What a detailed and well-presented biography this is. There's an abundance of material that those who have only a general familiarity with Churchill might not know. Did you know that early in the depression, out of office, he was so broke he traveled to the US to give lectures and earn much-needed money? Did you know that he was hit by a taxi in New York and hospitalized for a week, after which he took a vacation in the Bahamas?
Churchill was born into an aristocratic family and attended public school at Harrow. It's pretty posh. If you want to you can poke around on the internet and still find neckties with the Harrow pattern of stripes. He didn't do that well in school but, after three tries, managed to get into Sandhurst, the equivalent of West Point. During his two years in the army he fought in India. He was a young correspondent in the Boer War, captured, and escaped to a hero's welcome. As a politician he embraced liberal values -- the tea break, the minimum wage -- that left his fellow aristocrats distressed. They called him a renegade and turncoat.
But if he was a liberal he was an impulsive one. He was thirtyish and in charge of the Navy when World War I broke out. And Churchill had plans for conquering the remnants of the Ottoman Empire by a simultaneous attack on the Dardanelles by land and sea. Kitchener, in charge of the army, thought it was a foolish move and refused to deploy his troops. Churchill thought to hell with it, the Navy will do it alone. But they didn't. The English and French battleships were sunk by mines or badly damaged by Turkish guns and had to withdraw. One hundred thousand Allies are buried there.
Churchill was filled with chagrin, resigned his post, and joined the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel to fight on the Western front. It was rough duty, not an office job. After the war, he returned to his political career but the problems seemed to come in a cascade. In 1919 the Irish Republican Army was actively battling the British. Churchill recruited a volunteer unit, the Black and Tans, to clean up the mess on the Auld Sod. They turned out to be an atrocious group, firing indiscriminately into crowds and disfiguring dead bodies. The Irish held Winston Churchill responsible. He had been a stalwart defender of the British Empire when he was younger, but now he settled a negotiated peace with Michael Collins, and southern Ireland became independent.
In the 30s, Hitler began to realize his dreams and militarized his country while others were disarming. Churchill urged preparation for war and was denounced as a warmonger. But Hitler gained one territory after another. Alarm bells rang and Neville Chamberlain was sent to Munich to negotiate a peace. He was backed by almost all of the British, and he got what he came for -- an agreement that Hitler could keep what he had taken but would seek no more. It was the the last roll of the dice and the best that could be hoped for.
And on his return, pathetic Chamberlain, waved his "piece of paper" in the air while the cameras rolled. It had both his signature and Herr Hitler's on it. Hitler would later disregard the agreement without notice. When war was declared, Churchill was made First Lord of the Admiralty and succeeded Chamberlain as Prime Minister.
The program is a narrated history presented mostly in newsreel footage with occasional remarks from Churchill's friends, colleagues.
