The Battle Of Churchill As A Scapegoat For The Failure

The aim of this campaign was to regain control of the Dardanelles, a vital waterway connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The Dardanelles were under the control of the Turks, who were fighting onside with Germany. For the Allies, control over this passage would mean easier and faster transport of weapons to the Russian navy. At the time of Gallipoli, Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty, and therefore responsible for the campaign. The campaign resulted in disaster, with over 200,000 soldiers wounded or killed in battle or from the harsh living conditions. Eventually, in December of 1915, the Allies were forced to retreat. Following the failure of the Gallipoli campaign, Churchill’s reputation collapsed. He was demoted from Lord of the Admiralty, and resigned from Parliament in 1916. Churchill did not occupy high office again, until his re-instatement in

also rough seas a lot of the time and it was difficult to wait for the

The year was 1940; the world’s second great World War was in full swing, with Britain and Germany at the forefront. The fall of Britain’s closest ally, France, stunned the British Empire and threw it into disarray. Through the chaos, Winston Churchill emerged. Churchill would be an inspiring leader who was able to rally the entire nation in times of hardship. Through his leadership, the “British Bulldog” would face the Axis powers and come out victorious, as well as become a public hero for the British people. Yet, immediately after the war, Churchill did not return to the prime minister seat because of a shocking defeat in his re-election, despite his immense reputation he gained from the war. Though lauded by the British population for his prowess as a wartime leader, Churchill’s conservative politics were out of touch with a population ready for post-war relief and led to his defeat in the 1945 election.

This battle was also militarily a failure. The British and French armies suffered their worst military defeat since World War One. They were soundly decimated by the German military (via their Blitzkrieg tactics) in Calais, which meant a surrender of the easy Allied escape route. It was literally an evacuation due to the overall loss of the war so far. Owing to this loss, Dunkirk can be considered a failure.

For this final paper, I would like to discuss the historical failures that came into light when Mr. Clifford Stoll (the author of “Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a spy through the Maze of Computer Espionage” book) stumbled upon a $ 0.75 accounting error and the revelations that followed, its potential findings, risks and costs associated and why it is important to address and fix those security holes. Cuckoo’s Egg is an interesting read and the author was successful in presenting to his readers the picture of beginning of Internet days (arpanet, then), network practices then. Despite of the fact that this book describes a real incident that in 1980’s, some of the findings are relevant and torment us even today.

Even before the climactic World War II, Churchill’s mental war starts with the Indian Independence movement. Churchill was brusque about his opinion on the movement, knowingly showing his opposition to the public. “To Churchill, all Indians were the pedestal for a throne. He would have died to keep England free, but was against those who wanted India free.(Tondon, n.d.)” With this ornery still in the mind of the public and government officials, Churchill’s 1940 election was met with opposition. In Churchill and Orwell, “Peter Eckersley, a Tory MP, predicted that “Winston won’t last five months.”(Ricks, pg. 91)” The general public were critical of such a disposition leading the United Kingdom during a time struggle. Even with the public’s pessimistic prospect of him, Churchill’s resilience will become a favorable trait to exhibit in this psychological war.

The French and the English were bitter adversaries for many years. Throughout much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Britain and France were engaged in many vicious power fights that repeatedly flared up into worldwide wars. Nevertheless the ultimate victory over the French came at an extraordinary price for Britain. Britain spent a fortune on the French and Indian War and couldn’t raise enough money to pull together a more intimidating fighting force; which forced Britain to extract funds from its colonies. However, the colonies felt that Britain was not effective in protecting them. This along with the advancement of distinct political entities among the colonies led to a feeling that the English were no longer necessary in these areas. Likewise after winning the war Britain no longer had to govern its land, but also their new land and the

In 1942, The soviets advised the Canadian navy to attack the Germans. However, the allies where not prepared for an attack. The allies wanted to see how their new equipment worked and gather more knowledge. The leaders of the allies decided to send the 2nd Canadian infantry division to raid Dieppe. Dieppe was a harbour near the English Channel. This operation was a fail from the beginning. The allies plan was to surprise the men but on there way to the Dieppe they came across a group of German ships. The planning of this attack was poorly constructed and when the men where about 10 minutes from shore the Germans troops could have fired shots. The allied tanks could not move anywhere because the where barriers that blocked them off. Eventually,

Winston Churchill’s headstrong resiliency in the face of danger defined his career as a war leader. Former Prime Minister David Cameron states,” He was an incredible leader for our country, and indeed for the whole free world, at an impossibly difficult time.” (1). Five months before his inauguration, Churchill gave his speech “House of Many Mansions” wherein he urged the then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and other world

Churchill served as a soldier from 1896 to 1897. He also worked as a journalist in India. In 1898 he fought in the battle of Omdurman in Sudan. He was captured by the Boers and made a daring escape. Upon returning to England in

The only obstacle in Churchill’s way following the signing of the Franco-German armistice was convincing France of his prediction of impending doom. It might have seemed as though Churchill’s determination to prevent Germany from having the French Fleet would have declined after the signing of the armistice between France and Germany. However, Churchill and British officials’ commitment to stopping a potential seizure of the French Fleet by Germany did not fade. The armistice between France and Germany only intensified Churchill’s desire to thwart the possibility. To illustrate, Churchill and the British War Cabinet reacted to Article VIII of the Franco-German armistice with unease.20The wording used in Article VIII worried Churchill and the

The Battle of Britain in 1940 In the summer of 1940, the German Luftwaffe attempted to win air superiority over southern Britain and the English Channel by destroying the Royal Air Force and the British aircraft industry. This attempt came to be known as the Battle of Britain, and victory over the RAF was seen by the Germans as absolutely essential if they were eventually to mount an invasion of the British Isles. The Germans had overrun Belgium, the Netherlands and northern France in May 1940, using the Blitzkrieg ('Lightning War') technique that relied, among other things, on close coordination between ground troops and the air force.

Put differently, Churchill tried diplomacy first with France and then indirectly through the U.S. Both strategies serve as indications of Churchill’s push to get the result he wanted. Nevertheless, the lack of success with diplomatic efforts did not deter Churchill. It only drove him to devise a more forceful, violent tactic: Operation Catapult. The conditions of Operation Catapult demonstrate that Churchill carried out the attack at Mers-el-Kébir because he assumed Germany had plans to take the French Fleet. All of the options included in the ultimatum that Britain gave France, including the threat to use force, centered on keeping the French Fleet away from Germany. To demonstrate, one of the conditions demanded that France permit the fleet

Churchill's active war experiences are limited to being in the midst of a rebellion in Cuba, serving with the Malakand Field Force in India from 1896-97, and serving in the cavalry during the reconquest of Sudan, Egypt. (Gilbert 17)

“Victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival” (Churchill qtd. in Oxford Dictionary 67). For Winston Churchill, victory meant surviving other oppositions. For Winston Churchill and others, the word victory has been used since its roots to describe triumph over an opponent in a battle or war (“victory” Dictionary.com). The word victory has a rich history, relates to battle and has been used in culture.