SPRING 2006 • NUMBER 130 - Winston Churchill

I see Lord Irwin wrote to a SocialistM.P. that the atmosphere in India wassweeter. It was not very sweet duringthe massacre of Cawnpore, where thebabies and mutilated, violated womenwere thrown into the sewers. But perhapsit will be sweeter here. Let me tellyou what will cleanse the Indian atmosphere,the one sovereign carbolic lotionwhich will restore the health of theBritish Empire in India. It is the ConservativeParty standing up boldly anddeclaring its own faith and convictionsupon the Indian question. When theConservative Party wrenches itself awayfrom the socialists’ slippery slope toruin and bloodshed in India, then youwill see quickly a remarkable change forthe better in all our affairs.The riots at Cawnpore to whichChurchill referred had lasted a week atthe end of March. They began on 24March when Muslims refused to closetheir shops during a period of mourningfor a Hindu executed by theBritish for murdering a police officer.Churchill said on 26 March:Wednesday’s massacres at Cawnpore, aname of evil import, are a portent.Because it is believed that we are aboutto leave the country, the struggle forpower is now beginning between theMoslems and Hindus. A bloody riotbroke out in which more than 200 peoplelost their lives with many hundredswounded, in which women and childrenwere butchered in circumstancesof bestial barbarity, their mutilated,violated bodies strewing the streets fordays. The British troops are now pacifyingand calming the terrified andinfuriated populace. But the feud isonly at its beginning.By month’s end, in Cawnpore,over a thousand Indians had died as aresult of religious violence.Germany was also on Churchill’smind at this time, after Germany andAustria created a Customs Union withno advance warning. Writing for theHearst papers in America, Churchillwarned of the dangers of a politicalunion between the two nations:France with her dwindling but wellarmedpopulation sees the solid Germanblock of seventy millions producingfar more than twice her number ofmilitary males each year, towering upgrim and grisly, luckily as yet largelyunarmed. You cannot ask France totreat this as a trivial matter. When youhave been three times invaded in ahundred years by Germany and haveonly escaped destruction the last timebecause nearly all the other nations ofthe world came to your aid, which theycertainly do not mean to do again, youcannot help feeling anxious about thisponderous mass of Teutonic humanitypiling up beyond the frontier.50 YEARS AGOSpring 1956 • Age 81“ Above all, Germanywill be reunited.”After gambling in Monte Carlo andattracting considerable attentionfrom the press (“I had no win butcame out quits after three days’ play,which was not bad,” he wrote to hisfriend Bernard Baruch) Churchill flewback to London in April to await thearrival of his wife Clementine from herocean voyage.On 16 April, Churchill wrote aletter to President Eisenhower coveringa wide variety of subjects. Egypt andIsrael were squaring off, but Churchillwrote that if the United States andBritain acted together, he believed warbetween the two could be deterred:I am, of course, a Zionist, and havebeen ever since the Balfour Declaration.I think it is a wonderful thing thatthis tiny colony of Jews should have becomea refuge to their compatriots inall the lands where they were persecutedso cruelly, and at the same timeestablished themselves as the most effectivefighting force in the area. I amsure America would not stand by andsee them overwhelmed by Russianweapons, especially if we had persuadedthem to hold their hand while theirchance remained.“De-Stalinization” was underwayin Russia and the two Russian leaders,Bulganin and Khruschev, were soon toarrive on a state visit to Britain. SirMartin Gilbert quotes Churchill’s messageto Eisenhower:Our Russian guests are expected thisweek, and we shall soon see whetheranything material results....They havemade an extraordinary volte-face aboutStalin. I am sure it is a great blunderwhich will markedly hamper the CommunistMovement. It would have beeneasy to “play him down” graduallywithout causing so great a shock to thefaithful. Stalin always kept his wordwith me. I remember particularly sayingto him when I visited Moscow in1944, “You keep Roumania and Bulgariain your sphere of influence, buthe let me have Greece.” To this bargainhe scrupulously adhered duringmonths of fighting with the GreekCommunists. I wish I could say thesame about the Greeks, whose memoriesare very short.In May, Churchill returned toGermany for the first time since thePotsdam Conference eleven years earlierto receive the Charlemagne Prize.During his acceptance speech, he onceagain demonstrated his prescience,describing what in fact was to happenin Europe over the next forty years:N.A.T.O. is a striking product and expressionof a world wearied of war determinedto build its own organizationin such strength and power that therewill be peace henceforward. The principleof the Treaty is simple and majestic.We all join hands together and aresworn to fight the aggressor, whoeverhe may be.A new question has been raised by therecent Russian repudiation of Stalin. Ifit is sincere we have a new Russia todeal with, and I do not see myself, why,if this be so, the new Russia should notjoin in the spirit of this solemn agreement.We must realize how deep andsincere are Russian anxieties about thesafety of her homeland from foreign invasion.In a true Unity of Europe Russiamust have her part. I was glad to seethat Poland was not unaffected by thechanges in Russian outlook that haverecently come to pass. It may be thatother changes will follow. Czechoslovakiawill recover her freedom. Above all,Germany will be reunited. ,FINEST HOUR 130 / 15