Winston Churchill: Part 2 - Missteps in the Great War

His quotation "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage
is also what it takes to sit down and listen" must have been a
real hit with the ladies.

When people speak of the greatness of Winston Churchill they probably gloss over World War I with a cough, muttering "he had some exploits then, too." His intentions (for most of his mistakes at least) were well meaning, but through bad luck, bad admirals, or flat out bad decisions, Churchill bumbled through the war with a number of errors under his belt - and his political career surely felt the brunt of it. It may not have been all terrible, though, so lets get the good out of the way first. It won't take long.

Trench warfare has got to rank high on the list for the worst things humanity has done to itself. Soldiers are human cannon fodder, rife with disease and shell shocked into delirium, with their generals having little more of a plan for them beyond running straight into the line of sight of the enemy for the purposes of gaining a scant few yards of territory. Churchill knew of the savagery of trench warfare, and hoped to break open holes in the front with a new and innovative idea. A fan of the use of technology to spill oil rather than blood (at least not British blood, that is) he helped to pioneer area bombing and was a strong supporter of the use of mustard gas. Surprisingly, his greatest contribution was coming up with the idea for the tank, if not the exact design. He took his chance at having a team put together the plans for caterpillar tanks, equipped with treads rather than wheels to traverse the rough terrain of the front. I shouldn't have to tell you that it was not only a major success, but it changed the face of warfare for years to come. The technology also may have been a crucial component to Hitler's Blitzkrieg tactics later on, but... hey, you can't blame him for that. As a bit of trivia, the name "tank" came from the way they hid the planning stage from the Germans. It was meant to sound like an operation in which the British were sending water tanks to beleaguered soldiers, and the name tank just stuck.

So lets get to the bad, now that we're feeling a little better about ol' Winny.

The first mistakes in his WWI campaign were fairly minimal. Antwerp, one of a few critical ports, was sure to fall into German hands. Churchill sent a number of British troops to help defend it as it could not do so on its own. What went wrong is, in a nutshell, they lost. They couldn't hold on, and the Germans eventually took Antwerp - but - they held on long enough to secure some of the other ports that would likely have been lost if it were not for the time that Antwerp bought them. So... as far as blunders go, he's off to a rough start but nothing really all that bad. In fact, you can argue he's coming out slightly better than even.

Big Berta howitzers were in the German's arsenal at Antwerp.
Churchill foolishly brought the American-made Little Debbie.

What really goes wrong is his decision to attack through the Dardanelles, a strait near the Mediterranean. His plan was to attack Constantinople and take the Ottoman Empire out of the war (it's easy to forget that the Ottoman Empire was actually in World War I, as the name sounds so middle-ages). In doing so, they could free up some allied-leaning countries to their side and flank the Germans, forcing them to fight on two fronts. Wording it that way it sounds like a solid plan. In reality, however, 180,000 died by the time the operation ended, many falling to disease, without getting near Constantinople. It has remained a sore spot on Britain's Commonwealth as a tremendous number of soldiers died there. They lost their lives, he lost his job.

The Ottoman generals that were victorious in the
Dardanelles. Each man's surname is now a product line
of ottomans at Ikea.

Churchill later rejoins the government as the Minister of Munitions, and this time he sets his sights on those pesky Russians. His plan was to squash communism and the Bolsheviks whom he thought were a major threat - which, in retrospect, seems pretty spot on. To summarize it, he lost. Again. But - he came very close to victory, nearly reaching Moscow, which would have turned the tides of history who knows where. It may have saved countless Russians from living in tyranny for, well, pretty much then until now, depending how you see Putin.

So World War I ends, but Churchill in 1922 still has some ammunition left in his rifles and he feels it just wouldn't be right to let them go to waste. He gets word that the Turks may be threatening some garrisons over near - where else? - the Dardanelles. He wanted to step in and show them who's boss, perhaps winning back some of the pride he lost in his first defeat there that nearly ended his career, but the British people for some difficult to pin down reason had grown rather tired of warfare. The Liberal party in which he joined after leaving the Conservatives collapsed and he lost his seat.  His career in shambles, one can only assume this spells the end for Winston, one of the greatest political minds in history.

Right? Right?

Better check in next time and see.