The British statesman Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 was a prolific writer throughout his life, and many of his works were historical. His better-known works include: Marlborough: His Life and Times

Marlborough: His Life and Times

Marlborough: His Life and Times was a panegyric biography written by Winston Churchill about John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Churchill was a descendant of the duke....

, The World Crisis (a history of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

), The Second World War

The Second World War (Churchill)

The Second World War is a history, originally published in six volumes, of the period from the end of the First World War to July 1945, written by Winston Churchill. It was largely responsible for his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953...

, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature

Nobel Prize in Literature

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...

, and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples is a four-volume history of Britain and its former colonies and possessions throughout the world, written by Winston Churchill, covering the period from Caesar's invasions of Britain to the beginning of the First World War...

.

Churchill's view of history

Churchill was an exponent of the view that the British and American people had a unique greatness and destiny and that all British history should be seen as progress towards fulfilling that destiny. This belief inspired his political career as well as his historical writing.

Although Churchill was an excellent writer, he was not a trained historian. The major influences on his historical thought, and his prose style, were Clarendon

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon was an English historian and statesman, and grandfather of two English monarchs, Mary II and Queen Anne.-Early life:...

's history of the English Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

, Gibbon

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament...

's Decline and Fall

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a non-fiction history book written by English historian Edward Gibbon and published in six volumes. Volume I was published in 1776, and went through six printings. Volumes II and III were published in 1781; volumes IV, V, VI in 1788–89...

and Macaulay

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay PC was a British poet, historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer, and on British history...

's History of England. He had a limited interest in social or economic history, and he saw history as essentially political and military, driven primarily by great men rather than by economic forces or social change, which is at odds with the views of many trained historians. But neither approach has been accepted as invariably superior. What is important about his work is that it provides an abundance of well written testimony by one of the major participants in the history of the 20th century. As with all witnesses, in reading this testimony it is important to consider the biases and personal interests from which no person is immune.

Family history

Churchill's historical works fall into three categories. The first is works of family history, the biographies of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill

Lord Randolph Churchill

Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill MP was a British statesman. He was the third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough and his wife Lady Frances Anne Emily Vane , daughter of the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry...

(two volumes, 1906), and of his great ancestor, Marlborough: His Life and Times

Marlborough: His Life and Times

Marlborough: His Life and Times was a panegyric biography written by Winston Churchill about John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Churchill was a descendant of the duke....

(four volumes, 1933–38). These are still regarded as fine biographies, but are marred by Churchill's desire to present his subjects in the best possible light. He made only limited use of the available source materials, and in the case of his father suppressed much material from family archives that reflected badly on Lord Randolph. The Marlborough biography shows to the full Churchill's great talent for military history.

Autobiography

The second category is Churchill's autobiographical works, including his early journalistic compilations The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898), The River War (1899), London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (1900) and Ian Hamilton's March (1900). These latter two were issued in a re-edited form as My Early Life (1930). All of these books are colourful and entertaining, and contain some valuable information about Britain's imperial wars in India, Sudan and South Africa. The works on South Africa contain elements of self-promotion, since Churchill was a candidate for Parliament in 1900.

These four books, "necessarily...abridged to get them into one manageable volume," were republished as Frontiers and Wars: His Four Early Books Covering His Life As Soldier and War Correspondent, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1962.

Narrative history

Churchill's reputation as a writer, however, rests on the third category, his three massive multi-volume works of narrative history. These are his histories of the First World War — The World Crisis (six volumes, 1923–31), and of The Second World War

The Second World War (Churchill)

The Second World War is a history, originally published in six volumes, of the period from the end of the First World War to July 1945, written by Winston Churchill. It was largely responsible for his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953...

(six volumes, 1948–53), and his A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples is a four-volume history of Britain and its former colonies and possessions throughout the world, written by Winston Churchill, covering the period from Caesar's invasions of Britain to the beginning of the First World War...

(four volumes, 1956–58, much of which had been written as journalism in the 1930s). These are among the longest works of history ever published (The Second World War runs to more than two million words), and earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature

Nobel Prize in Literature

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...

.

Churchill's histories of the two world wars are, of course, far from being conventional historical works, since the author was a central participant in both stories and took full advantage of that fact in writing his books. Both are in a sense therefore memoirs as well as histories, but Churchill was careful to broaden their scope to include events in which he played no part — the war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, for example. Inevitably, however, Churchill placed Britain, and therefore himself, at the centre of his narrative. Arthur Balfour

Arthur Balfour

Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...

 described The World Crisis as "Winston's brilliant autobiography, disguised as a history of the universe." In any case he had far fewer documentary sources for matters not involving Britain.

Access to documents

As a Cabinet minister for part of the First World War and as Prime Minister for nearly all of the Second, Churchill had unique access to official documents, military plans, official secrets and correspondence between world leaders. After the First War, when there were few rules governing these documents, Churchill simply took many of them with him when he left office, and used them freely in his books — as did other wartime ministers such as David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

. Following the First World War, stricter rules were put in place regarding Cabinet documents.

The World Crisis began as a response to Lord Esher's attack on his reputation in his memoirs, but it soon broadened out into a general multi-volume history. The volumes are a mix of military history, written with Churchill's usual narrative flair, diplomatic and political history, portraits of other political and military figures, and personal memoir, written in a colourful manner.

When he resumed office in 1939, Churchill fully intended to write a history of the war then beginning. He said several times: "I will leave judgements on this matter to history — but I will be one of the historians." To circumvent the rules against the use of official documents, he took the precaution throughout the war of having a weekly summary of correspondence, minutes, memoranda and other documents printed in galleys and headed "Prime Minister's personal minutes." As well, Churchill actually wrote or dictated a number of letters and memoranda with the specific intention of placing his views on the record for later use as a historian.

Controversy

This all became a source of great controversy when The Second World War began appearing in 1948. Churchill was not an academic historian, he was a politician, and was in fact Leader of the Opposition, still intending to return to office. By what right, it was asked, did he have access to Cabinet, military and diplomatic records which were denied to other historians?

What was unknown at the time was the fact that Churchill had done a deal with Clement Attlee

Clement Attlee

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...

's Labour government which came to office in 1945. Recognising Churchill's enormous prestige, Attlee agreed to allow him (or rather his research assistants) free access to all documents, provided that (a) no official secrets were revealed (b) the documents were not used for party political purposes and (c) the typescript was vetted by the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook. Brook took a close interest in the books and rewrote some sections himself to ensure that nothing was said which might harm British interests or embarrass the government. Churchill's history thus became a semi-official one.

Deficiencies

Churchill's privileged access to documents and his unrivalled personal knowledge gave him an advantage over all other historians of the Second World War for many years. The books had enormous sales in both Britain and the United States and made Churchill a rich man for the first time. It was not until after his death and the opening of the archives that some of the deficiencies of his work became apparent.

Some of these were inherent in the difficult position Churchill occupied as a former Prime Minister and a serving politician. He could not reveal military secrets, such as the work of the codebreakers at Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...

 (see Ultra

Ultra

Ultra was the designation adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by "breaking" high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park. "Ultra" eventually became the standard...

), or the planning of the atomic bomb. He could not discuss wartime disputes with figures such as Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

, Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....

 or Josip Broz Tito

Josip Broz Tito

Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...

, since they were still world leaders at the time he was writing. He could not discuss Cabinet disputes with Labour leaders such as Attlee, on whose goodwill the project depended. He could not reflect on the deficiencies (in his view) of generals such as Archibald Wavell or Claude Auchinleck

Claude Auchinleck

Field Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck, GCB, GCIE, CSI, DSO, OBE , nicknamed "The Auk", was a British army commander during World War II. He was a career soldier who spent much of his military career in India, where he developed a love of the country and a lasting affinity for the soldiers...

, for fear they might sue him (some indeed threatened to do so).

Other deficiencies were of Churchill's own making. Although he mentioned the fighting on the Eastern Front, he had little real interest in it and no access to Soviet or German documents, so his account is a collage of secondary sources, largely written by his assistants. The same is true to some extent of the war in the Pacific, except for episodes such as the fall of Singapore in which he was involved. His account is based heavily on his own documents, so it focuses on his own role.