gone from being at the centre

483
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:19,880
to being a, sort of,
mere observer of events,

484
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:23,960
and I think it's that
that he finds incredibly difficult.

485
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:26,320
I think it does hit him
like a hammer blow,

486
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:30,600
but another great Churchillian
trait is his capacity

487
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,880
to recover from these seemingly,
sort of, knockout blows,

488
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:37,480
and it's interesting
to look at how he does that

489
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:40,120
and the strategies he uses.

490
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:44,320
You can see him looking around
at ways in which to fill the void

491
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:46,600
that has been
created in his life,

492
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:49,800
and one of the things that
he seeks solace in is painting.

493
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:54,600
Churchill came across painting
as a form of enjoyment,

494
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:56,840
relaxation and almost therapy.

495
00:31:56,840 --> 00:32:01,000
One of his very first paintings
is the farm itself, Hoe Farm.

496
00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:06,520
Churchill often painted
himself into his paintings later,

497
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:09,080
but there's one right near
the beginning of his career,

498
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:11,280
that he actually painted
during the First World War.

499
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:16,000
And it's a very intense, full
sort of frontal look at himself

500
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,600
and it's very dark and very unusual,

501
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:21,440
because the rest of his paintings
are almost entirely

502
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:23,360
colourful, sunshine scenes,

503
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:26,240
but this is a real
psychological sketch of himself,

504
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:29,240
at a time when he was
obviously feeling very wretched.

505
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:36,880
That summer, contemplating
a visit to the warzone,

506
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:40,240
Churchill wrote Clementine
an intimate letter,

507
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:42,400
to be opened
in the event of his death.

508
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:46,560
"Do not grieve for me too much.

509
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,560
"I am a spirit
confident in my rights.

510
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:52,920
"Death is only an incident

511
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:55,720
"and not the most important one
which happens to us.

512
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:02,200
"On the whole - and especially
since I met you, my darling one -

513
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:03,480
"I have been happy.

514
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:10,600
"If there is another place,
I shall be on the lookout for you.

515
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:17,240
"In the meantime,
look forward, feel free,

516
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,480
"rejoice in life,

517
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,320
"cherish the children

518
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:24,520
"and guard my memory."

519
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:30,760
Yet, Churchill's reputation
was falling to its nadir.

520
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:35,760
A December evacuation from Gallipoli
would mark total Allied defeat,

521
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:38,360
at a cost of 53,000 dead.

522
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:42,440
The campaign's loudest champion

523
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:44,280
was publicly denigrated

524
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:46,280
as the man solely responsible.

525
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:53,400
The disappointment that he felt,
when it failed, was more

526
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:55,760
than simply,
"This is a failed campaign."

527
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:57,600
This got to his very soul.

528
00:33:57,600 --> 00:33:59,400
This was, I think, his chance,

529
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:03,000
he thought,
to become a great warlord,

530
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,360
and it hadn't happened.

531
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:08,720
And to the end of his days,
he resented that,

532
00:34:08,720 --> 00:34:11,920
and I think he thought
that his chance for glory

533
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:14,160
in the First World War
had passed him by.

534
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,160
For decades, Churchill
would be taunted by the cry,

535
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:20,920
"Remember the Dardanelles!".

536
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:27,200
Clementine feared
that he would die of grief.

537
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:31,880
This is a man who's been
at the centre of government

538
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:34,960
for close on a decade,
by this stage,

539
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:37,400
and suddenly,
to be pushed to the sidelines,

540
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:40,680
where he could write
as many memoranda as he liked

541
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:45,000
but no-one paid any attention
to them, was deeply wounding to him.

542
00:34:47,240 --> 00:34:50,880
In November, he could bear
political impotence no more -

543
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:53,960
his response
was typically audacious.

544
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:00,760
He already held a commission
with the Oxfordshire Hussars,

545
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:02,120
a territorial regiment.

546
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:09,400
Major Churchill volunteered for
"death or glory" in the trenches.

547
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:17,000
"My dear Asquith, I ask you to
submit my resignation to the King.

548
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,040
"I'm an officer and I place myself
unreservedly at the disposal

549
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:23,800
"of the military authorities,

550
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:26,080
"observing that
my regiment is in France.

551
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:29,600
"I have a clear conscience.

552
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:34,200
"Time will vindicate
my administration of the Admiralty.

553
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:38,960
"With much respect
and unaltered personal friendship,

554
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:40,280
"I bid you goodbye."

555
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:49,560
On November 18th, Churchill joined
the troop train to Boulogne.

556
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:55,080
Clementine's first letters were raw

557
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:58,000
with the anguish felt
by every soldier's wife.

558
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:02,440
"My darling Winston.

559
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:05,760
"I long for news of you.

560
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:08,080
"Although it's only a few miles,

561
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:11,320
"you seem to me as far away
as the stars,

562
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:13,960
"lost among
a million khaki figures.

563
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:16,120
"Write to me, Winston.

564
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:18,400
"I want a letter from you badly."

565
00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:23,600
Both would write, almost daily.

566
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,080
And their passionate correspondence
sustained them

567
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:29,360
through his perilous days
on the Western Front.

568
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:43,800
Within days of his arrival,
Churchill had experienced

569
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:46,920
the first of numerous
close encounters with death.

570
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:51,680
"Yesterday,
a curious thing happened.

571
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:56,640
"A telegram arrived that the
corps commander wished to see me.

572
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:58,920
"I thought it rather
a strong order to bring me

573
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:02,720
"out of the trenches by daylight -
a three-miles walk.

574
00:37:02,720 --> 00:37:05,160
"Anyhow, I had no choice.

575
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:09,920
"I arrived muddy, wet
and sweating at the rendezvous.

576
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:12,000
"No motor!

577
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,680
"You may imagine how I abused
to myself the complacency

578
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:19,440
"of this general dragging me about
in the rain and the mud for nothing.

579
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:23,680
"And then I learned that a quarter
of an hour after I had left,

580
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,240
"the dugout in which
I was living had been struck

581
00:37:26,240 --> 00:37:28,760
"by a shell,
which burst a few feet from where

582
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:32,520
"I would have been sitting, killing
the mess orderly who was inside.

583
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:38,480
"When I saw the ruin, I was not
so angry with the general after all.

584
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:42,920
"Now, see from this how vain
it is to worry about things.

585
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:45,320
"It is all chance or destiny.

586
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:52,520
"One must yield oneself simply and
naturally to the mood of the game."

587
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:59,000
Clementine's anxieties
were not assuaged.

588
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:04,200
But her husband was upbeat, walking
in the footsteps of the Great Duke.

589
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:12,000
"My dearest soul" - this is what
the Great Duke of Marlborough

590
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:15,800
"used to write from the
Low Countries to HIS Cat."

591
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:19,000
Marlborough's "Cat"
was Sarah Churchill,

592
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:23,160
a formidable political operator in
the 18th-century corridors of power.

593
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,120
Yet Clementine
was a very different wife,

594
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:31,880
finding it noble and romantic

595
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:35,440
that her husband was serving
as a mid-ranking officer.

596
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:38,680
The Daily Mail rings me up and asks

597
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:42,640
if I have had any news
from "Major Churchill".

598
00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:45,920
"Major Churchill"
has a strange sound,

599
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:49,080
but I am prouder of this title
than of any other.

600
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:53,680
Churchill revealed he was
being schooled in trench warfare

601
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:58,680
by the Grenadier Guards, a regiment
the Great Duke himself had led.

602
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:03,160
All is very well arranged.

603
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:05,720
I saw Lord Cavan, to whom I said,

604
00:39:05,720 --> 00:39:07,560
"I should regard it
as a very great honour

605
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:09,440
"to go into the line
with the Guards,"

606
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:13,240
to which he replied,
"We shall be proud to have you."

607
00:39:13,240 --> 00:39:17,080
The Army is willing to receive me
back as the prodigal son.

608
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:19,680
I am very happy here.

609
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:24,840
But these letters did not tell
the whole story.

610
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:27,600
I think it would be difficult
to imagine a more difficult place

611
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:30,240
for Churchill the politician,
the outsider,

612
00:39:30,240 --> 00:39:34,360
the peripatetic adventurer,
to embrace the First World War

613
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:37,040
than with the
2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards.

614
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:41,200
The Guards' reputation
is for ruthless discipline,

615
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:45,760
professionalism,
attention to detail.

616
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:49,400
Not only was this a guy,
a politician, an outsider,

617
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:52,600
coming to a close-knit regiment
of professional soldiers,

618
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:54,280
but he's also everything

619
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:56,680
that, culturally,
they would have been suspicious of.

620
00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:00,120
He's ambitious,
he doesn't take well to authority,

621
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:03,000
the officers
in the Guards battalion,

622
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:06,400
one suspects, would have been very,
very suspicious and hostile to him.

623
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:08,720
Colonel Jeffreys,
the battalion commander,

624
00:40:08,720 --> 00:40:10,520
he's already got
a fearsome reputation,

625
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:12,360
even for a commander
of a Guards battalion,

626
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:14,520
and I think
he says something wonderfully cold

627
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:16,000
on their first meeting, like,

628
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,000
"Just so you know, we didn't
ask to have you sent here."

629
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:26,120
Arriving with excess kit, the
newcomer was put firmly his place.

630
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:31,080
A batman delivered the revised
allocation to his dugout -

631
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:34,320
a pair of socks and a shaving kit.

632
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:41,280
Sir John French, Commander
of the British Army, now intervened.

633
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:44,080
He was a close personal friend

634
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:47,080
and keen that Churchill
command a brigade.

635
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:56,160
Clementine was unconvinced, fearing
he would lose newly won respect

636
00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:58,760
if he became
a "Chateau General" so quickly.

637
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:02,080
What she knows and understands,

638
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:04,320
in a way that he
just doesn't quite appreciate,

639
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:08,520
is that at home, that would be seen
as just going too far, too quickly.

640
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:12,000
He's already got a reputation for
being a little bit too ambitious,

641
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:16,400
a little bit too egotistical - he is
more important than anybody else.

642
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,240
She knows that if he were
to accept that promotion,

643
00:41:19,240 --> 00:41:20,640
it would be negative.

644
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:25,920
That December,
Churchill was on tenterhooks -

645
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:28,080
awaiting confirmation of his rank

646
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:31,360
whilst flitting between
the trenches and Allied HQ.

647
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:37,680
General Fayolle gave him a blue
helmet that he wore with pride.

648
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:43,160
Sir John French's offer of a British
general's uniform soon followed.

649
00:41:46,720 --> 00:41:49,920
"My darling,
I am to be given command

650
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:53,080
"of the 56th Brigade
in the 19th Division.

651
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:57,160
"Please order another khaki tunic
for me as Brigadier General.

652
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:01,240
"Let the pockets be less baggy
than the other two."

653
00:42:01,240 --> 00:42:04,080
Yet French was in trouble.

654
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:07,400
Failure at the recent
Battle of Loos saw him recalled

655
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:09,760
by Asquith to London
to be dismissed.

656
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:15,640
"My darling one,
I am back here at GHQ.

657
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:18,840
"I don't know what effect
this change of command

658
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,600
"will produce on my local fortunes.

659
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:26,040
"In the Grenadiers, the opinion
is that I am to have a division."

660
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:31,320
Two letters on the same day
capture the moments

661
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:34,760
when hopes of
a General Churchill evaporated.

662
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:39,120
"Later.

663
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:44,520
"I reopen my letter to say that
French has telephoned from London.

664
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:48,280
"The PM has written to him
that I am not to have a brigade

665
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:50,840
"but a battalion.

666
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:53,640
"You should cancel
the order for the tunic."

667
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:01,800
Field Marshal Sir John French,
a great friend of Churchill's,

668
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:06,920
had been replaced by General,
as he was then, Sir Douglas Haig.

669
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:10,560
And Haig had a much more
realistic view, I think,

670
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:13,320
of Churchill's abilities.
And he insisted that,

671
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:17,280
first of all,
he win his spurs, as it was,

672
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:19,320
by commanding a battalion.

673
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:26,200
His first trench experiences
encouraged Churchill

674
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:30,120
to pen a memorandum brimming
with new tactical ideas...

675
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:35,720
..including a vision of
a mass attack of his land ships.

676
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:42,920
Variants of the offensive.
One, attack by armour.

677
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,360
The cutting of the enemy's wire
and the general domination

678
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:49,640
of his firing line can be effected
by engines of this character.

679
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:56,040
None should be used until all can be
used at once. Above all, surprise!

680
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:01,840
But no-one was listening
to a yesterday's man.

681
00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:05,320
Churchill now faced
a searching test of character -

682
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:07,320
the command of men in battle.

683
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:21,560
On January 4, 1916, Lieutenant
Colonel Churchill took command

684
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:24,720
of the 6th Battalion,
Royal Scots Fusiliers.

685
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:29,640
Well, he gets off to
a disastrous start

686
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:32,440
with 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers.
His own sense of importance

687
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,360
and history, I think, overtakes him.
He's a cavalry officer,

688
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:37,280
with no experience
of infantry drill,

689
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:39,040
he gives all
the wrong words of commands.

690
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:42,080
The private soldiers haven't got a
clue what to do, his junior officers

691
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:44,720
who are already probably
ill-disposed towards his presence

692
00:44:44,720 --> 00:44:47,440
are having to whisper in his ear.
I mean, he makes a fool of himself,

693
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:49,080
there is no two ways about it.

694
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:52,080
What's so interesting is that,
having got off to this awkward start

695
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:54,920
he turns it around,
and he turns it around very quickly.

696
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:59,840
They were stationed by the small
Belgian town the Tommies called

697
00:44:59,840 --> 00:45:03,520
Plug Street, on the southern
part of the Ypres Salient.

698
00:45:05,720 --> 00:45:08,160
This was a time, early 1916,

699
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:12,120
on a front, Plug Street,
which was not an active one.

700
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:15,600
He did not command in a major battle,
this was trench holding.

701
00:45:15,600 --> 00:45:18,240
That was nasty enough,
that was dangerous enough,

702
00:45:18,240 --> 00:45:20,840
but it's a very different thing
than leading men over the top.

703
00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:26,680
As MP for Dundee, Churchill was
proud to join a Scottish regiment,

704
00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:30,840
but he was horrified by what
they had experienced at Loos.

705
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:34,600
CHURCHILL: It fought with the
greatest gallantry in the big battle

706
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:36,440
and was torn to pieces.

707
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:39,080
More than half the men
and three quarters of the officers

708
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:42,640
were shot and these terrible
gaps have been filled up

709
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:45,840
by quite young,
inexperienced officers.

710
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:50,760
His first pep talk
signalled the arrival

711
00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:52,880
of an unconventional commander.

712
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:57,120
Laugh a little
and teach your men to laugh.

713
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:01,480
Show good humour under fire.

714
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:04,960
War is a game played with a smile.

715
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:08,240
If you can not smile, grin.

716
00:46:08,240 --> 00:46:11,600
If you can not grin, then stay
out of the way until you can.

717
00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:17,520
And now, gentlemen,
we shall make war on the lice!

718
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:22,440
This is an example of Churchill
as a, sort of, free-thinker.

719
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:26,080
Recognising what's important that
other people haven't recognised.

720
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:30,160
And lice were misery in the
trenches. You think of the shelling

721
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:33,560
and the sniping and the danger, but
actually, what gets a soldier down,

722
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:36,960
on a day-to-day basis, is the mud
and the cold and the hunger

723
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:39,840
and the discomfort and,
in recognising that,

724
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:43,440
here was something that could be
targeted with a bit of extra work,

725
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:46,360
Churchill's actually showing
an incredible compassion to his men,

726
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:47,600
and they liked it

727
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:50,320
and, apparently, for the rest of
the war, 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers

728
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:53,640
were one of the least
lice-plagued battalions in the army.

729
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:57,720
Immersing himself
enthusiastically in trench life,

730
00:46:57,720 --> 00:47:00,960
the new Colonel was attentive
to the needs of his men.

731
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:05,560
He commands a battalion
almost as though you'd

732
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:07,880
expect him to command a platoon.

733
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:11,080
This is probably the first time
that Churchill's really

734
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:14,280
in a front line
of a conflict, in command

735
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:17,080
and what is interesting is
the Churchill that comes out,

736
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:19,960
the Churchill that shines through
in those circumstances

737
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:23,400
is not so much
the ambitious Churchill,

738
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:25,880
the Churchill that rubs
people up the wrong way,

739
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:28,720
it is a much more caring,
much more focused,

740
00:47:28,720 --> 00:47:31,520
much more sensitive Churchill,
if you will, and

741
00:47:31,520 --> 00:47:34,360
that's what makes him a very good
commander in the First World War.

742
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:36,920
It's almost as though,
in the trenches,

743
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:40,920
surrounded with the responsibility,
and it must be a huge responsibility

744
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:43,560
for a battalion of men,
the proximity of death,

745
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:46,840
the fact that your horizons
have really narrowed.

746
00:47:46,840 --> 00:47:49,160
He's forgotten
his political ambitions.

747
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:51,560
For once, he doesn't have
half an eye on Westminster,

748
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:52,960
even if it's only briefly,

749
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,960
and what comes out
is this very impressive Churchill.

750
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:01,040
He was
a decidedly eccentric commander.

751
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:03,880
You know, there are
stories of him, for example,

752
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:06,720
going out into
no-man's land on a patrol,

753
00:48:06,720 --> 00:48:09,200
making all sorts of noise
in doing so,

754
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:12,400
lying on his electric torch
and thus switching it on and,

755
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:15,320
you know, basically giving
a real target for the enemy,

756
00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:18,680
but there's no doubt at all that
Churchill, I think, proved to be

757
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:21,040
a very effective
battalion commander.

758
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:27,520
Demands for extra tuck
for his mess added to the burdens

759
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:29,240
of a busy mother of three.

760
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:36,040
"About food, the sorts of things
I want you to send me are these -

761
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:38,520
"large slabs of corned beef,

762
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:41,200
"Stilton cheeses, cream, hams,

763
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:44,040
"sardines, dried fruits.

764
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:46,640
"You might almost try
a big beef steak pie,

765
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:49,560
"but not tinned grouse,
the simpler the better

766
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:54,200
"and substantial, too, for our
ration meat is tough and tasteless.

767
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:58,760
"Peach brandy seems to be a hopeful
feature in the liquor department.

768
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:01,800
"I fear you find me
very expensive to keep."

769
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:05,560
The Western Front
offered a diversion

770
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:07,520
from ugly political intrigues.

771
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:11,640
But Churchill
still needed his Sapient Cat

772
00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:14,800
to be his eyes and ears
in Westminster.

773
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:19,840
CHURCHILL:
Don't neglect these matters,

774
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:22,160
I have no-one
but you to act for me.

775
00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:25,880
Keep in touch with the Government.

776
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:29,120
Show complete confidence
in our fortunes.

777
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:31,920
Hold your head very high.

778
00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:37,760
When you look at the role
that Clementine Churchill is playing

779
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:42,920
during this period,
she really is acting as an anchor.

780
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:48,800
She is listening out for how he is
being perceived in the newspapers,

781
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:55,520
but also amongst her contemporaries
and also in high political circles.

782
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:59,120
She's guarding his reputation
very carefully,

783
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:01,800
she's alerting him
to potential dangers,

784
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:06,880
to things that she thinks
that he has missed,

785
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:11,760
and she is, of course,
also prepared to take up the cudgel

786
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:14,360
and absolutely
to defend his reputation.

787
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:19,320
My darling, today
I lunched with Lloyd George.

788
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:22,440
Now don't scold your Cat too
much for being a hermit.

789
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:27,840
Here, in two days I have
hobnobbed with Montague, Birrell,

790
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:32,440
Lloyd George, and a South African
potentate. Please send me home

791
00:50:32,440 --> 00:50:36,640
the Distinguished Conduct Medal
at once and much praise.

792
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:45,280
Clementine had volunteered to help
the YMCA organise workers canteens

793
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:47,760
in some of the new
munitions factories

794
00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:50,760
set up to meet
the voracious demand for shells.

795
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:56,080
She's involved in,
I think, about nine,

796
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:58,320
some of which have
500 people to feed.

797
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:01,520
She has to open them, she has to
visit them. She talks a lot about

798
00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:03,840
the difficulties in getting there,
the trains.

799
00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:06,360
All this is going on
whilst he is asking her

800
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:08,720
to, basically,
be Winston Churchill at home.

801
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:13,520
The Munitions Minister
was David Lloyd George,

802
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:17,280
the one dynamic star
in a lacklustre coalition.

803
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:22,640
Clementine was well placed
to monitor his steady rise.

804
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:30,960
Trench life settled into
a pattern of dull routine

805
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:32,560
and sudden danger.

806
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:37,640
"My darling, I take up my pen
to send you my daily note.

807
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:40,600
"At six, I went round my trenches

808
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:44,080
"and was saluted on my doorstep
by a very sulky bullet.

809
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:49,960
"All the morning, I laboured in the
small business of the battalion

810
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:52,320
"and dealt with
my company commanders

811
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:56,080
"and sent off the numerous reports
for which our superiors clamour.

812
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:02,640
"I send you some copies of the photo

813
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:04,560
"of Archie and I,
taken at Armentieres.

814
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:08,680
"I never expected to be
so completely involved

815
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:10,480
"in the military machine."

816
00:52:12,320 --> 00:52:14,560
As winter turned to spring,

817
00:52:14,560 --> 00:52:17,520
old political instincts
began to reawaken.

818
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:22,240
He's genuinely interested,

819
00:52:22,240 --> 00:52:25,480
but, of course, the challenges you
face in commanding a battalion

820
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:29,680
on the Western Front are not quite
the same as running a Navy or

821
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:34,200
running a government department, and
again, I think you can gradually see

822
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:39,760
over the next five months, politics
and Whitehall luring him back in.

823
00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:44,960
The loss of air superiority
in the skies above Plug Street

824
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:49,000
further inflamed irritation
with weak political leadership.

825
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:53,480
CHURCHILL: Air fights have been
going on overhead this morning.

826
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:57,520
Since I left the Admiralty, the
whole naval wing has been let down

827
00:52:57,520 --> 00:52:59,800
and all previous ascendency
has been dissipated.

828
00:52:59,800 --> 00:53:03,400
War is action, energy, hazard,

829
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:06,720
these sheep only want to browse
among the daisies.

830
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:13,040
Clementine knew a political return
would be dangerously premature.

831
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:20,480
My own darling,
patience is the only grace you need.

832
00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:25,720
As sure as day follows night,
you will come into your own again.

833
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:30,440
But a disorientated Churchill
did not listen.

834
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:33,840
Granted ten days home leave
in early March,

835
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:38,040
his next political humiliation
was to be self-inflicted.

836
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:53,920
The former First Lord was expected
at the National Liberal Club,

837
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:56,320
to unveil a new portrait of himself.

838
00:53:59,880 --> 00:54:01,360
But he never showed up.

839
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:06,080
He'd fallen in with
a group of fellow dissidents,

840
00:54:06,080 --> 00:54:08,240
eager to plot
the downfall of Asquith.

841
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:11,480
There's no glory to be won
on the Western Front,

842
00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:13,200
it's a miserable, dirty business,

843
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:15,680
hiding in a trench
with a French tin hat on.

844
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:18,720
He can't restore
his reputation by fighting,

845
00:54:18,720 --> 00:54:22,160
and eventually,
he comes back to London and there,

846
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:25,480
almost miraculously, he rebuilds
his relationship with Jacky Fisher.

847
00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:31,040
Clementine was horrified that
her husband was drawn once again

848
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:33,720
to the admiral
who had destroyed his career.

849
00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:42,600
Fisher took advantage of
Churchill's troubled state of mind,

850
00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:47,720
with wild talk of "destiny" and
Churchill becoming Prime Minister.

851
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:54,920
On March 7, Churchill went to
Parliament to make a speech

852
00:54:54,920 --> 00:54:57,440
critical of
the Admiralty's performance.

853
00:54:57,440 --> 00:54:59,920
Its conclusion stunned the House.

854
00:55:01,080 --> 00:55:03,840
I urge the First Lord of
the Admiralty without delay

855
00:55:03,840 --> 00:55:06,120
to fortify himself.

856
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:09,280
To vitalise and animate
his board of Admiralty,

857
00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:14,160
by recalling Lord Fisher
to his post as First Sea Lord.

858
00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:17,320
SHOUTING AND HECKLING

859
00:55:17,320 --> 00:55:20,840
An astonishing appeal
for the return of Fisher

860
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:23,560
was met with derision and scorn.

861
00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:30,960
Margot Asquith's waspish verdict
reflected a wider belief

862
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:34,720
that Churchill remained impulsive
and lacking in statesmanship.

863
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:40,080
I hope and believe Winston
will never be forgiven

864
00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:42,040
his yesterday's speeches.

865
00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:46,240
He is a hound of the lowest
sense of political honour,

866
00:55:46,240 --> 00:55:50,280
a fool of the lowest judgement,
and contemptible.

867
00:55:54,640 --> 00:55:57,440
A contrite Churchill
returned to Plug Street.

868
00:55:57,440 --> 00:56:00,600
He had felt keenly
the hostility and mistrust

869
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:04,840
his wife had warned of,
and acknowledged her loving support.

870
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:09,320
"My dearest soul,

871
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:13,120
"You have seen me
very weak and foolish

872
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:16,360
"and mentally infirm this week.

873
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:19,920
"Dual obligations, both honourable,
both weighty have rent me.

874
00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:24,080
"I can not tell you how sweet
and steadfast you have been

875
00:56:24,080 --> 00:56:27,280
"through all my hesitations
and perplexity."

876
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:37,000
Yet bonds of trust were being
forged with his Fusiliers.

877
00:56:38,240 --> 00:56:41,280
His indifference to danger
was a constant inspiration.

878
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:45,040
Captain Andrew Gibb
recalled an invitation

879
00:56:45,040 --> 00:56:48,440
to the fire-step during
a fierce artillery duel.

880
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:52,400
We felt the wind and swish
of several whizz-bangs

881
00:56:52,400 --> 00:56:54,320
flying past our heads.

882
00:56:55,840 --> 00:57:00,240
Then I heard Winston say,
in a dreamy, far away voice,

883
00:57:00,240 --> 00:57:02,440
"Do you like war?"

884
00:57:02,440 --> 00:57:05,240
There was no such thing
as fear in him.

885
00:57:05,240 --> 00:57:09,800
It is a feature that seems to be
common to great military commanders.

886
00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:12,680
It's not fearlessness as such,

887
00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:15,200
but it's an ability
to be unperturbed by

888
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:18,360
the personal danger of
the situation they might be in.

889
00:57:18,360 --> 00:57:21,800
It inspires troops
if they see someone who is,

890
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:23,560
seems to be impervious to danger.

891
00:57:23,560 --> 00:57:25,880
It's that great thing
of leadership by example.

892
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:28,480
Also, soldiers want to be led
by someone who has an air

893
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:31,520
of invincibility and more than one
person observes of Churchill that

894
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:34,320
he's just one of those guys that
you knew he was going to get through

895
00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:36,840
and you want to be close
to people like that.

896
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:42,040
Her advice to stay in the trenches
tormented Clementine.

897
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:48,440
This is a woman who knows
he is under great risk every day.

898
00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:51,200
People are dying,
he could be the next person,

899
00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:53,520
but she urges him to stay.

900
00:57:53,520 --> 00:57:56,000
She urges him to stay
because she knows, actually,

901
00:57:56,000 --> 00:58:00,240
his political career is more
important to him than his life.

902
00:58:03,360 --> 00:58:07,160
But her belief in his destiny
gave him solace.

903
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:12,920
"My darling, own dear Winston,
don't be vexed.

904
00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:18,560
"I know barring all tragic accidents
that someday you will have

905
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:22,040
"a great and commanding position
in this country.

906
00:58:23,160 --> 00:58:26,960
"You will be held in the people's
hearts and in their respect."

907
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:35,240
Churchill ventured out around
40 times into no-man's land

908
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:39,160
to inspect the wire
and forward listening posts.

909
00:58:40,480 --> 00:58:43,560
But the stress of events now left
Clementine feeling exhausted...

910
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:46,160
..and lonely.

911
00:58:48,280 --> 00:58:52,400
My darling, these grave anxieties
are very wearing.

912
00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:56,280
When next I see you,
I hope there will be

913
00:58:56,280 --> 00:58:58,480
a little time for us both alone.

914
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:02,360
We are still young, but time flies,

915
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:06,040
stealing love away
and leaving only friendship,

916
00:59:06,040 --> 00:59:10,960
which is very peaceful,
but not stimulating or warming.

917
00:59:10,960 --> 00:59:12,840
Clemmie.

918
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:19,800
CHURCHILL: Oh, my darling,
do not write of friendship to me.

919
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:23,560
I love you more
each month that passes

920
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:26,560
and feel the need of you
and all your beauty.

921
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:31,200
I, too, feel, sometimes,
the longing for rest and peace.

922
00:59:32,480 --> 00:59:35,840
So much effort, so many years
of ceaseless fighting

923
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:39,880
makes my older mind
turn for the first time, I think,

924
00:59:39,880 --> 00:59:41,880
to other things than action.

925
00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:48,600
She is at her low, she's been
his rock for a very long time.

926
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:51,440
Perhaps because they've been
so open with each other,

927
00:59:51,440 --> 00:59:54,280
she is worried about
their more romantic side.

928
00:59:54,280 --> 00:59:57,360
She's worried that
they will just become friends.

929
00:59:57,360 --> 01:00:00,840
She's worried
that time is moving on

930
01:00:00,840 --> 01:00:04,200
and she wants some
sort of reassurance from him.

931
01:00:04,200 --> 01:00:06,920
In fact, it's probably the only time
that she really asks

932
01:00:06,920 --> 01:00:10,480
for reassurance. Thankfully,
he gives it to her immediately.

933
01:00:10,480 --> 01:00:13,000
No chance of just being
friends, girl.

934
01:00:15,800 --> 01:00:19,760
The toll inflicted by even
trench holding troubled Churchill.

935
01:00:20,960 --> 01:00:23,840
To ward off all his frustrations,
he surprised his comrades...

936
01:00:25,440 --> 01:00:26,880
..by starting to paint.

937
01:00:30,920 --> 01:00:33,640
"From our farm
I watched yesterday afternoon

938
01:00:33,640 --> 01:00:36,320
"the shelling of the little town
whose name I can not mention.

939
01:00:37,640 --> 01:00:42,040
"Three of our men who were strolling
in the town were hit, one fatally.

940
01:00:43,200 --> 01:00:46,120
"In the last two days of rest,
I have lost eight men.

941
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:51,120
"I'm now reduced to under 680 men
instead of 1,000."

942
01:00:52,880 --> 01:00:55,560
It was 6th Battalion's
numerical weakness,

943
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:58,200
which brought the Plug Street days
to an end.

944
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:01,480
An amalgamation in May
allowed him to return home...

945
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:04,120
..with honour intact.

946
01:01:06,760 --> 01:01:10,520
"My darling, the Germans have just
fired 30 shells at our farm

947
01:01:10,520 --> 01:01:13,960
"hitting it four times,
but no-one has been hurt.

948
01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:16,720
"This is, I trust,
a parting salute."

949
01:01:19,400 --> 01:01:22,960
Flanders had schooled Churchill
in the realities of trench war.

950
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:28,440
Haig and the generals were committed
to a war of attrition by men.

951
01:01:30,200 --> 01:01:33,040
Churchill deemed this
killing game futile.

952
01:01:34,360 --> 01:01:37,720
He believed in attrition
by metal and machines.

953
01:01:38,760 --> 01:01:40,960
Fortified by this sense of purpose,

954
01:01:40,960 --> 01:01:43,640
he resumed political battles
at home.

955
01:01:54,160 --> 01:01:58,920
Churchill returned to Clementine,
shorn of vain dreams of glory.

956
01:01:58,920 --> 01:02:00,920
He was an outcast still.

957
01:02:02,600 --> 01:02:06,320
Clementine urged stoic resolve
through difficult days.

958
01:02:08,720 --> 01:02:11,720
War is a terrible
searcher of character.

959
01:02:11,720 --> 01:02:18,000
One must try to plod and persevere
and absolutely stamp self out!

960
01:02:20,680 --> 01:02:24,320
The angry scapegoat had to clear
his name over the Dardanelles.

961
01:02:25,800 --> 01:02:28,400
He pressed Asquith
to publish the full facts

962
01:02:28,400 --> 01:02:30,720
and a Commission of Inquiry
was set up.

963
01:02:30,720 --> 01:02:34,680
But he would be made to wait
nearly a year for its verdict.

964
01:02:36,440 --> 01:02:38,880
Churchill was not used to waiting.

965
01:02:38,880 --> 01:02:43,880
He must have found this an
incredibly, sort of frustrating time

966
01:02:43,880 --> 01:02:48,720
because he's neither one thing
or the other, at this point.

967
01:02:48,720 --> 01:02:52,280
He is no longer a man of strategy,

968
01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:54,520
he's no longer a man of action.

969
01:02:54,520 --> 01:02:58,000
This was the greatest crisis
to have beset the British nation

970
01:02:58,000 --> 01:03:01,480
for hundreds of years. And living
at the heart of great events,

971
01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:05,960
believing that it was his destiny
to play a role in those great events

972
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:08,000
and not being able to do so

973
01:03:08,000 --> 01:03:10,680
must have been
an enormous challenge for him.

974
01:03:12,520 --> 01:03:16,600
Parliament saw him establish
a reputation as a soldiers' friend

975
01:03:16,600 --> 01:03:19,000
and leading critic of the generals.

976
01:03:20,000 --> 01:03:24,160
When Churchill gets back to London,
he's at a loose end and

977
01:03:24,160 --> 01:03:28,720
he's a man of such huge energy that
because he doesn't actually have

978
01:03:28,720 --> 01:03:34,800
a proper job to do, he's a pretty
effective and annoying gadfly.

979
01:03:36,040 --> 01:03:39,200
He begins to criticise
British high command

980
01:03:39,200 --> 01:03:42,000
and, to some extent, the Government.

981
01:03:43,320 --> 01:03:46,560
I do not see how we are to avoid
being thrown back on those dismal

982
01:03:46,560 --> 01:03:50,320
processes of waste and slaughter
which are called attrition.

983
01:03:51,760 --> 01:03:55,000
Machines save life! Hear! Hear!

984
01:03:55,000 --> 01:03:57,960
Machine power
is a substitute for manpower.

985
01:03:59,560 --> 01:04:01,960
Brains will save blood.

986
01:04:06,080 --> 01:04:08,640
Newspaper headlines in autumn 1916

987
01:04:08,640 --> 01:04:10,840
announced the baptism
of his landships

988
01:04:10,840 --> 01:04:12,680
in the battle of the Somme,

989
01:04:12,680 --> 01:04:15,720
but there was no mass attack.

990
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:19,760
Only 50 tanks were actually used

991
01:04:19,760 --> 01:04:22,040
and they're not actually
that successful.

992
01:04:22,040 --> 01:04:24,800
Churchill
and a number of other people

993
01:04:24,800 --> 01:04:27,880
that are enthusiasts for the tank
think, "What a waste,

994
01:04:27,880 --> 01:04:29,640
"you've given away the secret,"

995
01:04:29,640 --> 01:04:32,640
and it was kept as
a brilliant secret from the Germans

996
01:04:32,640 --> 01:04:34,960
"and you've shown your hand,"
as it were.

997
01:04:34,960 --> 01:04:39,120
They wanted many more to be used
in a massive initial tank attack.

998
01:04:41,520 --> 01:04:43,960
He yearned for war direction...

999
01:04:45,240 --> 01:04:49,600
..and all hopes were invested
in the "Wizard", Lloyd George,

1000
01:04:49,600 --> 01:04:53,160
who took over at the War Office
after the death of Lord Kitchener.

1001
01:04:56,520 --> 01:05:01,240
He thought that, with Lloyd George
in the Cabinet, a friend,

1002
01:05:01,240 --> 01:05:05,480
a colleague in arms,
someone who had influence,

1003
01:05:05,480 --> 01:05:07,800
that his return was imminent.

1004
01:05:07,800 --> 01:05:09,360
But it was not to be,

1005
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:13,200
and he expressed his frustrations
in a letter to his brother Jack.

1006
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:18,320
"Is it not damnable that I should
be denied all real scope

1007
01:05:18,320 --> 01:05:20,320
"to serve this country?

1008
01:05:20,320 --> 01:05:22,560
"Great instability prevails

1009
01:05:22,560 --> 01:05:26,720
"and at any moment a situation
favourable to me might come.

1010
01:05:26,720 --> 01:05:32,320
"Meanwhile Asquith reigns,
supine, sodden and supreme.

1011
01:05:34,160 --> 01:05:38,080
"Though my life is full of comfort,
pleasure and prosperity,

1012
01:05:38,080 --> 01:05:42,080
"I writhe hourly not to be able to
get my teeth effectively

1013
01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:47,080
"into the Bosch. Jack, my dear,
I am learning to hate!"

1014
01:05:49,480 --> 01:05:52,440
By winter, the pressure
for a change in leadership

1015
01:05:52,440 --> 01:05:54,240
was becoming irresistible.

1016
01:05:57,200 --> 01:06:03,000
Lloyd George's strengths are
that he has now got a reputation

1017
01:06:03,000 --> 01:06:06,040
as a figure of great energy
and dynamism,

1018
01:06:06,040 --> 01:06:08,520
"a man of push and go",

1019
01:06:08,520 --> 01:06:10,760
to use his own phrase
about the kind of people

1020
01:06:10,760 --> 01:06:13,440
that he wanted in Government.
Therefore,

1021
01:06:13,440 --> 01:06:16,400
although many Conservatives
continued to distrust him,

1022
01:06:16,400 --> 01:06:19,520
they certainly saw him
as a better alternative

1023
01:06:19,520 --> 01:06:22,840
than Asquith, who they saw
as weak and ineffectual.

1024
01:06:24,280 --> 01:06:28,600
On December 5th, Lloyd George was
finally ready to topple Asquith,

1025
01:06:28,600 --> 01:06:30,760
with the backing
of the Conservatives.

1026
01:06:33,520 --> 01:06:38,400
Churchill's hopes soared that night
when, relaxing at a Turkish bath,

1027
01:06:38,400 --> 01:06:41,600
he was unexpectedly invited
to a dinner

1028
01:06:41,600 --> 01:06:43,920
attended by Lloyd George himself.

1029
01:06:46,040 --> 01:06:48,960
But he had
badly misread the signals.

1030
01:06:48,960 --> 01:06:51,760
A mutual friend
was given the unhappy task

1031
01:06:51,760 --> 01:06:53,440
of deflating his dreams.

1032
01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:58,400
These are the exact words I used.

1033
01:06:58,400 --> 01:07:01,600
"The new Government will be very
well disposed towards you,

1034
01:07:01,600 --> 01:07:03,440
"all your friends will be there."

1035
01:07:04,760 --> 01:07:06,960
He suddenly felt he had been duped

1036
01:07:06,960 --> 01:07:09,040
and he blazed into righteous anger.

1037
01:07:10,480 --> 01:07:13,480
With that, Churchill walked out
into the street.

1038
01:07:16,000 --> 01:07:19,920
He later described that
as the hardest moment of his life.

1039
01:07:19,920 --> 01:07:24,800
The disparity between his high hopes
and the crushing of them

1040
01:07:24,800 --> 01:07:28,280
and a sensible calculation
might well have told him

1041
01:07:28,280 --> 01:07:32,360
that Lloyd George was not yet
politically strong enough

1042
01:07:32,360 --> 01:07:36,320
to take that risk of bringing him
back into the Government.

1043
01:07:36,320 --> 01:07:39,480
Yet his own belief in himself

1044
01:07:39,480 --> 01:07:42,520
had overcome
his more rational judgement.

1045
01:07:44,440 --> 01:07:50,040
Yet, this latest of so many crushing
humiliations since May 1915

1046
01:07:50,040 --> 01:07:51,840
was also the last.

1047
01:07:55,440 --> 01:07:59,800
The spring of 1917 saw
the Churchills buy Lullenden Manor.

1048
01:08:01,240 --> 01:08:04,720
Here, they celebrated together
the largely positive findings

1049
01:08:04,720 --> 01:08:06,880
of the Dardanelles inquiry.

1050
01:08:10,360 --> 01:08:14,320
Dark developments in the war further
loosened the chains of exile.

1051
01:08:18,840 --> 01:08:22,520
The Germans take the decision
to defeat the British

1052
01:08:22,520 --> 01:08:25,560
by sinking merchant shipping
in the Atlantic,

1053
01:08:25,560 --> 01:08:28,400
cutting the so-called
Atlantic lifeline,

1054
01:08:28,400 --> 01:08:31,120
seeking to starve Britain
to submission.

1055
01:08:32,480 --> 01:08:35,840
By the spring of 1917,
Britain is running out of food

1056
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:39,120
and actually, we reach the point
in which Britain

1057
01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:43,760
appears to be in real danger
of losing the war at sea,

1058
01:08:43,760 --> 01:08:47,520
even though they're holding
their own at land,

1059
01:08:47,520 --> 01:08:49,680
and it's against that background

1060
01:08:49,680 --> 01:08:54,920
that Lloyd George takes the risk
in the summer of 1917

1061
01:08:54,920 --> 01:08:57,480
of re-introducing Churchill
into government.

1062
01:09:00,640 --> 01:09:03,200
Lloyd George
needed his friend's spirit

1063
01:09:03,200 --> 01:09:06,000
and imagination
at a time of national peril.

1064
01:09:07,800 --> 01:09:10,040
Ignoring fierce Tory protests,

1065
01:09:10,040 --> 01:09:13,320
the Prime Minister
summoned him back in July.

1066
01:09:16,120 --> 01:09:18,720
Despite being in coalition
with the Conservatives

1067
01:09:18,720 --> 01:09:21,240
he gets Churchill back,
he makes it a political priority,

1068
01:09:21,240 --> 01:09:24,000
because he knows this is a man
with energy, drive, vision.

1069
01:09:24,000 --> 01:09:26,880
He's exactly the kind of man that
he's picking out of industry.

1070
01:09:26,880 --> 01:09:30,280
Lloyd George is creating
a meritocratic Cabinet

1071
01:09:30,280 --> 01:09:33,600
of go-getters, and Churchill
is one of those key figures.

1072
01:09:35,200 --> 01:09:38,720
He was excluded from the War Cabinet
and policy-making.

1073
01:09:40,080 --> 01:09:44,760
His job was to man the anvil
and forge the weapons of war.

1074
01:10:00,960 --> 01:10:03,760
"My darling,
we had a very pleasant fly-over

1075
01:10:03,760 --> 01:10:06,880
"and passed fairly close
to Lullenden.

1076
01:10:06,880 --> 01:10:11,120
"I could follow the road through
Croydon and Caterham quite easily.

1077
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:13,680
"We landed here
in good time for dinner."

1078
01:10:15,120 --> 01:10:18,560
As the war entered its
climatic Hundred Days,

1079
01:10:18,560 --> 01:10:21,080
French villagers
grew accustomed to the sight

1080
01:10:21,080 --> 01:10:24,760
of a hyperactive British minister
flying in and out.

1081
01:10:26,120 --> 01:10:29,560
The chateau was the forward base
of a man in his element.

1082
01:10:33,760 --> 01:10:37,560
From here, he could visit
Haig's HQ at Montreuil.

1083
01:10:37,560 --> 01:10:40,040
The two worked closely together,

1084
01:10:40,040 --> 01:10:44,640
knowing victory would be secured as
much on the home front as in France.

1085
01:10:47,280 --> 01:10:49,960
He had a very modern view of war.

1086
01:10:49,960 --> 01:10:53,040
It was very much
a view of total war,

1087
01:10:53,040 --> 01:10:55,840
of war in which all
the resources of a state

1088
01:10:55,840 --> 01:10:59,360
are committed to
the overthrow of the enemy,

1089
01:10:59,360 --> 01:11:03,560
those resources of course including
industrial and economic resources.

1090
01:11:05,760 --> 01:11:09,200
This huge factory near Hereford
was just one cog

1091
01:11:09,200 --> 01:11:11,960
in a vast industrial machine,

1092
01:11:11,960 --> 01:11:15,240
served by 2.5 million
munitions workers.

1093
01:11:21,760 --> 01:11:24,520
Clementine had kept
her husband closely informed

1094
01:11:24,520 --> 01:11:26,960
about the women workers
now in his charge.

1095
01:11:29,840 --> 01:11:32,960
I was very much interested
in the girls.

1096
01:11:32,960 --> 01:11:35,240
They are nearly all quite young,

1097
01:11:35,240 --> 01:11:38,360
very fresh and pretty
and rather hoydenish.

1098
01:11:38,360 --> 01:11:41,760
Some of them were snowballing
with boys outside the canteen.

1099
01:11:43,000 --> 01:11:44,960
The women are full of beans

1100
01:11:44,960 --> 01:11:47,840
and become terribly skilful
very quickly.

1101
01:11:51,960 --> 01:11:53,960
Rapid growth had given the ministry

1102
01:11:53,960 --> 01:11:56,160
an inefficient,
ramshackle structure.

1103
01:11:58,960 --> 01:12:01,480
Churchill moved quickly
to reform it,

1104
01:12:01,480 --> 01:12:04,680
energising Britain's war machine,
just in time.

1105
01:12:08,080 --> 01:12:11,600
One of the things that people
tend not to appreciate

1106
01:12:11,600 --> 01:12:16,120
about Churchill is that,
while he was this great orator,

1107
01:12:16,120 --> 01:12:20,040
this great leader,
he was also a man of detail.

1108
01:12:20,040 --> 01:12:23,960
He was capable
of absorbing and understanding

1109
01:12:23,960 --> 01:12:27,520
and manipulating
huge amounts of information.

1110
01:12:27,520 --> 01:12:31,160
It involves him with complex deals
about different materials

1111
01:12:31,160 --> 01:12:32,760
all over the world

1112
01:12:32,760 --> 01:12:35,760
and it's the sort of challenge
that he clearly relished.

1113
01:12:39,880 --> 01:12:42,960
Ambitious new targets
were set for the production

1114
01:12:42,960 --> 01:12:45,240
of planes, gas and shells.

1115
01:12:46,520 --> 01:12:49,200
A less autocratic Churchill
had emerged.

1116
01:12:51,440 --> 01:12:54,880
His appointment
is a moment where we see

1117
01:12:54,880 --> 01:12:59,520
a maturing, politically, of
Churchill, that up until this point,

1118
01:12:59,520 --> 01:13:03,520
he was now in his 40s of course, he
was somebody who had charged around,

1119
01:13:03,520 --> 01:13:08,040
acted impulsively, continually
rubbed people up the wrong way,

1120
01:13:08,040 --> 01:13:11,960
interfered in other people's
territory, put their backs up.

1121
01:13:13,840 --> 01:13:17,040
Now, almost for the first time,
he calms down a bit,

1122
01:13:17,040 --> 01:13:20,720
and does
a straightforward job of work,

1123
01:13:20,720 --> 01:13:23,680
acts much more as a team player.

1124
01:13:23,680 --> 01:13:26,320
He actually also shows
a little bit of humility.

1125
01:13:29,320 --> 01:13:31,680
"This is a very heavy department,

1126
01:13:31,680 --> 01:13:33,800
"almost as interesting
as the Admiralty

1127
01:13:33,800 --> 01:13:36,320
"with the enormous advantage that
one has neither got to fight

1128
01:13:36,320 --> 01:13:38,320
"admirals or Huns.

1129
01:13:39,680 --> 01:13:42,600
"It is very pleasant
to work with competent people."

1130
01:13:45,760 --> 01:13:47,360
That November,

1131
01:13:47,360 --> 01:13:52,320
the tank became a top priority as it
demonstrated war-winning potential.

1132
01:13:54,280 --> 01:13:58,800
In 1917, tanks are used
in a mass attack at Cambrai

1133
01:13:58,800 --> 01:14:02,240
and this is done in the manner that
the people who'd invented the tank

1134
01:14:02,240 --> 01:14:05,560
and the actual tank crews
wanted to see the tank used.

1135
01:14:10,040 --> 01:14:13,840
So we're looking
at 400 tanks do a dawn attack

1136
01:14:13,840 --> 01:14:18,360
on ground that hasn't been chewed up
by shellfire weeks beforehand.

1137
01:14:18,360 --> 01:14:23,120
There's a pre-arranged barrage,
very short one, the tanks go forward

1138
01:14:23,120 --> 01:14:27,120
and a three-mile gap
is cut in the German frontline,

1139
01:14:27,120 --> 01:14:29,280
about three miles deep, as well.

1140
01:14:29,280 --> 01:14:33,080
This is a fantastic initial advance.
It really is one

1141
01:14:33,080 --> 01:14:36,480
of the great high points
of the British Army in 1917,

1142
01:14:36,480 --> 01:14:38,840
and, back at home,
the church bells are actually rung

1143
01:14:38,840 --> 01:14:41,240
for such a great victory.

1144
01:14:43,960 --> 01:14:46,120
The bells had pealed too soon.

1145
01:14:47,400 --> 01:14:50,200
There was no victory at Cambrai,

1146
01:14:50,200 --> 01:14:54,520
yet it greatly influenced
Churchill's war plan for 1919.

1147
01:14:56,240 --> 01:14:59,800
Churchill is looking
at that strategic overview,

1148
01:14:59,800 --> 01:15:02,040
which is, "How and when

1149
01:15:02,040 --> 01:15:05,240
are we significantly going
to be able to use the tank?"

1150
01:15:05,240 --> 01:15:09,400
and Cambrai is a,
kind of, vindication of his ideas.

1151
01:15:09,400 --> 01:15:11,360
That's a taster.

1152
01:15:11,360 --> 01:15:14,360
And he actually says, "Really,
up to now, all we've been doing,

1153
01:15:14,360 --> 01:15:16,000
"is actually experimenting.

1154
01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:19,520
"What we really want to do
is build a massive tank fleet."

1155
01:15:19,520 --> 01:15:24,520
His aims were 10,000 tanks
built within the following year,

1156
01:15:24,520 --> 01:15:28,360
so that we could do
huge tank attacks in 1919.

1157
01:15:30,320 --> 01:15:33,480
Churchill, frankly,
did not want to see a repetition

1158
01:15:33,480 --> 01:15:37,520
of the great bloody,
attritional battles of 1916

1159
01:15:37,520 --> 01:15:43,000
and 1917.
1916 - the Somme. 1917 - Arras

1160
01:15:43,000 --> 01:15:46,440
and third Ypres, or Passchendaele,
as it became known.

1161
01:15:46,440 --> 01:15:51,120
He was very much an advocate
of building up resources,

1162
01:15:51,120 --> 01:15:55,000
waiting for the Americans,
who'd entered the war in 1917,

1163
01:15:55,000 --> 01:15:56,840
to deploy their vast armies,

1164
01:15:56,840 --> 01:16:00,680
which he knew could not happen
until the second half of 1918.

1165
01:16:00,680 --> 01:16:04,880
The problem was, though, that the
enemy always has a vote in any plan.

1166
01:16:07,000 --> 01:16:10,360
The German War Plan changed
when the Bolsheviks seized power

1167
01:16:10,360 --> 01:16:12,200
and took Russia out of the War.

1168
01:16:17,920 --> 01:16:22,000
A million fresh German troops poured
back toward the Western Front.

1169
01:16:32,800 --> 01:16:36,880
Churchill shared his profound
anxieties with the Prime Minister.

1170
01:16:38,400 --> 01:16:41,120
"The imminent danger
is on the Western Front

1171
01:16:41,120 --> 01:16:43,280
"and the crisis
will come before June.

1172
01:16:43,280 --> 01:16:45,320
"A defeat here will be fatal.

1173
01:16:45,320 --> 01:16:48,880
"I do not like
the situation now developing.

1174
01:16:50,480 --> 01:16:53,280
"If this went wrong,
everything would go wrong.

1175
01:16:53,280 --> 01:16:55,680
"The Germans are a terrible foe

1176
01:16:55,680 --> 01:16:58,080
"and their generals
are better than ours."

1177
01:17:01,280 --> 01:17:07,160
By March, 75 German divisions were
marshalled opposite just 37 British,

1178
01:17:07,160 --> 01:17:10,600
holding the weakest,
southern-most part of the line.

1179
01:17:12,120 --> 01:17:14,880
General Ludendorff
aimed to drive a wedge between

1180
01:17:14,880 --> 01:17:19,200
the British and French,
and to annihilate Haig's armies.

1181
01:17:19,200 --> 01:17:24,760
Momentous days, foreshadowing the
summer of 1940, would now unfold.

1182
01:17:33,480 --> 01:17:38,400
On March 20, 1918, Churchill
drove into the eye of the storm,

1183
01:17:38,400 --> 01:17:42,360
with a visit to frontline
South African troops at Gauche Wood.

1184
01:17:46,040 --> 01:17:48,920
Through the narrow paths
we picked our way gingerly.

1185
01:17:48,920 --> 01:17:52,440
The sun was setting as we took
our leave of the South Africans.

1186
01:17:52,440 --> 01:17:55,640
I see them now,

1187
01:17:55,640 --> 01:17:59,960
serene as the Spartans of Leonidas
on the eve of Thermopylae.

1188
01:18:05,080 --> 01:18:08,840
He stayed that night
just seven miles behind the front,

1189
01:18:08,840 --> 01:18:12,080
and so became an eyewitness
to the furious launch

1190
01:18:12,080 --> 01:18:14,280
of Germany's spring offensives.

1191
01:18:17,840 --> 01:18:19,800
Suddenly, the silence was broken

1192
01:18:19,800 --> 01:18:23,960
by six or seven very loud
and very heavy explosions.

1193
01:18:25,400 --> 01:18:28,960
And then, exactly as a pianist runs
his hand across the keyboard

1194
01:18:28,960 --> 01:18:33,280
from treble to bass, there rose,
in less than one minute,

1195
01:18:33,280 --> 01:18:36,480
the most tremendous cannonade
I shall ever hear.

1196
01:18:36,480 --> 01:18:40,760
The flame of the bombardment
lit like flickering firelight

1197
01:18:40,760 --> 01:18:42,640
my tiny cabin.

1198
01:18:44,760 --> 01:18:48,160
6,000 guns unleashed a firestorm

1199
01:18:48,160 --> 01:18:51,880
as German Stormtroopers
pierced the lines.

1200
01:18:58,440 --> 01:19:01,440
A non-stop battle
raged for 40 days...

1201
01:19:04,720 --> 01:19:07,920
..and Churchill became
a key actor in the emergency.

1202
01:19:13,960 --> 01:19:19,200
Suddenly, the Western Front, in
the spring and the summer of 1918,

1203
01:19:19,200 --> 01:19:23,880
turns from a stalemate
into a war of movement

1204
01:19:23,880 --> 01:19:27,840
and a war of movement
is a war that requires

1205
01:19:27,840 --> 01:19:32,400
tanks, trucks, munitions, logistics.

1206
01:19:35,280 --> 01:19:38,160
Vast numbers of tanks
and guns had been lost.

1207
01:19:39,800 --> 01:19:42,960
And enormous amounts of ammunition
were being consumed.

1208
01:19:46,560 --> 01:19:50,880
Field Marshal Haig was dependent
on Churchill to make up the losses

1209
01:19:50,880 --> 01:19:54,320
and sustain embattled armies
with their backs to the wall...

1210
01:19:56,760 --> 01:19:59,560
..and the war machine delivered.

1211
01:20:01,280 --> 01:20:03,040
"I have been able to replace

1212
01:20:03,040 --> 01:20:05,840
"everything in the munitions
sphere without difficulty.

1213
01:20:07,120 --> 01:20:09,120
"Guns, tanks, aeroplanes

1214
01:20:09,120 --> 01:20:11,400
"will all be ahead of personnel.

1215
01:20:12,840 --> 01:20:14,800
"It has been touch and go
on the front."

1216
01:20:20,280 --> 01:20:24,480
Lloyd George valued
Churchill's cool head in a crisis,

1217
01:20:24,480 --> 01:20:28,000
and used him as a personal envoy
to the French high command.

1218
01:20:31,400 --> 01:20:35,160
It marks a stage
in Churchill's rehabilitation.

1219
01:20:35,160 --> 01:20:40,600
Ostensibly, Churchill's role is
to act as personal liaison officer

1220
01:20:40,600 --> 01:20:43,960
between Foch
and the British Government.

1221
01:20:43,960 --> 01:20:46,760
In reality,
he's there to take the temperature.

1222
01:20:46,760 --> 01:20:49,320
Are the French Army
really going to fight?

1223
01:20:49,320 --> 01:20:51,840
And Churchill
gives a wonderful description

1224
01:20:51,840 --> 01:20:54,640
of this bravura performance,

1225
01:20:54,640 --> 01:20:58,600
explaining how the battle
is going to run down,

1226
01:20:58,600 --> 01:21:01,160
as the Germans run out of impetus

1227
01:21:01,160 --> 01:21:03,960
and his chance to seize
the initiative will come.

1228
01:21:03,960 --> 01:21:07,920
Churchill is really inspired
by Foch.

1229
01:21:07,920 --> 01:21:12,280
Here is a man who fights,
here is a man who can be trusted.

1230
01:21:14,800 --> 01:21:17,440
Ludendorff's offensive
had burnt itself out.

1231
01:21:21,040 --> 01:21:24,400
Allied retribution
would come in August.

1232
01:21:26,040 --> 01:21:28,800
A mass of tanks
and crack Dominion troops

1233
01:21:28,800 --> 01:21:32,800
were to spearhead a surprise
counter-offensive at Amiens.

1234
01:21:34,360 --> 01:21:37,400
Churchill flew out specially
to a battlefield

1235
01:21:37,400 --> 01:21:39,440
still littered with German dead.

1236
01:21:41,320 --> 01:21:46,200
My darling, the tracks of tanks
were everywhere apparent.

1237
01:21:46,200 --> 01:21:48,360
On our way to the battlefield

1238
01:21:48,360 --> 01:21:50,800
we passed nearly 5,000
German prisoners.

1239
01:21:51,880 --> 01:21:53,800
Our cavalry are still out in front

1240
01:21:53,800 --> 01:21:58,000
and in some parts of the line there
are, at the moment, no Germans left.

1241
01:21:59,000 --> 01:22:03,920
I am so glad about this great and
fine victory of the British Army.

1242
01:22:03,920 --> 01:22:09,400
There is no doubt that they have
felt themselves abundantly supplied.

1243
01:22:12,560 --> 01:22:17,120
The British Army puts in some
tremendous counter attacks

1244
01:22:17,120 --> 01:22:20,800
and, in August of 1918,
at the Battle of Amiens,

1245
01:22:20,800 --> 01:22:23,800
we actually completely defeat
the German army

1246
01:22:23,800 --> 01:22:26,000
and the German army
starts retreating.

1247
01:22:26,000 --> 01:22:29,600
And tanks, aeroplanes,
artillery, combined tactics,

1248
01:22:29,600 --> 01:22:34,480
all-arms tactics, as they're
sometimes used, come together

1249
01:22:34,480 --> 01:22:38,400
and, in actual fact, we beat
the Germans ahead of the game.

1250
01:22:45,040 --> 01:22:46,800
To his surprise,

1251
01:22:46,800 --> 01:22:51,040
Churchill's plans for a war-winning
campaign in 1919 were shelved,

1252
01:22:51,040 --> 01:22:56,040
as Haig's army advanced in
an epic Hundred Day victory roll.

1253
01:22:56,040 --> 01:22:59,600
As the weapons maker
and godfather of the tank,

1254
01:22:59,600 --> 01:23:02,840
Churchill had a share
in their battle honours.

1255
01:23:07,200 --> 01:23:11,560
This, I think,
is Winston's hidden secret -

1256
01:23:11,560 --> 01:23:14,600
his single most
important contribution

1257
01:23:14,600 --> 01:23:18,560
to Britain winning the war
in the First World War,

1258
01:23:18,560 --> 01:23:23,720
and, next to his Prime Ministership
in Britain 1940,

1259
01:23:23,720 --> 01:23:26,440
the greatest thing
that Churchill ever did

1260
01:23:26,440 --> 01:23:29,360
for the security
of the United Kingdom.

1261
01:23:33,040 --> 01:23:37,840
The last wartime letters expressed
quiet pride in his fortunes.

1262
01:23:39,960 --> 01:23:42,280
"My darling,

1263
01:23:42,280 --> 01:23:46,680
"coming out here makes me
thoroughly contented with my office.

1264
01:23:47,840 --> 01:23:50,720
"I do not chafe at adverse
political combinations

1265
01:23:50,720 --> 01:23:53,680
"or at not being able
to direct general policy.

1266
01:23:53,680 --> 01:23:56,000
"I am content to be associated

1267
01:23:56,000 --> 01:23:59,560
"with the splendid machines
of the British Army."

1268
01:24:03,920 --> 01:24:09,200
Clementine's thoughts could turn at
last to peace and Winston's future.

1269
01:24:11,840 --> 01:24:15,360
"My darling, I would
like you to be praised

1270
01:24:15,360 --> 01:24:19,760
"as a reconstructive genius,
as well as for a mustard gas fiend,

1271
01:24:19,760 --> 01:24:22,480
"tank juggernaut and flying terror.

1272
01:24:22,480 --> 01:24:26,880
"I have got a plan.
Can't the men munition workers

1273
01:24:26,880 --> 01:24:30,000
"build lovely garden cities
and pull down slums,

1274
01:24:30,000 --> 01:24:33,480
"and can't the women make all
the lovely furniture for them?

1275
01:24:35,360 --> 01:24:38,360
"Do come home and arrange all this.

1276
01:24:38,360 --> 01:24:40,200
"Tender love, from Clemmie."

1277
01:24:42,040 --> 01:24:46,760
For Winston and Clementine,
looking back in 1918,

1278
01:24:46,760 --> 01:24:49,840
on the previous four years,
must have been

1279
01:24:49,840 --> 01:24:52,280
a rollercoaster
of emotion, I would think.

1280
01:24:52,280 --> 01:24:56,200
After all, this is a classic story
of sort of Hubris and Nemesis

1281
01:24:56,200 --> 01:24:59,960
and then, redemption, but I think,
he would also have seen it

1282
01:24:59,960 --> 01:25:04,920
as a period of lost opportunities
for him, personally,

1283
01:25:04,920 --> 01:25:08,200
because he would have wanted
to remain at the centre of affairs

1284
01:25:08,200 --> 01:25:11,040
and that, politically,
he ends the First World War

1285
01:25:11,040 --> 01:25:14,240
in a slightly weaker position than
the one in which he started it,

1286
01:25:14,240 --> 01:25:17,120
the first sort of real
set back that he'd had,

1287
01:25:17,120 --> 01:25:21,000
but also in terms of
lost opportunities, generally,

1288
01:25:21,000 --> 01:25:24,320
in what he might have been able
to bring towards this struggle.

1289
01:25:27,280 --> 01:25:30,680
But for all the setbacks
in his public life,

1290
01:25:30,680 --> 01:25:33,520
Churchill acknowledged
a special private gain -

1291
01:25:33,520 --> 01:25:36,880
an enduring bond,
created by the love and faith

1292
01:25:36,880 --> 01:25:40,840
of his Cat, Clementine.

1293
01:25:45,760 --> 01:25:49,480
CHURCHILL: It was a few minutes
before the 11th Hour.

1294
01:25:49,480 --> 01:25:52,440
My mind strayed back across
the scarring years

1295
01:25:52,440 --> 01:25:56,280
to the night at the Admiralty, when
I listened for these same chimes,

1296
01:25:56,280 --> 01:25:59,520
in order to give the signal
of war against Germany.

1297
01:26:02,640 --> 01:26:05,920
And now, all was over.

1298
01:26:05,920 --> 01:26:09,760
It was with feelings which do not
lend themselves to words

1299
01:26:09,760 --> 01:26:13,840
that I heard the cheers of the
brave people who had given all,

1300
01:26:13,840 --> 01:26:16,120
who had never wavered,

1301
01:26:16,120 --> 01:26:20,320
who had never lost faith
in their country or its destiny.

1302
01:26:24,360 --> 01:26:27,680
And then,
Winston was back in the Cabinet.

1303
01:26:27,680 --> 01:26:31,720
In January, 1919,
he was made Secretary of State...

1304
01:26:31,720 --> 01:26:33,360
for War.

1305
01:26:39,480 --> 01:26:42,040
Churchill's experience
in the First World War,

1306
01:26:42,040 --> 01:26:44,840
of being at the pinnacle
of the war effort,

1307
01:26:44,840 --> 01:26:47,320
then being unceremoniously
kicked out of office

1308
01:26:47,320 --> 01:26:49,840
and slowly, but surely,
rebuilding his political career,

1309
01:26:49,840 --> 01:26:52,400
convinced him that
he was a man of destiny,

1310
01:26:52,400 --> 01:26:54,760
that he could recover from anything.

1311
01:26:54,760 --> 01:26:58,440
A simply astonishing man
who'd never understood the meaning

1312
01:26:58,440 --> 01:26:59,840
of stop, finish, over,

1313
01:26:59,840 --> 01:27:02,520
and was just going
to press on till the very end.

1314
01:27:05,800 --> 01:27:07,440
Later, he wrote that,

1315
01:27:07,440 --> 01:27:08,720
"All had to suffer,

1316
01:27:08,720 --> 01:27:11,520
"and all had to learn."

1317
01:27:13,200 --> 01:27:14,720
Millions had suffered.

1318
01:27:16,240 --> 01:27:18,920
But no man had learnt more
of war command.

1319
01:27:20,560 --> 01:27:23,520
It was a bitter, but complete,
apprenticeship.

1320
01:27:33,480 --> 01:27:37,880
In 1922,
the Churchills moved to Chartwell,

1321
01:27:37,880 --> 01:27:40,600
a home dotted with wartime relics.

1322
01:27:44,920 --> 01:27:48,120
That decade,
he wrote The World Crisis -

1323
01:27:48,120 --> 01:27:50,880
a multi-volume study
of the Great War.

1324
01:27:54,360 --> 01:27:59,120
Yet, this work of history concluded
on a dark and prophetic note.

1325
01:28:01,000 --> 01:28:02,520
"Is this the end?

1326
01:28:04,120 --> 01:28:07,880
"Will our children bleed and gasp
again in devastated lands?"

1327
01:28:12,120 --> 01:28:14,520
First would come
more wilderness years...

1328
01:28:16,720 --> 01:28:18,800
But when summoned again,

1329
01:28:18,800 --> 01:28:23,200
a greater warlord,
steeled by the Great War,

1330
01:28:23,200 --> 01:28:27,880
was ready and prepared
to fulfil his destiny.

1331
01:29:02,920 --> 01:29:05,880
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